2nd
On the exact day that Mikael Jacek Miskiewicz was born, his grandfather slipped on some ice and broke his humerus. That Mikael bears a striking resemblance to his grandfather can only be attributed to some divine intervention.
An interesting start to his story, wouldn’t you say?
And so it was, on the last day of March the father of Mikael, with his last ounce of energy went out for a run after dusk. Disregarding his usual route down the Merwedekanaal next to the rowboats, he opted for the Rijnkanaal, and was rewarded with five successive cruise ships harboured for the evening. Unoccupied, but thrilling nevertheless, the idea of boarding and gently floating away.
Then the following day a text from far away was received, inquiring about Grandfather Jr. & his brother.
Which brings us to today, where the father is sitting in a sterile office, duly waiting for another fifteen minutes so another colleague can finish her meeting and we can all go for lunch together, where he’ll sweat at the discomfort of having to put on a show – the fake smile and inquiries into the private lives of his colleagues masking his real desire to read a book, learn the trumpet, but mainly read a book.
The weight of it all can best be described as paralyzing. There’s the need to nurture the young – but also the old. Only in the last year, there have been four hospital visits from perhaps the three most important people in his life. Two times, his mother, one time his father and one time his aunt. The suffocating decisions and weight of expectations, led him to sign another one year contract of misery.
He’ll seek refuge in literature and at the moment is deliberating his next read. There are three options on the table. The first, Revolusi – an extensive look at the colonization of Indonesia, which appears to be a cousin of The Power Broker in terms of scope, detail and mastery of research. Secondly, on the podcast that was listened to on his commute to the depths of hell, Karl Ove Knausgaurd made a case for Delillo’s The Names. Intriguing because it takes place in Athens, a place where the father spent a few chaotic days in the previous decade. Lastly, a Roth, which for him, is always a given.
His kids are alright. The mom has no mastitis in sight and Ka is fattening up amply. Lo spends most of his time with the father and he seems quite alright with it. He can’t stop talking. On the weekend, while the two were cycling to the city, he pulled out a Raboreader, his makeshift cell phone and started having a conversation with someone. There is joy in this. Almost enough to counteract the fear of the elderly’s demise.
13th
Harking back to ‘22, at the Central Library following a group run of 10 km. Either the previous user had a bucket of finger lickin KFC, or they haven’t been cleaned since I last used them several years ago. Like then, there is some time pressure to write. Like then, I am tired beyond words, there have been several instances this past week when I thought I couldn’t do it anymore.
There’s a one armed man traversing the Polish countryside. He speaks little and thinks a lot. I had wanted to visit him for a few days to offer support, in the end I lost the argument and had to stay.
Apparently, the last physical bookstore in my parents hometown of Oakville closed shop. There are no more bookstores. You asked me a lot of questions about where they live. Do you need to know more? That one fact pretty much tells you all you need to know, I think. And yes, we’ll move there. In the basement of my parents house there is a quiet corner in which I will ask my parents to start building a small shrine dedicated to the one and only Elon Musk. He sent a rocket into space and it came back! All hail, Lord Musk!
Meanwhile, a new English bookstore is set to open in Utrecht, some 200 meters from where I sit now along the Oudegracht. I did spot a slightly concerning ‘20% korting op alles boeken’ sign in one of the best secondhand bookstores in the city – the one with the asshole owner who only sells Literature. Is it simply an opruiming, or is he closing shop for good?
That’s all I’ve got. Life is hard. It will become harder. Sometimes I have crazy thought like thinking literature might save me.
21st
Across the hall there are two grandmothers working frivolously on domestic duties. The vacuum hums, a pot of something is on the boil, the washing machine churns, the toddler is being entertained, the newborn changed. I’ve sought refuge in my neighbours flat, who kindly offered it as a sanctuary while our flat is full, in exchange for watering her plants. The silence and peace here are heavenly. I wasn’t going to write – but the conditions are such that I must, even if it is only for a few minutes, even if it only serves as a procrastination to the real reason I came here today – to begin uploading all the application forms to the Canadian Immigration authorities. It’s raining. It feels like the first day that I could write that in several weeks. I’m a fan of the rain – at least today, when I don’t have to entertain the little one. Now, I don’t have any basis whatsoever to make this claim, but I’ll make it anyway. A rainy day in the Netherlands is the optimal place for writing. OK, I’ve looked at this for a moment, and want to change it to a rainy day in any part of the ‘Old World’ is the optimal place to write. I guess I’m envisioning a year or two down the road, when I’m in a suburb with whitewashed walls, looking out into empty streets, aside from the odd minivan or two, and feeling an immense pressure to look at the performance of the stock market. To write there is simply a felony. Nevertheless, on to Form number IMM5334 ‘Relationship Information and Sponsorship Evaluation Form’. Tomorrow we’ll be down two grandma’s to one, and then in a month, one to zero. It’s all quite damning, isn’t it. A month from now, a year from now. Enjoy now. OK.
25th
The immigration paper work is nearly done, the fees are paid, yet (today at least) for the most part I still want to continue the European dream. Which one is that? Egalitarian. Normal citizens doing normal things. The idea of enjoying life, now, and not worrying about if my investments in the unknown future will pay off so I can eat and receive proper medical care when I’m older. The idea that my children will receive a proper education instead of being a name and number in an institution that charges hundreds of thousands, for the sake of the economy and the increasingly tiny few who benefit from it. I want to see more of Europe. I want to taste all of the culture. I don’t want to take a flight from Toronto to Vancouver so that I can dine at the same restaurant chain and watch the same sports on the TV. I want to read books in cafes. I want to read books in cafes and not look like a total douchebag because I’m reading a book and not wearing a suit and tie so that I can sell insurance. Heck, I want to smoke cigarettes with my coffee, and maybe some wine. Wine drank in moderation and for enjoyment – not to signal a social statement. I want to take long walks, not drives. I want to watch UCL championships, not UFC bloodbaths with testosterone jocks who run the USA. I want to ride my bike to the library and join the book club, instead of driving my car to the library which is a makeshift homeless shelter. Someday I want to smoke a cigar in a piazza and look back at it all. I want my kids to have fun and be themselves, and not strive to be the next Youtube social media sensation or high profile athlete. I want to hike in a semi-wilderness, ending in chalets and refugios with fellow companions. I want to take a train with people from all walks of life. I want to go to a techno party or festival when I’m fifty and not feel too old or out of place for doing so. I want to ride my bicycle.
But dreams are meant to die. So I’m finalizing the papers.
2nd
Yesterday marked my one year work anniversary. I was treated to three Microsoft Teams congratulatory messages. The day before, I got notified on Gmail that it was the one year anniversary of completing the Camino – for some reason I had set a calendar notification to remind me of it.
You know, right now, I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing: listening to jazz in a quiet room and reading and writing. That I can actually do this for a few minutes here and there throughout the week is a crime against humanity. Speaking of which, in Revolusi, there is a passage where the colonized Indonesians could participate in society – to some degree. They worked and if the economic conditions didn’t get too out of hand, managed to eat decently, have a small dwelling they could call home, and raise a family. Why complain? The colonizers had servants, grand meals, golf clubs and could do with their free time what they would like.
Am I really comparing myself to this? Well, frankly yes. I am ‘free’, I can ‘work’ but if i don’t ‘work’ then I have no food and no place to live. Do you call that freedom? Have we advanced in the least? The author uses the decks of a ship to describe the strata of society back then. It isn’t a big leap to do this either: imagining that two hundred years from now a historian will use the EXACT same analogy, except instead of using a ship, he uses an airplane. Guess where I am sitting and guess how I feel about it? The imaginary author writes:
As late as 2025, a large portion of society was disillusioned into thinking that they were free. This was the real accomplishment of the capitalist class. One need look no further than air travel to witness the enormous gap created by unfettered wealth transfer. At the front, passengers fully reclined and sipped champagne, while at the back, passengers contorted into grotesque positions to fit 10 in a row, the latrines were covered in shit at the end of the journey and for food, if any, they were given frozen hash made five years ago.
Fucking hell, I have to go stir some risotto, my fairytale few minutes are over. But I think you know what I’m getting at, more or less. FUCK THIS SHIT, is as succinct and eloquently I can put it.
June 2nd
It’s impossible.
June 10th
They let Olga go on Friday. Well, they let her go a month ago, then they intimidated her into signing a voluntary leave, a document which included a clause that she musnt’ say anything to anyone and refrain from saying anything bad about the company. Actually, the correct nomenclature is ‘targeted voluntary leave’ – they can get by with the contradiction and assault on language since most are not native speakers. How’s that for an egalitarian Netherlands. How’s that for 2025? How’s that for democracy. So she can’t tell anyone how her manager was taking bets on when she was going to get pregnant, as she was following the course of buying a house and getting married last year. October was his wager, and since getting pregnant is bad for business, they let her go. Then the coward went on holiday for month. No thank yous, no goodbyes. As a Ukrainian woman, she didn’t stand a chance. I”m not blaming Netherlands per se, but any good Dutch progressive way of life is easily trumped by the mighty dollar.
I wrote the above on the weekend, and continue some more today, on Monday, after having a Teams call where I went in guns ablazing to try to salvage some moral victory. Now, a social justice warrior I am not – I am still working for a company that extorts sweat shop child labour so that old German men can have orgies – but I did take some pride in watching my manager sweat as I lambasted his stupidity. Let’s see what the repercussions are. What I mean to say is, the blog is not dead! Let us take a hiatus. Over the past few months I have had the same discussion with my trumpet teacher and my Spanish teacher. I fully intend to be back in some capacity, I just need to get over this hump. Realistically, I’d say it’ll take until the end of the year to establish some kind of routine again. There will be an increase in workload since our management HATES WOMEN (they let go of another woman too, handicapped to boot – by virtue of being male I guess the homosexual and black man got to stay). I had carved out a small sanctuary to read, run and occasionally do other things another person who is not enslaved may do during the course of the day, now I fear that may be gone. And the battle on the domestic front was lost long, long ago. I have aged a decade since the start of the year – the lack of sleep is taking its toll on my body and I am ravaged with all sorts of pains. Truthfully, it is not sustainable, this way of life. So maybe I will burnout into oblivion, but if it doesn’t let’s return. Never too late to start the WK 2026 reading and football project. Give us one more chance. In the meantime let’s pick up the communication on whatsapp, please I beg you. I like to hear what you’re watching, reading, and doing. I’ll start.
June 25th
While in Canada during the summer of 2023, we made the daily walk to Walmart, and one day out in front they were having a BBQ to celebrate the opening of the garden center. We got free hotdogs and a can of soda pop that came out of a garbage can filled with ice cubes. It wasn’t a homage to a shamanic god, more so to the Walton family for providing us with cheap imported products, nevertheless I promise you a good time was had by all. That must be the case, because I still remember the day clearly. One in the same, the same box. Just like if you ever visited me in the suburbs, I’d take you for a twenty minute drive on Highway 403, where just next to the off-ramp you have St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic Church, where Polish-Canadian mass goers congregate to atone for their week of sinning, culminating in a fist beating thrice on heart while exclaiming ‘Moja Vina, Moja Vina, Moja Bardzo Wielka Wina’; “My fault, My fault, My Very Great Fault”. After taking the Eucharist and being absolved from our sins, with a free conscience everyone makes their way into the church basement, where perhaps my favourite memory of the last decade took place. Every week there are Polish boys and girl scouts selling Polish donuts and pastries, along with watered down filtered coffee from large vats. We sat there together, my parents and I, with custard on our cheeks while Milo ran amok with Fatima in tow. And I thought, yes, this is how it should be. To an outsider, these things are entirely meaningless, bordering on inane. But if we move back, I hope it’s a tradition that I can continue. I can’t explain it, but it means the world to me.