Impa loves being at home

Home Is Where the Magic Is from Impa on Vimeo.

Impa and the apple turnovers

Maz left Impa's new garden with her arms full of apples. She held up the hem of her tunic like an oldfashioned little housekeeper, put the large, green apples in there and  supported the heavy bulge in the fabric with one arm. Someone held the door open for her and as she walked away, I could hear her say something about apple sauce and apple turnovers.

And behold: Impapple turnovers!

Taraaaaa!

Impa in Paris

Inside, though, you are

Impa heard a man on local radio. His voice croaked with old age. 'Lonely, lonely... I find that a very difficult word. I would never say that. I might say' - he continued in the Groningen dialect - 'It don't work so well. As a Groninger, you don't do that, you don't want that. But inside, though, you do. Inside you are. But you'll never say it out loud. And that's that.'

Ten years ago, a drug dealer used to live in Impa's new house. Neighbour P. told me people were coming to the door all night long and tramps slept in the garden shed. In the end, the house was vacated by the police and the drug dealer was evicted. All his possesions ended up on a heap in the garden. Among them were handwritten poems. 'After that, one of the sisters moved in,'  Neighbour P. said. 'One of the sisters?' I asked. We were in his garden, watching his chickens. 'Yes,' he said, 'the other sister moved in on my other side. They were calling to each other that the coffee was ready across my garden all day.' Neighbour P. had never spoken to the drug dealer when he still lived there until one night, when  he was playing cards with a friend, the doorbell rang at midnight. It was the drug dealer from nextdoor. He said: 'Today is my 50th birthday. Will you have a beer with me?'

There are no tramps in the garden house now. There are a lot of spiders there, but I'm not sure if they sleep there too. I wouln't get a second sleep with all those little legs. 

Impa's garden

Impa's stuff and the van

(part two of Impa and her stuff)  

On the day of the move, we needed nothing short of a miracle and it presented itself in the shape of Friend M. She made her way through the boxes and furniture on the pavement and passed the moving troops who were looking from the van to the things and from the things to Impa with sweaty brows and questioning eyes. She got in the back of the van and spoke the liberating words: 'Here, let me. I'm good at this.' She took a good look at the furniture and the boxes, rolled up her sleeves, pointed at the big book cases and said: 'Those first.' The moving friends stirred. Hope glistened in their eyes. The book cases were lifted into the van. Friend M. stood in the back of the van like a general eyeing the battlefield. The moving troops dragged and lifted according to her precise instructions. She had them turn and shift furniture until every piece fit and for every hole an crack found a box or board to fill it. She didn't leave a single centimeter unused. And that is how the army of Impa's things was beaten under the command of Friend M. and the big, yellow doors of the van eventually fell shut.

I said goodbye to my friends at the old home in the old town. I started the motor of the big yellow van. The diesel engine roared and I rolled down the window. Friend A. stuck his head inside and said: 'I only realise just now. Just a few more minutes and you won't be living in Utrecht any more.' I nodded and swallowed. My sweetheart was sitting next to me in the van and put on a CD. I started to drive. The friends of the moving team started walking along with the driving van. They waved. I can't be absolutely sure, but I'd swear they were walking in slow motion. 

I drove to the end of the street.

I rounded the corner. 

I went.

Impa and her stuff

The cupboards opened and an army of things came rolling out. It spread across the floor, in between my legs and around my feet and filed up in rows of a hundred. If you saw the things standing there, legs wide apart, immovable, you would've never believed they'd actually come out of the cupboards and drawers of my small flat. That once the cupboard doors had been able  to close; door handles down; keys turned in their locks. The things looked determined. I'd never be able to get them back behind closed doors, that much was clear.

If you're good at putting things away, you can afford to live in a small place. Not a centimetre of the shelves and drawers of my small one-room flat had remained unused and I'd made use of the shed with man-sized piles of things with deviating shapes precariously balancing on top of each other. I pulled my bicycle from in between the piles every day without them collapsing. 

Before my stuff had come out of my cupboards in files, I'd already subjected them to a strict selection that was to put an end to the worst excess. For every item, I asked The Three Questions 'Do I use it?', 'Do I think it's beautiful?' and 'Does it have sentimental value?'. Anything not living up to any of those three criteria got sent to friends, the charity shop or the tip, without mercy. The trip to that last one was a joint attempt with  Friend M. who helped me load up the small red car as full as possible without it collapsing on its small black tyres. 

And the rest?

The rest of the stuff got to come with me and on the day of the move was put outside by the team of friends that helped me move house. There it stood, spread out along the wall of the hallway and out the door of the building onto the street where the big yellow moving van was parked. We looked at the things and we looked at the van. We looked at the things again. Someone raised an eyebrow. Someone else shook his head, almost imperceptibly. Someone else sat down to have a sigaret and a cup of coffee first and I saw someone pull his moustache and spit on the pavement. We slowly got the feeling something might not be right with how the dimensions of the bus compared to those of the things. Or rather - no one dared say it out loud but let's be fair - that the things just might not fit in the van.

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