the hawk in the morning

Suburban Sundays in Ixelles, our neighbourhood in Brussels, wake up to the sound of little birds hopping in the trees and cars leaving with daddies and mommies to the golf course somewhere in Flanders. I guess, because I have never been there and I hate golf anyway. But today there were white feathers flying in circles by the garage doors. It looked like snow, but in April? I know that Prince sings that song I love, and makes me cry, "sometimes it snows in April", but still.

The dead pigeon was lying with bowed head and stiff legs in the middle of the pavement. And then, and then, the hawk came just out of the blue. It landed like a bomb. It took some more feathers away with its beak. Sunday was transformed. "Sunday, bloody Sunday", by the Irish band U2. That's how a suburban Sunday in Brussels can turn into a feast of raw nature.

I will never look again at the trimmed gardens of my neighbours with the same feeling of beatific awe. The hawk was beautiful, so was the pigeon by the way. No distinction of class, mind you, I tend towards equality, at least in terms of worth. The hawk had yellow eyes and strong feathery legs. The pigeon was all in tones of white, and gray, and blue, and beige. And its feathers twirled like snow in the morning cold of Sunday.

34 hours of sunlight

I read in La Libre Belgique that we had 34 hours of sunlight in February this year. The average is 89 hours. This was the lowest amount of sunlight since the creation of Belgium in 1830, the year they started mesuring these things. No wonder I felt under a spell in sunny Rome.

the seagull and the ice-cream

I was all week in Rome for a course on European Defense Policy. I had been to Rome before, but a beautiful town allows itself to be discovered all over again. I went to the Pantheon, and this time I was able to get inside. I could forget the crowds if I just focused on that blue circle of sky floating up there in the dome. Then I saw a seagull fly by. Tomas, one of my colleagues from the course, took me to Giolliti for an ice-cream late in the evening. It's his favourite place in Rome. There is one franchise in Seoul, South-Korea too. The place was almost empty, apart from a few tables with kids, and a young couple, silently, devoutly, eating big ice-cream cones. I had mora (blueberry) for the first time in my life and can still feel the taste. It was tender and cold, dark purple and spicy. It had stars somewhere in the middle and they tickled my throat. I would wrap my tongue around it and dream of the seagull crossing the blue-eye of the Pantheon's dome. My week in Rome condensed to a magic flavour and a circle of light.

it's your day

I'm the father of a daughter. Today is Woman's Day. Georgie is now three and a half; one day she will be a woman. It is my day too. My single wish is for my daughter to grow into a person, in a world of persons. As Antony, that wonderful composer and singer, says in one of his songs, "one day I'll grow old; I'll be a beautiful woman". Happy Woman's Day to all of us.

you taste of honey

I took Georgie, my daughter, to school this morning. We rode the usual tram, number 24. Georgie likes this tram because the seats are high. She licked my hand and said I tasted good, like honey. Georgie sometimes likes to pretend she is a little kitten. I kissed her forehead and said she tasted pretty. And then we just held our hands and watched the world go by. And it felt so peaceful, so natural, so true, like the world should be in the morning, before the rain hits the ground, before the wind bends the trees.

It was raining when we got to school. It smelled of moist earth, of traffic jams, of dust and water. And honey, and pretty too, of course. Our fragrant skins.

ten years without touching the ground

Young albatrosses can stay up to ten years without touching solid ground, just flying up there in the air. They can spend some six hours without flapping their wings, riding the currents. I guess I will always envy birds for being able to fly, at least most of them.

When I was a teenager I used to have these recurring dreams about flying. They felt so real. Apparently, many people have the same kind of dreams during adolescence. It has to do with wanting to be independent, literally wishing to fly away from your parents' nest. It may well be so. But I just wanted the exhilarating feeling of spreading my arms and going up in the sky. Maybe all teenagers are albatrosses in disguise.