Tag: The Interrupters

Seaside musings, a coastal diary series. (Part THREE โ€“ Scene SIX)

SIX | Strength through Music.

PART THREE- SCENE SIX
Monday, September 25th, 2023

FADE IN:
EXT. SEASIDE BUNKER IN THE DUNES, NIEUWPOORT BELGIUM – EVENING

My trip into the Flanders Fields left me feeling dejected. Even though it had been a nice day out, both in a trip and weather sense, I felt the weight of death on my shoulders. The deaths of all those soldiers, fighting a war others waged for them. Seeing those graves in Steenkerke with all those young boysโ€™ names and the memorial in Ramskapelle got me in a gloomy mood. And of course, closer to home and heart, all the memories of my dad dredged up by those two places left me feeling disconsolate.ย 

While catching my breath on the terrace, I see this beautiful rainbow in the sky. Aside from the music, the number three and feathers, thereโ€™d been a lot of synchronicitous rainbows this year too.

I take it as a sign for me to venture out again, clearing my head of the contemplative cobwebs. Another sunset stroll on the beach it is. This time I walk away from Nieuwpoort beach, in the direction of the Ter Yde Dunes nature reserve in Oostduinkerke. 

It starts off as another magical walk, reminiscing on the beautiful musical rainbows. I have yet to regale you with the tale of meeting the beautiful ultra-purple person that is Joey Henry, whom I met somewhere at the start of August. I havenโ€™t had the time to find the right words to describe the two nights I spent with him and his music. They will roll out in due time.

Letโ€™s just say that aside from being an immensely talented musician, heโ€™s also a phenomenal photographer. I snagged one of his prints, Kansas rainbow included, at the first of his shows I saw at Den Oude Ketel. (Yes, the very same spot where I saw that other impossible rainbow months earlier, after that magical James Hunnicutt set.)

Kansas Rainbow print by Joey Henry

All this to say, I had rainbows, music and photography on my mind. So I channel my inner puddle & cloud photographer as I set off along the empty shoreline, singing loudly.

I see the bunker and walk back up the beach and climb to the crest of the dunes. I sit and rest, taking in the amazing sight of the sunset from my vantage point. 

I decide to walk back before I lose the light completely. I put in my earbuds and start my playlist at random when of course, none other than โ€˜In the Mirrorโ€™ by The Interrupters starts playing. The song that started off this series, and the one I was singing just moments earlier.

I wander further along the waves, howling along to Raised by Wolves. This is so cathartic I decide to delve deeper into the melancholy.

James Hunnicutt live at The Black Flamingo (With Fritz and the Reverend from Whiskey Dick)

I start off with โ€˜Donโ€™t let teardrops fill your eyesโ€™ by James Hunnicutt and of course, teardrops start filling my eyes, like this song invariably seems to do.ย I send him a text scolding him for this awfully amazing song and thanking him profoundly for what it keeps doing to me. ๐Ÿ’œ๐Ÿ’œ๐Ÿ’œ

It leads me to the playlist we played at my dadโ€™s funeral starting with โ€˜De Grote Voyageโ€™ by Willem Vermandere, whose house I just sat in front of earlier that day.

Iโ€™m sobbing and laughing, feeling everything all at once. A beautiful mess of BIG emotions. I scream the lyrics into the void of the sea. I walk on with โ€˜Weโ€™ll meet againโ€™ by Johnny Cash in my ears. It feels like my father is looking on and saying to me, though Johnnyโ€™s baritone timbre:

“Keep smiling through
Just like you always do
‘Til the blue skies chase those dark clouds far away”

We’ll Meet Again – Johnny Cash

So I walk on. With a smile on my face. Deciding to go for some fries at a snackbar with a cute dog in their logo.The nice purple people saw I was taking a pic and invited the critter himself over.

The dog is named Gaspard, and he reminded me (in more ways than one) of Gaspode from Discworld, only one of my favourite characters in the series. I mean. Talk about everything being connected. (In MY mind at least. Itโ€™s a special place inside my skull, I like it here, even though it is always just a little on fire.)

He starts cuddling up to me and I am sobbing while smiling again. One of the last conversations I remember having with my dad, is about cuddling up to a dog and the horse Iyota from hippo-therapy and telling him how happy it had made me. And him reponding thoughtfully ‘They know, you know, they sense it’ even though I never truly told him how dark the thoughts beforehand had been. I love you, Gaspard people and especially you my little doggo friend! (Great fries too!)

After another doggie selfie, this time with the Nieuwpoort Saint-Bernard, who fills me with SO MANY youthful family memories again, it is time to go back home.

I fall asleep like a log and wake up in the middle of the night. I go onto the balcony for another breath of fresh air and drink in the silence. And just as I think to myself โ€˜All is quiet on the Western Frontโ€™, I see a fisher boat with a huge flock of LOUD seagulls in tow.

I see you dad, I hear you. Good night.ย 

PS: The title of this blog refers to yet another song. About death. Suprise. It didn’t fit in with the rest of the sentiment of this post so I added it here, as an aside. I’d say ‘enjoy’, but it is definitely not that type of song. It is pretty damn haunting.

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Seaside musings, a coastal diary series. (Part ONE – Scene ONE)

Julie geniet al schrijvend van de schommelende strandstoel en de muziek

ONE | Wherein I am no longer my own worst enemy.

PART ONE – SCENE ONE
Saturday, September 23rd, 2023

FADE IN:
EXT. BEACH BAR, NIEUWPOORT BELGIUM – DAY

I am sitting at a beach bar in Nieuwpoort, the day after another one of my favourite nights and shows of the year. I have several, they keep on accumulating. Youโ€™d think that at some point I wouldnโ€™t be yelling โ€˜THIS WAS THE BEST GIG OF THE YEARโ€™, but here we are. 

I was on the way to the butcher for a delicious meaty treat for myself (I know, I am an awful animal lover!) and wanted to walk with the North Sea in full view. I followed my gut away from the busy looking bit of the dike of Nieuwpoort beach. Seeing the squirming of all the sunny Saturday tourists made me stop in my tracks, think to myself โ€˜NOPE, not todayโ€™ and swiftly turn the other way. The reward for trusting my gut feeling was nearly instant. After noping out of the first bar (WAY too loud and hip for my taste) I settled on the second beach bar in sight. Swing chairs with a dune and ocean view? Yes, please! I settled in, put my headphones on and fired up the Spotify playlist I started with my good friend Jo.ย 

How synchronicitous that this song should come on while writing this. The lyrics are etched into my soul.

Took me two years to write this song, I wanted it perfect, no wrinkles in it.
Took me a long time to come clean, To be honest, the truthโ€™s so ugly.

No matter how far I run, I always end up back here.
No matter how far I go, I always end up back here.
In the mirror, in the mirror, in the mirror, only in the mirror.

I always felt so out of placะต, In a crowded room, I speak too soon
Yeah I put a big smilะต on my face, I canโ€™t let them know itโ€™s all for show, No

Iโ€™m tired of running, Iโ€™m tired of running, Iโ€™m tired of running, Iโ€™m tired of running, Iโ€™m tired of running, Iโ€™m tired of running, Iโ€™m tired of RUNNING

The Interrupters – In the Mirror

I saw The Interrupters earlier this year (in the chaotic gig-filled month of June I am still scrambling to write fully about.) and broke my voice while singing along to this song. It was yet another cathartic experience in this insanely amazing year of music, that keeps piling those moments on top of each other. But I digress.

As I sit lie here, contentedly swinging in my beach chair while writing, a gentle sea breeze blows through my hair. I realise I am no longer my own worst enemy. In fact, I am thoroughly enjoying my own company. No outside stressors or responsibilities. Just me myself and I, tuning the world out by way of The Best Playlist in the World. The salty sea air in my nose, my notebook at hand and barely any humans in sight. All I see is sandy dunes, a lot of sunshine with a few clouds, the beautiful North Sea and some kites floating merrily in the wind.

The dunes and clouds of Nieuwpoort Bad

It all emphasises how sorely I needed this getaway after nearly three years of constant stress, darkness & self-doubt. Iโ€™ve resurfaced after one of the worst periods in my life in general. First there was the burnout and subsequent depression that I could not seem to crawl out of. Followed by a stupid incident in which I broke my foot and the slow healing process over the gruellingly boring summer of 2021. Then a string of injuries and illness in the family, resulting in the caring for (and about) both my mother and father. (Which left the summer of 2022 without music as well, aside from Punk in Drublic.)

Then came the death of my father around this time last year, and another tumble down that jet black abyss followed. The music and Purple People saved me from that one. As I was slowly crawling out of that hole, I ended a 17 year long relationship and started a nine month long, intense group therapy process which I am now halfway through. I might not have been working, but my mind never seemed to get a moment’s rest either way. 

How the fuck did I ever expect to get myself out of a burnout that had been in the works for YEARS, while still burning the candle at both ends? It was delusional to think I could have done it alone. Nevertheless, I am sure that this sequence of events was not without meaning in and of itself. I am sure to my core I needed to pass through all of that to end up here. Both figuratively and literally speaking. I needed to end up here, at this exact moment in time, in this particular place in space. I will look back on this and see what a huge step it will have been in my healing process. I am beyond sure of that. 

Over the last couple of years I had been having these weird anxiety filled stress dreams, about being near the sea and not finding my way to the beach. I have been YEARNING to put my feet in the ocean and feel the wind in my hair since before the lockdown of 2020. I have finally arrived and made it to my own private beachfront holiday.

I am bathing myself in profoundly precious memories in the coastal town where my grandparents bought an apartment the year I was born. I spent every summer of my childhood here with my family. I am treasuring those echoes of the past, of my inner child deep within. Itโ€™s in the smells of the sand & sea, of the gasoline in the parking garage below the apartment. Itโ€™s in the view of the beautifully repainted waterfront property with the words Inchโ€™ Allah embedded in the stone. It always links back to the music, in this case the song by Adamo, an artist I dearly love courtesy of my mother and grandmother.

Being here on this second day of Autumn, enjoying probably one of the last Indian summer days of the year, feels positively magical. I spent a chaotic but intensely rewarding day yesterday getting over a LOT of fears, both real and imaginary. (Fear of heights and roller coasters, group dynamics, traffic and bad weather combined with very tight schedules and timelines. A right mess for a neurodivergent person such as myself.) It morphed into one of the best days and nights of 2023. (And that is saying something!) I was surrounded by good friends and like minded souls in the midst of the all encompassing piece of life that is The Music.

I feel like I am finally discovering myself as an actual person. And most importantly, I like that face staring back at me in the mirror, for the first time in maybe EVER.

'The most beautiful thing you can become is yourself' - picture of Julie taken (in the mirror) at Trefpunt Ghent
‘The most beautiful thing you can become is yourself’ – taken (in the mirror) at Trefpunt Ghent

That all of this should happen NOW and HERE is nothing less than prophetic. It is fate. It is destiny. It is another bit of proof I am walking the right road. MY road. The road I was meant for from the start. Iโ€™ve been walking it all along, but I just now passed the bit in between where there were no lights, signage or roadmarks. It feels good to be on the other side. To be able to breathe and let go of the anxieties that have been stuck to me for all these years. I see a light at the end of the tunnel and I am walking towards it. Smiling to myself. Following where the music takes me next.

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