Today we walked from Sneek to IJlst. It’s the old footpath from Sneek to IJlst that cuts through the fields and follows the medieval coast of the Middle Sea. The weather was good for sailing: sunny, with a force 5 wind. I’ve often sailed the stretch from IJlst to Sneek, coming from Langweer; I think everyone who goes to Friesland for the sailing must have done the same thing at one time or another. Together with D. I walked past Tinga, into the green space of the pastures. It is the landscape that speaks the most eloquently to me. I did a lot of sailing here and still know to which villages the church towers belong. As we made our way along the old coast, the thought hit me that this time last year, I was just starting to notice something odd with my sight. Objects and people appeared and reappeared as if by magic if I moved my head a little from side to side. And odd things were happening with colours and with depth. Only a year and so much has happened.
All around us was the sound of summer: wind bending the reeds and shaking the poplar trees, the odd person on a bicycle coming from IJlst, sailboats tacking across the Geeuw river, against the westerly. The last couple of days have been filled with D. and I discussing the recent changes in our lives and in our life together. I think that the fact that as a family we have to carry on doing the “mechanical” stuff of family life, its infrastructure, so to speak, has been a blessing. At times it is a confrontation with inadequacy. Also, the both of us are still wondering whether we need to fully come to terms with everything that’s going on. Perhaps that’s too much to ask, and perhaps it’s not that important to us. Other things move to the foreground: the walking we have started to do together and that we enjoy. How, once the novelty of doing things differently has disappeared, life runs its familiar course pretty much. Of course, I have had to let go of being self-sufficient in a good many daily activities (but then, how self-sufficient is wanting to be self-sufficient really?) and D. has had to overcome the fear that I would reject her offers of help.
Yes, a beautiful day.