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 Building by day, writing by heart, stories from life on Spain's sunlit Costa Blanca. |
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Welcome I'm glad you're here. My name is Seb. I'm 53 years old, born in Bergen op Zoom in the Netherlands, but these days I live and work on Spain's beautiful Costa Blanca. By day, I'm a contractor. My life revolves around renovating homes, building bathrooms and kitchens, laying tiles, rendering walls, creating terraces, and bringing worn-out places back to life. Early mornings, long days, dusty clothes, calloused hands, and often working beneath the relentless Mediterranean sun are simply part of the job. But when the tools fall silent, another part of my life begins. That's when I write. For more than thirty years I've been putting thoughts, memories, encounters, and emotions into words. Not because I always dreamed of becoming a writer, but because some stories refuse to stay quiet. They linger in my mind until they finally find their place on the page. This blog isn't a manual for life, nor is it a collection of perfect stories. It's an honest glimpse into the everyday life of a busy contractor whose greatest passion outside of work is writing. Here you'll find stories about life in Spain. About working in forty-degree heat while the Mediterranean sparkles just a few streets away. About clients, craftsmanship, mistakes, laughter, unexpected adventures, and the countless moments that make every working day unique. Some stories will hopefully make you smile. Others may invite you to pause and reflect for a while. Alongside that, I'll take you into my other world—the world of a writer. A place where ordinary moments become extraordinary stories, where mountains can quietly heal a tired soul, where a simple walk can spark an idea, and where everyday conversations often carry far more meaning than they first appear to. I write about people. About love and loss. About hope, resilience, wonder, and everything that lives in between. Many of my stories have layers beneath the surface, inviting readers to discover something different each time they return. Perhaps you'll recognize a part of yourself somewhere in these pages. Perhaps you're simply curious about life in Spain. Or maybe you just enjoy stories that stay close to real life while leaving room for imagination. Whatever brought you here, you're more than welcome. So pour yourself a cup of coffee, settle in, and join me for the journey. Between cement and sentences. Between deadlines and dreams. Between the noise of construction sites and the quiet moments where the best stories are born. Thank you for visiting. Seb |
| What a wonderful day. Up early, coffee down, and good prospects of finally making some real progress. Sometimes you don't need much more than that for a day to get off to a good start. Last night, before the eclipse, I had to make a quick trip to Murcia. My client needed tiles, and there simply weren't any available nearby. So I got into my van and drove roughly 120 kilometres there and another 120 kilometres back. Only the return journey wasn't quite as easy as the trip out. My girl — yes, my van is female — was rather heavily loaded. Normally she cruises along at 120 kilometres an hour without a problem. But with twenty packs of tiles, ten bags of adhesive, tile-cutting equipment and everything else that came along with it, the journey home became something of a joint battle between my Ford Transit Custom and the mountains of Murcia. Going uphill, my girl groaned as if she was personally trying to tell me that I was asking rather too much of her. And, to be honest, I was. Empty, meaning without any load, she already weighs 3,250 kilos. That's with my standard equipment. And by "standard", I mean pretty much everything you could possibly need to solve the first problems that might arise at a customer's home. Screws in every shape and size, hinges, pipes, tools, fittings and a whole collection of things I sometimes don't even remember carrying until suddenly I need one of them. So yes, my girl is basically a workshop on wheels. And now I had added another twenty packs of tiles and ten bags of adhesive. She made it. But she wasn't the only one groaning. So was Lex. The mountain where my client lives starts at around 300 metres above sea level, even though the house we had been working at is less than fifteen kilometres from the coast. From a distance, it doesn't look particularly impressive. Until you get closer. Then the mountain grows. The sunny side is covered with villas, almost all of them facing the same view: the Mediterranean. Small urbanisations are scattered across the slope like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, connected by roads that sometimes seem to have been designed by someone who had a personal dislike of straight lines. Turn after turn. Narrow streets. Gradients of nine, ten percent or more. And somewhere high up on the left side of the mountain, at the end of a dead-end road, is my client's house. We park the van at the bottom. And that's where the fun begins. First there's a steep driveway that takes a strange turn before climbing even higher. The van can't make it up. At the end of the driveway there's a staircase. A lot of steps. A hell of a lot of steps. With bends and little landings along the way. The staircase first takes you past the front door and then turns another four times before eventually reaching the first floor. The difference in elevation between where my van is parked and where we're working is about forty metres. And because I can occasionally be a terrible person, Lex got to empty the van. According to Lex, it was the hardest thing he had ever had to do. He was soaked in sweat, drank more water than I think I've ever seen him drink, and probably considered handing in his resignation several times along the way. But he kept going. By one o'clock, everything was upstairs. There he sat. Proud, exhausted and completely shattered in a chair. I looked at him and said, "Great. Now everything has to go back down. Wrong tiles!" He immediately went pale. I couldn't hold my laughter any longer. "Relax," I said. "Just kidding." He looked at me. Then we both laughed. And perhaps that was the best moment of the day. Not the tiles. Not the job. Not even the fact that my girl had conquered the mountain with her heavy load. It was Lex. He could have complained. He could have given up. He could have said this was ridiculous. Instead, he kept going. That tells you something about a person. I appreciated it. So I bought him lunch. While we were eating, we started talking about language. Lex was born in the Netherlands but has lived in Spain since he was one year old. Dutch was therefore his first language, but Spanish has become the language he is most comfortable expressing himself in. His Dutch has become less natural over the years, and he can't really write in Dutch at all. And somehow, I found that rather beautiful. Not because he has lost his Dutch, but because it shows how language adapts to the life you live. Language isn't a possession. It's a tool. You use the tool you need. And later that day, it brought me back to something I had read on WDC. Jim   had written about a story posted in Chinese and wondered what someone was supposed to do with it when they couldn't understand the language.I found myself thinking about it. Not so much because of the Chinese story itself, but because of the subject. Language. I speak, read and write English, French, German, Spanish and Italian. I can also get by a little in Polish and Russian. Obviously, I'm not equally strong in all of them. But I can express myself in those languages and, perhaps more importantly, I can express my emotions through them. To me, that feels quite normal. Perhaps because I'm European. As a Dutchman, I grew up with the idea that other languages were simply part of life. At school I learned English, German and French. Later, other languages came along, partly out of interest and partly because life sometimes takes you to places where you need them. And perhaps that is why I sometimes find it a little sad that so many people in English-speaking countries have never felt the need to learn another language. I don't mean that as criticism of the average American or Brit. If you're born in a country where almost the entire world is trying to speak your language, the necessity is obviously much smaller. You can travel to Spain, Italy, France or the Netherlands and chances are that eventually someone will speak English with you. For someone from the Netherlands, it's different. We're a small country. The moment we cross the border, our language stops being the most practical one. So we switch. We move from Dutch to English, German or French. Sometimes with an accent that makes you cringe when you hear yourself, but we do it anyway. Because communicating is more important than being perfect. And perhaps that is what I like most about language. You don't have to speak a language perfectly to reach someone. You simply have to be willing to build the bridge. And the world we live in today is making that bridge shorter all the time. Young people grow up with several languages. Foreign languages have become a normal part of education. Children hear English on television, on the internet, in music, games and social media. Borders have become less important, and language moves with us. Perhaps it was different once. I remember the generations of my grandparents and a large part of my parents' generation. When we travelled through Europe, it wasn't unusual to meet Germans who spoke only German, French people who spoke only French, Italians who spoke only Italian, or Spaniards who spoke only Spanish. That was simply the world they had grown up in. It isn't quite the same anymore. And I'm glad about that. Not because one language is better than another, but because every additional language is another way of understanding someone. Lex and I were sitting there that afternoon, two Dutchmen in Spain, talking about Dutch and Spanish over lunch after a morning in which we had conquered forty metres of elevation and half a mountain. He speaks Spanish better than Dutch. I speak several languages. And yet we understood each other perfectly well. Maybe that's what language is really for. Not to build walls between people who use different words. But to make sure that someone on the other side of the wall can say: "I understand you." And perhaps that's enough. Although my girl would probably disagree. She would probably say: "I understand you perfectly well, Seb. But next time, please don't load me quite so heavily." She's probably right. But I'll tell her that tomorrow. |
| And then it’s 10:48 p.m. The day is finally over for me. And what a day it has been… It started at 6:00 a.m. Wake up, get dressed, make coffee, and pick up Lex, a new guy who came to work with me today. Little did he know that on his very first day, he was going to get a small demonstration of what this job can really be like. We first took the highway toward Oliva, eventually ending up somewhere that made you wonder whether you were still in Spain or had somehow ended up in the middle of freaking nowhere. Winding roads, bumpy dirt tracks, and views so incredibly beautiful that you wanted to stop every few hundred meters just to take a picture. But that wasn’t why we were there. We were there to start renovating the bathrooms. So: hammer time. Old bathroom out. And honestly, despite the heat, things went surprisingly smoothly. We demolished, carried, cleared and cleaned until eventually everything was gone: the bathtub, the cabinets, the toilet, everything that had once been a bathroom but had now mainly become something that was in the way. And then we could finally start on the tiles. That went like a train too. Unfortunately, we couldn’t quite keep up with the train ourselves. The first few tiles on the wall had already come loose. I put my chisel between the wall and the next tile, gave it a good hit… …and suddenly it wasn’t one or two tiles coming down. No. Twelve. Twelve tiles at once. And believe me, twelve tiles do not go in the direction you hope they will. Within seconds, my right arm was cut open, my left arm was cut open, and my shins decided that today would be a good day to remind everyone that, despite my tough appearance, I am ultimately made of blood. 🤣🫣 And of course, I was wearing shorts. Which is exactly what I have always said: “Don’t do it. Never wear shorts when you’re doing demolition work. You’re just asking for trouble.” But then again… a few weeks ago I was still wearing long trousers. Now it is so hot here that those trousers are soaking wet within minutes, long before I have even properly started working. So I chose shorts. My shins have formally filed a complaint. They had been protected by long trousers for years and had apparently forgotten what the outside world looked like. Today they received a crash course in sharp tiles, splinters and the harsh reality of construction work. Fortunately, the damage wasn’t too bad. A little cleaning, a little pressure with some cloth, and carry on. Because yes… the bathroom isn’t going to renovate itself. And apparently neither am I. And then, on top of all that, today was also Cesar’s birthday. My oldest friend. Today he turned 55. And while I was wishing him a happy birthday, I suddenly realized just how many years are behind us now. How many memories. How many adventures. How many moments that, at the time, we could never have known would one day become memories we would look back on with a smile. We have been through so much together. We tried things without having any idea where they would take us, laughed far too much, experienced some truly special moments, and created memories that nobody can ever take away from us. Life has pulled us apart a little by now. He is there. We are here. And because of that, unfortunately, we see each other much less than we used to. But maybe that is actually one of the most beautiful proofs of a real friendship. When you finally see each other again after a long time, there is nothing to catch up on. No explanations. No awkward silence. No “we really need to meet up again.” You simply carry on talking. As if you spoke yesterday. And when I look at Cesar, I don’t just see my oldest friend. I see a man who has built an incredible life. A man who has walked his own path, through good times and difficult ones, and who has become more and more the person he is today. So today I didn’t just wish him a happy birthday. I also wanted him to know that I am proud of him. Proud that I can call him my friend. Proud of the man he has become. And above all, grateful for all those years in which our lives crossed and intertwined. Fifty-five. A beautiful age. But hopefully, more than anything, the beginning of a whole new collection of stories. New adventures. Dinners that last far too long. Way too much laughter. And, most importantly, those moments when we sit somewhere, look at each other, and one of us says: “Remember when…?” Because some friendships don’t get older. They simply collect more history. And as if this day hadn’t already given me enough to write about, we also had a total solar eclipse today. How incredible was that? For a few minutes, it felt as though the whole world had decided to press pause. People literally stopped. Those special glasses appeared everywhere. Phones went up. Conversations fell silent, or turned into amazed comments. You could see the moon slowly moving across the sun. At first barely noticeable. Then increasingly obvious. The light changed. The world became quieter. People looked around as if they needed a moment to reorient themselves in their own surroundings. And then came the darkness. Not the normal darkness of evening. This was different. It was as if someone, somewhere above us, had slowly turned down a dimmer switch. Cars switched on their headlights. Terrace lights came on. The whole world suddenly had a different colour. And perhaps the most remarkable thing was that everyone was doing the same thing. Everyone was looking up. Everyone was looking at the same thing. For a few minutes, everyone was part of the same little moment of wonder. And then, almost as quickly as it had arrived, the darkness disappeared again. The light returned. The sun began to shine again. And life continued. As if nothing had happened. But something had happened. Because how often in your life do you get the chance to literally watch the world become dark in the middle of the day? It felt strange to me. In a beautiful way. As if some god, some force of nature, or perhaps simply the universe itself had reached for the dimmer switch and said: Pay attention. Maybe that is what nature sometimes does. It doesn’t explain. It simply shows you. And then, just as I was driving home, a song came on that somehow seemed to sum up the entire day. “Everybody’s Free.” I already knew the song, of course. But today I heard it differently. Maybe because after a day like this, you naturally start thinking a little more. About work. About friendship. About getting older. About your body occasionally reminding you, rather painfully, that you are no longer twenty. About the choices you have made. About the choices still ahead of you. About the people who stay and the people who disappear along the way. About the things you used to worry about that turned out to be completely unimportant. And about how little control we actually have over what life eventually does with us. The song feels almost like a strange, gentle letter to someone who is still somewhere in the middle of life. A reminder to protect yourself. To enjoy the power and beauty of youth while you have it. To not spend your life worrying about a future you cannot predict anyway. To not live too much according to other people’s opinions. To do things that scare you a little. To be careful with other people’s hearts, but also never allow someone to treat yours carelessly. And perhaps one of the most beautiful ideas is that life isn’t a race. Sometimes you are ahead. Sometimes you are behind. But in the end, the only person you are really competing with… is yourself. The older I get, the more I understand that some things don’t need to be solved. Some things simply need to be lived. You don’t always know what you want to do with your life. And you don’t have to know at twenty-two. Maybe not even at forty. Maybe at fifty-five, you are still figuring it out. Maybe that’s perfectly okay. Because perhaps life was never meant to be a route where you knew the final destination before you even started. Maybe you are supposed to get lost. Take the wrong turn. Meet people along the way. Fall sometimes. Bleed sometimes because you decided to pull twelve tiles off a wall at once. Laugh at yourself. Watch your friends grow older. Wake up one day and realize just how much time is behind you. And then simply keep looking forward. There is also something deeply touching in the song’s message about growing older, about your body, relationships, parents and friends. Especially the idea that, as you get older, you may need certain people from your youth more than ever, because they carry a piece of your past that nobody else knows. That stayed with me today. Maybe because Cesar turned 55. Maybe because I’m getting older too. Maybe because I saw my own shins bleeding today. Or maybe because, earlier this afternoon, I literally watched the light disappear and then come back. And somewhere in all of that, perhaps there is a lesson about life itself. The light doesn’t stay forever. Neither does the darkness. Everything moves. Everything changes. People come and go. Bodies change. Friendships change. Places change. We change. But some things remain. A memory. A friendship. A laugh. A story you still tell years later. A voice on the phone. A name that instantly brings an entire chapter of your life back to you. And perhaps that is what it ultimately comes down to. Not how many days you have had. But what you did with those days. So yes… it is now 10:48 p.m. My arms are cut. My shins look as if I have been attacked by an angry cat. My body is exhausted. Tomorrow another bathroom is waiting. And probably more tiles. But today was about more than work. Today was the day I took a new guy to a job somewhere between the mountains. The day I was nearly attacked by twelve tiles. The day my oldest friend turned 55. The day the moon took the sunlight away for a little while and the whole world stopped to watch. And the day an old song reminded me that, above all, we should never forget to actually live while we are on the journey. Maybe that is enough for one day. So I’m turning off the light. Not because the day is over. But because tomorrow is already waiting. And who knows… maybe tomorrow has something completely different in store for me. But there is one thing I know for sure: Tomorrow, I’m wearing long trousers. 🤣 |
| Where the day begins slowly When I first came to Spain, I noticed the mornings before I understood them. Back home, a morning had always seemed like something you had to conquer. The alarm went off, coffee was swallowed rather than tasted, the day already waiting impatiently at the door. There was always somewhere to be, something to finish, someone waiting for an answer. Here, somehow, the morning seemed to have nowhere else to go. It begins with the scrape of metal chairs across stone. A small, familiar sound that travels through the stillness before the sun has properly decided to arrive. Shutters open. A broom moves slowly across a pavement. Somewhere, a coffee machine hisses. The sun hangs low over the rooftops, soft and hesitant, as though even it understands that there is no reason to hurry. Then the terraces begin to fill. Men and women appear at small round tables, some alone, some together, some sitting with people they may only know by face. A nod. A smile. A quiet buenos días. Not a greeting that demands anything. Almost a confirmation. We are here again. The breakfast itself is almost an afterthought. A piece of bread, crisp at the edges, perhaps rubbed with tomato and touched with olive oil. A small, strong coffee. Nothing extravagant. Nothing that would make a photograph look particularly impressive. And yet, sitting there, watching it happen, I began to understand that I had been looking at the wrong thing. This is not breakfast. It is a transition. The first coffee is rarely consumed in silence. Conversations begin softly, often continuing from yesterday as if the night had merely interrupted them. News travels from table to table. Plans are mentioned, but rarely announced with the urgency I was used to. Nobody seems to be trying to get ahead of the day. They are simply entering it. I sometimes watch an old man sitting alone, his newspaper open in front of him. For a while I assume he is reading, until I realise that he isn't. He is watching. The street. The people passing. The morning becoming itself. Every now and then he takes a sip of coffee, tears off another piece of bread, or raises his head to acknowledge someone walking past. And I wonder how long it took him to learn that there is nowhere else he needs to be. Perhaps he never had to learn it. Perhaps I did. Because I came from somewhere where breakfast often meant starting the engine. Here, it feels more like tuning it. That difference sounds small until you begin to feel it. It changes the way a conversation is allowed to unfold. Someone can linger over a coffee even when work is waiting. A shopkeeper can give a customer another five minutes without appearing to have lost them. Lunch becomes more than a meal squeezed between obligations; it becomes another place in the day where people gather, breathe, and remember that they are not machines. Even silence feels different here. It is not the silence of having nothing to say. It is the silence of not needing to fill every second. I have spent enough years rushing to know what rushing costs. You arrive somewhere, but part of you is still travelling. You finish one task while thinking about the next. You answer someone while already composing the answer to someone else. You measure a day by what you managed to fit inside it, and then wonder why, at the end of it, you cannot remember actually living any of it. Spain did not change that in me overnight. I still rush. I still make lists. I still work too long, look at the clock too often, and sometimes wake up already mentally running through everything that needs to be done. But now, every so often, I catch myself. I sit down. I order a coffee. And I watch. The chairs scraping across the terrace. The old man with his newspaper. The woman laughing at the next table. Someone calling buenos días from across the street. And for a few minutes, nothing needs to be solved. That may be the lesson I came here without knowing I needed. Not that life should move slowly, because sometimes it cannot. Work has deadlines. People need you. Bills need paying. Things break. Plans collapse. Life, wherever you live, will always find a reason to hurry you. But perhaps the point was never to slow the world down. Perhaps it was to stop allowing the world to set the speed at which I experience it. Because there is a difference between having time and being present inside it. I used to think a good morning was one in which I got a head start on the day. Now I think a good morning is one in which, before the day starts asking things from me, I have taken a moment to remember that it is mine too. So perhaps that is why these little breakfasts stay with me. Not because of the bread, nor the coffee, and not even because of Spain. But because somewhere between the first sip and the first buenos días, I began to understand something I had spent much of my life overlooking: time is not something we are given to spend as quickly as possible. It is something we are invited to inhabit. And perhaps growing older is partly this: learning that the moments we once considered delays were never delays at all. They were the life itself. So now, when the morning arrives, I try not to meet it running. I sit for a moment. I breathe. I look around. And before the day carries me away, I let myself be there for it. Not breakfast. A rhythm. A reminder that perhaps the art of living is not learning how to move faster through our lives, but learning how to arrive in them sooner. |
| First of all, I’m incredibly grateful to be able to call myself a member of this group. I truly mean that. At the same time, I have to admit that Writing.com still sometimes feels like a rather peculiar village to me, one where I’ve become reasonably familiar with the main street, only to discover yet another little alley around every corner that I’ve never seen before. Take the time difference alone. On average, there’s about six hours between the moment the clock strikes midnight for you and the point my day has reached by then, when I’ve already lived through what feels like an entire lifetime. When a new day is cautiously taking its first breath where you are, mine here in Spain has already been underway for six hours. It’s not really a problem, of course, because in the end we all get the same twenty-four hours. It can make things a little more interesting, though, when a prompt or a short writing contest appears somewhere and I don’t discover it until the end of my day. Then the little devil in my head immediately starts shouting that I could always stay up a little longer and write something. And I can. That doesn’t necessarily mean my body is enthusiastic about the idea. Fortunately, I’ve managed so far to get something out of my keyboard in time more often than not. And perhaps that is one of the things I enjoy most about this place: there is hardly a day when I don’t discover something new. Sometimes I discover a writer. Sometimes a group I had no idea existed. Sometimes I stumble across a part of Writing.com and wonder how on earth I managed to walk past it every day for months without ever really seeing it. People invite me to join groups I didn’t even know existed, and every now and then I come across pages explaining things to new members and think: Couldn’t someone have told me about this three months ago? But then I have to laugh at myself. Because I suspect I’m not the only one. Writing.com isn’t a website you simply get to know by creating an account. It’s more like a world that reveals itself to you piece by piece. You discover a door, open it, and find yourself in a room. There’s another door in that room. Behind that one is apparently a hallway with seven more doors, and behind one of those is someone who has known for eighteen years where all the other doors lead. Which brings me to something I’ve been learning more and more about lately: the Quills. I had seen the name popping up regularly, but honestly, I never really understood what it was all about. It wasn’t until Tee was nominated and some links and explanations started appearing that the penny finally dropped. Oh. So that’s what this is about. It actually makes perfect sense. I’ve only been here for a few months, and already I’m wishing people a happy eighteenth, twentieth, or even longer WDC anniversary. The site will soon have been around for roughly twenty-six years. Twenty-six years! That’s no longer just some website where people happen to post their stories and poems; by now, it’s a little piece of internet history. The people who have been wandering these halls all those years probably know their way around as naturally as someone walking blindfolded through their own darkened house. They know where every step is, which door sticks, which light switch sometimes refuses to work, and exactly where not to walk into a chair when they’re heading to the kitchen in the middle of the night. I’m still the guy walking down the hallway with his arms stretched out in front of him. But I’m fairly certain that if I’m still wandering around here twenty years from now, I’ll end up doing exactly what the people I currently admire for their effortless knowledge of this place are doing now. And when we celebrate WDC’s fiftieth anniversary, I’ll probably tell some new member, “Oh, that? It’s over there. How can you not know that?” And someone will probably kindly remind me that I didn’t know it either, once upon a time. And perhaps that is exactly what makes this community so special. Despite all the differences that exist beyond these walls, people here seem to share a surprising number of the same values. Believers and atheists can walk through the same door. People with completely different lives, backgrounds, and beliefs can sit alongside one another and talk about words, stories, poems, and ideas. And somewhere in the middle of all that, a perfectly serious discussion can somehow break out about the contents of a bag of chips, the packaging, or the frankly astonishing amount of air manufacturers apparently feel compelled to add to a handful of chips. I love that. Because ultimately, this place isn’t only about writing. Of course we all want to become better. We want to learn, grow, receive feedback, help others, and perhaps one day write something that makes us look at the screen and think: Yes. This is it. But there should be room for laughter too. There should be room for chatting. There should be room for friendships to grow. And sometimes, a bag of chips is allowed to be the most important subject of the day. Maybe that is why I’m beginning to feel more and more at home here. Not because I’ve found all the doors by now, but precisely because I’m still discovering a few more of them every day. And while I’m slowly learning my way around Writing.com, I’m dealing with something in my other, real life for which I don’t have a map yet either: finding a new apartment. The apartment we thought would eventually become our new home suddenly turned out to have been rented to someone else by the owner. The agent had promised us all sorts of things, but apparently promises can sometimes be just as fleeting as a sentence you write and then decide to delete after all. In a strange way, I’m even glad I hadn’t cancelled our current rental yet. Otherwise, my next blog might not have been about Writing.com at all, but about the experience of becoming homeless on the Costa Blanca. So the search continues. We look at apartments, weigh our options, hope that the next door really does lead to the right room, and try not to forget that a home is ultimately more than four walls, a floor, and a key. Perhaps that is also the connection between the two worlds I’m currently moving through. On Writing.com, I’m constantly discovering new doors I never knew existed. In real life, I’m looking for a door I can eventually close behind me and say: This is where we stay. For now, then, I’ll keep looking. For stories, for writers, for groups, for new possibilities, and hopefully also for an apartment that doesn’t get handed over to someone else halfway through the story. And perhaps that isn’t such a bad way to go through life after all. You don’t have to know every door. You only have to remain curious enough to open the next one. |
| Usually, it begins with a small choice. A rumor you pass along without knowing whether it is true. A signature beneath an agreement you already know you will not keep. A promise you break because no one will notice. An accusation you accept as truth simply because someone else told it convincingly. Excluding someone. Cheating someone. Looking away when speaking requires courage. Only much later do you discover that the person who confronts you longest over that choice is not the other person. “The human voice never carries as far as the conscience.” — Mahatma Gandhi There is a truth in that one sentence that has lost none of its power. We spend a great part of our lives worrying about how others see us. We defend our choices, explain our behavior, and try to keep our name clean. But once the conversations fall silent and the doors close, there is only one voice left. The conscience. It does not shout. It does not need to convince anyone. It waits. Patiently. Until every excuse has been spoken, every justification exhausted, and every mask removed. Then it asks only one question. Was this truly the person you wanted to be? Everyone has judged someone without knowing the whole story. Everyone has said something that would have been better left unsaid, remained silent when the truth needed a voice, or made a choice that served themselves above all else. Not because human beings are inherently bad, but because the temptation to take the easiest path is as old as humanity itself. And yet, every choice has two consequences. One for the other person. One for yourself. We forget that far too easily. We think injustice exists only when someone else suffers because of it. In reality, every injustice also leaves a mark on the person who commits it. Not always visible. Not immediately. But indelible. That is why genuine apologies are so rare. They require more than regret. They require the courage to admit that your conscience already knew what was right long before you were willing to say it aloud. A lie can convince people. A mask can remain in place for years. A well-told story can deceive almost anyone. Almost. Not the conscience. Because your reputation lives in the minds of others, but your character has to come home to you every night. The human voice reaches others. The conscience reaches you. |
| Last Wednesday I wrote about time, about never seeming to have enough of it. To be honest, nothing has changed today. But sooner or later, you realize there's no point arguing with the clock. Time refuses to be rushed. So instead, you learn to embrace the moments you do have. Last night was one of those moments. The day before, I received a message from my friend Henk. "Come by and join us," he wrote. He's been staying at a campsite in Polop since the fifth of July, happily living the camper life. No schedules, no pressure, just fresh air, good company, and enjoying each day as it comes. Recently, the campsite opened a new chiringuito, and Henk immediately thought what every good gathering needs: Live music. That's Henk in a nutshell. During the day, he's busy working in the hospitality real estate business. While his business partner John focuses on residential properties, Henk specializes in restaurants, cafés, and bars. He knows the local hospitality scene inside and out. But what makes him special isn't what he sells. It's what he creates. He loves people. He loves music. He loves a barbecue that lasts long after sunset, a cold drink shared with friends, and conversations that make you forget to check the time. Whenever he discovers a place he enjoys, he naturally starts helping. He'll organize a barbecue, promote the business, introduce people, offer advice, or arrange live entertainment, often without expecting anything in return. Maybe that's because he once owned a successful café-restaurant himself. He understands that the real magic of hospitality isn't found on the menu. It's found in the people. That magic came alive last night. As we arrived at the chiringuito, we spotted a long table filled with familiar faces. Before we'd even found our seats, someone had already handed us a drink. Those are usually the most dangerous evenings, the ones that begin with, "Here, have one first." At first, everyone was a little reserved. You know how it goes. People insist they're "just here to listen," while their feet have already started tapping to the beat. Then the music began. Henk had invited a singer he had met years ago in Oliva, and what a performer he turned out to be. Within just a few songs, the quiet campsite had transformed into an open-air celebration. Chairs were pushed aside, tables forgotten, and people were dancing as though nobody was watching. There was singing, laughter, clinking glasses, and even those who had sworn they'd never dance somehow found themselves moving with surprising enthusiasm. Miracles do happen. You could see Henk enjoying every minute, not because he wanted the spotlight, but because everyone else was having such a wonderful time. That's probably his greatest gift. He brings people together. No, he didn't sing himself this time. Apparently, that's reserved exclusively for the annual fair in Ossendrecht. Trust me, that story deserves a blog of its own. Some people collect possessions. Henk collects memories. And last night, we were lucky enough to become part of another one. Sometimes you don't need a luxury hotel. You don't need an expensive holiday. You don't need a carefully planned weekend. Sometimes all you need is a camping chair, a cold drink, great music, and someone who understands that life's finest moments don't have to be planned... They simply happen. And that's exactly why last night will stay with us for a very long time. |
| Yesterday was one of those days when the sea seemed determined to give us everything. We went out on a boat. The sun hung high overhead, and the water was so clear it felt as though the Mediterranean had finally decided to reveal some of its secrets. We swam, laughed, drifted wherever the gentle waves carried us, and for a little while forgot that there was still a world waiting for us on land. Only the sun turned out to be more generous than we were prepared for. By the time I got home, my skin felt as though someone had held a match against it. Red. Hot. Tender. The price of a perfect summer day. So today I took things a little easier. With a mug of coffee beside me, I settled behind my laptop and stumbled across a story that lingered in my mind far longer than the sting of my sunburn. A whale. Or perhaps not a whale at all. For more than thirty years, scientists have been hearing the same mysterious call somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. A sound at 52 hertz—different from the calls of every other known baleen whale. They gave it a name: Blue 52. What makes it remarkable is not only its voice. No one has ever seen it. For over three decades, they have tracked its song. They know roughly where it travels. They recognize its unique call. Yet the animal itself has remained invisible. I couldn't stop thinking about that. How extraordinary is it that something so enormous can completely escape our eyes? A creature stretching tens of metres in length, moving through the same oceans crossed every day by ships, watched from above by aircraft, and mapped by satellites orbiting the Earth. Perhaps that says less about the whale than it does about us. We humans like to believe we have figured everything out. That every question has an answer waiting on Google. That satellites have mapped every corner of our planet, and artificial intelligence can explain almost anything. And yet, somewhere out there, something quietly reminds us that we still know so very little. Oddly enough, I find that comforting. Maybe the same is true of people. How often do we pass someone without ever truly knowing the story they carry inside them? We hear their words, but not always their meaning. We see their face, but never the scars hidden beneath the surface. Sometimes we meet people who are a little like Blue 52. Their voice sounds different. They move through life on another wavelength. Not because they are wrong, but simply because they resonate differently. Perhaps they feel alone. Perhaps they don't. The truth is, we simply don't know. For years, the media called Blue 52 "the loneliest whale in the world." Later, researchers discovered there were probably others producing the same unusual call. How quickly we build stories around things we barely understand. As I sat thinking about it, I glanced out of the window. Living here in Spain, I often watch the sea change from day to day. One morning it lies as smooth as glass; the next it churns with restless waves. Yet beneath that ever-changing surface, an entire world carries on, one we understand only in fragments. Perhaps that's where the magic lies. Not everything needs to be discovered to be real. Not everything needs to be explained to be extraordinary. Some mysteries deserve to remain mysteries. And somewhere, thousands of miles from where I am sitting now, that single deep note may once again be travelling through the dark water. No one sees the creature that sings it. Yet it is there. Just like so many of life's most beautiful things, which reveal themselves only when we stop searching so hard... and simply learn to listen. |
| Yesterday was one of those days when the sea seemed determined to give us everything. We went out on a boat. The sun hung high overhead, and the water was so clear it felt as though the Mediterranean had finally decided to reveal some of its secrets. We swam, laughed, drifted wherever the gentle waves carried us, and for a little while forgot that there was still a world waiting for us on land. Only the sun turned out to be more generous than we were prepared for. By the time I got home, my skin felt as though someone had held a match against it. Red. Hot. Tender. The price of a perfect summer day. So today I took things a little easier. With a mug of coffee beside me, I settled behind my laptop and stumbled across a story that lingered in my mind far longer than the sting of my sunburn. A whale. Or perhaps not a whale at all. For more than thirty years, scientists have been hearing the same mysterious call somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. A sound at 52 hertz—different from the calls of every other known baleen whale. They gave it a name: Blue 52. What makes it remarkable is not only its voice. No one has ever seen it. For over three decades, they have tracked its song. They know roughly where it travels. They recognize its unique call. Yet the animal itself has remained invisible. I couldn't stop thinking about that. How extraordinary is it that something so enormous can completely escape our eyes? A creature stretching tens of metres in length, moving through the same oceans crossed every day by ships, watched from above by aircraft, and mapped by satellites orbiting the Earth. Perhaps that says less about the whale than it does about us. We humans like to believe we have figured everything out. That every question has an answer waiting on Google. That satellites have mapped every corner of our planet, and artificial intelligence can explain almost anything. And yet, somewhere out there, something quietly reminds us that we still know so very little. Oddly enough, I find that comforting. Maybe the same is true of people. How often do we pass someone without ever truly knowing the story they carry inside them? We hear their words, but not always their meaning. We see their face, but never the scars hidden beneath the surface. Sometimes we meet people who are a little like Blue 52. Their voice sounds different. They move through life on another wavelength. Not because they are wrong, but simply because they resonate differently. Perhaps they feel alone. Perhaps they don't. The truth is, we simply don't know. For years, the media called Blue 52 "the loneliest whale in the world." Later, researchers discovered there were probably others producing the same unusual call. How quickly we build stories around things we barely understand. As I sat thinking about it, I glanced out of the window. Living here in Spain, I often watch the sea change from day to day. One morning it lies as smooth as glass; the next it churns with restless waves. Yet beneath that ever-changing surface, an entire world carries on, one we understand only in fragments. Perhaps that's where the magic lies. Not everything needs to be discovered to be real. Not everything needs to be explained to be extraordinary. Some mysteries deserve to remain mysteries. And somewhere, thousands of miles from where I am sitting now, that single deep note may once again be travelling through the dark water. No one sees the creature that sings it. Yet it is there. Just like so many of life's most beautiful things, which reveal themselves only when we stop searching so hard... and simply learn to listen. |
| "Thursday," most people would say. "Just another weekday." For me, it became a day I'll remember for a long time. I had deliberately taken the day off. No deadlines, no tiling, no silicone, no phone demanding my attention. Just a day when time wasn't allowed to expect anything from me. Then my friends suggested, "How about we go out on the boat?" Sometimes the best plans are the ones you never planned at all. The boat was moored in the harbour of Villajoyosa, so first came the preparations. We made tapas, sliced some delicious Spanish sausage, packed olives, a fresh crusty baguette, and, of course, plenty to drink. The cool box was so full it barely closed. Then came the challenge of balancing it between my legs on the scooter as the three of us rode towards the harbour. The journey along the coastline, with the warm morning sun on our faces, already felt like a holiday. Once we were out on the water, the rest of the world slowly disappeared behind us. We cruised along the breathtaking coastline towards Mascarat. The sea was inviting, and the Spanish sun did exactly what a Spanish summer sun is supposed to do, shine without mercy. We ate as though we'd worked for hours, drank as though no one had to get up early the next morning, and enjoyed the kind of conversations that didn't need a destination to be worthwhile. We jumped into the sea, floated lazily on the gentle waves, and simply let the day unfold at its own pace. Those are the moments when you realise that happiness rarely announces its arrival. It hides in the simple things. Friends. Sunshine. The sea. Laughter. A table full of tapas on a gently rocking boat. It wasn't until we returned that I realised just how badly my head had been sunburnt. Really badly. Not my smartest decision. Normally, I'd have been annoyed with myself. But not this time. Every time I catch sight of my sunburnt forehead in the mirror over the next few days, it will remind me of today. Not of the sting of the sun, but of the warmth of a day when nothing was expected, yet everything felt exactly as it should. Perhaps those are the memories that matter most, the seemingly ordinary Thursdays that, in hindsight, turn out to have been anything but ordinary. |
| Another day gone. Half past eight already. At least, that's what the clock insists. According to my own sense of time, I was finishing yesterday's blog about five minutes ago. I clicked upload, blinked twice, and somewhere in the background I swear I heard a voice say, "Congratulations... it's tomorrow." That can't be right. I'm beginning to suspect that something changes the moment you pass fifty. It's as if life spends decades as a dependable diesel engine, happily ticking over, until one day the turbo suddenly kicks in without anyone bothering to mention it was installed in the first place. Or maybe it's more like stepping onto a high-speed train. The mountains in the distance still drift by peacefully enough, but try focusing on the fence posts beside the tracks. Gone. Not even gone, really. They barely existed before they disappeared. That's what time feels like these days. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. When I was six years old, the summer holidays lasted approximately the length of a geological era. I started looking forward to them months in advance. The final week of school crawled by as though every classroom clock needed a nap between lessons. Then, finally... Summer. Six glorious weeks. Not just weeks, entire civilizations. Every day seemed to contain at least thirty hours. We built dens, played outside until darkness forced us home, rode our bikes everywhere, fell out of trees, forgot we were hungry, and halfway through August rediscovered toys we'd completely forgotten we owned. And when the holidays ended? Christmas felt unimaginably far away. Practically another lifetime. By the time I reached my teenage years, Father Time had started jogging. The holidays were officially the same length, yet after three weeks you already found yourself thinking, Was that it? We were sleeping far less than we had as children, so technically we were awake for more hours than ever before. Yet somehow, there were fewer days. It's a strange equation. And now? Now I live in Spain. People often say, "Well, every day must feel like a holiday there." It sounds wonderful. Until I tell them I haven't actually taken a proper holiday in the past two years. The last real one was three years ago. Two weeks. And by the time it ended, I already felt like I needed another holiday. That has to be one of adulthood's greatest absurdities. Needing a vacation... to recover from your vacation. Maybe the problem isn't time at all. Maybe it's us. As children, we lived almost entirely in the present. A puddle wasn't a puddle; it was an ocean. A cardboard box wasn't recycling; it was a spaceship. An ordinary afternoon stretched endlessly because it wasn't filled with calendars, deadlines, phone calls, invoices, shopping lists, and wondering why the fridge is empty again. Adults are experts at living five minutes ahead of themselves. While eating breakfast, we're already thinking about lunch. During lunch, we're planning dinner. During dinner, we're worrying about tomorrow. And before we know it, tomorrow has quietly become yesterday. Perhaps that's the greatest thief of time. Not the clock. But our attention. Still, I can't help hoping someone invents something someday. A button. A pill. I'll even settle for a remote control with one oversized button that simply reads: 0.5× Speed. Just for the moments that deserve to linger. An evening with friends. An unexpected phone call from your children. A quiet cup of coffee on a terrace. A walk with nowhere in particular to go. A sunset that whispers, Stay a little longer. Until someone invents that miracle, I'll try to do what came so naturally when I was young. Pause. Not because the world does, it certainly doesn't. It keeps racing on without asking anyone's permission. But because some moments only become truly beautiful when we give ourselves enough time to notice them. And perhaps that's the closest any of us will ever come to slowing time down. |
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