Find Your Voice - Week 3

I've reached week 3 of the Find Your Voice course by Kristin from Rukristin. One of the assignments this week is to make a mind map of your creative goals and your storytelling goals. I love me a mindmap, but this one? Nothing. Completely blank. So I've decided to just let that simmer a bit, I'm sure that somewhere on a mountain top in Germany the map will roll right out of my mind. Let's hope so ;)

Another assignment this week was to pull out one or a few of your favorite photographs, and define why that particular image makes you happy. So I've gone through my (ginormous) archives, and have come up with a few of my favorites.

It's not that big a surprise to me that both my 'photography' selections were made in Kenya.

The above picture was taken at Tiwi Beach. Imre and had been in Kenya for 3 weeks. We had seen so much, met so many people. My head and my heart were full. It was near the end of our trip, and we decided to head to the beach for a couple of days, to just relax, unwind, and just be together. It was the best decision we could have made: those three days were pure bliss. We had the beach completely to ourselves (due to low tourism we were the only guests in the lodge...), had three empty days just for us. We walked, talked, read, slept, went snorkling, Imre met a dolpin...
This is one of my favorites for two reasons. One: this picture reminds me of the freedom I felt there. It takes me right back to that moment. Two: I remember that this shot turned out exactly as I had imagined. That hadn't happened that often before, and it felt big.

The above picture was also taken in Kenya, in Masai Mara National Park to be precise. We went on safari there, and I consider that trip one of the best experiences I've had so far. Seeing all those animals the way they are supposed to live, no bars, no feeding hours, just pure nature. It was the first occasion in a very long time that I felt truly, completely happy. 

Other than the memory I picked this shot because I think it is so very sweet. Mom and daughter (at least, that's what they are in my head ;), aiming for the horizon. 

----------

Of course I couldn't leave out some more personal pictures. 

The above picture was taken at my dad's wedding, 6 years ago: I was his 'best man'. There are only a few pictures of my dad and me in my teenage years, so this one is very precious to me. (and I love his face here)

And of course, there's Imre. This pic was taken in November 2005, we had been together for only 2 months at the time. I remember that this picture was taken after an enormous fight. Our first years together were tough. We were both trying to adjust to having another person in our life that had feelings and needs other than our own. I have a lot of respect for Imre for sticking with me. I was a terrible bitch sometimes.. 

This picture makes me happy because it reminds me that we've been through so much together. That we're blessed to have learned so much from eachother. That I love him so very much :)

----------

And last but not least, some recent favorites. 

I love my instagram feed. I love how these capture things in-moment. I love how these capture the things I'm working on at a certain time. I love how they are such a great expression of who I am right now: what I like to do, who I like to hang out with, where I like to go. And that makes me so very very happy :)

Tiny roadtrip with dad

Three weeks agon I went on a little roadtrip with my dad. We went to my great-grandmothers 88th birthday party, which was so awesome. That little old lady is still so enthousiastic, loving, vivacious. I love her to bits.

So after the party we went to my dads home, which meant another 2.5 hour drive (I had already travelled 4.5 hours to get to my grandma). The drive home was so beautiful, and I had so much fun playing around with my settings. It was the golden hour, and we were driving across the afsluitdijk at sunset. Not as romantic as with your lover, but still a magic moment with my dad :) 

Around here

The cactuses are growing and multiplying like crazy.

We're dreaming up ideas for nightstands. I love when we're working on stuff together :)

I'm enjoying running again after a bit of a running rut. Last Tuesday I hit 5k for the first time. It felt so good! And I'm really enjoying the fact that I have to put on sunscreen and sunglasses for a 8am run. 

We're both breaking in new shoes. Mine are just a tad more... elegant than Imres. 

I've got a big pile of books and magazines waiting for me, and I have some things I want to journal about... for some reason I just can't get to it. 

We're finally making actual plans for our upcoming trip to Germany and France. We'll go to Germany with Imres family for a week, then we'll camp for a few day while traveling to Spa, Belgium. There we'll meet friends with whom we'll drive to Taizé, France. I'm excited about the entire trip, but I'm really looking forward to that last week. We've been to Taizé multiple times before, and I just love the peace and quiet I find there. 

This post by Amy made me want to prep a travel journal for the trip. Right now it's just a pile of cardstock, graph paper and ruled paper sandwiched by two pieces of painted cardboard. But if everything goes as planned it will be filled with a lot of stories, pictures, brochures and memories by the end of the trip. I'm so excited!

Find your voice week 2 – Who are you?

It took me a while to get this post out of my mind and onto the screen. But here you are :)

It’s funny how my mind works while working on this course: for a while I have an idea what I want to write about, and then when I have time to sit down and just write, I come up with a totally different story. For instance, for quite a while I figured I was going to write about how I didn’t get the PhD position I interviewed for last week, what my reaction was and how I dealt with it. It was simmering in the back of my mind, but it just didn’t want to flow into my fingers. Now that I had some time to work on it, I came up with the story below the minute I sat down. It’s a lot of rambling, but that’s also me. You’ll just have to live with that ;)

Last week we had my cousin Petri over for three days. She is the daughter of my mom’s sister, and everyone tells us we could be sisters. Even though she is 8 and I’m 24, we have so much in common. We are equally crazy, random and weird. We have the same quirks, like the same food, respond to others in the same way. My mom always tells me how much I look like her sister, my aunt (Petri’s mom). Apparently we have the same facial expressions, get angry in the same way, respond similarly to questions we don’t want to answer.
Over the last few days I realized that having so much in common with my aunt and cousin means a lot to me. Having no brothers and sisters always meant that I could not have that. That feeling that you’re seeing a bit of yourself in someone else. I always felt like that was a big deal, that I would never feel that close to someone other than my parents. I realized that I don’t need a brother or sister to feel that way. This little girl that has had it rough over the last few years (just like me at that age, actually), is so much like me. We’re both strong, dealing with what we’re given, trying to enjoy the good things when they’re happening. Both of us have been through the divorce of our parents (I was 3 years old when mine separated, she was 7. Big difference, but small at the same time). Both of us dealt with it by acting crazy. Weird faces, voices and characters? We’ve got it all.

Friday evening I brought her home to her mom, and we talked, my aunt and me. Again, I found myself in her statements, her concerns, her points of view. It felt like I gained a big sister, right there and then.

Over the last few days I realized I don’t need brothers or sisters. I have two women that I understand and that understand me. I’m good. 

Finding my voice

So, I'm doing this free eight week online course called Find Your Voice, by Kristin from rukristin. It's about telling your stories and finding your story telling voice. Today I'm sharing a post loosely based on some of the prompts from week one: 'What is storytelling to you?', 'What are your favorite stories?' and 'What are you looking to get out of the workshop?'

I've always been a reader. 

Apparently my love affair with books started when I was about 18 months old and got a library card. I loved being read to, and later on I loved to read books myself. I remember an evening, I was six or seven years old. I had to go to bed, but was not at all tired. Sneaky as I was, I managed to snatch my flashlight with me on the way to my room. I had just started reading a new book and my plan was to just read a bit until I got tired and fell asleep. I read the entire book that evening (unfortunately I cannot remember which book it was). As a kid I mostly read books written by dutch writers, such as Dick Bruna (when I was very little), Annie M.G. Schmidt, Guus Kuijer, Thea Beckman. I also loved everything Ulf Stark has ever written. 

As an only child with divorced parents, I could experience life in a 'real' family through the characters I was reading about. The characters were my brothers, my sisters. I could feel what it was like to have your dad around all of the time. During my teenage years I devoured books about love. I was desperate for my love life to begin, but as long as that didn't happen, at least I had the books about Georgia Nicolson and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants to keep me company. 

I've learned so much through stories. About how other people interacted with eachother. About what I wanted in life. About other worlds, with different rules. I could NOT stop reading The Hunger Games (I was commuting to the lab when I was reading this series, and I would just keep reading while walking from the train to the bus..), the Banned and the Bannished series, but most of all Harry Potter. My love for the Harry Potter books deserves its own blogpost, perhaps a week-long series. (just kidding. I think.) 

So yeah, stories have been a big part of my life. I just never wrote any of my own. And that's something I want to change now. I have no intention of writing fiction, although I have enough imagination for three - ask poor Imre. The stories I want to tell are my own stories. Our stories. I want to have a record of me at this age. So that someday, when we're all grown up and stuff, our kids can get to know their parents a little better. And I can read back and remember what life was like when I was living in Eindhoven. I want to learn how to keep those memories, without turning in to a traditional scrapbooker. Sure, I'll want to include photo's. I want our kids to see (and I will want to remember myself...) how fabulous I looked when I was 24 ;)

So that's my goal for this summer. Find my storytelling voice. Write about me. Find a creative, crafty way to document my life, without being a traditional scrapbooker. 

I've started this blog as a way to share my photos, but over the last months I found that I like to share some personal stories here, as well. It's scary at times, to share personal stuff, but scary in a good way. So here's to a ton of personal stories on the blog this summer. Let's go!