scatteredsisters

white friend

2012-02-17T14:05:00.004-08:00

Dear Sisters,
Hello!

I do hope, S3, that your new friend managed to hold his drink. Hot tea can be risky for some.
Here, in Antwerp, all snow has melted.
The veil of cold that dropped itself upon us has lifted, and we are back to more recognisably Belgian bleary days of rain and even some warm, wintery sun.

I enjoyed the cold and my new Irish mittens. I dropped one in the snow and even then you can see the quality of the warm wool.
The raspberry coloured folding bicycle that is my new companion, combined with the train, takes me almost everywhere (although I'd put a cycling limit of one hour in terms of comfort); it is a true revolution in speed; I'd recommend it for everyone.

The cat (not pictured here) that is one of my companions has had his evening runaround and is now staring at me intently. Now and then he bows his head slightly, and closes his eyes a little. He likes to listen to the sound of my fingers typing on the keys, or so it seems. Every now and then he lifts his head, looks around, a bit to the left, then to the right, changing position slightly, only to return to immobility again. I have always suspected cats of being part of the fluxus movement.

I send you my love!
S2

A new friend

2012-02-06T05:01:00.000-08:00

Dear Sisters ,

Sunday woke up and all was covered in a fluffy white blanket.

Finsbury park , have never seen so many snowmen and giant snowballs being rolled
down hills , I even saw an igloo. So many sledges with bundles of kids on them.
It was a beautiful sight of a sea of white with blobs of happy colour.

And then a new friend appeared magically sitting on a bench.
I have invited him for a coffee next week , lets see if he shows up.
This could be the beginning of a great friendship.
By the way here is a little educational video of How to build an igloo,
Im learning so much in this amazing city, do you like my new winter coat ?
IGLOO
Lots of Love ,
Sister 3

New Year, it is!

2012-01-15T12:51:00.000-08:00

Dear sisters,

Well, howdy.

Is it too late to say Happy New Year?

It has been long time and I have no excuse I can think of, so writing to you on a more regular basis on this forum is a good resolution for the coming year; that with book completion, a new home, a dog and a marathon in New York. And less focus on clothes-shopping this year; just to see what that’s like. And more open communication with my husband; just to see what that’s like.

So, you see, 2012 is not going to be the end of the world, but yet another grand beginning, although I seem to work better in academic years, starting in September, which means we are halfway through one or not yet at the other. January is a very difficult month to start all the above, due to its messiness; school holidays and the overeating.

I thought I would get back into the groove by rambling a bit on how we are doing in the Venice of the north, where the wind whips around corners, making us cycle backwards.

In between, I will present some holiday snaps to give you the necessary breathing space. Here is one of my new camera that is so advanced you can change the focus after taking the picture. My husband gave me that for Christmas.

Here is a picture of me and my husband, in the meadows of South Bohemia. We spent New Year in your country, S3, while you were not there, which is a shame.

The day after this picture was taken it snowed and looked like this amazing, isn’t it?

Jip wants to grow his hair long like Orlando Bloom in Pirates of the Caribbean 1, 2 and 3. I told him: “you realize they are extensions”. This did not go down well and, it appears, is not true. “Alright”, I said, “Fine by me, as long as you keep it light on top.”

We are buying Jip a new guitar as he had a ¾ one and it seems to be difficult to get his fingers around all the cords. Both Jip and his teacher seem to think the next one should be electric, which I fear is taking us down a whole new road of sound experimentation. Jip is very excited. “I love the eighties and nineties music”, he says. His favorite pants are his black tight cords and he likes his black skimpy vests because to him they symbolize rock music and his own personal freedom (I added that last bit myself). He said he wouldn’t mind a couple of white skimpy vests either.

Rosie also thinks skinny pants are the ultimate in style. She however has none. She has declared her love for Q, a certain classmate, and when she thought there was a chance she might have a play date with Q one day, she made great effort to dig out her tightest pants, which are more treggings than pants, added her favorite T-shirt with shiny bits and was ready. The play date did not come about unfortunately, but she was ready.

At the dinner table Rosie asked us whether we thought she should just go ahead and tell Q she was in love with him, giggling, adding she wouldn’t dare to, anyway. She has competition, so she tells me, as J and E are in love with Q too.

I have subscribed to this Letter in the Mail service, which I think might appeal to S2 in particular.

We saw this London lass in concert and both my husband and I agree she is very good.

Here she is playing for Jools.

My new hobby is making books on blurb.com, which is rather an expensive hobby. But after I had to pay many Euros to retrieve data on a damaged external hard disk, I believe strongly the pictures should be fished out of the computer as quickly as possible, just in case it happens again. So far, I am still having difficulty making ultra sharp editing decisions, which entails killing my darlings, meaning the books are still rather fat, but I am sure as time passes it will become easier. I seem take the same pictures over and over again. Look, another window with lacy curtains. Look another empty road leading to nowhere.

Allard is waiting for his electric car and goes to the gym before work.

In the next episode I will talk about the plans for our new house. Will we be able to squeeze it all into the budget? I might also talk about how I am resisting the sales. It feels like stopping smoking. If you wait a while, the urge disappears.

The last picture of today, shows a still life of our mother's natural air freshener at Christmas.

With love,

S1

Post christmas hue , pre new year resolutions

2011-12-29T02:40:00.000-08:00

Dear sisters , what is this ? Am I the only scattered one left out there ?
Have you both become "unscattered" ?
I must admit I am still definately scattered and I hope you are too.

Here is a little post christmas / pre new year Quiz on the origin of words :
( from a book lying around that had been under the tree )

Quiz
a)Latin for "who is?"
b)Hindi for "unclaimed property"
c)Chinese for "escape"

Clue
a)A ball of yarn
b)A skeleton key
c)A love letter

Karaoke
a)Japanese for "singing under water"
b)Japanese for "howling"
c)Japanese for "empty orchestra"

Slogan
a)An Algonquian prayer
b)A Celtic war-cry
c)Russian for "repetition"

Boudoir
a)French for "sulking room"
b)French for "gun room"
c) French for Peeping Tom"

Theasaurus
a)A riddling lizard from Greek mythology
b)A treasure chest
c)The book of Theseus

Aardvark
a)Swahili for "grandmother"
b)Dutch for "earth pig"
c)Croatian for "Jesus"

Thats it for now , you can send your answers now if you please and they will be posted in the new year . I am sure that you can not wait. Be strong.

And now for a series of Happy Birthday images for the scattered sister number one !
( Yes, one day late , I am sorry but I have lost track of dates due to christmas indulgences ,home made carrot cake and 15 episodes of the Killing)
But my instinct did not let me down , I knew that your birthday was a few days after christmas :)

Here is my birthday present to you , a postmodernist dress from London, I hope you like it.

And here is a lucky coloured sneeuw vlok blob for the new year :

And to peacefully and gracefully end all my brabbles I present both sisters and compagnons and family and friends with a song in appreciation of a lovely christmas , it was great.

Eartha Kitt , Cest si bon

( Thankyou Sister Two for introducing this amazing singer to us :)

Lots of Love
Happy New year and what are your new years resolutions ?
Mine are to do a tap dancing course and to be healthy and happy and to keep to my resolutions!

S3

P.S. Let the wise Owl look over us and protect us all :)

The winter dance

2011-11-20T06:18:00.000-08:00

Dear all ,

Here is something beautiful to treat our eyes. It is a special dance that will keep us warm during the winter months to come.
Just click on the following grey orange words
Winter dance
By the way , i would love one of those dresses for christmas! Dear mama, maybe we can get the sewing machine out and make a family costume for all of us to dance around in , incase we get fed up up the sherades? I'm sure dear Papa will be very happy to participate:)

That's all for now,

Take care and keep colourful

Love ,

S3

new tracks and the cavewoman

2011-10-31T15:43:00.001-07:00

Dear Sisters,

It has been a while. The crushed moth is now a distant memory...and the clocks changed, which means night comes in early now, like an inky sandman who does his work by making the air thinner, stroking your ankles with a cold breeze and filling your lungs with a sleepy sigh that longs for cosiness and sleep. The moon sits half-finished in the sky staring at you with a cheeky vanilla smile. Turning yellow as it moves across the sky, ever so slightly.

Would a cheap telescope on offer at the local cheap supermarket, I wonder, in terms of quality, would it be close to what the first makers of telescopes would see, or would it be Even Better? I do not know. If I were to look through it, would the planets and the stars be like my marbles collection let loose in an art class?
I do not know.
I said to them: imagine a vacuum cleaner is sucking the planets to one place, would it look like this?

Here is a poem on this subject. I think it is so beautiful.
My trainpass is getting full of scribbled destinations. I love travelling by train. I see lots of different things. Church spires and rippling water, falling leaves, and a railtrack that takes me to a village where only one train an hour passes in either direction, taking turns, on a single track. Geese fly overhead, I work in the train, the journeys give me peace.

In time for november I got the flu' out of my system and today I secretly opened your cards, S3, which arrived two days early. I opened them today in an effort to stretch out my birthday. I so love the glitter, royally applied, and what was the snailwoman about? It was very kind of you to miscalculate my age.

Love from S2

A fish

2011-10-11T11:21:00.000-07:00

Love and Patience from S3
I am waiting to get started !
Hopefully we sisters will catch a giant rainbow fish of inspiration and productivity !
and it will guide us to a creative island of flowing creative-nessness
Good luck to us all !
Keep dancing and singing !

visual notes from Europe

2011-09-28T04:46:00.000-07:00

The heat wave of an Indian summer in Central Europe...

The phantom of the blue dress strikes again in the streets of Amsterdam. A new fashion is out on the run ! Beware ! Soon the dress worn over head will catch on ! Run !

Twin sisters sitting near a lake , contemplating the ducks in Brussels.

A new school year has been launched ! Lets aim for the moon !

Treasures in windows of Prague...

Czech sweets ....

Can anyone relate to this feeling of cleaning up junk ? I can ....

And last but but not least , a kafkaesque cinema , a great place for a midsummer nap...

To be continued ....

S3

Messages from the homefront

2011-09-22T02:54:00.000-07:00

Dear sisters,

I have returned from my annual visit to the land of America, with a new collection of snapshots.

Meanwhile at the homefront:

Justin Bieber has been reduced by Jip, from greatness to barely worthy of a six-year-old girl’s attention, in just four months. Rosie still proudly wears her T-shirt with his likeness, despite her brothers mocking, and declares her love, although her marriage plans to JB have been cancelled. She is realistic, she says. When she is grown, he will be old.

Jip, instead, is learning the lyrics to Californication by the Red Hot Chili peppers and sings the chorus “Hard core soft porn” to heart’s content; this is in preparation for his first guitar lesson next week. He announced he is a fan of rock music in general, when asked by the music teacher what he would like to play.

Californication-singing is the result of my attempt to broaden my son’s musical rock horizons, with a YouTube browsing session. He was stuck at Queen, citing “Bicycle race” and “We are the champions” as favorites. Nothing wrong with Freddie of course, but there are others, too.

School is back in full swing with hockey, swimming, fencing and lice alerts during the week. There is a time sucking quality to it all. One week, woosh gone, second week, woosh, gone. On Monday I am sucked into the school vortex and on Friday afternoon I am spat out again for a brief reprise. Mandarins are back in the stores, next to the pepernoten, which means it is nearly Christmas.

I am back to the writing and the struggle. Should it be this hard?
I am giving myself a deadline to sort it out.

If I haven’t found my way by Christmas, which is really damn close, I shall look for a job once more, involving writing contracts rather than prose.

So, back to the drawing board.

S1

posting the metaphor

2011-09-15T13:33:00.000-07:00

"I think it's wonderful. I don't know what you are photographing but the fact that you can see it, is wonderful." said the gardener of the butterfly no larger than the nail of my thumb...earlier this summer.

Dear Sisters,

You don't see much nature where I work. It's mostly trucks and pallet-moving machines and other big and dirty machines of which I am not sure what they are meant to be. The floor thuds every time they pass by on the main road: often.

They move by in a slower procession when a large crane soaring into the sky as high as an apartment building touching the sky moves by at walking pace...you'd expect to see a man with a flag walking in front.
I love those moments, when time, no, I mean the hard business of business, screetches to a slower pace, slowed by the sheer weight and scale of things. It gives the road, otherwise roaring, a dignified gait, indeed, a sense of gravitas and occasion.

And there are also flashing orange lights which match the daily different smells that waft through the harbour, which seem to me to be the nasal equivalent of disco-lights. Some days they smell of biscuit dough. Other days of a bitches' brew of chemical concoctions of a dubious nature, thick like cough syrup, which spell t.o.x.i.c. and artificial in different coloured words every day... Were it all not so sickly my synesthaetic self would be having a constant field day. If it smelled better (or, preferably, not at all) it might add a certain je ne sais quoi to my workaday existence... which instead I brighten up in other ways. The orchids certainly help.

Yesterday, I killed a moth by standing on it. It was fluttering on the polished industrial floor of the showroom where I work. I first saw a blur and wondered at the natural tones in the otherwise sterile environment. What could it be? I approached it. I imagined it might be a bit of a hot moth, and that it was trying to ventilate itself. Auto-fanning for moths if you like. I blew on its wings and it froze. Then I realised that it was trying desperately hard to fly.

No doubt it had ended up there when the half-ton battery was delivered from storage by a fork-lift truck. Such an industrial environment is not a happy place for such a delicate creature to be. The icy blue floors and the red columns and the greenish window frames and the electric green windows all terribly at odds with the bold appearance of this rough creature's nature: quite a big moth.

I decided to give it some help, and take it outside and put it in the bushes where the wind, that sticky harbour air, as described above, might help it take flight..

As I picked up the moth with the paper I saw that its fat body was half crushed, its antennae were part-lame. It fluttered its wings more persistently as it lay on the double folded sheet of paper as I walked the distance to the door, and I felt its soul in my hand through the vibrating paper, which amplified the fluttering motion of the wings like an ominous drumroll. Once out the door it fell off the paper and dropped to the ground. I tried to launch it on the wind, knowing it was all to no avail. The creature couldn't fly. So I did the only thing one could: I covered the moth with the paper and stamped on it.

Afterwards I felt a flash of a white after-image of the moth nearby.
I told a co-worker about what I did to the moth. She said: "It is probably really grateful and will reincarnate as a butterfly."
Who knows. Maybe she's right.

Big kisses to both of you and much love!
S2

A view through a kaleidascope in Prague

2011-09-13T06:31:00.000-07:00

I thought our blog needed a litte bit of music and dance so I have included a little song and video for us all to enjoy. You will maybe be suprised to know that I do this exact same dance every day just before dinner time! Lots of love , S3

press this sentence to watch the music !

A little walk around the block in summer time Prague

2011-09-09T12:50:00.000-07:00

Love from sister numero tree

Rambling Roses

2011-08-15T08:12:00.000-07:00

Dear sisters,
This is my new favourite word Rambling Roses , rambling means rambling |ˈramb(ə)li ng |
adjective
1 (of writing or speech) lengthy and confused or inconsequential.
2 (of a plant) putting out long shoots and growing over walls or other plants; climbing : rambling roses.
• (of a building or path) spreading or winding irregularly in various directions : a big old rambling house.
• (of a person) traveling from place to place; wandering.
DERIVATIVES
ramblingly adverb
ramble |ˈrambəl|
verb [ intrans. ]
1 walk for pleasure, typically without a definite route.
• (of a plant) put out long shoots and grow over walls or other plants.
2 talk or write at length in a confused or inconsequential way : he rambled on about his acting career.
noun
a walk taken for pleasure, esp. in the countryside.
ORIGIN late Middle English (as a verb in sense 2) : probably related to Middle Dutch rammelen, used of animals in the sense ‘wander around in heat,’ also to the noun ram .

Im now back in Prague after a month's break. It's sunny and warm and I think the Indian summer is preparing for september. Here are my rambles of july and august in photographic form.

This is the beautiful Paris Airport greeting me and A. in colour, I think we were just happy to get away from the bowels of Europe, everything seemed beautiful and new. A little holiday really can clear your mind and give you new ideas.

This is what happens when you eat a Glace Macaron in Rouen , mentioned in a previous post by S2. I was there and I found a painting to illustrate the experience. We actually floated from the earth's surface with the sugar rush. Amazing experience. The angel in the middle is the Macarons glacées Angel.

This is my hand in shadow form in Edinburgh light in the staircase of my good friend.

A photo of an old japanese photo of hair being groomed.

And this is a Burger King paper bag transformed back into a tree by a talented artist called Yuken Teruya. I think it is quite a beautiful message.

A photo our mama made when she was in Russia some time ago.
I hope she doesn't mind me posting it on the blog. I think it's a very beautiful picture.

And finally here is a little film I made in Edinburgh. It's called A Summer Breeze
I hope you enjoy it.
I hope you are both well and I love you both very much !
Take care and enjoy the last few days of august.

S3

Bulls

2011-08-11T14:28:00.000-07:00

“Mam. The bulls in the next field are jumping on top of each other and wrestling” Jip said. “Interesting”, I said.

Surrounded by the beauty of nature and the innocence of youth, we are summering in Normandy, me and my children, eating lots of baguette and home-made jam, swirling on swings, sailing on gusty winds, trying to catch the sun before the rain falls again.

Today, I kicked the children out of the house, as they were draped over the couch and the sun did shine, our days being numbered. “Don’t come back till tea time”. I said. “Go and explore the fields” Rosie wept and went upstairs for another costume change, her third of the day, and Jip revolted by playing Lego in the front room.

Rosie has developed a dance that is rather vulgar. MTV vulgar, involving rubbing her hands all over her body and wiggling her behind, as she sings a made-up melody. We do not know where she picked this up, from a friend she says, but we do not like to encourage it, which sets her big eyes sparkling and sends her wiggles a little deeper. It is not a good sign.

Jip, at nine, may be too young to know about homosexual bulls, but he certainly has feet before his age. This weekend he officially reached my size, 40, and I am waiting to wear his new Tigers.

We are weaning off the social activities; weddings in white on Ibiza, old friends, new friends, sunshine and rain. We made a short tour of Europe with our good friends from over the seas; Amsterdam, Friesland, Normandy and hey, there they were again, our friends, under the Eiffel tower, near the carrousel, glowing amongst the crowds. My son and I went to Paris for a day. A penknife with Paris landmarks is his new pride and joy. A gold pocket mirror with the Eiffel tower for Rosie, who stayed in the countryside that day. She keeps it in its velvet casing, in the pocket of her patent pink handbag, picked up for 50 centimes at the fair last Sunday. Now shades of boredom are back in the children’s lives again, which is very healthy, if you ask me.

Meanwhile up North, A, is getting used to working, driving to an office in a real car with leather seats, everyday. He wears a blue shirt and a jacket and has a big desk behind which to sit. It is not so busy yet, a phantom of the job that will start in September after Burning Man. Three landed, now just me to go.

For summer reading, I would like to recommend “Just Kids” by Patti Smith (listening to Horses) and “when God was a Rabbit” by Sarah Winman.

Love, S1

the summer idyll in the country...

2011-07-23T10:28:00.000-07:00

Dear S1,
Here we are again in Sweet Normandy. The parents, S2, S3 and our male companions too. Not forgetting the cats whose fur is fluffy and fresh, they smell of cut grass...

Rouen yesterday had a highlight or two: the requisite perusal of antique books and a Kriek Tindermans beer in "Le Diplomate" next to the Palais de Justice, but the Macaron Glacé at "Les larmes de Jeanne" topped them all. We all tripped off our feet and into the air for a split second with the sugar rush. All of it coated in generous sunshine. Not so this morning, unfortunately we did not make a photo of us in our rain apparel which I am sure you would have enjoyed. Despite the precautions we got absolutely drenched and cut the walk short in an uncommon bout of sensibility that suddenly came over me. It was no doubt the cold drops of water running down my neck. Luckily there is the splendour of an "after rain walk" in which everything shines and sparkles as if it were gold.

We miss you all x and wish you were here to enjoy it with us. Unfortunately no Macarons Glacés are left but we do recommend you make a detour for one when you swing round.
Love and kisses,
S2

BOXES

2011-06-16T03:46:00.000-07:00

I think the handwritten receipt for my two night-stay in the hotel in Antananarivo, Madagascar, year 1998 - can go. Neither do we need a box of skiing socks. They have since been replaced. And I don’t think I will use the logo of my Daniel Poole party shirt anymore. I cut it out and kept it (why?).

To tell you the truth, it is rather depressing going through boxes you have been storing for five years. It seems there is very little you are happy to be reunited with. Boxes full of dusty, pen-stained bags, bits of fabric I thought might come in handy one day -you know that day I learn to sew - and lots and lots of fuzzy pictures of me and my friends, looking particularly puffy and pasty faced, stuffed into yes, more boxes. The beauty of youth? It is a myth. That in itself is a depressing realization, especially as my memory served me better.

There is to be exact one unpacked box left, waiting near the door downstairs, filled with tangled cords and papers. I will leave it for a few months, I think.

But this is not to say there are not many unpacked items still to be found a proper place; like the collection of silver date-inscribed mugs, -serviette rings and letter openers. You have to keep those, but where? We are moving them from desktop to chair. I suppose the back of a drawer will do.

I have been living in a twilight zone of dust and stuff, all of us sneezing every morning and rubbing our itchy eyes. So I also fight the dust bunnies. Feeding my children sandwiches at all meals and myself glasses of deep red wine with dark chocolate. Now and then I leave the house during the day and am surprised to find people sitting on the terraces drinking a glass in the sunshine.

God, I hate moving.

The house is nearly a home, so the wine and chocolate will have to stop on a daily basis I suppose.

Love S1

Happy house or postcard from Prague

2011-05-15T12:48:00.000-07:00

Dear S2,

I am in Prague with S3 and am staying in the Happy House.

We eat cake and coffee for lunch most days.

As our feet were prodded on the occasion of S3's birthday, we listened to the cheers of the ice-hockey fans who collected on the big square in red, white and blue and watched the Czechs win silver.

Then we ate again.

Love S1

A gush of positivity: SADE in Antwerp

2011-05-02T04:05:00.000-07:00

Room 6.2.2. Somerset Place, halls of residence of Bath Academy of Art.

Dear Sisters,

Spring's here. I am feeling LOVED and LUCKY. Yesterday my love took me to see SADE in concert in Antwerp. And what a treat it was. The venue itself, a bit like a Roman forum or Yankee stadium in its scale and refreshment sales (the whiff of sweet smelling waffles everywhere instead of hotdogs) filled us with trepidation at first, for the sheer scale of it, and its carpark-like walking ramps designed to get 17000 people inside in a more or less orderly fashion...but everything went well, and people were generally in a great mood. There were a few fabulous creatures in the audience.

You can tell positivity attracts positivity.

When it happens on a scale such as this, you can only be impressed. Would the essence of the music melt away in the scale of the occasion? No way! The woman sang her heart out and we were all there to witness it. Straight to the heart. I can't tell you how wonderful that was and how important live music is. Also how music can capture and even frame a mood so skillfully, and encapsulate in it, and later unleash, whole passages of our existence, stirring old and new feelings and insights, dreams, hesitations, and healing memories.

Certain songs opened up a window for me onto times when I listened to her CD in 1993 having just arrived in an empty college halls of residence. This music, along with that of L'âme des Poètes, clothed my room and spoke of a new peace and beauty. Sade has an uncommon ability to let a woman feel good about herself. I'd sit on the windowledge looking out at the blue evening and need nothing more than the words and the music.

I can inform you that the concert is full of magic. If you get a chance to go, do. I know they are passing in Prague soon. Sisters, you won't be sorry. These days the possibilities of light and projected images are so much more evolved than the last large-scale concert I attended at Forêt National (The Cure, with you S1!). Here there are bells and whistles for sure but none take away from the music's honesty. I feel truly blessed.

I don't want to give away too much, in case you do go to see her, and her fabulous musicians, who are all featured generously. They also touch on the past visually, which is amazing, and endearing, and she literally takes the music to new heights.
Just take it from me.
S2
Watch a video here to have a taste once more.

video games.

2011-03-22T13:34:00.000-07:00

"Mam, there are some things you can do better and there are some things I can do better", Jip said.

"Like, I can do all video games better and you can do everything else better."

This is true, of course.

On the rare occasion I am handed Jip's nintendo, Mario always ends up walking, walking, walking, against a wall.

"Ugh", Jip will sigh, and with a flick of the thumb, Mario will jump and run again.

Now, this was a long introduction to where I am in the resettling process.

This week I felt like Mario walking walking walking against that wall.

I have heard this is not abnormal after three months.

The logistics do not run smoothly, I have been overbooking my children, constantly on the bike to a friend, from an activity - street-dancing to fencing to dutch lessons and in between the kids are killing each other at high volume in an open playing field. Somewhere in there I lost my helicopter view and I dare not go in and get it.

There is a faint smell of sewer that keeps popping up in the bathroom of our high design flat, with built in coffee machine and wine fridge, it lingers, and all the machines have been tuned to beep when they are finished with their cycle, which is never at the same time, and continuous, it seems, making me a nervous person.

My main characters are whining on paper.

But other than that, all is well, spring is in the air, which makes all that cycling very pleasant if I should take a moment to enjoy it.

Beside Justin Bieber has penetrated these walls, and has given my children hope for a better future.

I have rushed out of bed in the morning, thinking I heard one of my children moan with pain, but it was only Jip singing along to the i-pod with the headphones on.

Taking street dancing lessons is obviously part of a bigger plan.

Rosie drapes herself over the table in adoration whenever they play this video.

Do I look like him, Rosie?, Jip asks. No way, Rosie says.

And this is how we come to sing Baby, baby ,baby, all day long.

Love S1,

Wednesday afternoon and looking for nature

2011-03-10T03:12:00.000-08:00

Dear sisters,

I am recuperating. It is Thursday, the day after Wednesday.

As we are back in Holland, the kids only have a half day at school on Wednesday. A whole afternoon of fun potential yawning in front of us, each week.

It took a little adjustment. At first, it was still very cold outside, I tried to get them to entertain themselves inside, but it is too long from midday to bed and the walls cultivate tension. They have to be let out.

So I find myself cycling around town looking for bits of nature to let the children touch the earth and gulp in some fresh(ish) air.

It is a question of resignation; the price of city living. I just wish they could go on their own sometimes.

I cycled and found some nature here.

Here was a bit.

Here.

This was good spotting.

Here.

And here.

Alright, once out there, everyone feels better.

Still.

Eagerly awaiting a house with a playground at walking distance.

S1

city of strangeness and light

2011-03-06T05:18:00.000-08:00

My dear sisters and anyone else who is reading this ,
I must greet you from the valley of central Europe with a ray of hope and sunshine in my writing that spring is very near.
The earth is waking up and the air smells sweet and earthy with sun shining everywhere.
A great advantage to living in the centre of the european continent is that it does not rain so often as it does at more coastal areas.
I really do love the light here.
But the wind is cold and windy , the warm spring air is still snoozing under a winter blanket , but atleast we have passed the continental minus seventeen and are now between three and eight degrees which feels almost tropical. ( actually today it was 12 degrees and sunny )

By the way , this is a dog i met when getting the best kafe latte in town form the best cakes shop in town. It happens to be near my school which is very convenient.
I liked how the colours of the dog matched the colours of the cake shop window cake.
This cakes place is a dream in itself , its about eighty years old and the interior is kept original to the 1930's classy style. The cakes are pricey but they are miracles to look at and the taste is heavenly. I always go there when i need a boost.
Please take a look at their website Erhartova
and fall inlove instantly with these painterly masterpieces of cakes.

I am glad to announce that i survived the dancing ball this year.
As you may or may not know , it is dancing ball season from december to march in Czech republic.
This is serious business.
There are many different sorts of balls, but all of them consist of a local band playing music, a dancing platform and a tombola.( Oh and a lot of alcohol seems to be present aswell) The Hunter's ball is quite a favourite because the first prize in tombola is a living pig. Many years ago i was hanging out with a hunting group of friends and we went to this ball and won a live white rabbit with red eyes. It was huge! about the size of a medium dog and quite angry so the friends just put him in a wooden hut in the garden as a pet. Yes , those were my wild hunting days. I remember them well.
This year it was the sports ball , and the first prize of the tombola was a bicycle.
We won two bottles of white wine from that region, which is quite good wine, there are lots of vinyards in the south of moravia.
Have you never heard of czech wine ? No ?
Well, now you have.
Anyway , moving on, let me give you the setting.
The ball was held in the cultural centre of the village where my boyfriend comes from.
The cultural centre is the local gym where basketball is played now and again because they dont have enough money to make a seperate building.
I thought that was quite fitting though for a sport's ball.

Dont worry , I was quite confused too in the beginning, not quite knowing what a sport's ball was and imagining I had to turn up in jogging gear and football boots.
But no, everyone dresses to kill , suits and silk dresses , mafia shoes, complicated hairstyles, high heels.
The lighting is not the best I have ever experienced, not really what you call ambient lighting, more just very loud neon lights blazing down onto your face making you squint and want to play basketball.
Too much light can slighty damage a social event, but as I already mentioned I survived.
The band consisted of one man with moustache on the keyboard , one man on the bass guitar and two women singing. It was terrible music. They played extremely slow.
Now im not known as a party pooper and I did get up and dance a few times, trying to make the best of the situation.
In the end it was actually quite fun and my boyfriend's friends were very nice and jolly once they got a bit of magic ethanol in their blood stream. The high light of the evening was when one of his friends won a huge dustbin with the tombola.
He got into his dustbin , closed the lid; got wheeled onto the dancing platform and made a little performance of appearing out of the bin. It was quite amusing.
No really, im being serious.

Since this cultural experience I have started to look at Prague the city with even more loving eyes. But dont get me wrong, I love the special charm of villages as well, just as long as I dont have to be there longer than a few days. I love the country air and all its freshness and glowing of cheeks. As in all countries in the world there is a big difference between rural and city life. Both are full of stories and interesting people.

The other day we went with a little group of 14 friends ( normal nice friends, not hunter gang or sports gang involved) for a day trip to the countryside. We walked ten km through lush forests to a pub where the food was scrumpcious ,and the service was friendly which is a real miracle over here. There was a castle in this village but we didn't manage to visit it as we had to catch the early train back to Prague. And anyway all castles are closed in winter months in Czech republic.

So we digested the other 8km in lovely late afternoon sunshine.
Whilst walking through the gorgeous forests we sometimes passed through a little village, which consisted of one cake shop completely full ( i think all inhabitants were inside this cake shop) and special architecture for an old people's home that actually resembles a specific czech cake that is pink and yellow.

Oh and this is the tv repair shop of the vilage, I thought that was quite funny how very high tech it looked.
We managed to lose one person , which is not too bad considering the big group. Ofcourse this person didnt have his mobile phone with him, and as we were a big group we only noticed he was missing at the train station. He made a wrong turning in the forest somehow , and when he finally got to the village he reported himself to the police as a missing person and kindly asked the police to ring his girlfriend, but she was already looking for him and phoning us to ask if he was already at the train station.
Anyway, all's well that ends well.
Half of the group went back to Prague on the early train which took only two hours and the other half went back on the later train which took three hours.

Luckily we were in the early train, fully confident they would find the missing person and secretly wanting to get back to Prague as soon as possible. 18 kilometres walk is quite tiring and so is a lot of fresh air.
We were all glad to get back to the wonderful city of Prague, full of culture , civilisation and old skiing men wearing shorts !

Apparently this man is famous in Prague ( Prague is a small city ) as the always shorts wearing man , whatever the weather.
Its like this other famous man i met in Kolin ( a big town about 50 km from Prague) who is known for parading his handmade wig which resembles a squirrel on his head.
I made a painting of him in his honour. I admire his pride.

And here is a lovely picture to end my brabbles.
Take care, lots of inspiration and love,
S3

Ski ski, roadtrip

2011-03-01T04:59:00.000-08:00

Dear sisters,

After approximately 15 years I found myself on the ski slopes again. We were on a trial skiing holiday in the French Alps. Could this become a new family tradition? Others seem to like it.

All I can say is, I am glad a holiday is not rated on the basis of the first two days.

Lost in translation, we fumbled our way through. How did all this work again? And why do we need so much stuff?

The roadtrip down started slow, Rosie asking if we were there, every thirty minutes. At eight p.m, our intended stopping time, we had not yet managed to get through the Benelux, so we drove on. The roads were empty after everyone else had retired for the night, the crumbs of our running evening-meal-sandwiches dispersed through the car, the music louder, the beat stronger.

We felt good when we got the last room at a hotel on the edge of the industrial zone in Dijon- north, at 1 am in the morning. They turned others away that were barely behind us. We were not sure if the green hue in the room was actually in the walls or came from the atmospheric lighting, but we were glad to have it.

Driving into Val d'Isere at 4 of the next afternoon, Allard accused me of not being able to map read. My defense is that we were moving, and it was the unclearest map ever presented. Also he did not listen to my instructions as he was talking too loudly, trying to prove his point.

So, with that tradition out of the way, we entered our 30 m2 abode, the smoke from the previous occupants still so thick we had to wrestle our way in. The children opened doors and cupboards trying to find more space but found none. They did find the beds tucked away behind the kitchen drawers.

That night I found myself on a mattress under a single blanket on the floor, near a drafty window, sucking in the ashtray air, wondering why I had let myself be talked into this.

The next day we traipsed past the skiing schools with reluctant children trying to book a week of lessons for them. Everything was fully booked. Lunch then? We did not have a reservation. Val d'Isere was not holding out its arms to us.

To cut it short, we found the lessons, we made a reservation at the creperie for the next day and when we left the windows open for a bit, the smokey air in our apartment drifted away. My bed on the floor had legs that folded out.

And a small space proved excellent for i-pad sing-alongs.

Morning and evening, after a day in the snow we sang to this song.

Just try getting that out of your head after a listen or two.

You are welcome to sing along. Loud now.

Oh, let's get rich and buy our parents homes in the South of France
let's get rich and give everybody nice sweaters
and teach them how to dance
let's get rich and build our house on a mountain
making everybody look like ants
from way up there, you and I, you and I, you and I,

We are available for family performances.

And the skiing? We had hoped that a bizarre genetic mutation had taken place at conception and our children would take to the slopes like naturals athletes. Unfortunately this was not the case. Rosie got demoted from the five year old starter class to the four year old starter class after day one, but was happy for it, and Jip, who was so excited to be snowboarding, felt the pressure mount daily, to make a turn. On the last day, last slope, he made four good ones and we have never seen him so pleased with himself. Both want to go back, and even I must admit that I liked to be on the skis, even with a rented egg helmet on my head.

S1

in the present light

2011-02-18T08:19:00.000-08:00

Dear Sisters,

Here is a link that I like and makes me think of you. Or how people don't change.
Love to you!
S2

The lady, the fly and the garden

2011-02-18T05:24:00.000-08:00

And this is our front door to our courtyard. Its a very old door and he has a moustache
made of light, as you can see.
That's all for now! Take care
Peace
S3

Shadows go shopping too.

2011-02-14T09:54:00.000-08:00

And apparently the Golem is still out there , lingering along the streets.

A very short story by sister three in Prague.

Oh and here is a nice song

its called
Simmer Down
and i like the video

The last few days it was this sunny in Prague

nice winter sun

but now its rainy

so i find time to post

Take care all!
S3

A little secret

2011-02-05T12:02:00.000-08:00

When I want to feel a little bit of nostalgic pride for a country i haven't really ever lived in , that is England, I watch Torvill and Dean become the world champions of iceskating in 1984. It is a truely beautiful performance. If you have five minutes to spare then i reccomend you watch the performance and get tears in your eyes of happiness at the end!
Oh dear, have i confessed too much ? Yes , I get tears in my eyes when i watch this, and it isn't because of the terrible 198O's iceskating costumes that dont seem to ever change style.
Click on this sentence to watch the amazing Bolero and turn the volume up !
Let me know what you think.
I will write soon again to let you know what is happening here in Prague.
Other than me watching iceskating now and again all is well here in the forest land, the sun is shining !
Love Sister 3

Plop!

2011-02-04T08:19:00.001-08:00

Dear sisters,

It will be no surprise that the landing bubble eventually burst- it was bound to happen, wasn't it? -letting out the happy gas with a soft sissing sound. A slither of pink disappearing into the winter air.

I may not be recalling this correctly, but it happened just as I was gearing up for a hill, not a big one, but an upwards slanting road nontheless, leading over a bridge, against the wind, with my shopping balancing on the front of my bike, and a child on the back.

Without the bubble to protect us, the cold drizzle makes us wet, a bit like a plant spray being squirted in your face all day long. And the alarm clock goes off in the middle of the night. It can't be morning, yet, can it?

But it is morning, it just happens to be very dark in the morning, and the kids have to go to school. Our cold fingers fumble with the junk-proof locks, that have been carefully threaded through frame, front wheel and a secured pole, to prevent certain removal. It is coming back to me.

The school is surrounded by grey apartment blocks, hugging close and leaning in, and a small strip of tarmac for playing. It couldn't be further from the Greenschool, but the kids do not seem to be troubled by this at all. I am suspecting they might even enjoy the coziness of it all.

It took us a while to figure out the family cycling logistics, there are so many new exciting options in bike land and the children have grown since we left five years ago. An extra saddle between the handlebars, and one on the back?, two seats on an extended back?, a bakfiets (which is a bike with a box at the front)?. In the end we put Jip on his own bike, and Rosie on the back of ours, which is proving to be one of the highlights of Amsterdam city life. Suggesting a bike ride of reasonable length gets the son off the couch in a flash.

Jip wrote a letter to George Lucas at Lucasarts. I am paraphrasing slightly, but essentially this is what it said:

"Dear Mr lucas,

My name is Jip, I am eight years old and I live in Amsterdam. I am a big fan of Lego star wars and Lego Indiana Jones wii games. My friend and I thought of a great idea for a new wii game. It is a game with pinguins and polar bears. They fight each other. But don't worry, you don't have to do it alone, we will help you. Jip (email and address)."

He didn't actually let us read it all, but I caught a glimpse before he put it in an envelope. He now rushes to the mailbox everyday, waiting for an answer and doesn't understand why it should take so long. I hope they are kind at Lucasarts and send something back.

Rosie is also doing well -even in Amsterdam she is a head taller than most of her class mates - speaking Dutch whenever we turn our back, and with a her first wobbly tooth wobbling more each day, she would be happy anywhere at the moment.

To be expected in the next installment: why is S1 finding herself back in the gym? -will it have an effect? What is that clean eating she is going on about, and why is A. drinking so much coffee?

Watch this space.

Love S1

What are we doing with vulnerability?

2011-01-15T08:29:00.000-08:00

Hi sisters!
It is Saturday, the end of the lingering flu' (I hope) and what a miserable set of germs it has been. The less we say about it the better, I think, although the silver lining is worth a mention. I already emailed you about my joy at discovering Miranda online. She has me laughing out loud. Always a good sign I think. And what about this one?

It made me wonder why it was so funny. I went from laughing to tears and back again. I shall save you the long and specific details of the existential turnarounds. I have found someone who expresses it perfectly. I love TED talks, don't you? Brene Brown talks sense.

Love to you,
S2

Antwerp for visitors

2011-01-13T04:59:00.000-08:00

Dear Sisters,
It is grey outside. I have the flu'. With it comes a moodiness that I know not how to temper. Never mind. Luckily here is a list I made up recently upon request of an out of town visitor. Since we have received similar requests via this blog I thought I might as well share it here. Many things could be added to this list, but hey, it's somewhere to begin. Trust you both had a healthy happy homecoming, shall visit you both, and soon.
S2

S2's Antwerp Top Ten.
1. Visit Saturday Market on the Theaterplein. There is a Moroccan stand where there are usually very long queues for the delicious pancakes. It works like this: they ask you (in French or Dutch or whatever language works for you) what you would like in it: “alles” (everything) gets you a filling of feta cheese, chilli’s, olives, figs, dripping with honey. Then you buy a mint tea. There are tables to sit at.

2. Opera: Antwerp has a fantastic opera house and the productions are world class. They also do concerts and lunchtime concerts. It is a lovely way to spend an evening and they have an elaborate foyer where you can enjoy a glass of something during the intermission. It is great to dress up for, but people also go casually dressed. You can usually get standby tickets for very modest prices.

3. Around the corner Brasserie Gustav, the opera café near Central Station, is a super place to have dinner before the performance, or a drink afterwards. The interior is European continental with little booths and sometimes live music. They serve an excellent Caesar salad. If you are passing in the middle of the day, they also have very good coffee; but the HOT CHOCOLATE is something to die for: you get chocolate seeds to stir into piping hot milk. The Chicken Club sandwich is a full meal. The onion soup with toast and cheese at 8 Euros is a great deal and delicious too. Gustav belongs to the same owners as Berlin (more central), Canal and Zurich (both in the South neighbourhood near fashion stores and galleries)

4. Rubenshuis and Rockox huis: for beginners, Rubens’ Palazzo and huge atelier is well worth a visit to get a whiff of Antwerp’s illustrious past. They also have works by Rubens’ contemporaries. I love the leather-wallpapered walls and the majolica tiles in some of the rooms. The chapel is really lovely with a host of smaller artworks in it. They frequently put on excellent temporary exhibitions. A rare, more silent counterpart (fewer tourists) is the Rockox house. He was Mayor of Antwerp and a friend of Rubens; his house is filled with artefacts from the period, very diverse, some tapestries, lovely treasure cabinets etc. On your way to the Rockox house you may encounter the Conscience Plein and the Baroque Carolus Boromeus (also worth taking a peak). You can get a nice coffee on the square. Be careful, at the exit of the square at the bottom (in the little street to the left of the church) there is an amazing new second hand bookshop. If you have a weakness for such things you may not move on from there empty-handed (they have a number of books in a number of languages, all high quality). The prices are reasonable. Literature, philosophy, history, and notably some gorgeous art books.

5. Plantijn Moretusmuseum, Vrijdagmarkt. This museum is the somehow miraculously preserved printing press which formed one of the world’s first centres of spreading information worldwide. Some of the first atlases were printed here. I just find walking in its spaces (and the interior garden with ivy clad walls) a treat because of the atmosphere. It is a jewel in the centre of town. It is a UNESCO world heritage site and you can understand why.

6. MoMu Fashion Museum + Fashion walk. I always tell people this is one of the best things Antwerp has to offer. Exhibitions are usually a fantastic visual treat. For those who are sensitive to beauty. You will appreciate the way they approach exhibitions as if it were a fashion show production, careful attention to lighting and thematic displays. The accompanying fashion walk (a little book for 4-6 Euros (available for purchase in Copyright, the museum’s bookshop) is great fun: it takes you around some key Antwerp fashion points and stores; giving insight into the buzz around Antwerp fashion. It makes you feel how everything is sort of within walking distance: for example near the MoMu is Dries Van Noten’s flagship store: the window designs are worth a peek. Opposite is Boonen (?) the Glove Shop. It’s a real beauty. The book will guide you and give you ideas about where to shop! For high street stores there is Antwerp’s MEIR pedestrian shopping street. Worth a visit is the Stadsfeestzaal now developed into a mall. The building actually is great. Inside there is a Champagne POD. If you have something to celebrate, go there! They even give you a free glass if it is your birthday (upon showing ID). The view up there is great and it is a real treat.

7. Walk along the river Scheldt: before the developers get in, enjoy the waste land along the quays, running from Antwerp South (approx. at height of Muhka museum for contemporary art) until you reach the centre with the raised promenade. Depending on where you are staying it is a great place to see the sunset. The ZUIDERTERRAS is a good place to eat, if you ask them nicely they will also let you simply have a drink and contemplate the view of the river. There is also the pedestrian tunnel taking you to the left bank (Linkeroever) if you are feeling courageous and like a walk. The tunnel is Art Deco science fiction. Across the water you have a great view of the city and cafés for sustenance. (that’s if you really feel like a trek).

8. At the end of the quays (on the right bank, city-side), you see the river turns, and a big red building called the MAS. If it is open, you can experience the incredible 1600 M2 Luc Tuymans mosaic, “Dead Skull”. It depicts a memorial stone to Quentin Metsys which is to the left of the entrance to Antwerp Cathedral of Our Lady. Which is definitely worth a visit. If you are standing facing the entrance there is a street to the left where you will find the Witzli Puzli where they also have amazing hot chocolate, beers, port, chess, newspapers and good jazz music. Near the Cathedral there are several places for eating Mussels. If you like this food I recommend it. I try to eat them at least once a year. ☺

9. Hopper This jazz café owned by Dutch jazz musician from Suriname, Mary Hehuat, is not to be missed. In the evening you go there for a Demi-Demi, half cava and half white wine. The bubbles instantly go to your head. On some evenings they have good jazz concerts, also Sunday afternoons, depending on the season. I love this place. Writers, actors, lawyers and other strays go there to hang out. In the afternoon it is really good for a latte and a newspaper (they have several on the piano). It is also a good place after a night of too much partying, to have a pretty basic continental breakfast. You get bread rolls and croissants (according to your choice) and the service is extremely friendly. ☺

10. Pierre Marcolini Chocolates. Next to the Bourla Theatre. Eat some of these amazing work of art chocolates and go to heaven.

Soft and bouncy landing bubble

2010-12-30T01:19:00.000-08:00

Dear sisters,

One good friend gave me the following advice: whatever you do, don't complain about the weather.

Most other repatriates said: be prepared, your friends are not particularly interested in your adventures in Bali/San Francisco..where were you again during the last five years? You were really away that long?

And. They continued. Maybe good friends will tolerate one evening of reminiscing: listening, smiling and saying, that sounds great, but when it comes down to it, it is your experience to keep and treasure. This may be hard.

I don't blame them, who wants to hear too much about someone else's sabbatical in the tropics?

I have therefore wrapped Bali up carefully in hand-pressed-batiked tissue paper and slipped it under my bed, to take out when needed.

For now, we are still in a rainbow coated bubble, filled with happy gas, which is rolling us through the streets of Amsterdam.

The kids both had a huge grin on their faces coming from the airport as they looked out of the taxi at the snow lined tree tops. They skated on natural ice at Christmas. At this point, this is what we call exotic. They got presents.

We have all been gorging ourselves on fresh brown bread from the bakery around the corner, sticky on the inside and crunchy on the outside, spreading it with hagelslag (chocolate bits) or smeerworst (sorry foodies, it is animal unfriendly and maximally processed - I will not translate). We have been eating cheese and chocolate and drinking red wine daily. It is Christmas after all.

This will have to stop soon, we have good food intentions, but we have to get it out of our system.

Before we left, I was reading some Dutch opinion magazines that guests had left behind, and every article seemed to have a negative and/or sarcastic slant to it. Oh no, I thought. I have either been in America too long or, I am now seeing the Dutch nature as it truly is.

But so far the "I smile, you smile back" principle" generously applied in San Francisco is working here too, and even the Amsterdam taxi drivers appear to be happy people, just to confuse us.

It is sale time, and we need winter clothes, so there has been some that.

Housing? We still have a whole week to get that organized. Schools? I think they start tomorrow. Income? Lovely winter weather out there.

I realize we are still in vacation mode. Real life hasn't started yet, and I will do some grumbling next post, but for now, just letting you know: this city girl is happy to be back in town.

Happy New Year to all. May you be healthy, happy and free.

How many more days?

2010-12-15T15:55:00.000-08:00

That is what Rosie asks. How many more days before we go? The day after the day after tomorrow. She is excited but I doubt she realizes what awaits her. How long are we staying in Holland? She then asks. For a long time, I say.

My last havianas have snapped with a dramatic flip and a flop. This is a sign, I think.

I am making a list of things to look forward to: drinking water out of the tap, cheese and red wine, clear thoughts in crisp cold air, while savoring the things we will miss: the green, green, the tri-weekly massage, and being able to text with my doctor.

There are other things: certain yoga teachers, the Greenschool and Bali friends. But no time to be sentimental. We have some last minute nasi campur to eat, photos of palm trees to take and gekko/frog symphonies to listen to.

How is it in the real world?

S1

jumping gymnastics and the view from my windowsill when it was not snowing

2010-12-06T06:33:00.000-08:00

Dear all,
Greetings from the deep middle european continent, again. Its 4 p.m. and it is dark blue outside. It is snowing. A lot. It's cold. VERY. The predicted minus ten has been reached.

So here I present you with a little guide on how to keep warm :
wear lots of woolly jumpers, if you can wear a pair of tights under your trousers then do so, two pairs of socks , fleece jumpers and lithuanian hanknitted mittens, a woolly hat and hood on coat and wrap a woolly scarf around the half of your face. Then waddle out of the house, catch a tram and woddle to school. Whilst waiting for the tram , which can take a long time due to the snow delays then I strongly reccomend jumping about on two legs. Basically , when it is this cold you should try to adapt gymnastics to your everyday life where ever you are.

Here is a french man demonstrating the possibilities of gymnastics in everyday life. Its a little bit silly but it made me laugh , which is also a great way of keeping warm :) I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
How to keep the cold out !

Its funny , but did I mention that my most important subject for the first three years in the Fine Arts Academy of Prague was gymastics ? If I was to fail this subject I would have been kicked out of school, so it's a good thing I quite enjoy a bit of excercise.

Anyway, long live gymnastics and keeping warm and happy ! All my love and I'm very much looking forward to christmas and seeing you all ! Here is a little song to get you into the mood for our festive family reunion.
Happy song

Happy Sinterklaas,
Take care and have a peaceful end of year.
S3

relax your inner ear and pictures of organic bali chicks

2010-12-01T03:17:00.000-08:00

Dear sisters,

If I say, I have been taking the first steps towards skillfully creating banks around a pool of internal energy, in order to make a river of Consciousness, that flows back into the ocean of supreme bliss, what would you say?

You might say it is time for me to return to a continent with four seasons.

Or you could say, wow, how was your yoga retreat? That sounds amaaazing.

It was very nice in fact, thank you for asking.

Learning about the tantric, non dualistic principles underlying anusara yoga, in which I was being immersed for five days at Desa Seni village resort, I found I could say yes, okay, uh, huh, to most things. The inflated language occasionally made my big body shudder, as it sometimes does when the G.- word is used a lot, but once we got past the definition obstacles, I was encouraged by it all.

Encouraged to learn more, dipping my toe into the swamp of eastern spiritual literature, which you could say is a little late, two and a half weeks before returning to the northern hemisphere. A. jumped into the swamp many months before me and has already pulled himself out by his tanned yogic arms, to embrace other focused books like "Crucibles of leadership", "Crossing the Chasm: marketing and selling technology", "The Facebook Effect" and similar page turners.

So, as I sit on my meditation cushion overlooking the green, green, frogs croaking, bells tinkling in my ear, my husband is making excel sheets for a new internet start- up idea, that he is tossing around.

We are being Bali about our departure, or return, depending on how you look at it. Hopefully with less suitcases than with which we came, we will arrive in Amsterdam with our lives wide open once more: housing, schooling and income all yet to be decided.

Maybe I will take a few more massages before we get on the plane then.

Love S1

Estrahno forma de vida

2010-11-24T11:35:00.000-08:00

Dear sisters ,
I am in the mood for songs about destiny.With the night falling at five i get quite nostalgic and i feel like wrapping myself up in a warm melancholic duvet blanket.
Please listen to this beautiful song by AMALIA RODRIGUEZ
, the icon portuguese Fado singer. So you can get into the mood of my tales to come.
And here is a visual helper of how i was feeling a few weeks ago.

By the way, November isn't my best month. Last week i woke up with a blocked nerve in my back and i couldnt move my neck in any direction,I felt like a cardboard theatre prop with a cupboard painted on it. You can imagine its not easy for a cupboard to go the cinema, but that is exactly what i did as i couldnt do anything else, even lying down was painful. The latest Woody Allen film cheered me up , even though laughing was painful , it helped me forget feeling sorry for myself. After the film I went a bit wild and bought myself a hot water bottle and a fleece jumper with a hood.
I also bought myself a bottle of whiskey to reduce the pain. i told you November is not my best month but there are some high lights. I can assure you I only drink a little whiskey with hot tea and lots of honey. This , as you might know , is our Nanna's recipe for any kind of malaise or illness. I am happy to confirm my back has been completely cured. i wore my fleece jumper with a hot water bottle in the back for about four days. i think the Nostrodamus look is back , seen in Prague first !

But I have another brilliant cure which is to go to Lisbon for five days for a drawing conference, which funnily enough is exactly what i did last week.
I have fallen inlove with Lisbon , i felt like i went up in a balloon and floated there looking at all the beauty for five days.

It is like a city of faded chandelier glass and colour. A prism of different shades of blue and broken painted tiles. The churches are filled with paintings on tiles from top to ceiling.

Breathtaking and an overwhelming feeling of being blessed.
I saw a double rainbow , what more can i say ?

Now im back in Prague again and i have crashed, fallen from my portuguese balloon.
But all in good spirit. My ring finger nail of my left hand has been surgically removed by one third ,
because of a very heavy ceramic boot that fell on it in the summer. The new nail remembered the bump and was starting to grow into my skin which was quite painful,
so i went to a doctor and she said i had to get it removed as soon as possible.
So the next day I went to the hospital and an hour later i walked out with a huge bandage round my finger. I wont give you too many details , it didnt hurt , I got two anesthetic injections in my finger, it blew up like a balloon, and then i had to lie down and the doctor asked the assistent to get the finest scissors from the draw. He lifted a long metallic tool about the size of a shoebox from the draw, saying , Are these the finest we have ?
At that point i turned my head to the right, squinshed my eyes and refused to look. He kept tugging at my hand and asking if it hurt, i mumpled not really. But the worst of all were the noises, like he was cutting into thick cardboard.
Hence again my cardboard prop feeling coming back to me.
Afterwards i went for a strong coffee and serious dark chocolate cake with A. It helped.
I am not able to do any washing up of dishes to my great dissapointment and to that of A's. I am also not able to wash any clothes with our prehistoric washing machine , which deserves a post of it's own.
A. is very helpful and patient with me.
Im just taking it easy and pondering about how i will create art work for the next five months until the nail grows back. I have tried drawing with my right hand but it looks like a three year old has been scribbling in a book which could be quite interesting for a while. Maybe i can draw with my feet , or my mouth? The time has come for a change in my art style.
Lets just hope for the best. This is me pondering :

Here are a few songs that make me feel nice and warm. The first one is by SADE,called
Bring me home

And here is a song that cheers me up , its a song about the sea

All my love and good luck with the move over there in Bali ! I would take as little as possible. And take care !
Bon voyage !
Peace
S3

Only 27 days.

2010-11-20T21:46:00.000-08:00

Dear sisters,

Last Thursday was the day puppies were offered to the demons. I mentioned this practice on the blog before.

All over Bali, puppies were killed and skinned. Sate sticks were made of puppy meat, to offer with the skin. During a ceremony, a pig was slaughtered by piercing a knife into its throat, collecting the blood that ran clear, and finally, the blood spilled at the traditional cockfight was also added to the mix: a mighty potion to appease the demons coming from the sea, at this halfway point of the Balinese calendar. It is a bad month.

In the evening the villagers walked in procession to the village borders, dressed in finery, carrying the symbols of their temples, in an attempt to keep the demons out for another year. I saw the processions, but got the gory bits from my main source, Nyoman, of course.

In the week that this was happening, I was practising yoga twice a day on a marble balcony, overlooking the green, green, as my yoga teacher from San Francisco felt inspired by the gentle nature of the Balinese.

It is my yoga time. I am cramming it in before we return. Two days of rest after a week’s retreat, before I dive into a five-day immersion in the South. Will I be able to do a handstand, before we go? I dream about flying up lightly, my legs straight and elegant, but it proves a deception once I awaken. My body is still a bulging sack of potatoes, unsuccessfully attempting to defy gravity.

We had an unexpected house-guest, who came for dinner and did not leave for two weeks. We met before, during a yoga retreat in Greece, and she turned up in Ubud, we ran into her, and so she came and provided all members of the family with stories to entertain. We expect to see her again.

Today, Sinterklaas came to Bali. It was a very hot day and the parents sweat a lot, as they waited for it to end. The children sang song after song in utter confusion and eventually lined up for a bag of sweets with a notebook. Kroketten and friet on presentation of the coupon. Rosie had been up before six, showering in our bathroom to get ready for the man. I find it hard to get into that Sint Nicholas feeling in the tropics.

And now? We count down. Less than four weeks to go, before we return to the European lowlands: a bit more than a month before we meet again, elastic baby and sock sister.

With love,

S1

Fresh Enough: doing things by halves first.

2010-11-16T11:35:00.000-08:00

Dear Sisters,

Greetings from Villa...Smog! If I were to take a picture out of my window there wouldn't be much on it. I can measure the density of fog by looking at the clock on the old district town hall. If I can't see it, it is foggy today. It was. The whole town seems wrapped in a damp blanket, as if the whole place were the inside of a steamed up car window. It confers a certain atmosphere on the city, not altogether unpleasant. On the whole it is one of those late (late, already) autumn days that tell you winter is coming. Soon, all will have changed forever. Until next season. Time is definitely churning.

I know "no one cares what you had for lunch" but I do have some very ordinary things to talk about.

I am sitting here at the kitchen table, listening to Italian renaissance music on the radio, after finishing a delicious bowl of Thai chicken soup; it came out of a tetrapak, of which the writing printed on its side assures me it is fresh, and then I have augmented it with some fresh ginger (also great as tea), some browned pine nuts, a branch or two of chopped, organic celery; and some wild mushrooms...out of the deep freeze. Methinks my culinary art of living has gone up a notch, but even if it be just half a notch, by adding the fresh to the fresh enough, that already seems a great place to start. It has something of an elegant compromise.

So too my best intentions floundered; a perfect practice of yoga, to which I cannot yet seem to commit, is seconded by an occasional centering session on the floor of my amazing living room tatami platform with the breathtaking view. I learn to take breaths again, and to stretch in a way that has me discovering my body's hinges as if it were the very first time, and as if I was not once - allegedly - also an elastic baby. The lessons of breathing really open up something amazing and beautiful.

The website that is helping me do this is one that S1 recommended to me: Yogaglo I also cannot recommend it warmly enough. For a start, its design and usability is one of the most beautiful things you will encounter on the web. You can choose the style and duration of your lesson, including all kinds of wonderful meditation, and as it plays on your computer you can keep your mind on the lesson and not let it wander off (as it might). What's more, the screen is each time full of positive people saying nice things to you as you try something new. It has all the love of a San Francisco Yoga Tree, or even an Ubud Yoga Barn lesson, streaming through the internet and coming into your home. Wherever you might be. It always has you coming back for more. Which reminds me of my soup of which there is a bit left...it would be such a shame to let it go to waste!

love to you both!
S2

Villa Coral

2010-10-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

Dear sisters,

My idea was to wake every morning fresh, why would I be tired, do my yoga stretches, meditate and then get to work, methodically, two hours on, short break, two more hours, break.

Instead I wake up with a thin layer of grizzle on my tongue and no desire to stretch my stiff limbs. I could use some meditation because my mind is full of words. But they are going nowhere yet. Just swirling around in my head.

A man starts to sweep the beach, yes the beach, very early outside my little villa. So, that is the sound I wake up to, that and the sea, which never stops lapping; lap, lap, lap, softly or loudly, it can be either. I heard about the tsunami in Indonesia from my friend in SF. That was the night the sea lapped very loudly outside my door.

Pink flowers hang from a bush in front of my window. I should know their name. It really is very nice here; the perfect spot to spend time on one’s writing.

When you go into the sea, did I mention it is just in front, and you have a mask with a snorkel, you will see a lot of fish in many colors swimming through the coral. Here the fish don’t linger on the ocean floor, they also like to swim at the surface too, where you are, so you swim through the blue and yellow fish, trumpet fish, and rainbow fish, that sometimes turn and swim towards you, smacking their lips and oggling their eyes, before darting off in disgust.

To make you feel better, sisters presently in deep and middle Europe, rushing towards winter, the writing is a struggle, I can’t say otherwise. My characters sprint and stop, sprint and stop.

Character = action, I write on a piece of paper, to remind myself.

I am encouraged by my “how to write fiction” book, saying that in the revision stage, it will be easier to sit for long hours. But now, I need the breaks, often, to think, and think, sometimes until I bump into a grey smoky wall, that is the end of my brain.

I am moving on, definitely, I am moving in the right direction. It is all becoming clearer, but the puzzle is not complete. What are the final obstacles my characters have to overcome? Shouldn’t my book be lighter, that being the writing style, that comes most naturally? Is it too light?

Do not think this is an introduction to giving up. It is just letting off steam (an excellent cliché, one of the many that could creep into this first draft).

When I write, I sit at a little table: there is one outside on the deck, and one inside in the room, both overlooking the sea, big bottles of air minum, that is drinking water, placed neatly in a row behind me, after drinking the last drop.

My i-tunes library is undergoing a renewed inspection. What is the best writing music?

Everyday I walk to the diving school over the beach. I walk past the pig, snuffling at the furthest reach of the rope around its neck, and the cockerels, pecking freely on the beach. I step over the ropes of the fishing boats, tugging gently towards sea. I generally go to the diving school for lunch. The food is not very good at the diving school, flies like to hover closely over the parched nasi campur, but they do have wifi: so I can hear about the tsunami in Sumatra from my friend in SF and download the article on my NY Times reader. And post this post.

Tonight my daughter and my husband (the son has other engagements) will join me for the weekend. I don’t know if that will disturb my rhythm or give it new energy, but I am looking forward to a conversation with a real person and a half.

Back next Wednesday.
S1

patterned lithuanian footwarmers

2010-10-24T11:13:00.000-07:00

Dearest sisters , oh how i miss you so ! It has now been three weeks since i have come back from a miracle island named Bali.
Please forgive my grave retard. I am still in dream mode. I think I left my head under a coconut tree or i am experiencing a short bout of culture shock . Where is my fresh green coconut juice ?
Why have my flip flops been replaced with thick woolly handknitted lithuanian socks ( thankyou dear mama ) and ankle black leather boots ?
Why do i dream of inventing nosewarmers and becoming rich with this genius idea ?
Why is fleece my second skin ?
The list is neverending and ontop of all of that , people here dont smile as much as in Bali , they pull a funny face and look down.
But then again some smile back warmly so im not really complaining.
My daily nasi goreng has been replaced with big chunks of meat, cabbage and dumplings.
Ah, the poetry of dumplings. I think Auguste Rodin once visited Bohemia and wrote about dumplings being uncompleted poetry, whatever that means. They taste fine to me.
And i like cabbage, so there is no problem there.
My tan has already completely dissapeared on my face and i already blend in with all the other cottage cheese complexions .
I am in no way being critical , i am just objectively comparing the differences between a tropical volcanoe island and a central european continental valley.
Let me visually illustrate , this is me modestly expressing my joy of being in Bali :

And this is I too , pensively soaking up the the central eastern european vibe .

Can you spot any differences ?
Czech Republic is a tough place to be for a dutch born , yorkshire rooted , belgian citizen las. But dont worry about me, i have lovely friends :) and a wonderful family :) and a lovely boyfriend :) what more could one wish for ? and Prague is a beautiful, beautiful city.
Moving on out of this puddle of self pity , let me show you what women wear in south eastern Moravia where my boyfriend and czech wine comes from ( remember? czech Italy, previous post ) They dont wear this every day , only on national holidays where they drink lots of wine , sing folk songs and dance very wildly. The skirts are very hoopy and quite uncomfortable , attached to the body with a corset. They cannot sit down wearing this skirt, so when they are in a car they have to sit on their knees.

Floating back to Bali. The wonderland island of symphonies of vibrant colours, blue volcanoes,green greenness so green it tipples you over.

The heat, the sun , the warmth sometimes unbearable when there but so missed when here. Here a little photo of our trip to the Gilli islands. My first snorkeling experience, such beautiful fish and we even saw turtles! shiny blue sparkling and multi coloured rainbow fishes too !

Let me dream just a little bit longer, i still need to meditate on it all.
Sparkles in my eyes.

Thinking of you ,
Peace
S3

Family trip to Borneo, written in third person (extended remix version)

2010-10-18T09:54:00.000-07:00

They go to Malaysian Borneo/Sabah to look for the Orangutans in the wild. The man and the woman think the boy and the girl will like that.

In Sabah, wooden houses stand on stilts to let the elements pass through and prevent early deterioration. Family finances allowing, the space below is bricked in later, creating an extra floor. On one such floor, they sleep at the Dutchman’s house, tiled from floor to wall.

The man found the Dutchman on the internet, just in time to book the trip. That is what the Dutchman does. He organizes trips in Borneo and lets people stay at his house. He moved to Kota Kinabalu ten years ago, when he wanted to start anew. He fell in love with a Muslim woman.

He had to become Muslim to marry her, which he saw as a bureaucratic necessity, with the added advantage of allowing him to take four wives, should he so desire. The catch, he says, is that a man has to provide for each wife equally. They all are entitled to a house and children.

The Dutchman makes so many jokes about taking a second wife that the man asks if he is serious. He is not.

The Dutchman’s wife covers her hair when she goes out, but he has never seen her pray, the Dutchman says. She was Catholic for a while, before becoming Muslim. The decision was economically motivated.

The Dutchman’s wife draws pictures of princesses and castles for the girl and the girl plays with the daughter, the smattering of Dutch on both sides not hindering communication.

The boy and the man play darts on the covered balcony, as the trees sweep from side to side on the riverbank, under a grey, wet sky. It rains a lot in Borneo while they are there, but not continually. They will never have to put on their poncho’s.

They are taken to a water village. The woman thinks the boy and girl will like the children, who run out to greet them on the walking planks above the water, shouting, what’s your name, but the boy and girl are shy. They speak later of the five white puppies near the school and the old toothless ladies, chewing, red in their mouth. Is that blood, they ask.

In the multi-storied shopping mall, with light strings cascading down the center and a head-covered young woman in jeans, singing karaoke on a stage below, the girl has an accident in the hole-in-the-ground toilet, which means her clothes are wet and odorous. The woman walks into an Asian clothing store with the girl, hello-kitty-style, the woman calls it, and buys a dress and a pair of kinckers for 7 dollars.

The girl chooses the dress with conviction: pink/ black plaid pinafore style, with sewn in T-shirt, drop-waist and patent belt detail, silver writing across the front and a bow. Underpants: Mickey Mouse with golden flower.

The girl cannot stop smiling and keeps the dress clean for three days and washes the kinckers by herself in the sink.

They eat pancakes with sugar and peanuts.

The first day in the rainforest, they see pygmy elephants and red-tailed monkeys. A good taster for the days to come, the man and woman think. But spotting wildlife in the rainforest is not easy. That first day is their best.

The man and the woman call out and point with enthusiasm with each spotting. Can you see it, they say. The boy and the girl say, come on, let’s go, after one minute of craning their necks towards the treetops.

The boy and the girl dance around the extended buffet for lunch and dinner. I like it when we don’t have to choose from a menu, the girl says.

The man makes videos with voiceover, of the elephants and the canopy walk, which, the woman thinks, verges on the unacceptable. She has associations with holiday slide shows being forced upon her, although she is not quite sure that ever happened, it could have been a movie, or why that should be such a bad thing, now that she tries to formulate the argument in her mind. Still, the feeling cannot be shaken.

In the same train of thought, the woman wonders why she brings her camera for the night safari. What is this urge to capture. Who wants to see a blurry picture of an animal sweeping through the grass. She sits at peace with her camera by her side, until the spotter spots a giant porcupine right next to the truck and she rushes to the other side, her camera lifted to her eye, in a reflex.

She takes pictures like she used to smoke, she thinks. Only one or two taste really good, the others merely provide a pleasant pastime.

What all the other tourists, with their big cameras, clicking away, don’t know, she thinks, is that SHE is going to edit carefully, telling the story with only the strictly necessary. She is not like them.

The days are measured by the quality of the buffets, the colors of the bedspreads and the amount of privacy afforded by the toilets, wet on the tiled or cement floor mostly, flip-flops provided at the door.

Borneo rainforest is not as they expected, the man and woman say to each other, but they cannot really remember what they expected now that reality has taken over. But sometimes the well-trodden paths of the Rainforest Lodge remind them of European woodlands. The woman likes the ferns and the overhanging vines.

The man and the woman teach table manners to the boy and the girl at dinner. It is time they think. The man mimes the right way to do it and then the wrong way to do it. The boy and the girl laugh and try and copy him. The man does it again, just to be sure, fast forward and in slow motion. The boy giggles uncontrollably for some time. It is a game. When they stop playing, the boy and the girl fall back into fingers and mouths.

The girl asks the woman to draw her a princess. With long straight hair and a beautiful dress. And then another. And then two big princesses and two small princesses, and then a boy and a girl kissing in wedding dress and then two girls kissing in wedding dresses, and then four friends with their pets. Then the woman says, now is enough.

The woman thinks the boy and the girl are like cats. When she most wants to read alone for a while, they are drawn to her, rubbing against her legs, and wanting to sit on the pages.

At night, if possible without waking the boy and the girl, they watch episodes of the first season of Glee.

On Turtle island, they wait, after dinner, in the neon-lit dining room to be called. The turtle comes on land to lay her eggs at night and they can watch. But first the turtle must come. They are called after 11 p.m. The girl has long since fallen asleep, draped across three chairs. The woman teaches the boy to play patience, the card-game. The boy is excited about this night, naturally more inclined towards reptiles.

The turtle is grand. Isn’t it, the man says. Its 114 eggs are buried in the nursery. They watch the release of newly hatched turtles, making the dash to the sea. The girl squeals as she helps a lost turtle find its way. They all agree this is special, before retiring long past midnight to their rooms resembling ships cabins.

On the boat safari on the Kinabatangan river, the man and the woman, the boy and the girl sit in their colorful mix and match, now joined by others in kahki green zip pants and macro lenses and binoculars. The river looks like a Tintin adventure. The boy and girl look they were pulled through a hedge backwards, old family cliche intended, after one week without a brush.

They see an Orangutan in the wild. On their way out by boat, just before it is too late. One red furry ball in the treetop, its face hidden from view.

The last hotel in Sandakan has three restaurants and a slide in the pool. It is the best ever the boy says and the girl says too, it is the best ever. The boy and the girl watch Stop or my mom will shoot on HBO in the adjoining room, while the man and the woman get to episode 10.

The woman can’t help sharing the relief of the boy and the girl, that they will not be eating ricegreenvegetableschicken that night.

The man gets bitten by a mosquito and then again, at the poolside, and on the way up to the room, he is passing anyway, he checks one more time, everyone has confirmed so far, at the reception. There is no malaria in this area, is there, he asks. The lady looks at him with non-understanding. No, no malaria in this area, she finally says.

S1

Discusssion about parenting

2010-09-27T02:57:00.000-07:00

So, let’s not talk about Bali, bali, bali for a second. Let’s take a different subject. Parenting, and all it’s high and low points, for example.

So, what do you do, when you are away for the weekend, in the North East of Bali, staying in a simple bamboo bungalow, with thatched roof, at the water’s edge, the waves so loud, there could be cause for complaint; the shower is a bamboo pipe coming out of the wall outside, but what more do you need? and the hammock on the front porch is in popular demand. Okay, so Bali is involved, just a little, the point being; you are in the middle of nowhere. It is night. You are a single parent, this weekend.

So, what do you do, if your eight year old, already well-known for stubbornness, who most certainly has a fever and is rocking back and forth, red-faced, tears dripping down his face, hands in his lap, moaning because he generally feels miserable, refuses your offer of a Panadol, which you know will, at least, bring his temperature down and help him sleep? Help you sleep.

First, you may try and explain in a soothing voice what the benefits are of taking a Panadol. You explain that, if he does not want to swallow, you can squash the tablet and mix it in water, to make it easier. You explain the disgusting taste, he is objecting to, only last a few seconds, if that, and that it seriously does not outweigh a night of sleep.

What do you do, when he still refuses?

“No, no, no”, he moans.

The bamboo bungalows stand close to each other. You hear your neighbors rustle.

When your eight-year old son wails;

“Are you going to force me, Mama?”

you can’t help but think of the scene in the movie Der Untergang (The Downfall) about the last ten days of Hitler and friends, in the bunker in Berlin, when Mrs Goebbels offers her ten children a deadly potion. One child looks her mother in the eye and asks if they really have to drink the potion.
“Yes” their mother says, stroking the child’s back, “drink up, my dear,” and the girl does just that, full of trust, because her mother says it is good for her.

That is how you remember it, anyway.

So what do you do?

When you feel his head, and it feels hotter than ever, actually it suddenly feels very, very hot to you, and you remember, but not quite clearly, there is an illness, a serious complication, that starts with a fever and a cough, which is often mistaken for flu - and suddenly you wonder what you will do if he becomes sicker during the night, and you see yourself waking the resort management and finding a driver and driving three hours to the nearest hospital.

Remember, there is no second parent to put all this into perspective.

“Yes, I am going to force you”; you might say, pushing Mrs Goebbels out of your mind.

“You must take it! “ a little loud, perhaps. (this may be the moment your five year old moves to the bed upstairs to sleep on her own.)

And then, when he starts no, no, no-ing again, rocking back and forth, a little faster, you may say that he is so hot now, it is dangerous. If his temperature does not drop, you will have to take him to the hospital.

This may persuade him. He may drink the mango juice, you have managed to find, mixed with a crushed Panadol and lie down, defeated, after you hugged him tight, saying: “Thank you, good boy, thank you”. (This may be when you hear a five-year old cheer from above.) Your son may fall asleep very soon after that.

The next morning your eight-year old could feel better, although the hospital may still haunt him and he spends the rest of the day asking about that, and what happens if a fever gets too high. You may have caused something, you realize, perhaps the beginnings of a fine hypochondriac.

So, what would you do?

With love S1

There is a T-shirt: no one gives a #***! what you did on the playa, but I will give you a glimpse anyway, and then forever hold my peace.

2010-09-12T22:15:00.000-07:00

Dear sisters,

We have returned to Bali where it rains every day and a Starbucks has opened on the Ubud high street, much to the dismay of the expat community.

Nevertheless, the traffic seems to have died down some, and the temperature is good. The butterflies are out and the swallows still dip the pool at dusk. It is only three months before our Bali adventure is over and we shall return to the homeland. The realization is here.

The children have told us the two weeks were too long for us to be away and they may be right, although the weeks flew by on our side.

San Francisco was beautiful and Burning Man second year round was better.

My husband and I found a good modus vivendi for our different ways of expressing appreciation of the event (You might be surprised, but my husband likes to jump around, shouting "I love it!", while I am more of the smiling and walking type.)

After communicating as much on the first day, we let each other express however, and whichever way, each one felt was necessary for their enjoyment, meeting at intersections, which worked out wonderfully. Couples together at BM are not necessarily a success, so this is a breakthrough.

Our camp was named Camp Zardoz after a movie by John Boorman (1974), involving Sean Connery running through the movie in a red leather diaper as a "barbarian" called Zed and Charlot Rampling playing a character called Consuella, an "immortal". The immortals eat green bread.

The New York times critic Roger Ebert called it a "genuinely quirky movie, a trip into a future that seems ruled by perpetually stoned set decorators....The movie is an exercise in self-indulgence.."

We watched it twice before we went out to the desert, once with the director's commentary which did nothing to clarify the plot. In both instances, it served well as a sleep-aid. Even John, in his commentary, admitted that here and there, it may have been a bit much.

It involves, amongst others, a giant floating head. You need to know that you can only enter the vortex through the head and Zardoz is derived from 'The Wizard of Oz".

At 8.50 and Jakarta, we built four yurts made of foam board and reflective insulating tape, developed by Dutch students for refugee camps, and they were luxurious and spacious by Playa standards, especially after we installed our own air-conditioning units. We made a shower, which you could use kneeling down, and set up a small vertical privacy -tent, set back a little from the rest of the camp, so the men could pee in a bottle without walking all the way to the porta potties at night. Yes, you wanted to know that. We had a chill dome, a kitchen dome and shade for hanging during the day.

Our fellow Zardozians, all 13 of us, blended beautifully this year and made the event.

We shared meals at sunset, followed blinking hearts Deep into the Playa, complimented each others' outfits, played petang in a park at midnight, clustered close together in dust storms, shouted "ZARDOZ! across the sands, sat cross-legged in a circle, observing the lights from a distance and were always relieved to see a Zardoz rescue team find missing persons, especially if we were the ones missing.

Music camps played very loud music this year. I can only describe it as sawing metal to random beats - A. can do a good impression, you could ask him. We do not know what style it is; punk house, metal house? I know not, but I think the general idea is to avoid melody. We tried to get away from it, if we could. The art cars were the ones we went to for dancing.

When it was done, breaking down camp on Sunday only took 5 hours, we hugged and kissed, and promised to bring camp Zardoz back again.

Right, that was it.

S3 and friend are currently escaping the Ubud rain with a trip to the Gilli islands for a few days, with a bag so small, my toilet bag wouldn't fit in it. I have respect for this kind of light traveling.

Love S1

Healing again

2010-08-25T07:04:00.000-07:00

Dear sisters,

Back from our summer traveling, I have been catching up on healing, as if my life depended on it, and, if I am to believe one or two of the healers I have seen, maybe it does.

The massage from God.

I have so far, had two efficient 30-minute massages by
Ketut Arsana, who is the man of the Bodyworks emporium. You always have to book ahead. The massage involves waiting, until the short, long-bearded man with sparkly eyes, arrives, to lead you past the chained upside-down bat, past the fish, past the herb boxes, under the beaded curtains, up the stairs and more stairs, to the roof where you are led into his little room of dark timber, with bookcases full of books, and a single massage table. He gestures, without talking, for you to undress, completely, and so you step, in glorious nakedness, with hardly a modesty sheet, onto the table, and then he begins. No faffing around with introductory strokes. It is different for everyone, but with me it involved Ketut walking over my back a lot. Now, this is a good massage.

Aryuvedic consult with Uma.

I am a mixed body type: Vahta, Pitta, and Kahpa, ratio 1:2:3, but mostly at this time I need to balance Vahta. This means breathing exercises at dawn, lots of swimming in cool water and no strenuous yoga in the afternoons. Resting between 2 and 6 and a daily massage if possible. No dairy or spicy foods, no tomatoes or bananas. I am to avoid too much travel, any kind of stimulation or sensory overload. That will have to be after Burning man, then.

Also some energy work is suggested, as I have suspected blockages behind the heart.

Pak Man

Pak Man lives in my street. It is the second house up the path, past the laundry. Behind the walls a garden lies, with twinkling wind chimes and bird-filled cages in the trees. You sit cross-legged on the patio and make small talk with Pak Man’s english speaking female partner, who translates, as Pak man closes his eyes, chain-smoking, now and then flicking his long grey ponytail with the back of his hand, muttering a question or advice when it comes up.

We speak of the body being a car, driven by the mind. If the car crashes, it is not the car’s fault.

Pak Man at some point stands up and walks around his garden, hacks off a coconut with a big knife, walks inside, closes the glass doors, and then, brusquely, the curtains. After a long while, small talk is really done by now, I am invited inside.

Pak Man gives me the most painful massage I have ever had, cracks and clicks every bone in my body including the bones on the top of my hands and my feet, and then finally makes me eat two flowers followed by a glass of young coconut juice and then another glass of what seems like water with glycerin floating on top. “Pak Man medicine” his partner explains, with no intention of revealing the ingredients.

She continues to translate, after she lights another cigarette of her own, blowing fresh smoke into the air: "Right, so, ..Pak Man says you are not doing well"

My pancreas is blocked, there is salt in my kidneys and the root of the cancer has not gone. But! Do not despair, she says; "Pak Man can work on it."

He could not open everything in my body during this session, as it was still too painful for me, but I could return. In the meantime I should drink young coconut juice every day and have a good time.

When all else fails: eye-lash extension

I drove down to Seminyak and lay on a reclining chair, listening to French chansons for ninety minutes, while a sweet girl took great care to stick hair extensions onto each one of my measly eyelashes.

So far, but I am still processing all the information, I have recognized the need for many massages and am considering the daily coconut juice. I have also gracefully accepted the compliments for my eyes, although showering with goggles is a nuisance.

I leave for San Francisco and Burning Man tonight. When we return, I intend to go to one or two of the energy healers in and around Ubud and the recommended Chinese acupuncturist in the South. Just to get them all in before we go.

S3, I see you on this sweet island, when I return.
If you travel safe, so will I.

S1

A story about an offer puppy

2010-08-14T06:18:00.000-07:00

Dear sisters,

Someone from school, let's call him Jim, was taking his three children to school by car, their driver behind the wheel, when they drove through a village and had to slow down for a group of puppies frolicking (nice word) in the road.

Balinese dogs excel at moving out of the way at the very, very last moment, and Balinese puppies learn early, so when the driver accelerated, the puppies scattered and jumped to safety just in time, as they had been taught. All except one. One of the puppies stumbled over his own feet and was hit by the car.

Understandably, the three children in the back seat were upset and Jim only managed to calm them down by promising to come back for the puppy after they had been taken to school, and make sure it received proper treatment.

Jim, true to his word, returned to the village with his driver, where they found the puppy lying injured in a yard. Jim watched as the driver negotiated with the villagers, who were apparently protesting, but he came back with the wounded puppy. They drove the puppy to a vet, who determined the dog had a broken leg, which could be treated. Jim would have to pay 200.000 Rhupia ($20)for the treatment, which he said was not a problem.

"Ah but this is a perfect offer dog."

Jim looked at the vet.

Not knowing that puppies were offered, he asked

" What makes this puppy the perfect offer dog? "

"The coloring; brown with black markings make it ideal for the offering."

So, basically, if Jim intended on returning the dog to where he found it, the vet would not treat the dog, as it would more than likely be offered soon anyway.

Jim suggested keeping the dog himself, then.

It was the driver's turn to become upset. He had solemnly promised to return the dog to the villagers.

The vet added that, by the way, if he kept the puppy, there was a good chance it would soon be stolen, as a good offer puppy can fetch as much as 1.3 million Rhupia ($130) on the market.

It was a happy ending for this puppy. They went back to the village and paid a price- the story does not say how much - puppy's leg was fixed and puppy was adopted by a loving expat family in Sanur, who live behind walls and have security to prevent abduction.

We asked Nyoman about the puppy offering business, Yes, he said, puppies are offered to appease the demons. They are used in cleansing ceremonies. He was skeptical about the price quoted above for such a puppy, however.

We asked how many puppies his village offered each year, just to get a feel for this practice. Not each year, he said, only one every three years.

S1

Namaha

2010-08-10T20:59:00.000-07:00

Dear sisters,

You may have got the idea we are not doing much on this island except traveling and relaxing, but we are also working. My husband and I, at this midlife stage of our life, are both working at becoming nicer people for the second half, and hope to show you the results at Christmas.

We are not flaying our arms around blindly in this attempt, hoping it will just happen by saying it out loud. We are also looking to others who have done and thought about it longer than we have. What does it take?

The Balinese for example – I do not know how they keep it up – but they show no signs of road rage in traffic that begs for it. They toot modestly when they wish to pass a motorcyclist, carrying the full content of house and family, and wait patiently when cars and coaches are backing up in the middle of the street. I did not believe it was really true, so I have been watching Nyoman closely, our patient driver, as these daily events occur, hoping to catch him at an outward sign of annoyance. I have caught him once at a cluck under the tongue, when two big hairy Australians refused to back up on a dirt road, and a nervous chuckle when a woman on motorcycle swerved in front of the car, because she was talking on her mobile phone. He laughed and waved at her, after she turned to smile at him apologetically and they went on their way, none the worse for the incident.

Allard has been impressed by this Swami guy, Swami Vagishananda, affectionately known as Swamiji, who for some reason has a large following of tall Swedish men. He lived in seclusion for a long time and has had time to ponder. Now making up for lost time he has been described as "an ever-flowing, sparkling waterfall of Mother Sruti's sacred words."

Central and essential to his teaching are mantras you have to repeat many times, until they are engrained in your person. I think it takes years of chanting. That is a lot, for which you certainly need a prayer bead necklace with a tassle to count your mantras as you say them, by itself a wonderful accessory in Ubud.

All this is retold from a second hand telling, of course, so I am not taking responsibility for accuracy. I haven’t seen Swamiji in person (apparently women are not as keen on him as men) and have yet to be seduced by mantras, but for the time being, the three guidelines for happiness that Allard brought home with him, are being repeated in our household.

The solution for happiness, as I understand from Allard’s recap is this:

1) do not try and change anyone (which means do not give unsolicited advice):
2) do not communicate in an emotional state
3) give all the rest away to Shiva, “let it go” – “namaha”.

So, the message to you sisters is; if you want to my advice from now on, you will have to ask for it. That is a good start, don’t you think?

The second one is a very good one for my marriage, assuming emotional state includes the state one is in after two bottles of wine. I now have credible back-up from Ji.

The third one is the most difficult. I am trying, with my chemically induced hormonal imbalance, to not let my nerves fray and my voice rise inverse proportionally – yes, even in Paradise - as my son lets me call his name five times as I stand beside him, before acknowledging my presence, or my daughter for running off to her room, throwing herself dramatically onto the bed and weeping for the smallest thing that does not suit her, or the internet for throwing me out at a crucial moment in the reservation process, or indeed my sloppy chakaranga’s in my yoga class this morning.

“Namaha”, we keep saying to each other, -“give it away to Shiva's thick blue neck. She can take it."

I am not sure it is engrained yet. We may need some more guidance. I think a meditation course is coming up. We have only four more months to look around before we return to the real world. Time just floats away here.

If you find me boring when I return, please give it to Shiva.

Three-day-tour to the Red centre

2010-07-23T05:34:00.000-07:00

Dear sisters,

Gavin, our tour guide/driver/cook was a long legged, big-eared man from New Zealand. In a former life he toured Japan performing slapstick comedy, so if he needed to, he could grab our attention by setting fire to his head. He possessed a black belt in karate, but practiced non-violence as far as possible, since he knew how to kill a man with one blow.

Gavin would let one or two of the group, in turn, sit up at front of the bus, to experience the front seat view, and when he did, he talked animatedly, looking often at his conversation partners as he drove, lifting his hands off the wheel to underline a point. Nevertheless, we had full trust in Gavin, all twenty-three of us seated in the back of the bus, as we sped along the Stuart Highway.

Gavin entertained us with stories of former tour participants, like the lady who came all the way to the desert, but did not dare leave the bus because she was so afraid of snakes and insects, and then she was the one to find an ants' nest in her sleeping bag. Or the wealthy Swiss gay couple with huge suitcases, that got so fed up with sleeping in a tent, they offered to put the whole group in a hotel for the night.

We all laughed along with Gavin, who sniggered more than he laughed, but secretly we were quite happy we were there in wintertime, when ten of the twelve deadliest species of snakes in the world, coincidentally all living in the Red Centre, were hibernating, or so Gavin assured us. Keeping all our clothes on against the cold at night seemed preferable to shaking our sleeping bags out for insects and reptiles.

Gavin made us get up at 5.30 in the morning to walk the Valley of the Winds or Heart Attack hill at Kings Canyon. He let us touch “the Rock” but would not make a detour for a cup of good coffee. We slept under the stars at Gavin’s insistence. Gavin told us he tried to set fire to his house when he was five.

Back in Alice Springs , one of the thirty-five taxi drivers in Alice Springs told us to make sure to ring on time if we wanted a taxi around two ‘clock in the afternoon, because that was when the liquor store – 'the Thirsty Camel drive-through' for example, – opened for the day, and it was then they were at their busiest.

Another taxi driver told us that there were only 47 people in Alice that had lived there for more than 20 years and he was one of them. This is not hard to understand.

The Alice Motor Inn, however, has been voted best accommodation so far by the children. We think it was has to do with jumping space.

Now just landed in Queensland. Will keep you posted, but the Rendez Vous resort in Port Douglas could be a new contender for the top spot, if it is up to Jip.
Love S1

How do you like your crocodile meat?

2010-07-18T05:08:00.000-07:00

Dear sisters,

Random writing as I sit on the Ghan train from Darwin to Alice Springs.

I am very happy to be here for various reasons of chaos and confusion. We have, by now, made so many mini-trips, and consequently repacked our bags to store one half of our luggage and take just a few overnight bags, and then returned, preferring to keep the dirty washing together, that any order or searchability has long gone.

So far I know I have lost one blue hat from Panama (taxi) and my sunglasses twice, but the glasses turned up at in both cases, just lost long enough for a good morning of anxiety. I haven’t seen my Bali phone in a while, which is gnawing at me.

We returned late from our three day trip to Kakadu park at the Top End of Australia and as my husband picked up the rest of the luggage we had left in storage, I managed with all the confusion of being thrown out of our bus with our mini-bags, which were half open and overflowing, to leave behind my husbands toiletries bag, which included his glasses and only pairs of contact lenses. He can’t see much without them.

The next morning we had to catch the Ghan train at 9 am and the office of the tour operator didn’t open until then. We still hadn’t eaten at 9.30 p.m. and the children were hyperactive, fighting for the top bunk. We were staying in a family room of a cheapish hotel on the outskirts of town, where the phone didn’t get connected unless you paid a deposit beforehand and you would be thrown out for drinking alcohol on the premises.

The end of the story is not as climatic as you might hope, and does not truly reflect the excitement of the evening. Emergency numbers were called on Skype (at least we managed to get onto the internet), Corona beer spilled on the shiny bedspread, Thai take-away eaten on saucers at 10.30 at night, which, we all agreed, was rather good.

In the morning we heard the bag had been found and could be picked up at 7. Allard jogged into town and arrived back, with no minutes to spare, to leave for the train station, where amazingly we were all there - in the reservations system.

So here we are.

The Australians in Kakadu park lived up to their Crocodile Dundee reputation, joking about American tourists, their wives and vegetarians.

Crocodile skewers, buffalo sausages and kangaroo steak, one of the other or a combination of all three was on the menu all nights. Both kids loved it.

In the morning, fluffy white bread, toasted, with jam or vegemite.

We stayed in permanent tents at Sandy Billabong campsite, a popular one, where, several years ago, a German backpacker was eaten by a crocodile, after she and a few others decided to take a midnight dip.

Bump, bump. Bump we went down the sandy road in our four wheel drive, “Thrill me” written on the side in big green letters, bump bump, bump, before finally arriving at the parking place to join the forty other four wheel drive adventure tour buses, promising a unique and exciting adventure at the Top End.

The land and sights made up for not being off the beaten 4 wheel drive path. Swimming at Jim Jim falls and Maguk Plunge pool, after clambering over rocks and boulders to get there, were my favorite. The idea that most of this land is covered by a few meters of water during the wet season is hard to comprehend.

We saw fat crocodiles in the wetlands.

On the way back to Darwin, we stopped at a roadside bar, where men with bushy white beards, wide brimmed hats, khaki shirts, khaki hot pants and big booted hairy legs, leaned casually against the bar.

Real men. We saw them too. Alas, no photographic evidence.

Now to Alice Springs, where it can get down to freezing point at night. More kangaroo steak awaits us.

S3, I will be scouring the desert for ice cream stands.

Love S1

Czech Italy

2010-07-16T06:38:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Moravia, the eastern part of Czech Republic. They say it is the czech Italy here and apart from the language difference and a few details here and there i can't really disagree. We had a very nice and cheap holiday here for five days , cycling around beautiful palaces , nature reserves and vinyards. We swam in lovely lakes surrounded by thick green trees and we ate lots of delicious food. What more could one wish for ? Icecream , yes. And now let me introduce you to one of my favourite czech words : Zmrzlina! What a wonderful word .

The presentation could have been a little more polished but simple is good and the message was clear .
We actually didn't get our icecreams here but around the corner where there was a little patio in the cool shade of trees. It looked much nicer but this one i found very impressive for some reason. I have decided to photograph icream parlour's around the world as my next theme. Dear sisters, would you like to join me on this mission ? Please photograph any icecream palaces you come across on your travels at home or abroad. Thankyou !

It is officially summer holiday so let us take a dip in a fountain pool to celebrate .I Will post soon and take care where ever you all are !

Love , S3

Saigon and beyond

2010-07-12T18:46:00.000-07:00

Dear sisters,

Ho Chi Minh today is not the city I visited 17 years ago (17 years!). I think I recognized one roundabout. There are new roads, glass towers and expensive shopping malls standing next to the roadside coffee shops, where people drink together, sitting on tiny plastic stools on the pavement. Cyclists are hardly around anymore and the motorcycles have increased in numbers. The city seems to be booming, no longer hindered by the regime.

Obviously the same rules apply to crossing the road in Saigon as in Hanoi.

Wearing a helmet was made compulsory only a little while back. As a gesture, to avoid the fine, helmets are now worn in all shapes and sizes, which can be bought for less than two dollars on street corners. Safety does not seem to be the issue. The classic head covering helmet, ‘the electric rice cooker ‘as they call it here, is not in favour. The ears must be left free, so you can hear the beeping and honking of your fellow road users. Other than that, there are no limits. Helmets come in the shape of a sunhat, in the shape of a baseball cap or in the shape of a beetle. There are helmets with stripes, helmets with flowers or helmets with Winnie the Pooh. I got one with a stylish Burberry check running down the side. We also bought a bag full of mouth caps, worn against air pollution and the sun. We thought they might also protect against sandstorms in a desert at some point.

I liked the rows of ‘coffee with a hammock’ stalls on the side of the road, just after leaving the city, which allow weary travellers to drink a cup of the strong local coffee with condensed milk, and have a rest before they resume their travels.

In the bus: if Jip could keep the ice cube in his hand an ice cube until we got back to the hotel, he and his sister would be entitled to as much ice-cream as they could eat for the rest of their life. Rosie jumped up and down in her seat. Jip tried first by covering the ice cube with his hand to stop the heat getting to it and then holding it up to the blower, but he quickly cottoned on to it being a losing battle and sat grinning on the back seat, with a slinking cube in his hand, as Rosie urged him to stop it melting.

After this road game got everyone loud and excited, “the-ten-minute-of-silence for an ice-cream the next day” worked well. Rosie even stayed silent for two more minutes than necessary just to be sure, which was nice for all of us.

As you can see, ice creams are being used as a useful parental tool on our trip.
Unfortunately for the children, they cannot claim the promised ice-cream a day for the rest of the trip, "if the Dutch win the World Cup", which fortunately for us means we still have leverage.

We called the emergency number of the Dutch Consulate to find out where the Dutch contingent in HCM would be watching the Final, but ended up watching it in the lobby of our hotel with the night watchman, his friend, the receptionist and a lonely hotel guest who had also ventured down in his pajamas, as our time was 1.30 am in the morning. We brought our children dressed in orange and watched with the Dutch commentary streaming live from our computer, lagging twenty seconds behind the action, which is a little sad when you think about it.

We are now on our way to Australia, having just returned from our mini-trip to Cambodia to see Angkor and its temples. For us a highlight of our sightseeing so far; for the children not so much. “How many temples do we have to see today ?” they asked each morning. Managing expectations (“Five before lunch”) and a swimming break after lunch made it workable for us all.

How many temples can you see? We asked ourselves this question after the first hot day. But of the nine we saw, each one had something new, which we were glad to see; centuries old roots of trees growing through and over the temples looking like enormous pythons, giant squids or alien webs, made for strange viewing.

Visiting out of season has its advantages. We were often on our own, with the ruins, butterflies and grasshoppers to ourselves. Not to forget the girls and boys persistently trying to sell us bracelets, silk scarf’s and flutes. Compared to the Vietnamese, Cambodians have a good grasp of English we found.

We are now preparing ourselves for a change of scenery, diet and budget. It will be a shock to eat and drink for more than 20 USD with the four of us. No more Pho for a while and no more ice cold Tiger beer at lunch time.

On the other hand, I am looking forward to being able to understand our tour guides.

Ciao,

S1

On our way

2010-07-04T03:12:00.000-07:00

Dear sisters,

I felt myself go through the stages; denial, disbelief, anger and finally acceptance. It started at the check-in desk for our flight from Singapore to Hanoi, where the unfriendly lady of Tiger Air, uttered the words: "where is your visa?" as she leafed through our passports.

"We are getting the visa on arrival" we replied cheerfully.

To be able to do that, she told us, we required a letter from the Vietnamese authorities giving permission to obtain the visa. Without it, we would not be allowed to board the plane.

I turned round to my husband, expecting him to be pulling a letter out of his package of holiday documents, but no, his face looked particularly drained of color.

We loaded all our suitcases back onto the trolley, as we were redirected to the customer service desk, where the good news was that the Vietnamese embassy was closed for the day, the required document would take at least 12 hours to process and Tiger Air did not fly to Hanoi again until Sunday and it was Thursday.

The problem was a misunderstanding with our tour operator, which, it soon became clear, could not be solved in time to let us fly.

To cut a long story short, we called our friends, we had left with a hangover that morning and asked if we could come back one more night. Jip pumped his arm with a loud 'Yes!". He had already expressed his desire to stay longer in Singapore, where he had got on well with the boys of said friends.

We had been too smug, congratulating ourselves on our organizational talents. Everything seemed to be running so smoothly. We had managed to spend a successful day at Universal studios, just missing the afternoon rain, we picked up our luggage with plenty of time to spare and even managed to repack the bags so they were all within the smaller luggage allowance of Tiger Air.

So, we had to be punished for our smugness. Not that it was terrible to spend another comfortable night in Singapore, but it was a little too much excitement for my liking.

We managed to get a flight the next day with a different airline and required document.

And now we are in Hanoi, staying in a perfectly nice hotel, of which the room interiors are clearly modeled on a Swedish sauna. "Really good design, don't you think?" Jip said after he had inspected them.

We arrived on Saturday 2, between dusk and dark, in time to see the Dutch team win, and as we drove into town, passing the lights of the karaoke bars, we saw a crowd of Vietnamese crouched on the side of a bridge. I asked our guide what they were doing. Our guide, named Son, with a funny accent on the O, whom we may call Sun, he said pointing to the sky, told us the people were trying to catch a breeze from the Red River.

One of the other things we did not realize before booking, was the climate at this time of year. We are traveling in a particularly hot season which may also include rain; it being the rainy season. No rain yet, but it is 38 degrees C, so any breeze is welcome, and an air-conditioned bus is no luxury.

Our guide is helpful and knowledgeable, although lacks a sense of wit and often keeps talking expansively on the history of yet another Dynasty, while the children are running off to climb yet another Vietnamese landmark.

He did give us some tips for crossing the road in Hanoi:

"Lights do not mean anything, do not look at the traffic lights, look at the driver, cross anywhere on the road, where you can, and walk in a steady pace, do not run and do not stop until you get to the other side. If you must stop, scream."

Today we had our city tour of Hanoi. The highlight of the day was shuffling with hundreds, in orderly communist fashion, under a blue canopy against the blazing sun, passing the guards in white uniforms, who did a toe pointed changing of the guards as we got near, through the massive and air-conditioned Ho Chi Min mausoleum, past the yellowed body of the man himself, before reentering the heat. Seeing a dead man spoke to the imagination of the children. The other highlight was Fanny's ice cream parlor after dinner.

Tomorrow to Halong Bay. Will keep you posted.

S1

Meanwhile back in Ubud

2010-06-29T18:09:00.000-07:00

Meanwhile back in Ubud, the rice paddies surrounding our villa are waterbeds, filled to the brim. The men working in the fields slosh their way through the mud, having to lift the feet high to move forward. The flocks of noisy ducks swim and peck their way through what looks like duckweed floating on the surface. It is the time to catch the eel that lives in the paddies. The young kids do it when it is dark, first with their fathers and then when they are a little older on their own.

Villages have hung out the flags of the countries participating in the World Cup, Jip names them all as we pass, some have just one or two, we assume the favorites. The illegal betting season is hereby underway. Kites fly everywhere in the sky, kite season is also starting- and sometimes little boys chase each other like mad along the road, to be the first one to catch a run-away kite, just like in the Kite runner.

Traffic is increasing in Ubud and we have been told it will only get worse. I hide in Bar Luna when I can, often being the only one, writing in the corner. The fans rotate softly and the coffee is good.

We have bought two big aluminum spades at a dusty hardware store for Jip to dig. He likes digging deep holes and the plastic shovel in Rosie’s beach set wasn’t cutting it. Balinese stop to ask what we are doing. “Digging to America” we say together and they stand and look on in amazement at this pointless exercise.

Rosie biggest act of revenge this week was to convert Jip’s special drawing of a fierce knight in armor, brandishing a sword, into a girl, by adding a skirt, and a flower at the tip of his sword. This was after Jip refused to let her play his game. She knows how to hit him where it hurts.

Every time I say rainy season is finally over, it rains again.

The bali bugs multiply; grasshoppers are hopping, big buzzing things are buzzing, fruit flies hover and ants march in line, transporting the crumbs we care to drop on the tiles. We hear creatures running across our roof at night and sometimes we hear a thud as one falls. The word rat has been mentioned.

I bought a big blue hat from Panama.

My husband is on his way to meet me bali style, with both children on the scooter. Rosie sings as she sits up front: “turn on the sun, turn on the sun, light up the world, tell everyone…” It is not as warm as it has been and the breeze is gentle. A scooter ride is quite the best way to go.

School year is over. Reports handed out. It seems we have hardly had time to get into the groove. We are preparing for our month long trip, through Vietnam, Cambodia and Australia. I know it’s like an American whizzing through Europe in a week, but we are not doing everything in 30 days, just a lot.

We have been spending a lot of time on the internet, looking at hotels on wotif.com, cross-referencing with trip advisor, booking.com and the hotels own sites, before deciding what to do. We will be taking 10 flights, one train ride, many boat excursions, sleep in 15 different hotels, 4 campsites and on a boat before ending at friends in Sydney.

My children don’t like change.

Off in an hour. See you along the way.

S1

The Liquid Image

2010-06-20T08:08:00.001-07:00

I aliken the process of painting to swimming in a pool. The bottom, seen through the water, and the patterns of its tiling; on it, rippling shadows appear. These swirl as my body moves through the water. The shapes of the shadows warp with the refracting light in the water. There is the water itself, a tumultuous texture that clings to me. It bears me aloft and lets me slide into it, when I hold my breath, glides me along when I swim through. Shafts of light appear. In bright circumstances flecks of light can be seen right through it. Like milk. The third is the top layer that reflects the sky in its surface, sends flashes of light into my eyes. It fractures at each stroke I take. There are splashes, patterns, waves. And then there is me, in the thick of it, turning around, simultaneously making and contemplating the image. In it and of it.

Then there is the element of time and memories, and swirl of what I am aware of in a singular moment. It stands as a fragment in time that supersedes all usual measurement. In this broken open moment into which I swim, I am no longer aware of the pool’s edges, just as the painting is edgeless. The swelling surface holds me up, seems round, the moment infinite as miniature whirlpools form around me. I wonder which traces will be left after I get out and it all returns to flatness, reflecting a perpetual sky. Leaving only the drum roll of the rain, swallows and thirsty dragonflies occasionally pock-marking the perfect surface, to create some mild and temporary disturbance.

S2 (with a little editing by S1)

Bali dreams

2010-06-20T02:28:00.000-07:00

Dear Sisters,

I never, ever had a pedicure before. That is, until I visited Bali. If I had visited alone, I probably never would have had one either. But S1 guided me to the top of a house where a girl with a fan would give me one. I could choose the colour I wanted from a rack of bottles, three stories high. Arnolfini Wedding green. You should have seen my toes before, or perhaps not. I told the girl the story about the peacock - a christian symbol for several things, I read somewhere - one of them appears in a story: the peacock is prancing about being wonderful and thinking he is beautiful, until he looks down and sees his own, very ugly feet. I said to the girl that I felt like the peacock that day. She took care of that. Green shiny toenails that reflect the sky: perfect colouring for the tropics. Afterwards she had fun comparing the colour of our skin...how pale I was!

It seems I am the lucky one. Not only do I get to visit Prague and get wrapped up in the warmest hospitality and taken to all the best, most exciting places. In San Francisco, in Bali, this happens too, and I get swept along in all things Californian and Indonesian, and all because of my wayward, traveling sisters. And in doing so you give me the greatest gift. I almost wish I lived in a more outlandish situation to be able to return the favour.

Jip says it best.

Yes, I have been to Ubud. Yes, it blew me away, part of me is still up there somewhere in the outer stratosphere, so my consciousness, we could say, has expanded. It is hard to sum it all up in a nutshell. And just as my postcards have taken a stunning 7 weeks to reach home, so too, it seems, have my thoughts taken their time to settle into something that can be communicated. Time to recollect while it is still fresh!

I LOVE BALI. Did I tell you that already?
When I left I was at a loss for words to describe everything that had happened. Like a dream with many rooms, or a room with many dreams in it, such intensity. Every experience is also soft as a smooth stone: by comparison, any scramble of words seems rough in its description.

Number one treat: hanging out with Jip and Rosie. They grow and have grown so quickly. It is a pity we can't see you all more often. I so enjoyed reading with Jip and giggling together about the book we were reading. It is heartening to know we have a similar sense of humour. Having a sarong photo session with Rosie. Hearing her sing: "One mata hari, two mata hari, three mata hari", as she was counting the suns on her drawing. The desperate begging session (which lasted for the duration of my visit) after she cast her magpie eye on my special fountain pen. In the end I relented. Unwrapping the musical instruments I had bought, partly to entertain them, and also to find out which ones they liked the best.. And the staring competitions with Jip are a real showdown. Of course when you leave you think of all the things you could have done better. At the same time, life is life, and you do the best you can as it rolls. I just think it is great to be a part of their lives and for this I am so very grateful.

strange creatures.

Bali had this effect of overwhelming me. The first couple of days I was simply amazed: didn't know what I was seeing. I knew beforehand that i couldn't fathom much about the culture I would be visiting, but upon getting there, it turned out to be a real shock, of the kind when you see a picture for the first time, that is so full of complexities that you sense that, in order to understand it, you would have to study every tiny aspect in great detail. This stands in stark contrast with all the information and sensations that come streaming in.

You end up helpless........it made me pause, because that was all I could do. Pause and take in the smallest fragments, impressions, limiting my view almost, to what I could handle. The shadows and light in the pool. The mountain range of the sheets on my bed. The slow and the wide. The drawings the children made (amazing!). Luckily S1 had the wherewithal to take us both for several pampering sessions..and then slowly I dropped my consciousness that wishes to grasp it all at the same time...and slowly let go, submit to the treacly heat and the dreams full of mythological creatures (that do not make up part of your cultural background) that interfere with your spirit as you sleep, like all the energies want to get to know you. Feeling something stick to you after gazing into a green, mossy cave....

I got caught in the rain in a forest at the Botanical Gardens, without an umbrella, and went into the meditation court. It said "silence" but since I thought there was nobody there, I did some singing. The rain also did some singing which I recorded:

It turned out I was not alone but the tourists who passed me did not seem too disturbed by the tones coming from the bale I was sheltering under. It took a long time to subside, I wrote most of my postcards sitting under that roof in the company of ants, and when it stopped I continued, heading further into the forest, spotting droopy butterflies among the dripping bamboo trees and almost stepping on a tiny, slithering snake. I sort of got lost in the forest. Not a great idea when wearing flip-flops. I excelled as the dipsy traveler when I slipped in the mud and fell, hitting my arm on a post and just narrowly missing the steep drop to the right. It twisted me, got me off-balance, and prepared me to be careful for our adventure of the next day, climbing the big volcano.

There too I wore inadequate footwear, and the biggest confrontation was the effort it took me to climb up it, as I saw S1 dart up the mountainside like a gazelle. Never thought I would be the red-faced, puffing tourist that can't get up the mountain. At the same time, I sensed, when we were almost at the top, that we were being pushed, by the guides, to get up there more quickly. It transpired (as I perspired) that they race each other, or have some sort of deal going on with their groups going up...and who gets there first....and I suddenly realised I could do it in any tempo that I wanted. The guide later told me we had made very good time. So why had they pushed so hard? I am glad, and this is one of the lessons, I realised I can do it in my own time. When we got to the top I met my new friend, Vertigo, who seems intent on following me, after we were told of someone who plummeted into the crater after fooling around. One learns to have respect for mountains and hard earned sunrises. The view was amazing.

The signal to get fitter was maybe even better. In those mists, and in all the lessons I have taken, I in fact encountered the shadows of my own resistence. And that is essential to letting them go.

To be continued. You see my story is incomplete. S1, I don't know how you deal with narrative in Bali. Time is non-linear, expressly so... I have given up trying to convey the experience accurately. I hope this gives you an insight at least. It will for ever be big chunks of experience, like the emeralds I felt coming out of my throat when we were doing the group kirtan singing. Bubbles of intensity waiting to be digested; perhaps they never will. Maybe the Bali story is to be expanded on. I have bought books and listen to the music. Joined the prayer and tasted the food. The other night I dreamt I heard a gamelan playing in Belgium and it was so beautiful. I certainly am ready for more.
Love to you.
xxx S2

Story in three pictures: bubbles

2010-06-13T07:44:00.000-07:00

Hong Kong themes

2010-06-11T00:55:00.000-07:00

Dear sisters,

This should be my 'month four and my month 5 in paradise' post, but where did those months go? Filled with guests of the one and other.

S2 came and was taken up by the Ubud energy, she floated in orange and blue pools of light and sang along to Tibetan chiming bells, while I stood waiting outside. She even met someone who saw an alien. So, S2 has been to Ubud.

I will talk about Hong Kong now. We returned and as I have admitted earlier, I took 1000 pictures.

"Of what??!" seasoned travelers to Hong Kong ask me, with that look in their eye.

"She's one of those." Yes.

So for the benefit of you all, I will summarize and categorize that, which I captured.
I generally have a few themes running at one time; some ongoing, some spontaneously occurring during the trip. You can never tell beforehand, which is what is so exciting about it all.

So here are a few of this trip:

1. Of course, we cannot come back without the classic "feet in a hotel room" shot.

2. I expanded on my running 'horizontal bar in the middle" theme, which must not be confused with our fathers "vertical pole in the middle" theme.

3. Scaffolding seemed to be a theme this trip:

4. I took many photos of nearly nothing in the Hong Kong Fog:

5. Somehow attendants with glasses caught my eye.

6. What about photos of photos of my toilet attendants?

7. Or pictures of pictures of food?

8. Signs on the street?

9. Instructions?

10. Pictures of Hong Kong media:

11. Urban princesses:

12. Oranges

13. One of my favorite, pictures of people posing to have their picture taken. They like doing that in Asia. No inhibitions.

Maybe this sign should apply to the above person:

14. And finally, we always end with a picture of the taxi on the way to the airport.

The list above does not include the 100 or so shots, I took of my children smiling in front of landmarks, thereby fulfilling my parental obligation of documenting their childhood. You can look forward to seeing those in an i-photo slideshow the next time we meet.

Do I have to change the name of this blog to scattered sister?

With love,

S1

Ubud fashion (1): the Thai fishermen pants

2010-04-30T03:20:00.000-07:00

As a woman of healthy proportions, just turned forty, with a plodding gait, I should maybe not be considering the Thai fishermen’s pants, that can be bought in every second store on Jalan Hanoman in Ubud. You will know the ones if you have ever set foot in town. They are hard to miss; square and wide with a baggy crotch, fold-over pants with ties at the back, which somehow have to be brought forward and fastened at the front. One size fits all.

The pants come in many colors and lengths and usually have a contrasting striped lining on the inside, which shows when folded over. Some are bright pink, green, turquoise or white, but the preferred colors are terra cotta, blacks, greys and browns; backpackers’ colors, which do not show the dirt. For enthusiasts there are various batik motifs. They are cheap and cheerful and many people succumb to buying them, as witnessed on the streets of Ubud.

I have been able to differentiate roughly five different dressing groups on the streets(not counting the local Balinese):
`
a) The old fashioned tourist; with money-belt, cargo shorts, t-shirts with tight, round collars, the sun-shocked flesh underneath, pushing against the fabric, which is just a little too transparent. On the women; new cheap sundresses that only look good on the young and nonchalant, hanging awkwardly on most others. You can see their sandals were bought just for the trip and still need to soften to the feet.

b) The backpackers in grey/khaki tones, hiking boots, walking with the backpacks on the front of the body, arms wrapped around for extra protection. Their faces are a little red and transpiring from the effort (“yes, we had a great time, really...”), making their way to their homestay on the uneven road. They smile politely and shake their head, saying: “no thanks” to the shouts for ‘transport’ or ‘taxi’, coming from the midst of men chatting on the street, hardly making an effort to win a client.

C) The yogis and yoginis – with their 'om' shirts, flip flops (black havianas)and a collection of leather bracelets around the wrists, sipping their spirulina drinks at Kafe and Bali Buddah. The men may wear their beaded necklaces with tassles. The ladies brought their Lululemons with them, or got new pants just down the road at the Yoga shop.

d) The expats, meeting together in Bar Luna with their laptops, drinking excellent Italian coffee, looking busy and earnest, discussing the latest visa problems.

e) The spiritualists, with their singlets and sarongs, the men that is. The ladies wear tattoos and silver anklets with bells and wrap long scarfs around their head.

The above groups are not mutually exclusive and cross pollination regularly occurs. Most have incorporated the fishermen pants into their style of dressing, to a varying degree of success. It is only a question of time, it seems, before you do.

We joked when we arrived that we would know when we were starting to lose our grip on reality, the moment we would start to dress like this.

But you know, acceptance slowly seeps in, the steps are gradual. Not noticeable if you are close by, like a child growing. So it may yet happen.

I wasn’t intending on buying a pair of fishermen pants, convinced I did not need this item in my life. But the other day I found myself bargaining, as I was waiting for my ride. Ten minutes and the equivalent of ten dollars later, and voila!: a pair of medium length grey Thai fishermen pants with a contrasting grey striped lining were mine. Allard has a few too. They are really handy for yoga, you know.

Once I got home I tried them on, but found there is a skill to the wearing. All I achieved was something resembling a garbage sack pulled in at the top, and I know what you’re saying: it isn’t far off.

But then Allard explained to me you have to fold the top on either side before you tie and fold, like so.

I have practiced and although still a little wary, I dare wear them out. It is like they say on the internet, when you google 'Thai fishermen pants';

“Thai Fisherman pants are perfect for those Practitioners that want an authentic look and feel. Do you seek that comfortable loose fitting clothes? They can be worn anytime day or night. Wear them for your Thai massage sessions, yoga, or whenever you are looking for that comfortable feeling. They make perfect pajamas. Also good to provide for clients that are receiving a Thai massage.”

Although undoubtedly they look best on people who would look good in a garbage sack too, and those people most probably would be male and muscled, I will admit they provide me with a certain pleasant breeziness in the heat. I might just buy one more.

Next up in the series on Ubud fashion: the shapeless Batik bag dress.

Love S1

Month 3 in Paradise

2010-04-21T20:17:00.000-07:00

The Japanese are flowing into town, it is their holiday, walking in single file along the side of the busy main Jalan Raya Ubud: sunhats, fanny packs and baggy shorts in place, camera on the belly, alternated by groovy printed hot panted ladies and colorful umbrellas, held up against the sun. The coaches, that just dropped them at the market, back up with difficulty, requiring many people to wave and gesture to get the job done.

“Tourists”, we tut tut under our breath, as we wait in the car to pass.

We have landed in Ubud, cultural and spiritual heart of Bali. With the Japanese, the Ee-Pels (EatPrayLove seekers) are here in abundance, Western woman by themself, of a certain age, who with other spiritual seekers talk about oneness and higher consciousness, words that sound as familiar here as spaghetti bolognese, which on the other hand is not said that often. A vegan diet is the natural choice for most, but a Raw Food diet is the definite superlative, and is generously provided for on the menus.

You can choose between the Tibetan Chiming Bells Therapy or do the "Stand and shake your body for fifteen hours a day" meditation at the Osho ashram: I just heard about that one. It is supposed to release many bad things in your body, including green sweat. Really.

It is the town where if you are sitting in the new vegetarian restaurant, and complain about the (jazz) music because it has been on repeat for an hour, they ask; ”would you like something more spiritual?”

All this is very well, but it sometimes has to be compensated by a visit to the famous warung Ibu Oka, opposite the Palace, for a plate of the most succulent suckling pig on the island, with a Bintang on the side.

Allard is now half way into his month long yoga teacher training. He starts at 6.30 and returns at 6.30 in the evening. He has started coming home grumpier and grumpier, so I am not sure the path to enlightenment is easy, or perhaps too easy. Apparently he is not sweating as much as he would like. Don’t ask him about Yin Yoga! It is not his favorite. As I understand it, it involves staying in a pose for a long time and not using the muscles. But on the other hand yoga is pretty much all he talks about. Those who know my husband might understand. He buys meditations from the internet. We discuss the relative merits of the Dahla Lama meditation and he demonstrates his new breathing techniques when he gets home at night.

(jungle temples)

Jip has a new world atlas and has made a list of places he would like to visit. Great Britain and Ireland are topping the list. Do you think he has had enough of the tropics already?

A year or so ago Rosie often went to school in her brothers t-shirts trailing down to her knees, demanding to be addressed as 'John'. Nowadays she will only wear outfits that match (usually lots of colors with lots of colors) and look 'pretty'. 'Cool' is not a description she wants to hear. In fact a little stamp of the foot might follow such a compliment.

Rosie sings out loud when she plays around the house, self made lyrics which may involve a princess being kissed on the lips by a prince or just a little ditty about coming and going.

“Rosie, be quiet, I can’t concentrate!” Jip will shout, but this does not bother her one bit.

She will continue and Jip will be forced to find a quieter place to read his book.

The new house in Ubud is great with long corridors and glass doors that are opened every morning, looking out onto green palm and papaya trees. We are warming the Japanese minimalist look in the house up a bit with Balinese cushions and strategic lighting.

Now if the rainy season would just stop.

The parents are taking Bali in their stride. Enduring the heat and the rain.

S1

czech road signs

2010-04-11T08:52:00.001-07:00

This is a sign that there is more to come from the Prague department....
very soon !
S3

Bubbles

2010-04-11T05:09:00.000-07:00

Greetings dear sisters.
The floating silver angels finally draw back the red velvet curtains to reveal what has been happening here these last few months.
It was a long winter and my keyboard was frozen. But the Bali vibes have melted the frost and spring is here , and so am I with a lot of catching up to do . To tell you the truth i was so amazed with the indonesian colours that i secretly thought that it would be hard to compete , hence the quietness.
But i realise in my wise youth that it is not a competition , it is a feast so i share with you in joy the latest news.

Here you see the latest winter spring fashion 2010 continental style , warm jumpers and patterns are all the rage.
Especially if you are an art student and you don't have that casual teddy bear look , then you can wipe that grin off your face.

Here is another art student who obviously doesn't have the teddy bear jumper ( hence the serious look ) but instead stylishly carries the beaded clock look .This is where i recently ate delicious pancakes where a classmate works.

Enough fashion for now , here is a beautiful fountain that i captured one beautiful sunny sunday when it was still cold , i think it was in march.

And here is a photo of all the footprints in the snow, and someone loves Irene. The last time there was so much snow in Prague was twenty years ago.

This is my very good tree blossom friend i met under a cherry tree in Japan , she is a primary school teacher in Hokkaido but was working for a year in Switzerland milking cows. She says that cows are very good listeners. She came to Prague for a week and we laughed so much we had muscle ache in our jaws and tummies. She says that in India exists a tribe that meet once a month and do nothing but laugh together. I like this religion, sounds healthy. This is a photo of my friends in our first 3D experience, we went to see the new Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and after that we had an Alice in Wonderland week in Prague.

And this is another good friend, my accordeon player for the puppet shows, this was his own concert and it was very nice indeed!

And this was my first solo exhibition in Prague ! I was a little nervous but lots of friends came and it was a really gezellige evening. I said to everyone that i wouldn't do a speech unless there was a microphone , thinking that there would never in the world be a microphone and ofcourse there was one ! Luckily I had cunningly planned a little speech before , imagining i would thank madonna and michael as my main sources of inspiration and that i would like to sing a song for everyone , total eclipse of the heart as a finale of the amazing speech.
It turned out though that i was speaking in czech and after i had said" Good evening" very slowly all my class mates cheered me on , clapping and yelping with joy. I said the name of the exhibtion was " Bubbles " because i believe everyone lives in their own bubble. Again everyone applauded and cheered. Just as i was getting into it and relaxed ( i think i started raising my voice a bit in the excitement and with the red wine ) , the organiser came along and casually whipped the microphone out of my hands ( thank goodness) So my speech was short but sweet, to the point i would say.

This is the banjo player that played experimental underground banjo songs at the vernisage. It was more for listening but in my excitement i did a little dance ( silly me ). I think im going a little bit folksy with all these banjo's and accordeon's . Dear family , will you ever forgive me ?

Here are some strange creatures from the prague jungle, they can fly and swim and like to eat bread.

And this is a detail of a wonderful czech artist that lived in a forest and made thousands of coloured woodprints, i went to see his exhibiton and it was amazing, very juicy colours , still fresh from 80 years ago ! His name is Vachal .

And here is my favourite song of the moment as an ode to the spring , hurray !
SUNNY SONG

Lots of Love
Sister numero 3

Lips 1 & 2

2010-04-04T03:27:00.000-07:00

Lips 1

Lips 2

sounds of indonesia

2010-03-22T19:35:00.000-07:00

Love, S1

Month two in paradise and finally, the amazing swimming turtles

2010-03-08T03:28:00.000-08:00

Dear sisters,

You can't know how happy I am to be showing this video to you, which I had promised you in my last post. It took a mere three hours and twenty minutes to upload and that is not counting the five days of frustrated and frustrating attempts. Internet is neither a fast nor reliable medium in Paradise.

As you can see serious underwater swimming training has been going on in the past month. The first challenge of swimming a pool length underwater has been conquered and now the turtles are training for a length and back again, in a single breath.

The weather is hot and the living is still easy. Not much has changed, although we are both making slight personal progress on the yoga mat and in Bahasa Indonesian, which means I can now push my hands up to a backbend saying "saya suka ini" (I like it") at the same time. This, of course, is of no interest to anyone except me, so I will keep it at that.

We have seen ceremonies, cock fights, big birds, ugly birds, more sunsets and eaten good things. I am wearing flowy garments to manage the heat. In the evening we may watch an illegal copy of a recent movie, for purchase at 1 USD everywhere, with strange English subtitles, but usually our eyes fall shut before 10 pm.

And now it is alright for both of you to tell us all about you.

Love S1

healer

2010-03-03T18:05:00.000-08:00

On the outskirts of our village lies a large concrete walled house with a two car garage, and what seem like watchtowers overlooking the rice paddies. Often when we drive past, a blue "taksi" will be coming, just as another is going. Frequently multiple cars are parked in the sandy gutter.

Here lives a locally renowned Balinese healer, who has a busy practice.

One day Wayan, our present driver, asked if we would like to see him. I stuck my hand up, so the next day he set off early to ask permission. He came back and said I was lucky, because the healer could see me at 9.30 the same morning. I borrowed a sarong from Putu, our cook, who could not hold a straight face as she tried to fasten it around my big white body. She also prepared an offering basket with pretty flowers and two sticks of incense. I would just have to add some money when I got there.

At the entrance to the house, a monkey chained to a wire, munched a banana.

Inside was a flowery courtyard with statues placed here and there. A pretty woman in Balinese ceremonial dress came out smiling to greet me. I smiled and returned her greeting. I was uncertain what to do next. Wayan coached me. He advised me to put 100.000 Rhupia in the basket, which is about 10 USD, not a local offering. I placed the basket under a golden statue of what looked like Krishna and Wayan lit the incense. Soon a friendly faced man dressed all in white, with a bushy mustache and big warm hands came out to greet me. His English was very good. "What can I do for you?" he asked with a big grin. Not quite sure what he could do for me, I said I had been ill not too long ago and wanted to know if I was okay.

"Come in, come in." I will first have to see you" he said as he ushered me into a small room with a low table covered in flowers and colorful fabrics, banana leaf mats on the floor. I sat cross legged on one side of the table and he on the other. "Now concentrate on my forehead", he said. "I must see you", gesticulating his hand in a up and downward motion. I concentrated very hard on the spot between his furrowed brows as he closed his eyes. At a certain point he lifted his left arm slowly over his head and flicked away a flower from between his thumb and forefinger, which I guess meant he had seen me. "You will be very lucky , he said. I can see that'" Then: "Your stomach, you have problems with your stomach (that's from our colonics I wanted to say, but didn't), lower back and neck". "Okay", I said, waiting to see what would come next.

"Come here and lie down."

There was another mat with a white pillow next to the healer. I lay on my back with my head on the pillow and he started massaging my abdomen very hard. I had to turn over on my stomach and he briefly massaged my lower back. Then I was asked to sit cross-legged facing him, lowering my head onto his chest, so he could massage my neck.

"I see your heart" he said suddenly, and made me sit up again.

"You have a very slow heart rate"

This, actually is true. Very often when I had my heart rate measured in San Francisco, the machine would start beeping because I fell under the normal range. There, nobody seemed too bothered about it. But the healer was concerned. My heart needed a massage too, he said. He prodded hard in my chest bone for a while. And then again.

"Now let me see you again" he said and I had to look at his face again as he closed his eyes, the lids not quite falling shut, so I could see the whites of his eyes vibrating ever so slightly underneath.

"You are good now", he eventually said, "Just a slow heart." "Keep breathing deeply" And with that advice, he fixed a fragrant flower in my hair, dotted my forehead with holy water and I was on my way.

And now for something completely different:

The amazing swimming turtles!

Detoxing

2010-02-17T03:44:00.001-08:00

The first thing on the list of "thing to try while we are here" was a good detox. "And when you do it, you should do it thoroughly", was my idea when I signed my husband and I up for the "tissue cleansing special", which included supplements for six days of fasting, a massage, and six colonics!

Yes, that is correct, we voluntarily signed up to have six colonic hydrotherapy sessions, which, without beating around the bush, basically means you get a garden hose up your bottom, which then flushes water at body temperature in, in order to flush the toxins out, bits that may have been sitting there for years, in my case nothing other than flowers and butterflies.

The favorite story was the one of the man who had been a vegetarian for six years and still had undigested red meat removed.

This treatment promises many things - of course non of it scientifically proven - but a good colonic could, according to the pamphlet, help rid you of symptoms such as exhaustion, bad skin, obesity, bad breath, loss of sexdrive etc etc. The list was long. We heard stories of of people who knew people who knew people who claimed it was almost a religious experience. Lady Di was a big fan of colonics.

We were starting to look forward to this.

In the treatment room these masks hung on the wall, to motivate us:

This is how it works:

To cut a long story short, during the first session we felt nauseous, sweaty and dizzy, and very few flowers and butterflies came out, nothing to justify a letter home. We came out angry and confused. Our high hopes dashed. One day of fasting and even Paradise lost its luster. Allard had his conspiracy theory at the ready. We quickly changed to the less demanding three session package.

Of course after three days we hopped on to that table like old pro's, and I suppose we are glad what came out is out, but not as glad as we are to be back on our usual diet of nasi campur and banana lassies. Not sure if this is going to be my favorite.

Love S1

one month in paradise

2010-02-12T15:30:00.000-08:00

One month in Paradise. The newcomer’s eyes and ears have faded. Vowels have popped into focus, formerly hidden in the collection of consonants that seemed to be the Bahasa language. The sounds are now familiar, although the meanings, we are ashamed to say, can still only be guessed. We will be starting lessons next week.

It is harvesting time and the smoke from burning the stalks that remain after threshing the rice, drifts into our open living room in the afternoon. The little makeshift tents at the side of the roads house the Javanese who are here to do the work. The rice husks are laid out on plastic sheets on the road and if no room is left to manoeuver, our driver will drive over them. I love the ‘scarecrows’; lines drawn across the paddies with bits of plastic tied to them, varying in size and color, flapping in the wind.

Katut 2, our driver, honks two brief pips, every time he passes a sacred Banyan tree in front of a cemetery: to warn the sprits in the tree, should they be thinking of crossing the road. We are glad to have found out demons only move in straight lines and cannot turn corners.

My husband and I have proven we are remarkably good at doing nothing much. In January we found partners in crime with an Australian accent and what started out as morning coffee and heated discussions often developed into late lunch and undoubtedly ended in rushing to pick up the children.

Since the beginning of the month we have moved into our rock star villa on the coast and have joined the carpool in the village, which involves coordinating the drivers to take and pick up the six kids. We have been keeping up a busy schedule of yoga, swimming, massage, reading and involuntarily smiling resulting from the bearable lightness of being here.

Rosie unfortunately looks like she has chicken pox with the bug bites covering her arms and legs. They just seem to get her wherever she goes. For some reason she talks about death a lot, asking people if they have seen a person die. On the bright side, Rosie has learnt to swim in three weeks; water spouting through a curtain of hair, pink goggles and furious paddling. Before every meal she makes us sing a song, which thanks Mother Earth and Father Sun, and all the plants in the garden where the mother and father are one. She is not completely settled and misses her friends, but it could be worse with a 17 meter infinity pool in her garden.

Jip is still having a great time with his new friends, with only the occasional relapse, and likes the fact they sing songs at school to help him subtract. He will be starting guitar lessons next week. We hope the musical genes have sidestepped a generation.

Yoga: we are doing a lot of it. In fact we have just spent two intense and painful days with "yoga is political activism" Yivamukti founders David Life and Sharon Gannon, who told us with wagging fingers that doing yoga while you still eat meat is like driving a car with your brakes on. I haven't eaten meat in four days. I do not like friction.

We roll our eyes a little at the spiritual journey travelers drawn to Bali, comparing their latest treatments in the health food cafés, but you can bet your favorite dress we will be trying everything they are trying while we are here:
Detox cleansing week with garden hose and supplements? Check.
Aryurvedic healer with lymphatic drainage massage? Check.
Spirulina in our drinks? Check.
Massage from God? Check.

Love S1

Snowflakes and Elvis

2010-01-17T11:28:00.000-08:00

Warm greetings from Prague where everything is covered in a thick blanket of snow , even our friend Elvis.
Here is a star of a song dedicated to you all and the snow
Love me tender
Love S 3

The curious incident of the dog or one week in Paradise

2010-01-15T21:10:00.000-08:00

Dear sisters,

One week on Bali and it feels as if we have been here longer. The island is as beautiful as they said it would be, although I feel I have only seen a muted version so far, the sounds and smells not quite making it through the window panes of our chauffeur driven car, often hindered by curtains of rain, coming down fast and furiously, making us look at each other and say; "Glad we are staying longer. "

The kids started at the Greenschool/ ecological experiment/bamboo showcase last Monday. In fact, We ALL started at the Green school, which is luscious, living up to its name. The Heart of the school, as it is called, is a three-story bamboo structure, the biggest of its kind in the world we are told. Around it, smaller bamboo open structures house the bamboo classrooms, dotted over the grounds, which is essentially in the middle of green nowhere. It is all quite impressive. In the bamboo bathrooms there are two toilets, one for number one and one for number two. The waste is used to compost the organic vegetables grown on the land, which can be ordered weekly. Three times a week parents can do a yoga class in the morning, when they are not having coffee in the school warung (café), which has (spotty) wifi and grand feathered cockerels pecking their way around. We have met lot of nice people all doing interesting things, but not too much.

At some point we will plug the kids into the mini van pick up service to school, but for now we are all up at 6.30 am for breakfast and off by 7.15, driven by our driver, a Katut, or when he "has ceremony" a Made ( they only have four first names here) manoevering through the sea of mopeds, bumping along the crater ridden roads, slaloming to miss the big ones, through the rice paddies and past the temples, before arriving at the school forty five minutes later. In the car Jip and Allard may play Monopoly on the i-phone because the landscape can get tedious in its beauty. "Like it is a painted", Jip says, "especially the palm trees." "Painted by a very good painter."

Jip and Rosie both seem to be going to school quite happily, although Jip complains it is too easy. We will see how that goes. He has found a friend who started on the same day, so that is good news. Rosie’s lunch was grabbed out of the lunch basket and eaten by a stray dog on the first day, but this opened up a wonderful sharing opportunity. She clearly appreciates this school has swings.

During school hours Allard and I have been looking at houses, hanging in health food cafes, and taking an occasional massage or yoga class, gently easing into Bali sabbatical life while we get ourselves sorted. Hearing our mothers voice in my head (“I hate unmaintained feet!”) I had a pedicure on the top floor of Balinese wooden building, overlooking red rooftops, the beaded curtains clicking gently in the breeze and cocks crowing, as the smiling girl wafted my toes dry with a small hand held fan.

Other highlights have been the monkeys in monkey forest, daily swimming, a baby bird found dead next to the pool, lizards scampering over the walls at night, and the water park called Waterbom. The mosquitoes are bothering us and I might have a nasi break at breakfast tomorrow, but otherwise we have few complaints.

So you see, we are off to a good start. I would like to get into a more permanent place and get those eight suitcases unpacked, half of which will probably not be used until we travel to cooler places. It is still unclear if we can get the dream house we have seen. The owner is apparently not so keen on having small children in his house. If he knew how bad.

Tomorrow we move into a temporary place closer to school for ten days. It has a Toucan living at the entrance. By the first of the month we will hopefully know where we will be for the rest of the year, just in time for the first guests. The fact that we have only seen the coast once since we have been here, and from a distance at that, suggested to us we are not the beach people we could have been, so for now we have settled on Ubud as the place to land, which is more inland and has views like this.

Will keep you informed.

Love,

S1

Luggage

2010-01-07T16:21:00.000-08:00

Dear sisters,

Before you compliment me on our recent dematerialization drive, I must confess we did not do so well with our luggage. We left yesterday for Bali, with eight suitcases each weighing the absolute maximum of what is allowed, a surfboard, and a piece of carry on luggage each. What is in those bags? , people asked, and I really could not tell them. How much do you need on an island where the temperature is a steady 30 degrees Celsius all year round?
I must admit I felt a little foolish when we needed a convoy to get to the airport, but I blame it on the process. By the time we got really good at getting rid of things we had already packed half of the suitcases and could not bring ourselves to start all over again. We have not given the term traveling light new meaning.

Now awaiting transfer at Taipei airport, where it is cold and grey outside and the ground stewardesses all wear mouth caps inside. I am glad the Taiwanese have bilingual signage. We start boarding in half an hour for the final stretch of five hours. The first thirteen and a half hour flight went relatively smoothly, with sleep and Dora the explorer. I can't wait for a shower and a bit of warmth on my skin.

Last night we had a fantastic send off with most of our favorite people. Teary eyed we set off on our new adventure. Had I mentioned we like SF and its people?

Oops, we just found out our hotel was booked for December instead of January. Don't miss the next installment.

S1

a new year

2010-01-01T23:28:00.000-08:00

So on the morning of my fortieth birthday I looked in the mirror and thought: oh.
Convinced my nose is getting bigger and my hair is getting thinner I have decided from now on to smile open mouthed, baring my teeth, when a picture is taken instead of the close mouthed grin, thinking the visible gumline is something I must accept now I have come this far. A happy face will hide the grooves. Look out for it, this is my new years resolution.

Otherwise great expectations for 2010. Hope you all have a great year too!

The San Francisco sea lions have left Pier 39 after twenty years and one theory is that they know an earthquake is coming. It could also be of course that they are going to Bali too.

5 more days.

S1

HAPPY BIRTHDAY S1!!!

2009-12-27T16:50:00.000-08:00

Dear Sisters,

It has been a while.

*HAPPY BIRTHDAY S1*
Long live ROUND NUMBERS, may your day be fantastic and your upcoming journeys safe, colourful and unforgettable! (we use UK spelling); I know you are de-materializing your portable load, so please be sure that the present shall reach you, if not in a very light form before you leave, certainly as something palpable, sweet and discrete when you arrive. Please accept in my heart my loveliest wishes to you. I am sure you are making the most of it. And that every day is your birthday :-D I shall attend a yoga class to celebrate!

How was the YARDSALE? My thoughts are with you, and I am very much inspired by your de-junking status, it has in fact blown over here, enveloped me and even sprouted in me; I have filled all of half a bag with stuff I wish to get rid of. I also put up some snazzy vertical railings on the glass doors separating the communal kitchen from my working palace, to hang paintings on, since I am not allowed to make holes in the walls. It is healthy to be so productive. This means the paintings are visible instead of being stacked all over the place. It helps me think.

Do you like my Christmas tree?

We have had solid snow for the past couple of weeks; but now it is mostly rain. The winters here are dark, and were it not for the lights of Xmas these days would be very somber indeed. I think that that's what Xmas originally was invented for, you know, to cheer you up in the darkest of days. By the pagans that is before Christianity borrowed the feast. The more the merrier I'd say.

I need a visit to a sauna!
I send you both all my love, thanks for the great presents.
S2

hello, it's me

2009-12-21T20:59:00.000-08:00

Dear sisters,

Well, I have been busy you know. Finding yet another recipe for the previously unkown vegetable chard, which has been appearing weekly in our organic locally grown home delivery box for the last two months, I suppose it is chard season. I have been painting my toe nails, watching the varnish dry, expanding my flip flop collection, digesting the fact we will be moving to Bali in two weeks and three days.

It is the right time to panic. The house has to be empty very soon. We still have to sell our cars, our tvs, furniture. We have to have our shots, our visa, our tickets, Christmas has to be celebrated. Goodbye parties. You know.

I have to unsubscribe to the mailing list of all the filmfestivals I hardly managed to attend. I got to the film noir B movie festival, that was a good one, the documentary film festival, the independent filmfestival, but not the, Jewish, the Irish, the Italian, the Asian American or the silent movie festival. Of course we went to the the sing-a-longs in the Castro theatre. I will have to unsubscribe to the newsletters from the music venues and my favorite online shopping sites.

We also had a family crisis. We laugh about it now. I call it the Taco Intervention. At recent social gatherings of our instigation, Allard panicked that guests would get hungry later on and went off on a taco and salsa buying rampage. The kitchen cupboards are still stuffed to the gils with big bags of corn chip bags and pots of salsa suace in various strengths. I have had to forbid him to enter the taco chips aisle for a while.

Things are being put in piles, organized, thrown away. It has a liberating aspect. The aim is to leave with five or six suitcases, containing clothes, toys and electronic gadgets.

Oh, does moving to Bali mean we are leaving San Francisco? Mmm. That part is also sinking in. Jip' last day at school, Rosie's coming up. A lot of lasts.

As Jip keeps asking" Why are we leaving San francisco. Everything is so good here? " And it is true there are a lot of things I will miss of this fair and beautiful city and not many things I will be glad to leave behind. Except maybe for Nancy Grace, the commercial breaks, the scary police officer who lurks behind the cars on 19th and Church, waiting to ticket people who do not make the full stop at the stop sign and the heating system which makes so much noise blasting hot air into the rooms, the cold is often preferable.

I thought of doing posts on my top ten views (so many), top ten trees -love the Californian trees! - top ten coffee shops, that wall on Valencia that changes with a new collage of posters, artwork and text every week, but I haven't yet. Maybe later.

Now patiently waiting for the delayed parents, who hopefully will arrive tomorrow, held up by the snow. Jip had the most boring day of his life today, his words, towing along with my to do list, until we started his new blog: www.legotales.blogspot.com.

I wish you both a great Christmas. We wish you could be here, of course. We will be thinking of you under the tree.

kisses
S1

mermaids reading in the underground.

2009-11-28T05:37:00.000-08:00

Ahoj fellow sailor sisters ,

gravity is loose knitting thick blankets of leaves , the wind gales are picking up in dance trot gust, and im in a poetic mood.
I send you two pictures and a song to celebrate the seasons.
The unicorns are us ofcourse.
Notice the green sparkly mermaid nails.

My new favourite singer is called Andrew Bird and i like him a lot , here is a nice video to sway to his song, it's called IMITOSIS

Keep warm and happy
Lots of love
Sister Three

Total eclipse of the heart

2009-11-20T10:00:00.000-08:00

This is for S3 who I know is a fan (thanks to Terence)

Cs

a story in three pictures (2)

2009-11-16T16:48:00.000-08:00

bedroom view!

2009-11-15T13:20:00.000-08:00

Hello dear sisters,

sometimes the light just spills in here and sets anything in the room ablaze....

love,
S2

Listospad

2009-11-13T12:53:00.000-08:00

The leaves are falling the leaves are falling the leaves are falling.
The month of november in czech language is Listospad which literally means leaves falling.
Am dealing with the going of autumn and the coming of winter with a very clever means of survival,
dumplings and sauerkraut which i love.
Mama Africa has made her entrance into the czech republic bringing with her the musical orchestra of colour
as you can see here.

And here is a wonderful song that i keep playing over and over, mama and i dance to it every morning.
Its called GUITAR
Enjoy !
Will post again soon, a lot to say after the Brno experience , im still digesting !
Love S3

Calling all crazy knitters...

2009-11-04T12:44:00.000-08:00

Dear Sisters,
Maybe you know someone who likes knitting, or crocheting. Here is an interesting project, for anyone with time on their hands who would like to try out some new shapes. It's educational and meant to raise awareness about sexual health during a special week (SHAW) at Warwick University. Artist Frieda Van de Poll is behind it.
S2

appy happy birthday !

2009-11-02T02:39:00.000-08:00

happy birthday!

The dancing you must imagine ! I am dancing and jumping all over the place here for you !
Have a lovely day ! A photo will soon follow! Im now at school stencilling a chair in colours .
Enjoy the cakes ! My classmates all wish you happy birthday too :0)
Love S3

Explosions, type and grace

2009-10-20T11:35:00.000-07:00

Hello there sisters!

A door in mid-restauration on Antwerp's Meir,
the main shopping street.

I have been a-long-long-gone-one, I know, at least from the blogosphere. It's just that life ain't that 'i have a feeling I know where all the pieces fit' kinda place at the moment, so bear with me awhile as I re-shuffle the letters.

Where have I been, apart from half the world over and back with S3 to be with you, S1, recently?

La Fête du Village: The Red Cross holding watch over
our street during a late-September parade

Well, there is this amazing exhibition by Michel François on at the moment at the SMAK in Ghent. The whole upper floor is dedicated to his work...and he really blows you away: wih a film of shattering bottles (almost) landing on the artist as he paces around in circles on a concrete floor, calmly smoking a cigarette...or what about an upside-down field of dandelion bells, or a complex structure of beams and magnets in a room looking like the work of a spider on caffeine? Or there is the visceral clay-like substance in blocks covered in silver leaf, out of which handfulls have been taken, stronger than an Anthony Gormly field and echoing of an Ann Hamilton shaped piece of dough in a performance....moonboots made out of elastic bands, discarded as if forgotten in the corner; incongruous and so very apt that it makes you gasp. A smashed window as a giveaway poster large enough to cover one wall; plasticine stuck between the radiator in rainbow stripes, a room dismantled and water streaming in, gosh that feels right in a museum, no, not any museum, but in this one! And then meeting A. whom I have known for so many years and all the artworld stiff bonjourism melts away for a real conversation about wondering about the newly discovered ring around Saturn, the speed of light and the type of brains you need to take into account when teaching about mathematics...

Yes, A. came to the rescue and took me out of the Museum right on time, after a gorgeous exhibition, into a restaurant for a lovely meal.... in every way it was civilised, from the fish down the conversation. Even the waiters were lovely. A's friends turned out to be avid art lovers and started having ferocious discussions about the meaning of painting and everything, slamming their fists on the table! (I liked that bit)... and it left me reassured that the passions still reign in that strange realm they call contemporary art...

This sunday, I was spoiled by our parents, who descended upon Antwerp to take me out for Sunday Lunch. Which we enjoyed (after a wee detour past a little flea market that we love and know by the Pedestrian Tunnel under the Scheldt...). I bought another set of scales.

We ate at the Zuiderterras, it was great, you know, like real Sunday dinner, it was. Then KP called and offered some tickets for an exhibition viewing at Bozar in Brussels followed by a film premiere, which we gladly accepted and bravely our father, and I, ventured in to see the latest exhibition there, The State of Things, curated by Luc Tuymans and Ai Wei Wei. I particularly liked the piece by Vanessa Van Obberghen which was the Flemish Anthem played on the bongos. Joëlle Tuerlinckx made this room in which the cumulative effect of sunlight was amplified; you normally need glasses to go inside there; there were all these curling pieces of paper, it was hilarious and striking at the same time. Eeh, I do enjoy a good sense of humour in my art. Even when it is bittersweet.

It all was suffused in a rather violet (violent) glow. Almost like you could feel it on your skin like a temperature. I do not know whether it gives you a suntan.

The other night another opening of Cerith Wyn Evans at deSingel; exciting times are these. This included letters cut away from book pages revealing the wall behind! -and it was: gasp!-and neon sentences in mirror image and circles of phrases in fireworks. I had a lovely time there meeting all sorts of people whom I didn't know who happen to be collectors and also extremely passionate about art. I also met a man who only does neon and he was very neon. I liked him, he has a gorgeous face and although he was very serious amongst the collectors I could see he has a good sense of humour too.

Home sweet home in the sunshine

A new "home",
of a kind,
on Saturdays...

Other new highlights in my life include the Typography Course i am doing at the Plantin Moretus Museum where each saturday I go on my date with the 16th century as I call it. I have access to the attic of the museum and the print cabinet, and together with other font aficionados we get poured full of Knowledge - like lead being poured into mould and shaped by a copper matrix - a lot of this knowledge is fast-disappearing - about the history of printing, of letters, illustration techniques, you name it. You can imagine it is a bit of an Aladdin's cave for me and my eyes lust each week for the encounter with forms and variations which you may have always taken for granted but which upon closer inspection turn out to contain story upon story and individual history upon collective history.

This is a choice made based on fingerspitzengefühl. I don't know what I will do with it but it helps me engage with my city's history in a very immediate way. The first ever atlases in the whole wide world were printed here, and from the 16th century onwards shiploads of books in Spanish left from here to the New World (this was in the time that the Spanish reigned over the city) to spread knowledge or at least the gospel. I love the inner courtyard, where you, S3, and I have recently been.....

Typography is everywhere, I realised, as I was sitting gazing
into space, wondering whether I should be doing the course...

There have been many more things happening too of course, dear sisters, such as a voting out of a certain proposal of a certain bridge coming precariously near the city. I am involved in an indirect way, through this benefit auction, and of course by exercising a right to vote in last Sunday's referendum, which is always a good muscle to flex.
Love from S2

The beautifully preserved interior gardens of
the grand Plantin Moretus Museum.
I am most honoured to be a visitor here.

when shall we meet again?

2009-10-18T18:56:00.000-07:00

Just a little homesick with this cityguide

More about Californian living later.

S1

mr.petit is not who i thunk he was

2009-10-16T14:52:00.000-07:00

Dearest siblingz,

I have some suprising news.
You remember my great tight rope walking friend mr.petit ?
Well , it turns out he is not at all a professional tight rope walker.

A lot to take in at once, i know.
I had my suspicions when his thick black stick on moustache fell off.
When his strong french accent would sometimes sound like a deep down southern accent from texas. ( turns out he has family there )
But he just convinced me that that was part of a new act he was working on , to tight rope walk from america to france. Did they take the word gullable out of the dictionary ? I dont think im gullable , im just a positive thinker !
But then when i noticed him falling off little walls , not being able to walk in a straight line for more than half a meter i had to confront Fillippe and ask him straight out if he really was a tight rope walker.
Which, as you can imagine , is a difficult situation. I did not want to doubt my friend's great talent and i was afraid i would insult him forever.
He was very silent at first , but i could see in his eyes that there was a deeper , more silent secret hiding inside him.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, it turns out mr.petit's real name is Tomey Rindboots and he is a bum from Chicago who has got himself involved in a dangerous waffle making mafia here in Prague.
Im still in shock.
The waffle business is owned by an Israeli/ Iraqi guy who had faith that the belgian waffle would be a great success here in Prague. Somehow it hasnt kicked off, but he is forcing Tomey Rindboots to make dough everyday and sell as many waffles as possible.
He is also being forced to eat all the waffles that he doesn't sell.
This is simply outrageous.
But that's not all, im afraid. His waffle boss has now invested a big sum of money in 300 pairs of earwarmers.
I dont know where this will all lead to but somehow i find it more risky than tight rope walking.
I have forgiven Tomey Rindboots for his terrible secret. It's not his fault.
Just a pity that the name of your best friend is mr.Rindboots instead of mr.petit.
But it's growing on me already. As i said , i am a great believer in postive thinking.

I leave you now with a very beautiful ballet called In the upper room
to the music of Phillip Glass.
Enjoy !
S3

Im Listening.....

2009-10-12T14:43:00.000-07:00

Love, S3