Let's talk about love

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An uncle holds his niece's hand in surgery.

A grandfather becomes Santa for the needy.

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

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

an anchor

a stability

A shoot pushes up out of the earth

and opens its face to the sun.

It blooms without sorrow

for the frozen roots are now done.

A tree buds its leaves and reaches

towards runners

who scoot past birds

not hearing their songs.

Those papers

that state a birth, a marriage

a divorce, a diagnosis,

a business, a degree,

a bank balance, a contract

do not matter

in the face of this love

*ever grateful*

1st assignment

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

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

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

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

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

Sigh.

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

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

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

- Libbet Crandon-Malamud 1991

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

Cold

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

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

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

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

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