27.5.2025 This year was not the year that I did not receive any birthday wishes from vague aquaintances on my Facebook wall. I had to think for a minute about the fact that it was even called a wall, a Facebook wall. Every year fewer people post on this wall but I never really notice who gave up. Until this year, I was sad to find out that Berend Zuur, my highschool dean (the legend) did not post a classic 'gefeliciteerd!' followed by a random emoji. Apparently, I had imagined that he would be the last man standing there, religiously posting the same brithday wish every single year. But the world is aging and the future always unfolds in the scenario's you did not imagine. (sorry for all the negations, I also do not know what it means! It is a pretty good day today!) 18.5.2025 'All the hands that touched it and now no one can anymore' is what Malla said after the alarm went off when I looked too closely at the ancient Buddhist sculpture in a German museum. Nine days in Berlin feel like a whirlwind here is an observation (1) In this city, our dark side is always near: the crack-smoking homeless people at HermanstraSe, the night that continues through the day, the lack of self-awareness about looted artworks, a casual park littered with old tombstones, organized places for the deepest darkest sexual desires of our species and calling it cultural heritage, and of course the (remains of) the divide: "Rage, rage against the dying of the light" 3.5.2025 holy, holy, holy - written for poetry night @leiden with the homies without the sun,the dutch landscape is protestant how can anything holy arise from that? every village houses a sober square church littered across the landscape like breadcrumbs on a stainless steel plate of the holy supper passing through the hands of the believers I remember the absence of clapping after a baptism I remember the hollow voice of the minister — often my dad I remember the time stretching into eternity during sermon I remember the desire to hear the first chords of the organ I remember that whenever I felt a flame arise in me I had to hide it and I remember wondering how this related to the descent of the holy spirit still the sun kept appearing in every landscape I drew