So, the first notable event in the chronology of my notable events was when Mum's friend Nicolet took me through a worm-hole, on the other side of which I could explore and breathe and touch and smell the world my Mum inhabited 'way back when', when she was a little Dutch girl, and not my mother.
Nicolet lived just around the corner from my Mum in Zevenaar for maybe about two years before Mum moved to Australia. They knew eachother for such a brief moment, a momentary sigh in a lifetime of breathing in and out, and still they are members of eachother's lives... I'm still incredibly impressed by that. So, first Nicolet picked me up in Doorwerth, and we drove to Zevenaar, where her parents still live in the same home. For a day my mother's world unfolded around me like a flower, and at the same time, it folded back up, tight around me, as I sat in the centre of this universe, safe and warm and cosy.
Nicolet took me to Mum's old house. We knocked on the door and were greeted by the very woman who bought the house from my family years ago. When Nicolet told her who I was, and what my relationship to the building was (and once the woman had done her secret spy business, sneakily sussing out if we were legit or not by quizzing us on the surname of the previous occupants), the doors were flung open, and I was invited through a window into the past. I stood in the loungeroom where my Mum, aunt, Opa and Oma would have sat and chatted, I stood in their kitchen where they would have made pea soup and prepared coffee, I stood in the back yard where maybe the sisters played, and where Opa and Oma would have sat to get every second of available sun.
Then I was invited upstairs where I breathed in Barbara's old bedroom, heard how the bathroom had been renovated, saw the master bedroom, where my grandparents slept, and finally, I stood there, totally awe-struck at the life I am living, where I can be there, in person, standing in my mother's bedroom that she inhabited so long ago when she lived such a different life. There I was, looking at the walls that surrounded her when she slept, and looking out the window at what was once a view of Nicolet's bedroom across the way... but what is now a view of a tree which has filled the frame over the years.
Pretty special.
I saw Zevenaar, Nicolet and I had fun watching the intensity with which people enjoyed the country music festival that was on there. We crossed the river on a barge, and drove through Bemmel to Nicolet's house. I was greeted there so openly and warm heartedly, and spent the afternoon and evening in the loveliest company, and very contented. It was special to me to share that day with Nicolet, where I could first inhale the world she shared with my Mum, and then move on to, for a brief moment, witness and be a part of the world she has made for herself since that time. I am a lucky, lucky girl!!
The next day I sat around on my butt and did a big fat nothing. Wait, I lie, I TOTALLY baked an apple pie. Photographic proof of that fact will come at a later date, but for now, you will have to construct your own images of me, Madeline Ellwood, baking. Good times. Mechtild helped me obviously. I'm pretty skilled, but not that skilled.
Then came my last day in Holland... it was over. The day after I would leave was Hadewig's birthday, so on the Monday we went out to dinner to celebrate. Indonesian food in Holland. Yummo. Our table was laden, it tasted so incredibly good- otherworldly good. If I had ignorantly looked into my own heart, I never would have guessed that I hadn't known these people my entire life, that I hadn't shared my life with them. I love them all so much.
As I left on the train the next day, I reflected a lot on Holland and what it had been to me, what it is to me and will be forever. I felt satisfied. I felt like I had achieved something by being there. I had taken in so very much, absorbed like a sponge to the point where it just drips- it cannot absorb any more! I still don't feel like I can articulate what it was for me to be there and to live the life I was living while I was there. But that is something I discovered, that a development, a growth, an achievement- it doesn't have to be labelled and clear and explainable to be a reality. It used to always be there, in the back of my mind, that something isn't real until you can define it. But that's not true. So, I can't write a list of things I know now that I didn't know before. I can't locate all the parts inside myself that have been altered and shifted and pushed forward or pushed aside or pushed right out. I can't tell you exactly what it is about me that is different, I just know that the life I will live now is going to be so vastly different to the one I would have experienced if I had not had my time there, with those people.
I left the country feeling so energised, so passionate, so excited about life and the world and all the things I was going to do. I have so many plans, so many ideas- ideas and plans I NEVER would have imagined myself to come up with, but which I am now so very and truly excited to initiate.
Holland did something to me. When I was there, everything was just right, and I didn't have to work for it. At some point during my time there, it was like all the problems I had struggled and grappled and wrestled with my entire life, those issues which had always seemed so imsurmountable, it was like I was cycling so hard against the wind one day, that they all just washed away! And I didn't have to 'decide' anything, I didm't even 'figure anything out'. I just reached a place, a space, a time, where those things were done with me and I was done with them. How wonderful, how incredibly special. I had this surreal moment in which I thought about all those things that had once plagued me, all those experiences that had consumed me, and I felt so strongly as though I was thinking about another person. That stuff was no longer a part of me.
Then I went to Paris. Paris was beautiful, stunning. I really enjoyed my time there. Even though it was so amazing, I still feel a distance between myself and the city. I for me, it lacked a certain humanity. One thing I loved to dearly about Holland was how unassuming and humble it was. It was always content enough in itself, knowing that it's good and true, and it never needed to prove itself or remind anyone how perfect it was. Paris I feel has all these incredible qualities. It's culturally rich and inspiring, it's so dense. It has so much character, so much personality. However, I also feel like Paris knows it, and Paris makes a large point of reminding everyone at every possible moment just how special it really is. It's hard to feel totally comfortable when you're being reminded every second that the place you're in is better than you!!
Don't get me wrong though, I loved it. I loved being there, I loved seeing the things I saw, I loved breathing in the spirit of a place that has moved the deepest parts of so many people. I felt the layers of paint being lathered onto my understanding of the world, and of people, and of art and passion and history. Paris was a wonderful experience!
We climbed the tower, first half with Brooke on foot, and the second half alone in the lift to the top. I wondered the cobble-stone streets which wove me through some of the most beautiful sites I've seen, buildings that made me ache they were so pretty, little french children dressed as alligators flitting about me in the park sounding even more perfect in their little french tongues than children do anyway. I saw stunning churches, St Germain and Madelaine were particular favourites- the latter becoming even more awesome that it was simply by bearing my name, by miraculously housing an art exhibition about creation which ended the day after I stumbled to its feet. What were the chances!?!?!
Brooke and I spent a day in the Lourve just wandering about... looking, watching, thinking, feeling. What a space. What an epic, epic space.
We went to the Chateau of Versailles, which was incredible. For a day I was walking around in a fairy tale, just a totally different world which was so far removed from anything I have experienced in my life, and so beautiful. The walls just dripped with decadence, but it was so beautiful, and really incredible to see inside the walls of a universe who's corners barely reach those of my own.
My last day in Paris, I was struck down again with the transition blues- that smack in the head I seem to get every time I move from one place to another. We were waiting all day for our train to Venice that night, and I spent the entire day wallowing about in my own special brew of woe... oh dear.
I was lonely and sad. I missed Holland and the life I had been living there. I missed loving people I thought I didn't know, but soon discovered that I knew them in a way which reached beyond anything I had experienced. I missed how that place felt like a kiss on the cheek or a hug that spreads out forever. I missed feeling accepted and loved and understood. I missed not feeling like I had to explain myself every 5 seconds. I missed being someone just by being me...
Most of all though, what made me so tired, made me feel like I had smacked nose-first into a brick wall, was that in Holland I was excited and moved and impassioned simply by being alive. Something in that place soothed me and told me everything was good, everything was alright. But now that I had left it- it wasn't so easy to remember those things. I had to rely on myself to tell myself... and sometimes I am not so reliable. It made me tired to have to drive the car and come up with the fuel as well. But, well, that's the way it is. I can't depend on outside sources to inspire me and give me purpose and motivation. I'm slowly working on taking what Holland gave me, and learning to apply those things to my life away from there. I'll get there soon.
We arrived in Venice early morning the next day, after sleeping one very rocky night in a train bed. Brooke had the bottom bunk, and slept the entire night with her body on a width-ways slope because of the hill our bags moulded by being crammed so tight underneath. I was so hot I thought I had died and been sent to Hades...
But, then we were in Venice. It is so beautiful here. I wrote postcards yesterday, and I think I set a world record for the number of uses of the world beautiful. But really, I don't know how else to say it! It's as though someone opened my chest, and with pincers, delicately extracted my definition of beauty from my heart, and with that, they moulded this city. Then they added about 100 million tourists, and removed all the easily accessible and FREE public toilets, and there you have Venice. But really, it's so wonderful it's not even funny.
All I do is wander about, letting the streets lead my where they think I should go. Mum sent me a quote from her Venitian cookbook "The number of times I went out in Venice was the number of times I got lost. But I was never really lost. You're always somewhere in Venice". it was followed by "go stick THAT in your blog", and I damn-well will! Because it is SO true. I mean, there's not so much, activity wise to do here, but I could not be more contented just letting my feet carry me around as the canals and tiny little alley-ways and balconies and washing lines and perfect cobbled roads just wash all around me and I drink them all up. It's really, really... wait for it... beautiful.
Yesterday I went to Verona, on Hadewig's advice, and was duly rewarded with an absolutely breathtaking little city. I loved exploring it. I saw Juliet's house, and wished I had a Romeo... sigh...
And now I pay WAY too much for the internet, so I will be done for now. I am taking a day's break today, so I'll go play more solitaire on my ipod...
Ciao!!!!
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