bridge guard

01/09/2005

How many things do you think a person loses during his life? Unintentionally I mean. Not on purpose.
Recently I left my umbrella at the dentist’s office. For all I know it is still there. Is it lost? I would say it isn’t until I know for sure I can’t get it back. It would have been easy. It is only a ten minute walk from my house. But I didn’t feel like going back. It was an old umbrella, I could do without it. I lost it and left it lost. I am to blame. But only by the umbrella. I can live with that. So I bought a new one. Red as red can be. A small and handy one for less than five euros. It fits in my backpack. I can take it anywhere.

Some years ago my boyfriend gave me a Swiss pocketknife. I carried it with me wherever I went. On a holiday in Spain I dropped it in a hole in the ground when I was preparing a sandwich. It was an enchanting spot, the silence was breathtaking. I reached in the hole, thinking of poisonous snakes and small scorpions. The knife was out of reach.
I bought a new one. I carried it with me wherever I went. In Maastricht I cut a muffin in two. My boyfriend and me enjoyed our coffee and shared the muffin. It took a couple of hours before I realised I left the knife on the tray with the empty coffee cups. I went back to the restaurant but it had disappeared. Nobody had seen it. It disappeared into nowhere.
I bought my third one. At the time of writing it is in a bag on the chair on my right side. And I enjoy thinking about the places where I left the other knives.

I lost my wallet maybe three times in my life. The last time it was returned to me by the local police who gave me a phone call before I even realised I had lost it. That was only money though. Money is never a great loss. In 1997 I left two film rolls in a room in Prague. The pictures from my honeymoon are still in my head.

This summer I lost a bag in Budapest. My favorite blouse was in it. It could have been worse but I hate losing things so I ran back to retrace it. I found myself in front of the big synagogue just before closing time. Unfortunately the gate was already closed and the person with the key had just left. I was desperate to get my belongings and faked some tears to get the other personnel to help me. It took some effort but in the end they managed to let me in and I found the bag at the precise spot where I had been sitting for a long time watching the monument - a metal tree, every branch carrying numerous leaves, every leaf representing a Jewish man our woman who lost his or her life during the war. My favorite blouse wasn’t even in the bag, I suddenly remembered I left it in the hotel. There was just a tiny cheerful bikini. And a huge loss of decency.

02/07/2005

02/07/2005
Originally uploaded by bridge guard.

26/06/2005

One of my oldest memories is something which happened about 28 years ago. I was 4 years old and it was my first schoolday. It was only a short walk from our house to the school. My mother brought me there and standing amidst the other children at the schoolyard I waved at her cheerfully when she left. I remember a lot of those children were crying. They wanted to go home. I didn’t. I jumped into the sandbox and started digging. Maybe I build a castle. I don’t remember. My memorie stops here.

Years later, my mother told me she remembered that day very well. When she left me at the schoolyard she cried the whole way home and felt terrible the rest of the day. Not because she had to leave me there but because I seemed to have forgotten her the moment I entered school.

I have never been very good at saying goodbye. My friends throw parties when they move house or go for a trip around the world. When they finish their studies or emigrate. I lived in Ireland, in France, in Germany, I finished two studies and I never threw a party. I never said goodbye.

I remember the day I arrived here. It was dark and cold, we had driven for two days and were rather tired. There seemed to be no end to the road from the trainstation to the centre of town. We found the Bridge Guard Residency, unpacked the car and made our first walk through the streets of Sturovo/Parkany. I looked around and felt at home. This is where I wanted to be.

And I still do. I feel at home. I love being here. But Friday I will leave and I won’t say goodbye. I won’t cry. I will simply go. I will enter my house in Amsterdam and it will feel like I’ve never left it. Which is true. Because I haven’t. Just like I never left my house in Ireland, in France, in Germany. Just like I never left my mothers house on that first schoolday. I am still there. Because I felt at home there.

Next Friday I will leave. But I will stay. I won’t say goodbye. I only say thank you. Thank you all for making me feel at home.