I
- Introduction
II
- Where I live
III
- My kind of holiday
IV
- Storensicals
"Hi, I'm Mike. I'm two times divorced and I have three children with my second wife. My therapist told me to drink herbal tea whenever I'm depressed, which usually is on the third monday of the month."
No doubt about it: this is an American introducing himself. Whereas the Americans tend to tell you their entire life's story at the first introduction, the English use the same amount of words to tell you absolutely nothing:
"Good morning, my name is Brian. How do you do. Very nice to meet you. Lovely weather we're having, aren't we? It's been good to us lately, though I suspect it will change for the worse quiet soon."
No personal facts apart from the name. No one put this defensive behaviour into words better than John Cleese in "A fish called Wanda": "We're stifled by the dread of doing the wrong thing. Of saying to someone 'Are you married?' and hearing, 'My wife left me this morning.' Or saying 'Do you have children?' and being told they all burned to death on Wednesday. You see we're all terrified of embarrassment."
But is that a bad thing? When I'm staying in a bed and breakfast and I have to listen to some total stranger's life story while I'm enjoying a lavish breakfast I often feel rather uncomfortable. Isn't it much nicer -while still waking up- to talk about nothing important and exchanging the latest weather information? Or am I as defensive in my behaviour as the British. It's probably just that. Because I'm some two hundred words into this essay and I still haven't introduced myself.
So I'll introduce myself in the way I feel most comfortable with: Imagine a steaming plate with bacon and eggs, a big cup of tea, hot toast, butter and jam and a lot more where that came from. And then I'll say: "Good morning. I'm Henk. How do you do?" And then our conversation wanders off to trivial things while we enjoy the best proof that the English can cook. They just do it at different times of the day than us continentals.
For as long as I can remember the first thing that happens after I finish breakfast is that a hairy four legged creature starts whining and wagging its tail expectantly. I live in, what to a dog, must seem paradise. It's a town in a wooded area. And just before the trees receive you with open arms, there's just the right amount of cats to chase. Of course you never catch one because those little devils have learnt to climb those trees. It makes for a perfect warming up, though. After an hour of walking the trees make way for the moors. Sometime a flock of sheep will scour the heath, sometimes a tank will rumble past. This town is also a garrison town. The moors are big enough though and in summer you can always find a nice quiet spot for a snooze in the sun.
There
are a few bigger cities nearby. But not so close by as to be obtrusive.
I don't like cities forcing their noise and hectic lifestyle upon me. I
like, I need the quiet of the countryside.
Although that quiet
is very relative. If you know where and how to look you see that nature
has its own busy thoroughfares and main streets, its pub brawls, its slums
and its Beverly Hills. And if its a quiet day in nature's city my dog takes
care of it. He likes to dig up, splash out, and generally make it known
that he's there. If he hears other dogs scuffle he's there in a flash.
Sometimes he manages to get two big dogs into a fight while he, the cause
of the fight, walks away disgusted at their common behaviour. His little
terrier ego being to big for his body lands him in some brawls he can't
win but I never fear. I think it's easier to weed out stinging nettle than
this little dog. And a scar more or less doesn't make him any humbler.
I feel privileged living here. I know some people would hate it but for me its just right.
It's hot: 35 degrees. The sun blazes down on the beach packed with cooked-lobster-coloured people. They gleam with suntan oil. On my left, only inches away a radio blares it's happy summertime hits. On my right a child is nagging, trying to get its reluctant, tired father to buy ice cream. Meanwhile he's ogling the nearly naked girls who are too young and too free for him. He obviously wanders what went wrong and when. Then the nagging voice of his son gives him the answer. The waves are pockmarked with heads, bobbing up and down. Here and there a jet ski forms a scar in the filthy water. Suddenly, in the distance, a panic flares. People run towards me, screaming, trampling others. Behind them a wall of sand rises like a wave. Behind that a huge monstrously roaring bulldozer, huge and merciless, clears the beach of everything it encounters; leaving in its wake a clear beach, ready for a new wave of tourists.
I wake up sweating. I look around to make sure it was all a dream. Slowly -reassuringly- the sides of my tent move with the wind. The birds sing and nearby I hear a stream trickle over a rocky bed. I zip open my tent and a tentative sun already warms the hills. Sheep roam the glen, their sharp, pungent, but lovely smell, carried by the morning wind wakes me fully. I wash, eat a little, exchange a few words with a fellow camper and the put on my walking boots. Another quiet day in the Scottish hills. A far cry, a huge roar, from the over crowded beaches of southern europe.
With every step I feel the ancient history of the land. A farmer greets me and is happy to talk for a bit and share a piece of chocolate and a cup of tea I made on my portable stove. No hurry, no crowds.
For
four weeks or so I travel through England, Wales and Scotland. Visiting
cities, villages and mountainous glens and vales. Meeting with and talking
to students, people, rich or poor and homeless. I encounter sheep and sheep
dogs. I meet interesting weirdos (who are usually more sane then most people).
Generally being a wanderer. Going where my feet and former British Rail
can carry me. No set goals, no schedules. That's been my kind of holiday
for years now and I hope it will stay that way for many years to come.
To me the British Isles are still a very big treasure trove.
Story + Nonsensical = Storensical
From now on 'storensical' is a word. Just because I use it here. The funny thing about the internet is that one day I might be strolling into a bar in a remote little village in the Himalayan Andes (if you think this impossible, storensicals are not for you) and hear a bloke talk about storensicals or indeed tell one. The greatest storensical writer of all time and indeed some time before is of course Douglas Adams. His Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy has led millions, indeed trillions of beings astray in the infinite finity of the Galaxy.
Now to say that storensicals make sense would be stretching a point. And as a point can't be stretched (unless you believe in Einstein, but who does these days) storensicals make perfect sense. The point I'm trying to make here is that there is no point to storensicals. They start pretty much as any story does, lulling the reader in the false believe that what they are reading does indeed make sense or might indeed be very thought provoking. "Now there is a good, solid story," the unsuspecting reader might think. Then, suddenly out of nowhere comes a word, a part of a sentence that doesn't fit. It doesn't quite fit the info stored in that blob of jelly we call a brain. Like 'Himalayan Andes' for instance. Two different halves of the world in one geographical point. You see the point being stretched?
I love storensicals. Monty Python made some great movies based on epic storensicals. The bible could be viewed as the great grand mother of all storensicals. There you are reading about a poor sod treading his way through the desert minding his own puny business. Suddenly a bush heats up in front of him, huffing and puffing. And as if that is not enough it starts talking to him, I ask you! The most storensical element here is hidden in the rest of the story though. The scene described here is mere decor, an illustration, a primitive form of storensical sketching. The real storensical bit is that the bloke actually does what the bush told him to do. Now that is a storensical element that took a stroke of genius on the writers part. The bible is full of those strokes. The writer must indeed have been a Great One.
Storensicals do not follow a rigid story line. And as this little introduction is slowly but surely developing a sensical line I think the time is ripe, if indeed not overripe, in danger of rotting, to end this intro. Rotten time might well be the subject of one of my storensicals. Einstein never took rotten time into consideration when he thought out that other great storensical: the theory of relativity. So try not to make too much sense of your life. It might be a great storensical written by one much more intelligent than we are.
You can take a look at some storensicals and more humour related stuff at the storensical page
©Henk de Kruyff, 1998