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.

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.

I lost my father 14 years ago to Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), an incurable neuromuscular disease. And even though 14 years may seem like a long time ago, it is only now that I can even bear to write about it. It is true that as time passes, the pain dulls. But the experience of him can come back instantly through simple and unexpected ways; the smell of Old Spice cologne on a passerby, a sudden memory of him sitting in his chair reading the paper, the way he used to laugh so hard that tears would come to his eyes.

If someone famous dies from a rare disease, they may receive the honor, or burden, of having that disease named after them. Although my father had his own rite of fame in the eyes of his friends and family, I am thankful that ALs is not called Bob Anderson disease. ALS is, however, known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, after the famous New York Yankees baseball player whose rapid rise to fame was tragically cut short by ALS. Lou Gehrig and my father had something much more uplifting in common:  both of their family’s loved them.

Although we are trained to subdue our emotions and to get over our losses, I think it is healthy to be able to connect with the feeling of loss, wether ten months or twenty years have passed. Such feelings confirm your ability to truly love other human beings, and prove that love is indeed infinite. If I hadn’t cared for my father, perhaps it would be different. But to this day, I believe my father to have been one of the best in the world: kind, patient, humble, great sense of humor, able to give a concise summary of world events, manly enough to say he loved you.

If he were here today, I can only imagine how differently my life might have turned out. I can see him playing with his new grandchildren that have been born since his passing. I can picture him talking with my husband, his hands clasped gently together as he listens. I can imagine him sitting with my mom on the front porch, looking at the play of light and shadow on the mountains in the distance.

Yet I do know that he is here. Over the years I have felt his presence in subtle, scientifically unprovable ways that have provided kindling and flame to my faith in the hereafter. Sometimes when I pray, I picture my father as one of the bearded men up there who may have an ear more keenly turned to my needs. Sometimes those prayers are even answered.  So if you think your duties as a father end when your kid turns 18, think again. Once a father, eternally a father.

Den Haag is a 20 minute bicycle ride from the North Sea. The coastline stretches in both directions with kilometers of open beachfront, some just off the well trodden paths of beach towns and others via walking or cycling-only access through the sand dunes.

Every spring, a whole village of beachfront restaurants are erected along the shore for the summer season, and then deconstructed by the end of the season. These are not wheel-away-at-night patat (french fries) stands,  but full-fledged restaurants with decks, glassed in walls, padded furniture, roofs, electricity, thematic designs and palpable sound systems to fine tune an ambiance that differentiates it from the neighboring restaurant. These are not only labor intensive to set up, but the restaurateurs pay hefty fees to rent the beachfront.

The summer weather in Holland was so bad this year that most Dutch claim the season was skipped in this country. The city of Scheveningen must have felt sorry for their beach renters, a Dutch friend informed me, as they extended the restaurant leases until the end of October.  And what a good decision it was; last weekend every restaurant was busy and every square meter of beach occupied by a broad spectrum of humans ranging from pale white to foreign-vacation tanned.

I walked with two new friends I had met in a yoga/meditation course and the shore of the North sea on a warm Saturday afternoon seemed the perfect setting to discuss what we had learned. We had all experienced the value of regularly doing the meditation and breathing techniques, but we also felt annoyed by having to do “one more thing,” regardless of how much it improved our daily lives.   As we discussed how our meditations were coming along, we navigated our way through the jellyfish that washed up on shore. Although no longer alive, their amber tentacles moved gracefully to the gentle rhythm of the waves. They did not have the tell-tale blue lines on the round part of their bodies that indicate they are poisonous, but their presence was enough to keep 95% of the population out of the sea.

Although we were equally engaged and participating in the conversation, our eyes were still scanning the ground for jellyfish. Soon we made the prudent decision to walk on the dry sand of the beach, thus allowing our gazes to be more all-encompassing, our thoughts more present for contemplation.

As our gazes lifted upward our conversation did flow more easily. But as we proceeded on our journey, I noticed the beach goers on their towels had somehow transitioned from scantily clad to wholly unclad. As we casually ambled forward through the bobbing penises, sagging breasts and occasional sunburnt child, I was determined to focus on the conversation at hand. But soon, the change in landscape penetrated our thoughts.

As we passed naked families sitting together under the hot sun, my friend shared a conversation she’d had with friends just a few nights before about the vast differences in freedom of conversation between mothers and daughters around the topic of sex. The three of us shared in common having almost never talked to our mothers about sex. On the other hand, one of her friends had reported that mom talked openly to her about her sexual experiences down to which toys she liked for such occasions.

In Holland, land of sexual freedom, legal prostitution and drugs, it makes sense that family views on the topic of sex could be much more liberal. If I had thought about the topic before, I might have naturally come to the same conclusion. .

I sometimes have difficulty with the general zen principle of staying in the moment, but my child is like my zen master. Besides the anticipation of dessert after dinner, he seems to live fully in the moment, engaged in play, in laughter, in taking in the opportunities around him. When with him, I too am in the moment. Yes, I can digress back into history and think of holding him as an infant, or think in a general sense about his future educational needs, but for the most part, I think of him as a four and a half year old, no younger, no older. But, former topic at hand, how will this country of liberal indifference influence his sexual upbringing? Of course, parents play a large role, but contemporary society also holds a powerful set of cards in how our children will think. But, keeping my little zen boy in mind, I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.

One Monday afternoon as I stood in the living room, my eyes were suddenly pulled outside. No longer was there the languid movement of people going about their business, but a sudden cluster of dark-haired teenagers along the tram line. They pressed in against the metal guard rail as they surrounded two young girls gesticulating wildly toward one another.  Soon a cat fight broke out. For a good three seconds, the situation felt humorous, in that uncomfortable, sitcom sort of way as the girls started pushing one another and pulling hair. But as the crowd of 20 or so teenagers got sucked into the burst of violent energy the fight quickly escalated. Fists flew, other students got involved and within 10 seconds one girl lost her balance, falling to the hard cement. Other kids began kicking.

I quickly unlocked the glass door, stepped out on the balcony and shouted in a deep guttural voice “Stop now! Or I’ll call the police!” I clapped my hands loudly to emphasize the seriousness of my words. The teenagers fled like rats from a cat, running off in multiple directions. Several quickly turned to see me and my husband, who was now beside me, and just as quckly turned away, as if afraid we were memorizing the contours of their round young faces for a police report.

It wasn’t the first time I’d witnessed a crowd-induced fight. Nor was it the first time I’d found myself suddenly yelling into a crowd. My first trip to Italy over a decade ago provided for just such an occasion.

My traveling partner and I arrived late one July evening in the Rome Train Station to discover that the strike that had delayed us several hours in Napoli was also in full swing in this station. Blurry eyed with heavy packs on our backs, we didn’t look forward to the prospect of finding a hotel past midnight in peak tourist season. But then a stocky middle-aged Italian woman approached us.

“Need a hotel tonight?” We’d become quite used to such forward solicitations from the Italians, but knew to keep our guard up in Rome. Or at least I did.

“Yeah. How much?” my travel mate said. Seriously? Wouldn’t it be safer to find something on our own? I thought. In a less seedy part of town? While I was doing my best to convey these thoughts through a series of eyebrow contortions, he made a deal and we started following her out of the train station. But just then, my eye caught a break in the pattern.

A fight broke out not 20 feet from where we stood. A group of lanky young Italians started attacking a dodgy looking man in his thirties. A metal luggage cart was lifted in the air and came crashing down on his head. I’d learned a few words in Italian and suddenly I found myself shouting:

“Polizia! Polizia!” The police came quickly and broke up the fight. I wondered if it was too late, as an impressive pool of blood was already forming beneath the motionless man, staining the marble floor of the train station. The woman who we continued to follow out of the station told us that it would have been fine if this man had been killed as he was a known drug dealer. Great, I’m headed back to a hotel with a woman who knows the squalid underbelly of this ancient city and condones vigilante style murder.

If Wikipedia were seeking a photo of seedy, this hotel would not disappoint. When I complained that the shared bathroom and shower was too dirty to even consider using, the woman called her mother to come mop it up. Mom, hunched and thick, must have been in her late 70s. I wondered if the Italians had an elder abuse hotline, or if this was the way things worked in this part of town. The beds were so awful that we slept on the floor on our sleeping pads. But we survived.

Speaking of survival in the true meaning of the word, I wonder if that man in Rome so many years ago survived and why I was the only person to take action. It was, after all, a hot summer night in peak tourist season with plenty of other people around. Of course I like to think that I helped save this stranger, rather than witnessing his murder.

I’ve heard stories from close friends who have also had these situations; there is someone in their midst, a tragedy unfolding and they are the only ones to respond.  I’m not suggesting some sort of moral superiority. I didn’t choose social work or another selfless career. I haven’t received any citizen awards for outstanding public service.

It’s more that I wonder what is it that makes one person break out of her awe-struck gaze at a situation unfolding and take action, and another stay fearfully or apathetically locked in place? Remember, for the first few seconds of witnessing the cat fight by the tram line, I participated as a spectator. But I broke out of that role and took action.

I can think of a few reasons I find my voice in these situations: I grew up with older brothers around and had to hold my own, providing my lungs with lots of training; I was raised with strong Christian ethics to do the right thing; my formative years were spent in a small country town where girls never got hit when they spoke up (at least not in public) and I’ve had the great good fortune of avoiding violent situations. So perhaps someone with a rougher background might say the reason I speak up is that I don’t know any better.

And on the flip side, why do violent actions often stem out of groups? One answer I found is “deindividuation.”  Deinidividuation, according to a SouthSource article, is when you lose your sense of self-awareness when in a group. Suddenly, you feel anonymous and no longer individually responsible for your actions, as “everybody’s doing it” and you are just an anonymous member of this anonymous group–thus the potential for acting more boldly, or violently. But if you are in a large group that is witnessing something violent, wouldn’t you boldly protest? I’m not sure if it works in the reverse as well.

The next time I’m in a large group, I will try to keep the concept of deindividuation in mind. But in terms of staying true to who I am, I have to wonder; Now that I’m an official urban dweller with a daily view to the tram lines outside my window, will time wear down my good Samaritan reflexes, if I can call it that, or is this a characteristic that will stay with me to the end? I pray it will be the latter.

As I walked along the dark paths lined with growing puddles,  I thought of Sicko, the Michael Moore documentary we’d watched the night before. We’d only caught the second half, but that was enough to suck us in to the horror of U.S. health insurance coverage.  The film showed that health care in France was about 190,000 times better than in the U.S., unless you’re a U.S. senator, that is. How is it that the U.S. can be the richest country in the world (is this still the case, actually?) and still not have universal health care? How is it that over 50 million Americans are uninsured? Why are the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay provided better health coverage than most Americans? The dismal weather seemed appropriate for such a line of thought.

My mind wandered over to my to do list: small things at work, maybe a blog post, trying a recipe out of the Sneaky Chef to get some extra healthy nutrients into my 4-year-old. Suddenly there was a man walking toward me, startling me into the present. There was something about him that made me uneasy. In his mid to late fifties, he had loose gray curls and a haggard look on his unfriendly face. I bristled, suddenly feeling less cozy and thoughtful in this forest I’d come to know, and more aware that I was indeed walking alone in an unpopulated forest in a big city.

A thimble-sized shot of adrenaline coursed through my veins as I walked firmly past him. I didn’t feel fear so much as strength, as if I had tapped into a primal, animalistic response.  The type where feathers puff and muscles flex; a don’t-fuck-with-me sign in your energetic field.  Moments later, a black, mid-sized dog came running down the path, and based on his unkept appearance, I was sure he was with the man.

It happened so quickly I couldn’t make sense of it. Instead of running past me, the black, mangy looking dog attacked, growling as he snapped at my leg. Just as quickly he was gone. So much for my animal instincts. I looked down at my sweat pants to see a gaping hole exposing my white skin. Had it actually bitten me? I peered into the rip to see two little red spots where his teeth had just broken the skin. No blood poured out, but the skin was broken. I called after the man in Dutch.

“Your dog just bit me!” A normal reaction would be for the dog owner to apologize profusely, but this man just ran after his dog, yelling for it to come back. Perhaps he was as shocked as I was.We weren’t nearly as isolated as I imagined, as a couple with a cute, friendly little dog came upon us. They saw the look on my face and slowed their pace. I explained to them what had just happened and they were shocked. Top news story of the day. They stopped and waited with me.

They suggested that the man pay for a new pair of pants. This man, whom I had viewed as a threat a few minutes before, now seemed less scary and more like someone who had been beaten down by life. I had never thought of asking him to buy me a pair of pants. This is a very Dutch way of thinking when it comes to taking responsibility for a wrong doing.

Let’s just say I agreed the man could buy me another pair of sweat pants. Wouldn’t that require exchanging information? Giving him my address to mail a check? They don’t actually use checks here, but wire money directly to your account. Was I supposed to give this stranger, who gave me a bad vibe,  my bank account number? At the time, my mind couldn’t grasp onto any of these ideas, and all I wanted to do was to continue on my walk. Yet, I did want one thing from him.

“You can’t let that dog off his leash. He’s clearly dangerous.” He seemed to agree.

By the time I got back home and told Arie Jan what had happened, the idea of rabies and other unknown terrible diseases you can get from an animal bite had made an impressive number of laps through my mind. But Arie Jan–usually my Rock of Gibraltar when it comes to keeping me away from those ruminating thoughts–joined in on the refrain. When was the last time I had a tetanus shot? We need to get you to a doctor.

I usually lead a pretty healthy life, save a dog bite now and again, and thus visiting a Dutch doctor’s office was to be  a new experience. Well now. Come to think of it. In light of Michael Moore’s documentary, I had been wondering what the Dutch universal health care system was like.

We called a local doctor’s office and were told to come right over. Because I’m married to a Dutch man, and have my work permit, I am covered under his plan. We hopped on our bicycles and rode through the pouring rain to the office, about 6 minutes away. When we got there, and pulled off our dripping rain coats, we were handed a four page health history form. Ten minutes later, I was whisked into an office. A friendly female doctor looked at my wound and decided a tetanus shot was in order on the premise of better safe than sorry. That was it. No line. No co-pay. No health insurance paperwork. Hopefully I won’t have to revise this story with any ghastly updates about the Dutch health system, but my first experience was, needles aside,  rather pleasant.

We mentioned the dog bite incident to two people in church that day–one who is a police volunteer and happens to have a medical hotline programmed into her phone, and a nice Indonesian woman who works in the office, as Arie Jan had to go with me to do the initial paperwork and we needed someone to be on hand for the clients in the church.

But news of my bite spread like rabies. Just about everyone I’ve seen since that bite into consciousness has asked me about my leg. And you know what, sometimes it feels good to know people are talking about you.

Before you raise your eyebrows and wonder where I’m going with this,  O, O, Olivia  is in Dutch. And, it takes place in Den Haag. Topics of romance and sex can be strong motivators to dive deeper into a second language, and dive in is what I am doing–260 pages of diving with sentence after sentence of authentic, contemporary, idiom-filled Dutch.

I’m a sucker for well designed grocery store end displays, that section of real estate at the end of the aisle that convinces you to buy something you don’t really need; green olives stuffed with anchovies for example. I am also quite susceptable to strategic chapter breaks–a chapter that ends with something that leaves you curious. Not quite a cliff hanger, but enough of a pull that you rub your weary eyes, glance at the numbers on the clock face and plod ahead anyway. And author Gillian King has that “strategic chapter break” thing down.

Suffice to say she is hot right now. And I’m not the only one staying up late turning the pages: Olivia is on a seven day express loan. If only I could turn the pages a little faster. Problem is, I don’t just have this nice, sexy book with a pink cover (strategically designed to pull my female eye hither to scan it’s cover, read the back cover summary, and put it in the stack of library books), I also have my essential Dutch-English dictionary in hand to help me through.

As I read and get into the flow of the story, certain words start to lock in, expanding my vocabulary. Other words are road blocks, getting in the way of me knowing what else the lead character is doing to screw up her life. But wildly scary words such as zenuwachting (nervous) or ongemakkelijk (uneasy) are skillfully tamed by my Dutch English dictionary.

For those wanton words and expressions that my dictionary is just too dignified to translate, I have Arie Jan. Sure, I’ve picked up words I’ll never be able to use in my work at the church, but they’ll certainly come in handy watching Dutch television, startling my husband or eavesdropping on the ladies talking in conspiratorial tones at the next table during lunch.

Several people have commented over the last few weeks that my Dutch seems to be making leaps and bounds. I smile politely and say thank you. No real need to elaborate that I’ve been motivated by a fictional character having one night stands, out partying in Het Plein and thrashing her otherwise respectable life, and the desire to see if she gets that extremely hot guy in the end.

If you are beginning to grasp a second language and want to experience a sudden jump in understanding, read something in your foreign language of choice that is shamelessly compelling to you, whether it’s about companion plantings for your organic garden or a foreign espionage thriller. What better way to compel yourself forward. And you might be pleasantly surprised like I was; not only am I expanding my vocabulary, I am also discovering that happy endings are possible in other cultural writing as well.

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.

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.

They say that when you’re uninspired, to go forth anyway. They say that if you want to make the transition from mediocre to good and then from good to great, and all the way to that coveted adjective of excellent, that you must put in the time. We all know this as surely as we know the sun will rise tomorrow (or hide behind a thick blanket of Dutch clouds), but for some reason we get stuck along the way when it comes to our own passions and dreams.

I always said to my knew-what-they-wanted-to-be-when-they-grew-up friends that I was jealous. They wanted to be architects and they became architects. They wanted to be marine biologists, and low and behold, they became marine biologists. I didn’t want to be any of those grown up things, and thus, although I knew in my heart I wanted to be a writer, I rarely vocalized it, as it sounded childish in comparison. This was confirmed by people who said something to the effect of, well, yeah, we all want to write the Great American Novel, but you have to do something real to pay the bills along the way.

On the back of my brother’s red Toyota truck that has seen better days is a bumper sticker that says “Yes. As a matter of fact, we do call it art.”  I love that bumper sticker, and I love that it is on the back of an old pick up truck. My brother is an artist and always knew he wanted to be an artist. Sure, he could have made more money doing something else, but he’s a damned fine artist who gets invited to be in shows, paints with passion and he’s happy.

So even though my brother became an artist, which quite often falls into that “not a real career” category, his sister’s idea of becoming a writer got shelved along the way. I do want my passion to get shelved, but not on that proverbial dust covered plank of wood, but on a shelf in a bookstore next to other best sellers.

Tonight I attended Connecting Women, a networking group in Den Haag. I went because I’m still a relative newby in this land of bicycles and beautiful old buildings and have yet to develop a network of friends. Yet, when I left the meeting tonight, I wasn’t thinking about friends, but about Kristin the writer.

Strangely everything felt staged, like a set up. I arrived slightly late and took the first empty chair I saw. I sat next to a woman who just published a book on living sustainably (my other passion) and soon found out the two women sitting behind me were also authors, and one was a publisher. You’d think I was at a writer’s convention based on my seating choice.

Moreover, Jacinta Noonan, the keynote speaker that evening gave a presentation on Finding Your Passion. It was like the universe came down for a little session of woop ass–kicking my butt and telling me to get back to the keyboard.

The speaker took us through a series of questions, which we answered quite similarly to all of the other people whom she’s asked: How do you feel when you’re doing something you love? Time flies, we said. We feel happy, fulfilled, alive, energetic.

What gets in the way? Everyday life could have been the refrain from the Greek chorus, along with fear, putting others first, hearing we suck.

What can we do to follow through on what we believe in? The answers are of course very personalized to our different situations, but the bottom line is “just do it.” Just play. Just write. Just paint. Whatever it is, put in your 10,000 hours, the magic number presented in Malcom Gladwell’s “Outliers” and achieve mastery. And the first step to all of those hours, is to give yourself the permission to follow your dreams.

Oh God, time has flown! It’s past midnight and Why yes, as a matter of fact, I would like to write a novel.