ALL MEN ARE EQUAL, NO ONE IS THE SAME

New Year (1996)

December 31, 1995

I used to have friends. We always celebrated things. Events of joy and succes: birthdays, graduations, new jobs, Christmas and New Year. Right now, I even miss our stereotype way of saying hello: We gave three kisses starting on the right cheek. We kissed irrespective of gender and the embraces of, say, Gerard, were as precious to me as Liesbeth's kisses. I smile thinking of Anja, who invariably underlined the sincerity of her kisses vocally ('mmwah, mmwah, mmwah').

I miss the taste of delicious salades, of expensive Italian white whine. I miss the timbre of our talking: Gerard's bas-sound, Klaas en Mart's bariton-tone, the high-pitched enthiousiastic voices of Nynke, Liesbeth and Ties, and Anja's alt-voice, full of indignation generally. I even miss my own broken voice. At party's we often discussed serious topics: art, religion, politics. Usually in the course of our debates we lost sight of the main-line, and, instead of reaching solid conclusions, we produced many many hilarious moments. I was very skilled in causing confusion. I feel like undermining a debate right now, but apart from my father, there's no one to discuss things with.

The glances of Nynke I miss. In the course of years I became an experienced reader of her grey-green eyes. They silently expressed excitement, fun, hope or admiration; sadness or disaproval sometimes, emotion often. I wonder where she'll raise her glass tonight.

And Gerard, Anja, Klaas, Ties, Liesbeth, Mart, the party, where is it, tonight?

Standing behind a cooker is not easy for me, on the other hand, eating my father's meals is hard too. I should have helped him, now it's too late. It's the potatoes, I guess. I can't smell properly, but the mere observation of an odor is an ominous sign. As a boy I had an accident (If you start riding a bike too early, ugly things can happen). My nose-bone was broken, and even my olfactory nerve was damaged. Yesterday a guy in a bar studied my face, and came up with the stereotype question whether I had been a boxer. I don't like this question, because I detest boxing: Torn-up eyebrows, injuries to the nose or cheeks, blood on the ring-floor. Young athletes being dragged away to the dressing-room: half-conscoous, or in coma, or dead.

I also hate this question because it reminds me of hitting my father, february last. Of course I didn't tell the curious guy. I told him I 'd been a soccer-player, and left the joint.

My mother used to run the household here, but she's passed away. The moment you enter the hall, her absence strikes you in the face somehow. The living room lost it's shine, although nothing has changed: the piano, the furniture, the plants, the porcelain tea-set, the antique mortar, are in the same positions as three years ago. There's a cleaning women who dusts every week. Still the atmosphere in the living is different. 'Cosiness' was her number one key-word. I should have given up my contempt for that word before she died.

I'm not very hungry lately, but this afternoon I forgot to eat. My host 'll probably throw away half of the potatoes, at least. I'm afraid the taste of the remaining potatoes 'll further spoil my appetite. No, he 's found another solution. He wants me to open up a pack of rice with a pair of scissors. We don't mention the potatoes. His breathing fills the pauses between the sounds of exploding crackers outside. He coughs. He's not bronchitic now, he always breathes loud. Being a doctor I know that emfysema patients usually breath loud, they can't help it. It's still irritating. The pack is open. He returns to the kitchen. I can't blame him for being slow. He's 78.

The Frysian table I'm writing on is an antique piece. It was a wedding gift from my grandparents, almost fifty years ago. One day my mother was very angry with me: I had carved my name into the wood with a pocket-knife. My name and the date (4-5-'65) are still visible. Right now, she'd be angry with my father: He' s covered the table-top with many, many papers. He uses an ugly plastic table-cloth he doesn't clean properly. I count four burning-holes, due to hot pots, I guess.

In spring and summer my father is a very vital man. He suffers from emfysema, but his enthousiasm for people, sailing-boats, campers, buildings, musea, cities keep him going. In autumn and winter bronchtic episodes plague him. A few years ago he had to be hosptitalized, but since he has managed to survive these attacks alone. He 'simply' stays in bed for a few weeks. The lady next-door goes to the shops for him once a week, the family doctor stops by every now and then and the cleaning woman visits the house weekly, that's all. 'When you're ill, you don't want company', he says.

He's not too fussy about my smoking. When he's in the living, he wants me to smoke in the kitchen. I can't smoke there now. I can't smoke outside either. The six-o-clock-news showed it's very cold and slippery outside: many car-collisions, the trains are delayed (frost-deposition on the wiring), people on sidewalks are shuffling and sliding: an older lady fell and strained her ankle. So, it'd be foolish to smoke outside now. I'll have to smoke here. Otherwise I can't write.

It'll be 1996 tomorrow.

I promissed him I'ld bring some firework, but in Groningen the rockets were sold out, and we both hate crackers. I bought a cheap bottle Portugese whine. In the train to Putten I felt guilty. He only likes Spanish wine, very sweet Spanish wine, I should have respected his taste.

A few days ago I managed to call Africa... Nynke had to convince Tiemen that his father deserved more attention than his playing with building blocks.

I feel very ashamed that Tiemen had to pull me thru last year. Friends, my brother, my sisters should have pulled me thru, not a four-year-old boy!

In happier days Tiemen always visited me on Saturdays. He destroyed my transistor-radio twice, but still, we laughed a lot, and he likes my way of telling stories. Yesterday, I stole a pocket-atlas for him, with geographic displays of Africa and a flague of the country where he lives. Maybe Tiemen hates me now, because he thinks I left him. Tiemen has a right to be very angry with his father.

I'm keen on private telephones lately. I feel like calling Tiemen now, to wish him a happy new year. But I'm too squared... Have I become a coward?

I've managed to leave the psychiatric clinic one month ago. One of my problems now is I have too much time. I sleep a lot, even in the afternoon, if I haven't got anything else. Sometimes I'm trying to write poetry again, but it has no quality. I played chess in a cafe a couple of times, but usually I spend my time with self reflection, or with silly questions about people.

What has been puzzling me for the last two weeks is an imaginary game of chess, between LOVE and HATRED. These players represent the accumulated strength of love in human hearts and hatred, respectively.

I explained my mind game to my psychiatrist. He laughed, and told me that LOVE would crush HATRED. He's an optimist, this man. Although I hope he's right, I don't agree with him. I seriously doubt whether it'll be a short and easy game. I even doubt LOVE's win. Personally I 've always underestimated the strenght of HATRED in the hearts of others, and especially in my own. That's something I can see very clearly now.

At this moment, I don't think too much of myself. Apperently, I'm not a good father, not a good son, not a good partner, and not a good docter. I know there's no way of counter-balancing these types of failure.

Diner's being served.

January 1, 1996.

Bad luck. Normally I'd be half-way Groningen now, but I'm still in Putten. One hour ago we drove to the railway-station. My father gave me the money to pay the train ticket with, and left. I'm in a train compartment. Smoking is allowed and it's warm, but the train doesn't leave the station.

It seems that a few kilometers ahead a fatal accident has happened on a level crossing. The automatic barriers were out of order, due to short-circuit in the wiring. A train from the north collided with a car. The motorist and his wife are dead, the train is derailed. It blockades our section. At least, that's what a guy in our compartment heard on his transistor radio, a few minutes ago.

I received a ticket for a free cup of coffee from the guard. It says: please accept our apologies for the delay, The Dutch Railway. I accept this excuse of course, but it's sad there's no coffee supply here.

Near the level crossing of the station road, I recognize two brick posts. At age six or so, me and a school friend felt obliged to demonstrate viril courage. We promissed to climb the posts as soon as we'ld hear the intercity train. The distance between the posts and the section is one meter, no more. The train drew near, each of us climbed his brick post. The passage of the locomotive produced an unbearable noise, vast wind and terrible fear of falling forward. This practically forced us to get off immediately. Although I desperately wanted to do this, it would be defeat, so I did not. Neither did Henk, my friend. We spent many many seconds in dreadful fear, until the long train had passed completely. Dizzy and proud, maybe, we got off.

In the same era I showed off in the playgarden of the swimmingpool in Putten. From half a meter high I dived into the sand. The landing was very unpleasant, but I didn't break anything (I easily could have broken handbones, fingers or even my spine). As a boy I already felt attracted to danger, and in those days it was rewarding to be a dare-devil. My brother, for instance, became a hero in our block because he balanced on the ridge of our house for several minutes.

I don't know if these kind of activities preluded my self-destructiveness later in life.

I watch the glazed frost on the platform. No one takes the risk to wait outside. I would have, if I still would have been healthy, but my shattered heels don't permit walking outside. I have a srtrange way of walking nowadays, the righteous punishment for jumping off a balcony 12 meter high? With every step I take, I regret this suicidal attempt.

I watch the station. The waiting room is empty, as always. The station hall is closed. The windows are small, they 've painted the window frames in dark colours: brown and grey. When I was a boy it had a thatched roof, it has tiles now. In the front wall six coloured tiles spell 'PUTTEN'. It's a historic building, this station. A gloomy building, if you will.

In October 1943 the Germans forced 643 men from the local population to assemble in the church first, on the station platforms later. They wanted to retaliate an assault on a German officer. The men were transported to a concentration camp in Poland. After the war 60 of them came back. Tragedy. My parents are Frysians, who, fortunately, settled in Putten after the war, long after the war: in 1960. I was one year old then.

On our way to the station we passed Putten's post-war monument. It's a sober sculpture of a mourning widow in traditional Putten clothes. I didn't look at her this time. I know her gaze, in fact I know every detail, for instance the spot slightly below the waist on the right, where hand, handkerchief, and skirt come together.

This statue came to my mind almost every day, three months after my suicidal attempt, three years ago. I was in a hospital recovering from severe psychosis and fractures in three spinal vertebrae. The anti-psychotic medication I took could not suppress the image of the Widow.

At first I considered this 'sticky' image a continuous accusation: 'You're a self-murderer and Nynke, your mother, your sisters, would have mourned over you for the rest of their lives, if your cowardly attempt had succeeded. Look at me, this is how you'd left them behind'. The psychiatrists told me I wasn't guilty, emotionally I felt very guilty.

No one needs to tell me how confusing symbols and metaphors can be. They were the texture of my delusions. On the other hand, they can be a comfort too.

Gradually I began to realize that 'The widow' was an expression of my own sorrow too: I had lost my athletic body, my sanity, my job, my family life. In a way, the Widow invited me to start mourning.

Many months later I felt that 'She' tried to show me even more. Her history tells about forces, that are beyond our grasp, that want to drag innocent people into death. Mentally speaking, severe psychosis feels like brutal occupation by a foreign force, I had to admit that. So, I decided that the Widow was on my side. The idea of being a criminal fainted, and I accepted the view that I was a victim of a severe psychiatric disease.

At the beginning of 1995, one year ago, my sense of guilt had almost disappeared. But now that I've attempted to kill myself again, in the summer last year, I'm in doubt once more.

In the days I had a normal life, I was in a hurry all the time. I was keen on ways to gain time, now sometimes I'm looking for ways to loose time. I don't mind too much that this train is stuck. At home, in the streets, in cafe's, in busses or trains, I usually spend my time 'daydreaming': thinking about the past mostly, the presence and the future sometimes.

I see my life as a landscape now, I can travel through it in my mind. The scenery is familiar in the first thirty years, but shadowy and gloomy in the last five years, especially in the last. Remembering things from this period is like walking through a minefield. The risk of emotional explosions is always high. However, facing sorrow, anger, hate or fear is a way to get to terms with facts of life. All I know is that remembering painful events helped me to become a satisfied person: I was content on New Years day last year.

If I'd want it, it would not be impossible to reconstruct the disastreous year 1995. It would not be easy though: The events were very bitter, and my recall has been disturbed in many ways. I probably had psychological cut out, distorted registration of events during psychosis, loss of memory during shock and medicine intoxication. I'd need the help of others to get a realistic picture of this confusing year. But, the psychiatrist wants me to be happy with the fact that I've forgotten a lot. Maybe I should listen to him this time.

The train has permission to drive.

This is the railway restaurant in Zwolle. The waiter silently accepts my ticket, but waits a little while. I guess he wants me to order cake or something. I don't have the money. I say nothing. Then he looks belittling at my threadbare pullover, and turns to the bar. It would be very childish to tell him I had expensive clothes one day, and a well-paid job as a doctor, but it's still tempting somehow. People of all kinds feel the need to look down on me lately. It's my clothing and my handycap. If I'd tell them I'm a docter, they'd laugh me in the face.

There was a disgusting couple in the train! In Ermelo we passed the level crossing where the fatal accident had happened. The train drove slowly by. I saw a police car, and a few people watching the train. After our passage the couple on the seat behind me was disappointed. The man said: 'I told you we should have split up, now we missed the car wreck'. The woman: You never told me it was on the left'. The man: 'No, but if it was, we missed it, damned'. Pathetic. The trouble is, you cannot avoid these types, they look just like me and you.

I'm very familiar with this restaurant. In the late eighties a few hurricanes afflicted the Netherlands. These november storms ravaged houses, buildings, airports, roads and railways. One day in November I visited an airpollution congress somewhere near Utrecht. The congress was stopped early to give the visitors the opportunity to travel home. To clear the sections on my route the railway personal had to pull away a dozen fallen trees. After many hours I arrived in Zwolle. There was no connection to Groningen anymore, because the cables were damaged. I had no family or friends in Zwolle, and all hotels in and near this provincal capital were cramned already. But, we were allowed to spend the night in this very restaurant.

There were approximately 200 other stranded passengers, including crying children and indignant senior citizens. There were no matresses unfortunately, and toilets only outside the building. It was a refugee camp for one night. To my relief there was a very early train to the north the next day.

This wasn't the only time Zwolle was a blockade for me. In my early twenties hitch-hiking frequently went wrong somewhere near Zwolle, and later train connections seldomly worked out properly. In my happy days, from '88 on, I referred to Zwolle as the Bermuda Triangle.

If you have plenty of time, the capital of Overijssel is a nice place to be.

I've finished my coffee half an hour ago. I want to go now.

January 5, 1996

They've reconnected my telephone two days ago. No calls so far, no letters, no postcards. The girl next door invited me for a cup of coffee. She said: 'for people like you, there are many volonteer jobs'. Tone not completely OK, message is an idea. She's OK.

The police informed me that my invalid-scooter is back! They 've used it for joy-riding. It's damaged. The insurance-company 'll probably pay the repair costs.

January 6, 1996

The solitude is slowly strangling me. I don't know if I can carry on alone much longer. Hospital wasn't fun either, but at least I wasn't alone all day. My house is a mess. I don't have the energy to clean it. My sleeping pattern is 'unconventional'. I stick to Lithium, off course. I made a drawing: My burden.

January 7, 1996

I met Herman in town. From a distance he had followed my whereabouts in the last four years. He wanted to know things about my handycap. I mentioned our strange good-bye, four and a half years ago. He told me that I'm welcome to talk things over, if I wanted to. "For free?" I asked. "Yes, young doctor", he said. I told him the young doctor would think about it. Is it wrong to visit a psychotherapist if you have a psychiatrist already?

January 8, 1996

This afternoon I had a typical dream. I was in a cafe and drank a glass of red whine. Suddenly Love and Hatred came in. They knew my name and looked into my heart. They studied my feelings for family and friends. LOVE sounded worried: " I'll have to do with Tiemen and Heit only. I don't know what it's gonna be, it depends on the colour, maybe". HATRED said: "your brother and sisters are on my side, and many many friends! Thank you my son, no doubt I'm gonna win this time!" Then they went away, because there was no chess-board.

January 10, 1996

I had an appointment with the psychiatrist. I showed him my drawing. A back-pack with stones, and arrows indicating the names of the stones: Guilt, uncertainty about my mind, physical pain, solitude, poverty, mourning over broken relations, missing Tiemen. "You shouldn't feel guilty all the time" he said, and "Try not to cherish your depression, in a few weeks time you'll see things different". Outside his room I tore the drawing to pieces and left the clinic. His remark about guilt helped me, but to say I cherish my depression is an insult. I have sorrow and I have to face the pain, if I want to recover. I do not exagerate my grief, I know there are extra stones I didn't want to draw yet.

January 16, 1996

A few days ago I went to the Humanistic Institute for a volonteer job. I'm going to help foreigners to learn Dutch. I've met my first pupil: A man from Zaire. Another African connection.

January 17, 1996

Loss of memory in the last year feels like a wound, and I don't want 1995 to confuse me for the rest of my life. My psychiatrist warned me not to go into that minefield, but I feel I must. I have to try to disentangle the experiences inside and outside my mind, and try to restore the correct chronological sequence of events in this year. I know my arrogance last year was almost fatal (If I would have listened to his medication advice an aweful lot of trouble would have been prevented), but I feel I can't face the future without a past. I have to find out what I did, and how it went wrong.

Traditionally, one should make a good resolution before New Yearsday, but there's nothing wrong doing it on january 17. In my mind I've already started a reconstruction of last year, and if necessary notes and files and agenda's and questions can help me further on.