Some mornings I wake missing New Zealand and I talk of it ... minutely detailing all that I miss.Yesterday I picked up a secondhand book that somehow took me back to a Mount Cook sunrise I experienced years ago.
The details of it have been washing over me since ... the heat of the coffee I carried out into that middle-of-nowhere space in the heart of my country; the noise of the silence; the stunning freshness of the air and the peace that only Nature can give me.
Nature is slipping away with barely a whimper over here in my European space. The grey men in suits have earmarked the forest behind the apartment for a 500-unit complex in their greed for more taxes in this relatively affluent suburb ... thousands of birds will be moved on and Antwerpen will have a little less of the much-needed carbon cleaning Nature.
The year it took me to enter Fortress Europe only drove home the fact that Nature isn't here in any comforting form. They have massive parks ... tree-lined avenues, cyle paths, sweeping lawns and rose gardens.
They have a river so brown and polluted by the time that France is finished with it, that its cleaner after passing through the fuel refinery here in the city.
Belgium's 60km stretch of beach is lined with beach-facing apartment complexes ...How does a person sustain themselves in a country which seems to place no value on man's need for natural spaces...
For the first time in my life, I can't find a place to sort out my soul in the silence of Nature. One year for keys into Fortress Europe ... this morning I'm wondering how long before I can go home.
Di, go to the Ardennes, you'll find silence and tranquility there. I know that the Beglian coastline looks like, well, shit. But we can't change it now. Just go to France or the Netherlands where they prevented stuff like Belgians, and still have a somewhat natural coastline.
ReplyDeleteThanks manic ... I'm allowed to exchange my NZ driver's licence for a Belgian one but it takes them at least 8 weeks to process it ... which you and I both know means another year of waiting for paperwork probably.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I've seen some of what you mentioned but I guess I need to find my own way to these places on the days that I need them.
I used to drive 60kms into the stunning Fiordland National Park back home in NZ, and sit by a creek in the mountains, or drive something like 60kms to Anakiwi ... or 10kms to the beach ... depending on where I was living. I miss that.