I”m sitting in front of a nice meal and I am just so happy. The no-real-reason-to-be-happy-happy. Just happy. I notice how much this feeling is me. This is where I know myself best, I have feeling-memories through all my life feeling this way. Same goes for panic when I think of it. It always feels the…

I often have the stuffy feeling people want more than I can give. Time, attention, dinner dates. I feel I am disappointing all over the place. It makes me angry and I feel like walking up the mountain alone and get away from everybody. Just leave me alone! I know this has nothing to do with…

The children play in the river all morning. When they start to ask about food I hide behind my computer. I am trying to finish an article. Yes it is holiday time, but I have a deadline. And they are playing, right? I throw in some peaches. Here’s food, healthy, they’re organic. I am present….

A new bus driver drives up the road into the next village 7 km ahead, which ends in a roundabout: “Wow this really is the end of France!” Here, in this little fortress at the foot of the high Pyrenees, is the school, the bakery and the pharmacy (and a small but great cinema!). Until somewhere in the…

7 o’clock walk up the mountain to write and back home through the river.

Walking my familiar path up the mountain through the woods, memories come creeping down from the tree trunks. Last winter I almost divorced. For the second time. The first time was 24 years ago. Suddenly I am 13 years old again and watch my parents divorce. I watch them shaking their heads when they look at each other….

Home. Breath out. Home. I turned the car on the village square yesterday night in the pouring rain. Everybody in the car was sleeping. It rained too hard to get out of the car. A summer storm. The windscreen wipers doing overtime in front of me. And I just sat there and looked at the…

In dutch we have the word zelfvertrouwen, which means ‘self confident’. But in this word ‘confident’ is the same word as ‘trust’. Literally it says self trust. It was only last winter that I learned about this zelfvertrouwen. I thought it means to stand up for yourself, to be confident enough to find your place in the world, start new…