I woke up with an earwig. Not the beast, but a song: Tiptoe Through the Tulips from Tiny Tim. He was, in 1968, a somewhat eccentric boy with long hair, a ukulele and a ghostly, shaky falsetto voice. That voice made the very sweet song, especially in combination with the cozy lyrics, so scary. You know, like a music box that suddenly starts pinging in the middle of the night, in a children’s room in a horror movie.
Those tulips kept whining through my head, singing along out loud didn’t help, and halfway through the morning I was so brainwashed that I thought: you know what, I’m going to the Keukenhof. I had never been there. That’s because of my parents. My parents had very precise ideas about what was ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, and Keukenhof was terribly wrong in my youth.
Flower parades were also very wrong, as were caravans, dipping sauce, having a dog, white bread, all cars except the 2CV, complete countries even (Spain!), a haircut instead of normal hair, certain music (dixieland!) a mustache , filet americain, lipstick, intact crockery, checkered fabric, a pan set, coconut bread and weather houses.
Flowers could also be very wrong. Anyone who loved tulips voted VVD anyway. Fascist flowers, those tulips, only suitable for coffee tables (wrong) in a police state. We children were encouraged to pick ‘field bouquets’, ‘much nicer than those stiff flowers from a store’. (Stores were actually wrong too, but not nearly as wrong as “factories.”)
All this has left me with an incurable aversion to right-wrong thinking (it’s totally hip again). So it’s high time to visit Keukenhof for the first time on my 56th, still with that chilling tulips of Tiny Tim in my head. †Tiptoe through the window / Come tiptoe through the tulips with me…†
In a hot bus full of tourists (wrong) I was transported to Lisse (wrong), sandwiched between three Swedes who were discussing the pronunciation of the word ‘rijsttafel’ (error). The bulb fields were already looming there, in all their geometric flourishes. A concerted ‘aaaah’ sounded through the bus. †When I kiss you in the garden…‘ mewed Tiny Tim.
Full of expectation I entered the gates of the Keukenhof. Wrong flowers as far as the eye could see. The sun shone in rainbows on the fine water droplets of the fountain. And there was also that barrel organ (wrong). It was very big and very beautiful, and it played very loud one of my favorite songs: ‘You’re the cream in my coffee‘ (error).
Tears welled up in my eyes. Poof! Gone was Tiny Tim.
For a moment I didn’t even think about my childhood.