“Untamed Rhythms: Reflections of an Anthropological Maverick”

Books, movies, traditions—all these form part of our collective and personal memory. The era in which they found their place is most likely the reason for the background music they’re all accompanied by—call it a cosmic DJ if you like.

As this DJ spins the soundtrack of our lives, we’re tasked with finding our own rhythm, our unique dance in the grand ballroom of existence, if you will.
The question is: is rhythm more consistent with a routine, and how do you discover yours?

Myself particularly, I have been a loner as long as my memory reaches (and mate, it goes a long way). Having lived in the country and city heart, with wood or meadows behind the house or canals in front, I always found myself bounding (not in blood but in bond) with the animals present.

Whether a cat or rabbit, a horse or a goat, they were easier to handle and understand than my fellow yearlings. I preferred my wild horse to the nasty girls’ group at school and was extremely comfortable riding 35 kilometres on my bike to school rather than the bus (mind you, through snow, too!).

Why the different landscapes? The nomadic lifestyle was courtesy of my father, a simple Dutchman two decades my mother’s senior, utterly besotted with her colonial aristocratic ways. Her self-absorption (read: egoism) meant her whims were law, and thus, the Benelux became my oyster, so to speak.

Back to rhythm and routine, so the above equation takes longer to build than the calculated experiences of the action and reaction. I mean, sure, I preferred to hit someone back than cower down, and of course, when the atmosphere was such that even reading books from or until five a.m. didn’t colour the world enough, I knew this simply was not my piece or place on the rolling rock, aka Earth.

Getting off track: “You see how easily one’s mind gets sidetracked?!” A highly intelligent person once told me, “You don’t have a daily routine; how exhausting!” I gave that a lot of thought, and it brought me back to the first person I saw, having left to the gods’ only know where.

Picture this: end seventies, us three living at a reformed farmhouse and surrounded by real farmers, all very pious conspicuous cunts. Working from dust till dawn, claiming to be god-fearing mongers, yet out of the stables, I was chased (no reason given but my intuition’s).
Anyhow, our neighbour didn’t see the grain silo coming down, and that was the end of him, at least in this life.

My father, anti-religious, was crying his eyes out and sat in the circle of men, where women and children were only allowed to say farewell or serve coffee. I remember looking at him and seeing the time he let me drive his tractor and taught me how to make halters out of rope for the cows.
Ah yes, and when I entered his yard trotting (with my horse), alerting him to the Houdini act, his cats were complicit, and he replied,” And who had a go at you (had a deep cut along my throat from rusted barbwire) yet still no tears dripping down my cheeks.

Death and sadness are related to memories or, rather, to what has yet to come. So, are people with routines more prone to tears when death enters the plot? Okay, this is getting discombobulated. Am I less touched by death because my entire life has been like a travelling circus instead of a merry-go-round?

Well, it certainly is a hypothesis, yet what isn’t is the sinister fact I have encountered most of my friends and acquaintances after having lost them out of sight and contact for a last time before their sudden death.

So, the moral of today’s Phaedra’s Fables is: Live loudly, love relentlessly, and leave a legacy.

May harmony find you,

Irena Phaedra

P.S. Well, at least we have a firm grasp of the obvious.