Now I know how to tell you

Some time after realizing I was soon leaving my childhood home to fend for myself, my body filled itself with dread. I realized I was so busy growing up that I was just barely familiar with the landscape and the people that surrounded my hometown. During the following two years, I wandered the landscape of the Southwest of the Netherlands trying to cope with leaving my family, youth and unresolved conflicts behind. The desolate, rural landscape and the people I encountered became a reflection of my inner turmoil.

The landscape did not at all fulfill the romantic ideas I had believed for years. Instead I stumbled upon an melancholic and quiet place where I predominantly encountered male farmers, void of family, struggling mentally. An eerie sense of faded glory. Through thrilling encounters I learned how estranged we have been, the "Polder" and me.

Faced with an urgency to slow down the process of leaving and uprooting my identity, I scrambled for a way to remember where I come from, a connection, a mental and emotional point of return. Discovering what this landscape means to me develops into a poetic and lyrical way of saying goodbye to this chapter of my life.

"Now I know how to tell you" is an experience of connecting to a landscape, people and a place I had grown up a stones throw away from but never really knew before. I experienced what the Dutch countryside looked and felt like and now I know how to tell you, goodbye.