"Have you finished your book?" asked my 6 year old niece
Today, at the end of the morning, I discovered three missed calls from my twin sister. Then my phone rang for the fourth time...
It was a video call and not my sister but my 8 year old nephew, Miko. He talked with me for a bit and then his 6 year old sister took over, telling him repeatedly that it was now his turn to clean up, as she had done enough.
She is quite the dominant type so he let her talk.
They talked with me for quite a while, took me on a tour on their land and showed me some tricks on their trampoline.
I took a screenshot of Yumi standing on her head against the trampoline net, doing something close to a split.
FYI: I am renting a house 5,5 km away from them, since December 2020, but right now I am 2000+ kms away, in The Netherlands, so it was nice to see them and their amazing 1 hectare garden, that I know so well, again.
It was a fun conversation and when my mom joined in on the video call we got another tour of the house and especially their bedroom.
What stood out from this call though for me was a question that my niece posed twice:
"Heb je al een nieuw boek?"
which translates to:
"Have you finished another book (yet)?"
Now when your 6 year old niece asks you if you've already finished your book you know that the pressure is on.
So today I felt a strong urge to start focusing on my book and its illustrations, once again. A feeling that had been building up, as of late but I just wasn't able to focus and find the right head space, mainly due to being at my parents' house ( helping out my mom ) with a sick father.
This afternoon, I decided to go into the city, bringing along some illustrations and a print of the latest draft of my book. I also bought some coloring pastels.
I walked over to the library of Gouda that is more like a meeting space / cafe-restaurant these days. I ordered a ginger mint tea and some cake, put on my headphones and started editing my book and later turned to the more fun part: drawing and coloring.