Number 54


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5 Museums in 6 Days Poopoo Head!


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Following your Passion


I once dated a very talented musician from Los Angeles, and when I asked him for advice on how to be a great sax player, he had just two words for me: just play.

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.

Going to see the Swami


Swami Sukhchaitanya was scheduled to speak from 1:00-4:00 p.m. on the third floor of a vacant office building in Den Haag. As we drove with a friend through the gray afternoon on our way to the event, we talked about the Art of Living. I have only been to one Art of Living event before, and that was a small yoga/meditation group held in someone’s home (See February 2011 post: Vicarious epiphany: Insights from The Art of Living and the process of letting go). I hadn’t studied anything about this organization since, so going to see the Swami felt like a big step. Yet, I was assured he was worth the trip and a very special person to encounter.

It wasn’t until we stepped off the elevator on the third floor and walked across the gray, spanking new office carpet that I thought about the awkwardness of the location. Weren’t Swami’s supposed to be surrounded by fresh flowers, candles, incense and golden orange swaths of fabric? How could this sterile environment, with white walls, double pained windows and lifeless recirculated air be an appropriate setting for a swami?

Although we arrived a bit early, there were already 30 or so people milling around mostly  dressed in bright colors. Quite a few appeared to be Indian, Indonesian and other nationalities blessed with smooth and ageless brown skin. There were enough caucasian varieties in the mix for me to blend into the crowd. Arie Jan and his brother Cornelis who arrived later are too tall to ever blend in, but they were certainly not the only white males in the room.

After a few cups of ginger tea, we headed into the main hall. I must have seen a few swami videos in my time, because there, in the center of the room was a set up almost as I had envisioned it;  a white couch, surrounded by orange swaths of fabric; two rather modern vases of purple flowers stood on the floor to each side of the couch; a small white table to the left held candles, and to the right was a keyboard and some other musical instruments and requisite microphones.

It started gradually with a warm up speaker who wore a white, gauzy eye patch over one eye under his glasses. Apparently, the eye patch had something to do with soaking his contact lenses in the wrong solution and then popping one in his eye–a disaster that ended in the emergency room. Despite the patch, this Indian man rallied the crowd with games, stretches, jokes and singing all geared toward bringing us into our bodies and making us light and happy. Thing is, you can’t make someone light and happy, but you can certainly try. And try he did. Yet it wasn’t until the arrival of the swami was announced an hour later that all the elements came together in a game.

“Swami Sukhchaitanya is here. But, before he comes in, we are going to do one more game.” What is it with these games, I thought irritably. In the next game, you chose a partner whom you didn’t know. I turned to a young woman sitting next to me in a bright magenta beaded top. She appeared to be in her mid twenties and had that beautiful, smooth Indian skin, long black curly hair and midnight eyes. Her name was Shanti, and she looked solid and friendly.

Here was the game: one person claps, and the other person does everything they can to stop the other person from clapping. Okay. Sounds simple enough. I was in group one, so I had to be the first person to clap. I was picturing something mild, but when the warm up speaker said “Go!” all mayhem broke loose. The beautiful, elegant Shanti pounced on me, grabbing my arms, twisting my hands apart and I started to run, really run. And not only had I underestimated her strength, but she was apparently a sprinter as well. I ran as if my life depended on it, as if someone was after my purse full of my life savings, but with happiness in my heart. She chased me fiercely, catching me part of the time before I could twist away and run again, this time with more will, more strength and more terrifying joy. Thing is, there were 103 other people in the room in the same exuberant pursuit! Total chaos.

“Switch!” called the speaker. Suddenly it was my turn to chase her and in a flash she was gone. I scanned the room and thanked the swami for her bright magenta top.  I chased her with a childlike passion to win.  I hopped over legs, swerved around chairs and flailing bodies and found her, grabbing on tightly only to be flung away. She squealed as she ran and I followed her, wanting nothing more in that moment than to stop those joyfully clapping hands.

And then it was over.  And yet everything had changed. The room had transformed from a crowd of serene yet uncomfortable strangers in folding chairs to a room of people with bright eyes and childlike, delightful grins on their perspiring faces, exhausted and thankfully sitting down. The room was about 30 degrees warmer and someone had managed to open the windows. The cool air from outside met our warm air, and it was like we were all on a retreat together in the tropics to see a world-famous Swami rather than on the third floor of a vacant office building in Den Haag.

And that is when, legs crossed on the white couch, the Swami started to speak. He talked about the game and used the Socratic method to draw from us what we had learned. We had learned to be ecstatic. We had learned to be completely in the moment, instead of theoretically in the moment. We had learned about joy and embracing a stranger. There were many other lessons, but it all came back to the game, in one way or another.

Swami Sukhchaitanya did not fly in from India. Although Indian, he is a Canadian citizen and director of the Art of Living Foundation in Quebec. His long black beard and flowing black hair created a holy contrast to his flowing white robes, and he had the laid back attitude of a California surfer, but with the wisdom of a true Swami. His tips for enlightenment were certainly not new lessons, but the lessons nevertheless felt fresh from his lips. Happiness comes from within, and no one–not your boss, your spouse or any other person–has the right or ability to take that away from you. He also pointed out our assumptions about people and the way we describe others.

Many of his topics emerged from questions in the group. One person asked how some people can always be angry.

“You know that friend or uncle you have that is always angry? And you ask yourself, how can someone be angry all of the time?” The swami started. People around the room nodded knowingly. We all have that person in our lives, right? Wrong. “No one can be angry all of the time. Can you be angry while you sleep?” he said, making a face of someone sleeping with an angry disposition. “Or someone angry while they are brushing their teeth?” Once again, he scrunched up his serene face into a tight angry ball, with an imaginary toothbrush being thrust in and out of his mouth. We all ecstatically laughed our way into the knowledge he was providing. “That’s just not humanly possible. And further, we don’t like being put into boxes, and yet, we put other people in boxes all of the time.”

It was interesting being led through humor to see our own faults, and how we all shared these faults. This is the power of a great speaker. He or she can get inside your perspective and show you where things are a little tweaked, clean a spot on the lens you didn’t know was there. And they do so in such a disarming, selfless way, that we breathe in the criticism joyfully, receiving it like a bouquet of flowers someone has just delivered to us because we are willing to open our minds.

The question is, how long can you hold onto the lesson without a swami around? I suppose that depends on how much time you spend meditating and practicing the art of happiness, of peaceful communication or shall we say, The Art of Living.

Although the swami was here just a few weeks ago, I know by some of my actions, or reactions this week, that I am in desperate need of having my very own swami around to laugh me back into shape. Didn’t I just yesterday describe someone as “always mad?”

I’m not ready to become a devotee, but I am aware that my limited encounters with The Art of Living philosophy have set me straight and happy for a good week at a time. And in all my great flawed humanness, it would be healthy for all if I could extend this state of mind to a year round endeavor. And so a seed is planted.

I’ve been Prined!


Last Sunday we decided to skip church and go see a swami instead. Skipping church, when your house is attached to a church, is no easy feat for an x-Catholic. Because even though I am an independent adult, that stereotypical guilt pops up like a self-flagellating nun on my shoulder, honing in on my every action.  Do you hear those people working in the church to prep the Sunday service?  You’re not even out of bed yet. The bells are ringing, announcing the gathering of Christians and you’re in the shower, naked! Are you seriously going to let your son watch TV on a Sunday morning?

So when our front doorbell rang, I had the irrational thought of someone from the church checking to see what the delay was all about.  They wouldn’t actually do that, would they? But then I heard a strangely familiar voice, though I couldn’t place it.

“Kristin. Come downstairs and see who’s here!” Arie Jan called in a tone that communicated both disbelief and excitement. I finished putting my clothes on, towel dried my hair as quickly as possible and headed down the stairs. There, sitting on my couch–my couch in Den Haag, Netherlands, mind you–was Dave Prine.

“Oh My God! Oh my God!” I said, as I went to hug him, “I seriously can’t even believe you’re sitting here!”

You know how people start saying trite things like “I’ve never tasted anything so delicious in my life!” and you know they said that the last time you saw them about some raspberry jam that a friend made, and now the-most-delicious-thing-they’ve-ever-tasted- in-their-life is the codfish special on the menu. They begin to lose credibility, unless they’re say, 11 years old, and it really is the best thing they’ve ever tasted.

But there I was, far more seasoned than an 11 year old, and I have to say, I’ve never been so surprised in my entire life. But then again, this is Dave Prine we’re talking about. I soon adjusted my story.

“Of course you’re here in my house Dave. Who else would it be?” Who else would  hop on a plane to Istanbul at the last minute to assist a friend with her filming session, take a last minute excursion to Amsterdam on a Saturday night in the summer without a hotel reservation, then on Sunday morning decide to hop on another train for an hour ride to Den Haag on the off chance that we’ll be home in the 1 hour and 49 minute window he has to visit us before he has to return to Amsterdam and then go onto Frankfurt? For you to understand why this makes perfect sense, you’d have to know a little about Dave.

Dave Prine, who is originally from Chicago, has lived in Santa Barbara for the last 11 years and is the type of friend you hope for–someone who is incredibly spontaneous, who can make you laugh yourself to tears, someone who can be incredibly loyal, a talented musician, an enjoyable date for an outing, the type of friend that remembers to call you on your birthday. But what is more amazing about Dave is his wanderlust and his talent for languages.

More than once I’ve been with Dave Prine when he meets someone from some foreign land, like Laos, for example, and rattles off a sentence in Laotian, much to the exasperation and delight of the foreigner who has probably never had such an encounter with an American. His home is filled with language books from every corner of the earth, and he is a talented travel writer.

Not only has he traveled all over the world, but he has a knack for actually keeping in touch with perhaps 90 percent of the people he’s met, and has shared stories over the years of showing up on people’s doorsteps.

“I’ve been Prined!” I finally said. May you too be Prined some day.

Up Next: Going to see the Swami

Default Parenting versus Compassionate Parenting


Parenting

Parenting is challenging and unlike any job I’ve ever had. You must be equipped to deal with everything from tantrums to booger flicking, trying to explain who or what God is and why people die, make vegetables and fruits more appealing than icecream and candy and develop an infinite amount of patience. But sometimes the challenge lies in discovering the holes in your own parenting pedagogy.

I learned very early on that if you don’t take the time to think through your parenting techniques, you will default to how you were raised, thus imitating your own mom and dad.  Luckily for me, I have great parents.  But even great parents get caught in the cycle of default parenting, and let’s just say there are some things I want to do differently.

For example, one day Ezra started talking in a baby voice. This annoying little voice was accompanied by a physical performance, his legs waddling along in little baby steps as if he was a toddler, his lips pursing into fish lips, his eyebrows raised. I don’t like seeing my bright, capable four-year old acting like an 18-month old. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen this behavior. I felt a surge of annoyance, which transformed into words, passed over my vocal cords and spilled into the room before I had a chance to stop and think: “Stop acting like a baby,” I said.

Its one thing to think something. It’s quite another to give it voice. I was as surprised as he was to hear these words. They instantly brought me back to a situation with my father 36 years ago. I remember wearing new cowboy boots, which were slippery on the bottom. We were walking with my two older brothers down a hill covered in chapparal on an expanse of natural land behind our home. My steps felt uncertain and I began to whine a little bit, wanting to hold my dad’s hand. Instead of reaching out his hand, my father snapped at me; “Stop acting like such a baby.” I was shocked, as he usually didn’t speak to me like this, and his words felt biting and mean.

Now I had just repeated the performance with my child, not even thinking of the consequences of my words. If Ezra is acting like a baby, he is asking for attention, even negative attention, as he knows we don’t like this baby voice. Snapping at him only worsens the problem. If I stop and think for half a second, I know it is more effective to say, “Please use your big boy voice,” or better yet, “You know we don’t like baby voice. Do you feel the need for more attention? Is that why you are using your baby voice?” But, these words don’t come naturally. You have to work at it.

Non-Violent Communication

According to Marshall Rosenberg, P.h.D, author of a series of books on nonviolent communication and raising children compassionately, people often treat their children with less respect and compassion than they do acquaintances. He gives an example from a workshop he held. The participants were broken into two groups to discuss how they would resolve a conflict with another person. One group was told the conflict was with a child, the other was told the conflict was with a neighbor. When the two groups were brought back together, they thought they had been given the same scenario. Each time he performed this experiment, the group who was resolving a conflict with a child seemed less respectful and less compassionate than the group that had been told the other person was a neighbor.

I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t tell my neighbor to stop acting like a baby, or send him to his house for a time out, for that matter. I would think my words through carefully and make sure I used respectful language in trying to come up with a resolution. I obviously love my son much more than my neighbor, so why the disrespect? Definitely time to re-train!

My parents also taught me you need to be friends with everyone, even people you don’t really like. When I had a birthday party, we invited everyone in the class–even Eric Tipton, a boy who had karate chopped my birthday cake into an unrecognizable mush the year before.

In my version of the world, you don’t have to be friends with everyone. You need to be kind to everyone, but you don’t have to be their friends. In fact, in some situations, it can even be necessary to establish a healthy distance from other people. Yet, just the other day, I found myself defaulting to the “be friends with everyone” policy of my childhood–despite the fact that I don’t believe in this.

Choosing Friends for our Kids

I befriended a very nice woman at Ezra’s school who is the mother of one of Ezra’s classmates. Thus, without consulting Ezra, I decided that our sons should have a play date together. From the get go, Ezra was opposed, but I told him he had to be nice. The kids played well enough together, but before long, I could see that Ezra was more reserved than he was with other kids. Two or three more playdates passed before I half admitted I was forcing the friendship, more thinking of myself than of Ezra.

I didn’t realize the repercusions of my actions until a few weeks later. My son is usually the type to answer the question, “So what did you do at school today?” with a case closed “Nothing.” Thus, when Ezra volunteered a rather ghastly story of kicking the other little boy, I listened carefully, encouraging him gently yet firmly to tell the whole story.

I soon learned that two little boys wanted to hold Ezra’s hand; his favorite friend Jan, and the boy I had pushed upon Ezra whom we’ll call David. Ezra told David he didn’t want to hold his hand, but David insisted and wouldn’t take no for an answer. So, Ezra kicked him. Hard. David started crying.

“What did you do then?” I asked sternly.
“Nothing.”
“You just let him cry?”
“Yes.”
“But, isn’t David your friend?””
“No. I don’t want to be friends with him.”
“But honey. David is your friend, and we’re friends with his family . . . did a teacher come to help him?”
“No. There weren’t any teachers around.”
I looked upon Ezra with new eyes. My little 4 year old angel had kicked another little boy with no remorse, a child whom had been to our house a handful of times, whom we had taken a train ride to visit outside the city, a child he had laughed and played with well enough in my presence.
“Thank you for telling me Ezra,” I said at first. I heard myself saying a few other things that seemed appropriate, yet not scolding: “It seems you feel a little bad about kicking David. Do you think it was okay to kick David?”

That evening and the next day, I created stories of a forlorn little boy who lost a friend, and Ezra felt very sorry for the little boy in my stories, felt as if rhis little boy was treated unfairly. I saw the light bulb go on at some point, and by the next morning over breakfast we were planning together the best way to say sorry to his little friend.

Choosing his Own Friends

“You don’t have to be friends with someone you don’t want to be friends with,”Arie Jan said calmly, “but you do need to be nice and use your words if you don’t like something.” And of course Arie Jan was right. Through it all, I was still trying to make Ezra be friends with this sweet little boy. I was doing what I had been programmed to do by my own upbringing. Yet, you can’t force anyone to be friends, just as you can’t force two people to love one another. It has to be by mutual consent.  But, you can teach someone how to be compassionate and nonviolent in conveying that information.

Ezra’s apology was met with a happy dance by David. Two days later, I volunteered for Sport’s day, a morning filled with sports activities, which called for a large amount of parent volunteers. The boys were in the same group for sports day, along with three, meek little girls. As we walked along with the children, who are required to hold hands when walking from the school to the sports field, I saw Ezra hold David’s hand with acceptance, rather than joy. It seemed the teachers were also trying to make a match or help along the relationship; I noted that each group of five children seemed to be carefully selected based on energy levels and friendships.

Ezra was friendly enough, but more from a position of tolerance. By the end of the sports day, he no longer wanted to hold David’s hand on the walk home, and for once, I listened. And it seemed Ezra had listened too. He knew he had a choice about being friends, but he also knew how to be gentle yet firm when saying no. I felt proud of Ezra in a way I hadn’t before. I saw him being tough, cool, a bit distant. And though it was uncomfortable for all involved, it showed that Ezra has the strength to do what was right for him.

Our First Visit from the U.S.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fire Engine, Police Car, Ambulance


Fire Engine

In honor of Queen’s Day, April 30th, we hung the Dutch flag along with an orange banner on the flag pole outside the church. But instead of flapping gently in the breeze in honor of Queen Beatrix and the former Queen Juliana, the flag entangled itself in a large branch of an adjacent tree. Clearly the branch needed to be trimmed before May 4th and 5th; May 4th the Dutch flag is raised at half mast across the nation in what seems to be the equivalent of U.S. Veteran’s day, and on May 5th, the flag flies at full mast to celebrate the end of the WWII German occupation of Holland.

Arie Jan was particularly annoyed to see the flag entangled. I have to admit, it looked pretty lame in comparison to all of the unencumbered flags dancing in the breeze throughout the neighborhood. Clearly, the flag wrapped around the branch was an old problem, as when we asked the church managers about it, they all nodded their heads. The tree belonged to the church and not the city, so it was up to the church to take care of it, and so far, no one had taken action.

So, bright and early one morning, Arie Jan told me he was going to trim the offending branch. I knew there was a long maintenance ladder on the side of the church and that he was handy with a saw. I didn’t feel worried. But, after I checked some emails and finished watching president Obama’s speech to the nation about the death of Osama Bin Laden, I became aware of the passage of time. Where WAS Arie Jan? What was taking him so long? So, I wandered outside. And there he was. Hanging from a tree.

Well, not exactly hanging. He was still standing on the ladder, but his hands firmly gripped the remainder of the branch, a branch that had risen further into the air when he trimmed off the heavy part of the branch that had dared to touch the Dutch flag. Instead of safely leaning well above the tree branch, now only the tip of the ladder rested just a few inches above the branch. Arie Jan was not only holding on, he was pulling down. If he stopped pulling down on the branch, there was a  chance that both he and the ladder would come crashing down.

Luckily, I wasn’t the first on the scene. After calling for me to no avail, he had called to a cyclist, who just happened to be a bicycle cop. Arie Jan thought it would be simple; the police officer could firmly hold the ladder while he climbed down. But the police officer didn’t think this was a safe option, and I have to agree. So he called the fire department. Instead of being stricken by fear, Arie Jan had a slight smirk on his face. Not quite embarrassment, but more of an acknowledgment that this was a ridiculous situation. I ran down to the street and talked to the officer while we waited for the fire department. The ladder looked a bit precarious. I debated over what I could do. If I stayed there, I wouldn’t be of any help. So, I decided to do what any modern citizen would do; I went upstairs and grabbed my flip video, positioning myself on the balcony to take in the show.

I started filming just at the fire department arrived. Needless to say, sometimes a movie is better than words.

Police Car

The following day, our friends Lauren and Nico arrived (see previous post). That evening, after hanging the flag at half mast, we got ready to go out to dinner. But before we made it to the street, we encountered a young woman running through the parking lot of the church. She wore the casual uniform of a teenager who should be hanging out in her bedroom—stretch pants, patterned t-shirt, socks, no shoes–not running down the street in the early evening. As I got closer, I realized she was much younger than she appeared, and by the tears on her face, clearly in distress.

The story that unfolded was cruel and painful. She and her mother had gotten into a fight, and her stepfather had physically pushed her out the front door, causing her to fall down the stairs. She ran away as fast as she could, too afraid to go back for even her shoes, let alone a purse or other personal belongings. Arie Jan and I took her into the church, where she logged on to email friends in search of a place to spend the night. Arie Jan gently, but firmly convinced her it was best for all if we called the children’s protection agency. But apparently child protection is put on hold for Dutch Memorial Day, as the office was closed.

Next, we called the police. The 13 year old swallowed. She wasn’t afraid of the police, but afraid that the police would take her back home. We assured her that if she felt physically threatened, that there was an agency that would protect her. As the police car arrived in front of the church, we could see relief on the young girl’s face, who had been peering out the blinds afraid her mother or stepfather would get there first, even though they had no idea where she had gone. Two young officers, male and female, came as a team and gently talked to the girl. They would take her to the station, where she would meet with a child specialist and we were assured she would have a safe place to stay that evening.

Fire engine yesterday, police car today. What next, we joked, an ambulance? As the words left our mouths, we instantly tried to recall them, but it was too late. They had been spilled into the universe.

Ambulance

The following day passed without incident, and thus, as we were getting ready for bed, we had forgotten all about our inappropriate joke. Arie Jan headed to bed first and I read just one more chapter of a book on raising boys. It mentioned that raising a boy into a man can be a difficult venture, as if they don’t have proper mentoring from their father and other male role models outside the family from age 14 to adult (mid twenties), there is a chance they will seek out negative ways to express their manhood and independence; fighting, stealing, turning to drugs and alcohol and doing dangerous things. I felt a bit overwhelmed by the idea and wanted to read on, but soon I started to read the same lines over and over, a sure sign that it was time to go to bed.

It was then that I heard the sirens. An ambulance pulled up on the street right in front of our window followed by a police car. I looked out as if that albatross from that Ancient Mariner’s rhyme had just perched itself on the rails of my balcony. Arie Jan came downstairs and his words said it all. “This is just too weird.” And it was.

I couldn’t help but watch the whole thing unfold in front of me, as if the world outside were a TV channel, and I a bit too tired to turn the off switch, or in this case, close the curtains. I watched as the paramedics wheeled a gurney up the path where Ezra and I crossed to his school every day. A young Asian woman lay unconscious at the tram stop, surrounded by a group of young men who moved about animatedly and a single female friend, who sat still on the bench. It seemed the group had been partying, as the women were dressed up and the men appeared to be drunk.  The paramedics lifted the young woman and laid her flat on the stretcher, a lifeless, bare leg dangling down, exposing strappy heels.

Instead of following her friend to the ambulance, the other woman sat still on the bench, her back to us. The paramedics pushed her leg onto the cot and wrapped a blanket around her, carrying her off. Once she was loaded into the ambulance, the sirens didn’t start sounding. The ambulance didn’t drive away.  I didn’t know if this boded well for the young woman or not. Was she coming back to consciousness? Is that why they waited?

People on the street stood by, equally transfixed. One man, who had come to his car minutes after the ambulance arrived took out a large camera and started taking pictures. Finally the ambulance drove away, and I willed this to be a good sign. When the police car left, the young, rowdy men began to yell at one another, menacingly. It wasn’t long before a fight broke out. I couldn’t help but think of the words I had just read about raising boys as I ran for my phone to call the police back to the scene. But, before I got to the phone, the fight was over.

They say good things always come in threes. And, if you look at it this way, I suppose the saying holds up; the firemen rescued my husband, the police helped a young girl, the ambulance came to the aid of a young woman. The outcome of two out of three will remain a mystery.

Ask and You Shall Receive


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shopping like a Dutchie


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

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

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

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

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

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

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