Today, a seven year old little girl had the most beautiful, exhilarating and passionate experience in her existence. She was allowed to run around in the wild, entranced woods gleefully, enjoying every single part of an extraordinary nature � a nature that had come to life. It was as if she'd stepped out of reality as we know it, to join the worlds of fairytales and magical animation. Ancient trees whispered their wisdom to her intimately, merry bushes played with her and impish leaves and sands teased her view as she raced about in disbelief. Until a weakened, feeble tree was no longer capable of holding itself erect and fell down. On top of her.

My heart goes out to her. My heart goes out to her family, her friends and her acquaintances, who at present all suffer the loss of a bold, spirited, willful, promising child. But most all, my heart goes out to her parents. I cannot bear to imagine the pain they have encountered, the hurt and grief they have to live with forever forth, the bitterness, woe and suffering... They have my eternal sympathy. I feel for them, and respect them greatly.

It is the wind, it is the storm, it is the distressful weather. People were crushed to death in their car as a tree fell on its roof, an old man was blown over and perished on his own, two divers died after being rescued from almost drowning, and a couple on holiday were struck by misfortune too. I thought this was supposed to be a tiddly, tiny, small country. I never thought the chance of so many catastrophes in the space of one day, in such a tiddly, tiny, small country, so near to where I am, was ever going to be realised. And even if I would have thought, I would not have been able to do anything about it.

Yet I love the storm. I love the adventurous atmosphere and excitement, I love the danger, the extremity, the crisis.

The wind blows through our roof and through some pipes, it blows out the gas flame of our water heater. It means we have no hot water, we can't shower or bathe, we can't wash without numbing our body with the icy water, and it means we have no central heating. It is 14� Celsius in the house. I warm myself with candles, as all our logs for the fire place are soaking wet from the rain: the logs' shelter blew over. But I am cold.

Apart from being shocked and a little distressed, my grandparents are fine. One of their most beautiful oak trees was blown over, onto their peaceful house near the woods. Then a second tree fell onto their shed and garage, and a third from the front of their garden onto the lane. My sister is stuck in the north of Haarlem, at her boyfriend's nevertheless, but she's been there for two days and she wants to come home. My father went out for dinner with his Aikido students and is now in the centre of a town of which all the roads are being blocked by the fire brigade because too many trees have fallen onto houses already. Part of Amsterdam Central Station has collapsed, no trains are to travel anywhere in Holland. (So most likely there will be a sleep over of a dozen Aikido students in our front room, as they all travelled from Amsterdam to here by train...)

I so wanted to take the dog to the beach tonight. I was so craving to walk along the coast in the storm, through the rain, I wanted to lean into the wind and not fall over... But I am not allowed out of the house with any more transport than my own feet. And I am certainly not allowed to take my mother's car over the long windy road to the seashore: it has more trees along its side than one can imagine.

It's all spectacular.

But my heart solemnly goes out to the tragically deceased, darling little girl, and her parents.

---

I feel so