Chapter 2

Oh boy. Kari is convinced that you will be bored to read about her. Her as a person. Modest as she is… Silly right? I am sure that a lot of you is curious to know who she is. Right? Kari needs a face. And a personality. And that’s where I come into the picture. To show you Kari. Let me tell you some “boring” stuff about Kari. Kari is easily one of the most inspiring and intriguing people I know. Ranking high up on my list. And I swear to you, I know a bunch of very inspiring and eccentric peeps. When I met Kari she was living in a huge office building with her partner Offer and two kids; Lin and Kai. You see, here in Holland where they have attempted a Guinness World Record and have crammed an average of 508 people in one square kilometer, each empty space has to count. Like temporarily vacant office buildings. Where your kids can ride their bikes indoors. Where you can have 7 bedrooms with different themes and sleep in one each night of the week. Where there’s enough space to invite all your wonderful friends to stay with you for months and enjoy the good life with them, organizing dinner parties every week making Jesus’ last supper look like a scanty afternoon snack. And where you can have a 250 m2 ceramics studio.

 

Good lordy lorrrdddd gracious and the almighty Ceramic Spirit!! What a luxury!! A 250 m2 studio. The place where Kari’s current collection of organic pottery of handcrafted bowls, organic plates and pottery coffee mugs originated. And a hugeeee upgrade to where Kari had started her own personal pottery path. In Tel Aviv back in 1992. In a tiny room of 2 by 3. So eenie meenie teensy squeezy that in order to open her fridge Kari had to first move the desk and then her wheel. THE wheel. Kari’s true object of desire. Worse than chocolate, Sudoku and ‘Breaking Bad’ together, she says. From the moment she first started to work with it, she was hooked. Making love ardently to her wheel (I bet you a thousand bucks you’re thinking of that one scene in the movie Ghost right now. Am I right?) And making Offer almost jealous. Which is a real hard job.

 

Kari’s love for clay was first awakened during her studies of sculpture in the US. No wonder her current Organic Stone line has so many sculptural influences!! Now her passionate persistence on the wheel moved mountains of clay – literally and figuratively speaking (love when that happens!!) - and already soon she had earned her permanent stand at the famous Nahalat Benjamin handicraft market in Tel Aviv. After seven years of wheelin’ ‘n’ bakin’ Lin was born. When Kari and Offer arrived at the gate of the maternity hospital in their car, the guard thought they were joking when they told him that the baby was born already. Till Kari - lying at the back of the car having a graceful post partum siesta - lifted the brand new baby in the guard’s sight to show proof of the miracle that had taken place just some minutes before. A couple of kilometers from the hospital. In the jeep, in the middle of a traffic jam. A notoriously tumultuous one, like the ones in Tel Aviv tend to be.

 

Being born in the very particular manner as Lin was, one’s life cannot be only sunshine and lollipops. It’s also most definitely going to be pistachio flavored ice cream with a caramel topping, iridescent glitter rainbows and flamingo pink sugar spin clouds. Hence Lin immediately became the little blond headed Viking lucky charm running around carefree at the market, being loved and taken care of by everybody. When I try to imagine this scene in my head it reminds me of how I first met Lin’s brother Kai – born at home in candle light sprinkled with Vivaldi before the midwife arrived (I am sensing a trend here) – roaming fearlessly and independently the artist village Ruigoord at age 1. Both of Kari’s children are amazing prodigy-like creatures who speak 4 languages fluently and who travelled the world 4 years full time with their parents. Another reason why I admire this family so much. Where some people settle for a lifetime of Netflix, potato chips, 9 to 5 and a Renault Twingo (sorry darlings, no offence to any Twingo owners out there, just trying to make a point here), this family chose to abandon all the illusional securities of the human existence, and surrendered to a discovery journey with an every day real life school filled with yoga, climbing the Himalaya’s and recording the sea horse population of the Philippines by diving. Just to name a few activities they engaged in during their travel period. The courage to choose for this alternative lifestyle is admirable beyond comprehension.

 

So…. Boring? Or not so boring? I let you decide.

 

 

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