It’s spring; it’s time to cavort. Nay it’s a time to frolic. I’ll use a word with Dutch roots. We frolic in the mud that never dries, frolicking in the damp woods (of city parks,) where forest sprites still inspire us with mischief.
Can we visualise spring as an fairy or sprite like Ariel or Puck, frolicking? Then we can ask him about his gods, knowing he would lie. It’s okay to be Puck and lie about love. He’ll say the sun is the god of spring frolics, and then he’ll deny it. He’ll say that the rains rule spring.
We’ll ask Puck to tell us the name of his rain god. Which one? he might reply. He’ll reply from a height, I’m thinking. He can’t sit still. He is restless, the way sprites are. How were we to know rain gods numbered more than one?
There’s no reason for rain to have one god but there are too many reasons for many. We may ask Puck whether they are classified by geography or by storm. My hypothesis will be that they are divided by the rhythms of the rain, and I will ask for an introduction to the goddess of drizzles. Puck will not commit.
Puck will giggle, and he will evade our questions, be careless even with his lies. We will have been fine with lies, and that’s why he is coy. He giggles, and I will suspect the goddess is hovering over his shoulder. He will anticipate my question: why lie about the rains?
“It’s simply the abundance of them. How would you catch every drop?”
But that’s a dream. The mundane is something more magical. Our flat looks like spring, scattered as if with cherry petals. But no, that’s just paper. Scraps and bits and corners and strips of white paper. The girls have become obsessed with origami. They watch videos, and they create planes and birds and dogs and princess crowns. We live among the snowy scraps of pretty things.
Friday, March 31, 2023
Sunday, March 19, 2023
We’re busy writing about love. It occupies our time this spring. While cherry blossoms are finally budding under grey skies, while ducklings paddle their tiny circles in the canals, at last safe from this winter’s late freezes, we are making a haste of slow questions. It’s a lazy time of being busy, routine asserting itself among the signs of novelty.
The winds have come and gone, making for us for a season of falling. I walked my bicycle up the steep slope of the Erasmus Bridge after work, while the sun battled clouds over the river, because pedalling was too precarious, tipping us over like toys. We citizens of Rotterdam walked our bikes in a long row over the span. The sky was too big for us.
The girls are teasing us, saying we’re too serious for spring. They’re making up songs and asking us to sing along. They’re jumping in our laps when we’re relaxing, and playing ninja around us when we work. They’re asking for ice cream when we go out; they’re asking for ice cream when we’re inside. I’m enjoying every minute, even as the tension of being alive is paralysing; even when the tension of the next moment is pressing in on my lungs, I am thankful.
We’re busy writing truth and lies about love. It takes up all our time. This is a topic I’m interested in. I want to write about our truth and lies about love. I will pursue this in a separate document, and I’ll publish when the tension of love ebbs, perhaps among summer’s pauses, when dimension wavers and seems ready to fail.