Op-Weule, Woluwe-Saint-Lambert. A new bicycle highway, wide and freshly laid, cutting through Sint-Stevens-Woluwe, past Diegem, all the way to Haren. The kind of road that hasn’t yet learned what it is.
Two stops in which I worked
First: a little chapel for Mary. I spread out my work and the wind immediately had opinions. Scraps of paper, a flag that wants to exist but not yet. I let it be. As I was packing up, Sophia arrived — a Spanish woman, work-from-home break, who didn’t just nod and pass but sat down. Looked at everything. Laughed warm: “Yeah, I can see you’re an artist.” I didn’t ask her the question. I’m still learning how to hold it, how to offer it. No stress. The work teaches me as I go.
Second: a big crossroads, the world cycling past in both directions. Smiles like flashes of light. Nobody stopping. That’s fine. A smile crosses distance too.
Then dusk, and the nightly search. Cultural centres dark. Police station dark. Football club: no one here in the morning, sorry. Garages. A café. A snack bar. One man — a flat, stubborn no. The city drawing its curtains. But I didn’t want to leave Sybille out without anyone watching, I kept trusting I would find!
Almost an hour. Then a vegetable shop, still lit.
I asked the owner if he knew anywhere. He didn’t. So I asked what time he closed. What time he’d open. Whether Sybille l’atelier mobile could rest out in the back, just for the night.
A pause. A yes.
Some doors are small and mean everything. One sore knee. One more day finding its shape.
Follow along. Share if something moves you. And if you have a corner somewhere — for me, for Sybille — you know where to find me.
🙏
Came past a beautiful bridge walking along the canal, along the edge of Brussels, and then I sat down, I had some lunch. And, um, then I went over the bridge and I came into more built upon area. And, uh, I was trying to get to a, um, to a gemeenschapscentrum to park my, uh, Sibille, but, uh, walking with a cart is really not like Google Maps. It’s a lot slower. So, I came through a… open area near the military, uh, hospital, and then it started raining, so I, I grabbed my umbrella under my rucksack, so I was safe from that and continued walking. But it was cold and, and I didn’t meet many people. And it stopped raining, but I never stopped to work ’cause… And then when I realized I couldn’t make the gemeenschapscentrum, I started asking. I asked in a bicycle shop, but they didn’t want to. Well, he did, but his boss didn’t want to put my cart in the shop for the next day. And then I asked at, um, a, um, furniture shop and I’ve put Sibille there at the side under some cover and I’ll go later, pick it up. Some days are harder than others. And, uh, but it’s given me… Having walked so six days in a row, it’s given me an idea on how to plan the next, the next lots of… It’s making a, it a lot clearer.
