Bas mijmert in het Zeeheldenkwartier in Den Haag

What does “mijmeren” mean in Dutch?

Dutch has a word for that particular state of being lost in slow, weighted thought — not quite dreaming, not quite actively thinking. Mijmeren is what happens when your mind drifts between old memories and half-formed feelings, like walking through a neighbourhood without really watching where you go. It sits between denken (to think, purposefully) and dromen (to dream) — ruminative, inward, and carrying a trace of sadness or longing.

The noun is mijmering (a reverie, a brooding thought) and the present participle mijmerend means “musing” — you can describe someone staring out a window as mijmerend voor zich uit kijken (“gazing ahead, lost in thought”). The word comes from Middle Dutch mimeren, traced back to Proto-Germanic mīmrōną and Proto-Indo-European smer- (“to remember, to care for”) — the same root that gave Old English mimorian. In the clip, Bas walks through Den Haag’s Zeeheldenkwartier and the title names exactly what he is doing: Bas mijmert — Bas is musing. The narrative that follows, with its layered memories and the weight of a radio news item about a Holocaust survivor, is mijmeren in action.