Chapter 1. Flowers
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April
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Gloria was awake early. She saw from the curtains that the sun was shining and longed to go outside. She let herself slide out of bed and snapped on her lamp. She dressed quietly, as she almost always did everything in a quiet, often even dreamy way.
She had already laid out her favourite dress, corn blue with all kinds of flowers, the night before, with white leggings and blue socks. When she had dressed herself, she brushed her long hair, chose a scarf that matched her dress and took it downstairs along with a hair elastic. She walked to the kitchen, where Huib, her father, was busy preparing the breakfast table.
"Hey Gloria!" he greeted her. He lifted her up to hug her tightly. Gloria pressed her face into his thick bunch of wavy hair and whispered, "Hey Huib!" She sighed deeply. She always enjoyed this moment. She did not give words to it herself, she usually was not much of a talker, but her heart friend Rosalie had said she could see and feel that Gloria felt loved and safe.
Huib put her down again. Gloria handed him the elastic and showed him which scarf she had chosen.
"That's a beautiful scarf, sweet colour princess, it matches your dress beautifully."
He grabbed her hair and released it again.
"I don't need to ask you if you have brushed your hair yet. What a beautiful bunch of wavy hair you have, Gloria!"
Gloria chuckled. Huib said the same thing every morning!
He grabbed the top layer of her hair together, made it into a ponytail and tied her scarf around it.
"Here you go ma'am!"
"Thank you sir!" laughed Gloria. "I'm going outside, swinging. Will you call me when we eat?"
"Will do!"
Gloria knew that when her father came downstairs in the morning, he always opened the doors immediately, to let the fresh air blow through the house and drink his first mug of coffee in the doorway or on the veranda. The doors were now closed again, but not locked.
She grabbed her wraparound shawl from the pantry and put it on as she walked out. She closed the door behind her and walked straight to the piece of garden she had created with Sjaak, their great friend and neighbour.
This piece of garden really felt like her garden. She had chosen the plants herself. Sjaak had shown her at the garden centre that the cards in the plant pots had pictures of the plants printed on them, so she had an idea of what kind of plants she was buying, how they would grow and flower.
Together they had dug up a piece of land and put the plants they had bought in their pots on top of it. Sjaak had pointed out to her which plants would grow tallest and roughly how much space they needed. When distributing the plants around the little garden, they had taken this into account.
The plants were doing well, but had no flowers now, in spring. Gloria squatted down in front of a plant at the front and stroked its leaves.
"When are you going to make flowers?" she asked in a whisper. She searched among the leaves but, like the days before, found no buds yet.
She got up again and walked to the swing. Together with Sjaak, she had chosen the piece of land for her little garden so that she could stare at it from her swing. Dreaming, Huib called it.
Gloria smiled. She knew Huib and Margreet had already seen her when Margreet was just pregnant with her. They had gotten clear images. They had seen her as a dreamy girl on her swing, and behind an easel, a girl painting. And even though she was only small now, she recognised those impressions in herself. She liked to swing, not high, but quietly, dreamily, gazing at her little garden or at the forest, and she preferred to spend all day behind her easel.
While swinging, she often got beautiful pictures in her mind, pictures to paint. Her soul was able to show her pictures in detail, and made everything come back to her the moment she started putting the picture on the canvas with paint and all kinds of brushes.
Gloria swung, staring at the plant she had just addressed, and in her dreamy gaze a beautiful flower appeared, with similar flowers slightly less sharp around it.
'Can that plant make such beautiful flowers?' she wondered in her mind. 'That flower was not on the garden centre card, was it?'
She rocked on for a while longer, continuing to look at the picture of the flower in her mind. As a result, the picture became sharper and fixed itself in her entire being.
Sensing that that process was finished, she let herself slide off the swing and walked to the pantry, where she tidied up her wraparound shawl . She walked on, smelling fresh coffee and...
"Pancakes?"
A beaming smile appeared on her face: "Yummy Huib, I'm really in the mood for those! And you know, I saw such a beautiful flower, I'm going to paint it later. Ha Margreet!" she turned to her mother, who had little Robert on her lap. "Ha Robert, do you fancy a pancake too?"
She cuddled her face against her mother's face, provoking a reaction from her little brother. He chattered laughingly with his little hands on her face.
"Me too Gloria!" cried Martie, her younger sister. Martie was a totally different girl from Gloria. She was not a dreamer, more of a sturdy girl who liked to be busy with her hands, to tinker around.
Gloria put her arms around Martie and allowed her sister to play with her fingers in her ponytail for a while. She sat down next to Martie at the table.
"Yummy pancakes, Gloria," Martie gloated.
Gloria smiled as she grabbed a pancake from the large plate Huib held out to her. She wanted to grab one for Martie too, but Huib turned the plate towards Martie and winked at Gloria.
Martie detached the top pancake from the pile, grabbed it and put it on her plate. She smiled at Gloria: "Did it!"
With a wink at Martie, Gloria grabbed the sugar bowl: "I'll take sugar. Do you want sugar too?"
Martie nodded and waited for Gloria to finish her own pancake. One, two, three spoonfuls her sister put on top. She extended her hands to the pot.
"Do you want to do that yourself too?" asked Gloria.
Martie took the sugar bowl from her and placed it next to her plate. She tried to fish a spoonful of sugar out of the jar. It didn't work because her arms were still too small for it, actually because she was still a bit too small for it at all.
"Help Gloria?" she asked.
Gloria grabbed the pot by the top edge and held it at an angle, with the opening slightly above the plate.
Martie looked at her in surprise for a moment, as Gloria did not take the sugar spoon from her.
Gloria nodded at her, "Try it, you can reach it now, I think."
Margreet smiled at Huib. That was how they had always helped Gloria too, minimally, so that she could maximally try everything herself.
Martie could just reach, but didn't really get the spoon full. She counted three scoops just like Gloria's, and looked at Gloria's pancake with a frown in her forehead.
"Your scoops were half-full, Martie, just add three more, then you'll have that nice sugar mountain too," Gloria encouraged her.
Surprised, Martie looked at her and then started scooping and counting again. Then she compared the sugar mountains again and sighed contentedly, "Yes, so it's good, yummy!"
.
After breakfast, it was time for Gloria to go to discovery centre ‘I discover myself !’. She snuggled up to her parents, brother and sister for a while, put her wraparound shawl back on and walked out. She walked to the other side of the estate to pick up William, who was also just coming out. She waved to Sjaak and Lisa, William's parents, and cheerfully called out "Hey William!" to her neighbour boy.
William greeted back briefly, and walked silently with her. Gloria knew, he too was already thinking about what he was going to do this morning. William loved drawing, drawing houses, funny houses, houses like she had never seen before. Perhaps he too already had a picture in his heart....
.
Entering the discovery centre felt a bit like coming home to a different place. Rosalie, Gloria's heart friend, immediately came up to her and hugged her. All the explorers and their supervisors sat down in the cosy seating area to start the day together with a short consultation, during which all the explorers told what they wanted to do.
After that Gloria walked with Rosalie and William to the back room. Rosalie had a corner there where she could enjoy working on her book. William had a drawing table with a large cupboard next to it. Gloria's work corner, with a real easel, was on the other side of that cupboard. And in the cupboard, William and Gloria could find all the things they needed for their work.
While Rosalie and William got on with their own work, Gloria put on her apron to protect her clothes. She held her one glass water jar under the tap and filled it half-full. Then she did the same with her other water jar. A third glass jar held her brushes. She had cleaned those last time, they were now ready for use! All the pots and tubes of paint were in the cupboard, in a large, wide drawer. She pulled open the drawer, snapped on the lamp above it and carefully picked out the right colours. She put the pots and tubes she had chosen on a tray on the table next to her easel. She picked up her palette and started putting some paint on her palette from the colours she wanted to start with, the colours for the surroundings of the flowers she had seen. She chose several shades of green and a little bit of brown, and a tiny bit of white to be able to lighten colours. With that, she would paint the leaves, the branches and maybe some earth at the bottom.
She placed the painter's palette on the table next to her in such a way that she could easily reach it. She chose a new canvas of the size that best suited her picture and put it on the easel. She checked briefly that she had everything within reach, sat down and chose her first brush. She waited a moment, contemplating which way to start, how she wanted to paint the surroundings of her flowers: the branches of the bushes, leaves and earth.
Gloria saw the picture she had got on the swing again and therefore knew where the leaves were lighter or darker. She would take that into account by mixing the right shades of green. She otherwise always did that on her palette, but she wanted to try doing it on her canvas now, mixing as she painted, stippling and sweeping.
She chose a narrow, flat brush, which she rarely used. She wetted it a little and chose two shades of green paint, one shade a little on one side of the brush, the other on the other. Carefully she tipped with it on her canvas, at the edges, where the leaves would be. She then began to smooth out the paint, mixing the two shades a little bit with each other. She went smoothly along all the edges in this way, making a green wreath within which the flowers would soon bloom.
She put her flat brush in the one water pot. She had chosen two water pots a while ago because she wanted to use only clean water for painting.
She picked up a narrow, pointed brush, wet it a little, and took some green paint with it to make small dashes on the green areas. The dashes indicated the edges of leaves. She did this with different colours of green, exactly as she imagined it in her mind.
Then she chose a fan brush, wet it a little with clean water, and gently stroked the green stripes she had just painted with it. The sharp edges between the shades of green faded.
Gloria's face beamed. It was just right, exactly as she had seen it in her mind!
She thought back to her picture, to the tiny raindrops she had seen on the leaves. She made a little silver-grey paint on her palette and picked up the narrow, pointed brush she had just used, cleaned it and took some silver paint from her palette with it. She put small silver dots on the leaves, but found that they remained too much like little balls. She put her paintbrush in the pot for a moment, and with the tip of her little finger, began to give small taps on the silver-grey dots, making them flatter rounds. She was enjoying this new thing, this new method that had just come to her mind.
She picked up her pointed brush again, made it as clean as possible and mixed green with a little white on her palette. Very delicately, she used it to make a light green border along all the silver dots, sometimes with an extra little white border. She kept on trying, until she saw on her canvas what she had seen in real life and in her mind: droplets that had shone through something of the leaf. As often happened, she couldn't put words to it herself, but was able to express what she had seen while painting.
Just when she put her brush in the water pot with a deep sigh of satisfaction, Rosalie came over to her.
"Hey Gloria, did you hear the coffee machine?"
"Huh? No, I didn't hear it, I was so busy..."
"Can I have a look already?" asked Rosalie.
"Yeah right, come around the corner," laughed Gloria.
"Oh... leaves with raindrops... how did you do that?" asked Rosalie in amazement.
"Uhm, well... just..."
"Ah, never mind, with you it's the same with your brushes as it is with me when I type. It just happens and you can't actually tell how it happens," Rosalie articulated.
"Exactly, that's it!" chuckled Gloria. "Come, let's have a drink!"
Together they went to the dining room, where all the others were already seated at the table.
"Ha, there are our heart friends," said Patrick, one of the companions.
The girls slid over and grabbed a biscuit from the tray Patrick held out to them.
"I have a quick question," Gloria began. "I didn't hear the coffee machine just now, just because I was so busy. And I also find it awkward when I have to come here at a time when I'm just painting something. So can I also finish it first and then come for a drink?"
Bea, another companion, and just like Patrick parent of Rosalie, nodded thoughtfully.
"I totally understand what you mean, because I've noticed that with Rosalie too. Rosalie can also get so absorbed in typing her text that she doesn't really want to tear herself away from it. You know, I like it when we all come here to the table, but I also understand that at times it is really annoying, that it is almost impossible. While I'm talking, I'm thinking: would it be a good idea to keep that fixed agreement to come here to the table together, only for lunch?"
Gloria and Rosalie looked at each other and nodded.
"That would already help," Rosalie said, "I also understand that it's not convenient to leave the lunch stuff here for half the day. Shall we try it out this week?"
Sita, a young discoverer who preferred to work with a camera, wondered when they would come to drink then, or if the drinking would have to be brought to the working discoverer.
"I'm quite willing to do that," she said.
Gloria shook her head. "I don't think that would be convenient, I'd rather not have drinks at work."
"Tell you what," said Ineke, the third permanent supervisor, "if we just try it out this week, I'll keep an eye on who doesn't come to drink and how you feel about that. And then we'll just discuss it further next week. Good idea?"
Everyone nodded, got up, brought their own mug or glass to the kitchen and went back to work.
.
Gloria spent the rest of the morning working on the flowers she had got in mind. Pink flowers with very thin purple stripes on the petals and very small dark pink balls on the stamens. She painted several flowers, and after lunch worked on the one flower in the middle, which stood out very clearly and in detail. Like this one, so were all the other flowers, Gloria knew, but in the picture she had seen, only this one had been so clearly visible, so detailed.
Towards the end of the afternoon, she took another good look at her flowers, wondering if it was really all done. One more detail came back to her mind. Among all those thin purple stripes, visible along the entire length of the petals, there had also been light green shorter stripes. She focused on the picture she saw before her and looked at her palette. A little bit of the green paint she had used in the beginning was still left. She mixed it with white until it was the right colour, and took the thinnest brush she had, in order to paint the little dashes.
Gloria tried to imagine the picture again to find out if she should paint these green dashes on the other flowers too. She didn't see them, but she did discover, that there was a kind of light green glow over those other open bloomed flowers. Apparently, those green stripes caused that, but were not visible themselves in the picture.
She wondered how she could do something with that. She got the idea of adding some extra water to the light green, making it so water thin that it could almost not be called paint, but rather light-coloured water. Carefully, she drew over a petal with the super-thin brush and saw that the green glow became slightly visible, without having drawn any obvious green lines.
She had just finished it when she heard the coffee machine. Since the discovery centre was open for longer days, they also had a mid-afternoon drink together at the big table. It was a good thing that she had just finished, then she could have a drink with the others.
Gloria saw that Rosalie and William were already there. She walked past the table where William had been working and stopped for a moment to look at the buildings he had drawn. Really nice!
She walked quickly through to the dining room and sat down next to William. "What nice buildings you draw, William, they are so... different from the ones already there. And that's just what I like!"
"I just draw what I see, in my head or something. Each time a different building, a different house," William responded.
"That's how I do it with painting too, I get pictures in my head, I see it in front of me. And I start painting that."
Ineke enjoyed the two little artists. "How is your painting going, Gloria?"
"Done! And it turned out exactly how I pictured it this morning. I'm really happy with it!"
"Can we come and have a look after drinking?" asked Sita.
"Yes, of course! As long as you look with your eyes, not with your fingers, because the paint is probably not completely dry yet!" replied Gloria.
Sita shook her head: "I'd hate to mess up your work... do you mind if I take a picture of it?"
Gloria nodded: "Sure, go ahead. Then can you put that photo on my website again?"
"For me that's okay," Sita said, "do you want to do that yourself, or shall I do it for you?"
Gloria sighed deeply. "I would love it if you do it for me, because I'm actually quite tired."
"Logically, you've also worked so hard," Rosalie responded.
"Yes, I did, but I really enjoyed doing it. I always find it so beautiful to see how the picture I see in my mind's eye grows on the canvas. And I'm still amazed that it actually always works out pretty well."
"Pretty well?" said Patrick indignantly. "Damn young lady, you paint like the best! I still don't understand how you do it..."
"Me neither," chuckled Gloria, "I'm just doing something, that's how it feels, but it's fun and the paintings are beautiful."
"That's right, they are really beautiful!" thought Jan, the discoverer who loved working outside so much. "Can you paint my vegetable garden one day too?"
"That would be quite nice, with you there, working there..." dreamed Gloria, while she already saw a picture in front of her. "Yes, I think I'll do that sometime, fun!"
"And now?" asked Ineke, "you just said you're tired. Do you want to go home in a minute or do you want to rest here?"
"I'm going to tidy up my stuff in a bit, and I think I'll go home then. That will be enough for today!"
Bea laughed: "Quite right! But I'm going with you now to look at your painting first!"
Bea got up and walked with Gloria to her workspace. The others came after them, as they all wanted to see it too. Together they admired the beautiful flowers, and Sita took a few pictures of them.
"Choose for yourself which pictures you like best, Sita, you can do that so well!" said Gloria, "our own photographer, awesome!"
Everyone went back to their own work. Gloria emptied her water jar in the sink and cleaned her brushes and her palette.
Onward tomorrow, she thought, with a whole new painting, of Jan in his vegetable garden. She was already looking forward to it!
She walked past William, who was changing a few small things in his drawing, and past Rosalie, who was fully into her story. "I'm going home already, see you later!" she said to Rosalie, who always stopped by Gloria's house after their day at the discovery centre to chat about the day together in their cosy corner full of cushions.
"Yes, see you later," Rosalie said, a little confused because she was so caught up in her story. Gloria smiled, it was so recognisable, she had that herself, often only half hearing what someone was saying to her while painting.
She grabbed her wraparound shawl , put it on, and, with Patrick's help, wrote down her departure time.
"See you tomorrow, Gloria!"
"See you tomorrow, Patrick!" Gloria replied, and stepped out the door.
.
For about two weeks, Gloria got a new image about flowers for her little garden plants almost every morning and painted them at the discovery centre or at home.
When the series was finished and dried well, she lined up the paintings in her bedroom on the long shelves Huib had made on her walls before.
The next morning, she stayed in bed a little longer. She stared at the whole row of flowers she had painted. She felt, and she had felt this while painting, that her soul was radiating towards it. Margreet had told her about that, that her soul shining its power and light to other people around her, but now her soul seemed to do it to her painting every time. She had no idea why.
Every morning she marvelled at the flowers, so completely different from anything she had ever seen. Even finer, with even more fantasy than in reality. Flowers with different decorations on their petals, flowers with unusual shapes of their petals, with new colour combinations.
Margreet and Huib also occasionally went to look at the row of flowers Gloria had painted, asking themselves and each other, "Why this? What is going to happen with this? What has her soul done?"
.
The answer came at the end of spring. The first plant got flower buds and unfolded them after a few days. Gloria recognised the first flower she had gotten in her mind and that she had painted. Instead of running to her parents, she ran to Sjaak and Lisa's house. She walked in through the scullery and looked for Sjaak.
"Sjaak, Sjaak, come, you really need to come with me. One of my plants has started flowering and it's... it's new!"
"Ha Gloria, what do you mean by new? Every flower is new when it opens, isn't it?"
"Yes, yes, it is, but this flower... I don't think it existed yet! But I painted it, and now that plant is blooming just like in my painting. Come see!"
Sjaak briefly told Lisa what he was about to do and walked with Gloria.
"It's in my little garden. I'll just run upstairs, I'll go get the painting."
And away she went, into her house, upstairs. A moment later she returned and found Sjaak at the flowering plant. He looked up as Gloria came out.
"I've never seen a flower like that, Gloria, never! And what does your painting have to do with it?"
"Well look, I painted what I saw, on... the fifth of April it was, I wrote that on the back. Look!"
Sjaak's eyes grew big and his mouth fell open as she held the painting right next to the flowering plant.
Huib, who by now had understood that something special was going on, came out with Martie.
"Hey Sjaak, what's going on?"
"Huib, look! Here, this plant, and my first painting!" exclaimed Gloria.
Now it was Huib's time to look from the plant to the painting and back again, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
"Well damn! How can that be?"
"Beautiful flower, Gloria!" said Martie.
"Look, Martie, that's the same flower as in my painting."
"Yes, the same one... you made that flower!"
And to their surprise, Martie pointed not to the painting, but to the real flower. "You made that flower, Gloria!"
Sjaak nodded and smiled, "In a way, Martie is right, Gloria. Your soul gave you this picture, you painted it and somehow created something new, a new flower. I don't get it, I don't understand how it's possible, but it shows again how an incredible big power there is in our souls. Even creative power..."
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