Relax-a-Faff

We all have our coping mechanisms to tackle stressfull moments in our lives. Mine are really quite simple. I hermit. I tinker. And I dance.

The minute I got into my car after work on Friday, I decided to:

- ignore my phone for the weekend

- pay a visit to the artstore to stock up on canvasses & paint

- digg up my headphones

- put on my sweats

and...

Relax-a-Faff.

You can philosophize about the soul-enhancing benefits of sports and gym work-outs all you want, but nothing can ever top the effects of dancing. When you feel every fiber in your body totally take over. It's the tap-tap of feet that you can't control which spreads to every nook of your soul and airs it all out.

And tinkering... well, it's pretty much like being a kid again. We used to have friday-afternoon arts & crafts sessions at school, where the teachers set us loose on scissors, glue, paints, crayons and on rare occasions, welding equipment. It was often the highlight of my week. And to this day, recreating those afternoons has an unparallelled healing effect on me.

I decided to overhaul the bedroom canvas for something a little more inspiring, and ended up stencilling this:

Then I decided my toilet needed an extra little something, so I painted on a layer of blue crayon-paint. From now on, visitors to my toilet can leave little messages on my crayon-wall. This weekend, I decided to adorn it with a poem by my favorite poet, Herman de Coninck.

In Dutch:
"What heb je vandaag gekocht, vroeg ik.
Een halsuitsnijding, zei je.
Trek ze eens aan, vroeg ik.
En je trok alles uit: dat is ze
helemaal, zei je, maar met de jurk
erbij komt ze tot hier -
en toen wees je midden op mijn handen."

Loosely translated in English:
"What did you buy today, I asked.
Cleavage, you said.
Why don't you put it on, I asked.
And you took everything off: this is it
in its entirety, you said, but with the dress on it comes to just about here - and then you pointed to the middle of my hands."