Kieks Spanje Schrijfsels: ‘Hello beautifuls, I’m bahaaack!’

I believe in opportunities from fate. Sometimes you get that one chance, that one chance where you intuitively feel: this is it. My call. This is my invitation. So written on my body: if I say ‘yes‘ to this, I will grow. And maybe even enter the next phase of my life.

My heart skipped a beat when I received the invite to join a five-day lifestyle retreat in Benissa. When the invitation came in, I was about to emigrate to Spain in a few months and lo and behold: I had just landed three weeks ago. With the retreat location about a 45-minute drive away. The most beautiful things are not thought up by yourself, those are the surprises. The unexpected gifts that suddenly stand at your front door.

And now I sit here. In a zen-chic boutique hotel, staring dreamily ahead. We have the whole afternoon to ourselves and I have agreed to write about this journey. To try at least. Without pressure. Writing is an outlet that hadn't worked for a long time. A creative expression that I even thought was ‘broken’ for a while.

That's why I closed my laptop on July 15, 2021. And that laptop stayed closed. And closed. And closed. Until I became angry about it. And then sad. After that even insecure. At one point, I didn't even know which drawer ‘that stupid thing’ was in.

The writer with a writer's block. What a story (just read here how that went). Suddenly I felt the absence of the singer who could no longer sing. The presenter with a polyp. What a mess. Why can't this work anymore? It had to be 2023 to find the answer.

My lack of motivation was caused by a deeper need for renewal. It wasn't just a temporary writer's block like: hey, I just don't know what to write. The problem was that I was looking for a Totally New Calling, to put it mildly. It can never just be normal here.

Anyway, long story short: I believe that things stop flowing for a reason. That hobby. That relationship. That job. That friendship. Then it's time for action in the taxi. It sounds like a Johan Cruyff saying, but there simply needs to be movement to get something that is stuck moving. The message of life. In my case, it was quite a big movement. I was called by a new way of living. And so I turned the helm and left with my love (and cat love) towards Spain.

I want to take you along in my Spanish adventures on Monday mornings for the coming weeks, from A to Z. From our decision to move to the day of the truck. From the arrival in Spain to everything we experience here. And of course the search for a house. Everything.

For now, you are witnessing quite a grand moment. Right now I am lying here on a stretcher in the shade next to the pool. I could do a hundred other things, but I choose the laptop. And the laptop this time for me.

Isn't it bizarre? Apparently, an emigration was needed to get the flow back in my fingers. To make the translation between heart and hands. I can feel it in the way my fingers glide over the keyboard. It's still there. I'm still here.

Hungry.
Am.
There.
Again.
Can. Well. Cry.
I missed you, dear Amayzers.

PS: Next week less sentimental, I promise. I think.  

Credits photographer: Jade Harms