vacant bodies or a chronicle about my village

First of all, may I wish you all the best for 2011 where even action 11-11-11 finally will be true to its name. But I am not going to talk about this coming year. I am even not going to tell you about all the plans I might have apart from the fact that I promised myself to keep cherishing the people who have found their way into my heart. No, today, after having glimpsed at the local newspaper, I decided to talk about my village.

 I live in a mainly red village. And this not only because of the bricks the houses are built of but rather because there used to be quite some factories around here and factories, in the good old times, produced red people. And those who became a bit tired of being red, slowly but surely found their way to this other strangely colored party which is not very keen on colors other than white.

 Our mayor is not only red but also as gay as a whistle and he drives a fancy car. Years ago, at a to do in a red school I had the honor to be seated at the same table as our mayor. He threw one look at me, saw that apart from my hair there was not much red about nor around me and kept his distance. But then, upon hearing from a passerby who my belated grandmother was, I turned into an almost local celebrity and he started talking to me with a rather too keen interest. However, my celebrity status faded quickly when he heard that my own son was attending a catholic school instead of a red one.


I do not like my village. Even ‘the beautification’ of our main streets never could change my mind. The few times I had to show people around, I rather turned the visit into a joke than that I could be serious about it. The old classified railway station and the main church are to me the only points of slight interest and thus, upon these rare visits, I always found the quickest way to neighboring parks and villages where beauty could be found. O yes. And we do have a bridge or should I call it a nightmare. There were days that the bridge opened itself so many times that a singer songwriter even took the effort to write a song about that thing. A song of which we always will be reminded upon telling people where we live.

foto : eric verstraeten

 And I do not really like the people living in my village. Having lived abroad for too many years made that I never found my way back into the lives of the many friends I used to have when I had left so many years before. While the world became my roof, they had settled their bricks in their own village and never left. They got a wife, children, a house, a garden, the dog and a status. The wives became ladies and lost their youth. They could not understand that I never got rid of the child deep inside me. And I came back divorced which made me even less welcome into their homes. I did not mind. The rare times I ended up in their company they talked about places I did not know. They talked about people about whom I completely forgot. They talked about lives I could not understand. And they, however sweet they might be, did not understand the life I got used to live. A life where money had lost its importance, a life where I did not care whether people were rich or poor. A life where I learned to see the shortcomings of my own country and of the people who lived in it. Where I learned to deal with my own shortcomings in the hope to become a better person. And while over the years, the friends I used to have became more and more embedded in their own little village, I kept broadening my horizon and thus I did not only estrange even more from this red place but also from the people living in it.

Today however, while glimpsing at the local news, I saw a picture of our mayor. With a piece of art in his hands. A present for every couple marrying at the town hall. A nice gesture, I agree. But it was the name of the litho which made me decide to write another entry on my blog because it all sums it up : vacant bodies. Bodies who will turn into yet another family with children, a house, a garden, the dog and a status.

foto : Kristof Lauwers