Vienna
Vienna
Dream
02-04-2003
Together with somebody else I am standing at a lake, next to a strange city, Vienna I think. It could be Lake Geneva too. Somewhere in the middle of the lake there is a ford, strip, and we step into the water to reach the city. The water is restless. A little bit farther on the wind is rising, and high waves formed. We get wet roughly.
Family Freud
Free Association
02-04-2003
The roots of Freud are in Vienna. Mine also are wet of tears, but somewhere in the vicinity of Geneva, a whole lake. On uncle Adolf's side there was a certain Geneviève, Geva as she was called. She was French speaking. Once upon a time she came on a visit, to relax I believe, but she went crazy all the way. She was depressive and wanted to commit suicide. Later on she was removed from her home, where everything was under the of shit, and then they locked her up. From then I never heard about her anymore. Aunt Jill, my father's sister, had a terrible headache from her thirty years on, every single day. She always wore a little scarf with a wad of cotton on her head. My father's father, Louis, was a carpenter, smoked a pipe and died on his 45th. I don't remember a thing of him. His wife, Eugenie, is still part of my memory - the mother of my father. She always prayed paternosters and never laughed. I feel a bit of jealousy of the Freud family, certainly with all that Very Important People.
Over Lake Geneva we had to go to the city. Crossing a lake of tears to meet a city of people. Very faintly I remember my trip, late at night and in the darkness, to the fireworks. They already had rattled me the whole night with the terrible noise to be expected there, and that it would be extremely late, and that I probably would be unbearably scared, and that they eventually should be obliged to bring me home, and that I was a chicken. About 3 years of age.
So they frightened me well enough, and we walked off. Aunt Bolly and my mother, and perhaps still somebody else. From far away I already heard a loud blast and wanted to go back. They told me the situation would calm down once it started for good, not that bad. But we were a little bit early, and quite silent, and then they always shoot colorless bangs to get more people outside. A terrible flash and an infernal explosion. I saw the matches they used to lit the bomb flying in the pillar of fire. I began screaming like a stuck pig, and they immediately covered me with a mantle and moved me off. Aunt Bolly afterwards : "You see, I have told you that you are an asshole". Aunt Mocky gave me lots of beautiful gifts.
When I was very young, less than three years, I don't remember much of it, only strange and vague, I once sat with my bottom in an ants' nest. They put me in the sun, under the apple tree, on a piece of pavement, or else I walked myself up to there and sat down. I look at my legs, as if it are not mine, but all the way hang out of my body. Small black little things move around on the paves, and then on my naked legs. I try to pick up some of them or point at them. I never saw such things. Down there it begins to tingle and hurt. Loud cries and then I see my mother and somebody else pull my trousers off and tap the things away. They are obviously a little bit out of their mind, run in and out. There is the smell of vinegar. End of memory.
Once I got scabies - the itch. I walked already, but for sure was smaller than three years. I don't remember a bit of it. The tale is as such, as I heard much later. I have read dots, on my arms, hands and most of all on my back, and they take me to the doctor. It's the itch, he tells. They have to scrub me with green soap and a brush, until all red dots are bloody, and then rub with sulfur. I must have carried on terribly, it seems. My father had a little spot himself, somewhere, and he applied the sulfur too, after which, he said, it was as if his skin was on fire, there. From the time when I was about ten, I remember a terrible nightmare which woke me up terrified. My father had pushed a red hot cauldron in my back, and I felt burning pain. I don't think I had been told about sulfur yet, at that time.
To get on the other side, we have to walk through shallow water. When we are in, it becomes very restless and we get wet. We are on the way for Vienna (Wenen in Dutch, which means 'to cry'), or Geneva, and it reminds me of my first school day. I am dropped with a madam and left alone. I stand there in the middle of a court yard, the playgrounds of the school, looking at yellow-red brickwork and big white windows. Whether I cried or not, I don't remember, but I felt very funny. Probably I would still recognize the smell of that place. Reconstructing smells in memory is very difficult.
I don't remember me very much about the first kindergarten year. The teacher once draw an enormous apple on the blackboard, and she said that it was an apple. It wasn't easy for me to link the big drawing she painted on the black wall there with an apple. The thing was much to big and had the wrong color, and I didn't like it at all. I think it was quite early in that first year.
The teacher had a box with which she clapped. It was like the muzzle of a beast which opened and then closed with a bang. The box just fitted to her hand, and had a small lock at the front side. When she unlocked it, then it opened by means of a built-in spring. Then she jammed the two halves on each other with a pop. It was a popper box. In the second year the teacher had one too, an other one. In fact I wasn't aware of the box until I once saw glistering a button in it, as if it suddenly looked at me. I got used to the thing for a long time yet, but never was aware consciously of it. It was just part of the scene, and popped up when I saw the button.
In a corner of the playgrounds we found the toilets. Single for the girls, double for the boys. We had to line up. Joseph always pulled his foreskin a little bit up to pee, and I thought it would be dirty manners for me, but not for him. Once I peed on my sandwiches and immediately had a big problem.
I was not hungry, and was not eager to eat the jam-sandwiches either, because I never stayed for lunch at school. I don't know why on earth I had to take sandwiches with me. So be it, I stood there with wet bread and butter and jam, and mam had ordered me to eat them. Ought to. I tried, but it was disgustingly nasty, and after a while I threw them into the dustbin. Of course I had to tell that to my mother from the moment I came in, and, of course she was angry because I peed on my food, and most of all because I had been such a fool to eat of them. It confused me a little bit. I always had to do what she said, but not in case of circumstances beyond my control, but she forgot to tell me that little detail. It never was good enough.
There we have the mirror again.
-
Lake and mountain :
(http://www.granitedells.com/views.html) -
Family Freud :
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/freud/freudobj.html -
Geneva Lake :
http://www.delevensloop.nl/foto.html -
Fireworks :
http://www.geo.vu.nl/~ahdt/actief6.htm -
Tears : ?
-
The itch (scabies) :
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/ruth.livingstone/little/scabies2.htm -
Restless water :
http://www.csl.sri.com/programs/security/csfw/csfw14/photos.html -
Apple :
(http://www.dewassendemaan.be/fruitwijzer/appel.htm) -
Wooden box :
http://crystalsands.wiccan.net/aroma.html -
Button :
http://www.uniquespool.com/cgi-bin/ustorekeeper.pl?command=
goto&file=Notions_-_Buttons.html -
Slices of bread :
(http://www.colema-boards.com/rawfoodbread.htm) -
Mirage :
http://hypertextbook.com/physics/waves/refraction/index.shtml
Copyright © 2004 A. Syberg