April 27, 2003 : accidents and phonecalls

We woke up fairy early today considering that we were out until 4ish in the morning. Basically we got up at noon and headed to Brussels (again) to go to a special Flanders day to get information for Eva on how to be a teacher this fall. (see, it's finally dawning on her that she should look into a rewarding career in education!) ;)

Funny as it seems, I've vowed not to take a train when a future location is situated directly next to a station. Well our destination was right next to the North Station in Brussels, but still we headed in the car in the event that if we had more time we could go somewhere else. It also gave us the opportunity to retrace our mess-up from yesterday which did, in fact, reveal that the signs for "centrum" are quite misleading.

We passed onlookers at the palace and wound our way to our destination where both Eva and I got loads of information about teaching in Belgium. I also happened to snag a coffee cup and saucer with the flemish lion on them. It was blatant stealing, as my mother would say, but I thought it too cool to overlook. I'm probably wanted now for stealing Flemish property, my prized new possession. Sorry Flemish people everywhere, one has to have a keepsake such as this (Eva called it cafeteria ceramics) and it would only be complete if I had a Walloon rooster.

On the out of Brussels, I spotted a perfect new bedside table which would be perfect for the stereo of which we currently have nowhere else to put. I circled back around, snagged through a couple of side-streets, and the two of us got out to inspect it. Sure thing. It's perfect. Thank goodness we drove. :)

The next bit of the story of our day is more disturbing. At what I would consider a notorious cluster-fuck intersection (forgive my use of profanity) I was waiting for our light to turn green when I looked over and in a blink of an eye I saw both what was going to happen as well as it happening. I sas a boy get hit by a car.

Accidents in general are not something to take in or process, they oftentimes happen so quickly that they are over and done before one can manage otherwise. I saw the boy with his soccer-ball and the black car moving along, as his light was currently green. And I saw the boy hit, thrown onto the hood, and bounce off the front and land in front of the now stopped car. I am supposing the man in the car had already begun to break, as he would have certainly run over the boy if he hadn't. Thank god, as I would be even more traumatized.

I told Eva, "oh my god, that car just hit a kid, that car just hit a kid..." and pointed her in the direction of where it had just happened. The man got out and the boy got up. We were too far away to see if everything was alright, but I took a left turn so we could go by the action and just to relieve my feeling that a boy had just been killed. I had seen him get up, but he was obviously in shock and pain, as he quickly was down again.

I can't imagine the feeling of the man driving the car, the 7 or 8 year old boy himself, or his friends who were waiting on the other side of the street. Had he gone after the ball and just not looked back to the right after he had retrieved it? Had he seen his friends and bolted across the street?

When we passed he was sitting on the curb, with blood on his striped shirt, that is most of what we could see, but as we sat their at the stoplight, my questioning why it was taking so long for an ambulance to get there, I saw his hand move--somehow reassuring me that he was ok.

I was pretty sick the rest of the drive home. Just like after one hits an animal, hears the bump under the tire, my knees were weak.

After we got home, Eva fell asleep on the couch and I fixed a dinner of hamburgers. When she got up, she was feeling pretty sick and it lasted for the rest of the night. She was complaining that she sort of hurt all over, and we can only hope it is our lumpy mattress. If only we knew if we'd be here or there in the fall--we'd settle this mattress thing once and for all. If only people could burn things in their front yard in Belgium, as we would most certainly burn the mattress in Eva's mother's back garden once we buy a new one. It's only fitting.

Yesterday I had called my parents in one of those random instances where one says, "I'm going to call so and so." I had to leave message, as they had already left for the day--such early risers, as it was only 8:30 in the morning there.

They called me tonight, just to visit. My father having had a dream last night and he woke up missing me a bit. As hard as it is to know that they are missing me, I can't seem to rid myself of the feeling that Belgium is partly the place to be as well as there. Of course when we visit Eva's mother I think how wonderful it would be to do the same with my parents--and then I realize that both will never be as easy as I would like it to be.

My mother asked me when I was coming home and why don't I just come home after school is over, look for jobs there, and stay if I found one. Just when I think that they understand Eva's importance, that she is now the new part of family that children get when they leave their parents, become adults, and set off on their own...well it's like they don't understand. At least Eva's mother understands that it's a tragedy if I have to live in the states and be apart from Eva. Sometimes I think my parents still think it would be just a minor setback. That somehow my relationship to Eva is simply accelerated friendship. Well it's not. She's my opposite, my missing piece, my compliment, my challenger, my friend, my other half--in other words, she's wonderful.

And then my father says that in his dream I was a bit thinner with longer hair, "the old Andrea." Of which, the more I think about it, the more I realize that he's dreaming of me when I was 17, living at home, going to high school, and basically a different person. Sure it's a younger image of myself, only not so. I am certain will never return to that person. Weight? Sure, I'll gain and lose some. Hair? Sure, I'll cut it and grow it out on and off again for the rest of my life. But me? Life is something that we do with one step forward, and though we can retrace occasionally and reflect, it's not something we ever really return to.

To be honest, it makes me sad. Not the life part, as that's just what happens. It just seems like an endless cycle of not being the person they'd like me to be.

Do I really want to be in the position as Eva and I talked about yesterday? How we're looking down the road and can't see what's next? And because it's so hazy and out of our hands we can't really prepare or plan or even map out? No, it's not what we want, but it's what we get and thankfully we have each other to visit with along the way.

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