What I saw

I arrived on a Sunday in the lashing rain. Late afternoon. I found my way. The next day was a Monday but already during that day the Monday disappeared. Tuesday didn’t exist. The night was the night though. Without any name, without any colour. Without any awareness. I lost myself in sleep.
I counted sunsets from that moment on. There would be seven. There were, although I didn’t see them. The trees were hiding it. The sky was covered with clouds every morning.

I observed my new horizon. The line between grass and tree trunks. I saw the leaves move in the wind, I heard the birds. The ants walking up and down on the border between inside and outside. The path my feet had created in the field. The memory of my first arrival. The green that turned grey at night, the blue that turned black.

I resisted the urge to take my camera. I waited. I tried to see everything but everything kept changing. I tried to name what I didn’t see, what wasn’t there, hoping the awareness of the absence of cars, houses, streets, people, the awareness of the absence of everything that belonged to the city, would make me see it better. It didn’t though. Of course it doesn’t. You can only see things when you forget about what isn’t there. When you remember the proper words you learned to make the world visible, tangible.

I resisted the urge to write them down. I waited. I tried to name everything but the words kept changing. A tree isn’t a tree. We only call it a tree. Tree is a word. I didn’t see anything.

On the third day I took out my camera. An old sx-70. A Polaroid camera. It never captures what I see. I have to use all my senses to know what is the right moment to push the button. I wanted to capture the secret and I had thought of a way to do it but before using the fade-to-black film I had brought, the faulty instant film that never stopped developing and turned slowly black after a short glorious moment when the image showed me what I had seen, heard, felt, before photographing the secret of the location, I wanted some permanent proof of this house that was my home now.

There was still some proper film in the camera. I aimed at my shelter, I pushed the button and when nothing happened and just when I turned the camera around to see what was wrong, the image came out. It showed the ground in front of my feet. It showed the moment I hadn’t been looking.

I aimed at the house again. This time it worked. I pushed and heard the mechanics inside the camera. The image came out but it didn’t show the house. The chemicals that are spread out over the light sensitive material when it goes through the two metal rollers had only covered one corner. It showed two tree trunks on the floor, shaping a cross, as if to say “here it is”.

There was no film left in the camera. I put the fade-to-black film cartridge in and pushed the button. Three minutes later I held a perfect image of the Refugio in my hand. Three days later it only existed in my memory.

He knows

A place in the forest

On the way there a pair of startled wings clattered up - that was all. You go alone. A tall building that consists entirely of cracks, a building that is perpetually tottering but can never collapse. The thousandfold sun floats in through the cracks. In this play of light an inverted law of gravity prevails: the house is anchored in the sky and whatever falls, falls upward. There you can turn around. There you are allowed to grieve. You can dare to face certain old truths otherwise kept packed, in storage. The roles I have, deep down, float up, hang like the dried skulls in the ancestral cabin on some out-of-the-way Melanesian islet. A childlike aura circles the gruesome trophies. So mild it is, in the forest.

Tomas Tranströmer, The Great Enigma. New Collected Poems. From "The Truthbarrier'.

Seven too many

 
"Toen zijn buurman op Patmos, de BBC-verslaggever Peter France, hem vol verwachting vroeg naar de voorwaarden voor een leven in eenzaamheid, antwoordde hij kort maar krachtig dat je daarvoor een houten vloer nodig had, omdat tegels te koud waren, een goede muggenolie, een werkende verwarming en de voortdurende lectuur van de vijf boeken die je mee zou nemen naar een onbewoond eiland."

"When his neighbour on Patmos, the BBC reporter Peter France, asked him eagerly about his conditions for a life in solitude, he answered simply that you need a wooden floor, since tiles are too cold, a good musquito oil, a functioning heater and the permanent reading of five books you would take to a deserted island."

Freddie Derwahl, Kluizenaars. Avonturen van de eenzaamheid. P. 33-34, "Champagne met Robert Lax".

Ways of seeing the world

(t)here

Yesterday I received a small package in the mail. I was awaiting it. Inside there was a map. I can’t show it here, because the location is secret. It is where the Refugio #3 is located. It is “daar”, “there”.

Refugio (Spanish for refuge, shelter, a safe place for pilgrims) is a project in which both the original makers and the participants relate to time and space. A shelter, designed and constructed by an architect, is used as a place to sleep, work, think, be, on a secret location somewhere in the Netherlands.

There has been a Refugio #1 (theme: letting go) and Refugio #2 (theme: holding onto). The third one is about Balance. Refugio #3: There …. at the place where everything falls into place. The journey into the unknown is connected with the personal search for the central things in life, the core, a search for ones’ personal motivations. It moves in-between letting go and hanging onto, in order to find answers. Searching for balance, there …. at the place where everything congregates.

I have been invited to spend a week in the Refugio. To do whatever I want to do as long as I hand in some traces of my time spent there. I don’t know what will happen but I will report here afterwards. I won’t be able to share anything with you that will give information about the location or what the Refugio #3 looks like though. You can see for yourself if you are curious. But only if you book your stay for a night there. More info (and images of Refugio #1 & #2) on this website: www.refugio.nu.

I am going there tomorrow. I will be off-line for a week, back online Monday June 6th and checking my messages for the last time tomorrow morning early. I won’t answer my phone, if you need to get in touch with me urgently you can send me a text message. Or send a carrier pigeon, I am friends with the birds, they know where to find me. Smoke signals might work as well but since I could be in any corner of the Netherlands you would have to make a huge fire somewhere central in the country and it won’t be very environmental friendly. Most things aren’t that urgent anyway. Waiting is good exercise.