41. Unquiet mind. Writer with a deeply rooted love for music. Likes reading in the bathtub. Heartbreaker. Perfectly imperfect mother of 3 teenagers. Published 8 books.
I came across this poem per chance today. It was written almost 10 years ago. I noticed that my writing is a lot more contained, restraint even than it was all those years ago. Maybe it is age, maybe it is circumstances. I don’t think I will analyse it deeply. And yet… It is an unusually strong poem for that time. In French and English, something that was unique and never reproduced.
Here it is, Broken Promises:
J’ai fait une promesse (I made a promise) And I broke it Ton coeur fragile (your fragile heart) I couldn’t keep it together.
J’ai fait une promesse (I made a promise) But I never stood a chance Ton dernier sourire (your last smile) Forever in my soul.
J’ai fait une promesse (I made a promise) I wasn’t there Tes yeux pâles (your pale eyes) Haunting my dreams.
J’ai fait une promesse (I made a promise) Bitter tears of goodbye Ton âme disparu (your soul disappeared) Forever alone.
This is one of those thoughts that shows up and then refuses to leave.
Ayron Jones sounds the way Michael Jackson might have sounded if he had made rock songs. Not pop with a rock edge. Real rock. Loud guitars. No shine.
Ayron Jones isn’t very well known, which is strange, because he should be. He’s from Seattle. He grew up around blues and rock, and you can hear that straight away. His voice isn’t smooth or careful. It sounds lived in.
What keeps pulling me in is how he uses his voice. It sits high and it moves a lot. He slides between notes instead of landing cleanly on them. Sometimes it sounds fragile, sometimes sharp. Often both at the same time. It never feels planned. And then there’s the way some words come out. Almost spat. Pushed forward. Said with anger or frustration.
That’s where the Michael Jackson comparison really clicks for me. MJ did that too, especially in Give In to Me. Words tightened in his mouth. Consonants sharpened. The voice wasn’t trying to sound pretty. It sounded like something had to get out. With Slash on guitar, that tension is right there on the surface. Ayron Jones does the same thing in his own way. Different music, same instinct. The feeling hits first. The voice follows.
If Michael Jackson had grown up with blues records and loud guitars instead of Motown rules and pop polish, I can imagine his voice ending up somewhere close to this.
I’m going to share Take Me Away. Listen to it next to Give In to Me. It’s not the same sound. But that moment where the words are almost thrown out in anger? That’s where they meet.
And once you hear it, you don’t really unhear it. Or at least I couldn’t. This is the way I listen to music. I don’t know. Maybe you can hear it too.
Today marks the anniversary of Otis Redding’s death. He was only twenty-six. He didn’t even make it to the so-called Club 27, the age we’ve come to associate with musicians who die young. That number never really sits right with me. Because his voice doesn’t sound young. It sounds lived-in. Worn. Like someone who already knew too much about love, longing, devotion, and loss.
I don’t remember the exact moment I first heard Otis. I think it was after Etta James. I adore her. And once you fall for a voice like that, you start listening differently. You start searching without quite knowing you’re searching. And then Otis appears. And that’s it. You don’t really go back.
A lot of people don’t know this, but Respect was his song first. His version isn’t an anthem. It’s quieter, almost vulnerable. A man asking to be seen, asking for something simple. When Aretha Franklin took it, she turned it into power. I love that both versions exist. They speak to each other.
His first and only number one hit came after he was already gone. (Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay. He recorded it just days before the plane crash. You can hear something shifting in it. More space. Less urgency. That unfinished whistling at the end, because the lyrics weren’t done yet. It sounds like someone pausing, looking out, already half elsewhere.
And then there are the songs that stay with you because they hurt in the right way.
These Arms of Mine. Try a Little Tenderness. I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now). Pain in My Heart. I’ve Got Dreams to Remember. My Girl.
That voice. The grain. The ache. It gives me actual frisson.
People are often surprised when I talk about Otis. Because when I talk about music, it’s usually prog rock or prog metal. Long songs. Complex structures. Dark atmospheres. Music that builds slowly and then overwhelms you. That’s what people expect from me. But this is just as much me. The soul, the passion.
Last August, we were on holiday in the Netherlands. I walked into a record shop, which I rarely do. I know myself too well. I see too many albums I want and don’t need. And on family holidays, I don’t like spending money on myself. But they insisted. The teenagers. My husband. So I went in. Focused. Almost stern. Looking for something and nothing. And everything too.
The first record was obvious: Jeff Buckley – Grace. A classic. A given. If I had found Tim Buckley, I would have taken that too.
Then I saw Otis. No hesitation. No doubt. Just this quiet certainty: I have to have this. This belongs with me.
I added Dire Straits – Love Over Gold and stopped there. I could have found many more. But this had to do.
Once we were home, Otis went on the turntable. Loud. The way his music deserves to be played. There’s pain in his voice, but there’s also warmth. Humanity. Nothing clever for the sake of being clever. Nothing hidden. Just truth.
He was only twenty-six. And he left behind music that still feels painfully alive.
If you don’t know where to start, start anywhere. Put on Dock of the Bay. Then I’ve Been Loving You Too Long. Let it build. Let it take its time.
I am not even sure if this memory is entirely accurate, but it is the one that stayed with me. I was watching German daytime TV sometime in 2012, half-distracted, not looking for anything in particular. Then an episode of Brothers and Sisters came on. I stayed on it at first because I recognised Sally Field. I had always liked her. And Balthazar Getty was in the scene too. Familiar names. Familiar faces. So I kept watching.
Only later did I learn that German television had not even aired the full show. Apparently only a couple of seasons made it onto daytime programming. What I saw that day was just a fragment, a small section of a larger story. Yet somehow that incomplete broadcast was enough to pull me in. By the end of the episode I was curious in a way I rarely am. I wanted more. I ordered the entire box set before I even understood why.
Something about the tone of the show lingered. And something about the way Matthew Rhys played Kevin Walker caught me by surprise. Sharp. Funny. Open. A little lost. A little too honest for his own good. He made me pay attention without trying. That is where the real shift began.
Back then IMDb still had discussion boards. It feels ancient now, like early internet archaeology. Tangled threads. Strange usernames. People gathering in messy little corners to talk about characters they cared about. In one of those corners someone had posted a link to a Kevin and Scotty fanfiction. I clicked it without expecting anything. I read it. And something inside me reacted, softly but unmistakably.
I realised that people were expanding stories that spoke to them. They were writing into emotional gaps. They were giving characters more space than television ever could. I had never seen anything like it so up close. And somehow, almost without intention, I slipped into that community. I commented. I read. I showed up. They welcomed me as if I had always been part of the group.
I read everything the writers there created. Every missing scene. Every imagined moment. Every alternative storyline. Their talent humbled me. It also inspired me. One night I had an idea for a story and wrote a short summary. I posted it, hoping someone else would turn it into something real. I was too unsure of myself to even imagine writing it.
The community had other plans. They told me to do it myself. If the idea had come to me, then I should be the one to develop it.
So I wrote it. Clumsily. Hesitantly. Nothing great. But it existed. That was the important part. That was the real beginning. Once I wrote the first piece, something inside me opened. The early 2010s were full of creative energy and I was suddenly part of it. LiveJournal became my home for a while, a place where writing was natural and constant and shared without fear.
Later I moved to Wattpad and shifted to original stories. I built new friendships there. One of them became my best friend. There were dramas of course because online communities are never simple. But there was also belonging. Meaningful conversations. Encouragement. When my best friend died in 2015 something in that world dimmed. I no longer felt the same connection to the platform. I slowly drifted away from it. Eventually the blog became my only creative home. Quiet. Steady. Entirely mine. A place without noise or performance. A place where I could write because writing was part of my daily rhythm, not because anyone expected it.
Sometimes I hesitate to admit that I started with fanfiction. There is still a strange stigma attached to it. People assume it is not real writing. They are wrong. Some of the most powerful, emotional, well-crafted pieces I have ever read came from anonymous writers in those communities. That is where I learned voice, rhythm, confidence and the ability to write for the sake of creation itself.
And the truth is simple. My writing life began with one random episode on German TV. I stayed because of Sally Field and Balthazar Getty. I kept watching because something in the show hooked me. I ordered the box set because Matthew Rhys’s Kevin Walker felt too real to ignore. I found a community because I clicked on a single link in an old IMDb forum. I wrote my first story because kind strangers told me I could. Everything since then grew from that quiet, accidental moment in 2012.
Bittersweet. Unexpected. Entirely mine. And thanks to Matthew Rhys.
I came across your blog today. It’s frozen in time. Your last post was published Nov. 27th 2020. A few short weeks later you left us forever. I clicked the link because I longed for your voice. It was always like a warm hug, even when you were terminally ill. There was humour and sarcasm and not everyone got it. Some people are easily offended. You always knew that I wasn’t one of them. That’s why I got to read your mature pieces too.
You were my mentor. I don’t easily attribute that role to anyone, but for you it was true. When I was ready to disappear and give everything up in 2018, you hunted me down and found me on FB. You convinced me to keep writing, to persevere. You helped me find my voice and be okay with sitting in my niche. I don’t write modern poetry, never did. I write from the soul and you understood that before I did. I remember how I tried to fight it and to tell you that I was just another young bored housewife, but you didn’t allow me to celebrate my pity party. You stood up for me, for my voice when I couldn’t. I could never forget that and I will be grateful. Always and forever.
I’d like to believe that you are proud of me, of my writing, but also of the woman I became. You once said you love every inch of me. It was not meant to be suggestive, not really. What you meant was that you liked my mind, my way of thinking, even when I was overthinking. And I loved you back just as much.
I came across your blog today because I wanted to see how many are inactive. Too many to count. I unsubscribed from them all. But I cannot and will not unsubscribe from yours. I was wrapped in a blacket of grief that was completely unexpected. I think about you often, always with a smile. The smile is there now too, but so is the hole you left that will never be filled. No one was and no one will ever be like you Robert. Next week you will be gone for 5 years.
Sometimes I hear people speak about my job as if it were something easy. As if my days were made of coffee, crafts and a bit of chatting with colleagues. As if anyone could walk into a room full of small children and simply manage. As if what we do grows on trees.
I smile at these comments, not because they are true but because they reveal how little people see. They have never stepped into my world for longer than a school visit. They do not feel the weight of twenty tiny emotions shifting in the same room. They do not notice how much of ourselves we give. They do not understand that early childhood education is not babysitting. It is the beginning of everything.
I work with children in the years that shape them most. Years where language grows and emotions take form. Years where confidence is built or broken. Years where a child learns what safety feels like. Years where small hands learn to trust their own strength. We accompany future doctors and future artists. Future mechanics and future judges. We are the ground they stand on before they even know what standing means.
And still, we are often treated as if we chose something small. Something anyone could do. The old line that every Hausfrau could be an Educator still shows up from time to time. I smile at it because the people who say this would not last two hours in my group. It is easy to underestimate what you do not understand.
I am an educator, a pre-school teacher. But I am also a nurse, a referee, a psychologist and an observer. I am a storyteller and a translator of emotions. I am a coach for small bodies and a guide for growing minds. I am a mediator when conflicts appear out of nothing. I am a safe place when the world feels too loud. I am a detective who notices the details others miss. I am a gardener who tends to patience and curiosity. I am a builder of trust, a calmer of storms and a quiet anchor when a child is overwhelmed. I am a mirror that helps them recognise themselves. I am structure and softness in the same breath.
And with the parents I become something else again. I am a partner in their child’s growth. I am a source of reassurance on difficult mornings. I am the one who explains what their child cannot yet put into words. I am someone they confide in, sometimes more than they planned. I am the calm voice when their own worry rises. I am the bridge between home and school, between how a child feels and how a child behaves. I am a witness to their child’s milestones and their struggles and I carry both with care. I understand that parents are learning too.
And the day is never done when the children go home. There is planning and preparing. There is organising the next week. There is evaluating what worked and what did not. There is supporting trainees, guiding them, holding space for their questions and insecurities. There is paperwork, meetings, messages from parents and colleagues. There is the constant mental list of what needs to happen tomorrow. My job does not end at the door. I am available at all hours, every day of the year.
Yes, I have a lot of vacation, but I need it to recover. My mind needs time to empty itself. My body needs to heal from the daily parade of germs and exhaustion. And sometimes, like last week, the body shuts down earlier. There are days where I am spat on, coughed on, covered in snot and other bodily fluids before it is even ten in the morning. There are days where I give more than I have. There are days where my strength runs thin. But I still show up. I show up because it matters. Because these years matter. Because children deserve adults who see them and hear them and hold space for them.
I love my job. I am passionate about it. And while I wrote this, I realised something simple and unshakeable. I cannot imagine doing anything else. I would not survive a world filled with numbers and spreadsheets. My mind does not work that way and it never has. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Mine were meant for children, for presence, for patience, for the quiet, steady work of guiding small humans through their first years in the world. This is where I belong.
Kleeschensdag arrives quietly every year, long before the rush of Christmas. People who don’t know the tradition often think it’s another version of Santa Claus, but it isn’t. St. Nicholas has nothing to do with Santa. He is older, gentler, more rooted in our history. He was a real bishop, the patron of children, which is why he wears a mitre and carries a staff. He doesn’t fly across the sky or land on rooftops. He comes with a donkey that helps him carry his gifts, and he is rarely alone. In Luxembourg, Houseker walks beside him… the darker figure from old stories, the strict counterweight in the tale.
Santa Claus may be larger and louder, but St. Nic holds his own soft corner of early December. For children, that difference is everything.
Kleeschensdag is the night of plates laid out on the table. It is songs sung together… the ones they learned at school and the ones we remember from when we were small. It is the quiet belief that someone kind might visit in the night and leave a small surprise.
And this is exactly why the tradition matters. Not because we want to lie, but because we want to protect a little wonder for as long as it naturally lasts. Children find the truth slowly, gently. And when they do, the story doesn’t die. It simply becomes theirs in a new way.
In my house, St. Nic still comes every year. My children are 15, 17, and 20. They know the truth, of course. But the magic is still there when they walk into the living room on the morning of the 6th and find their plate of sweets waiting. We still put our plates out the night before, each in its place. We still sing… usually. Tonight was the first time in over fifteen years that we didn’t. And it reminded me how quietly moments end. How a tradition can happen for the last time without us noticing. (In some households boots or shoes are polished and put next to the doors and filled with sweets – it depends where you are from, I guess.)
Last year, my youngest daughter looked at me and asked how we do it. How we manage to fill the plates without them hearing or seeing anything. I simply said, “It’s not us. It’s St. Nic.” She knew I was teasing… but she also didn’t know the real answer. And that, too, is a kind of magic. That even at this age, we can still surprise them. That they still wonder how we do it. Maybe this is what Kleeschensdag really teaches us.
To keep these small rituals alive while we can. To let belief stay as long as it wants to. And to hold on to the warmth we create together, even as the years keep moving us forward.
Everything happens for a first and a last time.
*sigh* I wonder if I was a good girl this year and St.Nic will come and fill my plate tonight. I will have to sleep early and see for myself in the morning.
(Image generated by AI. St.Nic and Santa. They could be cousins)
Well that’s that… I guess the music year is wrapped. There are some surprises for me. I use stats and that looks slightly different. Not by much, but enough for me to notice. That said, I spent my year in music with lots of physical media. Back to basics? Yes. A little bit. So while wrapped is a fun thing that we will see for a few days around now, it’s not necessarily representative nor painting the music picture as a whole.
artist (the biggest difference)album 3/5songs, only one similarity as for genres, those are subject to interpretation anyway…
Personally, I am a bit silent. Literally. I lost my voice. There is just silence and it is actually quite funny for the kids and for Patrick too. For once I am quite quiet. Nothing above a whisper. I have been quite sick for a couple of days with a fever and whatnot. I am on the mend. Hurray. Just, as I said, silent and with a sore throat. ✨
Have a great Wednesday, enjoy the music.
Oddly enough, this was the second post in a row referring to Spotify, lol
I listened to many hours of music this weekend and I enjoyed myself immensely.
I am aware, Spotify is not kind to musicians and artists. Not at all. But it is convenient. Unfortunately, yes. I am one of those people. Please enjoy the music too.
Ce silence étendu qui pèse sur les papillons dans la neige Enrobés de glaciers, menottés à des millions d’étincelles qui brûlent derrière des yeux fermés. Il est où, ce phare sauveur ? Il est où, le jour qui chatouille le soleil ? S’ils pouvaient seulement s’envoler, semer des étoiles dans des vagues de nuages. Mais le silence est une cage fermée à double clé. On n’y peut jamais échapper.
###
(Translation)
This long silence settles on the butterflies in the snow, wrapped in glaciers, handcuffed to millions of sparks burning behind closed eyes. Where is that saving lighthouse? Where is the day that tickles the sun? If only they could fly away, scattering stars into waves of clouds. But silence is a cage that no key can open. There is never a way out.
In Schichten flieg ich durch die Welt Verlassene Türen Zertrümmerte Dörfer Meine Tränen bringen keinen Frieden Könnte ich doch nur aus der Welt treten Und mit mir nehmen alles ohne Sinn Es einschliessen in mein Gefieder. Nur Illusionen bleiben heil. Ich sinke durch Stunden Schwimme durch unendliche Nacht Könnte ich mich nur in deinem Schatten wiegen Und rubinrote Straßen Rufen meinen Namen In ihren Augen ist kein Leuchten mehr Ich vergesse einen Flügelschlag Und ertrinke alles Leid unter goldenen Steinen.
###
(Translation)
In layers I drift through the world Abandoned doors Shattered villages My tears bring no peace. If only I could step out of the world And take with me everything that’s meaningless; Lock it into my feathers. Only illusions stay alive. I sink through hours, Swim through endless nights. If only I could rest inside your shadow. While ruby-red streets Call my name. There is no light left in their eyes. And I forget to breathe Before I drown all sorrows beneath golden stones.
I notice things I don’t always want to notice. Tiny things. A tone that slides a little too soft. A smile that doesn’t match the eyes. A pause that wasn’t there yesterday. I don’t look for these things. They just appear. And once they’re there, they don’t leave. I used to think this made me difficult or overly sensitive, but maybe it just means I’m awake. I’ve learned the hard way what it costs me when I ignore my own instincts.
I don’t mind quiet. I don’t mind distance. I don’t even mind secrets as long as they’re honest. What I can’t stand is the small twist in someone’s voice when they say something they don’t mean. That shift. That dishonesty. It sits in my stomach for days. I hate lies. I hate liars. Not dramatically. Just deeply. Quietly. Because it feels disrespectful. And because I can’t unknow what I’ve seen. And because I deserve more. Simple as that. I deserve more.
I don’t reveal everything about myself. Never. Only few people get to see the whole of me, and even they tend to misinterpret me. People think I share all of me all the time, but they mistake openness for honesty. They’re not the same. I play my cards close to my chest. I always have. Not to be manipulative, but because I trust slowly. Suspiciously. And sometimes I trust too quickly when I shouldn’t. There is no perfect logic to it. I read people well, but I still get surprised. And I hate surprises. They are scary. I like to think I’m emotionally intelligent. And yet I can be naive at the worst moments. Both can be true.
I protect people. Even when they don’t ask. Even when they shouldn’t need it. Sometimes I protect them from my own intensity. Sometimes from their own chaos. I used to argue everything. Now I let some things die quietly because they’re not worth the wound. I used to be impulsive and quick to react. I still am, just underneath a layer of restraint that people confuse with coldness. I think before I react and weigh my words carefully. My heart often beats too fast. My mind moves too quickly. No one sees that. They see the surface. They assume the surface is the whole story.
I am impatient. I am too strict with myself. I’m harder on myself than I admit, mostly because I know what I’m capable of doing wrong. I forgive too easily. I forget nothing. I want closeness but need space. I want connection but hate when someone reaches for me with hands that aren’t clean. I trust slowly but fully. I’m soft until I’m not. I’m suspicious even when I’m safe. I forgive things from people that I can’t reconcile in myself if I did the same. Contradictions everywhere. I stopped trying to make them fit.
And somewhere in all of that, there is a line I don’t cross: I don’t pretend. I don’t bend myself into shapes to make anyone more comfortable. Not anymore. I’m honest, but measured. I won’t use the truth to hurt unless someone pushes me into a corner. And even then, I don’t lash out. Not because I’m not passionate, but because some things happen for reasons I don’t always understand in the moment. What good does it do to argue something you don’t understand? I’d rather hold my ground quietly than fight blind. Some fights are not worth the wounds and the aftermath. And I respect people too much to hurt them on purpose. I won’t lie to make someone feel better either. There is a middle ground, not always obvious, but it is there.
If you asked me who I am to others, I wouldn’t know what to say. It depends on the day, the history, the context. People see versions of me. I see the whole thing; my whole self. And it is messy, and ugly sometimes. But it is mine.
There is one part of me that doesn’t shift with the rest, one part that holds everything together so I don’t disappear into pieces: integrity. Not the loud kind. The quiet kind. The steady thread running through all my contradictions. The part that keeps me aligned even when everything else in me pulls in different directions.
I am who I am because I was who I was. Think about it. You will understand that you are too.
The world tilts to see if I’ll slip off its ledge. I don’t. I never do.
I am outrunning my shadow, drowning it on the moon. Floating on feathers, I bend the rainbows to outgrow the grays.
I fit in your pocket with my fingertip stars. I could be taller than the crumbling mountains but choose to be sand in your pants. A strange choice, mine. And it is fine.
Dancing waves in the ocean run towards the shore. Fire and glass grow underneath my feet, and I wonder where the ghost of me has gone. Did my soul swallow it whole?
If you blink the flies away too many nights I will disappear. Whispers crawl up the raindrops of my thoughts, a spider’s net hunting them all.
I am sleeping on checkered emotions with colours sewn onto me. Checkmated. Checkmate.
reflections of an unquiet mind 