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.