Dawning over the dunes

Not a particular bright start of this morning. But nonetheless, I took my bike and went to the seaside. It was still early and the sky was grey with clouds. No wind, so the sea was calmly laying at her sandy shores, flowing her waters over the sandbars. At high tide perhaps you can swim and wade over to the Zandmotor Peninsula. Not for me today. Only a short dive into the fresh morning sea and then back home to leave again for a visit to the dentist. I was already on my bike as I saw the dawning of sun promising light at the eastern horizon. The beach grasses on the dune top waving slightly in the gentle breeze. A sign of hope for the afternoon.

And indeed, as I left the dentist practice with a tortured mouth, I had to blink my eyes in the dazzling sunlight. As I walked to the lightrail station through the shadowy city forest, I could breathe again, smiling. I did try while I was laying flat under treatment. Exercising Hara-breathing when the instruments hit your nerves, well, let me stay honest: I tried, sweat on my forehead, not to clamp my fingers and breathe (Dye&Rebirth…) But the smiling could not work. Grimacing under force or something like that. But walking back through that wellknown old Hague Forest, I could smile and think of my father, who loved to walk and cycle through this beautiful forest since he had been a kid. My grandparents lived in the nearby neighbourhood (1910-1945).

Also in this Forest, there is that wonderful “Philosophers Path”. I have told you how my father introduced me here when I was a kid. I will come back here with my Lumix show you the shadowy greens in light and darkness. I forgot to put my Eye in my pocket. Maybe it looks like this path. Ah, my father suffered from amnesia during the years before he dyed. But when he took his bike to the city he still passed through “his forest” over “his pathways”, erring, losing his way out again. As I was thinking of him walking somewhere near, I smiled. He knows that I’m still using his old bicycle, though more on my ways through the dunes. Threads and life-paths, intertwined, lost and hold together here between the high old oak and beech trees in this old forest.