Learning the ins and outs of a culture is like walking in the swamp. Seems solid enough until you step in the mud, or sink to your knees in quicksand. At my age, I am actually pretty flexible, inside my head, not one to get hung up on the right or wrong way to do something. However, I do find my self walking in that swamp here in Belgium when I thought I was strolling in a pleasant forest instead.
I love the house we are leasing here. I had to get used to having a staircase between my bed and the toilet, but I have adapted and gotten stronger even though I occasionally bounce between walls on the way down in the middle of the night. I like the attic on the third floor with it's windows and extra space, just like attics I've read about all my life, but never experienced. It could easily become an overflow bedroom for short people. I haven't quite gotten used to the dungeon/wine cellar/spare-space-I-think-is-home-to-spiders-and-mold. But a house with four levels is fun. I got my feet wet in the swamp when I couldn't find the two faucets for the washing machine, though. I asked the landlady how I was supposed to make a washing machine work with just a cold water faucet. She looked at me rather askance and said, "Why would you need a hot water pipe?"
Many things raced through my mind, but what came out was, "To get hot water in the machine...?"
"But that's why there's a heater inside the washer."
"What a brilliant idea! But American washing machine don't have that."
And she just shook her head.
Sure enough, there's a setting on the machines for what temperature you want - in Celsius. It's more exact than "cold, warm, hot", like 30, 40, 50 or 60 degrees, and how many RPM's of spin, from 400 to 1600. And a delayed start for from 1 to 24 hours. But if you can't read French or Dutch, it can be painfully slow to translate the instruction manual because these models don't exist in the UK or Australia so there isn't an English version online. Even though Siemans is the brand. There are at least 7 settings I haven't translated yet, but I'm working on it. And the manual for the stove-top, microwave and oven are also only partly translated, so only partly used.
I sank up to my knees in the cultural swamp at the bus stop last week. There was no one there when I sat on the bench, so out came my cell phone and the book I had loaded. I was peripherally aware of others arriving, then a gentleman sat next to me and started poking his finger in the air in front of me, so I looked at him, and he started talking in French and pointed at my cell phone, so I showed it to him, saying one of my standard French phrases , 'Je ne parle pas francais.' So he mimed reading a book and turning pages, then tapping a finger, like one does on an ebook. For the next half hour (as two buses in a row failed to come), he used gestures and spoke in French, and entertained me and himself trying to converse. There was a lot of patting my shoulder, and poking my arm. When the bus finally arrived, he helped my get my cart on board, then made someone move so he could get it out of the aisle and sit next to me. When we got the the exchange stop, he made sure I knew which bus was my transfer, then kissed me on the cheek when his bus came. Now, I have seen office workers do the cheek kiss as they pass one another in the hall, and people chatting in the store whether male or female do the kiss cheek thing, but it was my first experience with a pretty total stranger leaning in for the kiss! Flat-footed, I stood there in the rain and thought "Flirting, or casual?", "Normal or unusual?" and mostly, "Did I just kiss a stranger?" So, am I being rude to not kiss someone's cheek in this country? Is there a manual I can try to translate like there is for the washing machine? And will I only get part of it translated?
Google Translate is not helping with this one, and I haven't asked the landlady yet, lest she just shake her head again.
woensdag 16 mei 2018
maandag 30 april 2018
Keukenhof
Keukenhof
As amazing as the tulips were, I fear my memories of Keukenhof will always be colored by the cup of coffee. Not the getting of the coffee, but the not getting.
Two lines. I pick the short one. While standing there, Max and I become aware of a commotion behind us. A man with a Keukenhof badge walks over and around us. It sounds like someone throwing a tantrum, so at first we ignore it, but it seemed to be getting out of control. I glanced behind and to the left. A young woman is screaming while holding an elderly man's face, and now we hear the scream resolve into "Doktor!, doktor!" Someone tries to take her hands away, and the man's head flops to his shoulder, and I see in his staring eyes and white skin no life at all. Someone must have said something to the young lady, or she gave up and understood, for she uttered a gut-wrenching wail and threw herself backwards onto the pavement. The sound of her head cracking against the ground and the anguish of her grief are not easily put aside. It wasn't a movie, or a staging, but raw, unfettered life and death. Thirty seconds of my life, an eternity of his.
I looked at Max, and said, "They don't need us in the way. Let's get out of here," grabbed his hand and nearly ran off. Though Max's camera is one of the main reasons we are here, we both know no one needs to have that kind of private/public moment videoed or recorded or stared at.
I was shaken, and so was Max. I can't imagine anyone not being pretty shook up. It was several minutes of walking to distance ourselves before either of us could speak. Max finally said "That was a PTSD moment for me." Me, too. This woman's reaction reminded me so much of Missie's falling apart when Crystal died. There's a difference between the scream of fear and the scream of grief. If you've never heard the two, you might not know. I've heard it, and can't forget.
Then we sat as soon as we found an empty bench. Thousands of people are doing just as we were mere minutes ago, oohing and aahing over the beautiful display of thousands and thousands of tulips. So incongruous in conjunction with recent death. So oblivious to s scene only around the corner, down the path, out of sight.
The human brain wants to put order into experiences, label them and sort them, and store them in the right place for retrieval as memories. This one is difficult. Was it a grief reaction for a beloved grandfather? Had he wanted to come to this place, today? Was he overwhelmed by beauty.\? Did he know his time was short and wanted to be with family rather than have a life prolonged artificially? Had the granddaughter convinced him it would do him good to get out, and felt guilty for not realizing he was dying any sooner? Was it a stroke, a heart attack, a peaceful slipping away whilst waiting for a coffee order? I am now morbidly curious. I have thought on occasion that I was morbidly curious about something, but this is the first time that is the only appropriate term to use.
If I had to choose a place to die, that would be a great place. Except for the family, the park employees, the coffee pourers, the tourists around me, it would be a wonderful place to slip out of life. They might not think it so perfect. Am I really so much of an exhibitionist that I would want to die in a crowd so they could see how quickly one becomes cold and lifeless? Definitely morbid thoughts.
Someone found Michael's dead body. Marianne's whole family watched Sarah Jane slip away. Ben found Kevin unresponsive. Mom had Dad die in her arms. All Crystal's sisters were there to say good-bye to her. Delta was with both her mom and her daughter at their passings. So I know what it's like on the inside of family grief. This was my first, and hopefully only, watching the death of a stranger. My wonderful daughter, Beth, has made a profession of being there to help the living, and sometimes, the dead. Missie is also making nursing her profession soon. I can handle sick people, and at one time had the belief that I knew what after death would look like, and that I could work in hospice care. I don't hold that belief any longer. I can't do that voluntarily. Accidentally, maybe. On purpose? No.
One can't blame a place for a traumatic memory, not really. Keukenhof is truly magical and I got a lifetime of tulip sightings while there. If you have the chance, you really should go. It is an astronomically small chance that someone will die in the coffee line next to you. Really infinitesimally small chance.
As amazing as the tulips were, I fear my memories of Keukenhof will always be colored by the cup of coffee. Not the getting of the coffee, but the not getting.
Two lines. I pick the short one. While standing there, Max and I become aware of a commotion behind us. A man with a Keukenhof badge walks over and around us. It sounds like someone throwing a tantrum, so at first we ignore it, but it seemed to be getting out of control. I glanced behind and to the left. A young woman is screaming while holding an elderly man's face, and now we hear the scream resolve into "Doktor!, doktor!" Someone tries to take her hands away, and the man's head flops to his shoulder, and I see in his staring eyes and white skin no life at all. Someone must have said something to the young lady, or she gave up and understood, for she uttered a gut-wrenching wail and threw herself backwards onto the pavement. The sound of her head cracking against the ground and the anguish of her grief are not easily put aside. It wasn't a movie, or a staging, but raw, unfettered life and death. Thirty seconds of my life, an eternity of his.
I looked at Max, and said, "They don't need us in the way. Let's get out of here," grabbed his hand and nearly ran off. Though Max's camera is one of the main reasons we are here, we both know no one needs to have that kind of private/public moment videoed or recorded or stared at.
I was shaken, and so was Max. I can't imagine anyone not being pretty shook up. It was several minutes of walking to distance ourselves before either of us could speak. Max finally said "That was a PTSD moment for me." Me, too. This woman's reaction reminded me so much of Missie's falling apart when Crystal died. There's a difference between the scream of fear and the scream of grief. If you've never heard the two, you might not know. I've heard it, and can't forget.
Then we sat as soon as we found an empty bench. Thousands of people are doing just as we were mere minutes ago, oohing and aahing over the beautiful display of thousands and thousands of tulips. So incongruous in conjunction with recent death. So oblivious to s scene only around the corner, down the path, out of sight.
The human brain wants to put order into experiences, label them and sort them, and store them in the right place for retrieval as memories. This one is difficult. Was it a grief reaction for a beloved grandfather? Had he wanted to come to this place, today? Was he overwhelmed by beauty.\? Did he know his time was short and wanted to be with family rather than have a life prolonged artificially? Had the granddaughter convinced him it would do him good to get out, and felt guilty for not realizing he was dying any sooner? Was it a stroke, a heart attack, a peaceful slipping away whilst waiting for a coffee order? I am now morbidly curious. I have thought on occasion that I was morbidly curious about something, but this is the first time that is the only appropriate term to use.
If I had to choose a place to die, that would be a great place. Except for the family, the park employees, the coffee pourers, the tourists around me, it would be a wonderful place to slip out of life. They might not think it so perfect. Am I really so much of an exhibitionist that I would want to die in a crowd so they could see how quickly one becomes cold and lifeless? Definitely morbid thoughts.
Someone found Michael's dead body. Marianne's whole family watched Sarah Jane slip away. Ben found Kevin unresponsive. Mom had Dad die in her arms. All Crystal's sisters were there to say good-bye to her. Delta was with both her mom and her daughter at their passings. So I know what it's like on the inside of family grief. This was my first, and hopefully only, watching the death of a stranger. My wonderful daughter, Beth, has made a profession of being there to help the living, and sometimes, the dead. Missie is also making nursing her profession soon. I can handle sick people, and at one time had the belief that I knew what after death would look like, and that I could work in hospice care. I don't hold that belief any longer. I can't do that voluntarily. Accidentally, maybe. On purpose? No.
One can't blame a place for a traumatic memory, not really. Keukenhof is truly magical and I got a lifetime of tulip sightings while there. If you have the chance, you really should go. It is an astronomically small chance that someone will die in the coffee line next to you. Really infinitesimally small chance.
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