"I have a slightly insane idea,"
I told my psychotherapist

Blazing Reader,

"I have a slightly insane idea."

This is what I said to a psychotherapist with whom I've been working with for the last three months. Ina Backbier is an instructor with the Kiloby Inquiries — an organization that mentors people in a self-inquiry methodology for resolving emotional repression and childhood trauma.

"Okay," Ina replied in her slight (and very attractive) Dutch accent. "Explain me your insane idea."

I think psychotherapists enjoy hearing about insane ideas.

"I take you out to dinner next Thursday."

Now, this falls in the insane category because Ina lives in a town in the Netherlands with her two sons, while I live in a town in Ontario with my son.

She nonetheless agreed and I booked rooms for us both at the Dam Square Inn — an old hotel hidden away in Amsterdam's maze of streets and canals. That's where we met in person on Thursday morning:

It doesn't get much more romantic than meeting for the first time in an elegant European city at Christmastime, does it?

5,600 kilometres is a long trip just for dinner, so I bought tickets for a multi-media Van Gogh and Rembrandt exhibit at a 400-year-old Protestant church. The Westerkerk is where both artists attended service each Sunday. The audience lies on mats, staring up at the art being projected onto the ceiling and four walls while listening to Van Gogh's letters and journals being read aloud (in English). You can see a clip of the experience here:

The next day we took the train to Bakel, where Ina lives, and I met her two sons (the eldest has a promising future as a cocky stand-up comic) and her dog Harley (who seemed to approve of me). By coincidence, her copy of my latest novel, All the Humans Are Sleeping, had arrived the previous day (printed in Poland):

I flew back Saturday, saying goodbye to Ina at the Bakel train station, where they had the biggest bike rack I've ever seen in my life:

For our next date, Ina and her sons will be joining my son and me in Morelia, Mexico for The People's Reset in January. Then we'll be flying back to the Netherlands, for a workshop Ina and another instructor with the Kiloby Inquires will be holding in Bakel (I'll tell you more about this later).

So that's how my insane idea played out. I used to end all my emails with "Stay sane." But I feel like I'd be a hypocrite to continue doing so.

John C.A. Manley

PS Remember, if you purchase tickets for The People's Reset I'll give you three bonus gifts which you can read about here.

PPS To learn more about the work Ina Backbier does with the Kiloby Inquires, head over to Kiloby.com where you can take a free repression test and join their newsletter.

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story, the forthcoming All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of speculative fiction. Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber at: https://blazingpinecone.com/subscribe/