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| C. Buddingh' [1918-1985] |
Dordt – what can I say: I was born there
and have lived there now, with the exception
of a few interruptions,
for about fifty-six years: then you really don't know any better:
Bankastraat, Voorstraat, Bagijnhof, Kromhout,
same houses, same people, same trees, same
shops: K. Schippers
wrote in a poem entitled Bij Loosdrecht:
‘If this were Ireland
I would look more closely.’ The nice thing, I think, about Dordt
is that I don't have
to look at all anymore, but can simply think of
everything
that
comes to mind: the city doesn't bother me,
just
as I, I hope, don't bother the city:
we are
like two good neighbors
who
nod benevolently at each other, sometimes have
a
quick chat, but otherwise go each their own way.
At least, that's what you'd thought, but
it's not like that: what
you experience when you're still in your
warm knickerbockers
it doesn't leave you cold – you might
wish that it did: Dordt, want nothing to do with
it,
I just live there, that’s all – but you
only have to see
the Grote Kerk rising from afar amid
the tangle of roofs and facades,
and you immediately feel like a child that after a school trip
— Very enjoyable: lots of ice cream, lots
of chips –
gets off the bus and with suitcase or bag in hand
runs into the street where his house is: the party
may be over, but here he's at home:
look, there goes the milkman, he has
got a new float and there
is the tree where once the firemen rescued
Marietje's cat.
They're little things: I know, a friend
from Twente who went to Normandy every
year
and to whom I showed the harbours, exclaimed in surprise: ‘But Dordt
is much more beautiful than Honfleur!’ That may be true,
but if men only loved beautiful women
few would get married: if you love Dordt
you don't just love the Groothoofd,
the Damiatenbrug, the Bolwerk, the
Pottenkade,
but you have an equally soft spot
for the Stoofstraat, the Hoge Bakstraat,
the Wilgenbos: places
that no tourist has ever taken a slide of,
because Dordt is not just the river
with everything that comes with it,
but a clumb of atmosphere, a climate, in
which
you might need to have even been born to be able
to breathe there permanently.
But let's be honest: is it that much better in Buenos Aires,
Tokyo, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Paris?
(Not to mention Loon-op-Zand
or Sint Anna Parochie) –surely not:
wherever people live you can only survive
with a disposition or a barrel of
pep pills and tranquillizers,
and moving brings nothing but headaches
and costs a lot of money.
No, it's best to live
where your roots are, where you can think:
oh yes, that's where
I always stood waiting for Stientje, and
this is where
I ran into my mother.
The rest is just backdrop,
whether it's called Piazza San Marco
or Broadway or Penny Lane or Spui or Bois de Boulogne.
