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Ok.
Here I go then about myself.
I was born in may 35 years ago. The
first 11 years of my life, I lived in Belgium as a foreigner, as my parents
were considered as german (in fact they're half german - half dutch). We
lived in a big (When I went back there some years ago, it seemed much smaller,
but I suppose everything looks big when you're a kid) old farmhouse which
my parents had restored. We had a huge garden with many fruit trees, a
dog, chickens, ducks and even at a moment we had some cheep (special ones
which we afterwards gave to the Zoo of Antwerpen). I grew up there, going
to the school of the little village nearby.
I remember the farmer of the big farm
(a REAL one) in front of ours, early in the morning driving his cows over
the street and into the lane beside our house, I used to sit in the window
with my sister, listening to the cursing of the farmer and the noise of
his beating with the stick on the cows backs. We found it extremely interesting
to hear those curses (they were very long!!) and we used to try to repeat
them with our little voices trough the open window at six o'clock in the
morning, I also remember once (I must have been 3 or 4) when the whole
countryside was full of snow. We were looking out of the window of the
back door. And when we saw this white sea we wanted to swim naked in it.
So my mother (who was quite liberal -- we're talking about the end of the
sixties..) took our clothes off and opened the door. We swam. Well... we
jumped naked in the snow, took some steps, did some swimming movements
and hurried back to my mother who was waiting with big towels in the warm
house.
In fact I remember many nice things
of my early years. I seem to have been quite happy, uncomplicated, and
observing the world around me.
And I did not like my father.
My parents lived (what I would call
now) a bourgeois life with alternative edges.
My father used to earn a lot of money,
but (I knew all this afterwards) they didn't want to spoil us so we have
always thought that we were very poor (Imagine!! Who gets such an idea!!).
I remember us once in the neighbour's house, seeing a silver watch in their
crystal cabinet. We told our neighbour that she was so lucky to have that
watch, because we couldn't afford it, as we were too poor.
And think that my father was then earning
probably 4 times as much as her husband, who was the village postman.
This "poor" mentality still haunts
me today.
And it has influenced my life in a
way you would never think possible.
My parents were of a liberal style.
Intellectual, young, loving nature, organizing big garden parties with
many friends, walking in big groups through the country ( I remember we
used to walk some 20 miles or so, and call a friend at the "end of the
road" to prepare hot chocolate for our arrival) etc. We had music of the
Beatles, Rolling Stones, Allan Stivell, Maria Farandouri, etc. at home.
I liked singing so I used to sing most of it playback in the living room.
When I was 9, they decided that we
were going to eat and live the macrobiotic way. Most of you probably know
about it, but quickly: Macrobiotics is like the opposite of western way
of eating. It is no meat, no "white" grains, no sugar, everything biological,
no sweets (which luckily we usually did not have at home) etc. So from
"potatoes and sausages" we changed to "brown rice and seaweed".
I remember when we were told. We had
left with our class to go for a three week journey to the sea. Our parents
came to see us and told us the big news. I'm still proud today about our
reaction. We found it o.k. and the next day in the dining-room we proudly
told our classmates that we were no longer eating meat.
That was the first step.
Then followed Yoga, courses and finally
"Creative Energy" and our leaving for Ilicitis in Spain where the Universidad
de la Nueva Era was started. This was in 1977. I was 11.
This is now 24 years ago. I was only
a child then. But it was the beginning of my discovery journey.
In Ilicitis we had our own village
for the children. And we participated in the common tasks (I LOVED cooking
and taking care of the babies!). But we also took our bicycles and went
to the hunting reserve (an enormous lake) nearby to "borrow" a boat and
go for a "drive" through the reeds, or we went to walk for the whole day
through the countryside, playing blindman and nearly dying from laughter,
or we looked for our special paradise, which had to be a nice place, but
most of all had to provide a wide variety of fruit to pick.
These years where decisive in my life.
When I was 16 we left Ilicitis. We
went to France (my mother, my brother, my sister and me). My father was
supposed to go earn money in Belgium. (He works in the EEC). In France
I went back to school. I was growing up. And starting to get angrier with
my father (who did not take care of his family but sometimes played father,
coming home and showing his authority.)
I met a boy, fell in love, ran too
loose and after a relationship of 1 1/2 years, got pregnant. (I know now
that sooner or later it would have been unavoidable anyway, because I seem
to have wanted to be a mother all my life).
My daughter was born in may 1984.
Six months later the young father seemed
to think that all this responsibility was too much.
Our youthful "love story" ended there.
From then on I lived alone with my
little baby. I was young and free. And I had no obligations the first three
years. But at nineteen you don't know when to stop or what is right and
wrong. You don't think in those terms. I enjoyed life. I was still eating
and living healthily, and... smoking cigarettes (a lot!). And I was going
to be a perfect mother.
Unfortunately, all was not so perfect.
(Luckily I lived in France, where the social help is reasonably well organized).
After three years I had to start earning
money to live. Then started the problems. And I had nobody (no family)
for my child to stay with (the rest of the family had left France, and
all were too busy with themselves).
So from then on till now (sixteen long
years) I have felt every day more guilty of not being a mother at home
and not being able to be with my child during the day and giving her everything
she needed. It has been a horrible experience. And has taught me much about
the importance of the mother being with the child.
Circumstances brought me to Spain again.
Then to Holland in a futile attempt to "settle down" and study. I started
psycho-pedagogy. It was very interesting and just what I liked (I wanted
to work with problem children) but when we had to look for real examples
of what we were learning, I always thought of my daughter, and how she
had spent her life going from one home-for-the-day to another waiting for
her only family: me. Already I was able to see the effects of her being
alone, of not having a place, stability and a familiar surrounding.
I started to loose my temper and getting
desperate.
By then I had stopped smoking and I
don't know if it had an influence on it, but in that period I always seemed
to be crying. I couldn't stand it any more and in the end I left again
for Spain.
It is a terrible thing to know what
you have to do as a mother, to have your new-born child in your arms, being
full of dreams and expectations for the future, And then seeing the years
pass and seeing your child develop unexpected behaviours in reaction to
all the things that you didn't want to do but had to, or those you wanted
to do but couldn't.
It has ended up creating an unhappy
child and an unhappy mother.
But, I thought during all these years,
where is the world where I can live a human life, where my child can grow
up free, where these situations that oblige me to slowly destroy my child
don't exist.
I have never been able to settle down
because this society, this way of life has always seemed so useless to
me, that unconsciously, I seem to have avoided getting too involved in
it. Me, and of course my child with me.
After making my final choice of going
back to Spain and starting slowly to discover the answer to my longings,
it was not easier because the problems with my child were worse and I could
settle down even less, having found my aim, and having it so near.
It seemed even worse.
On the one side, my daughter wanted
more of me and was harder to handle, and on the other side, if I ever wanted
to get out of this, I had always time short. Another important thing was
the lack of family.
As well as myself, my daughter has
not really had a society, a community to which she belonged. Not even a
family. Only me. And I have been at times extremely authoritarian and insufferable.
Now we sit here, the teenager thinking
she is already grown up and the mother trying to get hold on what little
authority she has left.
I hope so much that we can leave here
before I loose my grip on her.
I want to be able to give her the freedom
she needs in a safe world. I want to be able to give her ALL she needs,
and not only half of it because I can't earn enough money. I want her to
finish growing up in a surrounding in which she can be the independent
youth she wants to be, in which she can try and experience all the things
she wants, without any danger. I want her to have a better life amidst
her own people. Parents like hers and children like her.
This is the only aim I have always
had.
And it's called Graciosa.
Now that I know where I want to live
and how, I suddenly understand the rest of my life. I remember never feeling
really at home anywhere. Never feeling the same as the rest of the people.
Never really having any friends (or rather feeling them as REAL friends).
Always feeling a difference.
Finding the way of life that was imposed
on me totally unliveable. Finding this society cruel, useless and many
other things more.
I discovered in my own flesh ( and
in that of my daughter) how wrong it is for a healthy person that does
not submit to the ruling ways. And also how difficult to carry on, once
you have discovered that you are in total disagreement with it.
Maybe you wonder why there is no family
in my life. Well, trough the years it's due to different reasons. First,
as I said before, all of them lived somewhere else and were more interested
in their own lives than in that of a perfectionist mother that needed "impossible"
things.
In those first ten years, my parents
were still partly involved with activities of the Agora, one of the departments
of the Universidad de la Nueva Era (University of the New Age). Personally,
I had nothing to do with it then, but I admired my mother for living and
working that way. "Someday" I also wanted to do something like that.
Then, one fine day, I made my own choice
and left for Spain. I started taking care of the lodging facilities for
the guest-lecturers of the University. From then on I also started to get
another view of my mothers activities. One day I became responsible for
the works. So my mother had to work under my "command". And I was determined
to do things right. From that moment, I started to have problems with my
mother who until then had been a good friend. But now jealousy seemed to
be stronger.
At that time the Agora started also
to receive more and more pressure from outside. My mother (as far as I
could see, which is not much) still tried to fight for her "dreams", but
in the end, she lost the battle.
My father became my mother's enemy.
And later they both became my enemy (as long as I kept doing what I wanted).
Since I made my own choice, which has turned out to be not what my parents
want, I have no family any more. One by one they were all "convinced" by
my father. They all turned away from me (or tried to get me back in the
club). None of them just stayed impartial.
It's so typical: When there is a seemingly
helpless victim, everybody takes the easiest position: with the apparently
strongest. (But remember:
don't speak too soon
for the wheel's still in spin
and there's no tellin' who that it's
namin'
for the loser now
will be later to win
for the times they are a-changin'
the line it is drawn
the curse it is cast
and the slow ones now
will later be fast
as the present now
will later be past
the order is rapidly fadin'
and the first ones now
will later be last
for the times they are a-changin'
I think that they all forget one thing,
as well those with the power, as the lowest on the ladder, who just follow
the current: You and only YOU, are responsible for your choices and decisions.
You have to admit the consequences of your decisions. If you choose the
coward's choice, if you choose the ignorant's choice, if you choose the
"normal" choice or if you just choose the easiest way out.. it all comes
back to you in one way or another.
So the best and only way is always
to let everybody make his own personal choice. If you make the wrong choice
because you are misled or badly informed, bad for you. That also is YOUR
responsibility. In the end we NEVER can make anybody responsible for our
own errors.
I have to admit that in this society,
which has made people totally ignorant of themselves in the deepest possible
way, it is hardly possible anymore to speak about "making choices" or "taking
responsibilities". For that you need a clear judgement, basic knowledge
(and I don't mean knowing how to count to three and to write your name!).
Where is your "free" opinion about, let's say, eggs if you don't know where
eggs come from, how they are made, what they're composed off, what is their
effect on the body in f.e. 1 year, 10 years or 60 years?! They make us
feel so smart because even the most stupid of us has "the right" to express
his opinion, whereas we don't even know what we speak about!.
It sounds so good. But we are only
cheated once again.
OF COURSE! everybody has that right.
It is so evident that is is strange that they should insist so much on
it. You know, they wouldn't insist that much if we were less stupid than
we are. It is like telling a toddler that you will listen to his opinion.
Sure you will (hardly hiding your boredom!). But will you ever take it
seriously??
I could go on about this for days.
There are so many things which are so absolutely dramatically wrong.
I suppose you will already have noticed
that I'm not one for writing. I prefer to speak. To me it seems impossible
to say all the things I want to express in a few sentences. And more often
than not I end up with the feeling that I have said the opposite of what
I meant.
But.. at least you know a bit more
about me.
Now some less "serious" aspects of me.
It must seem that I'm always "changing the world" and maybe I am.
But I can also be a totally "unserious"
person. (I like to see always the positive side of any thing or situation
and I like to laugh and make fun.)
As I have said before, I try to eat
healthily. As I'm living in Spain for the moment, that is not easy, because
here, healthy biological whole food is still considered as luxury or food
for rich people wanting to lose weight. That makes it quite expensive.
But anyway, even if it wasn't.. it would never be "good enough" for me.
I think that healthy food should be an evidence. And it should be based
on normality and not on big nice theories.
As you will imagine if you have read
the rest, due to my living in different countries, I speak 5 languages.
(I don't say that to boast, it's only a fact and it's very useful). That
is not the only result of my "travelling" life. In fact I think that I
could have been the first real European. Born in Belgium from german-dutch
parents. Dutch nationality. Grown up in a flemish-french country. Lived
for 4 years in Spain. Then 8 years in France. Then one in Holland. Then
again Spain for the last 7 years. One grandfather is polish. Mother born
in former Russia. French daughter with Catalan blood and belgian grandma.
(And I feel that at least once in my former lives I MUST have been an American
indian and a Celt...) What a mixture!
And funniest of all is that I don't
feel any bond at all with any of it. My country and homeland is Graciosa.
(You can find a bit more about this new nation here
and also in my links
page.)
I love reading. In the page "Bibliography"
I want to make a list of all the books that I love. I have a passion for
Irish, scottish, celtic, gaelic and old english culture, music, history
etc. I love historical "romances" (if they are not too stupid). And I love
philosophy and books about scientific discoveries. (You'll find the list
here.)
I like a lot of different styles of
music. From "Chants d'Auvergne" by Victoria de Los Angeles to the last
song of Metallica (a slow one.. I don't know its name). You can find more
about all my favourite songs and singers here.
I like going to
the movies, although to my taste they don't make many beautiful movies
lately. Or maybe they don't get to the spanish cinemas. You'll find some
of my my favourite movies here.
In general I prefer human stories,
movies about survival or a simple story about normal people. I hate violent
pictures and movies like Scream and all those stupid stories about young
people killing each other. That is the direct cause of all the violence
in the schools and amongst youth as the last years mass media make of violence
and killings a nice thing. I neither like most american movies. Without
offence against the american people reading me, but people in american
films and series (at least in what we can see in Europe) always seem to
be stupid, empty brained and hysterical. A good example is Ally Mc Beal.
This TV-series has been a real success here. I'm lucky because I have never
seen it, except for some short extracts. But.. I don't understand how anybody
can like this show of stupid, unmature hysterical behaviour. If these are
models of behaviour for young people.. what are we teaching our kids??
Or what are we learning ourselves?
One of the last movies I've seen was
Autumn in New York. But what a deception. (Nowadays I almost never can
go to the movies anymore so it was meant as a treat!) I've seldom been
so bored watching a movie. It's an empty, slow story and ... Richard Gere
is
not really as good looking as I thought!! Then I'd rather see "Charlie's
Angels" which (comparing) at least is funny, charming, active (not too
violent) even if it's not "highly intellectual" and if most of the male
characters are extremely stupid.
What more??
Here
is a list of some people I admire
If you'd like to see some pictures
of my small family, here is my picture
book
I'm also looking for some different
things. I want to make a kind of message
board and I hope that some people will be able to help me.
And last but not least, know that I
wait for your mails and that I will work on this web site as often as I
can. So please come back later.
E-mail
Thank you all!
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About
me