Where to start….
Let’s just say, I have not been having a great time at work
the last few weeks. More on that another time. But as I was going home on the
train, after vigorously apping with my kid sister about her garden plans for
this new year (NO ZUCCHINIS!!), I leaned back in the train and let music wash
over me. It is funny how I have about 800 songs on my phone for years now, that
will never get removed, while around that I have a shell of exchangeable music,
and still, with all the listening I do, my phone can surprise me. Sometimes is
the order of the songs, sometimes I hear a song that I forgot I had and other
times the same song will come on every time I switch it on. I had been crying
before that morning and this time the music just sawed me off at the knees.
As I was sitting there, trying not to scare my fellow
passengers with my blubbering sobs, a song came by that has special meaning for me. It entails a
project, that I have on the shelf for over 4 years now. The first year my
sister and I were in Holland, we made a video clip for my mom for her birthday:
Akkerburbee to Mam. (Years
and years of living in the Emma household made it possible for us to meet up,
rewrite a song, tape it in one go, and then film around it in one afternoon,
but excuse my uncomfortable singin’). Even now, years later, when I am walking
though the supermarket, I would hear the faint melody of the original song and
feel happysad. Boy, I just rewatched the clip and the voice you hear the
loudest at the beginning is of my aunt Enid, so the tears just kept on coming
this time…..
Soon after this clip, things started to happen, that our
family was not well equipped to deal with at the time. There were months of
awful hurt, not speaking, tears and then suddenly...a death in the family. My father lost a
brother and not long after my mom lost a sister. Feeling helpless on this side
of the world I turned to what comforts me: music. I wanted to make another
clip, but this time involving more people, friends and loved ones here. I
contacted a wonderful Antillean singer, Izaline Calister, to ask for her
permission to use her song. And she sent me the sheet music as well. So I
bought a guitar on marktplaats and started to teach myself. I asked some help
from people who actually know how to play and told my husband to start practicing
on his blues harp. I started to contact others to make short clips to edit into
the clip.
To sum it all up, none of that worked out. It got shelved
and became a task, rather than a token of love for me. But it never left my
head. Every time I would hear the song, I would regret not having done it. So yesterday, when the song came by, I decided that I would do this. Maybe not the
elaborate version, but beautiful none the less.
We have had so much beautiful moments in the last years,
this is just to remind us of all the good things we have had and still do!
Thank you Izaline, for your beautiful song, it has helped me through many tough times.
And thank you Looup, without whom, I probably would have mastered the guitar by now....
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