I’m Annemie.

Welcome to the playground.

I am a qualified occupational therapist and my scope of practice wavers on subjects such as neurology and phycology. The irony, however, is that I tend to lose track of my own mind and reality (I befriended the Hatter at a very young age) and I sprint away to La La Land and twirl around on Cloud nine for the fun of it. As a girl, I read narratives that ignited my imagination – Roald Dahl always within eyes view. I also imagined myself sitting with the Hatter, spilling the tea and laughing barbarically. But the girl had to grow up and I traded books for magazines and mindfulness became a memory – that is how this epilogue was written:

The following quote sparked my imagination in an article in a Vanity Fair Magazine: “She had the insatiable desire to do it all, but you do not get the feeling that it’s stressing her out…she is just doing it with joy, and that’s very, very contagious.” For me, it symbolised freedom and sense of self – the true essence of living. I thought this to be brilliant and a golden standard to work towards. And believe me, I did it all, but all at the expense of my authenticity and identity.

In a world where liberality and vanity are promoted on every front page, where narcissism and sarcasm become daily habits and rituals and where anything conservative are looked down upon, it is difficult to navigate the essence of femininity and a sense of self. You chase to copy and paste every new flavour, never satisfied, always searching and losing the gift of the present reality. The reality promoted is that we are spoilt for choice (as wisely stated by an exceptional woman I know) as to who you want to be. In this process we search and chase for an abstract identity and we are losing all pure authenticity.

A poem by Walt Whiteman, mentioned by Robin Williams in the Dead Poets Society, always comes to mind to help me reach for some perspective when all things become to abstract. It reads as follow: “Oh Me! Oh Life! Of the questions of these recurring, of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish, Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)…The question, O me! So sad, recurring – what good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer. That you are here, that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”

So… What will your verse be?

I do not want to gain the whole world and forfeit my soul. Therefore, I write to leave my verse.

I am writing for the sceptic, the critic, the nonchalant, the Rainmen and -women and anyone who likes to read, for that matter. Maybe it is for someone to associate, to spark a new conversation and give perspective to a distorted reality. Or maybe, it will be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out, as famously stated by Mr Frodo Baggins.

So, dearest gentle reader, this is not for all folk and not everyone’s cup of tea. But, it is authentic, and through the eyes of the beholder.