Dreams are part of this journey and appear here regularly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Freedom

 

14 February 2026

Because of the assumptions I often hear about my condition, my thoughts naturally drift toward philosophical reflections. What does something actually mean? For me — and for someone else?

The word. How is a word used? What weight do you attach to it? Does that change its meaning — or does it make it heavier?

Today it is about one word: freedom.

When I think of it, my first association is: being able to move freely. Healthy people rarely think about that. For them, movement is self-evident. For me, it is not. So here already, meaning begins to differ.

For someone in prison, freedom means being outside. Going wherever you want. For a Westerner, freedom often means being able to say whatever you think. In other countries, that is impossible. Not having to go to school. Not having to work. No obligation. No compulsion. That can feel like freedom. Having money to buy what you want. Being able to act. To choose.

But then the reversal.

If you are disabled — can you not experience freedom? If you are imprisoned — does freedom not exist? If you are poor, limited, dependent — is freedom impossible? Or does it lie somewhere else?

I once heard an Arab man say:
“Freedom is forgiveness.”

That landed deeply.

In some languages and religious traditions, freedom is connected to letting go. To not holding on. To no longer carrying guilt, resentment, blame. Within my own life philosophy, that makes sense.

For me, freedom is not an external condition. It is an inner state. In the silence I always seek — and find — I encounter strength. Insight. Autonomy. That silence is not emptiness. It is the eye of the storm. Outside, it rages. Inside, something builds.

Especially in difficult moments, I return to that place. There, I feel freedom. Not because there are no limitations, but because I no longer resist what is.

After the silence, the storm may continue. I know I can face it.

This source — this silence — is my core. There I find freedom, regardless of circumstances. And perhaps — just perhaps — this is something every human being carries within. Especially when life on the outside is not cooperating.

Freedom is not the disappearance of limits.
It is the release of what binds me from within.
In silence, compulsion dissolves.
And what remains — moves freely.

 

 

 

 

 

The Nanosecond

13 February 2026

The heart clinic’s blood service called today to schedule an appointment for Monday. Unfortunately, they couldn’t set a specific time.
“Do you have anything planned that day?” she asked kindly.
“I train in the morning.”
“Oh, surely you can skip it just once.”
My response came in a nanosecond: “NO.”
A brief silence. “Oh… then I’ll make a note of that… but I can’t promise anything.”
“I’m not home between 10:15 and 11:15. I’ll be training. The rest of the day I’m available.”
“Thank you, I’ll note it. You’ll receive a text when they’re nearby.”
“Alright — have a nice weekend.”

I worked in healthcare myself for years. I remember how things could be arranged with pen and paper. Ten slots — but there was always room to squeeze one more in. A footnote, a human margin. Since automation, scheduling has become systematic and fixed. No space in between. Assistants can hide behind the system — full is full, not connected, not possible. Don’t get me wrong: I earned my automation diploma in the 1980s. I find progress interesting and like to move with technology. But sometimes you notice how systems make people impersonal — or relieve them of responsibility.

There was no space to explain that training is not a hobby for me. Not a luxury. It is recovery, stability, autonomy. It belongs in the same category as eating, sleeping, washing — self-preservation. That doesn’t fit neatly into a computer schedule. For me, the conversation was done. I let it go. Monday would unfold as it would.

That afternoon Ton and I drove to pick up a grandchild, an hour and a half away. Friday traffic — a day-long trip. Then my phone rang. A friendly woman. She had heard from her colleague that I train Monday morning and cannot skip it. Would it be alright if she scheduled me first, so I could train afterward and wouldn’t have to wait all day?
I laughed. “That’s perfect — thank you so much.”

Did my nanosecond shift something? I don’t know. But it’s reassuring to discover it’s still possible. Not a computer with a woman — but a woman with a computer. That call made my day.

Boundaries don’t have to be harsh to be clear.

Sometimes one honest moment opens space.

Humanity doesn’t disappear inside systems —

it simply waits to be seen. And today,

I saw it looking back at me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheese Twists

 

11 February 2026

Oh my God — I can’t stop laughing.

My husband is a man of habits. Fixed lines, familiar frameworks. He played squash for years — with complete devotion — until his knees gave out, literally worn down by the sport. But letting go of squash never really happened. He stayed involved. Manager of a premier league team his sons played in. Referee. Always part of the structure. Alongside his demanding job, this was his world. There wasn’t much room left for other interests — and that simply is what it is, without judgment.

Then things began to close.
Three years ago he chose not to renew his registration as a general practitioner. That chapter ended.
Last year the premier league team dissolved. Another layer gone.
And last Sunday he said goodbye to refereeing.

Last night I woke up because he shouted, “Help! Help!”
I was upright in bed instantly — fully awake. Luckily nothing was wrong. He had been dreaming.

He was playing squash. Outside. In a heath-like landscape of sand and shrubs — colourless, without walls, without glass, without boundaries. When two opponents suddenly appeared, panic struck and he started shouting. In the dream — and in reality.

I told him it wasn’t strange at all. When frameworks disappear, it can feel disorienting. Overwhelming. Maybe even threatening. What now, when the familiar falls away and nothing new has yet taken its place?
With a smile I teased him:
“No problem — it will be fine once you start following your wife. The horizon is already there.”

He owns several reading glasses — funny ones — which he has repaired a few times a year because a temple broke off or he sat on them. He’s been going to the same optician for forty years.
Next door is a pastry shop. That’s where he buys his beloved cheese twists — in his eyes the best in the Netherlands.

Recently they had changed. Different shape. Different taste. A small tragedy.
So he asked the woman behind the counter. She explained they were now produced in The Hague and that most customers actually liked them better. Ton tried to clarify what he meant. She insisted he must have bought them elsewhere.

And then came the moment — that look on his face.
He said — visibly regulating his breath:
“I immediately think of you… don’t get angry… breathe in and out… try kindly once more… Ma’am, I’ve been coming here for forty years and I buy them only here.”

He came home with cheese twists that neither had the shape nor the divine taste he loved.

Ah well, I thought. Another shift.
He even called it a momentum of loss.

But what I saw was something else.
That childlike expression when he came home. The seriousness with which he told the story.
I laughed until tears came — not at him, but at the beauty of life in motion. Where something closes and something new quietly opens.

For now, I’m simply glad he can see the humour in it.

Where frameworks dissolve,
the soul searches for new lines.
Sometimes it begins with panic,
sometimes with cheese twists that taste different.
And somewhere between loss and laughter
a new space quietly appears.

 

 

 

 

 

Home as an Inner Space

 

February 10, 2026

Visiting museums, cycling, being in nature, going on holiday — I can deeply enjoy all of that. But the moment I get back into my car and its nose turns toward home, there is nothing I want more than to be there as quickly as possible. The very idea lightens me. Every cell in my body rejoices. They seem to dance. Wonderful — going home again.

My home is not a place where I merely stay or sleep.
For me, it is an inner space.
Cycling nourishes movement. Going to a museum nourishes inspiration. Nature recharges me. Travelling opens perspective. But returning home restores my system.

In my childhood home, this existed in the intimate domain of my little room. Later that feeling remained — in every house I lived in. I always created a place that breathed my world, that carried my vibrations.

I don’t like staying over at other people’s homes — not even with my closest friends or family. If I am within a radius of five or six hours from home, I would rather drive back — even in the middle of the night. Visiting feels similar. There always comes a moment when my system immediately wants to go home. If I ignore that, I become heavy, nauseous, unwell.
In a theatre or cinema I prefer sitting on the aisle. Not because of the people — but because of my sensitivity.

It has taken nearly sixty years before I stopped adapting myself to the expectations of others in this. For the first time in my life, I can meet this sensitivity with self-respect. Perhaps those expectations lived more inside me than they truly existed outside. I am not certain. But it might very well be so.

What does my world look like?

As soon as you step out of the lift onto my floor, my paintings are already there. The coming home begins there. Enter my home, and the first thing you notice is colour. Those deep green-turquoise walls — vivid yet calming. My paintings present in the space, not as decoration but as conversation partners. I “dwell” with my work.
Light from outside enters through the windows and is filtered through coloured glass objects — light gaining meaning through form and colour.
On the table: my laptop, coffee mug, coasters, patterned textiles — practical, domestic, inviting. A place where life unfolds while writing happens. Even the small details — plants, animal figurines — carry the layered symbolism that speaks through my work.

I do not sit behind a desk.
I sit in the middle of my story.
Among my paintings, my colours, my light.

My home is my world — with its own vibrations, my moving stillness.
There is no other place that can do this for me.

Home is not a place I go to,
but a space in which I come together again.
What moves outside may land here,
and what arises here may return to the world.
Thus my stillness remains in motion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

KLARO

 

February 9 , 2026

There are moments when thinking stops. Not because there is nothing left to think about, but because the answer is already present within me. For me, that is called KLARO. It cannot be translated. It is not a word that explains something. It is a state. Strength, calm, boundaries, and transparency converge, making discussion unnecessary. My body says no — and that is the end of it. Not closed off, not defensive, but clear. On every level I stop, and yet I remain open.

Today I realized again how strongly that same mechanism shapes my creative process. I do not make work from a plan I execute. I gather, feel, test, put things aside, return. Buying foam, laying down wool, placing colors next to one another, letting half-finished paintings wait. Sometimes for years. These are not preparations; they are seeds. They speak when they choose to. My task is to make space, not to direct.

I often feel materials absent-mindedly. Running a hand across wool. Touching wallpaper in a hotel. The bark of a tree. Fabrics before I buy them. That sensing speaks through me without words. Only when it becomes embodied — in an image, a movement, an action — does it become audible. Then a flow takes over. Not mystical — simply a state in which doing and knowing converge. Driven and carried at the same time.

I believe anyone can experience this when stillness arises within movement. Not standing still, but allowing quiet movement. In that space work emerges that I always find beautiful. Not because it is perfect, but because it is truthful. It is a moment of myself that took form. Why would I reject that?

My works continue to live for me. Years later I discover new layers, new meanings. They move along with who I become. Perhaps they are not objects, but dimensions in which different versions of me continue to exist side by side.

For me, KLARO ultimately means the same as creating: listening, recognizing, acting — and trusting that time chooses its own moment. Trusting that I may listen to my boundaries. Trusting that those boundaries can dissolve as well. It is a trust that does not need to be fought for — not with myself, nor with another.

Where does listening begin, and where does acting end?
Which boundary protects — and which one opens space?
What may remain waiting until its time speaks?
And when stillness moves through my hands — who, then, is creating?

 

 

 

 

 

The Moving Island

 

February 8, 2026

When you write every day the way I do here, words begin to live.
What does this word really mean? Does it match what I feel or what I am trying to express? One such word is: MISSING.

What does that mean to me?
I never miss anyone.

When I say this, I know there are people around me who might feel hurt. That is of course not my intention — but it is my honest answer.

So how does it work for me?
To miss someone implies dependency. Life and people are unique within movement and therefore changeable. That is something I accept. It does not take away my love for anything or anyone. I love licorice, but if I cannot get it abroad, I accept that. I might think once: “I feel like having a piece of licorice.”

If someone is no longer in my surroundings — literally through death, or because life has taken them onto a path outside my environment — nothing changes about that love. My life continues to move.

Would I not wound myself if I tried to hold on to what once was?
How can I move if I insist on holding?

Missing suggests I want to go back or keep something fixed. I don’t think that is the intention. I feel this deep in my fibers — not to hurt anyone, but because it is true for me. From there my thoughts made another leap toward a metaphor.

The metaphor that appears is clear: I am an island. Not a closed place. People may dock, stay, share in what grows and lives there. But at the end of the day I place everyone back onto a little boat or ship and let them go. Not out of distance, but because each follows their own current. Some return later — because they have moved within the same wave. Others do not. And that is fine. I also need moments of silence to absorb and release what may be released. Silence restores the island — gives it energy and growth. The island keeps moving on the water. It keeps feeding itself with what it encounters along the way. It changes shape, color, vegetation — without losing itself.

When this image appeared, I thought of Howl’s Moving Castle. Not because I see myself as magical or spectacular, but because that moving house shows so precisely how existence can feel: not fixed to one place, not bound to one form, but moving with what arises. Living matter. Traveling without a route map. Responding, transforming, rearranging itself while continuing onward.

That is how I experience it. Matter and I move together.
Not controlling. Not directing. Meeting. Following synchronicity. Using my tools — my color — where needed, and allowing them to change when growth asks for it.

I notice something essential has shifted within this. I no longer need to be understood in order to exist. I see myself more clearly now, and that is enough. Softer, even. My perception has not become less sharp — perhaps sharper — but where judgment once followed quickly, compassion now arises. Observation without hardening.

My body moves along with it. Fever that comes and goes. Muscles forming. Energy changing. Growth that cannot be followed linearly. Development is never a straight line. A branch grown outward looks different from the root — yet belongs to the same whole.

Today it feels simple.
I am here. Breathing. Moving.
Not arrived. Not completed.
Only present within another layer of experience.

What if belonging is not a place, but a movement?
What if letting go does not mean someone disappears, but that each follows their own current?
And what if, like that moving island — or that walking castle — I do not need to hold on to anything in order to remain fully connected?

 

 

 

 

 

Are These Daydreams?

 

7 February 2026

Sometimes something small happens that I don’t put into words, yet I notice it. Today, while I was simply moving about the house — tidying, walking, thoughtless — a sentence suddenly passed through me. Not as a thought I formed myself. Just present. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

I know that kind of thing. For years, in exactly these kinds of moments, the same phrase would always appear: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. I often laughed about it. It had no function, no assignment, no meaning I needed to find. It was just there. And now, another one. That caught my attention. Nothing more.

It took me back to earlier times. Saturday afternoons. Alone in the front room. Films on BRT 1. My brothers away, my father busy, my mother somewhere else in the house. I watched. With wide eyes. Feeling along. Sometimes crying, feeling tension, laughing — Danny Kaye, for instance. That was not passing time. That was my world.

I didn’t play. I didn’t know what to do with toys. Drawing and crafting — yes — alone in my room after school. Occasionally I invited girls over. They played with the dolls I never touched. They immersed themselves completely. I sat nearby and watched. Not sad. Not excluded. Curious. Why choose those clothes? Why that colour? Why argue over roles? I listened to their language and noticed my words were different from theirs. They didn’t even notice I wasn’t playing. I was simply there.

That is how I remember it. Factually. Not as a strategy. Not as protection. This is how I was. From very early on. And I never suffered from it.

For a long time, my youth simply felt good. Later, through the eyes of Michel and now Ton, I came to see other layers as well. Much happened — in my youth and afterwards. I don’t deny that. Yet it is good. Genuinely good. It has shaped me. Memories may still surface — sometimes as a brief sting — and then they dissolve again.

Closure is not something I believe truly exists. It continues to live through me and takes on new colour at each level I reach. What I can bring to completion is the way I relate to it. And in that, I feel peace.

And still, I lingered a moment with those phrases that simply arrive.
Walter Mitty — the inner journey, imagination, parallel worlds. That often felt like my life.
Virginia Woolf — observing people, behaviour, tensions between them. That has always fascinated me.
There was a time when I experimented with that, when I moved within those fields.
Around my twentieth year I decided not to do that anymore — and that decision still stands.
Observing remained. Quietly watching, seeing what unfolds — perhaps my second nature, perhaps my first.
Could it be that such phrases need not mean anything — and yet touch something that has long been there?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standing in the Space

6 February 2026

Sometimes a day begins in the body. Fever that comes and goes. Sweating. Soles of the feet glowing. A head that feels dull yet clear. Not ill — but in motion. As if my system is restructuring itself, layer by layer, without me needing to understand what is happening. The body speaks first. Then comes movement. Only after that does language appear. Today it happened the other way around. Language brought movement, and movement touched the body.

In a long conversation — mirroring, questioning, searching — I arrived again at something I had always known, yet had never seen this clearly. That my life has never truly been carried by systems, educations, or methods. Not by medical worlds, not by alternative worlds, not by theory. My only constant has always been my own perception. My own sensing. My own movement. I tried to adapt. To fit in. To understand how things were supposed to be. What was expected. Sometimes I became a shadow of myself. Other times a rebel. Yet I always returned — like a boomerang — to what was truly mine. Not constructed. Not learned. Simply present.

Somewhere along the way something shifted. I see it more clearly now: pride once served as protection. A response to a world that dismissed, misunderstood, or simply failed to see. But beneath pride was struggle. And beneath that struggle was the longing to be seen. Today I felt something of that dissolve. Not disappear — but transform. What remains is not pride. It is contentment with who I am. Without the need to prove. Without defense. Self-respect. That word touched me deeply and unexpectedly. Tears without a story. Only recognition.

I notice that I look more gently now. Literally. As if there is less tension behind my eyes. Where my gaze was once experienced as piercing, it now feels quieter. Clear perception remains — perhaps even sharper — but without the old judgment that used to follow. Where my body once received signals and my mind confirmed them, compassion now arises. Observation instead of hardening. Perhaps that is what truly changed: not what I see, but how it lands.

In the world around me I move more freely. In the gym, among people, among conversations, among glances. I do not share my space — yet I do not close it either. I move like a free atom. Not distant, not cold, but autonomous. Friendship, for me, does not arise from proximity or repetition. Only from recognition — a bodily recognition I cannot ignore. It has always been that way. The difference is that I no longer try to correct it.

And in the midst of all this, something small — and immense — happened. I began to see that my longing to be understood may have come from looking from within my own perspective. Why don’t others see what I see? Why don’t they feel what I feel? Today something shifted. It felt as though I — existentially — stepped slightly aside. Not away from myself, but further into space. I sense that I already belong. That I am part of the whole without life needing to mirror my view. This insight does not feel like a conclusion, but like a discovery. Still tender. Still without form. Yet alive.

Life continues to deepen. No arrival. No completion. No enlightenment. Only moving from depth to depth. With curiosity. With patience. With humility toward all that has not yet been seen. And perhaps that is enough for today. That I sit here. Warm. Calm. Breathing. In the space — and part of it.

What if growth does not mean becoming someone else —
but simply allowing more light to fall on what has always been there?

 

 

 

 

 

Attuning

 

5 February 2026

This morning I woke up at half past six with a pounding headache — the kind that fills everything. I took paracetamol and went back under the covers. That worked. When I woke again the pressure had eased, but I had a slight fever of 37.9°C. For Ton that means a worried look. For me it means getting up and sensing first. Giving my body time to speak before deciding anything.

I went to train. Normally I do three or four rounds — today only two. It was also strength-measurement day, but I kept it gentle. No forcing. In the car I felt good — even content — that I had moved. What was different this time was not the rush of exertion, but the quiet joy of being home again. As if the movement had done its part and my body had taken over.

The fever disappeared. I had sweated heavily in the gym — my system regulating something. My ears felt muffled, so I put on my pajamas and allowed myself a day in bed. Laptop, a little sleep, some soup. No fighting. No analysing. Just giving space to whatever was happening.

And honestly — there was something beautiful in it. My dream had been about cleaning, maintaining, being rich from within… and afterwards my body seemed to move through its own cleansing process. Layers running in synchrony. It still amazes me how dreams and physical processes can touch each other. Not to explain it. Not to assign meaning. Just to recognise that they coexist.

I understand more and more why there are cultures where dreams are taken seriously as part of life. Not as prediction, but as another sensory layer. Another language.

What struck me most today was this: I didn’t push through stubbornly like I would have in the past. I wanted movement — yes — but without overruling myself. Less strength, more sweating — and that was enough signal to stop at two rounds. Back home I didn’t feel drained. On the contrary. My daily training nourishes me — as long as I keep listening.

I know fear plays a role too. Fear of sliding backward physically if I stop. But today I felt the difference between avoidance and attunement. Not crossing limits. Resting when asked. Letting go when appropriate.

Tomorrow I will see how I feel. Closing my eyes to listen.
What does my body ask?

I am not a loser if I don’t train.
I am not tough if I do.
It isn’t about behaviour. Not about how others see me.
My body is my measure — and my ally.

And the longer I live, the clearer it becomes:
when I give it trust,
it works with me.

Listening is sometimes movement,
and sometimes becoming still.
Not because I must choose,
but because the body already knows.
Today I followed — and that was enough.

 

 

 

 

 

Clear and Diffuse

4 January 2026

This morning The Logical Song by Supertramp was humming through my head.
It came from my dream. First I wrote it down. Posted it on my website. Then I looked it up on YouTube and listened again.

While I’m singing along, I notice the sun is shining. Thick beams of light fall into my living room. The light is different than usual. Clear and diffuse at the same time. Not like a sunrise, but as if the sun is already setting. It creates a strange, gentle atmosphere.

I ask Ton if he sees it too. He sees the sun, but not what I mean. When I try to explain what I’m perceiving, he tries to see it as well — but he can’t.

We go training together. The gym is almost empty. Quiet. It fits my sense of contentment, and it fits the light of this morning.

Back home, Ton reads my dream. He notices how calm it is. How the memories in it feel soft now. Yes, that’s true. All the memories are still there, but they’ve become light. Or at least: no longer heavy.

I tell him about the shift I feel.

In my younger years — until about thirty — I experienced my childhood as pleasant. Looking back, I see that this was mainly a way of making everything beautiful. A coping mechanism.
With Michel, my way of seeing changed. Then everything turned black. By the end of his life, the memories had become grey.
With Ton, I fell into a pitch-black hole again. His anger, his way of coloring things — that became mine too.

After the stroke, my emotions became completely deregulated. I entered a black tunnel, with only a pinprick of light at the end. I walked through that tunnel for a year. At the same time, that tiny point of light slowly grew larger. Less black. More light. And at the end of December, I suddenly emerged. Eureka.
The memories are still there, but they no longer stick. They pass through me, transparent.

Later that day I have lunch with a friend. We see each other a few times a year. He’s a coach, guiding people in self-knowledge and meaning, and teams in their internal dynamics. He asks how the children are doing. Also about my daughter, with whom I have no contact.

I tell him that I still send her money. That her photo is on my TV. That I send her love in my thoughts whenever I see her. And that I made mistakes. That I pointed out my own dissociation from the past instead of fully acknowledging her feelings. That I should have said: this was never my intention, and given her experience its rightful place. Now that’s no longer possible. What I can do is trust her — and trust the love I feel for her.

He tells me about a client with a similar story. He used the metaphor of an apple. Inside the apple there’s a bruised spot. That’s the pain. His client is still sitting entirely in that rotten, bruised place, cut off from the rest of the fresh, juicy apple. Only she can choose to cut that spot away, so the rest becomes visible again.

“You’ve done that with your past,” he says.
“Maybe you’re now, invisibly, giving her the space to heal.”

I’m grateful for a friend like that.

The light doesn’t have to explain anything.
It may be clear and gentle at the same time.
What can move through me doesn’t get stuck.
And sometimes that’s enough —
for today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Momentum

 

2 February 2026

After training, Ton and I each do our own things for a bit. I ask him, “What shall we do later? Run an errand in Utrecht or walk the dogs in the Lingebos?”

Ton needs time to think about what he’s going to do. He almost never responds immediately. That sometimes rubs between us. With Ton it’s a slow response. With Michel, in the past, it was slowness. I react quickly, almost automatically. In a relationship, that requires attunement.

By nature I have a lot of patience. Life has also given me ample opportunity to practice it. As I’ve said before: every trait has two sides. If something is +10, the other side is −10. If it’s +1000, it’s also −1000.

After my stroke, my emotions were completely out of balance. There was no brake. It was a year of extreme impatience, of being overwhelmed. There were moments when I thought I wouldn’t make it in this relationship. Ton had a lot to endure. I can see that now. At the time, my focus was much more on what was happening inside me.

Now I notice that something new has emerged. Something I had always felt, but can now name more clearly.
I need momentum.

For me, almost everything feels like a project. Even small actions—brushing my teeth, getting dressed, stepping outside—are small projects that make up my day. This feeling slowly crept into my life because of my congenital illness, CMT. Because the progression is slow, it’s hardly noticeable unless you look far back. I prefer not to do that. Living with what is here now feels lighter. Freer.

When I ask a question, my mind goes into action. Movement starts. Start-up energy. If too much time passes, that energy drops away. The train comes to a stop. Restarting costs a lot of energy. But once I’m moving, the process flows more easily. That’s when flow arises. Small steps keep that movement going.

Ton doesn’t respond right away to my question. He makes a call, takes care of this, takes care of that. Time passes quickly. Suddenly it’s half past two. Then he asks, “Shall we still go for a walk with the dogs? We’d be back around five.”

Very calmly, I feel that my momentum has gone. And I say that this plan no longer works for me. Not angrily. Not sharply. Just clearly. I can see that this is difficult for Ton to accept at first. It takes some processing. Understanding doesn’t come immediately. But I stay with myself.

I don’t harden. I don’t close myself off. But I also no longer adapt in ways that cost me energy I don’t have. This isn’t unwillingness. It isn’t stubbornness. It’s listening—to my body, to the moment, to what is possible.

Now the movement is to see how we can attune to this together. Not by asking me to switch gears as if my energy were unlimited, but by making space for how my system works. That doesn’t feel hard. It feels honest.

Momentum doesn’t ask for speed,
but for timing.
Not pushing through,
but moving with what is.
I stay open,
and I stay with myself.
That isn’t a boundary,
it’s direction.

 

 

 

 

 

Integration of Noise

 

1 February 2026

Cohesion or adhesion?
Is it the same thing that connects, or are they different ways of connecting?

I actually know how I arrived at this. Last night I was lying on my bed, writing my blog piece for January 31, when I heard sirens. Not once, but several times within an hour. Something serious was happening, I thought.

Since I’ve lived here, I’ve had to get used to that sound. In the forest, I hardly ever heard it. Where many people are, many unfortunate things happen. In the beginning, it made me restless, easily overstimulated. Fortunately, a system adapts to that. Mine did too. Integration of noise. But last night it was more intense than usual. The restlessness briefly returned.

Two years ago, a company here burned down completely. Ton and I often cycled past it. It made an impression on me. I felt the impact — for the company, the owners, the employees, the surroundings. Some time later, the entire building was gone. A vast empty space. Then a large billboard appeared, showing what was to come. A new building. Prestigious. Shiny.

My mind immediately started moving. How can something like that happen? How do you survive that as a business? And later: they did survive. How do you pay for such a luxurious building? Is there really that much money?

Recently, the new building was completed. Exactly as glamorous as on the billboard. I saw flowers in the offices, people who seemed to be celebrating. Probably the reopening. Good for everyone, I thought — and let it go again.

Maybe it’s strange, but there is always a lot happening in my head just by looking around me. It’s busy, but not clinging. It also lets go again. Free. If something needs to be remembered, it resurfaces on its own. I trust that. And if it doesn’t come back, I think: apparently, I don’t need to remember this. That may sound superficial, but it gives my busy mind the rest it needs.

Ton reads the newspaper every morning. I never do — enough already comes in. This morning he read aloud: the same company burned down again last night.

Goosebumps.

Everything went through me at once. Was it arson? Was it bad luck? That last question suddenly brought to mind the book In the Name of All Mine, which was also made into a film. The true story of a man who loses his family twice: first in the Holocaust, later in a forest fire. Why did I think of that? I don’t know. It simply presented itself.

Today is Sunday. I’m not training. I keep my pajamas on. I stay home. Watching a series. With the animals. Cuddling. Listening to music. And yet, you could write a book about everything that moves through me on such an apparently quiet day.

Magical, really.

What comes in may leave again.
What remains finds its place naturally.
My mind doesn’t have to hold on to it,
my system knows what it’s doing.
This is how noise finds its place,
and silence gains meaning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Staying in Motion

31 January 2026

Going to the E-gym every morning does more than make my body stronger. It also brings back something I had lost for a long time: a natural daily rhythm.
I go to bed on time — still late, but earlier than before. Instead of four or five hours of sleep, I now sleep seven to eight hours. Sometimes more. And then I get up. Around nine. Even on Sundays. Today I was out of bed at half past eight.

The first thing I do is write down my dream. That, too, is new. Becoming aware every morning of what I have dreamed. Sometimes it’s a detailed story, sometimes only a voice, a word, a feeling. There is always something that lingers — something that would otherwise sink back into the unconscious.

What is remarkable is how these dreams run in sync with my waking life. As if they walk alongside it. As if they comment without explanation.

It feels the same as painting or writing. I can only do that from what I call flow. It happens to me. I don’t know beforehand what I’m going to make. There is an urge. A movement that wants to come into being. While creating, it’s as if I’m walking behind Annette.
Oh… is this what it’s going to be?
Or maybe that?
And when it’s finished and I still don’t understand why I made it, I keep looking. Sometimes for days. Sometimes for weeks. I call that mopping — lingering until it speaks.

Over the past year, I discovered something new: works I made ten or twenty years ago are speaking to me again. With an added layer. As if they were waiting until I could hear them.

I already knew that life is full of mysteries. Maybe that’s why I find it so beautiful. It keeps me curious. Not about what I can learn from books or courses — but about myself.
What is happening now?
How do I respond to this?
Why does this feel familiar, yet different?
I find that exciting. In a good way.

Today I told Ton that over the years there are quite a few things I can no longer do. It’s been a slow process. Quiet. My range has gradually become smaller. But I never think: I can’t do that anymore.
I think: I did that.
And I enjoyed it.
And I’m grateful for the memory.

Something came in return. Time. Space. Painting. Writing.

As a child, I lived from the outside inward. Preferably alone.
As a teenager and young adult, I lived from the inside outward. Going out, dancing, traveling, exploring the world in motion. Yoga.
Over the past ten years, I returned to living from the outside inward. A period of intense painting.

And now — after the stroke — both movements are present at the same time. With added depth.

The dreams feel like the flow. They tell me something. They give color and meaning. From the outside inward.
The E-gym feels like a lifestyle I intend to keep. Not searching for friendships, but for pleasant daily connections. From the inside outward.

So I see that the small life I live — in which, at first glance, little seems to happen — is experienced by me as rich and vibrant.

For me, it’s a solid ten.

Perhaps richness is not what expands,
but what settles more deeply.
Perhaps movement is not always visible,
but felt.
And perhaps a life is truly large
when it aligns from within.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reliving

 

January 28, 2026

There was a time when I decided to grow old. Not as a wish, but as a choice. I was in my early twenties, confined to a wheelchair, using a mobility scooter, and the outlook was far from hopeful. Too much movement would lead to deterioration, they said. I did it anyway. Daily yoga, against medical advice. Not to prove anything, but because my body knew something else. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, I worked myself out of the wheelchair.

That choice — to grow old — I have never let go of.

In recent years, my body took blow after blow. A serious fall, inflammations, heart rhythm disturbances, a torn meniscus, and eventually a stroke. At times it felt as though life was growing louder, not to break me, but to draw my attention. As if my body wanted to remind me that holding on is not the same as carrying, and that continuing sometimes asks for something other than endurance.

In a dream, I heard the word reliving. Not becoming ill again, but examining it properly, this time without mistakes being made. The word stayed with me. Only later did I understand that it wasn’t about the hospital at all, but about my body. About inhabiting again what I had once overcome — now in a different way, with more gentleness and less struggle.

Back then, I went against the current, but also with myself. I only realized that in hindsight. I did not follow medical advice, but I did follow my body. That turned out not to be recklessness, but loyalty to something I already sensed at the time, even though I could not yet put it into words.

Now I am doing essentially the same thing again. The form is different, perhaps less dramatic, but the movement is unmistakably familiar. I go against expectations, against numbers and urgency, while at the same time moving with myself. During a conversation, my cardiologist said, “If I were in your shoes, I would definitely do it.” She meant medication. Ozempic. Intervention. I understood her — and at the same time, I knew immediately: these are not my shoes.

Gradually, I discovered that it was no longer about becoming stronger, but about daring to be softer. About no longer fixing emotional pain in place, but allowing it to pass through me. What I kept holding onto from the past was also holding onto me. My body had carried that for years, until it forced me to stop and listen.

Recovery turned out not to be a battle, but a process of letting go. Not speeding up, but slowing down. Not forcing, but trusting. I now train every morning — not to lose weight or to perform, but to be present in my body. Movement as a conversation, rhythm as a foundation, and the awareness that time, here, is not an enemy.

Growing old does not mean enduring at all costs. It means allowing what wants to unfold. And perhaps that is the deepest meaning of reliving.

I went against the current,
but always with myself.
I am doing that again now —
with more gentleness,
and the same trust.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Day in Layers

 

27 January 2026

This morning we arrive at the gym. Before I even step out of the car, I see him: a black Labrador looking in through the window. Not on a leash. His owner is apparently training inside. We park the car, and as soon as I step out, he comes trotting toward me, tail wagging happily. I am just as happy as he is. While petting him, I guide him back to the window. He sits down neatly when I tell him to. At that moment I think: my day can’t really go wrong anymore.

There is a large, sturdy woman who often trains there. Her posture evokes something in me. Almost arrogant — an image my mother used to call a flagship. In my mind I see an old ship with a richly decorated bow, a mirror: impressive, polished, creating distance. No vanity, no judgment — more a form of presentation. A front that says: here I stand, this is my bow, this is how I wish to be seen.

On New Year’s Day she wore a silver-colored fake crown with Happy New Year on it. What struck me then was how that playful, cheerful gesture did not match her overall presence. Today she takes the machine ahead of me. She doesn’t look around; her posture is closed. In the past, I would have felt intimidated by this, or I would have searched for the cause within myself. Now I said to Ton in the car:
“I think someone who presents herself like this is probably very insecure.”
Next time, I will look at her with that thought in mind. I wonder whether that might change something — perhaps mainly in me.

It was also the day I had another appointment at the heart clinic. Since July 3rd of last year, we have been busy investigating my heart and its rhythm. The number of ECGs made is countless by now. This time the waiting ran forty minutes late. We were taken to a small room with the instruction that I could undress so an ECG could quickly be done before I went to see the cardiologist.
Ton and I said in unison: “I don’t think so.”
“But that’s protocol,” the assistant said.
“Unfortunately,” I replied, “I’m done with protocols.”

We then had a conversation with yet another new cardiologist. She offered gentler options for us to consider. We will return in six weeks, so we can think it all through calmly. That felt right.

For me, it was also a day of synchronicity. Not as an explanation, not as coincidence, but as a way of remembering. First, Ton had made an appointment for the dogs on March 3rd — the birthday of a good friend. Later, he made an appointment for himself with the practice nurse on July 21st — the birthday of my aunt, my mother’s only sister. And at the heart clinic, my follow-up appointment was scheduled for March 10th. The birthday of my late husband Michel.
I use dates like these as memory aids. Today, they were noticeably present.

On the way home, I felt sad. Without a clear reason. Perhaps Weltschmerz is the right word. Now, as I write this at the end of the day, that feeling has passed. It was allowed to be there for a moment. That was enough.

Perhaps some days are not a story,
but a collection of layers.
A dog that trusts.
A façade I learn to see differently.
A boundary I draw calmly.
A date that lingers.
And a feeling that comes and goes.

Today, nothing needed to be solved.
I was simply there.

 

 

 

 

 

My Sun Rises, I Saw His Freedom

 

26 January 2026

Yesterday was my father-in-law’s birthday. I was reminded of it by a post a nephew shared on Facebook.
Whenever I think of him, almost the same thing always happens: my sun rises from within. Not as a memory that hurts, but as something that is simply present. He was a remarkable man to me. I loved him. His presence touched me in a way very few people ever have. I am grateful that I came to know him through my husband Michel.

It is difficult to explain exactly what I feel. It is not missing. Not grief. It is a form of connection that I have never experienced with anyone else, to this day. There are no right words for it — and perhaps there do not need to be.

When I first met him, I was immediately struck by how much Michel resembled his father. In his voice, his face, his hands, his gestures. And yet there was a difference. In Max’s eyes there was depth, mischief, joie de vivre. In Michel’s eyes there was more closedness, more melancholy. As if each of them had found a different way of dealing with the same life.

What I could not yet put into words back then, but can now see clearly, is this:
Max did not live freedom as a luxury, but as a necessity. Not as something you allow yourself when life cooperates, but as something you choose because otherwise no real life remains. I recognized that immediately. Without words. Without hesitation. Perhaps that is why I saw him so clearly from the start.

Max was admired and judged by people alike. The admiration often came from the creative circles he moved in — artists, writers, dancers, singers — people he met in cafés such as Reijnders and Eijlders on Leidseplein. The judgment more often came from those close to him. After the war, Max decided that life was his. That no one would ever impose limitations on him again. Freedom was his guiding principle, in every sense. Not always easy for those around him, but for him unavoidable.

The first time we met, we went out to dinner together. When Michel briefly went to the restroom, Max took my hand and looked at me intently. In his deep, refined voice he asked whether I would consider including him as well. Immediately afterwards he added:
“I don’t think you’re shocked by this question.”
He was right. I wasn’t. I told him I preferred to keep it just between Michel and me — and that was that. That freedom of speaking, without drama or judgment, was characteristic of him.

Max survived the war — by his own account through sheer luck. He carried that history with him without using it as a weapon or a shield. He understood how vulnerable a human being is, and how necessary it sometimes is to wear armor. Armor protects. But when it comes off, what remains is the human being — vulnerable, open, alive.
Through him, I came to see that freedom is not given, but chosen. And that this choice sometimes comes at a cost: rejection, misunderstanding, loneliness. But also that remaining faithful to that choice yields something no one can ever take away from you.

This morning I watched again the episode of Achter het Nieuws entirely devoted to Max, presented by a young Paul Witteman. I see him then. I hear him. And immediately it happens again: my sun rises.
I feel no sadness that he is no longer here.
I feel gratitude that he was part of my life — and still is.

I do not miss him.
I carry him.
Not as a memory that hurts,
but as a presence that remains warm.
Perhaps that too is a form of freedom:
that what was truly connected
does not disappear,
but simply changes its place.

 

 

 

 

 

Loyal to You

 

25 January 2026

Sometimes something you’ve lived your entire life suddenly aligns with words from the outside.
Not as proof, but as recognition.

There are few photos of me as a child. And when there are, I’m almost always with my nose pressed against a dog. As if that simply belonged there. In my younger years, I left many tears in the fur of my dog Rakker. Silent tears. Seen by no one — except him. That was enough.

Do you recognise that feeling — that something you see or hear can give you a small sense of support?
Sometimes a single glimpse is enough to know you’re not the only one.

My dogs are my most loyal companions. They always seem to sense how I’m doing, as if they read me without asking questions. In return, they feel safe with me. It’s a natural understanding between us, not an agreement.

Once, I had a little dog named Donald. Not pretty, but incredibly loving and stubborn. She wasn’t allowed upstairs. She slept downstairs, in her basket. Yet sometimes she would lie upstairs, on the landing outside my bedroom. We could never get her to leave. She opened doors herself, even when we had turned the locks.

Later, I discovered the pattern: whenever she insisted on staying upstairs like that, I would fall ill. She sensed it before I did. At that time, I was young and consistently pushed beyond my limits, trying to function as normally as possible — as a woman, a partner, a mother. I managed for a while. Until I collapsed. My dog knew sooner.

When I saw her lying there, I would think: oh dear, I need to slow down. It was always too late. She stayed by my bed until I recovered.

The look in her eyes when we had her put to sleep, the trust she had — those are precious moments. A bond I have never known with any human being. That may be something about me, but that is how I experience it.

Much later, I had Pan. As a puppy, he became seriously ill. For weeks, I cared for him day and night. I set my alarm at night to give him his medication. He survived. He grew big, heavy, gentle, and loyal. Impressive to others — to me, whenever he got the chance, a lap dog.

When Michel became ill, Pan never left his side. On the couch, in bed, everywhere. After Michel passed away, Pan immediately shifted his focus to me. At that time, I was weak, mentally and physically. Pan sensed that he needed to protect me. That turned into dominance and dangerous behaviour toward anyone outside our immediate circle.

With me, he lay on the bed together with Kiba. Gentle, protective, attuned. But toward the outside world, he was no longer safe. I even brought in a dog trainer, but I literally couldn’t handle him. He was too strong. His pack consisted of me, Kiba, the cats, the children, and our grandchild.

For the first time in my life, I had to give up an animal. That was ten years ago. Even now, when I see a Bernese Mountain Dog, I feel a sharp pang in my heart.

At that time, Kiba had been a cheerful, athletic little dog. After the loss of Michel and Pan, she changed. She lay curled up in a corner for days, walked with her tail between her legs. The vet told me that animals grieve too. She had two losses to process. Only after half a year did life slowly return to her.

Once, a house near mine caught fire. The fire brigade used my home as a command post. A small dog was rescued from the house, and the trembling animal was placed on my lap. Her name was Fluffy. From that moment on, she never left my side. Sometimes I still hear her little steps in my mind, just behind my leg. She lived to be fifteen and was allowed to fall asleep in my arms at the vet’s.

During the pandemic, many people got a pet. Puck was bought as a puppy by young people. When life returned to normal, their attention faded. The mother of the couple felt sorry for the dog and looked for a new home. The owner of the grooming salon where my dogs go sent me a photo and asked if I had room for her.

I was sold.

Puck, like Fluffy, follows me around all day. She sleeps with me on the bed, wants to sit beside me or on my lap. She keeps an eye on me. I cuddle my dogs a lot.

Lately, I see more and more appearing about dogs and humans. Articles, conversations, reflections.

Your dog as a therapist.
What pets do for your mental health.
A monk wondering whether it’s unhygienic for a dog to sleep on the bed — and concluding that there are even benefits.

I don’t secretly take such a magazine from the waiting room. I write down the issue number and order it later. Not because I’m searching for something, but because I recognise what I’ve been living for a long time. It does me good to see that, from many different angles now, animals are being looked at differently. What they do for us — and what we do for them.

Loyal presence needs no explanation.
She is there.
She feels what I cannot yet carry myself.
She stays, without conditions.

That, for me, is loyalty.

 

Puck and Kiba

 

 

 

 

 

 

Missing as a Circular Form

 

24 January 2026

Loss is a large part of my life.
Of everyone’s life.

At a young age, I discovered that writing about it could be a gain for me.
In this place, I mainly write about how I experience loss and how I look at it. That does not make it the truth. It is true for me, perhaps not for someone else. What I now experience as true can shift through new insights.

New insights always announce themselves to me physically. As a kind of confirmation.
A little “light-bulb moment” switches on in my head. Or I get goosebumps. Sometimes even stronger, like a brief electric shock. I don’t consciously go looking for these moments. I believe time chooses its own time. That asks for calm and patience. Growing as a human being requires waiting. Strangely enough, insights I try to force are often not pure for me. They pull me away from what actually wants to be seen.

Life feels to me like a winding, wide path with side roads. In the end, I always return to that broad path. I have learned not to regret the side roads I took. Sometimes out of impatience. Sometimes guided by emotion. The falling and getting back up, the pain, the experiences — later they turn out to be gains.

For me, being born is the beginning of loss.
Having a body means limitation. It must be fed, maintained, protected.

Every change during growing up is the loss of what was and the gain of what newly emerges. This is true physically and mentally. Every day, something dies. And every day, something is added. Quite literally: yesterday is gone, tomorrow is not here yet.

So what is there?
NOW. This moment.

Ton and I visited an exhibition titled Missing as a Circular Form. Artists who have given shape to missing, to dealing with loss and grief. I was curious to see how they had done this.

— Every person will, sooner or later, be confronted with loss. Whether it is the loss of a loved one, a pet, or a homeland. How do you deal with missing, and how do you keep your loved ones close to you? —

These were the opening lines of the announcement. In the exhibition rooms, I mainly saw the grief of losing loved ones. The pain of missing was portrayed in many ways. Beautiful art, yet it also made me feel somewhat somber.

In a large room with a wide variety of works, there was a text on the wall that resonated with me:

— In this room, grief is not shown as a moment, but as a movement. As a slow wave that continues to come and go, even after death. How does the absence of the other take shape in everyday life? —

Something became clear to me there. For me, loss and continuing to live are not only about missing a loved one or a homeland. They are also present in the smallest, everyday things. Close by. For me, that is the essence of what we call life. It begins in the smallest atoms, in and around us. Dying off and renewal.

When you can see this as an uninterrupted cycle, it is always NOW.

For me, the only true experience of the present is letting go of expectations, fear, worries, unrest, and pain. By emptying my mind of the past and releasing control over the future, I can be in that true now.

The Annette who looks back at me from the mirror is who I am at the moment I am standing there.
Not a second earlier.
Not a second later.

What did I take with me from this exhibition?

The realisation that every person has a different frame of reference to give shape to something like — missing.

And that all of it is true.

Missing is not an emptiness that wants to be filled,
but a movement that keeps circling.
What disappears changes form.
What remains moves along with me.

And again and again
there is only this moment
in which everything comes together.

 

 

 

 

 

When Laughter Shifts

 

23 January 2026

OMG!!!
This time I really had to call myself to order.

At the beginning of the week, my two friends came to visit. Hilde and I share a mutual friend who has a certain serious naïveté that always makes us laugh. With her, you end up in Fawlty Towers–like situations. Because she herself is so serious, it sometimes feels to Hilde and me as if we’ve landed in a fairy-tale comedy. We allowed ourselves to talk about this together — perhaps gossip is the right word. In any case, these situations come up now and then, and we laugh until tears roll down our cheeks.

We told this to Carry. I could see from her face that she didn’t like the idea. Gossip — the word alone. And honestly, I agree with her completely. I have bad memories of gossip. It can be very unpleasant. Hilde and I don’t mean any harm. But where exactly is the line between gossiping and telling an anecdote about someone?

Carry’s disapproving look did reach me. I felt guilty. It wasn’t a mean story; it was mostly very funny. But maybe it’s not about what you tell, but why. Are we laughing at a situation — or are we laughing at someone?

Today I was in a museum with Ton. Ton reads all the texts next to the paintings and sculptures, moving slowly and attentively through the galleries. In the meantime, I went to sit in the museum café. The long tables there are joined together, so strangers often sit next to you. At first, I was sitting there alone, quietly reading.

Then a group of women sat down next to me — about six or seven of them. They were talking about a woman who wasn’t there. It was clearly gossip.

“Oh well, she always has something.”
“Well, if you knew what I’ve been through.”
“Why did she text you and not put it in the group chat?”
“Yes, she obviously doesn’t like me.”
“Doesn’t matter, I’ll just make sure I never sit next to her.”
“I got a message — shall I read it out?”

In a joking tone, one of them started reading the message. And at that moment, all my energy drained away. I just wanted to go outside. I’d rather wait in the cold.

Ooooh… how awful that is.

The conclusion made itself known almost physically: speaking badly about someone does something. To yourself. To the space. To the other — even when they’re not there.

Outside, standing in the winter cold, I took deep breaths and thought:
Annette, let this be a lesson.
Perhaps not never to talk about someone again — nicely or not —
but only to do so when you are willing to share your thoughts openly and honestly with that person as well.

Or perhaps that’s not a rule,
but an exercise.

One that became visible again today.

Maybe honesty doesn’t begin with what I say,
but with what I feel as I say it.
And maybe freedom sometimes asks for nothing grand,
only the courage to become quiet
at the moment something no longer feels right.

Today, I listened.

 

 

 

 

 

 

FREEDOM

22 January 2026

On 22 January 2025, I was admitted to the stroke unit of the hospital. Of course that was unpleasant. At the same time, it was a moment when my thoughts immediately moved forward: how to go on with these paralyses?

No fear. No — rather an acceptance of what was. Even in the worst scenarios, I could already see possibilities. Knowing that I will always find a way to feel happy, whatever my situation may be. That knowledge gives me a sense of freedom.

Today things are so much better, both mentally and physically. Much better than I could have imagined. A turning point in my life. You may not see it on the outside, but on the inside I feel calm. I feel free from the dark spirits of the past. They are part of who I am, without touching me anymore. They exist as experience — and that is what freedom feels like to me.

After training today, the sun seemed to shine inside my body. My face reflected it. That is freedom.

Since Ton and I started training on the EGYM, I have an app that records everything: what I’ve done, how heavy it was, how much, progress and/or setbacks. It’s pleasant and appealing not only to feel and experience this, but also to see it visually mapped out. Unfortunately, this app doesn’t work for Ton. So we made an appointment with the administration to go there in person. Said and done.

Ton also asked about my medical indication and how reimbursement works. First, you have to visit a physiotherapist, who enters it into the system, and then it runs through the health insurance. But… then you’re only allowed to come between 12:00 and 4:00 p.m. Only if you pay yourself can you choose when you want to train — from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.

What works so well for me right now is this: getting up, washing, having breakfast (half of it), training, and then coming back to finish breakfast. The whole day still lies ahead of me. That would no longer be possible.

The moment this friendly woman tells us this, I feel fire shoot from my eyes and I say:
“So if you’re disabled, not only is your physical freedom limited, but this freedom too?”

The shock in her eyes immediately dissolves my rising anger. I feel understanding: she didn’t make these rules. I apologise right away for my quick, indignant reaction.

There are two options.
Pay for a subscription myself, without an indication.

Or call the health insurance company, hoping it can be arranged differently.

The health insurer sticks strictly to the rules. If I go at the designated times, they pay €50 per day. If I don’t, they pay nothing, and the subscription costs me €50 per month. The choice was simple. I prefer to decide for myself.

What’s funny is that as a teenager I devoured the books of Jean-Paul Sartre for a while. Existential humanism holds that human beings are radically free and must create their own lives and meaning in a world without inherent purpose. This entails total responsibility: human beings are “condemned to be free.” Freedom is not a gift, but a task. Every choice shapes not only yourself, but humanity as a whole.

Into that framework I fitted my own morality, as I had learned and interpreted it from the Bible. I thought more in terms of a SOURCE than of a God.

Years later, during my studies, I encountered Carl Rogers. Remarkably, this existential-humanist thinking received little attention at university. For me, Rogers aligned even more closely with how I experience life. His humanism emphasises freedom through self-actualisation: the innate drive of human beings to realise their full potential. This can only flourish in an environment of unconditional positive regard, empathy, and authenticity. From there, autonomy emerges — living from an internal frame of reference, free from external, often conditional demands.

Already during my studies, I felt an inner resistance to fixed definitions in this area. Much later, I began to embrace the eclectic and allowed myself to see it as an organically growing concept. Nothing fixed. Mobile. Changeable, even. Freedom is hardly definable. In fact, you already lose part of it the moment you are born. You suddenly have a body.
How free is that?

Freedom is not the absence of limits, but the way I relate to limits — ethically, embodied, and with regard for the other.

Because this theme of freedom was so strongly present, I also thought of my painting Colorful Equality.
“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
I made this painting years ago, inspired by that quote from Nelson Mandela.

Colorful Equality is an ode to equality, freedom, and respect. The many heads, each with their own colours and textures, symbolise the diversity of humanity. They are unique, yet connected — shaped by different stories, backgrounds, and perspectives. Freedom is not only the right to be yourself, but also the responsibility to create space for the other.

What I never understood was why I painted the background so fiercely. Today, for the first time, I understand why those faces stand in a sea of fire.

— Freedom that comes under threat feels like something you would instinctively want to defend with fire and sword. —

Here too, after many years, a meaning surfaces that I myself had not seen before.

Freedom is not a state I reach.
It is a movement I make again and again.
Not by ignoring boundaries,
but by consciously inhabiting them.

Today I do not choose less,
but truer.
And that turns out to be enough space.

 

Colorful Equality - Acryl - 3D - 100 cm x 100 cm

 

 

 

 

FLEETING LIFE

On time

This was it.
One full year.

A long year.
A slow year.
A short year.
A lightning-fast year.

Fleeting life.

We say: time flies.
And suddenly I see it clearly:
as human beings, we always live in two time zones at once.

There is time measured as time.
It is fleeting.
Almost nothing.

One year.
Ten years.
A hundred.
A thousand.

A human life
is a drop
in the ocean of time.

And at the same time,
time stands still.

You live.
So much happens.
So much still lies ahead.

In fifteen years then…
Back then…

That feels like an eternity.

And yet
time flies by.

Looking back at this diary,
I experience both.

Time is fleeting.
Time stands still.
And time passes me by.

Time does not end.
Time does not begin.
Time is.

 

 

 

The Voice Returned

21 January 2026

On 21 January 2025 I woke up and could no longer speak.
On 21 January 2026 I have my voice back — literally and figuratively.

What lies between those two sentences was not a straight line. Nor was it a recovery story made up of steps or goals. It began with disorientation.

My body asked for attention, but that was not where the greatest struggle lay. I took the physical setback seriously right away. Rehabilitation was simply part of it, almost self-evident. There was no drama there, no resistance. I had known my body for a long time as an idiosyncratic yet honest instrument. That part moved forward.

What did not move forward were my emotions.

They surfaced unfiltered. Raw, old, uncontrollable. Pain, memories, reactions I recognised but could no longer manage. As if doors that had been closed for years suddenly flew open — not one by one, but all at once. That surprised me, and it confronted me.

That is why I decided to write. Not to get rid of it, but to investigate it.

Why do I do what I do?
Why do I react the way I react?
Can I change that?
Do I want to change that?
Do I have choices?
And if I choose — are those choices allowed to change as well?

It did not become an analysis, but a process. With ups and downs. With moments of clarity and moments of confusion. No spectacular growth, but — as I realised later — an invisible upward line.

A confrontation with my son became a turning point. Not because of the scale of the conflict, but because of what it revealed. That this was not just my inner world. That what happened inside me had consequences. And that I did not have to go through this alone — and perhaps could not go through it alone.

I sought help. And there something became visible that I had long avoided facing: my heart was wearing armour. Not a small shield, but a hard layer, formed over many years. Protective, functional — and ultimately suffocating. The image that came with it was clear.

A bullet destroys. It strikes with force, tears through, leaves no doubt about what has been hit. That was how damage had always looked in my mind. But this was not a bullet. In my life it was a needle. A thin, almost invisible movement, slowly gliding through the pericardium. Not to destroy, but to make space. No impact, no drama — yet an unmistakable process. You hardly see it happening, but you feel it. Breath finds room again. The heart no longer has to brace itself.

Around 23 December I felt something I can only describe as relief. No euphoria. No great insight. But a bodily knowing: something has shifted here. This was, for me, the most tangible turning point of the year.

And then something else unexpected happened. The EGYM. No long build-up, no trajectory. One day. As if my body suddenly understood that it was allowed to participate again. Not fighting, not compensating, but joining in. It was not a performance. It was integration.

Now, a year later, I look back without heroics. This was not a victory march. It was an honest year. A year in which emotions could no longer be suppressed. In which old material surfaced and was allowed to be examined. In which I discovered that choices exist — and that they are allowed to change. In which my heart softened, my body was included again, and my voice slowly returned.

Not loud.
But mine.

Today I am not closing a chapter to seal it shut.
I am closing it to make space.

I am here.
I speak again.

There are breaks that bring you down,
and there are openings you do not see coming into being.
They make no sound,
they ask for no attention,
and suddenly something flows again that had long been still.

This is not an ending.
This is the moment life dares to move through me again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who Is Reading Whom?

January 19, 2026

Two friends came over today.
Carry — my friend since secondary school. Fifty years now. That remains a strange, almost unreal number.
And Hilde, my best friend. They know each other, but they are not friends themselves. That’s fine. It was a relaxed afternoon. We laughed — really laughed — like we used to.

Lately, I’ve been deeply engaged in writing my book. Over the past year, I’ve written an enormous amount of text, which I now use as source material. In my head, the structure is clear. I see how everything connects. But as soon as I try to fit it into the format of ChatGPT, interference appears. The material is large, layered, complex — and somewhere along the way the system keeps losing the thread.

At one point I said to Ton:
if this were a colleague instead of an AI assistant, we would have had a serious argument by now. I would have pinned him to the wall.
It drove me mad. I started sweating. I got too worked up.

Ton suggested measuring my blood pressure.
It turned out to be that of a young, healthy woman.
So it really wasn’t that bad.

Quite impressive, actually — getting into a fight with a computer.

The arrival of my friends was a welcome distraction.

Hilde asked several times how I was doing.
And the honest answer is: unusually well.
Since joining the new gym, a lot has changed. I have energy. I feel stable. There is an inner calm I don’t recognize from myself.

But she asked so insistently.
She told me that after reading my pieces, she had the impression that I was depressed.

That touched me. And it surprised me.

I experience clarity instead. Of course, many things are happening — but they don’t stick. They don’t sink in and drag me down. I feel that everything is allowed to be there, without it knocking me over. Not like before, when I dealt with things by wearing an impenetrable armor.
Now it’s different: seeing, feeling, and letting go again.
For me, a completely new way of being in life.

What does this say about the way I write?
What does it say about how my friend receives my texts?
What does it say about me?
About her?

I find that an interesting question.

Last year, I was clearly writing in a self-therapeutic way. Now I write more from existential curiosity. Less to save myself, more to look. Perhaps that touches something more universal — causing the themes to color themselves through the reader.

At least, that’s what I think.
But those are assumptions.

And who am I?
Who is she?
Who are you?

Perhaps writing is not a mirror of what is,
but a space in which everyone sees what they are able to carry.
Not because it stands there,
but because it begins to move —
between me, you,
and what does not yet have a name.

 

 

 

 

 

 

BETWEEN LOVE AND EMPTINESS

 

18 January 2026

I dreamed about Ton and me. I don’t remember what the dream itself was about, but when I woke up, something lingered: a conclusion, and a few questions that would not let themselves be pushed away.

Do I see and experience the same things as I did back then?
How do I deal with that now?
And how do I do this — without losing myself again?

I met my first husband, the father of my eldest daughter, on holiday. We fell deeply in love. We married young. We were blessed with a sweet little girl, Renée. Then came a major operation and two years of rehabilitation. At the end of that period, Renée was born. My physical condition deteriorated so much that I was declared fully disabled.

At the time, it didn’t seem to matter. I was happily married and had a child. Life was difficult, which meant my parents took over part of the care for my daughter. I was often left alone in my small apartment. My car was adapted, I was given a wheelchair and a mobility scooter, and my world became a little larger again.

It was during that time that yoga crossed my path. I immersed myself in it completely. My energy returned. I was able to walk much better again — literally and figuratively. Much more happened in those years that shaped my life, but that is not the point today.

Through the deepening I was going through, through the way I had always related to life but now more intensely, I gradually drifted away from my husband. Until there came a moment when, to me, there was nothing left. No communication. No shared purpose. No love. Emptiness.

I met Ton eight years ago, after Michel had died two and a half years earlier. We, too, fell deeply in love. We quickly became inseparable. Ton is someone who takes care — or rather, he provides care. He cooks, does the shopping, takes over the household. For me, it felt like heaven on earth. It gave me space. Space to paint again. To be creative.

Until he entered my life, living and surviving had been more than enough. That was all my body could manage. Nothing wrong with that. I had nothing to complain about. But that space also reawakened something that had been dormant for a long time. The energy I received from painting was immense.

We moved in together into a ground-floor apartment, with a small studio. Perfect. We bought bicycles so we could go out into nature and I could keep moving. And then came the stroke. The rehabilitation. The awareness. And the reborn feeling of now.

Ton is so good to me. And yet we do not speak the same language. He cannot follow my way of thinking. He wants to rationalize everything. He enters into discussions about things that, for me, are not discussions at all — they simply are. I want the space to name them out loud, and again and again we end up in distance. In emptiness.

And then the questions arise.

What happens to me if things continue to go as well as they are now?
If my energy fully returns?
Do I let that emptiness emerge again?
Do I become loveless once more — not out of unwillingness, but out of survival?

I want to do it differently. Without repeating the past.

Having no expectations of sharing the same way of thinking.
Seeing what he does do for me.
Not overlooking the small gestures of love.
Not letting my love depend on being recognized, but on being acknowledged.
Giving love. Sharing love. So there is room for Ton to breathe as well.

That is where I stand now.
Not with answers.
But with a choice to remain present — even when it rubs.

Perhaps love does not always ask for merging,
but for standing beside one another
without leaving oneself behind.
Not for speaking the same language,
but for allowing each other the space
to keep breathing within those differences.

 

 

 

 

 

EMBRACE HOPE

17 January 2026

In the mailbox lay a parcel addressed to me, bearing a familiar handwriting: long strokes and slightly elegant curls. It was a package from my sister, sent for my birthday. The mail had been delayed after the snowfall at the beginning of the year. At our cousin’s funeral, my sister had cautiously asked whether I hadn’t received anything yet. No, but don’t worry, it will arrive, I said.

Beautifully wrapped in a yellow silk cloth with cow parsley, a finely bound book emerged.

Remember this always…
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse and the Storm, illustrated and written by Charlie Mackesy.

Without having read it, the book already feels good in my hands. It reminds me of my childhood, when books were still traditionally bound, with covers that were slightly soft and thick, with relief. The drawing and the title suggest that — like Olivier B. Bommel and Winnie-the-Pooh — this will be a book with beautiful illustrations and carried texts with deeper layers.

Curious as I am, I first go online to look up who Charlie Mackesy is.

The idea for the book arose after Mackesy, an author and illustrator, began filling his Instagram account with drawings that radiated peace, empathy, and self-reflection. That much was immediately clear to me.

After experiencing the death of a close friend, Mackesy began drawing a boy who talks with a horse — as an expression of grief and as a conversation about the nature of courage. In a time of confusion, resentment, and tragedy, the story of the boy, the mole, the fox, and the horse offers a simple way of looking again at the world around us. Some of the feelings conveyed may seem simple, but they are precisely the essential things we can forget or suppress in times of unrest.

It is a book about hope. As I have written in earlier blog days myself: seeing and experiencing the light in small, simple things.

My sister and I have always had an ambivalent relationship. Love and envy. We both know where the roots of that lie. We have both tried to let seeds of love land, hoping they would sprout, grow, and bloom.

Today, after reading the note she had enclosed with the book in a beautiful open envelope, I can say that those seeds have grown into enormous trees — with deep roots and full of blossoms. For me, this was a valuable gift today. An example of how magical and wondrous lives can unfold.

I place the book on my bedside table, to read a little each night before going to sleep.

Perhaps hope is not something grand to hold on to,
but something small that you gently allow.
A gesture.
A book.
A sentence that may lie beside you
as the day comes to rest.

 

 

17 January 2026

 🌙 Dream from last night — now on the page ‘Dreams’.

 

 

 

 

The pumping station in Ouderkerk aan the IJssel — a place of water, silence and remembrance, where each of us belongs in our own way.

 

15 January 2026

 🌙 Dream from last night — now on the page ‘Dreams’.

 

 

 

 

 

Kindled

14 January 2026

My dream this morning kindled a question.
What is, actually, the difference between looking and perceiving?

To me, looking is what you see: a subject, an object, a person — without truly perceiving. It is a passive way of seeing. You see someone, but not necessarily their clothing, or whether they are smiling or not.

Perceiving goes deeper. Perception asks for attention; looking does not. It’s curious, really: in both cases we use the verb to see, yet it means something different. In perceiving, you use your senses — seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling — to give meaning to what you see. It is therefore a sensory process, and thus subjective. You inevitably bring your own experiences into it.

Looking is literally seeing with the eyes. It is objective.

Alright. Let me then assume these are the definitions of looking and perceiving. Inevitably, the next question arises: which is more important — looking or perceiving? Objective or subjective? In this way I bring myself back into a dualistic question — and that is precisely what I would rather be spared.

When you ask a further-reaching question, and are honest about it, you almost always end up with dualistic positions. Perhaps that is what life is. Ultimately, it does not ask us to exclude one in favor of the other, but to let them exist together. Only together do they form a whole. Perhaps we see best by both looking and perceiving.

And then I’m still not finished.

What if you are blind? How does that work? Can you then only perceive? Do you experience the world entirely subjectively? I know that in blind people other senses are often more strongly engaged — and perhaps a sixth, invisible sense is given more space. What does that mean?

Could we then say that there are people who visibly have a defect, but who may actually be blessed by that very defect? Might they develop more quickly, or differently? And could it be that what we consider a defect is, in the larger whole, not a defect at all?

I know that I may be making myself — and perhaps the reader — a little dizzy with these hoops of thought. But I don’t necessarily need an answer to existence or to how it all works. Asking questions and speaking them out loud is something I value being able to do in this place.

Perhaps life does not need to be solved.
Not lifted into a single truth.
As long as I am here — with a body, with senses, with questions —
I move between distinction and connection.
And perhaps that is not a lack of non-duality,
but precisely the way the whole
allows itself to be experienced in matter.

14 January 2026

 🌙 Dream from last night — now on the page ‘Dreams’.

 

 

Sunday Feeling

 

13 January 2026

The Sunday feeling. It’s Tuesday, but it feels like a Sunday. In the past that meant: a little more freedom and then back to work. A kind of loss of autonomy. But I haven’t known that for nearly forty years now. So what does this feeling mean today?

For me it is calm. Coziness. Nothing required, everything allowed. A world that doesn’t rattle at me, but is fairly quiet. That’s it above all: when my surroundings contribute little, make little noise, this Sunday feeling arises.

I get up, go training, have breakfast at home. During breakfast the TV goes on. Politics — question time in the House of Representatives. Then Maestro. The classical film music makes tears roll down my cheeks. That too, I realize, belongs to this feeling.

I always like to go home. My husband finds it almost endearing — how happy I am when I’m home. For me, the place where I live is a house in which I can truly feel at home. A place where I feel safe, where my own energy hangs, where I don’t have to explain anything.

I could say that “home” is not a physical place, that I can feel at home anywhere when I am at home within myself. And that is also true. In nature I feel at home. Cycling along trees and water. In rain, birds, plants, stars. In music that opens me. In painting and writing, when I enter the flow and time dissolves. Then I feel connected. Not separated. As if everything is part of the same movement.

But that does not mean the earthly disappears. At the end of the day I want to go back to my house. To my chair. My table. My walls. My quiet. Precisely there, all of that can land. Precisely there, I can relax without disappearing.

Home is not a contradiction for me. It is not a choice between inside or outside, body or spirit, earth or cosmos. It is both feeling the world — and being able to arrive somewhere. And sometimes a Tuesday simply feels like a Sunday.

Perhaps being at home is nothing more than being allowed to rest in what is 

— in nature, in music, in stillness, 

and ultimately also just between your own walls, 

where everything remains, for a moment, exactly as it is.

 

 

13 January 2026

 🌙 Dream from last night — now on the page ‘Dreams’.

 

 

The First Day

 

12 January 2026

The first day of the rest of my life.
That sentence resonates through me. It’s actually quite powerful. Why does it surface now?

I’ve always had the strange idea that I will live to be ninety-six. In difficult moments in my life, it gave me the courage to keep going — and to want to keep going. I often doubt those odd, unfounded assumptions of mine. And yet… what does it matter whether it will turn out to be true or not? From now on, people may enjoy my physical presence for another thirty-three years. Two thirds done, one third to go. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

The spiritual meaning of 33 revolves around the master number 33, the Teacher of Teachers. It stands for unconditional love, creativity, spiritual leadership, and helping others grow. It is associated with transforming old structures and opening new paths — with revelation and deep inner wisdom. It is often seen as a sign of calling and service.

Wow. If this is the first day of my life, then a beautiful path still lies ahead. Of course, that may sound a bit lofty and dreamy — but a girl is allowed to dream and fantasize once in a while.

Let me simply philosophize today.

I think I’ve reached an age where I can calmly say that I have gained an overview of the landscape of life. As if the contours have become visible. Because of that, I can now walk through life more freely, more naturally, more effortlessly. Because I have grown to love myself more and have developed greater self-mastery, I can hopefully collaborate more easily with others. At ease, I recognize possibilities as they present themselves — sometimes even before others see them. Because I am in harmony with myself, I understand that life gives me exactly what I need.

I am increasingly seeing how beautiful, magical, and wondrous life is. Slowly, I notice that I am beginning to experience heaven on earth. Happy with the small things, the small joys, the small moments of rapture — small in their stillness, yet vast in their boundless potential.

Perhaps I can also hear the sentence that keeps resonating today in another way.
The first day of the rest of your life can be an invitation: to let go, to learn, to make conscious choices, and to meet life as it presents itself now — without waiting for perfect circumstances.

And to keep the calm when the moment is not yet the moment.
To trust that you may let go.
I believe I will arrive, in my own time, at the place where I am meant to be — whatever the circumstances.

Perhaps this is what beginning truly means:
not turning everything upside down,
but looking differently.
Not rushing,
but trusting that life carries me —
starting right here.

12 January 2026

 🌙 Dream from last night — now on the page ‘Dreams’.

 

 

 

 

 

There are no grand movements.
No decisions, no explanations.
Just moments that no longer cling.
Memories that are allowed to pass
without my body having to hold them.

Perhaps this is what becoming whole does:
not understanding everything,
but noticing that I can remain standing
where I once had to give way.

 

10 January 2026

 🌙 Dream from last night — now on the page ‘Dreams’.

 

 

 

 

Watching Without Hurry

 

9 january 2026

I do not watch The Untamed to follow the plot, but to notice where it touches me.
With my laptop on my lap, sometimes silent, sometimes responding out loud, as if I am not watching alone. As if someone is sitting beside me who understands what I see before I can explain it.

What slowly unfolds is not a battle between good and evil, but a landscape of consciousness. Clans as inner states. The Lan clan as something angelic: clear, restrained, almost otherworldly. The Jiang clan as gentle and warm, human and supportive. The Wen clan as damaged — evil not as an origin, but as a consequence. And the Nie clan… not impure, but human: assumptions, conclusions, misunderstandings that make things seem to go wrong.

I notice how my attention keeps returning to silence. To what is not spoken. To details that are barely visible, yet carry everything. A faint smile on Lan Wangji’s face — only truly perceptible in episode ten, though it had been there all along. As if the story trusts me. As if it knows I am watching.

This series explains nothing. It shows.
It shows how inner noise creates fog, and how clarity does not arise from force, but from stillness. How “evil” has an origin. How power responds to emptiness. How people first lose their autonomy, before violence begins.

I watch without moving ahead. I watch the way I live, write, and paint: present, open, sometimes quietly amazed. Not to understand, but to notice what appears. And perhaps that is enough — a story that does not tell you who you are, but leaves space in which you can recognize yourself.

Perhaps watching is sometimes enough.
Not to know why something touches you,
but to allow that it does.
Without hurry. Without explanation.
Simply — being seen,
in silence.

 

9 January 2026

 🌙 Dream from last night — now on the page ‘Dreams’.

 

 

 

The Spiral Touches

8 January 2026

A friend I have known for some thirty-five years sends me a message on WhatsApp. She has not lived in the Netherlands for a long time. We have little contact, but when we do see each other there is always an immediate connection. In those moments we often discover that we are dealing with the same themes in our lives. The contact is intense, close, almost self-evident. And afterwards, each of us goes our own way again.

This has been the pattern for years. Sometimes we do not see each other for a long time. And when we meet again, the intensity is instantly there. As if nothing has passed in between.

Independently of one another, a third person also walks through our lives. Since my school days he has crossed my path — and, separately from me, also hers. Little contact, but when he is present, it is intense. Until it crystallizes again. Then he disappears from view once more.

Around the turn of the year I send New Year’s wishes, as I always do. This mutual friend replies with a video of a dancing Korean actor and singer. I recognize him immediately and let him know. We begin talking about our fascination with Asian films and culture. He tells me that our mutual friend is also a fan.

And then the little circle starts turning again.

She gets in touch with me. Without any preamble we are instantly back in an intense resonance. What touches me is not that this happens — but how natural it feels. As if the spiral brings us back to the same point for a moment, exactly where it fits.

For me, this is vertical time, made very tangible in relationships. You don’t have to hold on to each other. You don’t have to keep track. The connection is there, or it isn’t. You move along together, touch each other, and move on again. The spiral follows its own course, deepens, and meets itself again later on.

The intensity remains.
The love remains.
The memory remains.

So it is not strange that this fascination resonates again as well. What strikes me is that over all these years we have never spoken about this before. Apparently this, too, chooses its own moment. Time chooses its time.

My philosophy of life unfolds not in theory, but in daily life. In encounters that come and go, without loss. In connection without possession.

And every time the spiral touches again, I know:
this is enough.

Perhaps this is what time truly does:
not holding on, not losing, but moving.
Meeting without possession.
Letting go without farewell.
And again and again recognizing
that what is true does not disappear —
it waits until the spiral touches once more.

 

8 January 2026

 🌙 Dream from last night — now on the page ‘Dreams’.

 

 

 

PLAUSIBLE

 

7 January 2026

Early this morning my ears pick up an interview on the radio. Strangely enough, it lingers. Why? I truly wouldn’t know.

The voice on the radio announces a fellow journalist. She turns out to be married to a Canadian. Laughing — almost mockingly — she says that her husband “laughs his balls off” at how the Dutch deal with a bit of snow. The interviewer finds it hugely amusing as well and laughs along. He then plays the morning news, including the warnings. Together they recognize their colleague who, in a serious voice, announces “code orange” — and they laugh again, because this colleague has to sling this “ridiculous news” into the world.

This way of journalism, packaged as a quasi in-depth interview that might be taken seriously, disturbs me. I turn off the radio. Ton, my husband, reacts immediately. He finds it short-sighted and inappropriate as well.
Luckily, I think.

I hear these kinds of sounds constantly, on all sorts of subjects. Very resolute, viewed from an extremely narrow perspective. Then I think of my painting Vistas / Vergezichten. In this diptych you see the universe, the Big Bang, the human being, duality, the woman, the followers, the individuals, and the connectors.

In my view, humanity currently consists mainly of followers of individuals — and there are too few connectors. That is not an opinion, but an observation. The time of the connectors will return by itself. But clearly not now.

The presentation is often funny, almost cozy. I always call that plausible. It seems so — but is it really? Unconsciously, these kinds of “cozy” chats and interviews reach us via radio, TV, and social media. For many people it is difficult to remain detached from them. Technological progress has advantages, but certainly disadvantages as well.

Personally, I choose not to watch or listen to this. After all, there is an off switch.

And yet…
what is it in me that makes this linger all day?

… hahaha, he laughs his balls off…

Maybe it lingers because I hear where laughter is aimed at what wants to be carried.
Because seriousness here is not heavy, but it is real.
And because, even with an off switch, I cannot pretend not to hear what is missing.
Not everything that sounds plausible is true.
And not everything that disturbs wants to go away.

 

7 January 2026

 🌙 Dream from last night — now on the page ‘Dreams’.

 

 

 

 

 

6 January 2026

 🌙 Dream from last night — now on the page ‘Dreams’.

 

 

SPACE WITHIN AND AROUND ME

5 January 2026

It has been a while since we’ve had real blankets of snow here in the Netherlands. This morning the car had to be dug out. While we were at the gym, it kept snowing, and an hour later we had to literally uncover the car again from a thick white layer.

It brings up nostalgic feelings. At the same time, I feel joy — a light sense of happiness when I look outside. Out there, I don’t even feel the cold. Maybe it isn’t cold at all. I couldn’t say, because I’m too absorbed in experiencing this serene, white stillness.

Taking that first step into the untouched snow, leaving deep footprints behind. It makes me wonder: in what other ways do I leave my marks? Do I want to? And if so — how?

White stands for purity. For peace. For the white canvas of my paintings. White stands for a new beginning. And now, quite literally, at the start of this new year. It feels fitting on many levels: my birthday coming up this weekend, a renewed awareness. A new physical beginning. Fresh courage. New ideas. Yes — everything seems to align right now.

I see far fewer cars. Hardly any bicycles. The world slows down because of the snow. Everything is allowed to become quieter for a moment. We are given space to recharge, to turn inward, before new challenges appear on our path again.

I receive beautiful photos and videos. On Instagram and Facebook, I see many people enjoying themselves, feeling uplifted. Of course, there are troubling things happening in the world — and unrest in our own country as well. We see that on television and on social media.

Some may call it egocentric. Some may think I’m burying my head in the sand. But today, I consciously choose to enjoy this white beauty and the joy I sense around me. I try not to seek out the news deliberately. Enough reaches me already. I don’t need to go looking for more.

A smile. A kind word. Beautiful thoughts. Enjoying nature. Expressing myself creatively. That is what I can do. That is what makes life feel lighter to me.

I see how this white landscape creates space in many people. That touches me. I want to keep noticing moments like this — because ultimately, beautiful autumn, spring, summer or winter days like these are small gifts within a challenging existence.

At the same time, I’m aware that beautiful external circumstances make it easier to feel this way. But I don’t want this feeling only here — I want to carry it under all circumstances. Because I believe that life is not about waiting for the storm to pass,
but about learning to dance in the rain.

Perhaps space is not created by silence,
but by attention.
And sometimes, snow reminds us of that.

5 January 2026

 🌙 Dream from last night — now on the page ‘Dreams’.

 

 

 

 

January 4, 2026

 🌙 Dream from last night — now on the page ‘Dreams’.

 

BLUE BIRD

January 3, 2026

While Ton and I are having breakfast, we wonder whether it might still be a good idea to go and train. Normally we don’t go during the weekend. It’s already three minutes to eleven, and the last reservation can be made for half past eleven. Five spots still available — so, off we go.

Outside it’s snowing. The streets and pavements are white and haven’t been salted yet. My walking stick is useless in these conditions, so I hold on to Ton. We hear the crunching and bubbling sound under the car tyres — a new sound, a new sensation. My system is still more sensitive than before, so it needs a moment to adjust. Once I’m on the machines at the gym, I calm down. The physical effort gives me a deep sense of satisfaction.

On our way home, the radio reports on… the situation in America. What new situation is this now?
Trump claims to have captured Maduro, the president of Venezuela, and confirms attacks. I don’t want to engage in politics or opinions here, but I do feel an analogy with the individual.

I believe that if we, as individuals, dare to resolve the chaos within ourselves — if we examine our own actions — then something essential shifts. If, within our small circles, we give and receive support unconditionally (truly without expecting anything in return), that is the first step toward peace.

I understand the protests, the opinions that reach us through the media, but I don’t think the solution lies there. It begins — quite literally — with ourselves.
Maybe I’m wrong. I’m not all-knowing. This is simply how it feels to me.

During my courses, I sometimes told a story from the Mahabharata. It tells of a small bird — the Blue Bird — who lays her eggs on the beach. A tidal wave comes and carries the eggs away into the ocean. The little bird begins to drink the ocean, drop by drop, determined to find her eggs again.

Arjuna, the god of rebirth, sees the bird and asks what she is doing.
“Isn’t this an impossible task?” he asks.
“No,” says the bird. “If I keep drinking long enough, I will find my eggs.”

In the story, the bird and Arjuna have many conversations. The bird has an immense trust that through perseverance and love, she will succeed. After many tests — through simplicity, selflessness, endurance, faith in herself, and above all patience infused with love — Arjuna finally decides to drink the ocean dry in one single act. The bird experiences a miracle and finds her eggs.

If we behaved a little more like this bird, perhaps we humans could perform miracles as well — without taking up weapons, without forcing one another into different viewpoints.

There are people in this world who believe they hold power, who visibly sow confusion and provoke wars. From our rocking chairs, it seems there is nothing we can do about that. It appears as though a handful of people determine the direction of everything.

My belief is this: if we, as individuals, gain mastery over our own emotions, over our own fears, then something shifts energetically on a cosmic level. And ultimately, no single ruler can compete with that.

What I am really saying is that the chaos and confusion we see in the world are a mirror of what lives within the majority of individuals. This is not a judgment. I see us as particles of one single movement. If enough of us begin to move in another direction… then what happened to the little bird may happen to us as well.

There is one important thing I want to add. There are exceptions — people living in war zones or under extreme conditions. Of course they cannot engage in this kind of awareness; their systems are focused purely on survival. Not everyone can travel to such places to offer support. From our relatively comfortable lives, the one thing we can do is work on ourselves — so that, eventually, a global shift may become possible.

Drop by drop.
Without haste.
That, sometimes, is miracle enough.

 

 🌙 Dream from last night — now on the page ‘Dreams’.

 

 

WONDERED INTERWEAVING

January 2, 2026

Today I went training and spent time at home with my dream. I quickly found the painting that was mentioned in it.

Throughout the day I alternated between different things. I watered the plants. Not just splashing water into the soil, but carrying them one by one to the kitchen and caring for them attentively. Gently giving them lukewarm water. As I placed them back, I noticed it was snowing outside. I took the time to enjoy the white view and took a few photos.

I got in touch with a friend in Togo, where of course it’s pleasantly warm. I sent her a photo so she could briefly enjoy the winter white with me. Almost immediately she sent one back: sitting outside at a table with friends. One moment in time, more than 5,000 kilometers apart… so beautiful.

I checked in on a friend who had been ill over New Year’s, asking if she needed anything — groceries, for example. She wasn’t fully fit yet, but had already gone back to work. I’m in contact with my best friend every day. We send each other a heart daily. We take photos whenever we come across a heart somewhere. Sometimes that’s all it is, sometimes it turns into an exchange of thoughts. I contacted two friends I’ve known all my life and set a date to meet. I also spoke with my sister; we talked about change and being “different.”

I follow a Chinese series and a Korean series, alternating between the two. I use these moments as pauses for rest.

Today was my tenth time at the E-Gym. Five times a week for two weeks. The first week I immediately felt fresh and energized, but my performance seemed stable. At first I thought, well, maybe that isn’t being measured. But the trainer said, “Oh yes — the equipment automatically becomes more challenging when it measures that you’ve grown stronger. It adjusts by itself.”

“Well then,” I thought, “if I feel this good even without visible gains in strength, that’s perfectly fine. I’m getting energy from it either way.”

When I started two weeks ago, my BioAge was 73. And now, after two weeks of daily training… 56 years. Next week I’m going to stop rehabilitation therapy and focus on recovery in this way. It feels right.

I reflected on how often I know that something needs to be done, but that what is truly right only becomes clear after some friction. Is that a problem? Does it always have to be right immediately? No, I don’t believe that. I believe in time — with its layers. During rehabilitation I learned once again how to be among unfamiliar people, with falling and getting back up. Now I can handle the world a bit better again.

To most people, this day probably looks like an ordinary, gently flowing day. You might even think: “Annette, not very exciting.” I completely understand that. But for me, after many years, it is a new phenomenon to take pleasure in household tasks. To make frequent contact and even plan appointments. To step into a gym with a clear, settled feeling.

So many “ordinary” actions that now feel new and refreshing. The feeling of being connected to the world around me, to the people around me. Connected to matter. Not out of habit, but from an open connection.

I feel wonder that it is this way.
I am amazed that I can’t even remember the last time I felt so whole on such an ordinary day.

Perhaps this is what recovery sometimes truly is:
not spectacular, not loud,
but quietly interwoven with the everyday.
A hand that waters,
a body that grows stronger without struggle,
a world that comes back in
without me having to grasp it.
Today life flowed gently —
and I flowed along with it.

 

 🌙 Dream from last night — now on the page ‘Dreams’.

 

January 2, 2026

On January 2, 2026, I had a dream that brought me back to a painting I started three years ago.
A voice said: “Dare to be the dragon.”
What followed wasn’t just a dream — it was an inner turning point.
You can read the full account on my Dreams page: …