Mind Cleanup – Sept 2020

The “back to normal”-vibe that August had, did not set through into September. If I would have to choose a theme for the ninth month of 2020 I think it would be “Dealing with unpleasant facts”.

The month started out with a visit to the hospital for my mom, resulting in a breast cancer diagnosis a week later and the confirmation that it had spread into at least one lymph node one week after that. On the very last day of the month we heard the first good news in weeks, being that the cancer had not spread into her bone marrow.

In hindsight, I felt like it was the best possible way to deliver such news to a pessimistic person like my mother. After she first heard the word ‘cancer’ she was convinced she was going to die. By the time she heard the bone marrow biopsy did not contain any cancer cells, the tumor in her breast sounded like good news and it completely perked her up.

Self-reflection

People around me reacted surprised/confused to my rational and reserved analysis to my mom’s situation. Perhaps it was a way to balance out the irrational and unfounded convictions my parents were slinging into the world.

I don’t think I didn’t take it seriously or that I was untouched by it. I just didn’t see the point in starting to plan my mother’s funeral if the results of the tests weren’t even in yet.

I considered the idea that I was just in shock and that reality would hit me later, but it didn’t. I checked myself a few times to analyze if I was suppressing my feelings and harming myself in the process, but I concluded that really wasn’t the case.

People seem to interpret my lack of tears as indifference, and I assure you that that is not the case. I love my mother. I’ll do everything I can to be by her side when it matters.

I will say though, that my attachment to my mother is “different” than perhaps many other people’s own personal experiences with their mothers. And that’s OK.

I am blessed with amazing friends that care about me and check my state of mind regularly. I can be fully honest with them and trust they will do the same in return.

Also, I am lucky to have an employer that is understanding to this new factor in my life. They have basically given me full freedom to put my parents first and not worry about the rest. That is not something I take for granted.

Underneath the walnut tree

When I was driving home from “up North”, where my parents live, I was listening to the radio and was thrilled to hear my favorite Dutch hip hop artist (not that I have any other Dutch rappers in my playlist), Typhoon, had released a new song after a hiatus of several years. To make it even better, the song was a collaboration with one of the best Dutch vocalists imo, Paskal Jakobsen.

In that moment, it felt like the song was repeating words to me I had spoken to my mother that very day. If you ask me, it’s about overcoming fear, about seizing the day, valuing life and maintaining a sense of wonder for what is in front of you.

I later heard the song is actually a message from Typhoon to his younger self. Makes sense. For me, it will always be a message from me to my mother.

The lyrics

You’re right on time.
Come lie down on the grass.
You are my guest of honor.
And now I have found you.

You cannot reproduce growth or make the same trip twice.
I’m grateful for who I am, both in my good and bad days.
If only we could look over the fence every now and then.
Although I don’t think we would be able to understand it, if we did.

I see you in the mirror; there’s the first gray hair.
Let just say it’s a sign of early wisdom.
I foresee the best years are yet to come, as if it all has yet to begin.
Don’t worry, I’ll take you along.

I hold you dear, I can’t do it without you, and that’s all I know.
Don’t be afraid to be in love, nor afraid to succeed.
Fear does strange things; it leads you to sabotage
Don’t be afraid to stop searching or to find what you already have.
It’s all right to feel melancholy, when I tell you:

You’re right on time, lie down on the grass.
You are my guest of honor
and now that I’ve found you, you are right on time
For everything there was; my heart, my friend, my guest of honor
And now I have found you

Don’t be afraid to be right. Don’t be afraid to serve.
If only you could see what I see when you smile or feel sad.
Don’t punish yourself for your lightness or happiness.
Just feel it: it’s how it’s meant to be.

And so what: what if it doesn’t work? What’s the worst that can happen?
Don’t be afraid to fall. Don’t be afraid of your success.
Don’t be afraid of ‘the nothings’ and ‘the everythings’.
Never forget how we lie under this walnut tree,
how we look without wanting to see, as in a dream…

You’re on time, lie down in the grass
You are my guest of honor and now that I’ve found you,
you are right on time
For everything there was; My heart, my friend, my guest of honor
And now I have found you

And everything is made for us as new
An adventure especially for us
Everything made anew into a melody,
that I hum every morning when you wake up.
When you wake up, yeah

Diamond droplets on the branches
Made anew into a melody
Diamond droplets on the branches
Like pearls on a clothing line
Diamond droplets on the branches
Don’t be afraid of being afraid
Diamond droplets on the branches
You are right on time.

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Mind Cleanup – March/April

Just like my previous mind cleanup this one encompasses two months. While my motivation to fuse January and February was that I felt I hadn’t collected enough mind clutter after the first month of the year had passed, I can not say the same about March and April.

I would have loved to not write about the C-word… but a mind cleanup can’t be a real cleanup if it tiptoes around the elephant in the room…

Early stages

Working at a company that relies mostly on people’s travel plans, the situation has been in my face every day for many weeks now.

I started an overview document on the COVID-19 epidemic somewhere around the end of February. It was meant for internal use only and looked very similar to the briefing I had made a few months before to put the Australian bushfires into perspective. I had previously done the same for Typhoon Ursula/Phanfone in the Philippines and the social unrest in South America.

We were getting some questions from backbackers and digital nomads in Asia but everything seemed under control, as far as our work was concerned.

The first case was confirmed in the Netherlands on the 27th of February. On the 11th of March it was declared a pandemic. The next day was my last day at work before a week long holiday to Ireland.

Pandemic travelplans

I checked up with my oldest brother, T, (who works in the medical sector) if it was OK for me to go on with the trip I had planned long ago; he said it should be fine, if we didn’t mingle with large groups of people and washed our hands often.

I double checked with my second brother, D, if he was still OK with my plans to come visit him in Ireland. He was. My boyfriend and I had already decided to go by ferry which proved to be the best choice for so many reasons:

• No stressy airport queues and waiting areas.
• It was just the two of us in the car to the ferry, just the two of us in the ferry cabin, just the two of us from the ferry to my brother’s home. So very little chance of contamination!
• As we came by car I could take some larger gifts a long, such as a reasonably sized painting my dad had made of my newborn niece.
• Smaller ecological footprint than air travel (which was the original motivation to choose this means of transportation)

Lock Down

During our stay in Ireland, Saint Patrick’s day celebrations were cancelled, which was probably the first moment the Irish realized the severity of the situation.

A few days later we received word that all non-essential human movement was now prohibited in France. We were assured our trip home would not be a problem. We did decide to cancel our initial plan to follow the “cute windy roads” home and just stuck to the boring (but efficient) toll roads back.

During the week that we had been in Ireland everything had changed. My workplace was now closed and everyone was working form home. The clean cut and standardized information document I had started on a few weeks earlier had exploded into a monstrous behemoth with chapters and themed infobundles and newsflashes and hour-by-hour updates… It was pretty insane.

April

The first moment I realized April had made its entrance was when I started seeing A to Z blog posts appear. At that point, I realized I was too late, too unprepared and too exhausted to catch up. I also decided that I could do the challenge on my own at any moment in the year, if I wanted to. Instead of stressing myself out with the obligation of having to write and post one blog a day I could even spread it out a bit more, if I wanted to.

That way, every month would consist of a mind cleanup (or every other month), one lifetip and an Alphabet inspired post. Being able to publish a minimum of three posts a month sounds like a satisfying idea (and it’s close to one a week, which would be ideal).

Music

A category that I never have trouble writing about, is the music category. Songs that featured in some way in March and April were the following ones:

Flowers is not a new song of Ms Arie’s, but it is new in my life. Her songs always make the world look a little bit more beautiful and this one is no exception.

What triggered me to re-listen this next song from the 1995 Disney rendition of Pocahontas, I don’t know. Its effect actually caught me off guard and I couldn’t hold back a tear or two when I took in the words. It was as if I had never really listened to it. Every sentence in it hit home at that moment and it moved me deeply.

Another song that felt quite prophetic, albeit in a completely different category was the new Nothing but Thieves song “Is everybody going crazy”:

When I saw that my favorite Dutch hip hop artist Typhoon had finally released a new song I couldn’t help but smile. The lyrics are in Dutch but the title of the song translates to “Everything is blessed” and I guess that is just something we need to focus on sometimes.

Another song that put a big goofy smile to my face was a song called “Think About Things”. I first heard it on Spotify and wanted to share it with my brother, as the lyrics reminded me of the mental conversation I had with my one year old niece in Ireland a few weeks earlier.

When I looked it up on YouTube I … needed some time to process everything that was going on in the video.

When I read the comments I realized the awesomely, awkwardly tall viking of a man was actually the artist that would have performed at the Eurovision Song Festival as the entree for Iceland, had it not been cancelled.

Seriously… Tell me you watched that video and didn’t crack a smile… It can’t be done. You’re welcome.