Omoni,
Images of a dark, damp cellar emerge, where It glides pleadingly into the darkness with tears in its eyes, while the streak of light becomes smaller and smaller as the door squeaks shut. Maybe you just hear a horrible scream or just a deep fatalistic lifeless sigh before the heavy door closes. “I have closed it,” I often hear people say on television or on the street, “I can now get on with my life.” But what do they do with the key? And had their lives stood still until that moment?
Or are these people able to banish It from their memories, á la Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless mind. I once thought I had a natural gift for this, but after a number of years it turned out that I had a gift for reckless actions, but not for banishing the memory as if it never existed. Memories that you would rather forget work like water: they drip, seep or sometimes fall in buckets. But where it starts to leak is rarely the origin. It is difficult to control them and they often jump on you when you least expect it. Some like mine remain dormant like a volcano. They are always present in the background. Sometimes they rumble, but there is always the threat that they will wake up with a big spectacle. It is not even the memory itself that causes unrest but all the questions it brings and the speculative answers that form themselves when answers are not forthcoming.
Last year was 53 years ago that I came to the Netherlands. Of those 53 years, I have spent at least 28 years on and off looking for you and answers to all those questions so that the volcano can finally be registered as a death and I can safely walk down memory lane. Maybe one day I will also be able to say with full conviction: I have closed it, but until now It will always stay with me. Over the years it has become easier to live with, just like an elderly couple who, after years, have coordinated their lives.