Vrijdag, 18 Augustus 2006

Homesick

It is six past two. The window is open. The cold of night creeps in. Sometimes a truck loaded with bales of hay drives by. The smell of diesel and dust is suffocating, but anything better then grasping for air behind closed windows. I switched on the TV. In the background runs the music show Taratata, Jim Kerr sings Mondela Day with a French singer named Cali, a beautiful French angel with dark brows and wide apart light grey droopy eyes.

We live in France for one and a half month now, and in the meantime I know emigrating at one time can be saddening and at another be ultimate bliss. You feel like a child back to square one, so you stumble and stand up again.

There is a song down here in France played at he melody of Brian Hyland's Sealed with a kiss:

Quand vient la fin de l'été
sur la plage
ll faut alors se quitter
peut-être pour toujours
oublier cette plage
et nos baisers.

(When the end of summer nears, we have to split, maybe forever and forget that beach and our kisses)

When I was still going on holidays to France, this song might have made me feel kind of blue. Not because of leaving a holiday love, but because of the having to say goodbye to the blissful holiday feeling. The holiday country imprisons you with her charm and mutual passion.

Worst of all was when we paid our usual goodbye visit to the cathedral of Reims or Chartes and the moment when we passed the border of Belgium. The shredded tires on the hard shoulder which we happily greeted on our arrival, were still there and greeted me as if I had never been away.

The departure may have been only a few hours behind us, but the shock always had a huge impact. Entering my house at night, it always seemed smaller than when I had left. Mail on the table, piles of newspapers and brochures. Outside a chilly wind and the smell of ships instead of the benevolent coolness of a Soubhhern French summer night and the soft murmur of waves.

That feeling of a lost holiday love I carry with me very often. I don't miss the Netherlands, I miss my friends and the daily routine. What was, seems to fade and what is, still has no shape. If the word vacuum could make a sound, it would sound like the silence in your head when all you can hear is your blood flow. When you hear the snoring of your love or the soft breathing of your children, slowly the reality returns and you realize you're on your way.

posted by Ruud at 02:49  |  send an e-mail

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