I drop my luggage at the house of a dear friend where I’ll be spending my one night in Paris. A bit later I find myself walking along rue Saint Honoré to visit him at the very fancy boutique where he’s employed. Selling custom made jewelry by Phillipe Ferrandis, very beautiful. It won’t get more Parisien then this, I realize. It makes me loose my mind a bit. Walking the chique street crowded with many mindless people and pockets full of money, bored faces, immaculately groomed. When a church comes in eyesight, I climb it’s stairs without thinking. Like a magnet it draws me close. Inside tears rise in my eyes. I wonder where and how emotions suddenly get such a tight grip on me. In full acceptance I sit down in the back of the church, admiring the azure blue of the painted sky and the almost alive white marble of the statues around the altar. Until I close my eyes and empty my mind. Before leaving the church I lit a candle in order to continue my way at the rue Saint Honoré relieved. Momentarily relieved. From what exactly I don’t know.
Cartier, Dior, Boucheron and Van Cleef & Arpels encircle the beautiful Place Vendôme. Tomorrow I’ll be setting foot on the ground of the nation where most of the raw material being traded here, in these ultimately exclusive shops, are mined. The contrast can’t possibly be bigger. Paris versus Kinshasa, the latter being after Nairobi and Cairo the third largest city of the African continent. I take a picture. I had to find myself exactly here at the epicenter of decadent luxury. It’s an indispensable part of the journey. Today the road leads me further only to l’Opéra. Where I am supposed to catch the metro. But I decide to first spend a whole lot of money on a cup of tea at Café de la Paix, across from l’Opéra. Since I did evaluate from a student in Paris with no money into a single woman on a short visit to Paris with hardly any money. The upgrade is almost neglectable considering the time lapse of twenty five years. But sure enough I can afford a ridiculous eight euros for an elegant cup of tea at one of the numerous exquisite street terraces the city of light hosts. There’s one little round table unoccupied at the terrace of Café de la Paix. I have to ask an indifferent preoccupied woman – is she really from Paris or merely pretending to be? – to pick up her expensive hand bag from the seat in order to take place, content, potentially joyful and very much at ease. Another waiter, another exchange of smiles. What happened to the typical Parisien waiters syndrome of arrogance, I ask myself while realizing that this part of the journey had to be terminated at Café de la Paix, a name to be cherished under the circumstances of me traveling to the Congo’s. Café de la Paix will remain safe and protected taken over as it is by the exclusive Intercontinental Group. What about the two Congo’s? Will they survive their extremely rich heritage of rubber, gold, diamonds, kobalt and uranium exploitation? Around Place Vendôme they might know better then I do.

  
I find myself at the comptoir of Café du Nord directly opposite the Gare du Nord, eagerly immersing myself in a Parisien brasserie scene. ‘Un thé s’il vous plaît’ I ask the fifty plus bar tender who’s immaculately dressed in a white shirt, black pants, black vest. ‘Un thé noir madame?’ I hesitate a split second to get ready to step into his world. ‘Est-ce que vous avez un thé rouge?’ I ask him slightly mysteriously. He smiles. Who manages to make a Parisien fifty plus bartender smile within seconds, it quickly goes through my mind. He pours me un té aux fruits rouges instead of a rooibos tea which was what I’d actually meant. But it doesn’t matter. We are both satisfied. He for not having to deal with a stupid tourist. A tourist okay. But at least it looks nice and blond and it does talk a familiar language. As for me, I am satisfied for the exact same reasons. 
While another bottle of Moët and Chandon is opened with a loud plop at the table behind me where three good looking french speaking African men are seated and my two old french neighbors at the comptoir order another round of bière blonde, I make myself up for leaving the scene to find a metro to Oberkampf.
‘Ca fait dix euro madame’. ‘Excusez-moi monsieur?’ ‘Ca fait dix euro!’ The two old men at the comptoir start laughing heartedly. I need another split second to realize the bar tender is making a joke. I answer in earnest: ‘Ca c’est tres gentil monsieur, merci beaucoup’. I laugh along with the two old men. I feel grateful and warm. As if I’ve been cautiously checked and have been granted to pass the test. Seriously happy I step outside in the metallic colored Parisien rain. No translucent drops but a romantic mist. Even rain gets romantic in Paris. I quickly step down the stairs of the metro; down under and well protected against jokes, the weather and feelings of romance.

  
Green hills floating by. Three hours in the Thalys to Paris and this is the first time I look outside. I actually look at the world outside and realize I’ve locked myself up, trapped in small affairs. I’ve been sending emails and making phone calls as if I am preparing for a major event. All I do is getting two weeks of absence organized. Abstention from a narrow life with small affairs. Ahead of me there’s two weeks of looking outside through the windows of my soul. The world around me is about to open up, beautiful, much anticipated. I will devour it like the first bite at the end of a long day of fasting during the Ramadan. Tomorrow, or in my case after two weeks, the fasting will continue and the world closes up again. But now, the time is now. 
My outfit surely suits the organizational preoccupations better then the alluding adventure. A little black dress, classic silk scarf and moderately heeled espadrilles topped off with gold lacquered leather and black velvet adorn me on the first haul of a segregated journey towards the two Congo’s. The first leg is Amsterdam-Paris by high speed train. To be continued tomorrow morning with a very early flight from Charles de Gaulle to Istanbul. And from Istanbul onwards to Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a territory as vast as almost entire Central Africa. I am excited. Take off being formed by the said lush green landscapes of Northern France. Until within minutes an incoming call pulls me back into the narrow world. The grand father of a friend of my daughter’s, the one where she’s supposed to be staying during the first couple of days of my absence, this morning died unexpectedly. The landscape outside evaporates as fast as the Thalys is speeding. As if it was just a site we crossed, visible for as many seconds as it takes the Thalys to pass by it. Instead of a full three hours bearing the delightful potential of dreaming away, enjoying green hales and dales floating by. I am pulled back into my much less enjoyable micro universe. Condolences and arranging another refuge for my thirteen years old daughter involves another set of phone calls, emails.

  
L’Arc de Triomphe and La Tour d’Eiffel will never be the same. I am leaving Paris. Alone in the back of a taxi. The flat we occupied for a couple of days is empty. An unfinished bottle of Chablis left behind. To me a symbol for the sequence of eternal moments we’ve lived here. They will remain here. And I will part from them. Only memories travel along. With me in a little black dress and a rain coat that was given to me. By him. The finest love of my life. I am confused. The taxi driver puts on soft violin music. My favorite. Outside the sun is shining bright. It’s incredible. The violin reminds me of Tchaikovsky. His violin concerto in D major, opus 35 I used to have on cassette and play endlessly in my small little room at Jardin du Luxembourg, some twenty five years ago. I hadn’t got a clue at the time that the years back then shaped and moulded me to an extend that the experiences of the past few days seem to relate directly to it. The effort, energy and enthusiasm I’d confided to Paris come back to me. The life I live turns out very different then I would have thought. Although I never visualized or fancied any particular course in life. I am astonished as to how I find myself in the back of this Parisien taxi. Talking to the driver. Who asks me if I live in Paris. One day I will buy an apartment here I decide. To honor both my parents, the special man I was so fortunate to spend some time with and the incredible love that Paris endows me with. I am happy. I’ve found my way.

  
The crossing, the ultimate crossing, between Kinshasa and Brazzaville is exciting. Between 7 and 7.30 am we gather in the open air breakfast lounge of Hotel Investe de la Presse. The climate, surroundings and hotel staff are exceptionally smooth, welcoming and peacefull. It’s completely opposite of what we’d expected from Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s hard to obtain a visitors visa for the giant Congo. With a formal letter of invitation supplied by one of the only two travel agents of the Congo and several other necessary documents we’ve managed. At breakfast that morning we do the usual chit chat, making up the balance of the evening before and for the day ahead. A taxi and a van arrive. Employees of the only two Congolese travel agencies meet us at the entrance of Hotel Investe.
One is concerned about the ticket we’ve booked with the other, which according to the one is a rip off. Even if we will effectively be transported to the other side of the river it will still be a rip off because it’s far too expensive. The rip off agent sents a taxi with driver to pick us up. But we decide to step into the van of the other agent. Off to the harbour, to cross the Congo river. Setting the two capitals of the two Congo’s apart. We’ve been talking about it and arranging for it, for weeks. One of us has a ferry ticket that has costed six hundred US dollar, a lot of official and some missing paperwork. Will we be able to get a second ticket as to both make it across and at least as interesting, at what price?

A broker has taken our passports. We wait in the exclusive lounge. Canal + is broadcasting an animated version of Saint Exupérie’s Le Petit Prince, one of my favorite classics. I like the coïncidence of the little explorer questioning all human behaviour without judging it and finding myself in a country where a lot of culturally conditioned behavior induces many question marks for me. The broker likes to whisper confidentially. He does some complicated calculating and comes up with a gap of two hundred dollar to be replenished. Excuse me sir, that’s impossible, I confidentially whisper back. Another piece of paper comes up out of our bags. He takes it and stays away again for a very long time. He finally returns and whispers confidentially that we both need to pay another ten dollars and that our boat is leaving in ten minutes. 

At the pier there’s several mid sized passenger boats and one speed boat. A couple of minutes later we ride the fast streaming water of the Congo river in that one speedboat. It kind of feels like James Bond. We arrive at the other side of the Congolese universe. Brazzaville radiates a laid back ambiance that associates well with croissants and café au lait. Congo Brazzaville used to be colonized by the French and it feels French. The broker at this side comes to tell us he wants our immigration to get over with as quickly as possible since it’s Sunday and he’s celebrating the holy day. You can see from his content face, he’s celebrating it with people that make him feel good, food and beer. He wears a fine white linnen shirt and a genuinly friendly smile. We wait. Until we’re being asked in at a small office, the colonel’s office. A colonel without an uniform; a festive outfit he’s wearing, bright and colorful. But his questions are serious. And he doesn’t seem to be wanting to take us for who we are. More questions. Why do you travel together, where are you staying, why do you’ve got different visas – as one is issued in London and the other in Brussels – where do you come from etcetera. After a quite severe interrogation the tension fades slowly and we make some jokes, exchange irrelevant personal information and listen to stories about his country. He is a proud man. I see a nervous tick around his upper lip. It’s not obvious. I wonder what his life has been like until now. We shake hands. And we leave the serious interrogation room a bit astonished about this happening here in laid back Brazzaville instead of in ‘el desperado de Kinshasa’.

  
The water dispenser next to the breakfast buffet table holds a simple one and a half liter ordinairy pet bottle instead of a costumized twenty liter fresh water container. The pet bottle upside down in the holder, could better have been placed in it’s normal position at the buffet table. But this construction shows the possesion of a water dispenser. Who cares about a fitting container anyway?
Eveline and Adolf come to pick me up from the hotel at the exact time I was informed they’d come: 7.30 am sharp. Although I don’t want to give in to prejudice, I must confess it startles me a little bit at my first morning in Africa: 7.30 am sharp. We’ll make a two and a half hour journey from the commune of Lingala in Kinshasa city to the commune of Maluku in the country side down the Congo river. Purchasing gasoline to start with. The first gas station doesn’t have change from Eveline’s one hundred dollar note and the money changer next door doesn’t make a good rate. So we head to another money changer which takes a detour. From him Eveline receives a pack of paper as big as four pounds of sugar. We stop at another gas station and get hundred liters of gasoline of which the last twenty end up in a container in the trunk. 
We pass shops painted in bright colors: a Dutch pharma – being Dutch it intrigues me why a pharmacist would add the adjective Dutch; quite some dépot d’oeufs, where they sell eggs and un agence de voyage, which also intrigues me, being in a country where travelling is a challenge, let alone crossing borders. For the rest of it dépots de ciment, selling stones and cement. They cover the majority of the kiosk-like shops along the road side. Most of the brick and concrete buildings under construction we pass, are deserted. So that seems to make sense. 
After an one hour drive the roadside starts to become quiet and at last the road in front of us and it’s surroundings are empty. We pass a ‘Militairy Zone’ sign. The land looks vacant. Some parts seem kind of cultivated but not convincingly. It rather feels a bit devastated. There hasn’t been a single high rise nor any sign of town ships along the road. Concrete or brick buildings that are completed are ground level only. Where do the seven to thirty million Kinoa’s live? Seven, the lowest estimate as the number of officially registered citizens. Thirty, including all illegal and homeless people. We cross a sign. It says we’re leaving a certain concession and suddenly we find ourselves driving through Africa. Lush green, half erected brick dwellings, colorful dresses and big baskets on top of tall women, the newly paved road flows flawlessly through hales and dales.
A Congolese journey has begun.

The feeling of being connected is love. This connection means acting as an open source: receiving energy from around and at the same time returning this energy. Beaming with energy, you know. The way someone suddenly radiates. What fresh lovers look like or new born mothers and fathers. That’s the picture. 
Animals and children are more open to this ‘everything around them’ then grown ups. Children and animals are more connected to everything around them including nature and other beings. They rely upon and surrender to much easier then grown ups. It explains why children can also be easily scared. Monsters, insects or the neighbor’s dog; they haven’t (been able as yet) to construct a fence of defense around them. The more a human being has been able to built that fence, the more closed up he or she is, the lesser energy is felt (not energetic) and the lesser love is felt. Energy and love are two different expressions of the same thing. It explains why the more esoteric part of the population talks or sings about ‘love is all’. Everything is energy. And if energy and love are the same thing which I’m starting to find out it is, then everything indeed is love.
Why do human beings close up? Actually I shouldn’t ask this question and instead just concentrate on openings. But there’s a co-incidence that has to be considered. Pavlov researched how beings start reacting automatically upon specific input. Ring a bell and at the same time give food to a dog. Repeat this for some time. Now only ring the bell and water will drip from the dog’s mouth because of the assumption of food being served. The information has gone into the eldest parts of the brain, the lizzard brain. Bell and food come together. The availability of food has become part of the experience of hearing a bell ring. The parts that make one act as if on auto pilot enable you to drive a car while mending your kids in the back and at the same time contemplating upon the amazing deal you just saw advertised on a billboard along the road. The lizzard brain is educated by experience only. It’s way beyond reason.
When love is accompagnied by hurt repeatedly and then after some time you take the hurt away and bring exclusive love in, that very love will invoke a feeling of pain nevertheless.
I was being asked what love means to me. It’s a therapist’s trick to open up to positive experiences instead of lingering over negative ones. What does love signify to you? Freely associate, uttering all words that come to your mind. 
Okay, so it started out nicely: love is deep, love is bonding, love is happy. But then it deteriorated instantly. The words that came to my mind, I didn’t want to utter them. I felt love wasn’t meant to be like that: 
‘Love is hardship, love is steel, love is pain’
‘It’s okay. If that is love to you, just say it’ 
‘Sure?’ 
‘For some people love is challenging. For others it’s demanding’
That definetely is interesting but it doesn’t convince me of being or doing fine with my personal associations of hardship and sorrow. On the contrary: I am baffled! I realize the first few honey sweet ‘love is’ mantra’s come from a more cognitive part of my brain; the learning society side of it. The latter harsh ones come from an unconscious much and much older part of my brain. It’s exactly that part that makes sure I can drive my car without thinking. I wonder how love and pain can be like a horse and a carriage. And I wonder whatever happened to the much desired happiness factor.
Am I expected to accept and embrace my pretty sad interpretation of love? Yes I am expected to because it’s how it is. Past experiences have made it so. Looking back doesn’t do the trick to turn things around. What does turn my perception around? New experiences! In order to overwrite the old program with totally new bits and pieces. The bad news is that if we consider Pavlov, these new love experiences have to be repeated for quite some time before the prehistoric parts of the brain will adept to the new associations. Also what triggers the old association – love is pain – should be avoided to de-activate it. Easier said then done.
A life worthy of living evolves around experiences. Explore and challenge the big world outside, preferably the most extreme and remote parts of it. Apply for work in a certain field, and it’s experience that is inquired after. Instead of the ‘old school’ family name and place of birth. This year I will turn 48. I’ve done my bit of discovering the world, working and submerging into different states of mind and body. 

Suddenly silence and awe come over me. Now that I’ve left my childhood far behind. Now that I’ve become experienced in protecting myself from the big world outside. Now that life and it’s opportunities have become manageable. Now it happens to be so that I am setting out on a path of turning the experience of love around. Which is impossible. Apart from the fact that even if it were possible, I haven’t got a clue how to achieve it. 

There’s just one thing I know. 

Not-knowing is an auspicious recipe.

Most of the time Google maps doesn’t work. For some completely legitimate Italian reason. Communications and emotions are not yet outruled by cyber activity under the bright blue Tuscan skies. Human interaction is what’s being asked for. Trapped and nowhere else to look for it, I take to the small village’s main piazza, heading for the local bar. It’s the first of May, a beautiful day. A few locals hang around enjoying the fresh sun. Upon entering the typical bar gelateria, I am well aware of the impression I make. Being elegantly dressed, foreign, with long blond hair and wearing my most charming smile. The owner eagerly starts to explain how to get to the commercial centre where I am supposed to go and do my daily shopping for the week to come. 
Go down the road, take the second turn left. At the first stopping light turn right. Continue the road until you see an underway, leading to the other side of the railway. Follow the road for some four hundred metres, turn… That’s where I gave up. At the next cross roads, I look intensely to my right and and to my left, hoping to grasp a sight of the Coop supermarket. Big sigh. You bloody service providers! What’s the use of smart apps if they don’t work when you need them? A black and yellow little Smart car pulls over at my right side. The left side screen is being lowered and an Italian man in his fifties politely smiles at me. ‘If by any chance I was looking for the commercial center?’ he asks me. Wow! And he offers me to follow him. I am delighted. Like he himself is as well, so I presume, now closely followed by an elegantly dressed foreign woman with long blond hair and a most charming smile. 

After quite some turns he points me out the sought after Coop supermarket, stopping his car to receive my warm and happy mille grazie’s. He smiles and waves me goodbye with the most charming air kiss adressed to me in ages. 

That evening I cook pasta pesto with pinenuts and rucola for a starter. The main dish consists of artisinal Tuscan sausages served with a salad of lightly pickled fennel, zucchini and roman lettuce. As dessert bread&butter pudding.

Day three of an amazing experience, being chef in Italy for one week. In Tuscany surrounded by Chianti vineyards, not far from some ex patriots supporting me where ever they can and in the company of Kenneth from Kenia. Without his assistance my endeavours wouldn’t have been as succesful as they materialize, day after day.

We did it all: Saltimbocca, pasta frutte di mare, minestrone, lasagna, vitello al Marsala, biscotta al arancina, salmone, risotto prima vera, pizza margarita, carpaccio, panzanella and much more.

I give myself completely to the thirty members counting family I cater for. Gaining the world is my reward. An exceptionally priceless experience to be carried along my path for a long time to come.

The material reward is an offer to teach cooking classes in New York City. Gratefullness and placid contentment overtake me. If there’s anything I wish for it’s the continuation of the perfect present moment. It won’t get any better then this. Grace!

Tamaryoku tea and George Benson are today’s hommage to my mother. I’m afraid her star is rising high in my universe today. It’s Valentines day. It’s all about love. While in the background George Benson is smoothly singing about love is a masquerade. My unique mother killed herself this very day of the year some few hundreds years ago. The special Japanese tamaryoku tea warms me up inside out. The taste can only be described with words that talk about products that seem quite revolting as tea flavorings: cod liver, a deep well, stagnant water covered by tiny little spots of duckweed. You get the taste of it? The Japanese and we after them, call it umami. For me now I don’t care much about the name, as I am completely intrigued by the effect it causes. A very subtle guitar softly touched, the slow beat of the eighties, long stretched rhythmical sequences, instrumental only; one easily visualizes the stardust through the air slowly and softly touching the face of the earth. Did I mention snow flakes softly fluttering outside my window? Uncertain and insecure about their very ice cold presence this Valentine’s day, they add up to the magic multiple impressions of the moment. Attentive listening, attentive tasting, attentive seeing evoke an illusion. An illusion of a special moment in time, unique, as elusive as it is eternal. And this makes me dwell over the difference between reality and fantasy. In what reality did my mum dwell? Did she not taste umami and listen to the soft tones of an electric guitar? Don’t we all do this? What made her renounce it? Wise woman, tell me your secret. Your secret of not being attached. Your secret of being a hero. Is it a life full of pain that formed you? No, Not at All! Because in that case you would have loved and cherished the little things. If your life would have been full of dreadful pain, wouldn’t you? Or am I mistaken? Probably I am. It’s not to me to understand you. We shouldn’t focus at understanding each other, shouldn’t we? We should focus at loving each other. Even if that takes evoking an illusion. Even if that takes soft music, snow on Valentines day and tamaryoku tea to tantalise the senses. We should do that. Because that’s what we have.