Would love feedback.... (wrote on my laptop so no punctuation) AN EARLY START

Chapter one. An early start.

I told my father what you asked me? said Julie. I could feel the blood rushing to my face and my feet began to feel numb. He said you may kiss me on the cheek or on the hand like a gentleman. I am a gentleman I thought or so my grandmother and mother had told me often enough but that’s not where I wanted to kiss her at all. When I had asked her it was plain as day to me that if you were supposed to kiss a girl like Julie it was on the lips and that it was a very secretive thing or so I had thought. He would like to meet you after summer camp today she had said. My face most of been bright red at this stage and if my feet had been numb there is no word for what was going on in my mind. Panic is the closest I could figure. Julie was a beautiful little girl of around eight years old and I a year her senior. Still playing kiss chasing and climbing trees and all those other things that innocent enough children do. I was the enough, she was the innocent. I remember clear as day how beautiful she was to me, long blonde hair just over her shoulders and big bright blue eyes that almost would seem too big for her if she hadn’t got the most wonderful smile to match them. It was the first time I had ever asked a girl for a kiss and she had went home to ask her parents. I suppose I should of just been happy that the father had allowed her to even talk to me again. Never mind kiss her gentle on the cheek. I only wanted a kiss and hold hands for a while under the tree where no one could see us. Now it seemed not only was I not getting my kiss but I had to meet her father too. I don’t remember why but this seemed like a really bad idea to me. Her father, why would he want to see me, what would he say? Would he be angry? Of course he will be angry I want to kiss his daughter and hold her hand my child mind was screaming at me. As if she could sense the panic flowing through me all of a sudden she told me to close my eyes, I did with panic in my heart. I felt soft lips touch mine for the quickest of moments and then she kissed me. Not a passionate kiss like we would expect in our older more jaded years but a peck to which I pecked back. My panic disappeared and was replaced by something new all together. Something I really had no word for, no reference came to mind to help me figure it out. It kinda felt like being on the fast tea cups at the funfair but better. More intense, it spread everywhere to my fingertips and back again. I opened my eyes. Though I would of never believed it possible but there Julie stood more beautiful than ever with red cheeks to match mine. I reached out and took her hand as she quickly grasped back we kissed another time. This time slightly longer and more confident though not harder. Just more at ease. For those moments I forgot about everything, even how to breath seemed labored it didn’t come natural anymore, my stomach was doing flip flops and she was just standing beside me now with a smile that eased my worry anytime I remembered that her father would be screaming at me at the end of the day. Oh my god I thought, we kissed on the lips. Now he’s really going to be angry at me if he was not already. Julie didn’t seem bothered by the thought of her father. She just wanted to know why I had wanted to kiss her in the first place. Why her and not one of the other girls at camp. I couldn’t answer, I knew I thought she was prettier than anyone there. Though my child mind couldn’t tell her that. Don’t know I answered. Why did you kiss me just now? I asked. Wanted to know what it felt like she answered. How did it feel? I asked again. I don’t know she answered, lets try again. This time we kissed longer and pretended like we were people on tv. Moving our mouths open and closed in a French kiss movement but without the tounge. We didn’t know that could be done. Seemed kinda of icky at the time to even think about. Peoples tounges touching eachother. Gross. Kissing Julie was far from gross though. It was positively delightful, made a young boy feel alive and awakened a taste for this thing called kissing. Did you feel anything in your belly I asked one last time? Yes she said, but didn’t know what. I felt calm again. Whatever the feeling was it was part of kissing I thought. Was it because we kissed on the lips made our bellys think we were hungry? But no it wasn’t like hunger. It was more exciting, nervous. Whatever it was I was hooked. Julie! Patrick! Come away from that tree and join the rest shouted a older woman in a yellow summer camp tee shirt. So off we went to join the group, ill never forget the feeling of being surrounded by people yet knowing that really it was only me and Julie there together. The rest didn’t really exist they were there but they didn’t count, like clouds to a blue sky. Part of it but still separate. As the day grew to a close and our parents started to come collect us my panic slowly started to return. What is she tells him that we kissed? Julie and I waited, I was doing my best to look cool and innocent all the while hoping that my mother would be first and I would be gone before he arrived but to no avail,there he was walking towards us. Julie jumped to greet him and I tried to make myself disappear into the wall of the old side building of the church. Is this the boy? He asked. Yes daddy he is answered Julie without missing a beat. So young man why do you want to kiss my daughter and do you think that is ok to do? I stayed silent. Too afraid to answer really, though no answer came to mind. Speak up boy you do have a voice don’t you? Or you could never of asked her for a kiss. I think she is pretty and then I mumbled under my breath something I couldn’t even understand. And what he asked? And I don’t know I said. He laughed long and hard and I just stood there bright red and confused. You don’t know? You know know? I can tell you son that god forgive me for saying this but im thirty seven years old and I still don’t know why it is I want to kiss my wife. Lord knows she complains enough yet no matter what, if I see her I got to kiss her at least once. Maybe its just one of those things he mused she’s her mother’s daughter alright. Snips and snails and all that he finished. Snips and snails I thought? What does that have to do with kissing. Sugar and spice he said and looked fondly at his daughter. Then straight back to me. You can kiss her he said, but like this. He reached down to julies hand lifted it knuckle side up and gentle kissed her hand. i didn’t really want to kiss her I said, some boys dared me to ask I tried to explain. He knew I was lying and so did she. Kiss her hand boy before you insult my daughter and by doing so me too. Julie beamed with pride and offered her hand as if she was a princess. I quickly took it and kissed her hand. With her father laughing all the while and my stomach was no longer dancing at all I noticed. The mere sight of him put a stop to that. As I watched Julie and her father walk away after an awkward goodbye I never thought that would be the last time I seen either of them. I was already dreaming of a summer, days spent kissing her under that old big tree but next day she was not at camp and we were told she was on holiday and would be so till camp was over. When I got home that next evening I protested to my mother I didn’t want to go back to that silly camp anymore but never told her why. My mother being herself tried to talk me into staying but I was having none of it. Nope, nada never again. How could I ever go back and enjoy a day of camp when all I could think about was that I’d never see her or kiss her again. When I think back on that day it strikes me how little I understood of love. That it was not only what I know now are butterfly’s in the belly and secret kisses behind old oak trees. I had my first encounter with the cruel but crucial mistress called love and attraction. In some ways I think my innocence died that day. For I had years before already played mammy and daddies, doctors and nurses and whatever fantasy games come to the mind of children to explore their differences. Though through those games we had been more exposed and straight to the point. That kiss had been closer, it had been honest. Which I found out also later was going to be when kisses were at their best, with honesty and love breaking down the barriers of childhood and into the realm of lust and passion.

Close to my tenth birthday I had badly wanted a bright green grip tape for my hurly stick. Yet a month waiting seemed too long to bare so one day I walked into the local sports store on the way to school and simply put it in my pocket. If kisses made my stomach flip and heart pound. This made my heart pound and scared me silly. Yet not enough to not do it. I really wanted that tape and I had only one way I knew for sure to get it

Finding the feast divine. An analogy of something I found in life.

Writing is done something best in the morning to me, It comes at a moment when you have slept and dreamt a life time of dreams that are floating around somewhere in your sub conscience bursting with new knowledge about who you are and where you belong. The sun shines bright and birds are feeding away at the pile of fresh bakers bread that has been laid out like a banquet of divine levels. We collect it fresh every morning from some friendly bakers. This morning I am hoping that the way they shock and fly away to come back and feast again, Is an analogy of life itself. That when something is divinely good and the something bigger and more powerful then the sun warms your heart. That the scares along the way shall only make the banquet taste even more sweet.

Surely there is room in life for a moment of terror to be shared with the relief that it was all pretend terror, That the meal had not changed into something old, moulded and rotten to the core. That the flight away is just a strengthening of the love for that original and only feast. The one laid down before us as a promise in life. That hidden away in some corner of our existence filled with anxiety and fear, that feeling we all feel that something pure and fresh exists along side the terror. Maybe its only the lucky few who ever find it, For somewhere else surely as their are birds feeding on the mountain of brown or white, seeded or crusted brown and crisp bread. Their is another bird or birds feeding from the dump, filled with its sharp glass, discarded needles and melting plastic festering away with a stench of death and decay itself. Yet if it searches even that pile of hatred and looks keen enough he will find some morsel of sustenance that will to him keep or her alive for another day, Maybe even to find that nirvana the next day, or maybe to struggle in the decay till it itself one day joins the pile to become part of the misery.

So if there are a lucky few and an unlucky many (which in my mind or at least experience is how nature seems to work) Its quite understandable that I notice the same birds feasting on the bread everyday. Their off-spring never going further then the roof tops and bushes of this neighbourhood, safe in the knowledge that  the feast will arrive and it will always be fresh. It's not as understandable to me that the unlucky few seem to never really try to find the feast, as if the toiling and searching is a life confusing them, keeping them busy and never a thought to what is over the hill or roof tops. So when some of the unlucky ones finally find the feast, they are overwhelmed, They almost can not understand what it is they have been lucky enough or searched hard enough for to find. Mostly it is those birds, The ones who find the feast divine later in life, who have fed on the scarce and tasteless or more so the unsavoury taste of a life and love fought for. They shock the most, fly away the fastest and come back to the feast slowest, for they know what is out there lurking and waiting.

So they fly harder and faster then the lucky ones, it is only natural  it is only fair that they frighten so much. Have they not already lived the life of fear and savagery not always of nature but also of the soul. The dark nights when the morning is not promised nor implied. The times loved ones stray and fall victim to what is always out there. Always waiting, coming in all shapes and sizes, emotions and flashes of thoughts.

Yet I argue this, the so called unlucky ones who find the banquet of divine and feast each time new after each time scared away. They taste it even sweeter and more mouth watering then unluckiest of the lucky birds. That its the scare in life, that can make our life taste that much more sweet and honest. Earned and fought for. That each fall, each quickened breath or fear of hurt, pain and lost love. Makes life, and the love in it. Taste better then the ambrosia  of old. Then the freshest of fresh air and the purest drop of water when parched as a desert beaten into submission by the sun. So unlucky is for some only a matter of time, sweat energy and love lost and found. A life worth living, a meal worth devouring.

Conor Lodewijks 

Chapter 1 - Chance encounter 1

It began like any other day with a trip to the local shop, but with this day the world start spinning again and faster then it ever spun before. The sun was shining and the air seemed clean, for the love of god I could not remember what it was that I needed from the local store, but I shall never forget what I found. As I whistled my way through the day I noticed a young woman petting a dog that I had a random encounter with the day before, with a mind to warn her to mind her dog better since the day before I had pulled said dog off another just as it had broke free and before any real damage could be done. I asked "Is the dog your own?" To which I was answered with one of the warmest smiles I had ever seen before, nor in art or life. "It is not, I just know it from seeing it here a few times and always find it with a sombre look to it, he's obviously an old man and in need of attention or love." If those where her exact words I don't know but I do know it was her exact sentiment. 


As I stood there with the warm sun on my back and the warmer smile in front of me we conversed about what ever came freely to the mind without any tendency to hide away from what was not to be said. I remember thinking to myself how comfortable I felt in her company and how genuine her worry and care for the dog was. As time for polite conversation winded down and it was time for two strangers to leave onwards to whatever life was waiting, I tried in vain to get some way of contacting her again. All I could remember was her name and a smile. Tineke with two n's to me, one to her. It was a name suited well to the innocence and honesty of her demeanour I thought. As I sit here and try to remember what exactly happened else that day Its painfully obvious to me that literally the only thing I remember is that chance encounter with what seemed to me one of the few people I had met who was just as is. Herself without any of the lies we share to make our personalities seem more bearable to each other. I however was not as pure in honesty for when Tineke asked me my age, I lied for fear of her thinking me some child with no experience of life to offer, I was 27 that day before my time. I instantly regretted it, but it was too late. The day moved on and as many things in life the warmth of that sun and her smile became nothing more then a sweet memory that reminded me of those dreams you wake from desperately trying to remember why you woke with such a huge smile and warmed heart. Life went on.


Life went on, Well for me that meant trying to figure out exactly what it was I was doing in this city, in this country  . Too many miles to walk or swim home with an ocean and forever in between me and my home. Dublin,Ireland. I had been living in this city already close to seven years, five of which I had shared with a Dutch girl called Niki, we lived together in a small room with a shared kitchen and crazy neighbours. My days then were spent thinking about life and smoking lots of marijuana and trying to decide if my teenage years of theft and robberies were an indication of my future. I had no idea, I was honestly lost in a place of wanting to share a life with someone who would understand that life was just that, life and that the past did not have to be sign that it would always be a life of down's with the very slight upward curves of a life enjoyed. It felt like universes away from how I had spent my teenage years, yet they always felt like they were at my heels. Screaming to everyone I met in life to be careful of what I was capapable of and to watch their women and money. Niki and I were bound to fail from day one, I knew it, she knew it but we ignored the obvious to try and enjoy what time we had together, before the time grew to nothing but arguements and hatred for the things that first made it bareable to be together. I learned a lot about how to share a life and how to swallow things that made my chest tight and my heart heavy.

What sticks out more then anything was the warmth and stickiness of a room that just boiled in the summer. Fraying away at our tempers and our patience, lazy days spent silently contemplating if this was to be our existence. An overbearing mother who would never allow the youngest daughter to be with or do what she wanted. Yet it was the mother who in a weird way rescued me from that misery of sharing a life with a girl who knew nothing of honest emotion of genuine conversation. It ended with me attacking the soldier boy with no killer instinct but a grip like a vice who had fired up Niki's new lust for the police and armed forces rather then the criminal underground I had to offer. So it had started with a young girls lust for a darker existence that she threw herself into and ended with a young man's temper for distrust and lies. Its a sharp contrast to how I met this lady outside the shop. It was as warm as the summer days gone by yet fresher and more comfortable which almost seemed by design. A full stop had been reached in my existence in this country. A turning point reached, yet I had no idea of how deep a chance encounter with this soft spoken and warm smiling lady would effect who I thought or knew I was. 

Yet a turning point had been reached, Days went by after I first met her and life was as usual, I was currently trying to fight for a house in the city I was living in due to a mishap or miscommunication on my part at the initial meeting with the housing corporation. So busy with worry and tired with wondering, I had let the brief encounter with the soft spoken lady slip my mind. One day while sitting behind the computer in my fathers house I noticed a young woman taking photo's of the burnt down building across the road, Its an old building so old in fact that they are not allowed do much with it even in its derelict and distraught state. It is a building I often look at myself since it looms over the land scape like a burnt down castle. So as I looked out without really looking all of a sudden I noticed it was the same woman I had met outside the shop. So I quickly open the window and said her name as well as I could remember, "Tinnekje" I said more as a statement then a hello. She turned and smiled, I could see recognition in her eyes and the same warmth.

I always pray for sinners

This time of year is a very special time of year to me and mine. Not only is it in these days that my auntie and my own mother celebrate the day of their birth but on a more sombre note it is also the time of year that they lost a mother and I a grandmother, and never did anyone ever have such a grand mother. Kindness that was first nature and patience of a heaven full of saints. I always wondered if her patience was a born gift or something grown and honed with love and care of her seven daughters and two sons over the years. Or did it come with the countless grand children that were born of those daughters and sons, worrying about us being raised in a city so different from the one she knew as a child, family owned corner shops and friendly conversation with the customers, ball room dances and gossip in the hair dressers, carriages carried by horses bringing the milk and the future right along with it. I used to sit and talk for hours with her, Listening to her stories and quick wit, our smile's and laughter a fourth companion right. The third being Tammy, Her dog always tucked in as close as she good get against her feet.

Her early morning companion, My grandmother or as I called her, my Nan was one for the early mornings and Tammy always right along with her. Nan would make a cup of tea and a slice of toast and a half, half always going to Tammy if and only if it was covered with real Irish butter, it was of course and always that bit thicker for the dog.

At night time as I would tip toe up the stairs and into the front room of our family home to jump into a bed that had hot water bottles already warming the bed at my feet and back, making it a dream long before there is any sleep to be had. Sometimes as I would pass my grandmothers room at night I would ask her to say a prayer for me, which the very first time I ever asked came the reply "I always do Conor, sure don't I always pray for sinners" even know years later in a different country and miles away from my true home it warms my very being to hear her say those words to me in memory. It became the standard reply to my question every time, and every time it was fantastic to hear. The very first time though it hit me dead centre, because I knew she meant it, no judgement in her voice only love and worry. Her way of letting me know she knew me, the spoken things and unspoken. I drifted off into the most sound and comfortably safe slumber of my life, safe in the knowledge that her prayers kept me safe, from demons both real and imagined.

As morning light would break and a new day arrived, I would often awake to the aroma of a real Irish breakfast cooked by a genuine Irish woman wafting up the stairs beckoning me to rise and follow the sweat smell to a morning meal fit for a king. As I would stumble down the stairs often in my boxer shorts and tee-shirt the sounds of the little radio in the kitchen would reach my ears. With her humming away as she went around the kitchen with the skill and confidence of someone who had cooked and served many a weary soul a fine meal. "Coffee or Tea Conor?" "Coffee, Please and good morning Nan" Her good morning was better then any words I could mutter, beans in red sauce; three sausages and a two rashers sided with fried tomato's and a fried egg or omelette to be followed seconds later by a big cup of Nan's coffee. Could a boy ever dream of anything more. All the energy one could ever need to lug over to H&B Ice cream factory and work a day and over time. Just in case though I would always with my uncle at lunch time to her home to arrive to any number of dishes prepared with love and skill. I left those particular months I lived there with the well rounded face and arse of a boy looked after too well by his grandmother, and no lie it was it either.

Not that that treatment was reserved for family and loved ones. The front door was never crossed by anyone welcome who did not get treated well and warmed by the fire place in the winter months or cooled by a cold drink during the summer, her kindness did not stop there, for she cared genuine for all the souls of the world. I could often see the pain in her face when the news would speak of unimaginable tragedies from around the world. She could offer them no help, no support, but only her prayers and you can be sure they were said and with a heavy heart filled with compassion for the family and friends of loved ones lost. As a child it struck me to see her like that, confused because I did not feel the same feeling no matter how hard I would try I just did not understand, they were strangers in strange places with strange names. How could I feel for someone I did not know, did not love a mystery that has gotten clearer over the years but still baffles me at times.

As she got older and less able bodied due to the fact her legs had been getting slowly worse over the years that never slowed her spirit, nor dampened her good humour. Nan would be able to make it to Sunday mass less and less, so it became replaced with mass on the TV or Radio, One day before it was really bad I offered to go with her and two of my cousins who were still small children at the time to her local mass, As we walked and talked I remember a excited mood and fondness that followed me when ever I was in her company. I'll never forgot how the moment I walked through the door of the church a muscle slid or pulled, dropping one shoulder down and making one arm agony to move, I bit my lip to stop from breaking the silence of the church with my screams of agony. To this day I still do not know what it was or why it happened, as the saying goes, Only god knows.

This I do know however, I stayed each minute and each prayer, seeing my Nan's worried smile and happy to be there with her family. Even if one of us looked like he had been born a cripple with a bad temper. For no one would I of stayed, but for her. For her alone, for the memory, for the conversation, for the laugh and most of all for her company.

As the morning broke soft new light and the birds sang gentle and quiet, I lay there wondering about much and nothing at all. I tried to figure out how late or more so how early it was by the light illuminating the blinds and the crisp fresh taste of the morning air. This was something I was good at, something I had practised many times and became a second nature to me. It was five in the morning. A summers 5am, Brighter then it should be and too welcoming for someone who enjoyed knowing he survived another day. So I rose. I quickly put on my jeans and shoes that are always right beside my bed, always in the same place, with my keys, my wealth in the pockets ready to go. I could be dressed and gone in less then thirty seconds, Something I learned through the years, Always ready for what was bound to  happen sooner or later. Not this morning though, No boots running up the stairs, No flash lights in my face or disrespectful tone telling me to get dressed and but my hands behind my back. Which I always hated yet came with a certain sense of relief that promised another day, A day locked away and accused of many things I would never admit too nor pretend that I did not do, For the boots and lights were the arrested team of the local police force, Where as the silent approach were normally rival gangs or thugs who come to usher you into a slumber that you never awake from. The long sleep, I've always wondered if there is rest to be had in that sleep, Do you know you are gone? Do you know who you were and will never be again? Who knows the unknowing sleep. All I know is that I wanted to find out on my own terms, My own demise, nothing mad for me and delievered with hate or the cold feeling of a man whose there pure for his monetary reward

Can wonder

Here a question tell me why, Good people go to heaven and bad people lie? Can you tell me why the grass grows green, Or why the sky is blue and everything inbetween? Can you wonder why, Tears do flow That some children have homes and other's no place to go? Why mothers love their children no matter what they do, Only once my mother remebers That I love her too, Can you answer me this? Is it all worth while, We live a life, and hopefully die instyle, But I wish and I wonder what could of been, Why is the Grass Green , Why too everything inbetween.