by Jules Scott Schotsborg
This Isn’t Just a Blog
I write to survive.
To feel.
To remember.
Stories of Mental Health, Queerness, Travel, Family, Blackness, the intimacy of being truly seen, Silence, Love, and Joy —
Stories of survival, identity, and becoming —
penned in airports, alleyways, hospital beds, and whispered moments.
Wherever I go, I write myself back home.
I come from Creole roots and Surinamese soil,
from Starfleet dreams and Rotterdam streets.
I’ve danced and fallen in love in many capital cities.
📍56 Perry Street, West Village
1993
This wasn’t just my address — it was my arrival.
I walked these bricks in bold colors and quiet courage,
Strutting toward NYU,
dressed in clothes that made me feel alive,
I was flabbergasted by the responses.
The way people turned, smiled, flirted, connected.
New York taught me that presence is power —
and that being yourself, loudly, is irresistible.
It was here that I first felt the thrill
of being seen — truly seen —
as a gay, Black, Creole man with style, depth, and presence.
In Cologne
I found another kind of love.
Germany — a land of contradiction and connection for me —
was more than a place I lived.
It was where I read, reflected,
and explored my lifelong fascination with the Second World War.
I had spent time there growing up,
traveling extensively through its haunted beauty.
But as an adult, Cologne became
a city of sexual awakening and philosophical inquiry.
It was where I learned about bodies. About boundaries.
About joy, and shame, and what it means to be free.
🌊 Valencia — Where My Tears Were Finally Welcome
In Valencia, I found a kind of emotional freedom I had never known.
A freedom so subtle, so radical — it almost scared me at first.
The men I met there… they cried.
Without shame. Without apology.
Tears fell like conversation,
and their softness gave me permission to release my own.
My whole circle of friends were artists —
musicians, singers, poets.
We played music every day.
We didn’t just live… we created.
We spent whole days on the wild, untouched beaches outside the city.
No crowds. No noise. Just the Mediterranean,
a few blankets, a guitar, some books,
and a pile of food everyone brought to share.
We smoked, we ate,
we slept under the sun,
we listened to each other,
we talked about the state of the world.
At night, we wandered through the old part of town —
a maze of cobbled streets and modern dreams.
Valencia’s historic center was like a medieval heart
still beating in the 21st century,
lined with bars, cafés, restaurants, and magic.
We went to the cinema, to live performances,
to flamenco nights and political poetry slams.
The Spanish love the arts —
but more than that, they engage with them.
Fully. Boldly. Honestly.
Valencia didn’t just welcome me.
It woke me up.
It gave me a place where I could feel everything —
and not be punished for it.
I’ll never forget what that city did for me.
In Malaysia — my culinary capital, my second home —
I didn’t just eat well, I lived well.
The food was poetry. The chefs, philosophers.
I learned the art of flavor, and the flavor of life.
It was also where chosen family became real —
where I laughed without flinching,
loved without hiding,
and finally understood what it meant to feel safe in my own skin.
It was in this part of the world that fun became a sacred thing —
because I was surrounded by people I trusted.
Touch became art,
massage a ritual,
and being truly touched — skin to soul —
took on new meaning.
The gym wasn’t just about the body;
it was a temple of rhythm, release, and care.
And everywhere — in food, in friendship, in stillness —
spirituality was never far.
🌿 My Later Years in Paramaribo
In my later years in Paramaribo, I turned inward.
It was a time of reckoning, of returning —
a time I learned who I truly am.
I reconnected with Mama Aisa,
with the earth herself — not as metaphor, but as mother.
Working in the garden barefoot,
feeling the soil between my toes,
I understood that grounding isn’t a concept — it’s a calling.
And then there was Marlene.
My muse. My queen. My friend.
Our friendship deepened beyond words —
rooted in the sacredness of time,
the silence between stories,
and the room we gave each other to just be.
I lived in her old family home —
slept in her childhood bedroom.
Sacred doesn’t even begin to describe it.
The air in that house carried memory.
And we?
We spent so many hours together,
me talking — and talking —
and talking some more about the things that plagued me,
and she…
She always listened.
With her whole being.
She is a beautiful soul.
And if she didn’t exist,
the universe would have had to create her.
We met in 1978,
the second time I traveled to Suriname —
introduced by a mutual friend.
You know those instant connections?
The ones that whisper,
“This isn’t our first time meeting…
and it won’t be our last.”
That’s soul connection.
True soul connection.
This isn’t just a blog.
It’s memory.
It’s medicine.
It’s a mirror.
For everyone who ever felt too much,
or not enough —
You belong here.
If it moves you, we’ve found each other.
And that, to me, is holy.
Circle Of Life 