Porcelain doll
Early in the morning, when I am just awake and still in bed the stories are there. A head full of stories that I don't have time to write. As soon as I get up, the day begins. Duty calls, the children call, the dogs bark, the cats meow, the chickens cluck and there is so much to do. Soon I will write them down, I promise myself. It's one of those promises where nothing comes of it. Soon, too, I will be busy and soon I will have forgotten them or other things will be playing through my head. I am always busy, the unexpected is lurking but, above all, I always tend to create work.
The sun is shining after days of fog and freezing cold followed by rain so time to wash jumpers, cardigans, and bathrobes. Soon I am three washes down.
It takes a bag of firewood and a bucket of kindling. This is the ratio for the day.
The stories are forgotten. When I finally sit down, I am tired. Tired of doing and dragging. My joints ache and I get nauseous from sitting because of the damage to my neck. Keeping that neck warm is also a day and night task, as are the shoulders and head, the scarf presses on my neck and it hurts, the hat I always lose.
My head is empty, I have no more stories I think at least a few times a day. It is time to stop writing there is so much to do, to see, I suddenly have other interests or maybe I am no longer interested in sharing what is going on in my head. I still type on my phone with one finger and my hands and arms hurt. Very from holding the phone, from typing after a day in the cold.
If it is cold, maybe everything cramps up my brain included? I can't remember the last time I relaxed. Was I ever relaxed? I doubt it. Even in my sleep, I don't look relaxed. The dentist used to say that I clamp my jaws together too hard in my sleep, which damages my teeth, just like grinding your teeth in your sleep. Teeth grinding do people do that when they are awake? It is often said and written that someone is grinding their teeth. That someone is always a he, a man. Women do not grind teeth they clench their jaws together. (Having to) keep the mouth shut, picking and swallowing everything, forever compromising, not being allowed to be yourself is a woman thing. In 2022, women still don't count. In her opinion, well-being does not matter. They do, however, get abused to disturb the peace and drive pleasure through others. Women are not just the maternal, compliant, eternally loving type. A woman is dangerous if you underestimate her and her limits are crossed for too long in the process she is not loyal to her peers. Women do not conspire when it comes down to it she is a loner who goes on the warpath without scruples. Do not underestimate women, especially when they are pushed to the limit.
I want to read!
St Nicholas is over. I got the desired book that has long since been out of print. The book I once read that made a lasting impression on me. Especially the sister with the golden ringlets and the oh, so sweet face and perfect figure. The apparition within which a monster dwells. A monster that no one seems to see but that the younger sister Paula does get to deal with.
When I read the first page I hesitated but by page two I was already captivated by the story. Although it takes place two generations before me I recognize a lot. I was definitely brought up old-fashioned but it's not just that. Nowadays, no one notices that the Dutch language has been influenced by French. I learned all those words and expressions but today the words have changed, simplified because stupid people have trouble learning a language. What a strange solution though today I understand that governments would rather create stupid people than intelligent people who ask questions. Many questions are being asked today. Worldwide demonstrations are taking place and many know that they have been duped, lied to, and, voluntarily or not, become the guinea pigs of Big Pharma and the government. You can get angry about that but own stupidity you cannot blame anyone for that. All those stupid people who don't stay alive are not meant to. There are too many people and white people have proven to be no good at playing the slave and believing everything they are told.
See first (provide proof), then believe is an expression of the down-to-earth Dutchman. The sober Dutchman probably means the farmer. The same farmer who keeps millions of people alive but who has now been forced out by the government. The polluting Schiphol airport will not emit less CO2 but will compensate for those emissions. Compensation comes by making farmers stop working. Don't you wonder what people are going to eat then? Just for your information: the Dutch farmer keeps a lot of people alive outside the Dutch borders. In addition, the seed industry is also in Dutch hands. So think carefully before you say something. You can blame whites for everything, but this is where the history lies for many countries. Colonists have brought a lot that otherwise wouldn't be there. Sewage, running water, better construction, and agricultural techniques. Architecture, technology, medical developments. Let's be honest, if there were no settlers, many countries would still be living in prehistoric times. Not that that would be a bad thing. There is life without Nestlé, who believes that people have no right to free drinking water, there is life without Adidas, natural gas, (electric) cars, bicycles, American airlines, fake news, and food pyramids made up by the food industry. There is life without newspapers, magazines, public transport, food factories, Big Pharma, doctors who get paid to stuff you with (experimental) medicines, and schools that don't teach you how to be independent. There is life without thousands of rules and laws about how to behave and when to think and do. A good life is even possible without electricity and a bank account. A loan is not necessary to live a good life and be satisfied with yourself and what you have achieved. One's own qualities and successes do not have to be measured against those of another who does not know what freedom is. To be angry at what someone else has achieved is to be angry at your failure. To hate the white man because he has achieved something is to say that the white man is smarter than you, but also to admit that you are blind to the naked truth.
There are poorer than rich white people and not everyone is equally smart. No need to keep reinventing the wheel be glad someone else already did and take advantage of it.
Those who do not want to have anything to do with that white man should not want to profit from everything they have invented. Those who don't work don't get anything to eat, is an expression that was often said among us. Those who do not work have no right to speak and no right to inheritance.
The book I received reminds me of how it used to be.
Two sets of clothes, self-sewn clothes, bread porridge, the French language, and the porcelain doll. I never looked like a porcelain doll, but my mother did. Also in that porcelain doll lurked a monster that no one saw or wanted to see. It spewed fire and poisoned everything around it with a smile and charm that men in particular fall for. Now I remember why as a child I had an outburst of anger when someone said: I am a porcelain doll.
This was about 7 years before I read the book 'The Eyes of Roosje' for the first time. A book in which I recognize myself, although I am not a Dutch girl, the daughter of a Dutch schoolmaster and French governess who came to the Netherlands in the hope of getting married without a dowry. I wasn't born in 1905 but that doesn't matter. I recognize myself in the characters, statements, thoughts, and way of life of that time. A world without television, or radio, where telephone calls were not standard but news did spread, and telling stories was quite normal at home, on the street, and at school. We worked, kept a vegetable garden, and didn't take a pill for every ache. We were satisfied with how we lived and changed, reforms were not high on the wish list. Now the question is how to go back to that time, how to be happy after a spoiled life where others always did the work for us. We have lost our skills, our identity, depending on money and whoever is in debt is the property of the creditor, the scrooge, the publican, whom not even the bible has a good word for.
