This book has certainly surprised me in more ways than I ever thought it was possible.
When my wife told me she had read a great book, and that I also should read it, I was a bit skeptic, being the book in Dutch and me being Italian. I was afraid I wouldn’t understand every shade, every hidden meaning of the author’s language.
I’m happy she insisted and I gave the book a chance as it was totally worth it.
It was refreshing to read a book with a “European flavor” in it, a book that with its realism can make the reader feel at “home”, as so many of us, in one point of our lives have been through this. Is it normal to feel the way I feel for another person of the same sex? What is this attraction I feel? What are these emotions?
Fear. Denial. Running from who you are, choosing the safest path: what society has always taught you.
Floor is a married woman and has two children with her husband Bas. A very common family you would think, but what the outside eye sees is not always what reality is behind closed doors.
Suzanne Gerding chose wisely the cinematic flashbacks to bring the reader in the backstage of Floor’s inner dialogues, jumping from present to the past, as it happens in real life. Because, us, humans, we are never really focused on the present: our mind dances freely from memories to memories, letting us relive our past and think of our future and what could have happened “If only”.
And then, you discover that even if Floor is a psychologist, who can help others to learn from their mistakes, accept themselves for who they are and move on), is so scared of the feelings she might feel for another woman.
I recommend this book to all who can read Dutch, as unfortunately there is no English translation for it, yet.
I don’t want to get into detail about the plot, as I was to spend two words about the main characters, Floor and Mickey.
I loved the idea of them being a psychologist and the other a writer/artist. Floor can read the Mind, but Mickey taught her to open her heart.
Their first real meeting, under a tree. A tree that symbolized life itself and all the branches it can take, like “sliding doors”: was the right moment to meet that very special person? What if you just followed your heart and not your reason, and give love a chance? Can time rewind itself and let you take the right choice? Is it ever too late for “True Love”?
I loved how Suzanne Gerding described Floor’s journey in stepping into this “unknown territory”, because she managed to depict one of the most sensuous and intimate love scenes I have ever read. To touch another woman for the first time, to write your name with an invisible pen on her skin, to feel the anxiety of not being good enough for the other, to learn how to speak not with words but with your heart. To have such an in deniable connection with someone, to let her look into your soul. This is so heartfelt, so deep, so deeply poetic.
Mickey says: “Floor, de mooiste woorden kun je slechts met je gevoel horen. En jij vertelt mij de meest prachtige verhalen zonder je stem te gebruiken”. (Floor, you can only hear the most beautiful words with your feelings. And you tell me the most beautiful stories without using your voice).
Mickey is spontaneity, liveliness, creativity, romanticism. She’s love itself, and I can’t not think of the similarity of her surname “Cortesius” and “Courteous”, which them reminds me to the concept of “Courtly love”.
So poetic are her words in her letters and in the poem she herself wrote to Floor, of which I liberally translate one verse: “Have trust in love, in my hand; I feel yours on me”.
<i>So my advice to you, reading my words, is: “Stretch out your hand and reach the one of who loves you and loves you back”.
Listen to your heart. Luister naar je hart. Ascolta il tuo cuore. Écoute ton coeur, in whatever language your heart is speaking to you.