An early wake-up call

Holland, Amsterdam,
02-05-2010.

I wake up early, my clock telling me it is close to 04.oo h. and way to early to get up if I wanna survive the rest of the day in any sort of working order...but then my dreams were as always tormented by images of the past, screaming women and uncomfortable travelling in thrid world chicken buses..the faces of the impoverishes masses looking at me accusingly from across a wooden bench in a primitive train carriage, jealousy beaming out of dark brown eyes, my white skin and the ecomomic riches of a developed Western country where its citizens can affort backpacking across Mother Earth as opposed to the hard work and bad medical health care, slanty town rich countries of the favorite choises of any Western backpacker on the move...

Or maybe that was all part of my latest nightmare...as far I can remember most of these impoverished masses, these undereducated wretches were actually quite friendly, hospitable and happy to meet people from the other side of the world, willing to share their way of life with strangers, their meagre meals and wooden shacks...

I am trembling and hoping for Nong's voice inside my gray brain mass to help me calm down but she has been mystriously absent these last few months, leaving me alone to deal with me mental sorrow, my recurring nightmares and misplaced feeling of Guilt and frustration...

A cold shower won't do the job either...not trying to stay under these sweat drenched sheet hoping for the God of Sleep to drag me back under, back to the realm of heavenly Bad Dreams, back to my years of backpacking across the globe, my only friends my Lonely Planet Bible and my crappy backpack filled with dirty laundry...somehow these years on the road seemed a whole lot more bening at the time as opposed to the memories of them that nowadays rule my sleeping hours...

I start painting again hoping desperately for some sort of menatl relief, hoping to enter the "zone" again, the zone where I feel like a monk in a cubicle, totally oblivious to the outside world, totally oblivious to my mental processes, where I feel like totally taken over by what slowly but surely is coming out of my hands...

By 07.00 h. I come out of my trance, ready for a cup of coffee, some breakfast and a hot shower, maybe some more sleep too...Lord Buddha smiles at me beningly, his eyes beaming back at me from a wooden baord filled with acrylic paint...