|
|
|
April 10, 2002 : the birthday
26 years ago I entered into the world. Maybe to most, it seemed like any other day, but to my parents it was a day of great joy. This may sound a bit boastful, but I know it's true. They were the proud parents of a healthy baby girl. Frances Andrea Wilkinson. Frances because it's my mother's first name, and Andrea because my dad's middle name is the letter 'A'. (he goes by Andy) Sometimes when I can't sleep I try to remember every birthday I can. This year it was in Antwerp. 25th with my parents visiting in California. 24th in Cincinnati. 23rd a splendid night at a bar in Kansas City. 22nd I call my "nametag" birthday because it was in our Webb City apartment and everyone wore nametags. 21 at Martha's Vineyard in Springfield. 20 I forget. 19 I forget. 18 was the senior prom I didn't attend, in the basement of Coach Brown's house with Shelley Napier and the SMS guy Chris because of Tornado sirens. 17 in Elkland with a new scar on my left breast from having a cyst removed the day before. 16 I got my driver's license in Buffalo, scoring a 99 out of 100 because they couldn't give a 100 on a driving test--returning to softball practice driving the cream colored Mustang. 15 I forget. 14 is a blur. 13 must have been decent. 12 was the year the group of us girls slept in the barn and the cyotes scared us so bad that Kim Cotter's nose bled. 11 I don't remember. 10 is forgotton. 9 is lost out of my mind. 8 is a mystery. Pictures of 7 show me on the farm with friends from school. 6 must have been in Springfield. 5 might have been the year of the barbie doll in an iced cake, I'm not quite sure--I'll consult the pictures and see how many fingers I'm holding up. 4 is fuzzy. 3 has seemingly escaped my memory. 2 is gray mattered--stored away. 1 shows me with with the grandmother who I don't remember, though I remember the house where she lived...where my aunt lived...with the backyard full of raspberry briars. When I am stateside again, I will sort through the albums again and correct myself where I am wrong. It's funny how some of these memories are memories like yesterday, though Eva and I can't for the life of us remember what we did last Saturday. We slept in. Went to Aldi. Went into town...it's gone already. But some of these are tangible. Some of these are, in fact, picturefied. I can't remember turning 7 and riding in the car-axeled trailer pulled behind the old red and gray Ford tractor...but I know that it happened because I know the picture. There's a cocky boy from my 1st grade class at Bingham Elementary in a spiderman-like pose pointing at the camera. Or maybe he is doing "Rock-n-Roll" dude. I'll consult the pictures. In one of our great philisophical discussions lately (they are randomly dispersed in a month...if I'm lucky there are more than one or two), my friend Tom spoke of someone who said that we live and and store away bits of days or special somethings. Then when we get older we can remember some of the days in movie form--moving images like reels that blur out at the beginning and end. And then later on memories are like photographs--no longer moving but stills. And then the memories are lost. When the moments escape us the pictures tell us that we were there. Wow. Like slaps in faces I guess. A year older and memories I make today or tomorrow smoosh (is that a word?) out memories I knew yesterday. Ouch. Along this same line... I can edit and cut out and mark through and X and delete and remove and chop and reconstruct till all that is on this page is: Year older. Couldn't I quote Paul? "When I was a child I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things." I Corinthians 8:11 Is it applicable? Sort of I guess, but my memories of climbing around on the now-closed parts of Fort Pickens, DisneyWorld, Blackie my cataracted-eyed pony, homemade G.I.Joe boats in the bathtub, co-ed baseball, AWANA at church on Wednesday nights, high school basketball, working on paintings at odd hours in the college art department, roadtripping with Dr. Pepper...I could go on, obviously, I don't want these to go away. I don't want these childish things to disappear. I want to hold on to them forever...how my mom hold's on to memories of her mother making her version of hot sauce or my dad how he tries remember his mom when she wasn't suffering from Alzheimers--a funny old lady with a sharp wit who always cheated at dominoes when we would play. Right now, though not when I add on another year after another year...I can remember what she smells like. You know, the grandmother smell that is good to remember. It is now pointless to say that my greatest acheivement this April 10th was eating a veggie burger with sprouts, carrots, and baby bits of greenery that I am supposing was some form of lettuce. It seems a very small feat now that I have sat in front of this screen and recalled so many things stored. Maybe this reflection will keep them alive and around for even another year, and even another--depending on how many times this is read. I've decided that my writings will be urged by a sentence I read just the other day: I write so that I have something to read...and I guess I will add something to it today because it's my birthday and that gives me the liberty...I write so that I have something to read...and something to remember. Posted by Andrea
April 11, 2002 : the morning after...
I'm sure she didn't much know what was going on around her, or maybe she did. No one has told me much. It was the first paragraph of an email which ended with a congratulations on my birthday, instead of one larger one that went on about it in great detail. I'm going to go ahead and write this because I can embellish it to the point that of course it is accurate and believable, and happened. Because it sounds like it did, which is strange. Just as I was sitting here writing in the same way I am writing now, I wrote about her last night. I sat here and pulled out bits of Momma and smelled her grandma smell... Here I was on the other side of the world celebrating my 26th birthday and there she was all frail and stroke-victimed in an oversized hospital bed. I'm sure the hospital band on her arm barely fit at all. She was digressing before all of our eyes, you know? Becoming a child who wants her own way, or rather a grown adult who, in moments of clarity, was teary eyed because she knew she wasn't all there. I wonder what day was the day she was stuck on. What day was her last day of short term memory...the day she lived in year after year. A morning that looked slightly different but she couldnt remember the morning before...and the new nurse that gave her her pills was a new nurse 2 years ago, not 2 days ago, but she couldn't tell. And me, her grandchild, always getting more pretty, she said. But maybe I was 18 years old for 7 years in her mind. And I'm not going to the funeral because it's 5000 miles away, and there's no purpose in my being there. The funeral will take place, the coffin put in the ground, her children making jokes to hide the lump in their throats, because that's how they are. And when I go home this year I can go to that place, because it's close to my house. 4-wheeler distance, walkable, drive-by-able...always a little humbling to go by and see my last name on a tombstone and now her last year engraved--2002. Whatever. I don't know what I'm supposed to type tonight. It seems a little selfish to want to get this out. I read the words I paced our studio apartment and cried. I was completely overcome. Like a shock. And then I was going to get myself together and get back to doing the things I was supposed to be doing, but I couldn't. I should wear black. And then there are always thoughts of people saying she's happy now in heaven. She's ok regardless. She didn't even get what she deserved...a heart stopping its beat during sleep. That's what she deserved. And I always tried to be gentle to her. That's what she always looked like she needed. Gentleness. Ever christmas I tried to get a picture of me with her. And this year it was special because she buried her head into me. She didn't care about looking at the camera, she wanted to be held...a shoulder against her. She's smiling just the same...but somehow it was special. So regardless, it's an energy leaving them, so without knowing it I caught a piece of it last night. Not some holy roller spirit on it's way to the pearly gates...but something. I guess that's what I'll leave it as. Something. A special lady leaving me on my birthday. And that's ok Momma, it just makes this one more special or memorable. And over the next few weeks I'm sure I'll try to drag out every memory I can of her...new year's eve's spent watching the ball drop in the big apple, wrestling, soap operas, pringles, ricecrispies, changing into housedresses on sunday afternoons, peanut butter and honey with crackers, red hots, indian corn, the best macaronni and cheese in the whole entire world, the canoe ride for your life, white water, your mobile home, National Geographic Explorer, Ken's Pizza, Stillwell Collums on the 9th floor room 905, a bus trip downtown to Heers, Christmas lights, the time I took you home for christmas, dominoes...and on and on. Posted by Andrea
April 12, 2002 : made it online
Maybe it's silly me that I am still thinking of Momma today. I ran across her obituary online and it made me chuckle to think that this 96 year-old lady got into HTML as a parting thought. Consider it...born at the turn of the 20th century, she saw some of the most amazing things in her lifetime. Probably the bigest amount of change ever to come around in a generation...at least mechanically speaking. Sure we live in an era of micro technology...but I'm talking modernization in general and some taken-for-granted improvements...electricity, the car, airplanes, world wars, atomic bombs, calculators, refrigerators, microwaves, fast food restaurants, stores open on Christmas day, horse and buggy, high school as a priveledge, drawing water out of a well, milkmen, mobile phones, the era of radio, television, color television, cinema, men on the moon, presidents killed, wringing the necks of chickens, on and on. And then the bit of copy, her obituary, her life compressed into children born, preceded in death by, husband, church, lived where, born there--facts: http://www.springfieldnews-leader.com/obituaries/wilkinson0412.html Blanche Wilkinson, 96, Springfield, passed away Wednesday, April 10, 2002, in Cox Medical Center South. Blanche was born on July 14, 1905 in Olive, Mo. She was married to Guy A. Wilkinson on November 1, 1924 and to this union, seven children were born. They resided most of their married life in and around the Springfield area and were long-time members of High Street Baptist Church. For the past six years, Blanche resided at Century Pines Residential Center in Ozark, Mo. Her husband; two sons, Charles Guy and Bill; a daughter, Doris Jean Crowder; and a grandson, Brent Wilkinson; preceded her in death. She is survived by three sons, one daughter, and their spouses, Andy and Frankie Wilkinson, Philip and Joyce Wilkinson, Eddie and Karen Wilkinson, Kathleen and Johnny Johnson; and a daughterin-law, Wilma Wilkinson; eleven grandchildren; 17 greatgrandchildren; and one greatgreat-grandson. Graveside services will be at 2 p.m. Saturday, April 13, 2002, in Mt. Olive Cemetery, north of Fair Grove, at Olive, Mo., under the direction of Walnut Lawn DeGraffenreid-Wood Funeral Home. Blanche's family will receive friends in the funeral home at 2001 W. Walnut Lawn St., from 7 to 8 p.m. today, April 12, 2002. I view this through some modern magic on my laptop screen 5000 miles away. So I guess I thought it strange. I dug through pictures on my hard drive to find the best one of christmas's past of her. There she is decked out in red for Christmas, smiling as big as she can...like a kid of course, but I'm going to think this was one of her better moments of late. That's what I'm going to remember. So Minnie Blanche Wilkinson, the Minnie part she would yell at me never to ever call her that, I'll remember much differently than someone who begat so and so, who begat so and so. And I think she'd appreciate the subtle difference. She lived longer than some of her children, than most of her friends, maybe longer than even her heart wanted to...she had heart surgery back in the 80s. But oh well. She was always a pleasure to be around, and I hope, if I live to be even 86, I can be a lot like her. Posted by Andrea
April 14, 2002 : a very late night...
Much to my dismay, I have to write tonight not quite being in the most perfect of states of mind. A struggle to write at 6 in the morning on a Sunday...but that's how they "go out" in Belgium. The evening started off fair enough, with a Thai dinner so spicy that it burned my lips... A man came around with flowers and completely overlooked the table with only two girls (us) and left me in quite a state. I raised my fork and knife to the air, and only because I'm a complete dork, did the fork find it's way to the plate...causing a big ol' clang. Thank goodness Eva was in a different state of mind because she thought the feat quite becoming...because she was never out to find someone with great grace. Personality I might have, but grace...none. As for the rest of the evening, I shall put it something like this... In the states we say the word I love you like it is coke out of a can. Though we may mean it, at times it is completely inappropriate, though we use it casually, it is spoken freely between friends. This may sound rediculous, but I have found myself surrounded by a good group of friends. Good girlfriend chooses good acquaintances. I am like an adopted kid...forced into a good family...just like that, no effort on my part...I don't have to go through several people before I find people I mesh with...I mesh already. And so tonight, I was reminded of this. That, though the night may start late, the cafe packed, the club not quite heaving with clientel I would ordinarily dance among...we had the best of times. Though we are as poor as they come, Eva supporting the both of us, there were drinks always in our hands. And that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about being surrounded by good people. And I guess I take it for granted... at any rate, the walk home (which always seems so long at the beginning and seems so short at the end, eva said something profound. When we have money we'll return it. And I know she didn't mean beer for beer, or cigarette for cigarette....or even "evening at my house" for "evening at your house." She meant that some how, down the line the account would be paid in full...that's how her friends would want it. All I wanted to say is Eva's got good friends. And I'm glad to be a part. Posted by Andrea
April 14, 2002 : virgin entries.
As if blank journals weren't enough. Now I have an endless clean slate of pixels at my disposal. Finally I got movable type to work for me. I have templates to conquer, styles to tweak, new stuff to learn so I can get everything in working order. After going at it (problems that were out of my control) for over a week it is with great pleasure that I aquaint myself with my global audience. **chuckle** This is hard. It was much easier in WordPad. :) Today Eva and I recovered from last night...a night on the town of Antwerp with close friends who we see rarely. This always sounds like something less-than-perfect, but sometimes close friends that are rarely seen are some of the best kind to have. These are. They're quality. We can only hope they say the same about us. So after recuperating on the couch and rising at noon as to be presentable for Eva's mother when she showed up at 2 which was supposed to be 1, we accompanied Eva's mom to the ice skating rink where she had to mingle with divorcees. (god this paragraph makes my life sound wierd.) At any rate there was one moment in this afternoon adventure which stands out as a point of reference. As Rita (Eva's mother) introduced us to a friend--Eva was introduced as her daugher, and I was introduced as Eva's girlfriend. The funny thing is, even I understood that this is what was said. Me and my horrific Flemish comprehension skills...and I heard the word too. Coming as quite a surprise to the both of us, we take this as a quiet approval of some sort. Not a pat on the back or a voice through a megaphone shout of acceptance...just something that was nice. It was a lazy Sunday--which seem so much more sabbath, day-of-rest-like than the Sundays I remember as a kid which seemed half-filled with car rides to and from church, and always checking the clock to see how much sunday afternoon was left, or how much sunday night was left before bedtime. Of course I can remember too, Sundays when my dad would end up sleeping in his armchair, mom sleeping on their bed, and me stretched out in my bed...sometimes still in my half-slip...just too tired to get completely changed from church-clothes to relax-wear. Always waking to be completely refreshed...though time-conscience of the return to church time approaching. So Eva is sound asleep...I hear her breathing has shifted from normal to deep sleep, and I must join her--waking her up the minute I put my foot to the ladder to climb into heaven. So much for this online journal first times. No more virgin left in me anymore, just the lack of experience which I will shed over time. Perhaps until it is so I will take up the practice of marking down on bits of paper throughout the day, instances of writeable things, as to not be blank faced when I stare at the screen...we shall see. Posted by Andrea
April 15, 2002 : fines, plans, and cornbread
I've been thinking of this effort to have a journal as something empowering, only to find out that there is so much coding behind the scenes that I'm up to my eyeballs in things I don't understand as of yet. I look at sites others have created and jealousy eats at me until I am nearly ulcered. For example see: www.lifeuncommon.org What to do? A cool looking woman who can pull off wearing neck scarves (only a few people can do that...my mom being one of them) setting up files with extensions I have only recently learned existed. What's up with that? Should I have undertaken this as a purely HTML fest and done it all myself? Will I be given a jug full of patience? Will I survive another week without a digital camera? Will I ever make it through the book HTML, Java, Javascript and You? Ahhh...the question is, does it even matter? To put this in perspective, my dearest Eva came home from work and, once she regained her composure, (she was fined on the train for using the good portion of my train pass) reminded me of what in this life is important anyway...not for me to be neck in neck with movabletypers the likes of www.whatdoiknow.orgor even for her to be able to solve translated newsletter copywriter problems. What's important is for us to be happy. She's happy, I'm happy. I'm happy, she's happy. What more can a couple want besides bliss? God are we cheesy/lucky or what? Right now our bliss finds me typing this and Eva sprawled out on the couch with the baby Mac laptop hooked up to DSL, busying herself with trying to win the lottery. Not your average monetary version, but one to get her stateside. I guess that's what a night of websurfing can do to you. She started by looking for jobs and ended up on the lottery. Only online. She tells me a secretary's job in Washington, D.C. at the embassy is free, and I tell her that I have one more year of Belgium to get through before we make the flight. Should I tell you our plans? Oh these ever-changing plans? Belgium. England. South American. A year in Eastern Europe. Stateside. Eva's got a theory that some people find us hard to deal with because we dream like other people plan. We plan to go out to Prague some week, and then we never do. (not as of yet, at least) One year in St. Petersburg? Sure. We're planning on it. Will it actually happen? Who knows. Our plans are dreams. Understand me? If they don't work out, something else will. Eternal optimism on my part and on her part...well why not find something to look forward to, and it doesn't have to be a specific forward even. Just something. I am living in Belgium you know. 5000 miles from my birthplace. Not exactly somewhere I would have expected to end up if you would have asked me a year and a half ago. I'm not exactly following the ritual pathway to American retirement, am I? It hasn't been your typical high school, college, good job, good husband, children, retirement sort of life so far. The monkey-wrench hit the gear year 1 of college. And it keeps getting better. Now I live in Antwerp. What American mother and father expect their child to live in Belgium? Let me assure you that it's not many. At any rate I continually have to remind myself that I don't have to fit in any particual pattern or direction...that in some way we are inventing new avenues neither one of us expected. I guess that brings another day to an end. Eva's on a teachers website now, and I'm juggling between email windows and finishing off the last bit of corn bread. Cornbread, does anyone know how crazy these Europeans would be about cornbread with the right marketing campaign? Think about it.
April 16, 2002 : vanavond
Vanavond ik practised mijn Vlaams. Ik should have been practising elke dag, maar ik didn't, so ik ben niet as goed as I should be by niew. Funny thing, ik actually get het most of the tijd. Sometimes ik can't believe het. Wordens fall out of mijn mond en ik spreek really goed. Eva understands mij. Wij hebben lang talks and discuss the state of the wereld. Maar for niew, ik ben going naar bed. Ik heb slaapen. Ik wil zijn met mijn liefje. Tot morgen! More later.
April 17, 2002 : mijn straat
We shop around the corner at a small little supermarket called "Vergo." I don't know what the name means, or if subconsciously it reminds me of a star sign, but it's our store...the only option being the small Jewish versions speckled around the neighborhood. I go there for random things...pre-made crepes, the spreadable mouldy cheese I'm so fond of, generic salt and pepper chips, kroketjes--the Belgian mashed potato version of tater-tots...you know, things like that. It's not that I go there daily, or that the cashiers know me by name (they probably refer to me as the American girl who refuses to say anything but Danku and 500 grams of Filet Americain and pays only with Meal Vouchers) and it's true that the girl who works in the produce section always looks at me a little strangely, but, like I said, it's our store. And I have to admit, I don't know our neighborhood all that well, and it was a little strange to have the POLITIE parked in front of a Jewish Old-Folks Home at the end of our street for 2 solid weeks because there was tension in the air...but their blue van is gone now. Things are back to normal. Jewish boy-children with their crazy curls and thier sisters on Razor scooters are back to hogging the sidewalk. Whew. Life on Marialei is back to normal. I guess this is a confession of sorts. I always try to be keenly aware of older people on the trams, offering my seat, I've even talked in broken Flemish to an older woman carrying her groceries because she looked like she needed help. I'm a good person, ok? At least I try. I try not to stare at people that look different to me, and I always try to not make fun of people. My parents raised me well--a bit of a sappy heart sometimes...just ask Eva about the girl with braids and see how long it took for me to get over making fun of her...that is making fun until I saw that I should know better...and it kept me awake for several nights...until I broke down and wept about it. I'm not kidding. So today walking to Vergo I see a woman in front of me without a head. This sounds amazing, but it's true. I don't know where it was, I never saw it. Walking with a cane bigger than she was, returning bottles to be recycled, hunched over and barely making her way up the sidewalk was this little old lady. Did you catch the fact that she was recycling? And me, I walk slowly behind her, no need to pass. And me, I'm not staring, because she certainly must get that all the time. And two teenagers (yes, I'm old enough to call them that) are approaching and my stomach prepares for comment or laughter, and the boy simply moves to one side without uttering a word. So we enter the store. The checkout line is 3 customers back. A glance from each of them, but no lingering stares...no need to recount the change in Euros, or shush the 3 year old not to point. I was impressed somehow by my neighborhood this afternoon. That's all. Not that I was thinking there was not good left in the world, it was just good to be reminded that there really is.
April 18, 2002 : comments on the Dutch
I don't know if you've been paying much attention to the fact that half of the government in the Netherlands has resigned in the last week, or that generals are stepping down, etc. All because they've been found to have been slightly negligent in the past--which lead to the Srebrenica massacre of 6,000 Muslim men and boys. I didn't even know what Srebrenica was, let alone that is was a huge tragedy, but allow me to make one point. Here we have a tiny little "heathen" country where a person can go and buy legal sex and smoke some legal pot, your girlfriend can get an abortion, now you have the "right to die" if you are ill, and if you are a homosexual, you're in luck because you can get married to your partner. How much more heathen can you get? Not that homosexuality has anything to do with prostitution, abortion, suicide, or weed...but the point I am making is that to some peope, the Dutch are a pack of crazy sinners. Now the point. I can only imagine that if such an atrocity as the mass murdering of 6000 people happened by the accidental hand of Americans, the news would either not disclose it, the truth would be altered, or for some reason the 6000 people would be so faceless to us, that we wouldn't even care. And here is a country scorned for being so openenmindedly lenient to any number of "forbidden" things...apologizing with as much umph as it can. I don't care if there are people in the back rooms of Den Haag saying, "It will look sooo good to the people if you resign. Hey, let's resign in mass numbers to look better." Who cares. It does look good. It looks like the leaders of a country, the size of maybe Georgia, feel bad. That the lives that were lost grieves them in some way, and I appreciate it.
April 19, 2002 : the livingrooms of friends.
There must be something magical, not magical, magical is a word left over from fairy tales. There must be something special, no, not special. Special sounds like there's something different about it, not ordinary, they're ordinary not special. There must be something...not in the room itself, but in the people. The lighting might bring it out, or the drinks, the coffee, the chocolate coated biscuits, the cigarettes, some intensity bigger than us, that makes us think for a moment that anything and everything is possible. No, this makes it sound like the room. It's not the room, it's the people. Our friends across the street offered us Mexican takeout tonight, because they're going to Paris for the weekend, and Mexican food is hard to come by. We started in idle conversation, switched gears to music, and two of us ended up side by side on the couch with revolution on our minds. What makes a concept an action? When can I take something to heart and say, "I'm tired of talking about it, I want to do something about it." Maybe it's my getting older, or the fact that next year is a clean slate waiting to be filled...but so help me, I'm going to do something this time. Maybe it'll be small and bit-like, I don't care. It's a year of progress! (it sounds like propoganda.) No really, I consider myself affected. Much like the numerous Tom and Ilse latenight conversations ranging from education to vacations to Vlaams Blok, there is something good in that small little light-like feeling I get when leaving a livingroom discussion--Like I'm better for it. That all around the world people are sitting in sofas much the same, driving on long roadtrips, huddled around tables sitting in booths at Denny's...coming away from it open jawed, head burning, and the night just not long enough. It's like the non-christian form of a night with God. I should know, I spent many a night with God, and I could tell you stories of trembling, heartbeating, face pressed into the carpet, teary eyed, sitting in a blank room, sitting in circles discussing text and feelings and realness, and necessity, absolutes, faith and chances. And walking away from a room thick with God you feel something...and you leave it open jawed, head burning, and the night is just not long enough. So what to do? Read more, respond more, give change, do my best, keep track, write down, love my girlfriend...and someday the affection will lead to result. If not this year, next year. If not next year, I hopeI will live just long enough.
April 19, 2002 : red leaves
Walking home from tram number 15 I notice a gigantic red leaf floating down out of the sky. It's not a tree leaf (by the way, somehow I missed the whole portion of the budding part of spring...everything is suddenly leafy) its more like a house plant leaf. Up I look and out the fifth story window is a Jewish huisvrouw (housewife because she's wearing the "I ususally wear a wig, but now I'm at home so I'm wearing a turban" on her head) hanging out. Not some kid like I expected, but a grown woman. So here is this youngish woman hanging out the window of her house holding another leaf. This seems like a rather odd thing to do...a strange way to dispose of leaves--maybe she was trying to get someone's attention? I look around. No Jewish man or child paying any sort of attention to her. I seem to be the only one. I walk further. I turn back around to see if anyone has noticed her still, but apparently now she's intrigued by my noticing her. So now she drops the last one...with a tiny little wave towards me...and down through the air in a slow helicopter-like fashion, this gigantic red on one side, shiny green on the other, leaf falls down. I smile at her, shake my head, and turn the corner. It was strange, that's all. No accidental dusting, or gust of air pulling out a grocery list or homework that had been on the fridge--and no kid spitting or throwing things at walkers below. For as much as the Chosen Ones are a strange little sect in my neighborhood that I have absolutely nothing to do with, it was nice to see/feel such absurd delight in my noticing her and her dropping them and even in the two misplaced leaves on the sidewalk. Only in Antwerpen.
April 21, 2002 : politics with joris & the 21 step space
Last night Eva and I had her brothers over for traditional Spanish tortillas (which I would call onion and potato omelette). Joris (the oldest of the brothers) cooked, and we all headed to a movie afterwords in town--Joris deciding to join Eva and I for a drink after the show. He's majoring in economics or something, and always has an educated view of the goings on of the world, and besides this, he's a traveller at heart, and I'm always hoping that even more of that spirit will rub off on me. Not that I dont' have the bug...it's just sometimes daunting. The world is small and big at the same time. After many a beer we head into world economics (again) and somehow we get talking about oil, taxes, you know stuff like that. I bring up drilling for oil in alaska, and he says something that I hadn't thought of, but understand completely. Furthermore he shed light on one of the cycles that has spanned world history... This sort of conversation at 3 in the morning is always healthy...but after so many trips to the bar for refills, it was time to go home... When Eva and I are literally 100 meters away from our house we hear music coming from the direction of the house of one of our friends. We enter and don't come out again until the sun is up and it's 6 in the morning. Good people, fun time, dancing, drinking water, and some of the most friendly non-native english speakers I've ever met. In reference to the night, as my dad would say, "A good time was had by all." Eva and I retired into our bed before 7 and got up again at 1 only to fall asleep on the couch again at 3 to get up again at 5. No, it wasn't a productive day, but it was nice. Though we missed a gorgeous afternoon, it was somehow worth it. Basically the only thing we accomplished today was sleeping, helping Joris with his thesis, eating some fritjes at the best frituur in the whole of Belgium, and returning home. Oh the wonders of lazy Sundays. Only one thing left to record: It wasn't completely dark at 9. Walking back from an erand this evening, Eva remarked on the coolness of non-city, city spaces. Sure enough, an expance of fencing, marking off the distance between one building and the next, the sort of removal of buildings that leaves the wallpaper on the side that used to be wall, and you can see stair marks from where there used to be stairs... Well this space is barely 21 steps by, but walking by it tonight it was like a miniture climate change. Not only was it frangranced by a spring blooming plants, but cool. Leaving the protection of 3 familied buildings stacked side by side and then space...coolness...then back to storefronts and studios, houses and bakeries...warmth. The same as looking up on occasions where I'm always looking down...it was nice to be aware of this space. A non-city city space. Nice sentence. :)
April 22, 2002 : 3 different men.
Man Number 1: But this morning as I stood in line getting my monthly train pass, Eva comes up to me and the old man behind me pitches a fit. I'm not talking about a concealed fit, one where they simply utter "humph" and stare, I'm talking about the all out verbal assault. This was completely inappropriote coming from a 70 year old decently well-to-do man. He starts fussing about how he's next in line and he doesn't let her through. He starts protecting a space that is barely enough for me to stand in, blocking her out like basketball rebound. (something all of my teams never really understood) I'm looking at him like he's a moron, and Eva keeps saying something along the lines of, "Look buddy, I don't want anything, I'm just here with my friend." To which she gets no positive sign of understanding. This is when Eva doesn't like Belgium. Now since I haven't been a patron of public transport in the states (excluding the CalTrain on the peninsula back in California) I don't know how people react back home. Everyone seemed pretty nice as far as I could tell--though people go completely ape shit while they are driving (pardon my less-than-eloquent description). Man Number 2: Though dont' get me wrong, I'm not completely up on the way "men are." But I have smelled enough urine around the Nord Station, seen enough stopped traffic on green lights because of the windowed prostitutes that line that particular street (yes, even police cars idling on green), and been on the receiving end of enough unprintable comments to know how some "men are." This is not an attempt at men-bashing by the way...they will be redemed later on...and continue to be redeemed on a daily basis by friends who are boys, who I know don't stop traffic for scantly clad women in flourescent bikinis. Man Number 3: Funny thing is, poor Eva is caught in a strange situation when it come to my cooking. I need constant approval and constant praise. The hamburger I fix tonight better be one of the tastiest hamburgers ever. Ever. It doesn't take me long to figure out where I got this condition, when I think back to nearly every night at the dinner table post-meal. My father praised my mother's cooking every single meal, every single night, of every single day. The tacos got better and continue to get better still. The roast (which my mother has perfected) continues to be tastier and tastier. My grandmother's raisin pie? My dad ate it for 60 years...and the last time he ate her pie was her last great masterpiece. You'd imagine that my mother would tire of these praises, but I'm pretty sure that every evening it gets the same responce...a smile, because no matter how many times she hears it...it feels good. So poor eva, having to taste strange combinations of peas and mushrooms, potatoes and steak stews...moving ever so slowly to things I haven't even cooked before. And poor Eva with her necessary comments...not quite the praiser my father is, but doing just as well.
April 23, 2002 : the quest.
Supposedly we are all on some great quest for truth. My truth will never be your truth, just like her concept of a diety/creator is not the same as his. That girl over there imagines him a really old santa-clause like man with a beard that sometimes pokes out of the bottom of clouds, and an old friend thinks of god as the brightest light to behold--barely imaginable--what the night would be if you removed the blue-black part of the night sky. A sky with only stars. And me? I used to think that it would entail a searching. That birth was closely followed by need, and the need led to a searching and the searching led to packing a proverbial bag with warm clothes and clothes made for the coldest of weather, pens and paper, a staff to keep me balanced, and a couple of pictures to remind me of my roots--of love. How is this different than what it has turned out to be thus far? Sometimes I think it completely different, that I only worry myself with daily happenings. Will there be supper on the table when she returns? Will I get enough sleep if I go to bed an hour later? Can I possibly wear these jeans one more day without having to wash them? Am I supposed to say jij or jouw? And occasionally I think about adding money to retirement plans. But enter love from the left side of the stage. It is not that I have not had it before. If ever a child was loved by her parents, it is me. Unconditional? I do not need a bleeding saviour who forgives me of my daily gripes and grievances to see the word in action, the mom and pop version works just as well. But love. If not love then joy. If not joy then appreciation. "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the earth shows his handiwork." David wrote psalms. I write notes and place them in between the layers of her cheese and dry meat sandwhiches. "Have a good day." I get up in the morning and look in the bathroom mirror to see a note left to me in dry-erase marker. "Good morning to the most beautiful girl in the world." I was asked what it was that I left when I left it. A conversation with the creator. Imagine it, A conversation with the creator of the universe! The creator of all things was interested in all that I had to say. Comforted me when I felt that teenage-loneliness. Was my muse. Listened and spoke from picturesque mountain settings, from ancient texts, and even in the midst of crowded cafeterias. Amazing. It did not matter to me if it existed or not. For me, it was as real an experience as any. And to think I had it all figured out at 18, the peace would have carried me through middle-age and gray hair and solitude before death. That is not what I miss. Not the peace. Not the conversations with god. If I miss anything, it is having a receptical for my thanks. A dump for words about pretty sunsets, safe journeys, nice days, good grades, near misses, and health. A vast hole where all of the thank you phrases about good friends, new jobs, directions, and family go. That is what I miss. Eva thinks I will return to it someday. A circle sort of returning. I guess not a circle but a racetrack oval with ends curved...with long stretches in between. I must admit that she may be right. I don't know. She thinks it will happen when I am old, when I want something else to look forward to--so I don't have to rehash and replay mistakes and missings out. Shoulda-coulda-woulda. An ooooohhhhh I'm getting older, and I'm not ready to stop living sort of thing. With this in mind though, I am trying to live not in a racetrack form but highway that never ends form. "Life is a highway, I wanna drive it all night long." Remember, the instant we are born we begin dying. (that's a deep one for you!) It's a vast expance in front of me. Any direction an option. Slow down for the scenery, eat at diners, mix with the locals, stop by friend's places, and take lots of photos. Sometimes I don't "write it down, (I) remember it in (my) heart." It's living. Not in a fast pace, but in an economy car. It gets me from point A to point B. I stick my arm out the window and get a suntan. I find a dirt road and lay back on my car roof to see the meteor showers. I have to change some tires. I know not to hitch too many rides. And I hate being a passenger--though sometimes the ride is much better when I don't have to watch the road. Sometimes I get too fucused, I get highway hypnosis...white stripe...white strip...white strip...and to the right...fencepost...fencepost...exit ramp...and to the left...a small little nothing town. Maybe I should rent a room and stay awhile. A long analogy, but for me it was worth it. It might sound trite, but it is the best I can do. I live with me on a daily basis. I live in my bit-too-girthy skin, with my sometimes-needing-haircut hair, my contact-needing eyes, my nearly perfect teeth, my limbs, my mind, my sex, my brain, my actions, my consequences. I can only do what I can do. And as long as I go on, I will do my best to live. A motto? No. A religion? Not that I can tell. A manifesto? Not one that I have read or written. I just live. Not a dreadful thing to endure, but something to make the most of. I do not want to be the person who reflects on her life only to be dissappointed. I am not disappointed. Do unto others as they would do unto you. Do unto others because it's nice. Because it resolves conflict. Because it will make their day better. Because you didn't even think about it, it was just a reaction. Try to not dampen the spirit of a room because you enter. Try to not be fake. Be real. Be sincere. Be genuine. Be a catchphrase of a tennis shoe. Yes of course it was somewhat ridiculous to think I could figure this out in one setting in one piece of writing! Give me more time! And, as I learned today in school, try to turn gray into orange. Let me end with love, and if not love, joy, and if not joy, appreciation. Sometimes all three are in the form of an event, a happening, and sometimes a person. Of course joy sometimes chooses you. But in most days you have to be proactive. So I will end this in a way I used to end in every email in every correspondance, something I think I picked up, read, or saw somewhere... choose joy. (after all, what other option is there?)
April 24, 2002 : the walk home.
I give myself crap all the time. I can't seem to get over it...on one hand it's fun to make light of my little belly and the few bands of scars I happen to have over my outer thighs. It's healthy. On the other hand, it's not. Try going in to what Eva and I have labeled "fascist" stores and try to find something for me to even fit into. No, H&M I am not going to try on any of your fucking clothes from the Big and Beautiful section. I don't have any idea what size I am here. Back home it's 16. 16 is comfy--no need for me to squeeze into 12s and look like bread dough that is rising out of a bowl. If you really want a funny story, ask me about the trip to the gyno where the nurse tells me I have a fat neck. Yes, this really happened. Ladies and gentlemen, I am not fat. I am ever so slightly girthy. I can still chase balls around, jog when I want to, and walk with the best of them. I have simply moved on from athletic college and high school student, to sendintary computer girl. Of course things are looking up now that I dont' have a car, live in a foreign country, and have started eating salad...Speaking of no car, this is leading up to the point of this entry...the walk home. Ah...my Flemmish class in Hoboken. If I leave by 25 after 8, I can make it there by 9. I take two trams. I take the number 2 from Albert Park to Zwaantjes and hop on the 12 which takes me to Vlaams 101. aka. Flemmish for Beginners. Today was beautiful. I had nothing slated for this afternoon but writing a paper for school on Barbara Kruger--of "Your Body is a Battleground" pro-choice fame. So instead of returning on the 12 and then the 2, I walked. Over an hour, through neighborhoods, by parks, over motorways, all on foot. Everything always looks slightly different when you're used to staring at people trying to avoid staring back at you--I don't have to look through the back side of an advertisment for Belgian chocolate, for one. And the sunshine? Fresh air? Exercize? I listened to the radio on my mobile (a nice perk for a cheap phone) and kept up a nice pace. I smelled flowers. I smiled at little old ladies pulling their shopping bag two-wheelers. I smiled a little kids playing with sticks. I dodged teenagers on bicycles. I blew dead dandilions. (A weed. A seed. A flower.) And I got the thigh rash. The crotch in my cords too low to provide ample protection from one thigh causing damage to the other. Yes, I rubbed. So much so that I had blistery looking whelps that stood out from my skin as far as 3 stacked nickles. (for my Belgian friends, that would be maybe two 20 cent pieces...not side by side! On top of one another.) I came home and put on shorts which I pulled up under my breasts--just to ensure that the crotch of the shorts didn't dangle. This is just a simple reminder that if you can walk...do. If it's a nice day? Take advantage of it. There are far too many dismal days in a Belgian or English year to not be thankful for the just-right temperature, sun beating down days. I even made a picnic for dinner--burritos in the park, a little softball catch, tea at home. So yes, I'm suffering from a bit of irritation...but would I do it again? Of course.
April 25, 2002 : april
April is the month that makes us know that time is not our own. I don't know where April went. First it was suddenly upon us. Then it was suddently easter vacation and my birthday, and now May is here next week. What happened? Eva (who turns 26 in 5 weeks) said, "I've got to slow my life down. It's going too quickly." And I said, "Yes." We came to no conclusions on how to succeed in slowing down our lives. We're not going to walk more slowly or sleep less, or create a watch that converts the day into more hours. Is it about being more aware or appreciating the act of being alive? I don't know. She doesn't know. Frankly we have no clue. We might not even talk about it again until this time next year, or even the next. I think she said something about it, we both freaked out for about five minutes, and then we moved on to chatting about the cheap green tea I like to drink, ice-cream bars, or whether or not the nacht winkle would be open at such an hour. It wasn't. At least it wasn't yesterday at that time. You'd think a nacht winkle would be open in the nacht. You never can tell with these Belgians. Oh, one last thing. Here's a song |Dan Burn - God Said No| that I found. I'm not going to tell you what it's about. Just option/right-click it and save it, listen to it, burn it, and then consider buying a Dan Burn cd.
April 27, 2002 : Fridays and Saturdays
I have to combine them, because I've failed for the first time thus far. Yes, it's true, and I'm not going to stress about it. My favorite band in all the world (literally in all the world) is the Indigo Girls. I could go into great detail about the whys they are my favorite, and have been for almost a decade now, but I'm pressed for time. I'll try to post concert details later. :) What started out as Eva and I going tonight led to Jess and Erik coming along, which expanded to Susan and Leila across the street attending, and then we added Eva's friend David, who is now accompanied by our friend Tom, who we asked last night randomly...and now our mutual friend Bart is coming along. Crazy. There are only 5 of us that know the music...the rest will learn. I am keeping my fingers crossed for just two girls and guitars--amplified acoustic, as this is the best way to see them and understand their lyrics. We shall see. Our party has expanded and will end up being a lengthy engagement...so an update will be post-dated I'm sure.
April 28, 2002 : lazy sundays
Sundays are supposed to be days of rest. If there was ever a sunday of rest, it was today. Erik, Jess, Eva and I lounged all day. Ate crepes for lunch, ordered pizza for dinner, and to keep ourselves amused, Erik read a book with a poor ending, Jess read a book about a Methodist preacher, Eva tooled around on the internet (and looked up difficult little-used English words for Jess) and I worked on Logos. Once they left, and eva returned from doing laundry, we sat around and giggled like two school girls up past their bedtime. I don't know what about really, but it was fun. If there is ever a fire to maintain, we are maintaining it. :) I am currently ftping old stuff from my computer off of my friend's computer in San Francisco. (that might not make any sense) In any rate, I am running across strange things I once bookmarked, bits of text, pictures I forgot existed...and even a couple of decent poems. Isn't it gross how stuff (especially digital stuff) can be lost? Images capturing special moments, text written in fits of poetic passion...all lost. And then found again in this particular story--though I would have been fine without them, but now I feel like a toe that was lost has been found. (to read the drivel for yourself, please read the poems Independence Day & Ceiling in my poetry section) Oh the wonders of the modern world, like finding church records hidden in cow shit in Yugoslavia, only these weren't important to masses of people, or hundreds of years old, and these were actually only hard-drive drivel. Imporant to me, no less. Like finding a couple of months of my life recorded and now mine again. I will share when I finally sort through all of the stuff and dust.
April 29, 2002 : thunderstorms
Today my very able girlfriend became a lost passenger. It's easy to do, I've done it myself...end up in a city completely different. A panic sets in mid-journey and you realize the things you usally see going by have been replaced. For my journey I saw traincrossings and new little towns going by at 60 mph. For Eva...she noticed a tennis courts and a remarkably empty train. So empty that she had to look for someone to question about the train--this was obviously not a train headed for commuterville Brussels. Once she told her story, she received a ticket that said, "Lost Passenger." And then, for about a quarter of an hour she was a "lost passenger" stranded in Lier. Lier is like a small powered magnate that is pulling us near. It's a town with canals, an old walled woman-city, and a clock that has something to do with the heavens. It's not that we really want to live in a small town with a huge cathedral and square...it just seems that everywhere we look...something is pointing to Lier. While Eva was lost, I was busying myself with dreams. I don't know what I'm not eating or what I am eating that is setting off my wild immagination. Of course I dream multiple back to back dreams and of course I remember only fragments of a couple of them...today I remember almost nothing--an old friend showing up to see me and the usually skinny friend was chunky and in one portion I was hot and I looked down to realize that I was wearing 3 short-sleeved t-shirts, all with different sleeve lengths. What bit of my brain wanted to deal with sleeve lengths? I don't even remember looking at my sleeves today. I was told I needed to start eating a banana before turning in for the night...I do take a women's muliti-vitamin before I crawl into bed. Could that be the problem? :) The day was nothing short of regular and rainy. There was even lighting and thunder...something not so common here I guess. So uncommon, that Eva came home and could tell me the time that it happened...something like "Hey, did you hear the thunder and see the lightning around 1 o'clock?" Can you imagine dealing with such precision in the great midwest? "Hey Bob, did you hear that thunder at quarter till, 5 of, 6 exactly, 2 after, 6 after, 11 over, quarter past..." Obviously I'm "taking the piss." Which is a new line I have picked up from Eva and her English-English. It was just one of those things to remind me that I'm not at the corner of route 1 (now Woodstock Road) and Route 2 (which has changed to Cumberland Road) Elkland, Missouri anymore. Not that I've been there for awhile. Not in visiting, I did that at Christmas, but lived there? I haven't lived there in over years. But is it a home-type feeling I feel for it still? Definately. A house, a barn, two sheds, woodlands and fields...80 acres. (minus 5 for Eddie and Karen) We'd hop in the truck to go see high-water over bridges and water backing up into fields. Apparently, after church once, we even saw a small wall of water come down a runnoff ditch. I can also remember running across the back field once, under gray sky, and my dad on his tractor frantically motioning me with palms down to "get down"--my hair sticking straight up because of the electricity in the air. No way to end this entry except to say that I answered a questionaire online today for classmates.com and one of the questions was, "How do you feel about your life?" with choices like, "I'm going nowhere." "I'm famous, don't you know?" "I'm doing what I thought I'd do." "I think I've failed a bit." and "I'm on the right path." Speaking for the little 5 year old getting on a school bus in front of her 70s style ranch house in Springfield, Missouri as well as speaking for the 26 year old who is going to school in Brussels and living in Belgium... however unexpected this life is going, rain or shine, "I think I'm on the right path."
April 30, 2002 : pre holidays
May day in the rest of the world is completely different than in the states. I thought it would consist of children dancing around a May Pole ushering in a swift end to Spring and a sending a wish for summer. But instead, police are preparing for riots in several cities around this part of the world and my neighborhood grocery store is closed. No shops up on the Mier are open, no Labor Day sales. I looked it up online: The whole country is off from work. And I halfway expect that in Belgium this could be for real. That no one would be working...gas stations empty, the highways only full of people who can manage to get from point A to point B on their current supply...the police on call but in plainclothes at home firing up the grill...the factory workers and bakers staying up past 10 and actually sleepingtill almost 11 instead of their usual rising at 5... In a country where shops are still closed on Sunday, anything is possible. Though Eva corrects me by telling me that restaurants are open...the best frituur in the whole of Belgium, the De Wit, open and packed to the gills. In other random news, I received my digital camera in the mail today...which I had to pay a gross amount to customs to actually get it into my hands. But, what this means, is that pictures will again begin to surface. Random bit two...in the spirit of the Beastie Boys, with whom I have very little in common ("Sometimes I Like to brag, sometimes I'm soft spoken. When I'm in Holland I eat the pannenkoeken") I have found common ground: Pannenkoeken. Eva says I'm obsessed. I'm so obsessed that I feel the need to share and record for posterity the deleriously easy recipe. 1 cup all-purpose flour, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup water, and Eva suggests a bit of vanilla essence Directions 1 In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour and the eggs. Gradually add in the milk...stir until it is pretty runny. It doesn't need to be think like the conventional pancake. So there. Enough from pre-May day in Belgium |