On my way home

In 2018, right after Huub and I moved to England, left our jobs and sold our house, my quest began. What do I want to do in life? Why am I here? My head was filled with so many doubts and uncertainties and only one answer: I knew I felt good out in nature, hiking, and afterwards processing all I felt and thought on paper.

For months, I continued this routine of writing and walking in nature - as if my life depended on it. I had a rule: no filtering. All of the lightness, all of the darkness. All of the words somehow happened to come out of me as poetry. It was the first time I met this voice, and day by day I was getting to know her, getting used to her. Because who was she, this woman in awe of nature?

Then followed months of rereading hundreds of pages, selecting the poems I felt were meant to be shared, creating illustrations, designing the book, bringing it to the press and releasing it during a memorable, almost holy, book launch at the Dominicanen Church in Maastricht. I wanted - I needed - to do this all by myself. I needed to be okay with it first and foremost myself. Or, as is written on the cover of the book: ‘There is one promise I truly want to, need to, keep: the promise to myself.’

On My Way Home became the title of this illustrated collection of poetry; a sentence taken from the poem below. In 192 pages I open-heartedly share with you my journey of leaning in and out of - what I felt is - my true self. A journey of dark and light. With contemplations such as: ‘Why am I here? Is this home? Can I let go? Can I be me? Do I love me?’ Insights show up in poetry, prose, nature photography, illustrations and self-portraits.

This book wouldn’t have been here without the person who guided me through all of the darkness and lightness, a coach you could only wish for: Frank Geraerts. And, moreover, my dearest partner Huub and our Beagle, Elly. More thanks go out to: Bruce Mau, Maarten Schrevel, Carry Somers, ‘Sacred Sites and Architecture group': Ben, Margaret, Julia, Coco, Eco, Romke, Jitske, Yanik, Bruce, Kearie, and my mother, father and brother. Thank you all.