Waking up

Wake up! Wake up! the dream insisted,

and I rolled out of bed to open the curtains. Still black outside, still night in effect, I was surprised to see a blanket of white below- SNOW!

This has been a topic for some time in the house. When will it come? What will it be like? Will it come today? Do you know?

Yesterday: snow! snow! was exclaimed... no that is frost, I explained. And a disappointed 'oooh' followed. But, canals were frozen, there was great and immediate concern about the ducks (our patitos) crouching on the edge of boats in the dark and cold canals.

But today- snow! Excitement like children in the first big snowfall of the year, yet this, this was wonder.

I checked my clock to make sure it was an hour I could wake them... 7 am, ok... first door on my right. She was waiting for me with a huge grin and a single word: SNOW! AAAAAHHHHH! She threw her arms around me and danced around, this tiger of a woman from Thailand. We ran to the end of the hall. Mistress- WAKE UP!!

Whhhhaaattt? Groggy eyes and sleepy head, we pushed past her and ran to her window, and she was transformed. All the doors then got our knocking, loud, insistent. Waking daughters and sons of tropical nations to this wonder of the North. Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Some sleepily stare out their windows in disbelief. One is waiting for our knock. Yes, yes- I was awake at 2 am, she said, when I noticed all these little bugs flying outside of my window, dancing in the lights! Now they are all on the ground, all downy and white. The snow bugs of the northern climes.

Jackets, coats, scarves, hats, and boots were thrown over pyjamas, we bundled ourselves outside. The first snowballs of life were thrown, designs made in the snow. While bicyclists struggled to stay upright and head off to work, I watched my friends dance through the dark streets, sparkling with this heavenly dust at their feet. We slid, we check our bikes frozen to their poles, we hugged each other in contagious bursts of laughter. Wonder, childlike, insistent, ran through us all as currents.

Returning inside when fingers were frozen, we are waiting for dawn to approach to see what will happen. The white fluff is already disappearing. This is no Utah downpour. But this is special, and this is magic. That on the last days of class before Christmas, snow would grace the home of southern students and lend an air of mysticism to this dark and cold country.

As I write this, the steam of 30 boilers in the row houses across the street are curling over roofs. Cars have melted dark tracks through the streets. Brommers (mopeds) and bicycles are making their way slowly. The grey light of pre-dawn is slowly illuminating the shapes of buildings. In our home on the outskirts of Amsterdam, a group from the 4th floor of student housing is smiling over tea, calling home to their families, wiping snow off their feet. It is 8:20 am and the day has started in glory.

Classroom experiment

There is an experiment one can do with pencils.

Try this: get a pencil with designs on it, and put one of those thick bright erasers on top. Next time you go to a meeting or seminar, sit this pencil at the edge of your own things for note-taking. Sit back and watch what happens.

First are the looks- real casual, and subtle. After a few hours, someone will not be able to resist, and the pencil will quickly be 'borrowed'. But watch carefully what they do with it. The eraser HAS to be tried out, the lead tested for sharpness. Pictures are drawn, smiley faces, curly ques. Name are written, erased, written again. Swoops and sloping lines and sketch images of body parts. Then, your 'borrower' will discover themselves again and hand back the pencil with a sheepish grin.

We all just want to be kids don't we?

Ok- epidemiology week 2 and I am upping the ante a bit.

He is fuzzy with brown spots and a bright yellow head. He has come to see me through another class... my pencil giraffe. I'm sorry but note taking just FEELS better when it is not you, but a fuzzy giraffe writing things down!

But, his fur was so soft, and he was just barely sharpened, that those who had snuck my pencil some weeks before to draw delicate designs and names in shrines during class quickly had their eyes riveted to my spot. They were not alone. The room shifted focus.

Epi-de-me... oh yes, that data makes sense, sure 'risk factor' ok

risk factor of my giraffe disappearing....

This boy would need a passport or I would never get him back. During lunch I sequestered myself in with the secretary and worked on official business. By the time we were all seated around our conference table, ready for the next set of lectures, Leon Teabiscuit was a world traveller. His Giraffe Replublíc passport was stamped with five visas from his visit to various lands. During lunch, he had journeyed already to Indonesia, followed by Nicaragua, detoured to Ethiopia, then home to Rwanda, where giraffes supposedly grow on trees. Or maybe, they grow like trees... Next thing I knew he was flying to India and the United States, but he had to be vigilant! Dangerous places for a giraffe who might end up in a cage.

When he arrived at the airport of El Salvador, due to a strike by border control, he was forced to hitchhike to Mexico with the Zapatistas. He headed back again to El Salvador, but again was delayed in the airport so long he was kidnapped by an Iranian journalist who needed his passport for an alibi to get back home. He barely escaped with his life, finally got his visa to get IN to El Salvador and decided he had been waiting too long. He hiked it up to Canada. The Inuits were quite taken with him, but trees are not plentiful in the arctic. So he took one last boat and headed back to Holland, where he was fed a bouquet of tulips upon entry.

What was that? We are done for today? Oh, what a great lecture we had- I understand everything completely. When you ask where my notes are: they were eaten by my giraffe!

He got hungry on his journey.

You know you are in trouble when...

you get handed an ominous, unmarked three-ring binder on the first day of class. It can't be lifted, and can't be closed because of how full it is. The class is three weeks long, three days a week. Count it: 9 days.

The first page of the binder reads: Epidemiology for the Uninitiated.

You know you're in trouble when you can't pronounce the first word of the first page of a binder over three inches thick that is supposed to be read for a 9 day class. With a terminology exam at the end, and a presentation in just two days.

Dear god, still my beating heart, I think it has fled my body.

Epi- what?

Epi- de- ME- ology?

Epi-did- me- what?

Epi-do-me-how?

oh dear lord, STA-TIS-TICS!

Epi-get-me-out-now!

Say the word, say it proud:

Epidemiological Applications in Medical Anthropology.

It helps to say it real s-l-o-w and l-o-w with a facial expression of seriousness I can't muster.

I think we should infuse a bit of new blood into academia... if I can rap this subject, I might be able to remember one or two things about it:

Epi-epi-epi-heh!

Epidemiology

the study of what?/it's hard to say...

the study of groups/and disease states

numbers of truth/so subjective

empirical what?/you wanna know how?

how many have fallen/how many remain

what measures have taken/and what lays unclaimed?

it doesn't make sense/even in rhyme

no wonder no one knows/how the subject's defined

you gotta hire an epidemiologist

to figure it out

but they'll leave you befuddled

and still full of doubt!

You want me to remember/all these statistics?

I'll start with the word, thanks....

I'm still learning to pronounce it!

Thanks-Living Dayl

Left to my own devices on Thanksgiving Day, far from the US of A, it could have been any old Thursday. The stores were open, people were bustling about in the downtown cold, rain sleeting on tram cars as they careened on Amsterdam streets full of people. What would I do with myself so far from family and home?

After a coffee at dawn, well, ahem, that would be 8 am in Amsterdam (I did wait till first light, technically), I laid out my plan. This day was going to be a thanks-giving day for me. A thanks for giving myself a day to me. A thanks for living day, a thanks for being me day, a Thanks-Living Day celebration, to create a new tradition.

I have long been in the habit of buying myself a Christmas and birthday present, and yes, sometimes I wrap them up just so I can open them again, but this was a new idea, on a whole new level. Thanks- LIVING day... a whole day, dedicated to my ALIVEness on this planet, in this place, here in Amsterdam, on this particular Thursday.

A mental landscape open, my exam was turned in the day before, and coffee in hand, I delved into the poetic prose of Canadian writer, Michael Ondaatje. If you ever get a chance to read one of his novels, I am going to suggest something wonderful. Just open anywhere and read one short section. Words drip off the page like they are blooming from it. The man does not write stories, he crafts a textured garment of language you can wrap around you and enter... moving inside the pages of other lives and details that become like your own in minutes.

Book had to come with me... but in this rain? I wrapped it in plastic, jumped on my bike and went out to discover my day.

First stop: Investigation

I had heard rumors of a store by the Heineken brewery, a discount store that shoppers in Amsterdam crave for... name brands for little money, these stores "squat" in unused buildings for one or two months with no overhead, then they are gone as quickly as they come. My bearings were a sticker I had seen on a light post at a bike stop: CloseOut Store open now, area of Heineken Brewery. I am always up for a discount adventure.

The Heineken Brewery is a monster of a building in Amsterdam, and the square it dominates is a criss-cross of tram lines, wandering drunk tourists, and insane cyclists. There is NO store on Heineken square of any kind whatsoever. I detoured my bike through misty rain and headed down a little known street following nothing but gut instinct. No worries- I had already been lost once this day already, on my way to the square when my glasses proved to be able to catch, not deflect, raindrops and I lost my turn. Well, losing the way once means I'm golden from that point on, so I was not worried heading down this little street.

Instinct pulled me in this magic street of little pubs laid out in front of me. Irish pubs, Dutch Brown Bars, Turkish shops, and one store for Indian Saris. An Olliebol Kram was propped up in the center of delicate lights, stretching in either direction. Steam rising, the sweet dough frying filled the air with warmth and smells putting happy smiles on everyone's faces.

In a dark window, the sign I was looking for: closeout... should have been Clothes Out if you ask me. Rows and rows of Calvin Klein, Cos, and designers from Norway, Sweden, London and Paris. I figure if you are going to dress for the cold, the Norwegians know what they are doing. In the rear of the shop I found a jacket, silver-lined, down-filled with fur along the neck, and hey: water repellant!! For less than price of a dinner in Amsterdam, I walked out a warm woman onto the streets clad for snowstorms and ice of the nether-colder-than-lands. Living for me day meaning living warm on cold streets day and the rest of the long cold winter ahead. 8 am dawns and 4 pm dusks are bearable if one is warmer than just baked bread.

2nd stop: Ireland

Well, it was just across the street, actually, and seemed a lovely way to spend a lunch hour. I am notoriously an old grandmother of a young person, so the best place I know to bring out reading glasses and a book wrapped in plastic is an Irish pub in Amsterdam. The Irish don't raise their eyebrows to much, but their glasses are raised to everything. There were three of us lazily waiting for the sun to break through the gray of the day, a typical affair of light for about two hours on these wintery days in the north of Holland. Finding a seat by the window, my neighbor reading his paper, and the proprietor blowing balloons, I savored in the joy of a place where just the simple act of sitting down was enough to warrant one a place to call home. Waiting till the sun had finally emerged, and was warming my back from the square window, I watched the bar tender and proprietor, now my only two companions, as they prepped for an American dinner. Balloons, red, white, and blue, little plastic flags. I felt for sure it must be July someplace, and dammit, if someone would please tell me where that warm sun is! But no, Thanksgiving Irish Pub style meant mashers and gravy, turkey in pie and sliced, and balloons and flags spread along the bar, celebration style... just luring the Americans in. Hmmn, if they only knew where this street was.

In the loo a sticker on the mirror read: Je heb je haar veranderd! (You have changed your hair!) and of course, my grandmotherly nature kicked in as I spoke to the mirror, why yes I have, thank you for noticing.

Stop 3: Sunlight and finger dust

Nothing beats coming out into warm sun on a cold day right in front of the Olliebol Kram. Score.

I have DREAMS of the Olliebol krams when I am home in Utah. These are far-away misty dreams of magnificent proportions. The warm fried dough crammed with raisins, cream, or apples. Sometimes, plain and salty, but always, always dusted with fine white sugary powder. I order one and luxuriate in the sun, fine dust drifting onto my new coat, chasing my Irish coffee down.

Stop 4: Beauty and light

Did I say two hours for the sunlight? I exaggerate. 15 minutes later I was ducking inside again. There is a little-known art museum nestled in the heart of Amsterdam, sandwiched between cultural monuments of buildings. A simple sign belittles the place: Foam.

But behind glass doors and the tiny store, a veritable world opens. The old architecture gives way to modern glass and steel, interacting with stone and wood beams. Open galleries stretch and boast a collection of photographic art worthy of the MOMA in New York. In fact, some of the exhibits find their way there, bearing the stamp of 'Amsterdam' as their new born certificate. New artists, emerging artists, foreign artists, and classics, one can get sucked in quite quickly to the images playing with light and shadow, face and form. Light moves through the building ethereally, as if outside was never a storm. The clink of glasses, soft chinks of conversation as the culturally astute swarm over tea and cakes in the cafe below. I just want to savor the walls and the displays. The one photograph that looks like a painting, the one that is just a silhouette. There is a nook, on the middle floor. A seat overlooking the entry, and onto the canal. A framed living photograph beyond the Foam's walls.

I move on.

4 & 5, a moving afair.

Hot food on a cold day. Hot container burning my hand. Take-out Indonesian with sambal oelek, enough to give heart burn. Just warm me up from inside-out. The heat expands if you let it.

I take my favourite snack on a walk through the 9 streets. The streets the locals cannot for the life of them figure out, and yet once you are here you quickly find your way around. That is, if you are willing to dodge down alleys and side streets in a weave like a maze to find your favorite places. There is the antique map store, the pen store and lamps on the corner. My favorite store of antique dresses, gloves, hats, handbags and shoes, a throwback from another time. The second hand stores with precious finds. The only make-up store completely biological, so expensive I can't buy blush. I find myself in a small boutique with a woman complimenting my Dutch. By the time I leave, we are fast friends, this owner of the store and I. She has told me her story, how love led her around the world, to over 40 countries. How she raised her daughter. Nomadic. Like our family. We have something kindred, and she is envious for younger days. She warns me: consider love, my dear, follow your heart. She shoves a gold scarf into my bag, unpurchased, unbought, a gift of a woman who has seen much to one who has just begun.

A finishing touch:

There is nothing like shopping and elegant wanderings if you can't share them, or show them off. And what better place to do this than the Soho, where again I find myself the single one woman in a bar just opening up. But this bar appreciates a silver-lined jacket with fur trim collar! Red plush decadent seats, fire place, and over a hundred lit candles. I find a seat near the window to watch the last of the light leave the faces of travellers. Darkness descends, and people dive in to the nearest warm places for comfort, food, and appreciation.

Friends arrive and revel in my happiness. I explain the theory- it is simple: be alive, and be me. A Thanks-Living-Day, thanks for living day, for coming this far and enjoying it day. They jump right in, and soon I am swept up in dinner plans. We must celebrate this! Get the wine, dessert and let's begin. A walk through awakening night streets, a new form of traffic emerging. An open door to an elegant floor. Arias float through the walls as risotto simmers. We have tears in our eyes from the woman's voice on the stereo, and don't even know it... pouring wine, savoring the fact that a pillow can be made from Mongolian sheep. Mongolian sheep! Opera and white wine! I think I am living now...

Life stories till midnight. Singers' parades of challenge and fears. Poetry read over bell tones, dessert of tart bitter berries and succulent cream, with laughter, laughter, laughter, and open heart wonder.

I find my way home in a state of grace. Grace is inside you, the author says. Find it and you find God. Find it and you are alive. Or live, and it finds you inside.

What Dutch Do on Bikes

I could write an ethnography called: What Dutch Do on Bikes

and it would include a list, like this:

eat sandwiches

drink coffee

talk on cell phones

light up

kiss

hold hands

have profound conversations

carry loads of stuff

carry loads of people

raise their kids

are pregnant

create fashion statements

grocery shop

go through a take-out

move house

walk the dog

and then there are the moments that take the cake...

like:

bike to the gym so you can get on... a bike... to work out!

or

ride quickly ahead of the person in front, cut them off, slow down, and light a cigarette to let the smoke blow back in their face.

that's gotta be my favorite.

And the winners this month go to:

The older woman biking back from the hospital, swerving wildly, smoking a joint.

And,

The man smoking a cigar while biking lazily down the center of the road, crossing a canal.

Now, what a better way to enjoy a nice bike ride?

hmmmn.....

Anarchic Academic

Gut instinct is not enough when one is crafting a project that could outline the future for research and work. I am frustrated by this. Writing, as an art form, yes, it flows easily... but when I have to put might behind my words, when I have to defend, that is a different subject entirely.

The art of academic writing is to not stand on the fence, and also not dive too deeply in. Better to define the boat you would like to catch you as you spring into the waters of academia. I think at times, I tread water, and stay on the periphery of knowing quite how to do this.

Truly, I am an anarchic academic. I did not define myself ever as having the material within myself to do this. Master's thesis, PhD outlines, the questions and queries of a mind for research. Rather, I carry that rebellious rock-star quality still, and at times it trips me up and over my own intent.

I knew I sealed my fate the day I entered a heated debate about a kid I knew who was defined as 'ADHD'. I remember the moment when I said out loud, to the whole room, in my nice and demanding way: If it takes me getting a PhD, I will do whatever I can to defend these kids!

Now I am on the path, and wondering, what did I get myself into?

How did an artist, a singer, dancer, a dreamer, end up on this trans-academic highway?

I am a reluctant academic, yet some things come easy. Analysis is in my blood... ask my family how critical I can be! But arguing, proving a point, I quickly defer and retreat, would rather be the one to support another person's meaning. How can I learn to stand on my own two feet in the arena that so often defeated me in my upbringing?

My art teacher in high school guided me through two Cambridge exams by pissing me off- daily. He said, you work better angry.

Now I need to fuel the fire of my drive in order to enter this field of academia and survive. How can I engage the flame inside and use it to push my performance to new heights?

Source

"But what is its source, this part of us that is wiser than we are?" M. Scott Peck, MD

There are things I do by gut instinct. And there are things for which I am trained. Default settings tune me to children and animals like they are mine, regardless of who and where they come from. My training is comprised of various forms of knowledge, but all tested in the fire of what is inside.

In my work with young people, my intent is to point them, always and forever, back into their core. What are their guiding forces, and what are they comprised of? Understanding is not important, but trusting and following are. Understanding will come as an afterthought of progression when one is on the path of one's highest guidance. Sometimes we must move on instinct or intuition alone, and trust in an outcome.

Ready

In the cold grey light of dawn I stir with a single line in my head:

"It is not about going to search for your destiny. It is about rising up to meet it when it comes searching for you."

This is my waking thought. The beginning of my day. Cold and grey, the Amsterdam sky is an undulating blanket of damp billow moving towards my window. The prospect of heading out on my bike to cycle the 5 miles to town seems now irrelevant, as does breakfast, or a semblance of being ready. I arrive at the classroom in a state of grace.

All I have to do is get up, and be ready for this day.

What we can't know

The parts most difficult to explain, evaluate:

why one feels what they feel- internal, external, muscular, and emotional... sometimes there are no ways to describe it.

The medical and psychological professions, the academics, they all try to put into words, diagnosis, and clear terms the completely inexpressible life-worlds of the individual. What is this, what is that? What is normal, what is not? Who goes with which group, when and how, and why? Carl Linnaeus was able to classify plants, animals, fungi, protista... but the human experience, the human be-ingness, is it so quantifiable?

We classify, we organize, we label this and that in order to have something to grasp. But the reality is, what we are grasping for is often elusive.

Let's examine pain... or, for that matter, anxiety... or restlessness...

"Although bodily sensations seem very direct and concrete to the subject, they are elusive and obscure at the same time. Pain, for example, is an indefinite experience. The subject does not fully understand his own body and, worse, he finds it extremely difficult to communicate the pain sensation to others. Pain, by definition, is a lonely sensation and what cannot be shared by others cannot be discussed or recognized by others and thus remains, in a sense, abstract, a non-experience." (1)

In class the last few days, the others have noticed what I have not been able to articulate. I am quiet, recluse in my chair, withdrawn from them though I am there. One day I stood, behind my chair, to let the blood flow back into my legs that were suffering with the need to run away.

Can I articulate for others the experience of a person of activity who is confined to a seated position for hours on end? The mind shuts down, but only after prolonged dissonance with the body. The legs can go into pain. I clench my legs in efforts to avoid distraction, to settle my unease... and cut off my circulation. The stomach tightens. The breathing lightens. I search for a door, a way out, if the situation becomes too difficult.

Movement is freedom, in mind and body. If I can move, I can breathe. I can let my thoughts flow freely. I absorb and articulate meticulously.

It is tiring to hear the dialogs of those who 'have ADHD' and get media attention... 'oh, I get sooo distracted', 'yes, it's like this'... I am glad they can raise their voice, but do they really bring attention to the actual experience, or do they confirm the stereotypes and the classification schemes of it?

If I could take you into an anxious experience for me in the classroom, it would be based on feeling- you would experience bodily sensations and with that, mental images. These would not be so easily defined, and the closest experience would be that of art.

Rather than definitions of 'anxiety' or 'adhd' I'd like to just explore an idea: those who need and enjoy a great deal of activity, and those who don't.

Activity- mental, physical, emotional... it is movement, dynamic, elastic, plastic... it is awareness of heartbeat, breath, body and its dialog of "notice me, use me, make me live"

I notice a dread, a thread of pressure in people, when confronted with 'active' others. It is a glaring reflection of inactivity, passivity. And the interpretations of activity are wide-spread and sometimes demeaning: they can't sit still, something is wrong with them, that woman does not rest, that man is too busy.

When I am confined to a chair, sitting, stalemate for hours, I can tell you that my activity suffers. This is like pain inside me. Can you imagine for one minute as if you were a bird, ready to fly towards the sunset, and as you were taking off, wings outstretched, someone superglued your feet to a heavy wooden seat... in a room, with walls and a ceiling.

This is what it feels like, daily, for those people we want to classify into 'anxiety' or 'ADHD'... maybe there could be other terminology: 'trapped activity', 'confined body', 'physical dissonance'.

I am realizing that I can no longer be silent about my own experience of 'education' if I am to articulate and argue for a thesis on the construction of diagnoses around our kids. I am one of them. I still experience the debilitating trapped-ness of classroom dynamics, or situations of confinement. There is a reason I work with young people the way I do- to see themselves for what they are, and who... in a context of a world that may not understand them.

It is easier to theorize though- to make it always about the other. To say: oh, this experience belongs over there- in that grouping...

It is harder to say: here is my experience, and while it fits your criteria for this category, and that... it does not define me, who and what I am. This is a much scarier confrontation, and not just for the personal implications...

If I can say: "here I am, with this experience..."

someone else can say: "quantified as..."

and we'll still be stuck with the inexpressible expressed.

(1) Whyte, S. R., S. van der Geest & A. Hardon

2002 Social lives of medicines. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (p. 45)

Trip north

It takes 3.4 hours to get to where the small size of 'bus' arranged to take us into Pieterburen makes sense. At first we had been confused, having spent the good part of our morning on the criss-crossing train lines clanging through the countryside. But as we round a curve and head down the narrow track of gravelly dirt situated between stables and open farm land, we gasp at the sight of field upon field, trees gray in the hazy distance, and windmills turning in the wind unbroken by any natural form or fold in the seamless horizon. We are stunned by graceful expanses of quintessential Dutch landscapes, small crocks of houses spattered with greenery growing through and around the deep red bricks. Our small minivan with a 'bus number' situated in the window is all that can navigate these back roads.

Our driver is the most intimate connection we have had on this journey to the north of Holland so far. Train detours between Schiphol and Groningen delayed our track along a barge canal to get to this last outpost of a city close to the northern coast. We were happy to find a sympathetic and knowing driver who jostled us to the tiny town we asked for. Pieterburen is not known for many things. But people come to visit for two reasons, the zeehondencreche and wadlopen. After a few hours though, we found many more.

Situated 6 kilometers from the coastline where islands curve backwards like an arm's wave of protection against the North Sea, the town is an outpost for one of the few truly hikeable excursions of Holland... mud-walking. The wadden (mud flats) stretch open bellied for kilometers along this outpost coast. One is supposed to be able to walk from coastline to island and back again in the warmer summer months. A single small house with a trajectory of a tiny street points the way to the hazy distance where the mud flats will lie dormant for the winter. (Check out: www.wadlopen.com - while in Dutch, if you click on the yellow button on the right side of the page under 'klik op de button' you will see what wadlopen is all about.)

Our bus driver escorts us to the front door of the wadlopen society, its statue "Marietje" offering the last flowers of the season up in a final burst of glory. A man gardening salutes us and tells us to make sure we add our name to the story and any pictures we take. We turn from him and face the single curve that is supposed to lead to the zeehondencreche, the Seal Sanctuary... in the middle of... this town?

We made it around the corner a mere 5 steps.

Taking pictures of quaint country roads with a windmill down the lane will distract one from what is right in front of them: a riot of a bouquet of fur, cloven hooves, and bleating, wild-horned faces.

I swear to you that there are special angels for people who love animals, and these angels are active in Pieterburen.

10 steps beyond the goats and at the edge of a canal, a modern windmill churns in tune with the wind, silently directing the flight of seagulls, dipping down behind a low-slung building.One wonders how major marine operations are conducted from a tiny town in the middle of fields, ruled by four footed creatures, 6 kilometers from the ocean.

But, it turns out, seals only need one marked vehicle to make the transport from precarious situation to rescue operation- the Seal Ambulance, a minivan with a purpose. It transports seals from ocean front to veterinary services, and back again once a seal is ready to return to the wild.

We entered the building with curiosity high. From full-scale operations complete with quarantines, outdoor rehab pools, and fish kitchen, we were sucked into the world of seal rescue, animal and coast preservation. The Seal Rehab and Research Center began its life quietly in the nondescript style of a woman who had found her life's purpose walking the ocean flats and finding seals afflicted and affected to bring back home to her little town. Her backyard is now the backyard of a town all in on an incredible mission. (check out: www.zeehondencreche.nl)

Surreal and magical, the windmill in the sky, the cool air on our faces in the wane winter light. Children playing 'seal' outside and the adults also letting go as they pressed their bodies against holding ropes, against the floor, and tried to get close to these gentle beings. Seals spinning and diving, shavasina poses in mid-watery glide, sleepy infant seals with their ruffled fur in the sun, curious pups trying to have fun.

How easy it is for us to want to touch and feel an animal in this safe of a setting, so far removed from the reality that landed it here. Children collect stuffed toys, and we all buy postcards, but the day to day efforts of real people shaping animal reality goes on. And, we all have a part.

On our return trip down the single street, 15 steps, we stop for conversations with the sheep assortment. One black faced horned beauty bleats at me and paws at his pen. Their caretaker is out, parrot on her shoulder, talking about how she inherited these creatures, each with name, personality, and distinction. The cabeza negra and I have similar missions, and I soon find myself on his side of the fence, chatting with the caretaker while another sheep nibbles at my thumb.

You might think kissing sheep is a risky enterprise, especially when they are decked out in curley-cue horns... bt it's the burro one has to watch out for, sneaking up on the pony reaching for his own pat. Scampering across the pen, his black face nudges the pony out of the way and bites at his lips playfully as if to say, the only kissing around here will be done by me lady! I say- he looks like Pepe! And a quick glance at his name card reveals... there is something about that name. Pepes are pepes all over the place.

In the chandeliered romantic restaurant left over from the 1700's, we sip hot chocolate and cappucino while waiting for the return trip home. The milk of our drinks is slightly sweet, and I think: its either happy cows, or happy sheep. Or maybe its just me.

Still life images

If I could make a movie of Amsterdam for you, I would bypass the typical images.. all the famous buildings and swarms of tourists pale in comparison to the beauty of the average daily life found in the back streets of early mornings, late night wanderings, and catching the light as it glances off windows in a rare moment of October sun.

image 1...

5 a.m. and there is a sleeting rain. The cyclists move silently through the streets almost at dawn, navigating turns, sleeping parked cars, and blackened street lights in a danced choreography of immense proportions. My bike files in rank with others as we glide through slippery streets and feel the cool air wash out stink of bar, club, and cigarette gatherings. Through the drips, the singular procession out of the downtown club district gains speed, then abruptly stops. Bikes pile up in expectant silence, and, forced to stop myself, I wait with them on this dark street corner. Suddenly, a door opens, a light flips on, and the smell of hot loaves of bread direct from the oven wafts over our dripping faces. The first bakery is open on this Saturday morn, and club-goers are turned into children eager to take the first bites of warmth.

image 2...

October, and the cold rains give way to one day of blissful temperatures and succulent sun. People, ducks, geese and swans flock to the park to celebrate the warmth. In the park near our home, the birds understand that pushed prams and lovers in arms mean a wealth of treats for them. At the edge of the watery expanse of oceanic lake I run in stride with my heart beat and breath while the sun lights up my face. The wind at my back, I look up to see a flowing hijab heading for me. Into the wind, her face free except for a very large pair of sunglasses worthy of Fergie, the sight of a woman in full Islamic dress riding a bike is a sight well worth seeing.

image 3...

In a heavy mist resting over the city, trash trucks fight with bicycles to rule the road. Shops silent and waiting, only the hotel kitchens are open. My bike glides silently over cobblestone backroads as I navigate the fastest route to the school. On a deserted shopping street, a singular image. I catch his eye as I bike by quickly- one lone hairdresser standing in front of his store's large mirror, blow drying his curls into a flurry.

image 4...

When bicycles rule, and cars are luxuries, one learns to transport all sorts of things on two wheels. Imagine the crowded shopping street, bustling bodies trying to get home at 5 p.m. on a Friday. Children are tucked under arms, in baskets, buckets, or strapped to the back of bikes, sometimes 3 to a parental rider. Dogs peek out of saddlebags or front bike baskets alongside flowers and loaves of bread. A man in an elegant suit, coat open and flapping, balances an orange tree behind him. Wrapped in plastic to survive the wind, it shimmers and shines and together they move as if one tall wind-whipped giant through the misting streets of the October evening. The light glances off windows and slips down streets, glancing off buildings and resting in canals where a woman in a long overcoat holds the rudder of a boat in one hand, a glass of wine in the other. The lights of the city are just coming on, and the water ways illuminate while the city shudders into its alternate personality, finishing off the work week with a grande finale of city slicked cyclists heading home for dinner.

Spirits

There are spirits in the kitchen, she says, and it seems they like to cook at about 3 a.m. The amazing thing is, no food is missing, but a big mess is left.

Let's leave a letter, I say. We can thank them for visiting and cooking, but tell them we are going to hide the dishes if they don't start cleaning them.

These are the kinds of activities one gets up to when one lives in a house full of insomniacs. We are excellent stimulation for each other, but terrible managers of bed-time etiquette. At 12:30 p.m. the other night I had to silence the racket outside my door... but as my state of full dress and brisk working manner gave me away in an instant, I was immediately sucked in to their mid-hallway excitement.

Once the clock moves past about, say, midnight, it doesn't take much to be excited about anything. You just LOVE life, and anyone who is willing to share it...

At 1 am the other morning, I tiptoed down the hall and put my ear against a door... ha! She was up, the kitchen-watcher, and we exchanged a quick laughing hello as her call was put on hold and I waltzed through her door... reading, writing, these are all inspiring acts in the dark of night, as is typing on a computer!

My god-daughter caught me in the act of updating FB at 3:00 a.m. the other morning. What she didn't know was that I was waiting to review a paper, from my fellow light sleeper next door... 4 a.m. is her academic deadline, and I am her english language editor. A tough price to pay for amazing Thai dinners delivered the next day.

So how do you trap a sneaky kitchen spirit in a house full of insomniacs? If I did as the Irish, and put out whiskey each night, I might catch them singing. Or, maybe we'll all just join them for a mid- night gathering.

Storm

This is the country where the land meets the sky. Where there is no division for the eye. No interruption of mountains or undulating land. The clouds reach down, and then reach in. The water lifts its face and steps up boldly to meet the wind.

I dissolve here. I always did. Remembering long walks as a teenager among the dripping trees of the bosjes, the silences of pillowed damp land, ferns and bushes brambling over clay and sand, mushrooms sprouting in front of eyes, a faerie-land mystic paradise.

For a moment today, a clear sky. I grab my sweatshirt and shoes and run outside, and then, a break of drops on my head. I head to the bos, the 'forrest', near my home. A 6 kilometer jaunt around the man made lake left over from the creation of this polder, reclaimed from the sea in the 1960's. Yes, the land I live on has only been above ground 50 years, and is quick to show its watery face.

The downpour starts about 1 km in to the walk, but the paths that wander all of Holland through trees, along canals, have a life of their own. The drops change as they filter through the canopy. They condense or disperse and make music as they pummel me. A splash of thunder, a quickening pace, I watch the sky dissolve again right in front of my face.

A student today reminded me of a cloud experiment conducted in schools. A small layer of water in a big jar... sealed except for gusts of air projected in... at one point the molecules can not resist, and they burst into cloudy formation, scattering the jar's sides with misty droplets. This is a lot like these low lands... trapping water, trapping air, sending it up, bringing it back again. At one point, I can't tell where the drips begin. The trees have their own language of storm and whispering wind, the paths and canals, another rhythm.

By kilometer 5, the downpour was complete with thunder claps and lightning streaks. The multiple waterway storms whipping around me... and in it, serenity. The trees lifting tall trunks to meet the chaos and calamity. Their limbs open and welcoming, swaying effortlessly.

Can I meet the storms of my own life so beautifully?

Seeing...

"Seeing, listening, touching, recording, can be, if done with care and sensitivity, acts of fraternity and sisterhood, acts of solidarity. Above all, they are the work of recognition. Not to look, not to touch, not to record, can be the hostile act, the act of indifference and of turning away." Nancy Scheper-Hughes 1992 "Death Without Weeping"

Are we ready?

encouragement

The weather has everyone grasping for support. We are defeated in body and mind with unending grey and the cold that eats through bones. It was not raining, but I came home dripping wet, and shivering. I forgot about the fish-bowl effect.

Our kitchen, the place so daunting at first, has become a haven for us. We alternate cooking, and mothering each other. Today, our "Tante" made Thai soup, someone cooked rice, bread was brought out and greens. Apples and honey for dessert. We all sit together- emerging from our rooms and long hours of study, to eat and laugh.

We are planning our theses... the advisor list was sent out. Ideas are laid out on the table as part of the meal. Not many people are researching children, let alone education. And so I am once again asked to visit one of their nations- don't I want to go to South East Asia? Well, of course I do... but I have this other calling, too. There will always be children in need...

A trip to Utrecht today for encouragement. A message from a supportive professor: there is no one with your focus here- please do it! The anthropological perspective is needed in observing these things...Yes, I heard the same thing in the U.S., but without the 'please do it' part. I am boldened by this, and know that as much as I would love to be an anthropologist of the assumed exotic, my heart is still with my kids.

ADHD, the rise in learning disabilities in the U.S. and Western nations, the dissolution of techniques that actually HELP these kids... yes, there is a need. Instead, a focus on standardization, and marginalization... the acknowledgement of 'disease/disorder' is increasing, but so is ambivalence, and a trend for bandaid answers and blanket medication. This work could put me out on the edge... voicing for something different.

So I listen to my friends who will study disease, health, well-being, in countries full of mystery to me. But I will keep moving forward, even if groping blindly, to try to fulfill my calling.

For it is my own history, and the reason I keep going- that there is a voice for difference- in education, in child ability, in personality and 'the social fit' of being-ness. I hope I can be a voice for this, and then create offerings- something usable for change. Something that makes a difference... I believe they term this "applied" medical anthropology. I hope it can be applied, beyond my own using. It is a good thing I am used to being on the edge.

But the edge is where one catches the most interesting glimpses of beyond... and discovers new territory to explore. I will get lost to find my way, then forge the path for others.

"It is the return of the individual to (the society) from the peaks he or she has travelled alone which serves to elevate that society to new heights. In this way individual growth and societal growth are interdependent, but it is always and inevitably lonely out on the growing edge." (M. Scott Peck, 1978)

on writing

"Writing has not only influenced thought about the world, but also thought about who we are." Thomas Hylland Eriksen

Anthropology traverses the fine and delicate line between art and science. It dances through meanings, suspending belief one minute, entering into dialog the next, and presenting 'findings' for the world to digest. It is a craft of balance. A balancing craft.

Reading ethnographies laced with purpose, with insight into society, family, and culture, I am delighting in discovering a science full of poets. In the dry world of scientific reports, of psychological studies, and medicinal jargon, the writing of anthropologists comes as a relief.

And, I have some freedom here! We are being crafted into writers of ethnographies, observers of identities. Our own and the other. It is the beauty of showing, revealing.

Some years ago, lyrics were my written and realized voice. I sung my transformations of thought and printed them as poetry and art. Now my craft is changing in official papers, websites, blogs, but that can be rich with meaning.

If there is a way to affect change, it is in writing. In crafting to a page a voice for something. A voice for the voiceless. A voice for meaning. Sometimes, it is just a voice for me! But there it is fixed: a word, an expression, disembodied but yet suddenly available.

And what we write, gives shape to the world, and to ourselves in it.

Losing warmth

It happens overnight. There is no warning, no gradual change from the green leaves of summer to russet browns, reds, lights of dying leaves on trees swaying in the breeze. No, here the Holland autumn arrives in gales, winds, and thick blankets of damp fog, misting over all of us. Even through walls.

My window, open to the dawn, is soon slick with drops. Laundry out to hang for the night is still wet, hanging dejectedly 4 stories up, on the ledge. Lights glimmer faintly at the edge of dawn, now three hours late where once through windows the light could not keep us in bed past six a.m.

The kitchen is full of suppressed coughs, of dejected looks. The weather is bad, we are going to go pale. Colds begin at the mere suggestion of the rain beginning, and packets of tea, herbal remedies, and nasal decongestants are passed like candy. Skin color is examined... the hues of Africa and Asia will soon be forgotten in the misty gray of the North. There is worry- will our color go grey, too?

Outside, leaves and chestnuts litter the ground. They are mere debris, the trees rejecting the life from their limbs quickly. You have to duck when you hear the crack, or the nut will get you where you are at. I pick one, nice warm and smoothly freed from its spiky casing- hold it for the comfort it gives.

I am reminded of how the Dutch masters achieved their painting fame. Their reflection of the world around them was seen as the magic of art, when it was more like an early photograph. This is how it is, how winter comes. Long months of Lowland dissolvement. Cloudy skies mirrored in the land like a mirage, the sea earth and heavens as one. The color of the light, like a reflection of a memory of the sun.

The cold weather has begun.

Liminality and Communitas

Deprivation

We are in community, but alone. Removed from our homes, our children, our loves, our mothers, our fathers, our animals. We are stripped of our statuses real and imagined: financial, familial, political, letters behind a name (even names!)- all are irrelevant here.

We are reduced to students scrabbling away for understanding. We are overloaded with learning. Non-coherent, we push out papers instead of dinners, we read instead of sleep. We long for arms and hands to cook for us, caresses in the night.

We are in the liminal stage of transformation- brought to our knees by an academic process, and a removal of identity.

This is the ritual, the transforming of us into what they want us to be. What we want to be. For we volunteered for this, didn't we?

Communitas

It is in the liminality we find solidarity. We form a network of care. My Thai friend says to my Rwandan friend: my daughter. She replies: my mother. We laugh and share. I hunt for boots and spices with the Mistress of Crashes, and we share a similar meal... this vegetarian, though, chopped chicken for Ramadan at 2:00 am Saturday night, because when one is asked to help, it is only fair.

Those of us with children, with babies we left behind, animals, sweet innocents or kids we fear will resent us, we share a physical ache in belly and back. We are the lunch-packers, the ones who eat together mid-day, in our concave of the Spinhuis. We shoulder books instead of small bodies, hug texts to our chests.

Transformation

occurs only when the process is complete. Only when we will return to society, with new knowledge, new ways of being.

Potty mouth

I was commenting on a sassy remark by one of the others. Yes, I shouted through the door. That is what you have to do when you are talking from behind a bathroom stall, in a crowded bathroom, in a break from class. I was loud, of course, in my nice blatant way.

And then I opened the door. Let's just say, it is one thing to be commenting to a room of your classmates and friends, and another to have your professor standing right there.

Did I mention the part about the mixed gender bathrooms in our building? Or, the mixing of status? Yes, the professors pee right next to the students around here- whether you are a girl or boy or somewhere in between.

Now I'm a pretty relaxed person, and can take quite a lot in stride, but that was a lesson worth not repeating!

On another note

I have never had so much fun going to school. Except maybe kindergarten, or when I begged my mom to send me to pre-school. Cause they had snacks. And good songs.

But, this is just bliss.

Everyday we have class is a competition for who will get there early. Just to open the door. Someone starts water for tea and coffee.

And, now that we are comfortable with each other, the customary kisses, hugs, genuine affection as we all filter in. Groggy, ready for more.

Topics of discussion?

Methodology

Ethnography

Participant Observation

Witchcraft

Mythology

Metaphor

Language

Cultural relativism

Magic

Human daily practices

Kinship

Cultural collateral

Descent systems

Applied theory

Marxist theory

Structuralist theory

Functionalist theory

Spiritual practice

Sexual practice

Biology

Nurture

Nature

Symbology

and we are just scratching the surface.

And, now that we are comfortable with each other, the theories are immersed in realities. The biases emerge, and the understandings. Muslims sit by Christians, pacifists by militants. Traditional by experimental. And the field work, RIPE with information... the day to day life in Bali, Thailand, Ethiopia, tribal custom clashes with education and modernization, the feuds of what constitutes a culture. We all love to just listen to the other.

And, a break in the day means a rush to see who can take care of what, what can take care of who, who can connect with who. Shouts across the room. Hey! I haven't talked with you yet...

It is bliss to be in a room full of caretakers. We all take care of the other. It is in our nature.

How does this get left behind in traditional classrooms? Can we teach this?

And then we dig back in. Someone has a theory, a quote, a question. Who has the answer? We offer every meaning.

Our passion lies on our sleeves. We offer open armed assistance to understanding. Ourselves, the other. Just being.

*

But the classroom does not contain the lessons...

It is Saturday night, 1:03 am, and a feast is being prepared in the kitchen. Ramadan ends tomorrow with suikerfeest, a big tradition. But everyone is filtering in... Latin Catholics with Confuscionists, Buddhists. We all can wield a knife and help to chop vegetables. Learn a few words in Indonesian, Dutch, and Spanish. We can live and eat and work together, and laugh throughout the night on the eve of ritual.

African dancing, and Thai dictionaries. We can drink it in, if we are willing. Take out the trash. Help each other out.

In community we find communality. The commonness of experience. We learn that openness to experience is all that is necessary.

Panic gives way to Purpose

"Freedom lies in being bold" -Robert Frost

My parents did not raise me to be timid. Yet, as a child I could be. Good thing they believed in my ability to endure, even when I didn't.

*

Panic is a funny thing. It can drive one's instincts beyond reckoning, but... it can also be a motivator, a catalyst. The spark that lights the flame. It is the drive, not to flee, but to move. To act on something.

It has taken some training to be able to be fierce in the face of fear. To have freedom in my choice to fight or to flee, and hone it into something else completely.

This week of anthropological survey- the theories, the theorists, the work laid out, has been a catalyst for all of us. We are reviewing our work, and our purpose for our work. The why's of our being here.

It is daunting.

And we are all moved.

How will the doctors, the nurses, the practitioners, come from the position of the other, in order to affect the change we all seek? How can we work from within? Our top down models of training must be left behind, then.

A fellow rebel, a Marxist and Leftist, and Iranian dissident, approached me with this question. We are mental kin. I see myself in him, and remember a time of shaved hair, rebellion. We both have our reason for being here. He will return to Iran, a journalist with new words for expression, new tools for rebellion. And me... it is here I realize, my work is not where, but what I live. We both will go back to origin.

I remember Langston Hughes, my long time influence, who had wisdom when he returned to poetry that would move the masses rather than incite a nation. He had seen terrible injustice, had lived his own pain. The Black Panther movement was a freedom for expressing this, and he became an unparalleled voice. But, if one wants to change the system, one must work from within. Windows close, doors shut, on the screaming paramour.

Langston Hughes' most memorable poems were those for every ear, from every path, religion, background, and history. But, in their fraternity to words of ease, words of sympathy, they became tuned in to him. And change was affected. Maybe small, but a ripple in the social dynamic of accepted literature, of a poet expressed, paved way for the next steps. The greatest change was achieved through a stroke of a lonely pen, rather than an anthem.

I have always fought for kids. Been incensed by systems that show blatant limits, dissolve spirits full of vigor from within. I stood on the outside of this.

At first, feeling helpless, timid.

What could I do, in the face or force of machines of education and socialization?

Then, incense- anger, the fight to create an alternative.

Panic ensues. What am I doing? How will I do it? How did I end up here?

Purpose- it comes from within all of this.

Someone once told me, I will know the path God has laid out for me when I am passionate about what I live.

My daily breathing starts with this: my living is for the betterment of all of us. To remain still and calm within the chaos. To choose purpose over panic. And DO something with it.

Our Western system is a medical model trained with the eyes of a microscope, scanning for disease, disorder, abnormality. Education, medicine, psychoanalysis- we all need new ears. New eyes. New arms for reaching out...

Or maybe just a new lens for viewing what is.

Twitter

This is why people Twitter...

To capture that fleeting thought, that simple phrase, and chronicle a day.

Yet, there is also something beautiful about a synthesis of thought over time. My desk is littered with notes, scribbled at times in the middle of the night, or based on a thought from a bike ride, a thought during class. My goal is to string these thoughts together into a cohesive whole over the next days, and bring them all together. (And by doing so, clean my desk!!)

For now, a quote to spark thought:

"Not doing more than the average is what keeps the average down." William M. Winans

Maps

So, let me just tell you what happens in Amsterdam when you don't have a map with you. At all times.

You get lost. I mean, really LOST.

One turn will cost you 15 minutes of lost. Go down 5 streets of 1 turn and it is an hour before you find your way back to a landmark.

Even the LOCALS get lost.

So, since I think that the best way to find oneself is to get LOST, I had a great time on Sunday. A group of us (remember, our student group tends to sleep, breathe, and eat as a unit) decided to check out a local English speaking church on Sunday. I decided to bike, while the others judiciously decided to take the tram. They wanted to arrive on time. I thought I would be early, as I left one hour before the service began.

But.... I took one wrong turn. One.

And ended up on the opposite side of town.

I realized this when I arrived at the river that Amsterdam was formed from. The river, mind you, is on the opposite end of the city from where we live, which meant that downtown was somewhere between there and our home. Ok, let's use my philosophy. Breathe deep. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining. Ok! Now, where am I? The Amstel. Ok- I know where I am! Now, where do I want to be? In a church downtown. Ok! Here I am- I am here, in God's church of sky and sun and water and a bike bridge over a river in a city I don't know. I am already here! So guide me home...

An old man showed up around this time. (Thank god for the old men of Amsterdam- I think there is something to this... they keep showing up at the most opportune moments!) He took one look at me and said- Where are you headed?

I went the wrong way, I said. (not helpful)

Go back then, he says, but at the corner, turn right. You'll end up downtown.

Gotta love it.

I made it to church only 15 minutes late. Children's sermon. Right on time for me. Completely on my level.

Get Lost

I have a little theory in life and it goes something like this:

Get LOST and you will find your WAY.

The beauty about this theory is that it applies to just about every aspect of my life, practical, theoretical, emotional, physical, you name it. A good sense of humor is also helpful.

I think this theory started to cement itself into place very early in my life, and it has served me, so far, very well. As I am reluctant to take a map, or ask for directions (my mom mentioned something about me taking after my father here), it is really just a survival strategy.

I remember a stormy evening in which my little brother and I were wedged into the back of our small car in the Netherlands, about 2 months after our first arrival, 20 years ago. As most teens would, I was not paying attention to what was going on with my parents until I noticed the car had stopped, and my mother's voice had risen- We are lost! Oh, not a nice thing to hear when it is cold and stormy outside of a cramped vehicle in a foreign country! I started paying attention. My father replied- We're not lost, I know exactly where I am. To which my mother replied- Where are we then? And Dad rightly said- With you.. in the car.

I think that did it for me.

We made it home just fine, and I have taken a similar approach since then. Good thing, because there are so many moments one is lost!

Case in point: I now carry a Dutch passport and Dutch citizenship. Although, I should mention that have been out of the country 12 years, in the United States. And I received my citizenship shortly before I left. I never even learned how to register to vote!

So here I return to the nation of my (2nd) citizenship, and I am expected to be one of them! Where is town hall? Did I not know I had to register there, within 5 days of arrival? Well, every Dutch person knows that. Where is my Sofinummer? And my bank account? And my ability to understand the fine print on forms? And my manners- oh, where are my manners? Have you been hanging out with Americans or something?

Well, yes, I have.

Ok. So I arrived here 20 years ago, a foreigner in a foreign land. 4 years later, I spoke the language, and was in a Dutch University. But my decision to take Dutch citizenship coincided with a decision to return to the U.S, just prior to departure. So color me confused. I don't really know where I am. I am here. With you! In, where? Oh yeah, Holland.

Ok. I got it now.

A Note about Names

"Every person is a new door to a different world." - John Guare

As this blog progresses through it stages of stories, thoughts on all we are learning, and chronicles the wild and woolley experience of myself and others, I would like to leave out proper names for the sake of sanity, and safety, for all.

While my fellow students may actually even ASK to be put in the blog, I would like to protect all of us from my own writing blindness, some mis-placed humor, or some commentary on the day. Additionally, as a form of practice, it is nice to just notice what 'worlds' one is opened to when exposed to the actions and reactions of a person, rather than the label we may put on them, even a name. (Now there's a nice socio-anthropological perspective for you!)

So while you, my friends and readers, may just be DYING to know who did what/who speaks what, no go. You will just have to content yourself with the open doors and windows of my spoken-word rants. My goal is to let our experiences define our 'selves'- at least for this moment in time.

HOWEVER, with that being said, we are all quickly developing nick names around here! Mistress of the Crashes just may be a winner.

By the way, today's Indonesian lesson is:

terima kasih- Thank you!

with a "you're welcome" reply: sama sama!

Sama Sama!!

Brakes, what brakes?

Monday morning rush hour traffic can be a nightmare, in any city, under any circumstances. But Monday morning rush hour traffic in Amsterdam is a whole other monster.

Especially when one is biking for the first time to class.

With a group of inexperienced bikers.

In a foreign country.

Who don't speak the language.

Can't recognize the traffic signs.

And don't know where their brakes are.

Let me just say that we probably should have started bike lessons a few days prior to an excursion downtown. But when we went to pick out our bikes on Saturday at the nice little bike shop I discovered the first day I got lost (that's another story), I did not see through the giddy elation to the impending disasters. I was mildly warned that I would "need to let a few of us know what to do..."

I was not prepared for the heightened anxiety and nail biting process that getting to class produced today. After two mild crashes, in which it was proclaimed that maybe the bikes were not quite right, 2 ignored red lights, and multiple traffic jams on narrow bike lanes, I felt ready to have everyone walk!

Crash number 1: at stop number 1.

Crash number 2: into the back of biker number 2.

By this time, we all had our eye on biker number 5, Mistress of these particular crashes. We were ready to warn her, or move out of her way, at a moment's notice.

Crash number 3 was one very spectacular event in the final turn toward school, and was a surprise for all of us. Our dear and delicate friend (NOT the one, mind you, that we were watching for), miraculously extracted herself from the center of an intersection, a mail truck, and a tram line with a small nod, graceful smile, and wave to move on.

By the time we arrived downtown, I was a Mother Hen Mess of wondering what had gone wrong.

It was on the return trip home when enlightenment struck. Full force. In the form of a cement post. We had just left our Castillaña friends with directions how to get to and from a certain landmark (nail-biting moment number 12) and an outline of how to return home on my newly weathered and frustration-mangled map. Feeling over-confident having only one charge to watch out for, I regretted my nerve when she(remember biker number 5?) plowed dead center into the 'standing policeman' and... uprooted it from its spot! On the corner of an intersection. On an entrance to a bridge. A CEMENT post. UPROOTED.

Now, to be fair, another cyclist was headed straight for her. And, in her defense, the bikers of Amsterdam are rather... aggressive... ahem. A kindly old gentleman stopped us after she extracted herself from the post, which was left angling wildly to one side.

With her pride, and side, badly bruised, he spoke to her in English: You are so brave!

To me, he spoke in Dutch: Put her in front of you so you can see where she is going!! She is just like my wife...

Following his sage advice, we managed to steer ourselves up and over the bridge. On the turn to our dorpje's limits, her confidence regained. She was sandwiched between myself and him, but in a moment of abandon, she catapulted past him and down the path, careening to the left and heading right towards traffic!

He shouted back at me urgently: Catch up! Catch up!

*

Tonight, over IB profin to bring down the swelling, calcium to mitigate cramping, and vaseline for her cut (the grand prize for Most Crashes Sustained), she confessed: You know, I just told my brother that I had three disasters on the bike, and you know what he said? Who let YOU get a bike?! Are they crazy?!

Then she proceeded to tell me: I never did understand where the brakes were, you know!

I was dumbstruck: But do you drive? (Mind you, she is an accomplished MD in her country)

Are you kidding?? she replied, (with an impish grin)... I would run into everything!

She then added that as a child, she once biked straight into the Headmaster of her school, crashed multiple times, and could never quite realize just how the thing operated! The Headmaster himself had told her in front of her class, and her parents agreed, that she was banned from biking. By this point, my own guilt was assuaged. This here was a rebellious act of defiant freedom!

We decided she should, and could, keep biking. Away from others. And maybe with bumpers. At least till she learns how to turn. Or how to brake.

Or how to jump off.

She might be here for another MA, but her REAL degree is going to be Biking 101.

Tourist for a day

From the moment we started our University of Amsterdam buildings tour today, the wan morning light was already obscured by dark and ominous clouds. The wind was like a whip, lashing all of us from warmer climes into submission. "Embrace the weather!" our brave Iranian student shouted at me as I hunched under my umbrella through the wandering and interlinked alleys behind each building. Yes, embrace something, that is for sure!

The University of Amsterdam is spread throughout the city, and the academic staff are all educated on the historical aspects of the buildings the University is working to preserve. Our tour began in the old shipping district, on the canal behind our main building. A dynamite factory and adjacent warehouse from the Oost Indie (East India) Shipping Company have been converted into the Social Science library. Next door, the law school takes up an entire block of buildings, with Dutch master paintings, and a screen that rivals an airport terminal telling students where to go.

The Dutch have an excellent way of preserving history. Dates and numbers are left intact in a portion of a building to show its birth, an inception, or an incarnation of sorts. And, when the demands of modern society place a need for the building to be re-invented, the architects are required to work modern futuristic style in with the old brick and mortar. So tucked within the old architecture of an aging city, one will open a door into a room flooded with light, staircases of marble reaching through pillars of glass and steel, beams of oak alongside metal air ducts and wiring cables. It is fantastic and surreal.

In the uppermost region of the old Oost Indie Shipping Warehouse, we climb to our destination. I think I gasped out loud when I saw the ancient beams stretching along the attic walls, little windows nestled in an alpinic roof. The rain lashed the outsides while inside, I was already perusing book shelves, smelling the dust, paper, and glue. A Social Science Paradise located in the Attic of a building! It was like climbing the ladder of your Great Grandfather's home and discovering his boxes of relics in the attics- old pictures, skulls, and bones creeping out of dusty cardboard marked with labels like: Journey to Borneo 1892.

But the whole city is full of these treasures. We head to the Square of Scribes, where inscriptions are inlaid in the cobblestones, and one can purchase books in a bookstore dating back to the 1600's. On the edge of this square, tiny and indiscreet, is a door with a single nob in the center carved with the word: Begijnenhof (The Beguine's Court). "It is considered the quietest place in all of Amsterdam", or so the locals say. Look up: http://hollandhistory.net/history_of_amsterdam/beguines_court_begijnenhof_amsterdam.html

Now, after this serene and tranquil place, imagine the shock my fellow students must have felt when our advisor led us straight from this into the Red Light District. This is, after all, Amsterdam. We are, after all, Medical Anthropology students. And we will, after all, have to do a field trip here for our AIDS unit in January. I actually think that this adventure was mild in comparison to the fact that our group has to get to know each other in a very intimate, and ultimately Dutch, way: with our shared-sex bathroom in our own building: The Spinhuis.

As our advisor drops us back at our meeting point for the morning, soaked, shivering, and ready for tea and coffee, he mentions a brief note. Our own building, housing the Anthropology department of the University of Amsterdam- that rebellious unit of social scientists known throughout Holland for unique and divergent research- is the site of a very old prison. Yes, I am going to school in a prison. I think this is what I used to call it in high school, but now it is true. We are told that the Spinhuis is where the women prisoners (what are they hinting here?) would be relegated to spin thread, while the people would come and watch them, like visiting a movie, or a zoo. Maybe there is some other history here we are supposed to be learning?

I decide there won't be any 'spinning of the wheels' here.

After heading our separate ways for the day, I hop-skip-and-jump my way back over the growing puddles to the Bushuis Library, and immerse myself in the magic of books. I have been waiting a long time for this!! I find my piece of sunlight while a storm rages outside, finding dissertations, books and documents in multiple languages, on subjects hard to track in Salt Lake City, Utah. I mean, there just aren't that many researchers publishing on the Sami over there.

My tourist visa ends the moment I have books in my hand, a Dutch library and InterLibrary Loan card, and am heading back home. A quick detour to the Chinese Market for... tea, and instant noodles. I'll set the waterkoker on and sit down for a long read.

Bliss for me.

Daily bread

I would just like to make a comment about the kitchen. When there is a 'house-rules' sign on the entry door with a picture of a big fat rat on it, one is less than inspired.

Tonight I cooked a single-dish meal in a pan that once resembled a wok, prior to some misuse by the previous tenants. I swung it around from a barely connected handle to the delight of my house mates who have learned the best appliances are the waterkoker (electric tea kettle), and the ancient microwave.

Someone keeps plugging in the toaster in the hopes of it working, and we all gave up on the Italian espresso maker some time ago. Well, I was the only one who had any hope for either of those things to begin with, as I tend to subsist on toast and coffee. After an hour armed with steel wool and a bottle of bleach, though, I had to cecede to the mold imbedded in its sides. I broke down and bought a coffee press the next day.

However, we all drink tea! And this is a safe and easy thing... the waterkoker is very busy!

After about, um, 24 hours here, I did do two things to help the place- wash the entire kitchen down as well as organize it some, and buy a houseplant. That little plant has almost doubled in size over these last days with all the attention it receives- all of us caretakers have just been chomping at the bit for something to whisper into existence. It gets all the love around here.

And all the daily nourishment!

The evolution of an Anthropologist

They warn us, this is how it begins. The first thing to do is: Observe. The second: Listen.

We are 15 people crammed around a table in a stuffy room in the center of town, the Red Light District two blocks one way, a canal out the window, deep clouds in the sky. This is where you will LIVE they say.

We discover our newest kin- from The Netherlands, Germany, Thailand, Indonesia, Canada, India, Ethiopia, Iran, El Salvador, Mexico, United States, Rwanda, Nicaragua, and India, we are a diverse group, and we are instantly... happy. All of us curious, open, relieved to find similar souls- questing for more, questing for branches outside of our own.

We are social scientists, doctors, nurses, dentists, psychologists (1 more!!), NGO professionals, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, film enthusiasts, animal lovers, and more. I realize if all I do is ask questions, sit back and listen, I will learn more in this year than is printed in any curriculum.

On our first excursion, a boat ride on the Amstel, we hover under the deck to avoid the Dutch rain. I dig in to my first lessons in my newest languages to discover: Javanese Indonesian and Amharic.

Though we have three students from Indonesia (one with two pet fish I have heard all about!), there are 4 distinct language patterns, based on a class system, with multiple variables. Jakarta alone (the capital of Java) is divided from West to Central to East, and the language depends on one's status in society as well as where one lives. Ngoko is the lowest language, spoken by children and the poor. Kromo Alous is 'middle low', Kromo Madya is 'middle class', and Kromo Hinggil is reserved for the highest class. The language has been influenced by Hinduism and Sanskrit, but the local spiritual practice is dominantly Islam. (We are mid Ramadan, so I have dinner partners each night as I eat late naturally and during this fast, they must.)

As for Amharic, while related to Arabic, it is its own distinct language, and, I discover, also the only African language with its own distinct alphabet, known as 'sabaletters'. One of 6 Semitic languages in Ethiopia, it derives from South Arabia, and is only 1 out of 85 spoken tongues! My classmate explains that while tribes are everything, religion a choice one can become. (His mother, raised Muslim, converted to Christianity with no problems.)

I want to learn to say 'good morning'. (I figure this is a safe thing, and will put me on the best sides of my housemates throughout the year.) Simple? Ok: lesson number 1:

Amharic

1- Do I want to say it to a man or a woman?

ndemenad'rsh (to a woman)/ndemenad'rk (to a man)

note: This is MY spelling interpretation, as I cannot quite handle the alphabet just yet!

2- Do I want to say it to more than one person?

ndemenad'rashu

3- Or to the elderly?

ndemenad'ru

ok, deep breath! Now for Javanese Indonesian:

A much easier...

salamatpagi!

Except the 'p' sounds like 'd' and the 'g' is a hard g... now, remember that. Not a soft 'g'.

We are going to have a quiz later.

At exactly 7 a.m., that is.

For the Latin contingent has suggested we should all wake together tomorrow to be on time for class. Did I mention almost all of us live on the same floor? And those who don't, will soon be coming for dinner. Or breakfast.

The lessons never end... I think I just might be in heaven.

Salamatmalan!

Welterusten!

Buenas Noches!

Goodnight!

3 a.m.

My hour of wakefulness.

This city hums at night with a restlessness that is the bloodline of the day. Until 5 a.m., no stillness, except in our kitchen, where no one dares to creep in.

I wait for the breathing of the city to begin. So different, these sounds, from the whispering of Utah trees on the Avenues hills. This city has winds that carry currents through cobblestones, whispers are voices over water, and the sounds extend like fingertips tickling a forehead.

I am awake and listening.

Synesthesias

I am downloading, downloading, downloading, and this is just another part of the overwhelm. I am filtering for what is known among all that isn't... the sites, sounds, patterns that fit into recognizable rhythms. English, Dutch, and Spanish are familiar refrains, and welcome- and I am floating effortlessly between them. I translate the Dutch for the Castillaños, and blend my English like a wild new jazz number. It is the Hindi, Farsi, Turkish, Indonesian, and dialects that are hard to bring in... I listen like tuning a radio to stations... French and German sound like songs I am still learning the lyrics to, but these other languages are new rhythms with syntax and notes I have yet to learn. But come, they all will...

They say synesthesias are often reserved for the Autistic, but I have always found comfort in this skill. I reign mine own in to deal with all this:

My student number? A code of blue-blank-green-green-blank-blue. That is the easiest code to follow, the color of numbers.

To use it in words? Let's try 'sisu' (my next Finnish vocabulary, and a favorite candy) is black rimmed with blue, and white all the way through.

The language spoken in our kitchen here daily? They are tinged with smells and flavors, like the spices they are cooked with. Some soft and sweet, a caramel color of language. Others are peppery and tangy to the tongue, full of spice, colored yellow, red, and orange. The word 'kurma' drips off the tongue like honey, a beautiful version of English 'date' in Indonesian.

And to understand this city? It becomes an open fan in my mind, an outstretched pattern of peacock plumes, extending from the body of the center. Some of the plumes are full and rich, vibrant and new. Others tattered and bent, utterly used, and ready to be dropped by this bird of a city, picked up by a passerby and used in some gaudy costume.

And this is how it works- this downloading, this digesting, this letting it all in. The ongoing information station that my body has become, a radio receiver of transmissions, a t.v. antenna of images, all the varying wavelengths and codes to decipher and uncover.

Confused yet? Welcome to my head...

Paper, rock, scissors

Paper

I have been dubbed "Paperina" by my fellow students who have discovered my love (and need!) to process my thoughts wildly on paper and put it up around me.... my students back home know this is 'how I roll', but here, it is a wild concept among all these other practitioners and scientists to be the single psychologist/artist. But, I am used to standing out... I just never quite thought of my artistic background as being so radically different than the scientific one- for me, they are part of the same path.

Once two of my new friends, from India and El Salvador, caught sight of my mandala this morning, my new name was cemented in place. A process I work in sessions with older clients (that just means anyone over 15!), I explained that the freedom one can experience when 'processing' through the space allowed by art can be quite transforming. They quickly announced I would soon be working with the whole group on expressing their emotions and finding themselves in this scientific program we are in... all so far from home, and so foreign! I warned them they would have to keep my identity a secret if they don't show up prepared for class because we spent the evening processing!

In the meantime, I bought this luscious paper to diagram out all my thoughts and ideas, and I have yet to draw a thing!

That is because paperwork, in Holland, is its own process, requiring one's entire faculties. to do anything that would possibly be a 15 minute process means that you need to multiply that time by 5- and add walking, tram riding, locating, and waiting time in as well. Besides the fact that every function of every building is completely different, and located in different areas. AND, if you are missing a SINGLE piece of paper, identity document, or are even 10 cents short of the money it takes to use the loo, you are in for a journey of back/forth-back/forth, that won't make sense until a few hours later when you sit over a cup of coffee and notice how well you handled THAT one! Luckily, I have been in the Dutch system before- we arrived 2 hours early for my appointment, brought 10 extra papers than I needed, and found all three offices before having to walk into the first one to find out: I would just have to return next week. Hmnph.

But it's ok- I'm Dutch. This should be normal for me. Funny how being away 12 years can put confusion into things.

Rock

Then comes the wall- the hard rock of resistance. Hell, how many times do I need to go through reverse culture shock in my life? So strange to be part of two cultures, and yet be part of neither at the same time. It is a bit disorienting to always be learning the rules of 'home', no matter where one is!

When in the United States, I can get by with my accent and looks for people to think I blend in... then I open my mouth and either a foreign language, or a radical idea comes out and then I know- the cat is out of the bag, now! And 'the cat is out of the bag' is an expression I just learned in the last few years- American slang has always been weird to me!!

Here, I open my mouth and they hear my soft accent speaking Dutch. They read my last name and watch the way I handle daily events, current situations, my undefined yet refined style, and assume- I am here from Finland! Of course- why not? A country I have yet to visit, though the roots run apparently strong... strong enough that I am not seen as an American in Holland, but a Finnish person abroad. Well, we'll just have to see what happens when I finally make it there, and I don't speak a word of my familial language.

Culture shock is a strange thing. My overwhelm comes more from the relentless sounds, the bustling of people, the jostling of bikes, foot traffic, and people not liking it when you stop to pet someone's dog because it holds up the entire street. Cars, buses, brommers (small, noisy motorbikes), fietsers (bikers), and voetgangers (walkers), clamor for space, fighting over even the right to pass down a street lane. Everyone is calm, but pushy like you wouldn't believe. People step in front of cars, bikes take detours around the people ringing their bells like crazy, cars take detours onto tram tracks, busses stop mid-road or run into the middle of it, and trams are the only thing that controls the jostle- because they are the biggest, and if they hit you, you just might be dead. Meanwhile the bike is king. Don't get in front of the bikes, they wil hit you to make a point. And then, you won't be dead, you'll be bruised. And confused.

I have to get the pulse that is Amsterdam. It is a frantic blend of colors, languages, styles, and movement. The Hague, where I lived 8 years, was peace embodied. This is a whole new world, and though I speak the language, I don't speak the language. Not YET.

Scissors

I remember why I used to have a love affair with chopping my hair off now... it is impossible to control one's coif when the weather cycles through ongoing waves of wind and water. My hair has become a mane of unruliness that adds to the overall chaos of the day. I remember why I shaved it now- twice! It is the one thing I can control in the battle of the elements.

But the rock has won the round of Paper/Rock/Scissors for my day. Sleep is a great escape from the wildness of acclimatization. I embrace my bed like a rock hit me on the head... no need for dinner or conversation in our crazy kitchen. Ilo and I head for a pillow and the music of traffic out my window.

Tomorrow is the start of my program.. I need peace and rest to set in.