Dolphin Address 11
March 16th 2005
As I leave the smoking ruins of Berlin I so much realize I'm not cut out to be a city boy. The kaleidoscopic disinterest that is vested on fear and suspicion I feel as an insult to my integrity and can never really be my piece of cake. A highway man I am by way of occupational hazard. I do like to drive from gas station to station, at least as long as I'm going somewhere. And going I am, for the Silver Lady, only 2000 km. away.
But there is time and first I'm going to prepare myself for Ireland, better than I ever did before. When I cross the borderline to Holland the feast of recognition starts again. And when I set foot in Groningen, the city I never lived in but always around I realize I know so many more people than I thought I did.
'So you decided to finance the national infrastructure?' I didn't see him coming, the guy who bought our house and who still receives my mail. But I do instantly grasp his reference to the three speeding tickets I got on my last visit. How wonderful to be in humor again.
Here I can talk to people who talk back and unintentionally I have chats everywhere. Like a woman I recognize but cannot place. We figure out it's been thirteen years, but she doesn't look a day older. And the music icon with his CD barrow on the market place. I tell him that I'd like some blues and he presents me with 'Hits and rarities' by The Animals. 'Only if 'For Miss Caulker' is on it' I say and he nearly hits the roof. Instant brotherhood.
I buy a sleeping bag that shields me to minus 15 and a coat that I can quietly write in in comfort. I feast myself on good old street delicacies that would only break the tongue of the unDutch. I buy the most beautiful music in the world, the blues and Indian ragas.
There's lots to do now. First of all to rearrange the car, but also I could use some new monofins and get the 7 mil diving suit I so much missed this winter.
It should all be doable in a week, though I don't really want to hurry. I haven't got a clue where the next Dolphin Address will come from, but it'll be closer and soon.
Jan Ploeg, Norg, March 16th 2005
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