Well... what to say, 10 years after date? Today, it is exactly ten years ago I started this webblog. To share me with you or me4you.
You! You brought back the happiness of writing and sharing me. Too long I was a kid playing alone in a sandpit. Not interested in the world outside my own sandpit with books and projects. A long list of books and projects tumbling over each other. For the viewer outside it must seem inextricable and random but for me it all makes perfect sense.
Between 17 and 21 I kept a personal handwritten diary. Last week I checked it out for what exact images I used before I went for six months to the Sinai, Egypt in 1987. I couldn't find what I was looking for. A bottleneck for me is that I don't want to read too deep and close because I dislike the younger version of me ... I was so over the top and intense. Unbearable lightness of being.
I want to share with you today some of my #Sinai experiences:
You! You brought back the happiness of writing and sharing me. Too long I was a kid playing alone in a sandpit. Not interested in the world outside my own sandpit with books and projects. A long list of books and projects tumbling over each other. For the viewer outside it must seem inextricable and random but for me it all makes perfect sense.
Between 17 and 21 I kept a personal handwritten diary. Last week I checked it out for what exact images I used before I went for six months to the Sinai, Egypt in 1987. I couldn't find what I was looking for. A bottleneck for me is that I don't want to read too deep and close because I dislike the younger version of me ... I was so over the top and intense. Unbearable lightness of being.
I want to share with you today some of my #Sinai experiences:
#Minefield.
Remember the two stones I sent to you? I found those handmade artifacts
while being trapped in a minefield. I realized I was in a minefield
when I saw the back of the minefield-sign hanging on barbed wire. Just a
split second after my first thought: which moron turned over the signs
and why? Realizing that we had walked too long on the beaches and
clambered over rocks and lost our situational awareness. I was more a tourist than being a soldier who takes each step carefully.
#Ouch. Remember the biting animal that came out of the 'Conus Textile' shell I found in the Red Sea? I wrote about it before in this post: 'Ouch'. I realized a couple of years ago, I was lucky that day because this shell is the house of the predatory and venomous species of sea snail named 'Conus'. Venomous!
#Adventure. It's more than 30 years ago I went to the Sinai as a drafted Dutch soldier. I wanted to have an adventure and feel - yes feel - the colours of the desert, Egypt and Israel. Away from the girl that caused me back than so much frustration: I wanted her but she didn't want me as her lover. In retrospect I am so glad I went to the yellow of the sun, the brown and red and black of the desert and the blue of the sea and sky. Happily submerged in a world of Others.
#Movie. I remember the countless evenings we went to the "theatre" for watching a movie on a big screen. Together with 100 other soldiers watching a movie, drink a cold soda and behind the screen the island of Tiran in the setting sun or light of the moon. And a cool wind from the sea.
#Postman. I remember the empty roads while driving for hours in a Jeep from one (sector control center) post to another of our sector. My Dutch colleagues being happy to receive snail-mail from home. Being me their post-man.
#Petra. I remember the permission I asked to travel to Jordan to visit Petra. Disappointingly, I never got this permit!
#AloneInCairo. I remember travelling in a bus to Cairo. For ten days alone in this big city. So much to see and check out in a city with as many people as live in my whole home country. At the first evening in my hotel I met a girl from Australia while I was having dinner. We chit-chat a little. Nothing happened. The next morning I met her again at breakfast. We agreed to see Cairo that day together. So we did. That evening we made love for the first time. For the next 9 days we were inseparable. Visit musea and other sightseeings. Make love. Listen to German music (Marlene Dietrich) on my taperecorder. At the last evening together we agreed not to keep in touch. She would travel alone for another week in Egypt and after that to her boyfriend and work in a hotel in Switzerland. I had to take up my telephone-operator work ("Operator, can I help you?") again. Next to not keep in touch we agreed too that if I wouldn't ask she wouldn't tell if she got pregnant during one of our endless making love sessions. I never asked her! So, out there, there could be a child who would be 32 years old now. Being out of touch with me as his or her father.
#SharpTurn. I remember the accident we almost had with our car driving from Eilat to Tel Aviv during a weekend. I was the official driver. One of my colleagues asked: can I drive please? OK for me. On the straight road everything went well. At the first sharp turn we almost crashed. I scolded him and out of breath I asked him: "where did you learn to drive?" His reply, "I can't, I don't even have a drivers licence." I was speechless because it never crossed my mind that someone without a driver’s licence, could or would ask to drive.
#Poet. I remember two colleagues who told me over lunch that I was a poet. The way I spoke and the way I played with images and metaphors... just like a poet. Where did that come from?
#ComingOut. I knew that I was going to study Philosophy after my time in the army but in my time there I never told anyone. I always told that I was going to study History. It was a lie but I didn't want to justify again and again why I wanted to. The strange thing is that in retrospect I did both.
#Ouch. Remember the biting animal that came out of the 'Conus Textile' shell I found in the Red Sea? I wrote about it before in this post: 'Ouch'. I realized a couple of years ago, I was lucky that day because this shell is the house of the predatory and venomous species of sea snail named 'Conus'. Venomous!
#Adventure. It's more than 30 years ago I went to the Sinai as a drafted Dutch soldier. I wanted to have an adventure and feel - yes feel - the colours of the desert, Egypt and Israel. Away from the girl that caused me back than so much frustration: I wanted her but she didn't want me as her lover. In retrospect I am so glad I went to the yellow of the sun, the brown and red and black of the desert and the blue of the sea and sky. Happily submerged in a world of Others.
#Movie. I remember the countless evenings we went to the "theatre" for watching a movie on a big screen. Together with 100 other soldiers watching a movie, drink a cold soda and behind the screen the island of Tiran in the setting sun or light of the moon. And a cool wind from the sea.
#Postman. I remember the empty roads while driving for hours in a Jeep from one (sector control center) post to another of our sector. My Dutch colleagues being happy to receive snail-mail from home. Being me their post-man.
#Petra. I remember the permission I asked to travel to Jordan to visit Petra. Disappointingly, I never got this permit!
#AloneInCairo. I remember travelling in a bus to Cairo. For ten days alone in this big city. So much to see and check out in a city with as many people as live in my whole home country. At the first evening in my hotel I met a girl from Australia while I was having dinner. We chit-chat a little. Nothing happened. The next morning I met her again at breakfast. We agreed to see Cairo that day together. So we did. That evening we made love for the first time. For the next 9 days we were inseparable. Visit musea and other sightseeings. Make love. Listen to German music (Marlene Dietrich) on my taperecorder. At the last evening together we agreed not to keep in touch. She would travel alone for another week in Egypt and after that to her boyfriend and work in a hotel in Switzerland. I had to take up my telephone-operator work ("Operator, can I help you?") again. Next to not keep in touch we agreed too that if I wouldn't ask she wouldn't tell if she got pregnant during one of our endless making love sessions. I never asked her! So, out there, there could be a child who would be 32 years old now. Being out of touch with me as his or her father.
#SharpTurn. I remember the accident we almost had with our car driving from Eilat to Tel Aviv during a weekend. I was the official driver. One of my colleagues asked: can I drive please? OK for me. On the straight road everything went well. At the first sharp turn we almost crashed. I scolded him and out of breath I asked him: "where did you learn to drive?" His reply, "I can't, I don't even have a drivers licence." I was speechless because it never crossed my mind that someone without a driver’s licence, could or would ask to drive.
#Poet. I remember two colleagues who told me over lunch that I was a poet. The way I spoke and the way I played with images and metaphors... just like a poet. Where did that come from?
#ComingOut. I knew that I was going to study Philosophy after my time in the army but in my time there I never told anyone. I always told that I was going to study History. It was a lie but I didn't want to justify again and again why I wanted to. The strange thing is that in retrospect I did both.
#Shifts.
All the above are high- and lowlights. The days in between, most days,
were in shifts: 6 hours on and 6 hours off duty. Live in airconditioned
rooms. Lunch and dinner in a mess with 99% men. If there was a woman -
rare - you could always tell where she walked by all the faces that
"followed" her behind. Like a school of fish that change direction time
and again as if through an invisible hand. Men!
P.S. I wrote about the Sinai before in 'Gavin Maxwell. My fascination' (February 2010) and 'It Must Be Wrinkles' (May 2017).
P.S. I wrote about the Sinai before in 'Gavin Maxwell. My fascination' (February 2010) and 'It Must Be Wrinkles' (May 2017).
