Green

She had been drinking sweet white wine today, watching faces without seeing them, turning her eyes off in the evening and unfocus on pink clouds.

She finally sees the connections though, and the unmagical reasons behind it. But she doesn't know if she wants to see. She would wish to step out of the narrative following her. Does this really mean she needs to 'pick up on a storyline she abandoned about more than a year ago? It feels way too green-yellowish, but it fits the story... That never-ending one.

Don't try this at home

breathing
unexpected fire

feel a new warmth
in your veins

flames of
sudden soft desire

in a heart where
tremble reigns

I didn't even get close to them. They ran away as soon as I took my voicerecorder and paper with questions. MEPs on vote-mission, hurry, hurry, still 5 more meetings to attend. "Goodbye! Vote for me, please! Of course we will enlarge the budget for youth!

"...even thoough we didn't even mention the European Youth Program (Youth in Action) in our one-hour debate. Youth, Europe and Mobility, that must be Erasmus, right? " As far as I know Erasmus is the responsibility of Education... "We should bring European youth together every 6 months to debate about Europe and Youth, there should be a 'lobby'-group for youth" proposed one of them. The woman behind me was deeply shocked. "But... but...", she whispered to her neighbour, "that already exists!". After the MEP-debate I talked to the Swedish Mr. Nillson, expert for Youth and Education in the European Commission. He explained me about the European Youth Platform, the'Flemish Youth Council, the European Youth Council, Jan Van Hee (the Flemish watchdog of the Youth Programme), etc. In other words, many people in the Flemish Parliament hall (where the debate was organized) knew much more about the topic than the 6 MEPs reinventing the warm water in front of a noisier and noisier audience. Even Frieda Brepoels (New-Flemish Seperatists), Dirk Sterxk (Liberals) and last but not least one of the pary members of the Rightist Lijst De Decker called Kristof Van Der Cruysse, didn't take time to read through the Europe & Youth programme before attending the debate about this topic. Fortunately at least Said El Khadraoui (Socialists) and Bart Staes (Green!) contributed something to the debate by sharing the fact all new European resolution will have a special paragraph about the impact this resolution will have on Youth. The Rightists couldn't withstand the urge to ridulize it "Impact on Youth? Why not impact on seniors? Impact on the poor? Impact on disabled? Impact on animals?"

Maybe that was actually the only unintentionally wise thing said during the debate: "because yes, why not? "

No happy ending...

And suddenly you realize your life has turned into a soap opera of a level nobody even wants to watch. You go over the cliche lines of musicals and pop songs as a soundtrack for your personal drama. There have been many soundtracks so far, acquiring more meaning with every listening. Some even manage to make you cry.

I will meet more MEPs in Brussels today. Finally. Think About It must be disappointed by now, after almost one month of silence. And I am going to take up my life again between the lines. That's the plan... at least. This soap doesn't need to go on. Fairy tales or subtile fiction would be welcome ...

'Juicy meat', bloody corpse

My life a labyrinth, my weekends a quest. An emptiness that desperately needs to be filled. Images, words, these endless thoughts. The third weekend in a row the railroads lead me to Leuven and Brussels. My country. Brussels, my capital. Leuven, the student's heart. I was a tourist in the Katholic University of Leuven, taking pictures during the Anthropology and Disability lecture, executing my own anthropological research of 'the Belgian anthropology student'as a participant observer. One desillussion richer?

I don't know. What I know is that my first impression of the boy with the colourful South-American bag was disrupted after 2 minutes. He was sitting next to me, totally in line with my positive prejudice of the alternative, open-minded 'I love culture'-student. But then he grabbed a paper bag. I could smell the odour of baked dead corpses. Suddenly I tried to distant myself from the situation, imagine myself in a fake world. He became a wild animal, clawing his fingers in the dead flesh of another animal that he didn't even kill himself Ribs. Í've seen people eating 'meat' before, 22 years long. But never so close, never so particulary devouring, never during an Anthropology of the Body lecture while a confused professor talked incessantly about the traditions and symbols of the Himba-tribe in Namibia. The boy kept tearing the muscles, skin, veins, fat from the animals bones. Cooked and baked of course, the mimicry of seasoning and deformation, but that didn't fool my eyes to see the animal inside. The boy, a coward lion, licking his lips by putting the body parts of another's pray in his mouth. A pray that was still alive some days before. A pray he probably wouldn't have want to touch with his lips and tongue when she (the animal) was still an innocent victim in a factory farm, a pray he wouldn't have dared to kill. How many people would eat animals if they had to kill them with their bare hands and devour them uncooked without the sauce of transformation. An absent referent. When the dead animal corpse becomes 'meat'. The lion/boy kept putting pieces of animal in his mouth for about half an hour. There was a girl sitting next to him. His girlfriend? "Wilt ge ook een stukske? (do you also want a piece?) he asked her. She took over the half eaten skeleton and ripped a bite a flesh from the bones. You could almost hear the muscles break. The female lion gets the left-overs, the male takes the lion's part.
When there were only bones left, he put it back in the bag. The bag on the writing desk in front of his chair. Too make it worse he told his friends how 'tasty' and ' juicy' the flesh around the animal ribs tasted. The girl confirmed as a faithful female lion does. Maybe I wouldn't be a good anthropologist anyway. Even my 'own culture' takes me to the edge of vomiting from time to time...

(me, reading The sexual politics of Meat on the train)

Foolish

1 april 2009, probably the first April's fools day that I didn't fool anyone. Why should I, when the world is fooling with me all year? I am the fool in the cardgame. Foolish. Fool. A strange tasting word, slightly bitter. Synesthetic, you would say, tasting words on your tongue while you write them, happy to use an unusual blue-ish one in a banal context.

There are things I can write. About the young purple heath in Zonhoven, the dog's tail dancing some meters in front of me, my grandparents showing their love in fresh tomatoes with spices, in watching a daily tv-quiz together and correctly guessing all the answers in the second round (even though we know we are only correct because the other candidate answered the same series of questions just some minutes before), by an soja dessert they kept in a corner of the fridge in case their only vegan grandchild would visit them finally. I love them. On my way I had been reading a book about a grandfather begging for euthanasia. Damn, euthanasia is everywhere the last week: a Belgian 93-year old went on a hunger strike because the doctors refused her a death in dignity, a documentary on the television about EXIT, an NGO in Swiss that helps people in killing themselves. Just knowing that my grandfather personally went to the city office on his bike to declare he wants a 'humane death' in case his health doesn't allow him to cut trees and collect stones anymore. Will life loose its worth for my opa when his bike does not allow him a ride anymore? Come on, he is only 81, is healthier than any other person his age I know. I understand the wish of a goed-death, I am just too selfish to think about saying goodbye. Even my 17 year old cat, whose furry skin has grown too large for her boony body, will live an eternal life in my perfect world.

There are things I can't write about. So I do. And fail... and miss... more than ever.

When does my reflection show who I am inside...

Twintig centimeter haar armer. Misschien wel net zoveel als ik spaarde in 5 jaar. Twaalf veganburgers rijker, twee statistiekboeken armer (die leven nu weer veilig in de Hasseltse bibliotheek). Het leven is altijd een beetje geven en nemen, het wordt gezegd, zeggen ze, ach wat.

Zonnig Limburg in de lente, narcissen en blauwklokjes in een Maastrichts stadsparkdeel waarvan ik het bestaan nog niet eens besefte. Dromen van Maasmalecon-romantiek. Cliche's van lichtjes en reflecties. Wie reflecteert welke frustratie op wie? Cluedo mysteries zonder monopoly-kanskaartjes. En ik blijf me afvragen hoe vaak een mens haar identiteit verliezen mag, als het al zover komt dat ze zichzelf niet meer in de spiegel herkent?