Category: Stories
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the stranger
While going through my archives, I came across this photograph. I have no idea why I took it or who this friendly person actually is. An interesting detail: the person is pointing at the camera, as if to say, you! We are always quick to point at others, and only rarely at ourselves. Photo: Jeroen…
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small detail
Not only the big things in life deserve attention, but the small things as well—details that are easy to overlook. Think, for example, of the fine print or certain clauses in a contract. Before you know it, something seemingly insignificant can turn into a consequence far greater than expected. Photo: Jeroen Nils Vermaning © E…
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When the Ground Gives Way
A homeless man found a warm place to sleep in a shopping center during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fundamentally, a lack of safety in the earliest stages of life is the greatest impediment to trusting yourself or others. It pulls the very rug of security out from under your feet. Photo: Jeroen Nils Vermaning © E…
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the Counterforce
Once you swayed proudly through wind and storm, deeply rooted in the earth. Yet in the end, you yielded to the demands of cost control and orderly intervention. You had grown too wild, too untamed, too free. Every force meets a counterforce — and all too often, it comes when least expected. Photo: Jeroen Nils…
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True Love Is Never Suffocating: A Reflection on Trust, Freedom and Letting Go
Attendees of an erotic fair in Amsterdam. True love is a balance of giving and receiving. It is never suffocating. It is a line strengthened by trust. You can loosen it or draw it tighter, and in some cases, sever it altogether. Photo: Jeroen Nils Vermaning © E n i s ∞ r song: She…
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What Grows After the Fall
You know how it is—having to make choices. Now that the old foundation has been razed to the ground, the question becomes what may rise in its place. Do not see the past as a heap of ruins; see it as a beautiful, everlasting wildflower. Photo: Jeroen Nils Vermaning © E n i s ∞…
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The Price of a Square Metre: Housing, Scarcity, and the Colourless Pursuit of Happiness
Within every square metre lies a fabric of atoms, bound by the laws of nature; what bends is drawn straight, what stands askew is left behind. A roof above one’s head can no longer be taken for granted—an immeasurable privilege in a world weighed down by the relentless pressures of supply and demand. Work, income,…
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Who is more dangerous?
Along the shore, poems about tides, depth, and humanity’s ability to go with the flow.Who poses the greater danger: humans to themselves, or to nature? Photo: Jeroen Nils Vermaning © E n i s ∞ r song: Behavior – Björk
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the left over
It is the familiar and the ordinary, things you pass by without a second glance, form and function. Photo: Jeroen Nils Vermaning © E n i s ∞ r song: Function – Birdpen
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the goodbye
We create our own smokescreens, often unconsciously. As the fog lifts, things begin to reveal themselves. The ending of a relationship or a career is like a single drop falling into still water; the ripples spread outward, but with time, the surface becomes calm again. Life continues, even when a certain chapter of your life…
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A peaceful walk
I had been there before—the sound barrier wall that is meant to reduce the noise from the motorway in my neighborhood.It offers a surreal stretch of walking path, a place where you can imagine yourself in another time. The wooden hut in the thicket was still there, bearing signs of occasional vandalism. Here and there,…
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spellbound
Odysseus recounted all his journeys, and his audience listened spellbound. Photo: Jeroen Nils Vermaning © E n i s ∞ r song: The Tide That Left and Never Came Back – The Veils I am Nobody.
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Wheelchair basketball
A team sport on wheels: wheelchair basketball. It’s not just the ball that rolls. The angled wheels provide greater maneuverability. Photo: Jeroen Nils Vermaning © E n i s ∞ r song: Rollin with the Flow – Kurt Vile
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The four elements of childhood
May we move through earth, water, fire, and air with the wonder of a child — grounded in curiosity, flowing with joy, burning with imagination, and dancing freely with the wind. Photo: Jeroen Nils Vermaning © E n i s ∞ r song: Dancing with Myself – Generation X image 1 , 4 are double…
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just right sunset
You have those sultry summer evenings in life that seem as though they will never end.They evoke a feeling of warmth and ease — a kind of peacefulness in which everything feels just right. Photo: Jeroen Nils Vermaning © E n i s ∞ r song: Sunset – Ryuichi Sakamoto