I've been playing basketball at Bakkersplein from around 6 to 11:30 PM. It was more crowded with people (especially kids) that were playing basketball — just as it's more crowded everytime I go there. It appears we (Enrique and I) are inspiring people to take a shot at that one sport we love best.
This thought is being supported by more and more people (older people — parents, neighbours) that have been appraoching us, and complimenting us on our role in the local community (I don't think we really realize we had one before).
For example: yesterday, the mother of one of the kids that has been playing with us a lot lately thanked me personally about taking care of her son, that is being teased a lot by other kids
— I sort of protected him from a bunch of kids that wanted to take him apart the day before. She said he (her son) is crazy about us. Warms my heart.
Today, I played with and against probably 10 - 20 kids. Not at the same time, though — kids tend to have a much shorter attention span, so they refresh in a what appears to process naturally way. I was the only steady factor.
Around 10/10:30, when all the kids had went home (except for Mikey, who had just arrived... then again, I think he relates to us easier, than to the other kids of his age), I hung around some more, still, shooting some hoops, mainly because I'm an addict. Some middle-aged guy approached, and sat at the side of the court. He told us not to pay attention to him, and to continue playing.
After a few minutes though, Mikey went home, and I somehow got into a conversation with the man (that I had never seen in my life, by the way). We talked in a very laid-back manner, yet we talked about some serious matter. We talked about the underworld of The Hague — about attitude, about drug dealers and biker gangs, about ADHD...
After some time, my typography/letter design professor from the Royal Academy, Peter Verheul, joined us (he had spotted me while walking his dog). The discussion then went to dogs, then to physical injuries, back to attitude and drug dealers.
The guy had already been touching some sensitive subjects — subjects that I happen to know stuff about (and sometimes wish I didn't), but it appeared he hadn't even got started yet. Peter asked me how I was doing, and I told him that I had been experiencing less anxiety attacks... this shook the other guy right up, and triggered him to start talking about how his body can start a serotonine kick which will get him sober nomatter how much drugs and alcohol is in his body, and how this would get him so anxious he'd been wanting to kill himself.
This — on my turn — shook me right up. Because that is exactly what I have. Not only that, it's also what my father has, and — sad, but true — it's part of reason why his mother (my grandmother) decided to take her own life, and her mother tried to do the same thing, years earlier.
I was thinking this out loud, which — I think — shook Peter up (to complete the circle), because he looked pretty shocked. Peter went home, and the other guy (who I now know as Mick) went to pick up some coke from the dealers that he'd been waiting for and had just arrived. When the guy got back we continued discussing the influence of serotonine, cocaine, superskunk, Prozac (I still think the title of their website Welcome to Prozac
is funny), about single Malt Scotches, and about — again — my role in this community.
He said he really admires the way I deal with all these kids as if they were my blood, and that he noticed that more and more kids had been coming to Bakkersplein to play ball. Around that time I had put on my jacket, and was getting ready to go home.
We talked some more about our favorite malt Scotches (The Macallan, Glenfiddich, Glengoyne, Oban, etc.), and about sports (basketball and darts). He told me to come pay him a visit once, and do some more talking while enjoying some Scotch and a game of darts. I said I'll see him around, and we both went our way.
I'm not too sure about the visit thing (my experiences with people + cocaine aren't the best I've had, and I've had quite a few. This is not the fault of those people, it's the fault of cocaine), but it's very cool to be confronted with the fact that you can sometimes (often?) relate to perfect strangers better than with people you've known for over a decade, and that even (especially?) when you've never met somebody, this person can be a as confronting a mirror as any.
1 comments so far.
I'm too lazy to read this entry. So, I'll just reply to tell you I'm alive. I'm alive.
Posted by: Murdoink on March 17, 2004, at 00:52