Fantastic World

A new neighbourhood. I moved into a friend's place for a week to change scenery, to find new favorite places to drink coffee and just sit and write. New hidden corners around my new corner.

I went out. No suit today. I wore cloths I had found on the street. Black jeans, a grey t-shirt with a text in a Romanic language I can’t read. Printed on top of the mystery words are two big ones in English, “FANTASTIC WORLDS” and next to it an image of a small person with wings looking down on what is written there. A warm green sweater, a knee long black winter coat with a furry hood and a big scarve with a panther print. There was underwear out there but that’s about the only found item I wouldn’t wear. Underwear and socks. No shoes in my size yet. I could do with a pair of dancing shoes, but I know that if you long for something you don’t find it. Things come up unexpectedly always. Only when you see it you realize you needed it. I didn’t wear jeans for maybe 20 years but I love these. Even the white stains that are probably the reason the former owner threw them out.

I took the woven shopping basket with leather straps I found to carry groceries in. I hesitated about the black hat but it doesn’t really suit me. I might hand it over to somebody else.

I drank coffee in a small bio cafe, serving organic food. I ordered a café con leche. “Soy milk or normal milk?” the waiter asked. Of course he would ask that, I hadn’t thought about it when I entered. Actually I don't like soy milk. And I know drinking milk isn't the best thing to do if you care about the environment and try to live a somewhat sustainable life. If you just care for your own body even. Milk is meant for small children, there is a reason why a lot of people develop a lactose intollerance, a milk allergy, when they get older. It just isn't good for the body. And on top of that a cow needs a calf to be able to produce milk. In the milk industry they don't care about the calves. They get killed so they don't drink the milk, so we can drink the milk. Or maybe not you. But I do. And I know. But a café con leche is good for my happiness. And happiness is good for the mind and the body. And there are already many things I do try to be strict about. But some things not. Like milk. Like coffee. I know  coffee here, in this country, means waisting oil to get it over here. It isn't sustainable.

I remember being at the Permaculture Design Course in the mountains last October. I stayed away from the coffee, we only ate locally grown food, there was no chocolate (in the beginning at least, at some point people started to get a bit cranky and good organic chocolate and more coffee was bought to keep people happy at their own costs). I told Kate, who was one of the organisers, that I often felt guilty when I bought a pineapple in the supermarket in Holland. She told me I shouldn't. Buy it and enjoy it or not buy it. She is right.

So I ordered a coffee with normal milk. And I tried to explain, asked the bio-waiter what he thought about drinking milk. He didn't understand me, my Spanish and his English being on the same level.

He brought me a big cup. It was plastic. I was amazed. My first thought was to protest, to not come back to drink coffee here. It is so easy to be hypocritical. Order coffee with milk and then complain when it comes in a plastic cup. I looked around me, saw the man cautiously move around in his tiny kitchen, sharing the space with the woman who was standing behind the counter, moving alongside each other almost as if they were dancing. The food looked great, prepared with love and nice ingredients. It took up most of the space. No room to do the dishes. Not a lot of customers, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just managed to survive. And I thought about all those places where I drink my coffee from a proper cup but where I’ve got no clue how they make the food, where often I don’t even ask.

We all do our best. We do what we can do. We try to save the world and be happy at the same time. Both are equally important.

Before I left I asked, just to make sure. Sometimes things seem to be environmental unfriendly but not more than other options. Like milk bottles aren’t necessarily better than disposable packages because of the water and soap or chemicals being used for cleaning the glass. Maybe the plastic cups were made out of some not so environmental unfriendly substance.

Spanish isn’t so difficult when you use your hands and feet well. The man understood my question and confirmed my first thoughts. No space. I said “You use plastic cups, I drink milk.” We laughed, shook hands and I told him I’d be back to try some of the food.

I bought fruit in a fruit shop. The abnormally small kiwi’s, abnormally big pears and strangely shaped apples were on sale.

I passed my house door to explore the part of the street I hadn’t seen yet. In the far end, next to a small tree, I found a nice sturdy PVC shoulder bag in good shape, blue and white. You see them a lot in hip shops, simple and practical, in bright colours. This one had a small pocket for a phone on the shoulder strap and specially designed spaces for pens and some other items on the inside.

I thought about doing the opening of my show in the gallery in the first week of March in an empty space, naked, and then slowly fill it with the things I would find on my walks through the city in the weeks after. But I wonder if it works like that. I’ve got everything I need right now, not a lot of things, but they would do if I wouldn’t find all these treasures. If you don’t have anything, you don’t always get what you need. Many people here roam the streets because they don’t have a choice. I’m not sure if it would be fair if I would take what they need more. Unless I find a way to return to them what I gained by it.

I will have to do some more thinking about this subject. In the meantime I am grateful to this city and its people for all they share with me, intentionally and unintentionally.