If happiness is the experience of being an active part of an ecological equilibrium, I thought on September 27, then the images you collect provide the data on which that experience rests. So that the happiness experience of those who walk outside will differ from those who live in silico. Below are four of the images I picked around the day mentioned.
We have three nature images and a cityscape. Nature is from the Leidse Hout and the Leidse Heempark, the cityscape is from Condom, near La Romieu where, after we had received the messages about Nienke’s kidneys, we went to live a carefree life with Joop and Gerdien for 12 days.
All this shortly after young Welmoed and I had said goodbye to ‘old’ Welmoed, who saw the end of her life coming, in Deventer. That farewell made an impression, and brought up the realization that I have forgotten or repressed many of the images from before I was sixteen.
Yesterday, December 3, 2021, I had lunch with brother Teun, who turned 79. Two elderly gentlemen who slept in one room when they were 8 and 10 years old. The conversation became related to an รก la recherche du temps perdu project. Much of what we remembered had entered our heads differently or was interpreted differently. We talked about the relationship and the letters between Dad (Ties) and Mien. I decided to read them with the aim of finding out if there is any material in it that will help me find and reconsider some hidden images from those lost years (between the ages of four and sixteen), and perhaps from the time thereafter.
Welmoed has something to do with this. Shortly before her death, she sent me a program booklet of a play performed by the Tubantia drama society in 1949: Barrie’s Admirable Crichton. Thali, her mother, had a part. Ties directed the play and also played the lead role. Mien did Tweeny and moved to Canada with her family in 1949.
I don’t remember any of that (I was four), but Teun does, and he later also met with and spoke to Mien several times, and he had seen a film based on the play of which he also knew how to pronounce the name (a play that for me only exists in the program booklet).
If those letters yield anything, I’ll let you know here.