Who I Was, Am, And Hope To Be

My bio for ILLUMINATION

A reader

My happiest memory from my childhood in Belgium is learning to read. I still think with great fondness of my first-grade teacher, who had a system to keep the advanced readers in her class happy while she patiently coached those who needed more time. It was a collection of one-page comic strips, pasted on cardboard, featuring “Apie” (Little Monkey). I soon turned into a compulsive reader.

From then onwards, for every occasion, I had only one desire. What present or reward would I like? A book, please! Wherever I was, whatever I was doing, I grew restless if there was no printed matter in sight. If there were no books, I’d look for a magazine or a newspaper, or else I’d read signs and labels.

During summer vacations at my grandmother’s house, we kids were sent upstairs to take a nap after lunch. I was never sleepy and terribly bored, until I discovered a shelf full of treasures: old schoolbooks and novels (unsuitable for my age) that had belonged to my mother, and, best of all, a fat, illustrated dictionary of the Dutch language.

An Indophile

It was in that old Verschueren Encyclopedic Dictionary that I first saw a small black-and-white picture of a building that captivated me. The caption read: De Taj Mahal in Agra, Brits-Indië. It was the first little piece of the gigantic puzzle that is India, and the beginning of a lifelong love story with a subcontinent, its people, and its many cultures. Eventually I would study Sanskrit, Hindi, and basically “everything to do with India” at Ghent University, where I also met my husband.

India continues to fascinate me even today. One of my learned professors (who were all Belgians) once said: “Everything they say about India is true, and its opposite is also true.” And I want to add, “The more I know about it, the more I realize there’s so much more that I don’t know!” It’s a never-ending, exhilarating learning experience.

An Indian friend once said to me: “In my experience there are people who love India (or the idea of it), and there are people who love Indians. You are the first person I met who loves both.” Being in India, living among Indian people, equals happiness for me.

A language nut

Even before receiving any formal instruction in languages other than Dutch, I was extremely curious about them. My mother was fluent in French and could speak German and English quite well. I pored over her old schoolbooks, trying to figure out as much as I could by myself. As the eldest of seven sisters, I knew better than to ask for her help. She was always working: taking care of the younger kids, running the house, cooking delicious meals, and helping out in the business.

My father was a Mercedes dealer, and one of the publications that arrived in our mailbox was a glossy trade magazine in German, Mercedes Benz in aller Welt, where I encountered my next mini-revelation: a picture of a graceful Indian lady in a sari (photographed next to a glossy automobile, of course).

I was formally introduced to French in the fourth grade, Latin in the seventh, Ancient Greek in the eighth, English and German in the tenth, and in the eleventh grade (known as Poësis in those days), I traveled to Italy in my summer vacation to study Italian. Because it sounded like the most beautiful language I had ever heard, and I just had to learn it. With all those years of French and Latin under my belt, it was child’s play, un gioco da bambini.

Every now and then I still fall in love with a new language (and the culture that goes with it), and feel compelled to learn at least the basics of it. But it gets harder with age. It’s hard enough now to not forget the languages I was once fluent in. This is one reason I’m so happy to have found a number of multilingual friends here at Illumination! ICO spontaneously offered to translate one of my bilingual poems into Italian, and he did a brilliant job of it! I’d hesitated to attempt it myself, as translating poetry is notoriously tricky. For him it was an occasion to use his English and improve his Dutch. That makes two happy language nerds.

A writer

Why do I write? To borrow the words of Gabriel García Márquez: “so that my friends will love me more.” And also to make new friends, and, perhaps most of all, to make my friends love each other. My mother tongue has a saying, Onbekend is onbemind. I’ll translate it loosely as, “One cannot love what one does not know,” and the French say (according to Tolstoy, at least), Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner, or “To understand everything is to forgive everything.”

I happen to believe that a lot of enmity in the world is based on a lack of understanding of where the other person, group, party, or nation is coming from. Of course, actual conflicts of interest also cause much hostility and ensuing wars. But much bad blood could be avoided if people simply knew more. Finding common ground is easier the more we understand about each other, what binds us and what separates us. Sometimes we will have to agree to disagree, but it’s harder to hate each other, and easier to reach a compromise, when we understand the other’s point of view and motivation. A lot of what I write is based on my need to share my love of others.

Last but not least, I write because as a reader I fell in love with the beauty of language, with the cadence of poetry and well crafted prose. Les belles lettres. But also etymology and puns. Idioms and their origins. Regional variants and dialects. All that stuff fascinates me no end. Language is not just an instrument, a tool. For me it is a toy, a treat, an endless source of joy and entertainment.

A traveler

Travel is in my genes. My parents loved to travel, usually by car, and as soon as I was old enough they would take me with them across the borders of our tiny homeland. We usually stayed in bed-and-breakfast type pensions or quaint, small hotels. I loved every minute of it, especially being exposed to new foods and new languages. Lately, spending time in long security or immigration lines, or idling for hours in transit lounges, has become such a pain in the neck. I would prefer to do a lot less of that. But, somehow, life seems to have other plans for me, and in the end the experiences always make up for the hassles.

Etc., etc.

I am a wife, a mother, a sister, a translator, and editor. A nerd and a bit of a pedant. I am a loyal (although often absent) friend to many, and unpaid life coach to a few. In what seems like another life now, I owned a small import business (handicrafts from India) in Belgium. I did stints as a secretary in different settings, as a corporate French instructor, a bilingual customer service rep, a proofreader and co-developer of educational materials, and I’ve conducted writing workshops in India.

For six years I ran a venerable publication started in 1914 by Flemish immigrants in Detroit. At age 64 I made my acting debut; I even have a credit on IMDb. I still can’t believe I let someone talk me into doing a monologue in Hindi (as yet unreleased, lucky for me) in front of a camera. I wrote a novel once. The manuscript won a second prize in a contest but it never got published and I no longer like it enough to even revise it. Although it might make a passable Bollywood rom-com, one day… As I write all this down, it seems unreal to me. Did I mention I suffer from impostor’s syndrome?

What I really want to be…

is a writer who connects with her readers. And also with other writers. In this regard, Medium.com has proven to be a great platform for me since 2016. And Illumination, in particular, feels like a godsend to me. Thank you Dr Mehmet Yildiz for fathering this brilliant brainchild. And thank you to all the wonderful, talented, enthusiastic and supportive fellow writers I have been privileged to find here!