Taking part in Crossing Border was like walking through a forest in autumn.

Languages lay strewn like a rich carpet of fallen leaves, and thoughts and feelings flowed into each other like clouds. A raven sat on a branch of the tallest tree, staring into the distance. At night, I was allowed to sit around a fire deep in the forest telling stories, while enjoying a cup of tea with Wisdom.

While walking in the colourful forest, I was often struck by how pointless and unnecessary national borders are, how alike we humans are, and how easily the language of art brings us together.

Somehow, we are all in a no man’s land. With our small sorrow that should have disappeared a long time ago, but won’t leave us. With old hope that must never die. With a heavy fishhook that still smells of the salty sea in our mouths.

“Nowadays, there are people who, like fishermen, use giant magnets to pull the metal out of canals – things that have ended up in the water, on purpose or by accident. Bicycles, laptops, phones, anchors, hammers, and more besides.”

“First, you built a country in the water, then you made canals in it, only to go and angrily, drunkenly throw things in the water. And then you go and invent something to pull all that stuff out again! Don’t you think that’s crazy?” say the droplets.

“It’s called ‘boredom’. There are people who will set fire to a forest or a piece of land if they’re bored,” I mutter.

“Could you not invent something to fish the scattered tears, hopes and dreams out of the canals? There must be plenty of people who have dropped or thrown them into the water. As droplets of river water, we know all about that.”

“Why would you want to capture things like that?”

They don’t answer.

I read that over sixty thousand eyes saw Crossing Border on a screen. Like fishermen, they sat at their screens hoping to catch some happiness, colour, ideas or new outlooks. With a hook or a magnet. Without borders, without a word.

My walk is over, but the forest remains. And the smell of the forest will stay with me, even on a hot summer’s day in the middle of a desert without any trees.

One of the artists is talking about fighting. He says that life is a constant battle against your own anxieties. And in order to be able to fight those anxieties, first you need to get to know and accept them. It makes me feel tense.

“What do you do with your fears?” asks the wind.

“I leave them behind,” I say, looking at the clouds.

“With or without a suitcase?” he asks.

“With, I think.” And before he moves on to the next question I say, “With a suitcase full of lit candles for the dark nights.”

“And what if your suitcase feels too heavy or too light?”

“I throw it in the sea.”

“And where do you go, then?”

“If we’re talking about leaving, is the destination even an issue?”

The wind is gone. His sympathetic ear too.

The whole town is full of fighters and travellers with masks on their faces and dread in their eyes. It’s busy. That’s because of the sun. The sun shining seems to be the most important thing that can happen here, and everyone has to appreciate it. During the first days that I lived here, I found it strange that the sun was the only thing that brought people outside. But later, as the seasons passed and I noticed the absence of the sun, I came to realise how important it really was. Just like a loving mother who wakes you up every morning and tells you with a smile that breakfast is ready. Even if you didn’t care about her, she would always be there for you. I will talk to my drops about it. How much do they know about the sun or the clouds? And which might they love more? What is a cloud without the sun? And what is a drop of water without a cloud?

As I sit in the empty theatre behind the big black monsters that are filming us, I ask myself: What is a writer without a reader, and what is a festival without an audience? The raven is behind us, and I have the feeling that my words will find their way yet. I talk and read and see the invisible eyes and ears receiving my words. I can see that the words are fighting.

Her name means hope. I’m always curious about the meaning of names, but I never ask people because it’s possible that they themselves don’t know. And you would feel empty if someone asked you what your name meant, and you didn’t know. I look it up myself, and mostly I find sweet, touching imagery. After a short conversation with her in the dining hall, I want to arrange to go for a walk with Hope in silence in nature. I get the feeling it wouldn’t be uncomfortable with her. If you dare to let silence fall with someone, not because you don’t have anything to say but because words aren’t beautiful or powerful enough for the energy and the emotion that exists between you, you can consider that person a friend. It sounds good, a friendship with Hope.

“By candles in your suitcase do you mean hope of light?” asks the wind. “Or do you mean a battle against the darkness?”

I let silence fall.

No one wants to be “November”. Just before December, just before the last month of the year. So pointless, so lost, so expectant.

No one wants to be “November”, when the Christmas lights in towns and cities don’t look cosy but just ridiculous because it’s November and not December. Because it’s too early. When everyone is waiting for the real party to get started. It’s not a beginning or an ending. It’s neither too early nor too late. Not autumn, not winter. And the last thing you want to be is “a warm and sunny November”. So unbelievable, so inappropriate.

The sun is shining, and the laughter of the seagulls is louder here. My drops think it’s because of them. And I don’t tell them it’s only because we’re closer to the sea. I’m afraid to use the word “sea” because it will upset them and make them think about an ending, about arriving. “If you stop thinking about the end, time will go quicker,” I reply, when they ask me when we’ll return to the Amsterdam canals full of water. They miss the water. Somewhere close to the sea.

One of the writers at the festival talked about her deaf mother. About her full-time job as a translator. The translator of her mother’s calm and silent language, and the shouty, impatient language spoken by the rest of the world. The writer smiles, and her smile is like the sun in November. So brave and so powerless. And I think to myself: is that what writing is? Translating silence. Translating everything that doesn’t suit the spoken word.

I read on the internet that Crossing Border will receive the subsidy they need to carry on after all. The ravens are happy, and the seagulls laugh louder. The tree on the festival poster on the desk in my hotel room is also happy. Stood on top of a mountains of roots from trees that have been cut down, it shows its open arms. It shows its young leaves and its old. It’s not afraid of the end. It likes small, big, green, yellow, and red leaves, and it doesn’t worry about the branches it’s lost.

Writing in another language is like going to a party where you don’t know anyone. Without being afraid of looking crazy, you can do whatever you like. Drinking? Dancing? Telling made-up stories? Or else sharing your most intimate thoughts? You don’t know the people very well, so you’re not afraid of what they might think. You’ve not been familiar with the words and grammar for very long, so you are not afraid to use them however you like, in a way that suits your mother tongue, your culture. You’re not afraid to say the most meaningful, complicated words. Telling painful stories in a foreign language feels less scary than in your mother tongue. The words carry less emotional weight, so it costs you less energy to pick up the heavy stories that have been stuck in your throat for years and throw them away.

“For fifteen years, I haven’t said a word about one of the most painful things in my life. My language, which I knew every nook and cranny of, didn’t allow it. But in Dutch I wrote a book about it. I got drunk, sick, giddy at this party, and danced until my whole body hurt. I made new friends and tasted strange new flavours. At the party that is writing in a different language, I was able to put down my heavy rucksack for a while, and dance in my bare feet without worrying or paying any attention to the people looking at me.” I tell this to the drops of Aras river water that stare out at the empty streets from a jug in my hotel room in the centre of The Hague. In the background, music from the livestream plays on my laptop. But I’m still thinking about what one of the guest speakers said about the role of personal experience and research in writing a book.

On Saturday, I’m going to talk about my work in Theater aan het Spui. All the seats are taken by our big, uninvited guest who sits slumped, glaring at us from his seat. I tell my drops not to be jealous of the big raven in the studio. I’m not planning on taking a raven home with me. Not because ravens are smarter than that, but because it’s too dangerous for a tree that has only just brushed aside her roots to take a bird as a housemate.

It’s raining. The tree outside my window is slowly undressing and getting ready for a long sleep. What will it dream about? Perhaps spring is the dream that comes true time and again for the tree outside my window.

A few autumns ago, when I had only just moved to the Netherlands, the wind said to me, “Crossing Border is your kind of thing. It’s got music and literature and interesting artists. You should definitely go.” I laughed, forgot, cycled through the wind and rain, and learnt Dutch. Every time it got too cold and too dark, I slowly undressed and closed my eyes, ready to dream.

“We can experience our pets developing, maturing, growing old and dying. It’s a strange feeling seeing these stages of life flowing one into the other, without the power to stop time and without being able to control death. It’s seductive and scary in equal measure. The appeal of a pet’s love, the simple relationship, and the disproportionate appreciation. But the inability to immortalise our pets. I’ve always been jealous of people who don’t take their pets seriously enough to be afraid of losing them or even entering into a relationship with them despite the oncoming tragedy. That’s why I decided to place a jug of river water in my house. A jug full of droplets that know what it means to flow and pass. They have crossed mountains, spoken to fish, moss, rocks. They have embraced the moon, the stars. Slid across children’s bodies wet with sweat on a summer’s day and seen the loneliness of fishermen. Instead of a pet, I will keep a few drops of river water in my house for a little while to show them my life, so they can tell me about the mountains and the power of dreams. But when they have had enough, I will let them go again to flow onward.”

When I tell this to the wind, he doesn’t ask if I really want to have the words ‘wet’ and ‘pet’ so close together.

“Which river?” he asks.

“The Aras, the river that forms the border between Iran and Azerbaijan.”

He nods as if to say, “Excellent choice,” but instead he says, “Why not the Amstel?”

I know that he knows the answer to the question. But he likes to ask questions that he knows the answer to just to prove what an excellent judge of character he is. He still doesn’t know that this doesn’t work on me. I don’t answer. I raise my eyebrows, smile, and look at the patient Amstel in front of us.

“When you look at the river from a distance, the river that flows through the snowy mountains, breaks the silence of forests, softens the hardest of rocks, and falls into the arms of the sea – a sea that probably doesn’t even realise water is being added to it – then you see just how much courage there is in every drop. If you told the snow on the mountaintops what a difficult path lay ahead, it would probably never want to melt and start its journey.”

“Is that why you brought these droplets home?” he laughs. “To weave philosophical stories for them?”

He knows his jokes don’t upset me. Knows I don’t take his words seriously but value his sympathetic ear. I head for the train station without telling him I’m going to Crossing Border. On the train, I see sunflowers smiling, crows carefully observing the world, horses thinking of their foals while scrolling on their phones, and dogs that urgently need letting out. I see clouds that aren’t afraid to cry. As I think of my pet river, I push aside my damp roots and clear away the fallen leaves. I’m awake. It’s no longer dark or cold.