IN THE BEGINNING

It seems time to introduce us (or myself). I am almost 65 and at the moment I am watching the birds in my garden. Yes, I have a garden. I am married to a beautiful woman, who could have been my daughter. Man envy me and they are right. We live in perfect harmony in an old seaport. I can watch the ships go by and I do. All kinds of ships pass: fishing boats, freighter, bulk carriers, new and traditional sailing ships. Ships have much more identity and power, not because they are big or elegant, but because they have a name. My favorite one is “the LOTUS”, which passes by several times a month.

Ships get baptized with champagne, but sometimes the ship wins and the bottle won't break. Fishing boats, who go after the shrimps, that flourish in the delta, have numbers and the first letters of their home port (f.i. HA 24, means the 24^th ships from Harlingen). In the pioneer days of the automobile, the few cars had only numbers. Later on the province was added (B being “Friesland). This “identity” is completely gone now. The only thing you know, is the moment when it is bought. I don't own I car or a mobile phone. I want to slow down and look around. What is happening to my world and what the future will bring.

Horror struck. When we landed here, far away from the turmoil of the big city, airports and motorways, I finally found time to do research and find documentation and data to confirm and broaden my instincts and the knowledge I had, since I was young, that “something was rotten in the state of Denmark” and that the emperor hardly wore any clothes. So I stepped out of the box a long time ago. I worked as a teacher for over 30 years, when something snapped. Some said it was the loss of my mother, some the end of a 13 year relationship or problems at work. All true, but it also was the time of some fundamental experiences. This changed my position completely. I became a rebel and lost. I was 45 then.