Onder Zeeniveau

Did it all really happen someone asked me. This weekend I followed a Buddhist course in Zeist. Several people spoke to me about the status updates I do on Facebook, which included a short piece about my relationship with Amit, they thought it was nicely written. Also, someone who hadn’t read the pieces asked me why I put them on Facebook. Others asked why I considered myself a failure. I gave the answer I wrote here: no house, no car, and only two hundred copies of my book sold. “Do you have any friends,” she asked me. Yes, I said. Yes, said Annelies, who was there, and she also has friends for an exceedingly long time.

Then I hadn’t failed, Niek said.

Did it all really happen? someone asked me. I answered, ‘Yes and it’s much worse.’ Why didn’t I just say,’ No it’s all made up’. It’s all made up, I didn’t experience any of this. My life has been quite quiet. I was born in a city, I grew up there, and I met my partner at twenty-one with whom I am still together and happy. I have been drunk three times in my life; at my mother’s funeral, at my father’s funeral, and at my own wedding. I also smoked a joint three times in my life and was stoned those three times. The first time was on my final exam from grammar school, the second time on the third date with my girlfriend, and the third time I don’t remember what the occasion was, but I do remember that it was with a girl who then confessed to me to being in love with me and she wanted me to leave my girlfriend for her. Of course, there could be no question of that. From the first moment I saw Sophia I knew: this is the woman I am going to grow old with, this is her, with her I want to share my life and I have been doing that for twenty years now. My friend is not Israeli at all, she is just a Dutch woman with a North Holland accent. I am not entirely Dutch myself, my great-grandfather was born a slave in Suriname, he was ransomed at the abolition of slavery and ended up as a supervisor on a plantation St Barbara where he was married to an elegant woman from Barbados.

Did this really happen or is it just fantasy?