Mamma mia

Tired of my unresolved planning – staying or going? Poland or Austria or Amsterdam? Making art, meeting people or do some solitary thinking? – I took a break from my computer and made coffee. It was cloudy and windy on the balcony, seawind, I had to put on a sweater. With my head still spinning from all the possibilities, I overlooked the space inbetween the housing blocks. Suddenly from out of nowhere 4 girls appeared in short glittery dresses with glittery caps in different colours on their heads. They started singing, Abba, and practised their dance on the roof. Bindi, the small grey male cat with the blue eyes joined me. The sun came out. He closed his eyes. I thought of Fukuoko, like I always do when I get entangled in my planning. “The best planning is no planning” he said and he is right.

Bindi went inside to join the small space I occupied in this house where nothing is mine and where I displayed some of the items I carry with me. Two golden boats I folded in Sokolowsko, Poland. Some old postcards with people in suits I bought when I was in Gent, wearing a suit. A knife I bought from a fiery female redhaired blacksmith I met on a long walk in Germany. My father’s hipflask and the tape measure I found in his workbag. A blue spinning-top a good friend gave me. Three tiny wooden elephants, gifts from my husband. A small metal box I found in a dumpster in the south of France, a box I never opened but has something inside, a coin or a tooth or a ring, something that makes a sound when you shake it. A paper dragon’s tail I found in Sweden together with a joker playing card. Two stamps with HERE and NOW from a project in Slovakia. Two soldiers of love I bought in Slovenia from a fellow nomad and dear friend. A glow in the dark star from the package I gave to my sisters kids to stick on the inside of my father’s coffin. A ceramic cup I bought from an artist in Barcelona. A corn kernel from a project with a beautiful artist in a mountain village in Portugal. A necklace with a tiny bottle with tree resin inside. Two small gongs to call for silence.

Bindi created some space for himself inbetween the objects and sits there regularly. I can’t take him with me but I will travel with the other Fukuoka quote that always comes to my mind when I see the cat sitting silently with nothing on his mind inbetween my objects:

“I do not particularly like the word 'work'. Human beings are the only animals who have to work, and I think that is the most ridiculous thing in the world. Other animals make their livings by living, but people work like crazy, thinking that they have to in order to stay alive. The bigger the job, the greater the challenge, the more wonderful they think it is. It would be good to give up that way of thinking and live an easy, comfortable life with plenty of free time. I think that the way animals live in the tropics, stepping outside in the morning and evening to see if there is something to eat, and taking a long nap in the afternoon, must be a wonderful life. For human beings, a life of such simplicity would be possible if one worked to produce directly his daily necessities. In such a life, work is not work as people generally think of it, but simply doing what needs to be done.”