Writing is art or did it become something else?

Dear Bloggers,

The last couple of days rain has been pooring down and due to the bad weather I once again sat musing about the past and I write on a piece of "nostalgia of the long gone years" I sit behind the computer and think back to my childhood that I was laying on the floor playing with a couple of miniature cars and my mother meanwhile handled the vacuum cleaner, I still remember the typical smell of soft soap and feel the warm air blow from the vacuumcleaner onto my face. For me a reason to write my earliest memories down.

I therefore look forward to your earliest memories. And maybe you would love to share that with all of us.

How far can you go back with your memories? I cannot tell that as these imprints are absolutly different per person. I know that there were quite a few events in my childhood that I can pick up as they are forever printed in my mind. Just everyday things, nothing special.

For example, I remember that I once stood in the dining room in front of the table and I was determined to sse something on the table. Just standing on my toes and holding onto it I was able to look at some items on the table. That was the first moment to me of being proud as I felt very big because I could look across the table for the first time instead of looking against it. No idea how old I was, but it os strange that you remember that moment and that feeling.

I have two sisters and one brother, I was the youngest. My father worked in a factory and my mother was a housewife so we were an ordinary family. I was dropped of every schoolday by my mother at the kindergarten, who continued with groceryshopping and housework. My mother made the most delicious coffee and my father was reading the newspaper in the cozy living room in a lovely big armchair. Then the TV came on to watch the evening news. Life was not that complicated at those years. If you wanted to comment on something you had to do that in person or write a letter to newspaper and send it by mail to them. It would make you think first. 

 

These are sort of my earliest memories. So they go back to my fourth year of life. I wonder how far you go back memories. In our present time everything is much more hectic. We have become terrified of missing something, the so-called FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)

In the opinionstorm of print and broadcast the storm continues to print paper and the role of reflection. And the people who really read, can often write better as a matter of fact.

Besides seeing writing as unique art or craft that can teach many, there is a third form: thumb typing. That is everywhere. We live in a time when everyone writes and no one reads. And gives opinions. Published in a second. What is the function of editorial pages as the slow process of printing and paper making way for fast printing and sending?

In the summer of 2008, I first came into contact with the iPhone which at that time was for the first time in the Netherlands for sale exclusively for the phone company T-Mobile. This device accelerated ease the mind revolution that was going on in evening talk shows, blogs and reader comments in the Internet published pieces.

In those days you rather read a book as many other passengers on the bus or train or they were hiding behind a small free or paid large newspaper, suddenly everyone was putting himself or herself to writing. At first only textmessages, but soon via mobile internet we could write on almost anything. With the iPhone and its imitators were also Facebook and other platforms accessible. On train platforms and in waiting rooms and train chairs in rows for cash, bike and even in the car you see people sitting fixated tapping their small personal screen. Even Her Majesty Queen Beatrix had noticed this: "People communicate through rapid brief messages," she noted in her Christmas speech 2009.

The newspaper editors were to be exempted to remove a sludge of invective between the reader comments. For direct response digital was something different from the classic letter to the newspaper. Every drunk could, once ended up at home, his twaddle hurtle directly to a site without a stamp and without any reflection. He did not even had to count to ten.

The late ramblings in the pub became public. Anti-Semites, racists, violent characters, many anonymous.

The question is: Is there someone out there who reads three hundred reactions on an article about asylum seekers still? We thought we let everyone have their say. But the people under our articles appeared to consist of a dozen people who responded to each other, including a bitchfight between an artist from Rotterdam and a lady from Spain.

A number of sites managed to perfect the art of swearing to a profession, and sometimes it's funny too. All authors. More and more people made their own little newspaper on Facebook, some with thousands of "friends". It could even shorter, with 140 characters on Twitter, launched in 2006 and 2009 really established in the Netherlands.

Everywhere you had to respond and scold became an art how can insult someone as hard as possible and then preferably also anonymous. Yes those are the real heroes in our society. However, it takes all this attention only briefly. Because they are greedy for sensation and as many people should be destroyed. And after a day or two it has been all forgotten again. Because you have to be on time with the new little storm.

In this digital bath full of hissing fury remains a printed and online opinion page in the newspapers regularly a stunning slow journalism island. Submitted papers to read and talk about and corresponding. Checked information. Topics devise and get there in the best possible author. That can come from the Netherlands, but as well from the US, Germany or Peru. Preferably not someone from the editors, because they are having enough text elsewhere in the paper. Many experts, writers and essayists that protrude above the mass opinion. That show what the reflection of paper for printing and has the nervousness of Twitter and a blog. A good opinion piece is simple: it contains a clear opinion contained in an argument with examples.

If that is in theory.

If authors are skilled with the pen, they quickly in the newspaper. Knowledge and expertise is a recommendation, but it can also turn against the author. Too much knowledge is assumed to be known, you get lost in details. Others are afraid to upset colleagues so alone desirability as "sustainability" or "future-proofing". Which often mean the opposite of what is intended. With opinion pieces is no diplomacy businesses.

Ask for a clear piece is sometimes like you are strapped with your hands on to a bicycle and get on it. Politicians rarely want to give a non-predictable opinion. Timing is also part of their profession. There is the distinct ideology of a party, but everyone knows already. Not surprisingly, the ANWB who wants to build more roads. And every article on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict raises many reactions against but the arguments are the same age and known as the battle itself.

I've got respect for the men and women who send every day ten to fifty pieces and letters in the electronic mailbox of the newspaper to ensure their voices. Especially men like me, middle age or older, who want to share their experiences. In good spirits, while only two pieces of post, internet with it some more. Brave they fall for the papers firing squad, and the rejection they take on in a sporty way.

Why women dare to come less often with their opinion? Besides being less confident it should also be efficient: why do all that work to do with a very uncertain outcome? At least that is my opinion,

Fortunately, there are people who can still be thankful sitting down with a real newspaper who are still being made for real readers. They can often also write well. They know a lot, point out mistakes, put in a letter of two hundred words telling you the difference between a piano and a keyboard or the possibilities of a vacant building.

That kind of spontaneous reactions, surprising authors, new topics, deliciously absurd entries and commentaries I will miss, because more and more newspapers are getting in trouble for the simple fact that people no longer buy one to quietly sit down and read. Now I have myself thrown in the army of millions of enthusiastic writers. And I secretly hope that someone actually will read my stories.

The Old Sailor.

They call me an old sea dog.

Dear Bloggers,

As most of my readers will know that I have been a sailor for more than 13 years and yes I loved my job and my family was happy with what i was doing. Although the last period was pretty though as I developed fibromyalgia and a few years later I was diagnosed with diabetics what has fucked up my life even more. 

If you had three guesses you’d still never get my job. Not because that I don't look like a sailor, but because I look exactly like a sailor you’d think it must be something else. Yes I have the muscled, tattooed forearms, folded across my substantial torso; 

No I am not having the neatly-clipped, old sea dog approved, snow white beard and moustache; Yes my hairs are grey and clipped short as a navy short-cut and when I have one eye glaring and one partly closed looking towards the sun, like I am the captain on the bridge, and yes when I am on to it I have a voice like a foghorn, a voice so penetrating it could stop a polar bear, a bar fight, or maybe even both.

Passengers my friends, that’s your real bitch of a cargo,’ What they bring on to get something for free. ‘Metaphoric, you see. they’ll suck the juice right out of you.’ You just can snap your fingers, to demonstrate either the speed or the sound you’d make, I’m not sure. But all off sudden you are in a fully hazardous environment

 ‘Mind you, American passengers ‘ain’t such a walk in the park, neither. That was one time I was almost a letter home. There ‘ain’t any room for error in between when you’re embark and disembarking them. We were sailing with giant heart attack risks when it came down to it. You did your calculations right, though, you focused – and you’d make it through. And the living was good. Must’ve been. I did it 13 years or a bit more.’

Unfortunately I had to lose my sea legs until the day of today, though not through rum or cannon shot or a collision, as you might think, but by other, less exotic means.

‘Damn health bloody diabetics. Bloody’ useless,’ I would say, I am struggling to maintain my weight or to even get it down a couple of kilogrammes. You can see that I lost a great part of power on my arms. ‘Ask the wife, she’ll tell you. I’m not good for nothing no more but chumming overboard.’

My wife Trientsje oversees the whole situation, telling me to be quiet, putting all my medication and other necessaries neatly into the daily containers, making arrangements for the next few days, giving instructions and making notes in my cell phone.

‘Now don’t go upsetting anyone,’ she says, kissing him on the head. ‘They’re doing their best. Don’t go annoying anyone with your endless stories. And don’t forget your reading glasses.’ ‘No dear,’ and ‘Yes, dear.’ Then: ‘I tell yer what, mate. I’ve seen a typhoon chew up a ship and spit it out again in the Pacific Ocean, but I’d rather stand on the deck of that with nuthin’ but me thumb up me arse than get on the wrong side of my wife.’ 

I am leaving the house and go of to work. I am happy to do my new job on the commuter bus but I still miss the life at sea. The people that I have met out there are all special to me. Not that everyone is liking each other but to me they were like a family.

The Old Sailor,

The scars on my soul are telling a story

Dear Bloggers,

I'm having trouble working out where I am and who I am. Somehow, this isn't disturbing, it's simply puzzling to me. I'm in a puzzle and need to put together the clues to work out what this is all about.

Images are popping up in my mind and somehow the pictures are mixed up and there are people who have never been there before and that makes it complicated. I'm sitting in the centre of a row of beige plastic chairs. When I turn my head, I realise that my wife,is sitting next to me. A ring of beige chairs also lines the walls. Other people, scattered around the room, are sitting here with worried faces some of them are crying or looking down and shuffling their feet. I get the feeling that they don't want to be here.

A beeping sound is coming from somewhere. To my right, people are moving through an automatic door. I look up and see a young woman behind a glass window. She seems to be mentally losing it, as they just confirmed that her boyfriend has died in the chaos that is out there, and her dark hair hasn't been brushed recently. She's on the phone and taking notes. All of a sudden a few people show up to me and I realize that I can not see there faces and I frown when they approach me, as I don't really want to speak to them. I am not the one that should give them answers, I send them over to the other side of the room and I see them sitting down with the policeman who has a copy of the passenger list and they are being desperate for good news.

We seem to be in some sort of waiting room, but I don't know why. I am wearing my military camouflage uniform sitting with my helmet in my hands. We are sitting in a sports hall which has been decorated as a waiting area with here and there a few tables where policemen are trying to give as good and as bad information . For most of the survivors the waiting is hell.

The sunlight is slanting through the windows on the far wall is soft; it must be the morning light, then. My dear God we have been here for hours and still they are bringing people in. Local cops, people from the Red Cross and other persons like psychotherapists, priests,ministers. The major is running the operation. And our duty has been taken over by the own countries army and we are waiting to get the clearance that we can go back to our base

In one corner of the room, on a low table, there are piles of magazines. I walk over to pick up a crying girl and then sit down with her again. This is a young woman I guess in her late teens or early twenties approximately my own age but she has lost everyone that she was with. My heart breaks when I see her and send my buddy to find someone to comfort her. As for us it's about time to leave.

Off to my left, a child is whining. I turn to see a man and a woman, both big, with a girl aged four or five. They look tired, as parents do when they've been up during the night with a grumpy and worn out child. Soon I am absorbed by their interactions; it's like watching a show. The father lifts the girl on to his lap, looking strained. The mother holds up a children's book, reading to her. The child listens for a while, fidgets, and cries again. The mother tries to interest her in one of the toys from a box in the corner, but it doesn't work. Now I know what this is like; I'm a parent, too. They're doing their best in this bad situation.

How did I get to this room? A fragment comes into my mind, a dreamlike image of driving us to the chaotic scene and me being impressed by the sea hawk helicopters that are flying on and off. It is what I can see from our military vehicle window. Did this really happen, or am I imagining it?

I turn to my wife and see that she's crying quietly: her cheeks are pink; the rims of her eyes are red. She's sad about something, but I don't know what. I put my arm around her shoulder and pat her gently. "It'll be all right," I say. She quiets a little. All the other things are in some kind of blurred image. And I wander what her problem is, somehow I cannot reach her. It is a disturbing feeling and I feel powerless. How in the hell can I help her when I am in this state of mind.

As we sit there, I feel as if I'm in a sound bubble, into which the surrounding noises don't intrude. The crying girl doesn't irritate me as I think she might have at another time. Instead, I feel a well of stillness inside. I keep turning the pages of this story of my life. Get up soldier it is time to stand up to your troubled mind and help the one you love with all your heart. The road will be long and tough sometimes inhospitable sometimes, but she is not afraid as she has a well-trained soldier at her side. But there is no way back and it looks like our horizon on fire as the sun goes down slowly.

As far as I can tell, it's not long before we are taken through a door. It opens, like magic, into a wide, yellow corridor with a side table, a high metal chair, and shelves along the walls. Have we really been here? Did we do anything good for those people? And why am I mixed up with all those emotions. And why am I dressed in full combat gear with a loaded machine gun? I left the army in the autumn of 1987 that is more then 25 years ago.

A young military man who says he is a doctor asks us to sit in the chairs while he stands before us. He's wearing ordinary clothes and looks tired, speaking slowly and softly. He probably wants to go home. The doctor would like to thank us for the quick responding to the scene. And gives our sergeant a phone number for the ones who might need help. At the moment we do not need anything but want to go home. We are all trained to kill people but in this case this were civilians who just had a good time and were killed in a weird kind of disaster. In this case we could not save them. Man this has impacted our team the guys have gone quiet as we have seen all to much.The guys are all silent and some are staring with bowed head to the floor. the situation we ended up in was totally insane. And no one had the strength to say anything. It was quiet and lonely it felt like a slap in the face.

Memories lost: I don't know how long I'm with the doctor perhaps one or two minutes and when I look up he's gone. There's that puzzling feeling again: was he real, or am I in a dream?

Back in the corridor, a man and a woman tell me I am to have a EMDR session. The thought excites me. I don't think I've ever had one before, but I know what they are: I've read reports from EMDR patients as psychology fascinates me because the brain is something very special, detailing the effects of a brain that is able to send people in the right or wrong directions. They have a lounge chair and mentally they push me into another corridor of my mind. In and out of the disaster we go. It is sad and reliving it is absolute no fun.

They say the session is over, but I don't remember having it. How odd! I'm walking with a woman, also dressed in blue; she's told me that I'm having the next session next Thursday. I'm not sure if I've been in state like this before, but I'm so tired that I think it would be great to get my life back and being able to sleep without nightmares again.

The next morning is different from the day before. It feels as if I've woken from a dream. I'm sure now that I've been there and that woman next to me in my memory is not my wife but my late buddy who died of cancer a few years later in hospital, and that something really has happened to me. I remember more clearly the whole situation was so crazy before we came in. I'd woken with a headache, walked to the kitchen, taken a Panadol, and gone back to bed. That's the last memory I have on this weird mixed up dream.

The phone beside my bed rings, interrupting my reverie. It's traffic control if I could work today. “And I respond yes of course what time should I start?”

"I'm woolly in the head, as if I'm not sure I'm really here," I reply to my wife. "I've got a mild headache, too." and still you are going to work she says. I call it therapy as my brain has to work in a different way. I jump out of bed and head for the bathroom. Brushing my teeth, shave and hop into the shower.

It's three months after my initial psychologists admission, and two months after I was formally discharged from therapy again, where I spent eight unsettling and confining sessions. It's mid-afternoon and I'm reading a book. It's easy to follow, and it doesn't matter if I've forgotten some of the earlier details. I like the way of writing, and I am fascinated by the story: I'm not the only one on a path of survival. Initially I tried reading a story of a deeply harmed woman that has survived a war, but it was like struggling through thick, deep mud.

I would read a page, and by the time I reached the next, I'd forgotten what the previous one had said. I go back to reading, settling comfortably into my chair; the idea of seeing the doctor slips into my back pocket. But my brain continues processing this information in its own way.

Then, a thought comes suddenly to my mind: if I've had a set back, and that's not physical… I haven't had a mental breakdown. It all came up again due to a very different situation. They harmed my wife and the killing machine was woken up from the dead end corner of my brain. I was going to take this bad ass out of his magic life. And everyone that would be in the way. The bastard has been lucky that he wasn't home as I had figured out were he was living. I couldn't stop the blindness and the deep angered soldier that was taken over. Lucky part of the situation was that he was not home as I still see him as the enemy. Thank God I did not harm anyone. Relief floods through me. Fucking fantastic.

Recovery: All of this happened on the evening hours of the 6^th of March 1987 But cue seven months of visits to doctors psychotherapists and a series of tests. I've been told that I should exercise, walk on flat ground if I go for a walk, read nothing harder than the newspaper. I try to follow doctor's orders to take it easy and avoid stress. The stress thing is a process of discovery. The invisible hole in my head is a trickster; I don't know when or how it's going to trip me up next. My body's not behaving properly either. And that came up years later due to a stressed life.

I'm anxious to get on with my recovery, and the more I read, the more it seems like a computer-based cognitive training program is what I need. The program should concentrate on building the basic auditory skills first, and then the components of speech and finally comprehension.

Now the situation has stabilized and I am calm again, yet I must give closure to the old situation and learn to live with what happened then. Furthermore, I will have to build on a completely new start for my wife because she never will be the same again and will have to learn to live with her post-traumatic stress disorder. Will I ever find the peace and able to deal with the false world that simply seeks to amass money and is not looking for happiness.

It is the time that heals all wounds, but there is always a scar on my soul and that scar will fade with aging. Sometimes it will itch and sometimes it will be hurting and feel like stabbing but it will never disappear. It's something you learn to live with and gradually no one is sensing that you have a scar. "In peacetime you are much more affected by the war." said an old veteran a couple of weeks ago.

 

The Old Sailor,

Morning fog

Dear Bloggers,

Last Friday, the sun was shining like it is almost summer. After the morning fog was covering the world with his coat and at half past nine it all cleared away, the blue skies and a mild burning sun appeared. And that remains throughout the day. And while the temperatures can rise to nearly 20 degrees. I am having the day off, so it is all very good. I have plunged myself in full force in a new hobby project and I have been busy sanding some panels. Our young dog is playing in the garden and tries to get my attention with occasional mischief. I enjoy the sun on my pale skin and think that life can be so beautiful and if it would be financial possible, I would only occasionally work for a few days.

Full stop is not needed, but it would be nice if you could organize your own time, for example, only the winter period to do some work. But that will only be a dream, I am afraid. So enjoy all of the few precious moments I have. After a few hours I make a cup of tea for me and my wife and we chat a bit about the daily stuff and I am going outside for an other hour and then we're going to do a little shopping in a local supermarket.

I miss the days when I was at sea and feel that there is a change of weather coming. That's something you read in the sky and feel the slowly becoming colder air around you. It's pretty soft spring weather but I do not think it will remain. After dinner we watch some television and every half an hour my head is nodding and my eyes are closed. Tired but satisfied we crawl under the covers and I have to go to work in the morning and then again tomorrow afternoon I will go on with my hobby project.

But when I step through the front door of our house the next morning it is pouring rain. Spring has clearly ceased it's introduction today. A drizzling rain seeps this morning in a gray suited sky. At such a gray day, I'll grab everything to make myself feel better. Travel to the South. The South: leave this swampy land, if possible, I would flee. But unfortunately, I can't because we are financial unable to pay for this kind of debauchery.

At moments like this I miss the time I did spontaneous actions together with my wife and we woke up drunk in a strange world of pleasure stung with the first sun rays on our naked bodies. When I walk the dog during the afternoon in this rainy weather, on the field on the way home. I am walking slowly and in my thoughts I'll see a man that looks like an old sailor It is a gray-haired man with a weathered face, a beard and a body that has been build by hard labour. In my mind I named him immediately. "The Old Sailor" And as I would soon discover: there I was not far wrong. "If I were you, I'd better get home, there's coming a decent bit of rain," he said when he saw me. He just had the words out, it started raining again. "Come, I live around here," he invited me. I hesitated. Finally, I knew him, but on the other hand he was a stranger that I just met. But he seemed to have no mischief and did not want to harm me, so I took his invitation.

Once in his house I got the feeling of being in a museum. Hung everywhere and all around me there were the most exotic objects. Our dog, sniffed curiously around. The old man seemed to find it all okay. He made a cup of tea for me and soon we were both sitting down, he began to tell about his life. He had sailed a large part of his life, but had to go ashore when his health deteriorated. He looked sad. "For me, no sailors funeral and a watery grave ..." he said softly. I felt sorry for him, but did not know how to comfort him.

So I pointed hesitantly at a small statue that stood nearby and asked where it came from. That was a good hunch: the face of the man brightened, and he began to tell. It already stopped raining when he finished his story. For me it's time to go home. 'Please come along, "he said when I left the house. I would definitely do. The old man was a fascinating storyteller and behind the other objects in the house were trapped many more stories. Further, he didn't see anyone else at all. In his existence had never been a place for family, friends and all that he had met, The ones he knew were sailors.

In the days and weeks that followed, it became a ritual: walking the dog, ring the bell at the old man, and once we were seated I would designate an object to the tea. Then the Captain was (as I now called him Captain) an hour or more on his soapbox. When I come home and slide in my chair behind a cup of coffee, I think what a strange sensation I have met myself but older. A future that is uncertain but not far from the truth. I have more of these kind of imaginings and then I dream away about times long gone or something else it is vague. Like this story now I can not quite explain.

Numb I sit at the table and my wife asks what is wrong with you, are you okay? I nod, and fight my tears. The next morning I wake up with a strange feeling as if "the Captain" that night has died in his sleep.

I'm ready for a little boat, I think and search on the Internet and find a particular boat. In the port arrived I almost fell off the scaffolding of laughter. The boat that belonged to the ad I knew very well. Regularly I had told people around me joked that that thing I would have for peanuts from his owner. I would take the ugly duckling from his hands, to give it a much needed face lift. And if it was meant to be, it was now mine. For a moment I had the idea that "the Captain" gave me a wink from above.

I had no clue at all of maintaining a boat or how to fix an engine. So I had the little boat thoroughly inspected by someone who had the knowledge and had a look at. Of the money I had saved up for this kind of project, I bought all the necessary stuff. I hit the chores: I sawed, hammered and painted, and had the time of my life. The other occupants of the port came curiously watching what I was doing. Some pointed meaningfully to their foreheads. Others gave me advice on how I could build and fix things they had obviously had the biggest fun about the hideous boat and that strange bird belonged to it. But that did not bother me and I enjoyed everything I did very much.

Once I was sure the boat would stay afloat, I got my license for sailing a boat. Now I brought a sleeping bag and some other stuff on board and proud I started the engine. Together with my wife, I went on board, and I headed for the coast. My boat was obviously not meant to travel at sea, but I ventured a short distance offshore.

My heart was beating like a buzzing beehive and the sailor in me woke up as i was struck by lightning. The sun danced in the air. I peered through my binoculars and saw the coastline gradually disappear The serenity of the open sea brought me back to the moments I have known from the time that I sailed around around our planet. I watched around me as we disappeared on the horizon and were rolling on the waves. The Captain was back home? 

 

I turned the boat around and sailed slowly back in the direction where we came from.

When I get closer to the port I all of a sudden wake up from my dreams, I realize that I've been sitting here behind the computer daydreaming and all of this again has been coming up in that silly brain of mine. Yet these are the happiest and finest thoughts I have and they are often around the corner if the weather is bad and the world is gray. It's a beautiful world in my dreams.

The Old Sailor,