Cornelis Verhoeven, 2-2-1928

Today would have been my father's 85th birthday.

It's strange how much i still miss him, or rather, how little that has changed. He's being celebrated in Belgium with a day of lectures about his work, and i had the privilege to read one of those lectures. It is an impressive and beautiful essay, both intellectual and personal, close to the bone and sharp without being vicious or hurtful. But the author takes a step that made me feel very uncomfortable: he addressed dad with three questions.

In the almost twelve years he's been dead i've tried addressing him directly only once, in writing him a letter, and i gave up midway through my first paragraph. All i heard were my words echoing back from the nothingness he left, all it did was emphasize what was missing. His absence from my life is so monumental, and has been from the moment i saw him go, that i can't pretend he's around. Sometimes i desperately wish he was around, maybe not so much to ask questions, but more to just be around him, smell him, share a smile with him over coffee, feel what the house is like when he's concentrating on his work. It's the corner of his mouth, the exhale in the pause of a sentence, the twinkle when he raised his eyes to meet yours -tiny things, millions of them. All that is missing, still, and will be, forever, and addressing him for me is just a needless pointing out what is no longer there.

But i admire it, like i admire people who can pray and mean it. There'll never be an answer to his questions but that doesn't make them any less viable -i just couldn't have asked them. Hell, i probably couldn't have made them up -my dad couldn't swim but i drown in less than half an inch of philosophy. All i can do, the closest i get to having him about, is reading him and translating him. So that's what i do. An essay that makes me feel close to him, because it's about water, and i can relate. You can find it here, on his blog:

http://cornelisverhoeven.wordpress.com/

frost -still water, just harder. And smaller.

One interesting part of travel is jet lag. It's not just about time difference -i'd say that's only a small part of it. In William Gibson's novel Pattern Recognition it is described as the time it takes the soul to come back to the body; we travel faster than our souls can on airplanes, and it takes a while for them to reconnect. You sit still for a long time and when you get up again, you're in a different world. It takes time to adjust, time for the soul to travel the same distance the body just has done.

After Vertical Blue, i went from a blue water white beach warm world filled with friends and passion to a grey and cold London filled with hard work. The transition took a week of grump. The two things that helped were my girl, and water. Water, as an element, is endlessly fascinating in all its forms, and even though i was away from its blue deep form, i was surrounded by its frosty form. It beckoned me to go out exploring again, even if i'd been working outside all day and had become quite frosted myself.

It was near the end of the day, and though i was surrounded by monuments





my attention was drawn down



from monuments to moments, almost literally frozen in time







and i saw the cohesion, the link between blue water and frost



which is when my soul returned to me, i reckon

It reminds me of something my father wrote about the element of water: "That water is an element means that man could attribute an endless amount of meanings to it, but only based on the fact, that the water itself is the centre, and not subjected to an ‘egotrip’. It’s not man that makes water, it’s water that makes man and invites him to contemplation. Drifting on water, listening to the waves or with his eyes following the stream he is confronted with something that in force and duration surpasses his own existence and on which he depends."

dog surfing

i knew dogs could swim





even with a ball in their mouth





i never knew they could surf, though

Luda, your friendly neighborhood barracuda

Barracudas have a bad rep, mainly due to their dodgy smile



and while i have encountered some that are indeed of the asshole variety, here in Sharm there is a particularly nice one called Luda



not only is she very nice, she's also very photogenic, and she doesn't mind posing -though i managed to find a wrong angle for her



but she's cool with people about, even an idiot like myself



but she prefers to hang with the little fish under the platform



and i reckon she a romantic soul, for every once in a while she wanders off from the group



and into the sunset

at play in the empire of light

Back in the empire of light, where the fish rule



after the goddess created them



lots of them



 to play with



because play is important for light



and being light is important for play



so we might need more air than the fish



and we might have something to do with sea-levels rising



but at least we're very good at cheating during tight-rope walking

bubble magic

i accidentally made magic today

a second before it looked like this

and a second after it broke

but for a split second i stumbled into the exact right place, and my little camera clicked at the exact right time. 

leaving paradise

Why would you ever leave paradise?



I mean voluntarily, not just with your head bowed in shame because you ate its forbidden fruit. I left because my ticket said it was time to leave, which is a ridiculous reason; it's a schlep and a half to get to the place, getting back is even worse (cause you're traveling in the wrong direction), so you best stay long as you can. But my bank account also went from silently weeping in the corner to screaming its head off, so i'd come to the end of the road anyway.



Now that i'm back to what i guess is reality and normality (with my kind of brain, both concepts are forever in question and rarely within reach), i can tell you a couple of things about paradise. It's an odd place to get into:



but once in there is that sense of infinite beauty



with the kind of views and blues usually reserved for, well, movies about paradise



and some beautiful people





who are there to cherish the blue and the sun



but even the clouds are pretty



and even the rain is sunny



and fantastically fat



the insects are HUGE



the birds tiny



the fish quite sociable



as are the lizards -though they prefer to be outside



whereas the porcupine fish likes to be inside



and the frogs like monofins



the corals are smart and angelic



and can come in the shape of a rubber ducky



of course, this is modern day paradise, so there's quite a lot of plastic shit about



which has its own sad visual poetry



but other than that, it is remarkably pristine and crowd-free



and it seems paradise takes over civilization more than the other way round



so i'm happy to report that the tree of wisdom is safe and sound



and that i obviously have yet to partake from its fruit



but during the journey back into civilization i had a thought



you don't really know about love until you've had your heart broken, or about life until someone you love dies. In paradise, happiness is a state rather than a moment. I hope the memory of that state adds value to future moments.

And i hope to be back in paradise as soon as bank accountably possible.