Dutch Communication

Dutch Communication

May 11, 2012

I was considering joining a course offered through the church where I work called Werk en Balans (Work and Balance). Guest speakers from professional job coaches, successful businessman-gone-minister, psychologists and others would be giving lectures on seeking this coveted balance.

Seeing as my residence is attached to my workplace, you can imagine that I struggle with keeping my personal life and work life in proper balance. It seemed that the course might have been designed just for my situation. Except that it wasn’t. And it was in Dutch. And it was offered at my place of work. And I’m probably too busy to take on a course right now. But on the other hand, it could be interesting. And, it would push me out of the simple Dutch I use every day and into a language level needed for discussing deeper concepts. I state the obvious when I say my earnest interest was mixed with a healthy dose of reservations. Thus I did what I always do when I’m on the fence about something–talk about it.

I shared my thoughts with the course organizer, expecting some sort of discussion, but her rather curt response surprised me; “Well, you can always take it next year.”

That wasn’t the response I expected at all. I expected her to give me reasons why I should take it, encouragement even. Or, seeing as she is someone I interact with on a weekly basis, to perhaps confirm my suspicion that the course may be too difficult for my current level of Dutch. “You can always take it next year” seemed like being un-invited. Was this the case, or was I experiencing the subtle differences between Dutch and American communication styles? I decided to investigate.

The Dutch like to go for long walks. So the next time I was out with a Dutch friend walking from one small town to the next, I shared the scenario and asked if she thought I was being uninvited.

“Absolutely not,” my friend assured me. “The last thing a Dutch person wants to do is push someone into something, or try to change their mind. Because if I convince you to do something you expressed reservations about, then I suddenly become responsible for your happiness. We don’t like to put ourselves in that situation. We figure you know what is best for you, and we usually leave it at that.” Strange thing is, my husband had given a similar account of the Dutch perspective.

The conversation went further. I admitted that I was used to friends debating with me about an idea and even pushing a bit. You know, responses like this:

It will be a good challenge for you.
Just try it. It couldn’t hurt.
Perhaps you’re meant to take the course.
Oh, come on. Live a little.
Yeah. You’re busy, but you always ask a busy person when you want to get things done (is this backwards compliment just an excuse to guilt an already busy person into another responsibility?)

When I shared these types of responses with my friend, she became animated.

“A Dutch person would never say those sort of things. Those are definitely very American responses that would make many Dutch people uncomfortable.”

When I signed up for the course, I was warmly welcomed–well, as warm as a Dutch welcome gets on native soil. And the course did challenge and excite me. And I was too busy, but I did it anyway, and enjoyed the three out of four lectures I was able to attend. As you can see, it was I who convinced me in the end, using all the tactical methods to which I am culturally accustomed as an American.

Dutch headline news can really break through the ice

Tonight, I joined Arie Jan on the couch to watch the 8:00 news to catch up on world events. Something serious must be going on inside Holland, I thought, as there on the screen was a somber looking Dutch man speaking before an expansive collection of brightly colored microphones. His countenance, continuously lit up by flashes of light, suggested there were more reporters at this live news conference then there are Stroopwafels in Holland.

Had there been an international attack I had somehow missed out on? Or maybe Holland was pulling out of the European Union? Was Queen Beatrix okay? Was Holland sinking into the ocean at a faster rate than earlier calculated, putting us all in imminent danger? I tried to connect the gravity of the image before me with the weathery words I was picking up: lakes, water, ice, snow, freezing point, centimeters, volunteers, ice thaw.

“Oh My God,” I said to Arie Jan. “Is all of this about whether or not that big skating event will go forward?”

“I’m afraid so,” Arie Jan said. “The Dutch take their skating very seriously. Either that, or there’s not much going on in the world.”

Well, in the world of skating, Elfstedentocht is a big deal. It is described as the world’s largest speed skating competition, going through eleven cities and traversing close to 200 kilometers. And, it is only possible if the weather conditions are just right–e.g. if enough rivers and lakes and waterways that form a contiguous skating path through the eleven cities have reached a deep enough freeze.

Thus, it requires the cooperation of not only thousands of volunteers, but of mother nature herself providing the right conditions and the Elfstedentocht commission verifying that the conditions are suitable. And sadly, despite the one day of snow we had last week, and despite all of the Dutch already out there skating on every patch of frozen water they can find, the conditions were not yet up to par for the world’s largest speed skating competition to go forward.

But after 15 more minutes of continuous news coverage, I switched to BBC without too much flinching on my husband’s part to discover that indeed, the rest of the world was still out there, covering stories that had very little to do with speeding across the ice.

If you are Dutch and you are reading this right now, then my apologies to the insult I am bringing on your motherland. But really, 15 minutes of prime time news coverage for live footage on whether or not the 11 city skating event will go forward? These are the moments when living in Holland feels more like being a member of a provincial town where all eyes turn inward toward the upcoming parade or pageant, than an internationally renowned country that influenced far-reaching parts of the world through its seafaring, trading and business practices.

Now, if I only knew an elfstedentocht economist who could explain the monetary benefits of 200 kilometers of speed skating, or a sociologist or historian who could enlighten me on how this race is connected to the sinew that binds together the Dutch national spirit, then I might just see that elfstedentocht is not only plausibly linked to the origins of Dutch worldliness, but does indeed warrant 15 minutes of prime time.

Rommel Piet that Black Friday

As you were perhaps paging through a Martha Stewart magazine mid November for a little inspiration on a Thanksgiving centerpiece or savory side dish, we were gearing up for the steamboat arrival of Sinterklaas and his zwarte piet collective.

Sinterklaas with two of his zwarte Piet helpers

As you were unfortunately pulling another late night at the office to meet that pre-holiday deadline,  we were singing Sinterklaas liedjes in front of our son’s carrot filled boot. As you were contemplating the strange mix of joy, dread, love and chaos that is Thanksgiving, we were watching our son run to his boot to discover yet another present therein.

And finally, as you were regretting that last serving of sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping, suddenly aware of how damned hot you were in your autumn-hued sweater, pushing your chair away from the table, I was asleep. In a different time zone. In a different country. Forgetting all about Thanksgiving.

How can an American forget about Thanksgiving? After all, it is a long standing tradition that ties back to our country’s origins when we broke bread with the Natives, accepted their food, and gave thanks. (Of course we’ll leave out the part where not long after we forgot the being thankful part and killed off the majority of the very natives who’d helped us through that long winter.)

And on an emotional, experiental level, wouldn’t those mostly pleasant memories of family gatherings, happy meals (before the term was co-opted by McDonalds), and those long, post meal walks and conversations in the crisp evening air pull at my heart strings no matter where I now roam?

Yet no strings were plucked. It wasn’t like I was completely clueless or had forgotten about my family. I had spoken to my mom earlier in the week and heard how one brother was heading North to the Bay Area with his family for Thanksgiving, the other brother heading North East to be with his in-laws and how mom was looking forward to the peace and quiet without having to cook anything for anyone.

On the other hand, maybe my subconscious mind decided to just skip that day.  Afterall, it was impossible for me to drive on over and spend Thanksgiving with my family, and the few articles I had recently read about the holiday had been less than compelling.

In the Huffington Post, I came across an article about the millions of cramped turkeys strung out on antibiotics awaiting the slaughter, and in the Los Angeles Times, I read some charming articles about how big name retailers moved Black Friday up to Thanksgiving evening–this time the slaughter being of sacred time to gather with family and friends in a celebration for what we already have.

But I have yet another explanation; In Holland ben ik al een beetje gewend. In other words, I’m getting a little used to it here. And a big part of getting used to a new culture is letting go, een beetje, of your own. Rather than letting one’s soul stretch its amazingly long and flexible legs across two continents, causing uncomfortable cramps in the soul’s calf muscle region, it is better to exist where you are. Or, as the songs goes, Love the One Your With. And just as with America, I am developing my own love-hate relationship with my be-here-now homeland away from home.

Being in the here and now, I must report the Sinterklaas madness! I thought Americans went over the top, but Sinterklaas gives Santa Claus a run for his presents. Kids can start putting their boots out by the fireplace, or the radiator should you be lacking a fireplace, as early as mid November and Sint comes to visit on and off all the way to December 5th. If Sint is particularly generous, that could mean 20 days of gift getting! You can imagine the kids are just a little worked up. And, Sinterklaas isn’t some secondary character. He’s everywhere! On the news. On the radio. He even has his own Sinterklaas website. But what really blows me away is what is happening at the schools across Holland.

Ezra was instructed to bring his boot to school this last Thursday because Sinterklaas and his Zwarte Piets were coming to visit that evening. I was just as curious as Ezra Friday morning, and we arrived earlier than usual. As we approached the school yard, we heard the chaos of 150 kids chanting various Sinterklaas songs, running, screaming, jumping and squirming. When the doors were opened, the children pushed their way in, in what could be likened to Black Friday foment, to get to their boots. Although the hallways were lit, the lights to the classrooms were out, and the teachers stood outside the classroom doors like happy wardens, waiting until all of the students had arrived before letting anyone in.

When the door was opened the expectant children surged forth into the biggest mess I have ever personally witnessed: tables were thrown on their sides, toys strewn throughout the classroom, black greasy handprints on the walls. The place was trashed. As I stared in shock, the only slightly phased children climbed over the mess toward their boots on the windowsill, their eyes on the prize. But the boots were empty. And although an empty boot is possible over this 20 day span–Sint can’t go to every house every night afterall–empty boots on such a joyous, expectant occasion can suggest only one thing: naughty, undeserving children. Ezra and I must have come to the same conclusion, as I saw that pre-howl look sweep across his face.

But just then, the teacher happened to notice a note from Rommel Piet taped to a still erect bookcase. It informed the children that he had been to visit and that after the children cleaned everything up, each and every one of them would receive a present. If you haven’t guessed already, Rommel means mess. Wat een rommel, as in, what a mess!

Rommel Piet Pays a Visit to the Classroom

The children reacted in many ways. Some continued to look on with consternation (Ezra), others jumped in and started cleaning up, others spontaneously broke into play. The parents were the last to join in, but after 20 minutes, every last chair was sitting upright and every last Lego, flash card and building block was put away.

Moral of the story? The children had to earn their present. They had to wade through the chaos, do their part to pitch in, and when everyone had helped to make it right, they would all be rewarded. In retrospect, as I made the uncanny connection that it was Black Friday on the westerly part of the Atlantic pond, it seemed that Rommel Piet was some sort of deep, brooding metaphor for the consumeristic state of my home country and the absurdity of Black Friday, or is that Dark Thursday?

Of course Sinterklaas brings his own breed of consumerism, as presents must be purchased, and Sint-specific treats such as pepernoten, chocolate letters and many other sugary goods are almost compulsory items for the shopping cart. But I am nonetheless smitten with the experience and the utter joy that the Sinterklaas season is bringing for our little boy. I do realize we are walking a fine line; on one side is over indulgence and blatant consumerism, and on the other,  a cultural experience that nurtures the imaginations of its young citizens. But please, don’t share this latter sentiment with the producers of those chocolate letters.

Number 54

Today I saw a poster for some sort of speaker/author who started out with three friends and now has 10,000 friends. It initially piqued my interest as a horizontal racetrack for
Ezra and me on our Hotwheel adventure. We were clearly not among the author’s
friends as we drove across his 10,000 friend face collage. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to be the friend correctly shaded to make up his nose holes, eyebrows or teeth for that matter. Give me some dignity. A cheek at least, an eye.

To me, the idea of having 10,000 friends, even in a superficial, Facebook sort of way, is
appalling. I mean, why? It’s hard enough getting quality time in with the wonderful friends I have.

And let’s just say that if I’d viewed that poster as something more than a racetrack, and had read a little further, I might have discovered that it had to do with social
networking. But once again. Why would you want 10,000 friends? To boost business? To boost ego? To ensure that if you ever needed to get away from “the man”, that you’d have absolutely nowhere to go, since even your remotest connections were all public knowledge? I’m just waiting for a contemporary version of The Net to come out to prove just how difficult it would be for a FB, LinkedIn, live online sort of person like myself to intentionally disappear without a trace.

But where I’m going with this is, I do see the value of having a reasonably sized network of
friends, colleagues and acquaintances who help each other out. I had such a network in Santa Barbara and we were there for one another. A church community is also a good example; they often help out people in their community by running soup kitchens, doing clothing drives and other charitable work. If you are a fellow church member, they may even drive to your house to bring you a meal, loan you a car, provide you with both material and spiritual support.

Your social network can also help you with more trivial pursuits. Mine recently helped me discover I am not alone in honoring my inner child.

For the last three months the grocery chain Albert Hein has been handing out small packages of cards with every purchase. They are similar to baseball cards that people
collect, but in this case, the superstars are animals. The cards are not only visually exciting with quality Getty Images, but educational, as they stateinteresting facts about each animal. And if you want to get adult about it, the whole project is in cooperation with the World Wildlife Fund.

But they are, in principle, extremely effective marketing geared toward children. My son loves ripping open the ocher yellow packages and pulling out the cards. He looks at
them with excitement for a few seconds before tossing them in a bowl and promptly forgetting about them. I was excited to get the cards as well, and looked forward to seeing what each little package held. I could even see getting one of the albums that could be had for just a few euros to organize your collection.

One night, a family came over for dinner and the eldest son Lars just happened to have his album with him. Now I could see how the whole thing worked; There were sheets arranged by different skills: extremely strong animals, animals that can hear extremely well, animals that can weather cold climates, etc, etc. I need to get myself, I mean, Ezra an album, I thought.

This particular family has three sons and when they saw the bowl of dierenkaarten on the shelf, they stared at them with the eagerness of caffeine junkies inhaling the scent of
freshly brewed coffee. I suddenly related to their enthusiasm. I too was a dierenkaarten junkie. And then Arie Jan did the unspeakable.

“Take what you like. Ezra doesn’t really care about them.” I saw the boys faces light up, as if some fool had just said, “he doesn’t really use the gold coins. They’re just lying there. Go ahead and take what you like.” As they rifled through the large stack of collectible “dierenkarten”, oohing and aahing about rare ones they didn’t have in their collections, I felt a pang of remorse, a gnawing annoyance.

A few days later, Arie Jan bought the album for Ezra. He suddenly had a renewed interest in the cards, excited about stuffing them in the little plastic slots. But, he didn’t care about the designated groupings.

As I tried to explain the concept of putting the cards in order, my husband chimed in; “He’s only four and a half. He doesn’t have to put them in order. Just let him have his
fun.” I looked at the album longingly, but his words seemed to ring true. They’re for my son, afterall, not me.

It wasn’t until a few days later when I found myself alone, that I finally gave in. I picked up my son’s album and removed all of the cards that had been placed in suprisingly
logical groupings. Over the next few days, I correctly ordered the cards, discovering where the holes lay in the collection. I thought of our recent dinner guests and wondered what bounty they had made off with. Did they have the Alpenkauw? (A black bird that lives in the Alps.) Had they made off with my, I mean, with Ezra’s Boomschubdier? (a scaly
reptilian that hangs in trees.)

By the time I had the album in order, I found out that the dierenkaarten marketing wonder was coming to an end. At playdates I mentioned that Ezra was collecting the cards, and mothers casually suggested that the boys could get together sometime and trade, as everyone had a thick stack of extras, just as those people in the head office of marketing intended.

Was I the only parent out there obsessing over animal cards? Ah, Kristin, just have faith! I
mentioned the cards at church and suddenly Ezra’s collection was on the super highway to completion.

We had some friends over for dinner on a Friday night. They had heard about our need and brought their box of extra dierenkaarten with them. A grown woman like myself
eagerly flipped through Ezra’s album, sorting through her well organized stack and filled in what she could. Now our album was 75% complete. She asked for paper and pen and wrote down our remaining missing numbers. We had a lovely evening. They stayed until after 10pm, well after I had put Ezra to bed.

Sunday morning, Koby, a highly active woman in the church, handed me a small package in white and pink wrapping paper with a post it note with Ezra’s name on it. “I heard what
numbers you were missing in your album and I had some of them,” she said in
Dutch. I couldn’t help wonder if the feminine wrapping paper was an acknowledgment of who in our family was actually collecting the cards.

The next day, we received an email from someone else in the network, announcing she had a few more of the cards we were missing. Koby had beat her to the punch on half of
the cards, but still. We are now only missing six!

I opened a purse I hadn’t used for a while, and I found a stack of dierenkaarten. I eagerly flipped through them and we had them all, but there in the stack was number 54, the spookdiertje. This furry little creature looks like a cross between a koala bear and a bat. He is pictured in a hunched position, his long hands and feet clinging to a tree trunk while he peers into the forest with yellow beady eyes. He falls into the category of “Dieren met supergoed oren” (Animals that can hear extremely well) and the category of sought after cards. Soon, I too will make someone in my network happy as they receive number 54, the coveted spookdiertje.

People love helping other people, and the easiest way to help others is with the little things. And who brought about all these fleeting moments of happiness? A well organized marketing and promotion team in a chain of grocery stores that seems to have a monopoly in this nation, matched with a population that sees the value of sharing.

5 Museums in 6 Days Poopoo Head!

Whenever European friends came to visit us in the U.S., our provincial town of Santa Barbara seemed like a little hiccup on their tour de force itinerary: Hiking Half Dome in Yosemite, photographing the bubbling mudspots and geysers of Yellowstone, craning their necks skyward under General Sherman in Sequoia National Park, The Getty Museum, San Francisco’s De Young Museum, Hollywood and so forth.

I got the impression they had seen more of America’s natural wonders and cultural offerings in four to six weeks than I had in 14 to 16 years.  Was I really such a cultural buffoon? Why wasn’t I out there taking in our national treasures with such resolve? Getting philosophical with a Picasso? Seeing Old Faithful blow?

Well, for starters, six weeks. Europeans usually get four to six weeks of vacation. In a row. Second, if something is in your own backyard, so to speak, you tend to think it will always be there and thus indefinitely postpone your visit.

This train of thought is amusingly common place. I have traveled a fair bit, and when I visit friends in other areas or venture abroad, I’m suddenly all about taking in the sites. Why? Because I’ll probably never get back  to Barcelona or Portland, Luxembourg or Seattle, Mexico City or Havana. And, it’s not just a European thing; when we are outside our home digs, we open our eyes and guidebooks. And the further away we are from home, the more we want to see and experience.

So when my art loving brother and his family arrived last week in Den Haag, 5,577 miles from their hometown, I knew we were in for a whirlwind. I thought it would be slowed down a bit, considering we have a 4-year-old and they a 5-year-old. Boys, no less, that require lots of outdoor playtime, screaming and giggling and endless arguments over who’s turn it is, who’s faster, smarter, etc.

In fact, it did start out calmly enough with a walk through our local forest on a rainy day, jumping over puddles and screaming the ducks away. But they’re smart travelers, and they stayed up as late as they possibly could to adjust to the local time. The next morning they arose before 6am. As soon as their hosts were finally out of bed and the breakfast dishes cleared, we hopped on a tram to the city center to visit Mauritshuis.

Located at the edge of Binnenhof and Het Plein, Mauritshuis is  home to Rembrandts, Breughels and Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. In an effort to let my brother and sister-in-law take in this world-famous collection that I could visit again any time–because it was in my own back yard–I took charge of the boys. First, I entertained them with a spontaneous game of I-spy-with-my-little-eye with the paintings. I spy a winged baby, I spy an old woman holding a candle, I spy a lion. But after the 20 minute mark, my charges crossed the entertainment threshold and entered ennui. Arms started flopping and swinging around paintings worth 198 years of salary. Museum whisper voices turned into full conversational decibals of I’m boreds.

Thus we headed to Binnenhof, a large brick lined square surrounded by the buildings of the Dutch parliament and the Knight’s hall–a castle like building from the middle ages.  After the promised ice cream cones, the boys chased pigeons for half an hour while tourists gathered in this famous square ignored their high-pitched squeals of excitement.

The Netherlands is packed with incredible museums in just about every medium to large city. And since my American family doesn’t have a four to six-week vacation, their tour de force itinerary is compressed into 12 days.

Therefore the next day, we biked to the coastal town of Scheveningen to celebrate a dear friend’s birthday (happy birthday Janneman!) and then continued on a bike tour of Meijendel, lead by my authentic Dutch husband. An hour stopover at a playground next to a country restaurant gave the boys a chance to play space rangers and dig in the sand and the adults time to rest their legs while contemplating the white and gray clouds floating overhead.

Due to the Christian generosity of friends from church, we were loaned an automobile. This provided us with the means to visit the Boijmans van Beuningen, a Rotterdam museum covering everything from religious paintings from the 1400s to Magritte, a 1960s space pod to interactive sculpture. We also traipsed over the largest moving bridge in the world to eat at Hotel New York.

Friday, we drove all the way to Arnhem to the world-famous Kroller Muller Museum.  By now, we were a fine tuned machine of families visiting famous museums with young children, and massaged a potentially explosive situation into a fantastic day that will go down in the history books. Kroller Muller is surrounded by a forest. You can pay the 8 euro to drive through the forest and park in the parking lot, or you can pick up a bicycle and pedal through nature and to the museum for free. We pulled Ezra’s small orange bike from the trunk and the boys took turns riding the 3 kilometers to the museum, while the adults each hopped on a white bike to go the distance.

We spent four hours at the museum without incident. No flailing arms. No bumble pants dumbheads screamed through the corridors. Half was spent indoors seeing everything from contemporary art including cloaks made out of iridescent beetles, a very realistic wax figure man with an erection lying in a pile of tombstones, an impressive collection of Van Goghs and other splendid art from across the millenia.

The other half was spent wandering through the incredible sculpture park. To be honest, I had very low expectations for the sculpture experience. I’ve seen pictures of sculpture parks and figured it would be kind of boring. Oh, there’s another big hunk of metal. Oh, there’s another statue. Oh look, a white blob. But as I started walking along the gravel path, away from my husband and son who had just fallen into a nap on a sunny bench, I was pleasantly surprised.

The park headed out in multiple directions. I could see hints of sculpture around every bend and entered different grassy knolls with another collection of sculpture. I stopped and contemplated this art form with new eyes. I was inspired by sheets of rust colored metal shaped into organic curves that reminded me of tree trunks and the red clay earth of plateaus.

With the introduction of each new piece, the mood and feel changed. A marble amphitheatre covered in a creme tarp appeared  in a small clearing and I could picture being there, watching a performance unfold, even if it was just a play of light and shadow.  Buddha statues were among the ferns following a downward descent of rail road tie steps in the forest.

The boys also visited the sculpture park, and when they weren’t fighting or screaming, they engaged with the sculpture as primal beings, exploring its crevices and shapes, running around the edges, glancing skyward.

But that’s not all. We then cycled all the way back to the exit, and then decided to stay on and cycle to Sint Hubertus, the hunting lodge for the owners of this expansive land trust in the 1920s. Berlage, a famous Dutch architect, designed everything from the building to each piece of furniture and cup. Our boys biked all the way. Excited. Exhausted. Excited again.

Saturday we toured the Grote Kerk in Haarlem before visiting family who lived nearby. Sunday we slept in and had a leisurely breakfast waiting for the rain, which had fallen all night, to stop. It didn’t.

So we did what everyone else in Den Haag decided to do in the early afternoon; we went to the museum. And not just one, but two. The Gemeente Museum and Museon–a science museum very appropriate for the kids. We closed the place down and then dropped by Arie Jan’s brother’s house for late afternoon tea and cookies. We packed it all in.

Five museums in six days and their visit is only half way through. My mind is a wealth of culture, art, sculpture, great architecture, cafes, picturesque city centers. But the richest part of my newfound wealth is the presence of my family. Having them in our home. Seeing the two little cousins playing together. Talking, for as long as I want with Todd and Annie before being interrupted by the boys. Waking up and knowing that I am on vacation, and my family is making this home away from home complete by tying our two worlds together.

Our First Visit from the U.S.

Wednesday afternoon at 20 minutes after one I looked out the kitchen window and saw Lauren and Nico walking up our street, small travel bags over their shoulders. I knew they were coming. I had known for months they were coming. But seeing them there, within the context of our new Dutch lives, sent a wave of excitement through my body. I set down the dish I had been washing and ran outside. I hugged each of them firmly, amazed that my friends, who had been represented by Facebook and phone calls for the last two and a half years, were now there in 100% physical form—which in this world of keeping in touch through technology, seemed somehow unreal.

I had also experienced this strange sensation back when I was dating Arie Jan long distance. I was in Santa Barbara, California and he in Amsterdam, Holland. He was a voice on the phone, an occasional picture, a letter, instant messaging (our dating period pre-dated Facebook). Then, after two and a half months of knowing this person intensely as a voice, a collected series of thoughts, opinions and emotions, suddenly he was there in the flesh. A body holding the mind, writer, and conversationalist I had gotten to know. It seems rather appropriate, then, that Nico and Lauren, also a Dutch-American couple, are the reason Arie Jan and I met and our first U.S. visitors to our new home in Holland.

So there they were, in the flesh. They looked like themselves, but of course slightly different. Lauren looked great. She always does, from the beautiful collection of exotic rings on her fingers, each with an intricate story of purchase, to her hair, clothing and large blue eyes. Nico seemed to have settled into his role as a banker: still handsome, a bit more salt in his pepper black hair, clean shaven, dressed in khakis and a comfortable sweater. With some people you haven’t seen for a long time, there’s a bit of a transition time. Not with Lauren and Nico. Immediately, we launched into conversation after conversation and laughter came easily. Before I was even aware of what was happening, tears came to my eyes; tears of joy and release at feeling so comfortable with friends. I can talk well enough with people here, but having a long and deep history with others provides you with a level of comfort that lets you be more fully yourself, and thus more present.

Ezra was shy at first, but it didn’t take long before he was flying balsa wood airplanes with Nico in the garden and screaming with laughter at a voice warp recorder—just two of the many presents bestowed upon him by our guests. The evening was filled with interesting conversations, first at the house, and then at De Tuyn, an excellent restaurant in our neighborhood on the bezuidenhout of Den Haag. After dinner we walked back to our house, and the conversation didn’t miss a beat as we settled back into our living room. We covered everything from politics, our individual health, our outlooks on life, Osama Bin Laden, Snow in New Hampshire, our jobs to Dutch culture and more.

We knew we had just one evening and two days, but the rapid rate of topics we covered was not in effort to cram it all in, but rather the pace we fall into when together. When Arie Jan threw in the towel at half past midnight, saying he needed to get some sleep, I was shocked. I hadn’t intentionally stayed up that late since we left the States.

The next day, we had a leisurely start that belied our short time together. By 1pm, we were on a fleet of bicycles cruising to the city center for a tour led by Arie Jan, a Hague native. Lauren and Nico rode the tandem, Ezra rode with Arie Jan, and I was solo on a second hand bike we picked up that is perpetually stuck in third gear. As we followed Arie Jan through Den Haag, I realized I had fit more pieces of the geographical puzzle together. I knew which neighborhoods to expect next; I looked to the old church towers, the modern building of the Central Train station and other buildings to confirm my location. But then, Arie Jan peddled to a side street, and suddenly I was somewhere I had never been before. Or so I thought.

We cycled down a wide street with older, Dutch row houses in an area called Archipelbuurt after the archipelago Islands of Indonesia. We all marveled at the style and craftsmanship of the buildings, some more than two centuries old. Then Arie Jan turned down another side street, and there it was; a beautiful hidden neighborhood he had shown me 8 years ago on the residential end of Malle Molen. The mini-community of sorts suddenly emerged as we turned the corner behind an ancient wall. There, a brick lined entry led to a row of white washed old Dutch homes no bigger than 25 square meters. A small, tree lined path led between the little homes, and it seemed this was the idyllic community model. How could you not know and depend upon your neighbors when you lived this close, in homes that had held Dutch families for hundreds of years? It was a peaceful setting. A young woman who had one of the side residences sat in the sun in a wooden lounge chair reading a book, apparently undisturbed by our arrival. Although I felt drawn to walk down the little path, it was also clear that to do so would be intrusive. On my last visit with Arie Jan, almost a decade ago, we had arrived at dusk when the lights burned in the windows. It was strange to see that the tiny neighborhood hadn’t lost any of its intimacy or charm.

In the center of Den Haag, there was a lot to see, as the Dutch celebrate their liberation from Germany on the 5th of May, and the city was partying. The squares were transformed into performance areas with scores of people watching singers and dancers on the stages. Another area had a carnival going on, and much to Ezra’s dismay, we cycled right past the rides, cotton candy and booths full of cheap stuffed animals. We cycled through Binnenhof, where the Dutch government conducts its business in a stately square of buildings surrounding an interior courtyard, crossed by Malieveld, a large field where Dutch citizens gather for organized protests and ended the tour in het Haagse Bos with a view through a large gate to Huis ten Bosch, Queen Beatrix’s palatial residence.

By the time Lauren and Nico gathered up their belongings and headed out the door, it seemed we had put a shiny new coat of varnish on our enduring friendship; tying our old and new lives together.

Ask and You Shall Receive

We’ve all heard of the power of intention. Ask and you shall receive. So what happens when your intentions are only half formed? Does the universe still provide?

Arie Jan and I have an ongoing fantasy of living in an intentional community, yet the fantasy has a nebulous quality. Sometimes we picture ourselves in an urban eco-village with a square block of apartment buildings surrounding an urban garden and teaching facility. Other times we envision a rural eco-village hinged around a sprawling organic farm, waterways and forest. People gather together to work on various projects that are important to them and have a healthy social life with one another, although not overly social.

The members of the community are united by a shared mission statement of how to live with one another and how to respect the planet—a mission statement we have yet to define. Sometimes we think the community should be tied together through faith, other times we think it should be a cross section of society, believers and non-believers alike.

Although my husband and I are drawn to community, we are also private people who like closing the door at the end of the day. As you can see, our vision is not so clearly defined. Yet as our life begins to unfold here in Holland, we have the uncanny sensation that the universe has answered our half formed intentions to live within an intentional community.

Monasteries aside, I had never thought of a church as an intentional community. Sure, people attend voluntarily and share a common belief and intention. But, I view an intentional community as people who live together, and church members don’t live at the church. But, as a matter of fact, we do live at the church. And in doing so, we have become more known to this congregation in just a few short months than we did in two years at the last church we attended. Church members have given us everything from stuffed animals for Ezra, to plates, pots and pans, garden furniture, couches, tables and dressers.

I joined a group of volunteers one morning to prepare Easter breakfast for 90 other church members. As we poured juice and set little bowls of butter and jelly on the tables, I felt we were part of something intentional here. As the future church managers, our living space is physically connected to the church, which provides both work and connection to a large community of people.

Although I live in an urban area surrounded by strangers, I can look out my window and see someone I know on a regular basis. Yet, when we shut the door at the end of the day, we are alone.  Although the church is not exemplary when it comes to the environment, they do have a committee that vends fair trade products one Sunday a month after church, they use real coffee and tea cups and reusable cloths for cleaning, and they are incredibly diligent when it comes to turning off the heating and lighting when not in use.

Although everyone has their own relationship with spirituality, the presumption of shared belief is there as a uniting force. Church members volunteer to work on group projects—providing meals and companionship for the elderly, outreach programs to Suriname, cleaning and maintaining the church, coming together for bible readings, etc. And, the church rents out rooms to community members—believers and non believers alike. Thus, we get to see a cross-section of society coming in and out of the doors: people from embassies and other government organizations, members of home owners associations, interesting authors and their followers, musical choirs, even classes are held here. Does this sound a bit like our half baked community idea?

When we thought of an intentional community, this is not at all what we envisioned, but we can’t help but be aware of the parallels. It’s as if this is an intentional community intro course with the ability to retreat into our residence when it’s too much–yet we are still right next door. It’s not fodder for a reality TV show, but some days I think the interactions, the problems to be solved, the annoyances, sadness and joy provide us with a real life understanding to what community is about.

Now what would happen if we really fleshed our ideal eco-village concept and wrote that mission statement? Would we find ourselves in an Italian hill town raising organic romas and lemons with a community of like minded individuals? Will we transform this church into an eco village? That’s the fun of life. There really is no telling how things will turn out.

Shopping like a Dutchie

It is the subtle, day to day differences that bring home the fact you are not in Kansas anymore, but living in a foreign country. Our trip to the Dutch grocery store Albert Hein yesterday made this all too clear.

First, the entire store is like a never ending Dutch lesson. Even if you know the basics–banaan, sla, brood, kaas, melk, (bananas, lettuce, bread, cheese, milk)–a more robust lesson is available on the back of any packaged good, from ingredients, company messaging to instructions. For example, by reading the description on the back of Ezra’s Weleda children’s toothpaste,  I learned an important collection of words that later came up in conversation and impressed my Dutch husband.

The Dutch tend to buy only what they need for the next few days and the layout of the store reflects this. The aisles are closer together, and most people shop with a small hand basket you can carry or roll on wheels with an extended handle, rather than the full cart to which we are accustomed. This tendency to buy just a little is also a reflection of preferred transportation methods of many shoppers; they buy only what they can take away by bicycle, carry down the street with two arms, or easily haul on and off the tram.

Of course, there is a universal similarity in the way a store is laid out; fruits and vegetables, dairy and bread on the perimeter; the farther in you go, the more processed the food becomes. But, in a Dutch supermarket,  the bread, dairy and cheese sections receive a disproportionate amount of real estate. I imagine the pasta, cheese and vegetable sections of an Italian grocery would similarly receive more space.

One thing that continues to throw me off is the metric system over here. Liquids are measured in deciliters and liters rather than ounces and gallons, and an egg carton offers up ten eggs, rather than our customary twelve.

Although most grocery stores are of this smaller scale, The Dutch have caught on to the Costco concept as well. A large store called Sligro, with a  parking lot full of cars and not a single bicycle in sight, is for large scale shopping by businesses, mainly restaurants and hotels. Here, you can buy 10 kilos of ground coffee, excessively large trays of meats and cheeses, commercial cleaning supplies, etc. I pushed an unwieldy cart through the store that even makes the American shopping cart look small as I accompanied my current manager on a shopping trip for the church kitchen. Although Sligro is geared toward businesses, I was offered a free Sligro membership through an Expat organization. It’s as if they think we might just buy half the store and put it all in storage in our expat basements and second freezers.

Back at the more Dutch scale neighborhood grocery store, we headed to the check out stand, in line with 20 other people who waited with noteworthy patience to purchase a handful of items.  Although I still have the desire to have a well stocked pantry, I find myself going to the store more often, and purchasing less, as if trying to do it the Dutch way. Each time, however, a few canned goods slip their way into my cart which I don’t need immediately, and my proverbial pantry grows.



Flower Power

I have received more bouquets of flowers in our last few months in Holland than I did in the last few years in the United States. Poor thing, you may think. She must not have a very romantic husband. On the contrary, my husband can be very romantic, but spontaneous bouquets of flowers have never been in his repertoire. In the past, I just accepted this as part of his character; he is the type of man who refuses to conform to the contrived dictates of society and believes in finding his own path to romantic expression. And, I also chalked it up to his being a foreigner—perhaps they do things differently over there in Holland.  But now that I’ve spent a few months in this country, he has some explaining to do.

Here, flowers are as undeniable a part of life as coffee, newspapers and bicycles. They are a centerpiece on many a dining room table, they fill window boxes and line window sills. They are arranged in pots by the front door at the first hint of spring, and are given generously to others. We received a congratulatory bouquet of flowers from a friend of the family when Arie Jan was hired as a math teacher. I was given a colorful bouquet at the church from a church member when I started training for my future position. Arie Jan’s brother and sister-in-law brought a beautiful arrangement of flowers on bicycle when we invited them to dinner, and we have received other bouquets along the way. Florists exist in every neighborhood and make a brisk business of it, suggesting the florist, like a dentist, doctor or nurse, will always be in high demand throughout the cycle of life.

Arranged bouquets have been part of our human experience for centuries. Look at the still life paintings in the great museums of the world; meticulously detailed oil on canvas depicting the brilliant colors of nature, brought forward to future generations long after the flowers wilted and the artists returned to the earth.

I don’t think Arie Jan, or anyone else knows this, but I have this deeply rooted, abject guilt I associate with receiving cut bouquets of commercially grown flowers. It’s not about guilt cultivated through my Catholic upbringing and some sense of unworthiness. It goes much deeper, like a contradiction to my basic principles. I view flowers as brilliant expressions of nature that should remain in the earth in their natural environment. Cut flowers and arranged bouquets seem a contradiction to all things organic; another example of man’s desire to control and contort nature. Just like ordering a car from the factory in any color we want, we also create hybrid flowers, modifying them to meet our choice of colors.

When I see plants in Home Depot, or other large scale corporate entities, I feel like I’m visiting the CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) of plant life. I imagine those flowers all pumped up on chemical fertilizers that are so powerful, they can survive growing in rows numbering in the thousands, being re-potted, loaded on trucks, driven across the nation, unloaded, stored, placed on a shelf, and if they’re lucky, making it into someone’s home or garden where they will live some sort of compromised existence for half a season before wilting away.

 Yet, I love receiving flowers. I too am deeply attracted to their beauty and take pride in having a bouquet on the table, and am always pleasantly surprised and emotional when someone gives me a bouquet. Some bouquets have even found their way into my shopping basket at a major grocery chain. I have purchased potted plants as well, but sought out small scale, organic nurseries, to assuage this strange guilt.

I think, if I look at it from a psychological perspective, I have my mom and dad to blame for this affliction.  I grew up in the country srrounded by wild, open space, and I have seen plants in their natural settings—wildflowers blooming on a hillside, minor’s lettuce peeking up in the shade of oak trees, those beautiful little purple flowers that have an edible bulb at the bottom, growing not far away from California poppies, crisp bushes of sage amongst the chaparral, filling the air with their medicinal essence. This is how I first experienced flowers and plants. Growing in season, coming into their glorious peak, and fading away. My mother never bought flowers at the store. But we did have flowers in the house. We would wander into the fields and pluck beautiful wildflowers, never taking too many, and would create original organic bouquets placed in colored glass bowls on the table. For the holidays, she would trim branches from plants with bright red berries and pick pine cones from the ground beneath the pine trees soaring into the air. We were foragers and our flowers never came wrapped in plastic.

Two days ago, Ezra had a little friend over to play. After they were informed that throwing rocks was off the list, Ezra turned his attention to another aspect of the yard. He plucked purple flowers from patches of a rather prolific, but pretty weed in our garden. He proceeded into the house, got a glass from the cupboard and made a flower arrangement, which he proudly presented to me. The other little boy was delighted by the experience as well, and we put water in the glass and set our first bouquet of the house on the table. I suppose some things are passed down through the generations.

Curtainless

One of my favorite past times in the Netherlands is going on long walks in the city and glancing into the living rooms of the urban natives. Many of the brick homes are rather uniform, with wood trimmed windows and white curtains. But the Dutch windowsill is another matter. Sure, their dimensions are quite similar and they are usually white, but it is all the little things that lie there that make them so special. It’s as if, in this crowded country, these few meters of space have been allotted for people to express their individuality. Along one street I saw; a collection of sailboats, religious figures, glass orbs and a row of potted plants—each window as different as the people within.

On a recent walk through a neighborhood in Scheveningen, I came upon a bright orange bust sitting on the windowsill. It would have been inexplicable on its own, but through the open curtains I could see large, modern art pieces that made the orange bust seem like a subtle accent. As Ezra and I walked along Riouwstraat in Den Haag on our way to a speeltuin (playground), I came upon a whole row of ground floor flats with their curtains wide open, as if inviting me to gaze inside.

But, this invitation is not without preparation, as I have yet to see a disheveled Dutch house—cluttered, yes, but always organized and clean. No plates with breadcrumbs left on the table, or half drunken cups of tea.

And then there is our house. For the first three nights, we had no curtains to draw closed, and the broad, front windowsill just happened to be the right dimensions to set papers and books, seeing as we don’t yet have any bookshelves or files set up. Thus, we are completely in violation of the Dutch windowsill code and the immaculate house code for that matter.

I felt a bit exposed those first three nights as I sat in the curtainless living room, reading a book. Outside I could see people getting on and off the tram and passing by on bicycles. Hardly anyone looked our way, but I know that a lighted house at night with the curtains open easily pulls the eye, whether you are curious or not.

We have curtains now, yet I pull them closed at night with hesitation, as I like being visually connected to the world outside. This, I think, explains the open curtains in all of those urban ground floor flats; the reality of people walking by has long been accepted, and their view outward is far more important than anyone’s gaze inward.

Writing a blog feels a bit like sitting in a private, curtainless room. You are inviting everyone to gaze inward into your brightly lit, personal space, and although you know the curtains are open, you can’t see your visual visitors.