my 'sogno nel cassetto'(dream in a drawer)

Posted on 26/7/2009 at 12:12 - Post Comment

DUTCHWOMANABROAD

sunday 26th of may 2009

yesterday was a 'dutch' day, and it was very nice. first i got a more or less surprise visit from an old 'amsterdam' rowing buddy and her family(she had left me a message two days earlier she would drop by). hadn't seen her for years. they were on their way back from italy and decided to stop at our house for a couple of hours to get to know my surroudings and to get reconnected with me and my family. 'long time, no see' but it was as if we had seen each other a couple of weeks ago. ofcourse lots of 'ooooh's' and 'aaaah's' about the beauty of my corner of ticino. well, ticino showed itself from her best side i should say, and it's not always like that. the sun blinding bright, 30 degrees or so, clear blue sky, no wind, just perfect. so maybe they will be captivaded to come for a vacation in this part of the world. then in the evening i went to 'the summerparty' a dutch friend of mine was giving at her house. i wouldn't want to live where she is, living up a mountainslope bordering the 'lago maggiore'.  for me, being dutch, riding my bike is like brushing my teeth in the morning, couldn't do without it. and going up that hill is tough, i've done it as an exercise, but to go and get a piece of bread and then having to struggle up to get home would honestly be to much, even for me. but the view from her house is magic. the lake with the islands of brissago, the villages of gambarogno, and seeing italy looking south. at the party there was a big mix of languages and nationalities. that is what you get living in a corner of the world which attracts people to settle down. i met lots of new persons, one of them being a dutch 'girl' of my age. we got talking and she told me she is an 'editor-in-chief' or something at a dutch girlie magazine. as you might have read in one of my earlier blogs my 'sogno nel cassetto' is writing a column for a magazine. this was just the person to talk to and maybe get somewhere with my writing. but my dreams got shattered quite quickly. she told me you 'have to be someone' to get a column. it doesn't depend on if you are capable of writing something good or interesting, whitty or funny. people want to get the feeling what it is like to be 'someone'. so how do you become 'someone'? well, for example being 'the wife of' would be a good start, that would tickle people to want to read about your life. well, i am 'the wife of .....' the most popular guy of locarno and surroudings of the '90's. he has an eq as high as einstein's iq. girls were angry that he chose a woman from elsewhere to settle down with. they would aks him why 'they' weren't good enough, why he chose a foreigner. being 'the wife of' was sometimes frustrating, but also very nice. but ofcourse for a dutch magazine this doesn't count. and then i think about the women who write columns and books, whom i've see on tv, the wives of the famous....and i honestly ask myself why are they there? what did they achieve other than having married someone famous and maybe even rich? the lady to whom i talked studied dutch, so at least she wouldn't need anybody correcting her articles. and her life and mine are probably just as interesting as anyone else's.....