Let's talk about love

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An uncle holds his niece's hand in surgery.

A grandfather becomes Santa for the needy.

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

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

an anchor

a stability

A shoot pushes up out of the earth

and opens its face to the sun.

It blooms without sorrow

for the frozen roots are now done.

A tree buds its leaves and reaches

towards runners

who scoot past birds

not hearing their songs.

Those papers

that state a birth, a marriage

a divorce, a diagnosis,

a business, a degree,

a bank balance, a contract

do not matter

in the face of this love

*ever grateful*

1st assignment

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

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

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

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

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

Sigh.

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

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

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

- Libbet Crandon-Malamud 1991

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

Cold

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

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

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

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

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

puzzling people

People are like Sudoku.

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

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

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

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

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

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

been distracted lately...

So here's the thing...

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

like

Very Important Papers

or

Sudoku

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

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.