being back on my turf

i have been one week in the netherlands at this moment, i enjoy being back. had some time with my family and friends, and it was just like in the old days. not being about the whole year doesn't really make a difference, we just pick up where we have left off. for me it is so relaxing being on my turf in some kind of way. i had a very nice encounter yesterday. i was doing some shopping therapy and there was this girl(okay, lady) getting on the mobile staircase and i just had to call her "l.......". she turned around and she just said"hi, l......"(meeting someone in a city of 117.000 isn't very obvious and she lives elsewhere). i have been seeing this old friend on photos of my rowing career in the haque whenever i open my album. i had been thinking of her once in a while. and there she was. exchanging a few words and we were so familiar again. and for sure we'll meet up on my next trip to holland, in october. yes, i am already planning and just a weekend won't be enough. i feel i do not see my mother often enough and i think for me it's important to keep up friendships for when i am older and do not have any close family left. tomorrow we go up north to my cousins house for a couple of days and then we will head back south. and that'll be fine also. then i will spend many evenings talking and thinking about what i did in my home country. and probably someone dutch will drop by on their vacation. i feel whole again.

a dutch woman in the ticino summer

this is my 17th summer in ticino. when i first came here i was so overwhelmed by the great weather. those july nights sitting at a bar in the piazza until very late without freezing like i was used to in holland(or maybe it was just the fuel i poored down that kept me warm?). without opening the curtains in the morning one would know the weather would be perfect, one could smell the sun in the air. it was very easy to get used to the temperature and not having to bring an umbrella where ever i would go in case of a little summer shower. then in august there would be a change in the weather. still warm but thunderstorms almost every night with rain pooring down like it would be the last day of the earth. and then the next day it would be hot again. ofcourse every year would be a bit different. when the boys were very small, i can recall that some days we just couldn't get out of the house because of the rain, which wasn't bad at times. but the summer would be nice and warm. then we had the hot summers like 2004, everyday over 35 degrees. those are the only ones people around here recall, and they will tell you it was always like that, in the old days(which isn't correct, i checked with a meteoman i know!). last year's summer was 5 days of sun and two days of rain. my sons and their friends didn't mind, doing a day inside with lego, computers, and doing whatever wasn't bad. being inside with rain felt like relaxing to them(those were their words!). and now the summer of 2009. yesterday i started to prepare my suitcase for going to the netherlands. and all my nice summer tops were still in a box waiting for the good weather to arrive. i have loads of sundresses and skirts which are hanging in my closet and would surely like to be worn. BUT WHEN??????? my legs are a little tanned thanks to tennis and a selftanning lotion. but i keep having to cover them up because of cloudy weather. and if it is finally a day with sun there is a hurricane wind. luckily i didn't come and stay here for the nice weather like many foreigners, because the way it is now i could just as well live in holland.

finally going home!

it has been decided a couple of days ago: i am going home with the boys(as in sons)! we are leaving in 10 days. i am so happy(i am sitting here, clapping my hands like a small child). it was august last year that i was walking on dutch soil! in my mind i am already in the car motoring along the 'route du soleil' in france, like between metz and thionville, going up and over the rolling hills. i am getting more and more hyper. making lists of what to buy, and that's why we go by car. on the aeroplane i always have trouble with being 'overweighed' a kilo or 20. i have to buy 'drop'(licorice as you can nowhere buy it), hagelslag(chocolate sprinkles to put on bread), tomatosoup, rookworst(smoked sausage), tea, tulip bulbs, etc., etc. i have to go to the gardencenter intratuin to buy stuff, a.k.a. things that will be cute, gather dust and are not very necessary for my hubby, but oh so nice for making my home and garden 'gezellig'(meaning cozy, but even better!). i have to buy clothes that are my style. i change books with my bookfriend(there are always 2 bags each filled with exactly ten books going back and forth). i am looking in the internet to decide with the boys where we will go and what we will see. we have our ceremonies, our things that we do there. like riding our bikes after diner about the city or walking and looking into peoples lives thru their windows(we dutch don't do curtains). we go to the different playgrounds, inside and outside. we are going to visit two cousins and their families. i am sooooo haaaaapy!!!!!! i will sit with my cousins for hours, sipping tea and talking loads, that'll be sooooo nice! talking about the past and whatever is going on now. i really miss my people and my country. i wish i could go there every weekend, but that would be to expensive. i like living where i live, but i miss 'my things' from back home!

tennis and thighs

i just started, after a thousand years, to play tennis again. i found my racket which i must have been bought over 15 years ago and it still does the job. there are some nice ladies with whom i try to get the ball across the net. i love doing sports, and this is a nice way for me to be in touch with women from 'le terre di pedemonte', the spot i live in. i don't like playing inside. for me the surrounding of the small tennisclub is a big plus: trees, mountains, a relaxing area. one of my friends is already calling our threesome 'the desperate housewives of pedemonte'. i think that's cute, since we're all doing the housewive stuff as a second job. the thing where i wanted to get to is the next: when you have a good look around the tenniscourts, there is one thing very strange if you think about it. isn't it that all women are very anxious about the way they look. at christmas lots of us have been totally pigging out. so then comes new year and we make a resolution: from january first we are going on a diet. how many get thru the first month? then comes easter with loads of goodies. we eat and eat. and when the first warm weather is hitting us, we get very aware of what there is still to do before fitting into a bikini. so we worry, we pinch our cellulite, we cry, we scream, we go to fitness centers. where would women show themselves in 'that' shape? not near a swimmingpool or on the beach, no way! but strangely at the tenniscourt they do. it seems that there is absolutely no shame. every woman wears a short skirt, and i don't mean a skirt above the knee. no, i mean a skirt where you can see the underwear without the woman having to bend over! and nobody is ashamed or selfconscious. you see your skinnyminnie-dried out-overtanned legs, the cottagecheese-jello-wobbly thighs, the spidervain legs, the milk white thighs, the rhino butt, the hairy extremities, and whatever else there is. and nobody gives a damn, it's like a turned around world. but at least there is one place where we can be ourselves without being tough on us that we are not good enough(even the perfect ones usually moan). hear, hear for the tenniscourts and the freedom of womens thighs!
by the way, i, DWA, wear shorts. i don't want to bother looking for perfect undies to wear. (when i was small i had the tennisundies with lace frills on the backside!) the shorts aren't for estetic reasons. they have great pockets to stuff 3 balls each. i don't like balls in my underwear, i'd rather have something else there:)

to marry or not to marry

TALKING WITH MY YOUNGEST SON

i have to drive my youngest son to school, which takes us a long 45 minutes, he almost always has an argument to dive into. the other day he asked about matrimony. he always chooses difficult things to talk about, where i think 'can't we just discuss the weather or family activities?'. so the other day it was matrimony. 'why do you have to pay to be married?'. 'because someone has to write papers'. 'how many papers?' 'one or two.'. 'why does that cost so much?'. 'i don't know, someone wants to get rich?'. 'can't you do it for free?'. 'i don't think so'. then we got to talk about marriage. and i was very upfront to him. i said for a man, as i see it, it is a big mistake. i see to many couples around me where there is a divorce and then the man totally has to give up the possibility of creating another life for himself. he has to pay not only for the children, which ofcourse should be the case, but also for the wife. and the dear man has nothing left to make a 'new life' with. you might know these women who will tell the judge that they have to take care of children who are already overripe. she doesn't want to lift a finger, because he once loved her, and she probably loved him, and they promised to be together in good times and in bad, so now he has to pay. ofcourse there are many men who misbehaved and the woman has a good reason to divorce. but there are also situations where two persons just don't work enough to try and work things out. and then 'boom,we'll divorce'. i probably had sex with too many men, but it seems like i found the right one(we'll see in another 30 years:). my dear old granny said to me once "if you go to the market to buy fruit, don't turn to the first fruitstall, but go around and see what there is and try which one sells the best fruit". for a 90 year old she was very forward. where i live now, maybe everywhere it's like that, i see people who get together at the tender age of between 15 and 18 and stay together forever(whatever that means). it seems that there is the big search for the one, and when some person who seems a bit more interested arrives, 'trackate'(a ticinese dialect expression) we are a couple and won't get seperated. i just don't get it. maybe because i am DUTCH and we might have a different view, more relaxed and more open. surely also lots of dutch people are young loves forever, but some are more open to possibilities. the point i just wanted to get across to my boy was 'don't get married because you might get fried'. i don't want my son to have to suffer a mistake he might make for the rest of his life. his father and i live together for 15 years, we don't have any piece of paper to prove that we are a couple, and the day we might separate we'll see whatever comes. i want my son the be without burdens. in the world (ticino) where we live i see to many women who profit from a divorce, not being 'big enough' to take the opportunity to fend for themselves, most of them are like parasites, taking everything there is to take. i will see in a couple of years if the talk we had remained in his memory or if he does it the way he wants to. i just don't want him to get hurt.