That is my wish...

Dear Bloggers,

Sometimes there are moments in life where shivers run down your spine. This may be of emotion, love, fun moments on television because you're sick, happy or maybe sad or filled with grief. Outside these emotions or feelings, there are many other causes consisting of emotion and chills. When I look up to the sky, I see the beautiful white clouds floating and an airplane flies over with a leaving a beautiful white trail behind on its way towards the sun. Sitting at the computer at home I hear the music on the radio as an emotional tone makes my thoughts play.

Listening to Glennis Grace a great Dutch artist singing “Dat is mijn wens,” translated “That is my wish,”I remember most of the beautiful things in my life. The life which today includes also anxiety, panic, stress and aggression. My mind changed after I fell down the stairs some years ago and I never found the old me back. kicking people to death has become nearly normal in today's society, or shooting people for no reason as well.

It also became normal to insult others or abuse persons in a public job has become one of the most normal things in life. The word "respect" that everyone knows has become totally meaningless. You may try it but it seems to be an impossible task to correct people their behavior. People live in fear of "something might trigger them." And the only way to pay for it is my life. It is scandalous.

 

I think everyone who reads this, has a fun moment in his life and can bring forward something from his or her childhood. Moments from the highest classes of elementry school that you were at camp and you were dating and later saw that she was the cutest or ugliest girl or boy of the class. Children like my daughter Danique, who is dancing to music of K3, slip into the thought that they are playing outside going of the slide, and sleep under a blanket of Winnie the Pooh.

 

Often I wish applicable to the number Glennis Grace, that people could be that child again. Rather than the age, gaming or the leisure. But the variation of thoughts that children have, never have to worry and especially that they are having no real stress or feelings of anxiety or other "common evils". No they rather looking on the bright side of life.

Children are enjoying small things like a cup of tea, a glass of lemonade or a delicious candy. They can enjoy nature, that birds are singing, playing tag or hide and seek behind a thin tree where a parent is actually too thick for it. Nowadays the life about of care and concern. Take care of your immediate family, friends or other very important people in your life. Take care of your family, wife and / or child (ren). 

Of course sometimes it's just not easy, and of course "sometimes" something like that can take years. Life does not go hand in hand with everyday joy, love and romance. Sometimes years go by illness, accident or "it's not today" moment. Sometimes we have to say goodbye to people close to us or someone we should support in his mind as the sun doesn’t shine, but you rather see clouds, and that there are a lot of them that go past you.

Support people, help people or give people the help that they need. As relatives, friends or family grab each other's hand and go happily through this life. When we see children on the news or in the newspapers that carry a gun or tell them while playing tag their brother could be lost because he stepped on a mine, then I'm happy with my wife and daughters, so I doubly enjoy those little things that makes life in the Netherlands not that bad. 

Because what can beat the thought of walking arm in arm on the beach, under a sun that slowly goes down in the North Sea. My daughters running in front of us finding one after the other shell, that looks like a win for their collection! one family, one thought, one feeling to make a desirable family complete. That is my wish...........

The Old Sailor,

My daughters are dancers

Dear Bloggers,

For the last two months I’ve been spending my Monday afternoons at my daughter’s dance recital. For most dads, this is brutal – enduring hours of 8-year-olds in skirts, hundreds of twirls, jumps and gyrations. In my case I was particularly apprehensive because given today’s hip-hop society, I would have to endure hours of noise accented with either profane language or bleeps.

The recitals were a showcase in good music, with kids dancing to the music of Die Twa with the song Fûgels (Frisian song from two guys called those two who were actually there and sang this beautiful song.) My youngest daughter performed on K3 with Lollipopland, furthermore there was the song from the Rednex, called the spirit of the hawk I was impressed by the musical knowledge of these 10 year olds, Identity from the Robot Boys and the Drill was performed by the girls that are in their adolescent years and struggle with being in between girl and woman identity, 

my eldest daughter danced on Vanessa Mae’s Ragas Dance and the adults group danced (Im)perfection from Byon Kay and Ori Lavi and of course the surprise act that was performed by some of the first dancers who did an act from the Lion King. There were throwbacks to the top artist in the Netherlands Marco Borsato with Droom, durf ,doe en deel, the DJ kept the atmosphere right with playing Triggerfinger, Michel Teló and Ed Sheeran.

They even dipped into the obscure, when the gymnastics used the song Anthoon aus Tirol (obscure to 75 percent of the population, at least as it links to the drunk behavior in the ski resorts and the Tiroler soft porn from the 70’s). I heard a few hip-hop songs but I enjoyed almost every performance.

There were even a few artists that I had never heard of like Byon Kay and Ori Lavi and the Robot Boys and the Drill. And how Marco Borsato’s “Droom, durf, doe en deel” had eluded me all this time is embarrassing. I have some work to do.

Oh yeah. The dancing was pretty darn good. Am I officially a dance dad?

Last week my two girls performed in their annual dance recital. Aside from a dislike of some musical choices – coupled with the fear that one of my daughters would be dancing on them – I actually enjoyed the performances. There is usually very little hip-hop, and at times, a am awarded with discovery of some unknown music.

And oh yeah. The dancing’s good too.

This year was a tribute to the dance teacher Miss Marjanne who is with giving dance classes, the kids feel it like a little bit of losing her. (that still sounds weird, doesn’t it?). And it was a musical retrospective of her life – from “The Lion King” through her time with the dancers from then and now. 

It was all there, it really gave me some goosebumps when they all were culminating and the entire groups were participating in the now for whoever has seen it, the iconic “final” dance. As every dancer had written down the memories about the dance teacher their voices were recorded on the music and one by one they danced away from the stage. When I heard my eldest daughter speak and saw her dance, I could not hold my emotions back and cried a few tears. It was overwhelming and astonishing there was a real love glow.

A family friend brought her 8-year-old son to the recital. He came just to hear the music and was exited by almost every song as he knows of course my daughters, he was watching with an open mouth their performances. And that’s when I realized that music that continues to transcend generation. Granted, most of the music that the younger kids enjoyed was from K3 as they all grew up with it. That makes my job of exposing them to good music so much easier.

The dance groups perform at competitions throughout the year, so those performances were also included in the recital.

In a time where it would be too easy to resort to the latest hip-hop flavor or Ke$ha single, it’s refreshing to see creativity and melody taking center stage. And it warms my heart to think that some young people are being exposed to this at the local dance studio.

The Old Sailor,