Last day of class

Anticlimactic would be one word to describe it. Maybe familiar.

The last day of 'class' in our one room corner of the Spinhuis in Amsterdam felt quite impossibly the ending to a long year of anthropological digging-in.

It's not an ending, but a beginning to the formation of an anthropologist, actually. For, while classes have officially ended, our work has just been planted.

Proposals for research are being turned in. We are scrabbling for last-minute readings, appointments with advisors, and making sure we have our things sorted. Our things, as it were, meaning the pieces floating around unattached in our heads, or hands... research questions, what to pack, who to meet, where to go, and when. What questions will we ask of whom, and what will be asked of us in return?

The class has ended, but school is just beginning...

***

Personally I am slightly haunted by the fact that my master's thesis will barely scratch the surface of its intention. I want, I long, to dig in... deeply delve into my subject matter. But, with a short time for research, and still in the process of learning how to conduct it, I cannot ask this of myself. I can only ask that I do the best in this limited framework that I can.

In the end I will return home the richer for this experience, the more knowledgeable on ADHD in the Netherlands, and still longing to deepen and strengthen research that is just beginning.

The formation of an anthropologist...

Sore feet

I am reading, sipping tea, sore feet up in the air, my willful distraction from just one more statement about my thesis on ADHD. It struck me yesterday that I went from frozen feet to 'hot feet' in a matter of days. It is painful when I walk- this seems to be the code of conduct in this time here in Amsterdam. This time, instead of nerve damaged toes screaming to me from their place swathed in thick layers of socks and leather boots, my heels are swollen, raw, and feeling like someone took a hammer to them while I was asleep. Maybe they did. I am limping in the street, carrying my "Research Methods in Anthropology" binder with me. A daunting site I am sure.

But, today I am reading. Blissfully done with a moment of work. If you get a chance, there are some books I recommend to any spiritual seeker:

Shambhala, the sacred path of the warrior by Chogyam Trungpa

The Book of Hours by Leonard Cohen

(both of which I discovered as a teen and re-read and re-read prolifically)

and this new one:

An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor.

If you want to bypass all the jargonny stuff and dive into the meat, these are the chapters to read:

Shambhala: FEAR

Altar in the World: The practice of wearing skin

And, really, pick up ANY book of hours you can get your hands on. The Catholics have many. Cohen's is a nice physical and worldly alternative. Read the shortest passage. Some are a mere sentence. It will be the straightest arrow to the heart of your own mind and to the heart of God. The spiritual writers, they are good at that...

but I have to thank those who are good at pointing straight to the body as well. Straight to the skin, and the fear of living in it.

"Do we dismiss the body's wisdom because it does not use words?" Barbara tells me...

My feet are talking quite loudly to me right now- can I hear them? Can I hear my own thinking beyond words on a page and another paper sent for review by an advisor, a professor, a classmate? What am I listening to, exactly? Where is my wisdom located, if not in my body?

Is this not the same with children? Adults are great at writing spiritual epithets about how children bring them closer to God... you know, if you just hold that sleeping child, you will discover something. And I have to agree.

But then we turn around, and when that sleeping child wakes up and has just toilet papered the house, ran their toy (or real) car through the wall, or threatened to walk out just one more time, we forget all about God and get angry in our bodies. Our feet hurt. And so do our heads. We feel so far from God or ourselves in that moment all we want to do is forget... forget that moment ever happened, and keep another from happening again.

But what if we listen... like to my aching feet, my sore shins. What if we tune in?

"Kids act things out. Adults discuss them." turn to page 49, please, in the chapter on wearing skin.

I pause over this page. I linger.

I had just finished my hesitant argument over why my thesis has taken this turn, my thesis writing is still not bold yet, but it is growing:

it is the adults who diagnose kids that I am interested in.

What meanings do the diagnoses hold for them? And how do they talk about it?

I have rarely seen a kid begging to be diagnosed with anything- a sore throat, let alone a disease or disorder, especially one that makes them feel a bit funny about the skin they are in. We are the ones who leap for categories... we are discussing. But our kids are acting... and their words are just as loud as ours, if we can hear what they are saying.

But here is the risk: what if we don't like it? What if I don't like my hurting heels or the fact I am limping? What if I don't like what my body tells me? What if I don't like what the kids are saying? That this world has changed maybe... that fitting in or making sense of it means something else, on a new level, of which us adults may not have an understanding.

Darwin suggested genes mutate to adapt to changes in environment, and these mutations change into a new species of being over time. What changes is our world going through, how do our children have to adapt, and mutate even, that we did not have to?

And, what scares us about that? Where is the fear in our bodies, in our minds, our heads? Where do we control, and what do we dread?

Where can we listen, that we have not dared to yet?

I am back off my seat and behind the computer once again. I feel quite strapped to this thing this year in Amsterdam... when I am not thesis-ing away at my abstract thinking I am blogging away in abstract reality, or Skyping away with my thread of connection to Utah, and the kids and challenges that fuel me. I am listening to my feet- that brought me here, that will carry me to the next destination, and the next and the next, even if they are sore- or screaming...

Let's talk about love

A man drives his dog in a covered carriage behind his bike to the park where he can run free in the sun.

A father tracks his son across three state lines and two time zones to make sure he has done his homework.

A husband follows his wife across two continents, two degrees, and three foreign languages to bring them both back home to their family.

A son sings to his mother when she is gripped in a migraine and fear of loss.

A brother-in-law fixes roofs, windows, anything and introduces the mountains to a niece.

A minister relinquishes his daughter to her dreams and writes her letters before dawn.

A professor brings dessert to his students working through the night on their master's project.

2 brothers fly families across a continent to comfort a sister.

An uncle holds his niece's hand in surgery.

A grandfather becomes Santa for the needy.

A friend writes a song, records a movie, sends a letter of support, gets up in the middle of the night, cooks dinner during exam time, brings tea and a hug.

a brother a friend a lover a man a boy a father a son a cousin an uncle a grandfather a godfather

an anchor

a stability

A shoot pushes up out of the earth

and opens its face to the sun.

It blooms without sorrow

for the frozen roots are now done.

A tree buds its leaves and reaches

towards runners

who scoot past birds

not hearing their songs.

Those papers

that state a birth, a marriage

a divorce, a diagnosis,

a business, a degree,

a bank balance, a contract

do not matter

in the face of this love

*ever grateful*

1st assignment

Today, wake up 6:00 amshowergetdressedbikethroughthecoldboardatrain- oops, missed it-outbound to Hoorn.

My first 'ethnographic' assignment is in a clinic in Friesland (Freezing Land), north of Amsterdam by about 40 minutes on the slow train. Situated on the Ijselmeer, the ocean inlet of Northern Holland. The clinic serves the northern Holland community in the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD and Autistic Spectrum Disorders. I am invited to observe their 3 week group diagnosis process- 6 kids, 6 hypotheses.

Let me say something about ethnographic research. You spend most of your time questioning yourself: what am I doing here? Because you are busily re-writing questions you originally came in with. By the end I had two pages of questions in a smattering of Dutch and English, and absolutely no answers. Welcome to anthropological research.

I left a bit frustrated. First thing: gotta stop noticing the kids. I am just geared this way- I spent the first 45 minutes writing about THEM... then realized, oh yes, I am here to watch a PROCESS.... that means, paying attention to the adults. Oh dear. Reorientation project begins.

What are they looking for? What do they notice? How do they feel with me sitting in my corner, trying to dissolve my little tape recorder and note pad into the surroundings. I am now entering the 'system'- not that of creative outlets for these kids, my preferred domain, but that of the adult determinations of "here is this funny-shaped block we are going to try to fit in a variety of holes". Ah- yes, this is also my struggle.

Sigh.

The beautiful part about research is that there is no set given. Anything can come out of it. On the train ride back, I notice the neat hedges around small uniform country houses. Perfect landscaping, straight rows of trees breaking the slicing wind, I can imagine if one does not fit into the proper lines and measurements here, it must be hard to place them.

The Bolivian ethnography in my lap reminds me of what I may be delving into- that by examining the process of a diagnosis rampant in today's Western society, I may not be asking any questions about the children themselves, or even the clinicians; but rather, the contexts they find themselves in:

"Medical decisions (i.e. diagnoses) are made in political, economic, and social contexts that form and inform the behavior of not only patient and healer, but the community at large."

- Libbet Crandon-Malamud 1991

In diving into a process of diagnosis for our Western children, those of the United States and Holland, my questions may remain unanswered or unpredictable, or even un-applicable. Are we looking at our kids, or are we describing what in our society isn't, or is?

Cold

The long cold fingers of a northern winter have wrapped themselves around Holland and will not let go. We are in a choke hold of cold. I have the serendipitous luck to have found myself in Europe's bitterest winter of the past 60 years right as I have lost my tolerance for temperatures lower than 10C.

Over the last two months I have travelled to Paris, Rotterdam, and Delft, and should have been able to write beautiful, romantic blog accounts of those great cities. Stories of architecture students from University of Utah discovering European candy and treats, walking the cobble-stoned streets, and learning to decifer Dutch tram systems. But all those anecdotal stories have been beaten out of my mind by the lashing winds, and the dropping temperatures that have caused my skin to cringe.

I fantasize as I am biking through town that really, I am feeling this cold because someone has just emptied a tray of icecubes into my clothes, and is rubbing me down with them.

We have had a few small glimpses of it letting up- wee flowers bursting through the underbrush. Yesterday I was optimistic- it warmed up enough to take off the 2nd layer of pants. But, today it is back.

Frigid wind. Frigid air, and grey grey endless skies which have lost sight of the sun.

puzzling people

People are like Sudoku.

Sometimes the numbers line up. Easy. All gorgeous lines and neat rows you can place in 5 minutes or less.

Others are more work. They take more time. You have to figure out where the 8 goes in this line, but not that. That one needs a 4 first. You have to slow down and place things, one number at a time. When you get the whole picture, satisfying. Simply satisfying.

Then there are those you have to puzzle over. Really take your time. Stare at. Look at. Stare again. You might see the 5's clearly, but where the hell do you put the 2's and the 9's?

You have to put the Sudoku down. Walk away. Mull it over for awhile. Come back and erase something. Start over, placing one tentative number at a time.

When these puzzles are complete, you find yourself still checking. Maybe there is a Sudoku portal that will rearrange things for me, the moment I am done. Maybe there will be 2 2's in a row and then what?

These are the people I like. Well, I like them all really. But the puzzles... lovely. Never apologize for being a puzzle. Especially to yourself. It may take a whole life to line the 9's up, but it will be worth every second.

been distracted lately...

So here's the thing...

When you are highly distracted yourself, it's hard to keep up a blog that distracts you from other things

like

Very Important Papers

or

Sudoku

something I discovered on the trip to France, the first leg of the complicated train ride that was supposed to be 1st class. A wonderful way to escape reality, sudoku. I highly advise it.