We are back in Amsterdam in our old house, for summer. Children to their old school, sitting with the neighbours in front of our house, waking up in our own bed. Like nothing ever happened. France feels really far away.

You can change so much, but in the meantime you don’t change at all. Being back I do the same things I did before. I am busy again. Full of plans, appointments, ready to make it all happen. The energy of the city is crazy and amazing. What had worn me out so much, is giving me so much enthusiasm now. Coming from the ’empty’ mountain into the ‘full’ city where life seems so much easier in a practical  sense. Being in France reveals all the nonsense of our society. And being here it all fills up again so quickly. All the space in my heart is just overblown by everything. It is hard to hear your own voice in a place that communicates so much. Though I really like being here. I like the feeling you can make things happen, you can become.

It highlights my struggle with ‘work’. And how to fit it into my life. Ever since I decided to turn the tables, and stop fitting my life around work, I am lost. Everybody seems to be molding their lives around their job to such an extreme level and with such thin layers that it’s hard to find other ways to do it. It still feels like you’re in or you’re out. And when I’m not in, I am just out. Nothing in the grey area I try to create so bad. I am just there alone speaking Chinese.

My new documentary plan is reaching more serious forms, but I don’t know how I’m going to realize it. Am I going to jump into the big cold pool and let myself drown all over again, before I crawl back on land exhausted and emptied? Or am I going to resist and is it going to be one long struggle because everyone I work with just wants to jump in, and is waiting for me? Is there any other option?

Life has been one big surprise so far. Every time I form ideas, they turn out different. So now I have all these ideas about what work is and should be, and I don’t know what is true anymore. The only thing I know is that life has much more fantasy than I do.

Finally good coffee again and a familiar chocolatine.

Friends reunited.

The job.