Empty

It has been done, the end of an era has come, a new age has started. Today was the day of the big move. My dad and I broke down all furniture, packed the last bits of junk and cleaned up my old home, erasing the last traces of my occupation of the room. 'It must be a strange feeling' people keep saying. I guess it should be, but it's still more of an idea than a feeling. When standing in the empty room the only thing going through my mind was: 'it looks the same as when I moved in. Did I actually live here for 4 years?' The only thing feeling weird is that when I want to go to Groningen again I have to remember that I have to actually arrange a place to sleep. Probably it will hit in harder when the other thing that is more an idea than a feeling, actually moving to England, will become reality in no more than 5 days.

One of the last activities of the great move was going through my memory drawer. Readers who were appalled by the sentimental undertone of my previous post may skip this section. My natural memory is not one to brag about. Actually at some times it's not even worth mentioning. Both short as long term could use some improvement, so I would remember a name 5 seconds after somebody introduced himself, important deadlines or apointments or details about past events. To help with the latter I have my Memory Drawer, the container of photos, cards, letters, tickets and even receipts and other random tokens of events in my life that could be noteworthy to remember. And once in a while I get to dig through all of it to select what is still really important to me and, moreover, to relive it all.

There are photos of the beginning of highschool, of old friends who I haven't seen or spoken for ages, of the journeys I have made. Things go back to primary school, like pictures of our old house in Gorinchem, a very interesting story about human colonisation of the solar system and evil martians and a diary kept during the hamster mating experiment with Liselotte, the girl I shared a crib with about 25 years ago. Other things I loved to see again were letters of my best friend from primary school from just after we moved to the other side of the country, the envelope with women's underwear of my 'secret admirer', the report of the trip to Rome in the 6th year of high school. And finally of course the letters, cards and other little things from old romances, some even challenging the Ilias or the Elements in volume and content. Even though these bygones are bygone, it is still fun to reminisce, relive great times and review life lessons, for instance that the definition of 'always' is rather blurry. All in all, memories have taken up a significant part of the packing time, making it more than just putting stuff into boxes.

So now everything is out of Groningen and ready for a new life, including myself. I will return there one more time to take care of the last formalities and meetings with friends and sisters and then it's off to the other side of the North sea. New year has never been this new. Even though there are things missing that I would have given a lot for to have with me to share the transition of years with, or even the whole new year, it will be exciting enough and maybe even top the wonderful year that has just passed.

Meditations

It was luck that brought me here, even though I am not sure whether luck is something I belief in. Still, I was lucky enough to end up at the place that will be my home for just a few more days. There were two parts of this luck.

Firstly, the way I came to this place. My parents live not too far from where I have enjoyed my academic education, so at first I still lived with them, commuting to the university by bus each day. Naturally, after a while this got tiresome, especially because the last bus back went at a time way before the end of an average party, so at a certain moment I decided to look for a place for myself. Only days after that decision I once again sat in the bus to a party and it happened to be that another invitee, a fellow student and friend, also took that bus. We started talking and during that discussion we came to my recently made up plan. This turned out to be more than just small talk, because later on, at the very same party, she called me to her and let me know that another attendee of the party lived in a student house where very soon a room would become available. One thing led to another and my life in the Badstratenbuurt had begun.

This was the second aspect of the luck: the great location. The neighborhood consists of only a few streets, concentrated around an old bath house, is filled with picturesque houses and the population is a mix of students, families and elders, giving it a great atmosphere. Now you may think there would be some sort of compromise to balance nature, a yang like a tiny living area. Wrong. The space I had was plenty, especially for a simple student and even more so when I transfered to the largest room in the house, where I have lived the last 4 years. I never found a better response than 'exactly' to the expression of surprise by new visitors: 'wow, this room is big'.

Usually I don't get very attached to a certain place, a home is a home is a home just like the next one, but I think I will miss this place and will often look back on my time here with joy. The most important events of my life so far have their base and left their traces here. Important people in my life have visited here, spent days here or even lived here. During the packing and cleaning I stumble upon and go through many memorabilia connected to these events and people, which is one of the more rewarding aspects of the moving process. Also I try to soak up as much of the neighborhood as possible when walking around. For instance literally in the form of the fumes coming from the tobacco plant around the corner which fills the air with its sometimes pungent but strongly habituating fumes, but also by observing the views and the people.

Most notably, there is my neighbor, the 85 year old man whose name I never learned, but who has entertained me with his stories about for instance his 105 years old mother who still lived with him only a few years ago. Every time I see him I know I will be occupied for at least the next 30 minutes, learning trivial things about neighbors I have never heard of, but also learning from his wise words about his many life experiences. These put the events in my own short life into perspective and make me look forward to the rest of it. He reminds me also of my grandma, who has been going strong and enjoying life for so long, but of who we learned today that now she is admitted to the hospital. I already planned a last visit to her before I go to England, but this new premise will probably make it less joyful.

All in all I have a great time to look back upon, which could make one sad and homesick. However, I would rather use it as an inspiration for the future, to drive me to have a time at least as great in any upcoming part of my life. There is no point in looking back to the past with melancholy or look to the future with despair. A person cannot lose what has already been, neither what is yet to be, but only this very moment.

The socks and towels conundrum

Here is a problem of which I am hardly the first to bring it up: how come socks always go missing? At times I even had a total of 6 different widowed socks that became useless by the disappearance of their significant others. To prevent their depression I attempted to do some mix-and-matching, but luckily for them, as well as for my fashion sense, lost partners have reappeared as mysteriously as their dispersal. However, my accounting of my sock stocks has never been very rigorous and I can't help to have the feeling that some have never made it back and that eventually even whole pairs have gone missing.

Like I said before, this seems to be a global problem, as shown by results of the research performed by the Bureau of Missing Socks. Many theories have been constructed to explain this phenomenon, from Brazil to leprechauns to terrorists, but I prefer a more modern scientific approach. Whatever may be the true reason, I cannot help but to see the correlation with another statistic I encountered while going through all my stuff: the surprising amount of towels I appear to own. As far as I can remember they always fit in a single drawer of my dresser, but at the moment they also occupy space originally reserved for T-Shirts. The amount of beach towels in all different colors is astounding, even when taking into account that my number of visits to sunny beaches has been higher than ever the last 18 months. However, next to this, the majority of the towel population still consists of regular towels, some of which bear labels of fabric suppliers that I have never heard of, let alone have visited. Some of them that I thought were unique suddenly turn out to have twins and of at least one I know it was destined to dry the back of somebody else. And I'm not even mentioning the kitchen towels..

So in my case I can only come to a single conclusion: somewhere in the wear-wash-dry-store cycle my socks are transformed into towels. Luckily for me and others with a working olfactory system this seems to happen in a part of the cycle where foot odor is neutralized. Still, my need for socks is greater than that for towels, so it may be time to find a way to put an end to this madness. In the meantime: anybody need a towel?

Here we go

Time rushes by dizzily like a Carparachne Aureoflava escaping from a wasp and suddenly there is just over two weeks to go before I exchange Dutch pipe stems for British cats and dogs. Some people are curious about what this all entails and what will come out of it, not in the least I myself, so therefore I decided to share this story through this blog. This is something I have undertaken a few other times before, but at those attempts I was more interested in the technical and aesthetic aspects of creating my own blog system. When I was convinced enough about my own ability to finish the work I was content and forgot that such a system's actual purpose is to bridge the gap between privacy and exhibitionist tendencies. So this time I take another approach: I dismissed my vanity and chose a ready to use system. Also, this time I might actually have something to tell.

Some of you may have noticed by now that my writings are in English. Even though the major part of my audience probably has no problem with this, let me justify this choice. I don't like restrictions. I want every option to be open. First of all I wouldn't want to restrict my foreign friends by excluding them from the extra dimension understanding brings to reading. But moreover, I don't want to restrict myself in the possible expressions I could use. Of course, I have to live with the fact that I can't express 'gezelligheid', but since this word is so intrinsically Dutch, I doubt I will miss it in England. Besides, in return I get for instance 'bliss' and 'suave'. How could you restrict yourself by rejecting those! I am aware that for the latter I could also have gone for French, but I think a blog filled with nothing but 'Je m'appelle Sander et je suis suave' wouldn't make for good reading.

Now, on to the subject at hand, what do you do when you move to England for 3 years? You pack. Of course. The basic steps of packing are not that complex: get a box, get stuff, put it in box. The difficulty lies in selecting what stuff goes in which box and which stuff gets put in a box at all. I for one am not somebody who throws things out. If there is any possibility that it might come in handy in the future or if there is any hint of sentimental value, it stays. And if there is not, but there is space for it, it stays anyway. Therefor, having had the luck of occupying a generously sized accommodation, a lot has stayed over the last few years. And now is the day of selection, the final judgment, the horsemen have come and the trumpets have been sounded. Three garbage bags of clothes, a pile of electronics and a collection of glass that contained memories long forgotten have already made way, but stricter elimination still seems necessary.

Besides getting rid of junk, another aspect of the move is shedding valuables. Firstly, there are the personal items of others that are uncovered and are returned during a nice dinner or sent out to different corners of the world. Secondly, there are the vouchers, coupons and other pieces of paper that were presents at parties throughout the years and confront the recipient with the problem of deciding what he wants himself. After a long search today my bookshelves will be decorated by Nietzsche, Aurelius, Darwin and Paulos. A second attempt will still be needed to fully empty the envelope. And finally there is the stuff I no longer need or want but may be useful for others. Who would have guessed that the demand for a Christmas tree isn't overwhelming this time of year..

So far for the first peek into the emigration process, time to have a peek into organic material processing.