THINGS I OBVIOUSLY GOT FROM MY FATHER

Whoever starts their career as a teenager makes the greatest effort to not resemble their parents as much as possible. In movies and series, it is often seen as a kind of insult: “Oh my god you’re really turning into your mom right now.” I don’t quite understand why it has to be seen as something negative, but what I do know is that it is becoming increasingly clear to me: I am really a child of my father.

Travel anxiety

When I have to fly, I like to be at the airport well in advance, because you never know what can happen on the way and you might miss your flight. During short flights to places like London, where I travel with only hand luggage, I am a lot more relaxed, but when I go far and long from home, I want to be at the airport at least an hour and a half in advance, preferably two hours. Or three. Also because I love airports and would happily take another round in the tax-free shop or stroll by Starbucks. But it has happened more than once that I sit calmly at an airport for three hours, or longer. A friend always laughs at me for this, he’s the type who breezes in half an hour before, while I would already be hyperventilating and on oxygen by then. Recently he was in Hong Kong and had to catch a flight to Sydney and managed to arrive at the airport just twenty minutes beforehand. In the end, he made the flight, “and that just proves that my strategy works perfectly.”

Well, where I want to go with this story is that it recently became quite clear where my travel anxiety comes from. My father went to London for a weekend last week. He flew on Friday, had his suitcase ready on Thursday, checked in, printed his ticket, and was at Schiphol about two hours before departure. And for the return flight, it was even worse: including a delay of an hour, the poor man spent a good four hours at City Airport. Now he does go very far, but I completely understand this and could do it myself just like that. I told that London story to that friend and he said with wide eyes: “Oh wow, so that’s why you are like that.” Yup, guilty as charged.

Turning things upside down

When you sit at the table with me or my father, it’s always a bit of a wait to see who will knock something over first. My father prefers full glasses of red wine, I like to spill a full jug of water. We can’t help it, we’re just clumsy and we talk with our hands.

One is so alone

In our family, we have a word for the way we shop: ‘Raskeriaans.’ When I come to drink a glass of wine with my dad (“just one, I swear”) you can bet there are three bottles chilling, the table is filled with delicious snacks, and there will probably be a big chicken roasting in the oven. Or when he buys the candy for Sinterklaas I know that wheelbarrows full of ginger nuts will be brought in. And speaking of Sinterklaas, we have been trying for years to stick to the rule “everyone buys two gifts for the other” but that keeps failing, resulting in us unwrapping gifts and reading poems deep into the night. Raskeriaans is big bigger biggest, and always cozy.

Love for quaintness

For years, my father, sister, and I go to Tuscany in Italy during the summer. For a few years now, Barbara, my sister, has been flying on her own, and dad (yes, I’m a little kid and still call my father dad) and I drive to the holiday home in a few days. She finds that driving terrible, unlike us. In fact, it might be my favorite part of the holiday. Together in that car, peeling quaint eggs, stopping in small villages, chatting a bit, taking little naps – wonderful.