This article is based on this Dutch article of Martinus Benders
Sachsen, Germany for Adults
13-05-2025
Pietje is a small stocky fellow from Geldrop, also known as “Popeye” because of his superhuman strength. He doesn’t talk much but mostly crows. We found him through the neighborhood app, where he had offered his services for waste disposal. It didn’t take long to discover he has a heart of gold.
We managed to hand over the house nearly empty on the final day. Someone with a mohawk showed up, on the very day I turned Calimero into a rainbow-mohawk version – I even lost my bed in the process.
We’re now in the heart of Saxony – we’ve rented a magical place on top of a hill for a month, surrounded by a vast herb garden.
It’s incredibly quiet and the air is wonderfully pure. Mountain air. Around the house we’ve rented, bats dance in the evening air – a very good sign. I’ve missed bats; I haven’t seen any since Istanbul. This house overlooks a sleepy Saxon village.
Germany is, in my opinion, an underrated holiday destination. Words can’t do justice to just how considerate the two people who rented us the house have been. He is a songwriter, she a journalist and musician. I’ll listen to their music later today.
The new owners of my childhood home didn’t waste any time – there were already two dumpsters in the driveway before we were even gone. Really kind people, by the way; I picked them because they were capable of renovating the house themselves and had children. One of their kids gave us a sweet thank-you drawing. One of the consequences of the housing crisis is that families often remain stuck for too long in houses that are way too small. That’s why I didn’t want my house sold to some boomer couple but to people who genuinely needed it – I was lucky enough to grow up there myself, so I feel responsible to pass that on.
After months of being preoccupied with (other people’s) stuff, we’re now free again, and that feels amazing. Mierlo may be a paradise for some – I fully understand that – but for Veronique and me… it was just too bourgeois. I know that sounds incredibly 80s, but Mierlo is more suited for people who have their roof tiles replaced every year just to save that extra percentage. You feel trapped in a sort of grid there, a numbing pattern – I’m not sure if that’s due to 5G or rather the grid of memories and expectations, or all three, but you feel it physically: you slowly become a pseudo-version of yourself. We used to call it “fading out.”
This is my new workspace for the coming month. Yes, that huge monitor had to come along. It’s technically a gaming monitor, and although I rarely ever game, once you’re used to this size as a designer, there’s no going back.
Already feeling high on the clean air here.
And I no longer have a home. To me, that feels like pure liberation. Someone recently told me he found it admirable to start such an adventure at the age of 54. But for me, moving from inspiration to inspiration is second nature, like a kind of bird. And it certainly doesn’t affect my writing.
We’re off to find one of those wonderful German bakeries where you can have breakfast too.
Warm regards,
Martinus Benders