Rond de wereld in een nacht...

A bit dizzy, shaken and sore, but then also surprised I managed to walk 'around the world in one night'. Just woke up from sleeping (actually when the sun is shining, even the window blinds cannot block out the fact it's day!) after probably the longest journey by foot I've ever embarked on continuously: 25km from Leiden to Den Haag. Hadn't slept for almost exactly one whole day, because the day before I was in Leiden for work. Was therefore a bit sleepy and tired while waiting for the walk to start at midnight this morning. It was cold, cloudy and dark, but somehow a mixture of excitement, music and people made the event all the worthwhile.


path in woods

I was with a very good friend from high school. Despite the years I was away studying in London, we still managed to stay close. Guess good friendships last, and with the separation of time and distance you know what good friendships are. So we talked about this and that, like two exciting boyscouts (I would imagine, because I never was one) going on a safari. There were moments of doubt whether we'd make it, but then they subsided with the moments of thrills of walking as if completely alone in the dark of the night, in mysterious woods with our vision blurred by mist, and with only our sense of adventure and curiosity of what lies ahead and the company of one another to take us further. A better metaphor for life I cannot find.


footsteps...

From the Museum voor Volkenkunde in Leiden we began, onto Leiden Zuid, onto Wassenaar, onto Meijendel in the sand dunes, onto Duinzigt, onto Mariahoeve, where our journey ended. With warming up excercises, stalls of ngo's working in the developing world (a term which to my mind seems to be formulated and sustained by people and countries that have a smug sense of supremacy....but for the lack of a better alternative I must use...), music and dance from far stretches of the world the journey went ahead. There must have been around a few hundred people, and the typical Dutch wintry weather did not deter our spirits.


green

Under the stars, twinkling and sparkling at us, and at times hidden behind clouds of white and clouds of yellow, coloured by the lights of cities and glasshouses, we walked. Dark forests and dunes dotted our path. Darkened houses and farms cheered us on sometimes on both sides. The cheap thrills and suspense of the 'Blair withch project' (something I once really thought was a movie about the 'evil' wife of Tony Blair...) at times came to mind. And for the first time I found out where the term 'party animal' comes from. Go wonder around forests and open fields, walk beside lakes and canals after midnight, and you will know. Our conversation took us from the mundane, to the serious, to the past and the future. School, friends, family, the meanings and philosophies of life, what "could have been but was not", the "what-ifs" and the "had I done this"...the unfairness of the world, the things that drive men and women of this world, the meaning of society, civilisation (and the clash and assimilation thereof)...it was as if we knew the world, ,we knew people, we saw it all and were observing things from afar like supreme beings, analysing, deconstructing and puzzling it all because we knew it all so well. Such boyish spirits of courage, determination and assertiveness I have rarely felt. Interrupted by my constant need to pee, the cheery singsong of birds (why at such unholy hours I don't understand), the wind brushing against the bushes and tres, we walked on. A dull moment there never seeemed to be.


empty beach