Holland for the day

The lakes, rivers and moats in Holland were almost all frozen. It's been one of the coldest winters in Europe this year. I love this picture because it reminds me so much of the time we skated here, and would then make hot chocolate with marshmallows.

I went to Amsterdam on family business Friday. It was great fun. I love Dutch houses. This is a house in a small village. The weather was pretty atrocious and my photo skills are what they are, but I hope you can see how quaint it looks.

This is the sweet shop where my mother and aunt used to go and eat Drop, which is the Dutch word for liquorice, and ice lollies, which I think you call popsicles in America. My favourites are King peppermints. I think all sweet shops should look like this.


When my sister and I were kids we would go to this playground and push each other on this swing. I missed her so much this time around, I asked my mother to take the pictures thinking of her. And yes, I've gone back to brunette.

What's up? I'm busy, looking for an internship in environmental science, writing a Masters dissertation on Quakers, planning a trip to America this Easter, getting ready to celebrate my birthday. Oh, and falling pretty heavily for someone.

Holland is home to me. Just being there for a day was enough to stop time a little. I love the flat horizon, the endless rows of houses, the growling language, the tall, tall people, the bicycles everywhere.

We all have our Heimat, that wonderful German word that describes the place we call home, not necessarily our homeland or the place we live in, but that mysterious link that sometimes bind us to a place.

My Heimat smells like King peppermint.

Memory, interrupted

"So, would you say it's better to have love and lost, than never to have loved at all?", my ex-boyfriend asks with a straight face.

I sometimes wonder if I'm too sensitive, or if he is an alien robot, albeit a wonderful one.


This house used to belong to my family. Now we've given it to the State, since it is too expensive to repair and keep up. We are allowed to go there a few weeks a year, but restoration will make that impossible for some time. I'm only here for the day, to attend the board meeting. Weird feeling.



I'm walking in the woods of my childhood paradise. Through the russet leaves, you can see the house. I'm breathing in the smells: wonderful scuttling noises make the hedges tremble. Rabbits and hedgepigs frolicking. I'm home.
I sit in the grass. The board meeting will begin soon. If we lose this place, will I bear the memories of it? My sister and I learning how to ride a bike and a horse, playing tennis with our cousin, snuggling on the couch to listen to the stories of my aunt, endless book-reading in the park. I miss my sister here, she is part of this.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. If I could erase memories...

Definitely the time I wore baggy jeans to class for a presentation and they fell to my knees when I stood up.

The unforgivable time I read X's diary in a pathetic bid to discover "the truth" after our breakup, and I learnt how miserable I had made him and how the evening after the "talk" he had kissed the person I hated most. "Kissed Emilie,small mouth, nice arse". Never snoop, children. It's shitty behaviour. I would do anything to erase that memory, both to forget the shame of my action and the pain provoked by the words.


The grass is dry and the lake shimmers. I feel at peace. I remember how X and I took pictures of ourselves together in front of it. In the snapshots, he is beautiful and gold-skinned. I am rosy-cheeked. We were in love. We went biking together, and I was so happy to share my favorite place with my favorite person.

Oh, it's better to have loved and lost! I will love our memories forever.

But as I look up at the house that has given my family so many hours of happiness, I feel great pride that I can participate in its new life, in its restoration.

It's better never to have lost at all, really.