zondag 10 december 2017

The Holidays Are Coming?!






The last couple of weeks have been very busy work wise and I have found my way to the yoga-studio as well.  I am now back into what I call a very nice and safe routine. One that I can make me feel comfortable and at ease. Yeah, I am zen…that is as long as my body wishes to follow along and that is momentarily not the case.  Today I even had to get out the white flag due to painful feet, pain in my lower back, an irritated left eye that after 4 months still does not clear up and blisters on the heel of my right foot.  Oh and also my nose and throat produce sounds and fluids that are not considered as business as usual.   Yeah, I am at war with my body at the moment and yoga does not seem to help the healing process.  Even have to point out that some of the pain is connected with the yoga.  Seems that like all what I dive into I have overdone it.   So today instead of sitting in zen position and bending all my body parts and trying to stay up right I am home drinking a cup of George Clooney coffee and crossing my fingers that things will clear up soon. 


My GP told me that I need to be patient concerning my eye and that it might take months before that is healed.   Momentarily I put three times aday annoying cream in there (and this for a whole f****** month) and all I can say that it is very ANNOYING.  I am so tempted instead of opening doors of our lovely Bear Paddington advent calendar to create a cross out calendar to get unharmed through those 4 weeks.  Who ever came up with the idea to put eye cream in those tiny tubes in the first place!!?? You should see me trying to get the sticky cream into my eye.  It is hilarious and there is cream all over the place but not in my eye. Or at least it takes me a few times to get it right in there and leave it in there.  Guess you are getting the picture…

I am fed up with it and it does not help either that it is outside freezing cold and wet, a horrid combination. The moment I walk outside all my body parts even hurt more. Thermal underwear and skiing outfits might end up on my wish list for Christmas.  I also still have to order my new Moleskine diary for 2018, book my beautician and hairdresser, do most of my present shopping and wrapping, put up our tree (we decided to go eco friendly and I can not wait to get it out of its square box), bake cookies, tackle the Christmas mail, putting together a few menus to keep us food wise entertained during the holidays,….. My Holidays-to-do-list in very long and I bet that most of these things I will end up doing last minute…as always…but that is what  I like best about Christmas.  That might sound a bit like I am being sarcastic but I am not.

One of the things we have been doing is creating our annual Christmas card and that is a very lengthy and painful process. First of all I first have to engage into a very long battle with my photo program on my computer. Every year again it seems that the ‘create your own Christmas card’-option on the website that we use already for years has come up with some an update that includes some ‘cool&fun’ features but can only f**** up my mind.  Every single year again I have those moments while trying to upload a selection of pictures that I wonder if I should rather buy some nostalgic  Hallmark cards.  Honestl,  I then end up cursing at my screen and I am then so close to just throw my computer through the window.   

Is it that much to ask to create an easy to use uploading program in combination with some cool and great lay out options?   User friendly seem to be two words that I can not seem to combine with creating our family Christmas card.  And if you think that the battle is fought when I then have finally figured it out how the export pics and import them into the program you are wrong.  It is only then that it the fight really begins. 

First of all I then come to terms with the fact that there are no pictures of the three of us together. I am dead serious.  I am the one at home who walks around most of the time with the camera. P lives in the now and here modus and is also not easy to capture on camera.  So I am the one who is trying to capture all those picture perfect moments we share as a family or on my own while wandering through Brussels and beyond.   The creation process it self is easy peasy due to the fact that I already way ahead of Christmas have picked out the pics I wish to use for this joyous card.  I then click away almost blindly and add some stardust and glitter and feel like a pro creating five star greeting cards.  Hmm, yeah right it is all perception I guess! ;-)  But then that one dreadful moment comes…

‘So, what you think, any good to send off to family and friends world wide?’, and then I show him my computer screen.  P then stares at the creation that has taken me sometimes hours and ex- & internal curses.  Most of time his face tells me all I need to know.  ‘Hmm, not sure…’, and he then shovels the screen back to my side of the living room table.  I am sure that I do need to point out what it makes me feel like…

The thing is that this year it has taken me so much more time and energy. I am even at the point that I am wondering if it is even worth while to send out well wishes to the world.  No please, do not take it personal that I am bit disappointed in mankind. It is just that I feel let down myself. It seems that I have not been living up to the expectations of many.  In 2018 I am even considering to do the same as P and that is not going on Facebook anymore.  Just a minute ago I did come across a comment that in Belgium all traditions are scary… and I feel hurt.

It is already going on for few months that I feel the odd one out.  No, I don’t dive in my keyboard to then scream and shout at ‘strangers’.  Yes, I still give them all the benefit of the doubt but the self reflection process is then still taking place.  Seems that lots of people feel hurt, humiliated, discriminated, wronged in their feelings when it comes down to what my nation stands for. It goes very very far…believe me.

People even make comments about the way my mother tongue sounds different to the Dutch spoken in the Netherlands and that they don’t understand me. While I have not a single problem understanding them and finding out what they wish to tell me. Otheres even ignore me while spitting out a comment about Belgium. It happens daily and do you honestly think that it does affect me?  But then I am the odd one out…I love my nation dearly, I do hate it at times as much as you do and I do not always agree with the policies and administration they have put in place. I am not that much different to you but this is my home soil. It is were I try to be a responsible citizen and where I try to be proud of what we stand for.  Can you also understand that please?

Deep down I know I so much know what to do and it won’t be easy but it is necessary.  After I have enjoyed the holiday delights my body wishes to be signed up for boot camp.  There is no way back… but still it does hurt. I do not wish to be on a rant but many of you out there seem to think that it is very necessary to just tell what you think and feel.  Is it then that many of you just  hope that we all just swallow it down and get on with our lives and come up with our own justifications, adjustments and adopt? Just wondering.....  Still, it is a very tiring process.

Telling me that I do not need to take it personal all that I read and hear about my nation, my politicians and my traditions does not help.  Why in the first place then you express them? Why do you then seem to ignore me while I am just standing next to you in the same room?  Do you honestly do think that I am deaf... that I do not have got feelings and that I have got no empathy or no shame what so ever?  Is because you need to get rid of your own personal frustrations and that you feel the urge to express your opinion openly and freely no matter what the consequences are?  Or do you just think that it is all just a joke and that nobody will feel offended by them in first place?  Life goes on no matter what.  Despite North Korea launching an other rocket, Trump moving his embassy from Telaviv to Jerusalem, unhappy youngsters causing havoc in our capital,  Catalan people invading Brussels, Brexit talks that do not make any senses anymore, educational upheaval/strikes in the Netherlands and Belgium, and the list goes on and on…. it goes on…but I still feel like I am the odd one out. 

I have seriously considered not showing up on our Christmas card this year because I have been too busy observing, listening, and searching for the beauty, the hope, the faith and good intentions that is still out there. All I can say that I very much looking forward to putting up  our eco-friendly Christmas tree,  getting behind the steering wheel of our new car that is considered a bit more eco friendly and will be charged by the power we are getting out of our solar panels,  hovering the house with a vacuum cleaner that is has got the right EU-labels, turning down the furnace one more degree and putting on Christmas jumpers that have been produced in countries that tell us that they do not use child labor, hoping from the bottom of my heart  it will slow down climate change for a split second, washing laundry with eco friendly products and not getting all the stains out of them, filling up tumblers with the Belgian gin by the lovely name ‘Save the Queen’ that tries to save the bee population, putting together holiday menus with local products that have bio-friendly labels on them or at least have been produced locally, riding into Brussels to visit the Christmas market using public transport in the hope I am not adding time to a longer traffic jam, wrapping my presents in recycled gift paper, trying to use language and singing holiday carols that are political correct (yes including Sinterklaas ones that do not mention Zwarte Piet, believe me I have done that) and not hurting anyone’s feelings, cooking my meals in olive oil that has been produced in the EU with EU cultivated olives and bying fish that is labeled ocean friendly, taking showers with paraben free shower cream and ingredients that are considered not influencing my hormones, using make up that is not tested on animals,  buying christmas cards and tiny stocking fillers from people that volunteer for charities they strongly believe in,…..

You see, I all take it personal.   I am  fighting my own little private war to make the world a better world.  I am quite sure you are fighting you own one as well.  The difference is that I not constantly scream it out how I annoyed I feel about certain opinions that some of you express very loudly or at least not when I have got an live audience . 

So please forgive me not to be as upbeat for the moment and I am very busy to help to save the world in my own way but unfortunately I might end up still hurting people in the process.  Do not take it personal…but I very much try to respect all of you. All I can do is just try.  Can I just say that I am so happy that the new Star Wars in coming out quite soon in theater quite soon.  I feel the pain that Luke Skywalker feels so much…and share his gospel.  Perhaps it is time to put a light saber on our annual Christmas card????   I STILL LOVE YOU...I DO!  Believe me ! Even if I have been misled… or at least feel like that at some days of the week. Love can move mountains.  No??





PS: I promise you a more upbeat Holiday blog entry quite soon but I needed to get it out of my system. Interesting to read after reading this might be this article about that one Jedi that kind of tells what I do feel like momentarily.
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/the-gospel-according-to-luke-loss-sacrifice-and-salvation-in-star-wars-20171204-gzyhsn.html
 

And this week Belgians and French people said goodbye to the one and only performer that so well expressed the feelings that many French speaking people wish to tell the world in his songs.  Johnny Hallyday will be missed by many.  So that is why I opted for this song. Sorry in case this is not your cup of tea but many love his music and that is also the case for that other performer in this music clip. ;-)

The second clip I picked out to go along with this entry because this is one of the Lindsey Stirling tracks that I will put on when driving home and need to find back my 'grinta'.  Plus that a lot seems to be like a mirage in the 21st century.  Power music that manages to get the energy level back up in my body and mind.  I have seen her performing on stage and believe she is ace! So is her Christmas album but that one I am saving for on an other entry.