Two bikes, a kayak, books (although I made myself a promise of only reading e-books), a decent amount of shoes, two chairs and a hammock. Soon, it will be three years since I arrived in Thailand with just two sports bags.
We are hoarders, we like stuff. Even someone like me, who swears upon ‘L’enfer, c’est le brol.‘
Another relocation is approaching, the ideal solution for the stuff problem. Give away, throw away or sell. Et voilà!
It won’t be my first relocation, I have done quite a few so far. Admitted, each time I move, some residue ends up in my parent’s attic. My mother has the notorious reputation of not wanting to throw anything away. My stuff is thus in safe hands, although I am convinced that my father owes a considerable amount of his grey hair to that attic and the banana boxes that come and go. Sorry, dad. Maybe, and hopefully for you, you’ve been secretly burning boxes on a pyre for years now.
Top notch criminals are sometimes relocated to a new prison, hands and feet chained in heavy metal. Quentin Tarantino style. Something similar is about to happen to me, yet voluntarily and unchained, from Thailand to a still unknown location. The ultimate freedom, I hear you thinking. The world is smiling at me, I can go anywhere, from Barcelona to South-Africa.
However, it is impossible to free myself from this earthly existence and ‘n’importe où, l’enfer, cela pourrait toujours être les autres, pas seulement le brol.’
But places look differently, mountains are craggier, valleys deeper, rivers a different kind of blue and the sun sharper.
Of all the stuff I have gathered, I will surely take my hammock with me so I can stare at the welkin whilst rocking, tracing unknown constellations, listening to another kind of breeze and smelling mysterious smells. There is no need for man to do that.
This article was commissioned by Vlamingen in de Wereld and is published in the March-edition of their magazine.
footprints 