You know, the entry below did stir some stuff, which I was surprised to see. Usually no one comments on those things, but this time it started this whole trend of insightful questions and answers. It was actually quite enlightening; in ways that I was surprised how much questions and comments there were on my haircolour. Too funny! But most importantly it forced me to focus on memories and feelings I have regarding the people I know and it was strange and interesting at the same time.
Olli in math class in September 1994 is the first memory I have of him, but the clearest one was on a sweltering May evening in the park in 1997, drunk with love — or the kiss that sealed our wedding on 24 June 2005.
Lya and the shootingstars. We had gone to dinner in town that night, and we talked long, mostly about love and relationships. With wine in our bellies we walked back home and we saw shooting stars over the lake.
Brenda and the cabrio on the highway on a summer day, somewhere between Utrecht and Amsterdam on the A2. It’s smack in the middle of one of the best periods of my life, and this memory is one of the many high points of that time.
Kat and our picnic, and what she told me there on the shell beach. We were drinking Ame wine – which you are supposed to drink with friends. It was just before Olli joined us, and the sky was lavender, just before sunset.
Derek in the sea at IJmuiden under a slategrey sky… Why that stuck to my head I do not know. For some reason it stands out, even though there are more profound memories, deeper talks, moments of tighter connection. Still, it’s the first thing I think of.
For Tijs it’s sitting on the balcony at night on the Siriusstraat, with Mars very red and visible in the night sky, talking the night away. I still feel that at that time, in the summer of 2003, we were the closest we’ve ever been. Sometimes I miss those days.
Other Tijs in the Vondelpark on his birthday, grinning at my camera. It was his birthday 
Bas… a very clear image of us lying together on Olli’s couch in Maastricht, the morning after the party. The completely bizarre conversation that we had.
Aurelie… same party in Maastricht, doing the dishes together. Another one was somewhere in the summer of 2004, where we smoked cigarettes in the Beiaard in Amsterdam and talked about DM all day, and we went to the Gasthuys later on only to gate-crash Tijs’ date unintentionally.
Clearest visual on Nina is the beach in Zandvoort, on that freakishly warm day in March 2002. The other, insanely enough, is standing in my bedroom in the Siriusstraat, arguing.
Dagmar’s clearest visual is the second time I met her. I remember it very clearly, Ascensionday in the Vondelpark. She looked so pretty and I had the mother of all hangovers and threw up in the pond.
And Thomas, because he belongs there even though he lives so far away now, is the clearest memory the weekend after 9/11, when we wrecked the TV and there was no existing save data. We smoked a cigarette together even though we’d both quit – the world was going to hell anyway. And then we did the dishes together.
It’s great to reflect those things right now. Makes me feel all nostalgic, as I’ve kind of felt all week since we came back from Pinkpop. Being at that festival again after five years made me reach back to 2002 and before, remembering how it was, what happened when and in which order and why. Because it was such a sudden jolt of memories, being there again – it probably didn’t work that way for anyone else, but it did for me.
We’ve come a long way, I think. All of us.