Portrait of the artist as a middle-aged expat

I’ve got a little more than a year left in Belgium, and I’m constantly looking back on my time here and looking forward to what might lie ahead.

I’ve written about my day-to-day life and our travel and experiences in Europe, but sometimes I think what will stand out in my mind when I revisit my expat years is the way I nurtured my creativity. Being plucked from my busy, busy, busy American life and dropped into a new country without a job, a friend, or a single item on my calendar was unnerving and yet liberating.

I often felt lost in every sense of the word during my first year here, but the up side of all that down time is that it removed every excuse I ever had for not expressing my creativity, for not stretching my skills, for not giving myself permission to try and possibly fail at something new.

When I started my blog, I did so with the idea that going public with my personal writing would force me to spend some time at the keyboard every day, to take an idea and fully explore it, to take rough writing and finish it, and to soldier on with my work whether I felt inspired or bored. In that respect, this blog has been a success. It may not be widely read or well known. but it’s fully my work and my online portfolio. I've written about 500 pages. The process of posting four to five times a week has taken my writing to a new level. I don’t think it’s ever been better, and I look forward to taking what I’ve learned back into the work place next year.

While honing my writing skills was my intention when I started this blog, I gained so much more than I ever expected; I’ve made friends, developed relationships, and learned from others’ experiences. It’s been the ultimate reality show with the most amazing cast of characters.

While here, I’ve also taken baby steps into the world of art and paper crafts and thoroughly enjoyed learning to stamp, watercolor, and make cards and scrapbook pages. With one year left of my “sabbatical from American life,” I’m more determined than ever to advance those fledgling skills and take some chances. I want to take a class in book making and one on painting techniques. I may even sign on for a class in making mosaics.

Suddenly time seems short. I both look forward to and fear going back to the U.S., wondering what shape my life will take when I’m once again planted in the land of the fast and the stressed. I try to focus on the positive, on the opportunities that await us, but part of me is also braced for what will seem like an assault on our low key European life style. In theory, we are going “home,” but home doesn’t exist anymore as a familiar, comforting place. Who knows what life will really be like--where we’ll live, how we’ll balance work and family time, and if we’ll be able to travel?

All I know is that I have one year left—and places to visit and things to do before I’m back in the rat race. Tomorrow this non-artist is going to boldly register for those art classes. It’s something I’d never find time for in the U.S., which is exactly why I need to do it now.  May 20, 2007

What will my kids remember about Europe?

Like most Americans, I’m a bit mad for photography, and I have lots of photos, both digital and print. When my parents died years ago, they left behind a hopeless jumble of snapshots that raised more questions than answers. This is why I’ve been committed to keeping my own photos organized.

All the prints are dutifully entered into family albums with names, dates, and places noted. I also have duplicates made of my favorite shots, and I use them to create albums for the children so that both my son and my daughter will have a visual record of their lives to take with them when they leave home.

Unfortunately, I’d fallen way behind in updating the kids’ albums, and so with the return of drizzly, windy weather, it seemed the perfect time to catch up. My dining room table is covered with envelopes of photos that I’m sorting and adding to my children’s albums, along with brief descriptions.

My daughter has loved looking at photographs all her life, and she’s been frequently checking in on my progress these last few days, lingering over the pictures and asking questions. What’s astonished me during this process is how much she and her brother have forgotten about their life in the U.S.

My son was unable to recall the names of some of the boys in his Cub Scout troop, boys he’d known for years and seen every week and camped with. My daughter asked me what color our house had been in the U.S. Both kids had difficulty recalling the names of their teachers.

My jaw dropped. We’ve only been here two years. My kids were 6 and 8 years old when we arrived; they weren’t babies. I’m a bit freaked out that so much is sliding out of their memory, that the past is retreating so quickly for them.

When we were preparing to move to Belgium, people often commented on what an amazing experience it would be for the kids. They were the perfect ages for this type of adventure! They would have an opportunity to travel and see things that most Americans never see! What a tremendous advantage this would be for them!

Now I realize that while we’ve dutifully taken them to see the most famous sites in London, Rome, Paris and Brussels and visited countless other points of interest in Belgium, Germany, England, and the Netherlands, chances are they won’t remember much of what they’ve seen.

A child’s experience of the world is so different. An adult sees a Michelangelo and brings so much knowledge and emotion to bear on that experience. A kid sees a Michelangelo and thinks, “Cool. I can’t believe that’s made of stone,” and then wonders aloud when we can stop for gelato and whether they get an extra scoop this time.

Let’s face it: years later the kid will remember the gelato and forget the sculpture by What’s-His-Face.

I have no doubt that when my children recall their time in Belgium, what will stand out in their memory is the local friterie and bakery, the fact that they thought our yard was too small, the way it rained a lot, and how great the playgrounds were. They will also never forget nor forgive the lack of snow. This will be the major regret of their expat years—they didn’t have snow days off from school. They didn’t go sledding!

Still, I know the expat experience and all the travel hasn’t been wasted on them. What they don’t consciously remember still shapes their perspective and their outlook on the world and will affect them all their lives.

Now they know:

• that America isn’t the center of the universe,
• that people from many cultures can co-exist more or less peacefully,
• that there’s not one right way to do things but many different ways to accomplish a task, and
• that we’re all products of our cultures and must be aware of how that influences how we think about life and politics and right and wrong.

My kids have had the experience of being the foreigner, the stranger, the outsider , and so they’ve come to appreciate the value of being welcomed, tolerated, and accommodated. I hope this will forever color the way they interact with the variety of people they’ll meet in life.

And maybe, just maybe, the photos I neatly arrange and label on these rainy afternoons will help them recover the best memories and lessons of expat life long after we return to America.

May 17, 2007

©2007 V-Grrrl and Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

Karma is a bitch

So, two days after posting about the madness of Belgian drivers we were involved in a car accident that was, um, entirely our fault. I suppose we had it coming. Altogether now: bad Americans! Bad, bad, bad Americans!

E was driving and we were approaching an intersection with a major thoroughfare, and we needed to turn right onto it. There was a Yield sign at the intersection, and E was busy looking to the left to confirm the way was indeed clear so he could turn right. When he glanced back to his lane, he saw the car in front of him had come to a stop. He hit the brakes hard and our new Volvo smacked right into the back of a young woman's Citroen.

She was attractive in a low key way and very calm. She didn't go ballistic or cry, and thank God, she spoke English. She and E quietly inspected the damage on their respective cars, filled out paperwork, exchanged IDs and insurance info, and waited for the police to arrive. It took a while for them to show up, but they were nice guys who cheerfully administered breathalizers to E and the young woman. They told E there are a lot of accidents at that intersection because people often come to a full stop even when there aren't cars on the road simply because they have to be sure there aren't bikes on the bike path.

Neither car was heavily damaged, but we all have the stiff necks and mild headaches that come with whiplash.

After the accident, we went to the movies and saw the completely ridiculous Mr. Bean goes on Holiday. E-Grrrl loved it. It's a very silly, slapstick sort of comedy. The perfect post-accident entertainment. Pass the sugar popcorn, please.

So the weekend comes to a close and Monday looms with calls to our insurer and the chiropractor, and the kids telling all their friends at school about Dad's Accident. Of course, I'm much more discreet. I'm not telling ANYONE.  

May 13, 2007

So you think Belgium is dull? Clearly you haven't been driving

It’s spring in Belgium. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the flowers blooming, the fields and forests are green with new growth. It’s a time to embrace optimism and a positive attitude—unless of course you want to leave your neighborhood, in which case it’s a time to buckle up, grit your teeth, and abandon all hope of arriving at your destination on time.

Yes, spring in Belgium means road construction projects, and no matter what direction you head, you’re bound to encounter orange cones, heavy equipment, and piles of paving stone, dirt, bricks, cable, and pipe.

Omleiding. Deviation. Wegomlegging. Detour. In any language, it means the same thing: trouble. While E and I have recently been blindsided by closed roads, unexpected dead ends, lengthy backups, and orange arrows that point nowhere, the truth is that we’re not really surprised when we can’t get where we’re going.

Whether I’m behind the wheel or in the passenger seat, driving in and around Brussels is always a challenge. A native once described the local traffic as “a bit more dynamic than what you see in the United States.”

I smiled and bit my tongue, not wanting to offend her by telling her I thought there should be an international team of researchers investigating why the otherwise quiet, mild-mannered, and reserved Belgian people morph into assertive daredevils behind the wheel of a car. Perhaps if you live here long enough, you develop calc deposits in a part of the brain responsible for caution. It’s all clouded in mystery.

Anyone who’s lived here for any period of time knows that Belgians aren’t renowned for their interest in speed or efficiency when it comes to customer service or bureaucracy, but put a Belgian in the driver’s seat and all that he or she is concerned with is the shortest distance and fastest route between two points. If this involves driving on sidewalks, passing on curves, speeding through residential areas, running through red lights, creating new lanes, or just cutting in front of other drivers and jockeying for position, so be it. C’est la vie. All’s fair in war and driving.

At first, I attributed the aggressive driving habits to the road conditions here. After all, navigating narrow bumpy streets clogged with parked cars, pedestrians, and cyclists is an exercise in frustration. Yet the longer I’ve lived here, the more I’ve begun to think Belgians secretly like all the obstacles thrown in their path.

Driving here isn’t about ease, it’s about SPORT. It’s all part of a national commitment to make some aspect of life in Belgium exciting. Deep in the heart of the city is place where government officials gather to create driving regulations and practices as twisted as a downtown alley.

Why else would people choose to park on the street instead of in their driveways and thus reduce two-way traffic to one lane? It’s part of a plot to create drama and near head-on collisions in their neighborhood.

Likewise, the thrill-seekers in charge make other nefarious rules to increase adrenaline levels in the otherwise calm populace:

Let’s not mark the roads and see what happens!

Let’s have an ever-changing rule of priority and indicate it by at least three different sorts of signs so we can see who’s really paying attention!

Let’s print street signs in two languages and place them where they can’t be seen until it’s too late to safely turn!

Let’s see who’s bold enough to steal the right of way at this intersection!

Yes, the popular way to prove your mettle here is to barrel around blind curves, tailgate, invent your own passing maneuvers, and speed like a German on the autobahn.

Driving is the unofficial national sport and the Belgians want to see who triumphs in the end: you, the other driver, or the Grim Reaper.

This is the automotive version of a ménage a trois—and it makes me want to curl up in bed and stay at home.

May 11, 2007

©2007 V-Grrrl and Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

Is this Belgium? Feels like San Diego

Most of the time when I write about the weather in Belgium, you read about endless gray skies, the howling wind, horizontal rain, and damp chill. Normally, a sunny day is treated like a precious jewel, an irregularity in the meteorological order.

For the last month we’ve had day after day after day of near perfect weather. Sunshine streams through the bedroom windows in the morning and the living room windows in the evening. Calm winds and mild temperatures are perfect for exploring the city, wandering in the woods, or lingering on the terrace. At night, the temps drop and pleasantly cool the house off so that the flannel sheets and light fleece blankets still feel cozy. Each morning I open up all the windows and air the house out.

Only in Belgium would a stint of perfect weather be a record-breaking anomaly. According to Expatica.com, the average temperature in April was well above normal: 14.3 C compared to 9 C (58 F compared to 48 F). The average temperature broke a record that was more than 20 years old.

The average high temperature was 20.5 C (68 F), breaking the previous record of 17.4 C (63 F) from 1946.

And all those hours of spirit-lifting sunshine are the most recorded in Belgium ever, the previous record having been set in 1893.

But perhaps the most shocking thing of all is that in April, we had no measurable precipitation. That’s right, there was no rain in April in Belgium, a country distinguished by its endless drizzle and frequent showers.

Y’all say your prayers and make up with those you've wronged. I think the world is going to end soon.

May 5, 2007

Blogger thinks I need to speak like a Belgian

Yesterday, Di over in Antwerp wrote a post in Blogger and as she typed the headline in English, foreign characters appeared instead. She's not sure, but she may have posted a headline in Arabic. We hope for her sake that she only said kind, peace-loving things and did not insult anyone. Ahem.

Her dilemma over her mysterious headline made me laugh because a little over a week ago I was over at her site, and when I went to post a comment, the page that appeared with the comment box had all its prompts written in Dutch. I thought she'd re-set her language parameters on purpose since she's a fully-integrated, card-carrying, Belgian-marrying, Dutch-studying Grrrl. The problem was that when I navigated away from her page, ALL the Blogger pages I visited for days afterwards addressed me in Dutch on the comment page.

Clearly Blogger had decided that my posting in English was an insult and that my French was pathetic. The Blogger gods decreed that since I live in Flanders, I MUST speak Flemish. No more excuses!

Y'all, there's a reason I've never learned to speak Flemish (a variation of Dutch), and I'll share it with you. It's not 'cause I'm lazy; I studied Spanish in high school and French in college. Dutch is just different.

The first time I looked at my Spanish and French textbooks, it all seemed vaguely familiar. Some of the words looked just like their English counterparts, the arrangement of vowels and consonants was all cozy and "normal" to the English eye, and the word lengths seemed just right. When you look at Spanish or French you think, "I can learn this language!"

Not so with Dutch. Y'all, Dutch is NOT normal. These folks have a THING for double vowels! All those "aa" and "ii" spellings just hurt my brain. Plus, who knew "g" was such an important letter? In Dutch, if you don't have a double vowel to confuse the English speakers, you can throw in some random "g's" for effect. And if a word doesn't have at least 10 letters, you can always add a "k" or two and fill it out. 

Case in point: Want to know how many people have visited your Blogger profile? Just check your "Gebruikersstatistieken."  Got that? Those are your stats, people!

See what I mean? Dutch is an intimidating language. When I look at Dutch words and try to process them, the image that comes to mind is someone trying to talk while choking on a piece of steak and throwing up in their mouth a little bit.

Don't believe me? Check this out:

"Nog geen opmerkingen oorspronkeliik bericht weergeven."

Do you "hear" the guttural word burp in those words? Doesn't it sound like your mouth is full and you're going to hurl?

Don't be nervous, despite the scary double vowels, that's just Blogger asking me if I want to see the original post while composing a comment.

No thanks, Blogger, I 'll just write my comment and move on to the word verification.

"Geef de tekens op die in de bovenstaande afbeelding worden weergegeven."

Didn't get that? Well hey, Silly, I have to type the characters just as they appear in the box. 

At this point I'm getting uncomfortable. Things are starting to get a little personal.

Now it's one thing for Blogger to ask for my Naam, but when they beg for "Uw webpagina," I just want to slap the monitor. I am NOT revealing my "webpagina" to strangers, Mmmm'kay? Back off!

After sending my comment, I get this: "Uw reactie is opgeslagen en wordt weergegeven wanneer de eigenaar vad de blog toestemming heeft gegeven."

This means someone is holding my "reactie" until it's approved. Hmmm!

I'm sure they want to check out my "webpagina" first before giving me a forum on their site.

Perverts!

Feel free to leave a comment here. I promise not to demand to see your "webpaginas." 

May 3, 2007

Celebrating May Day in Belgium

Tuesday was Labor Day here in Belgium but in the U.S., it’s a lesser known holiday called May Day, one that traditionally celebrates the arrival of spring and the beauty of flowers.

So while E had the day off from his labors, we decided to celebrate May Day by touring the Royal Greenhouses in Laeken. We arrived early under spotless blue skies and snagged a coveted parking place in the lot across from the entrance to the Royal Palace grounds. A queue had already formed, and we joined it as buses pulled up and sent throngs of tourists into our midst.

Being over 40, there aren’t many times in my life when I get to feel young. Garden tours are one of them. There’s nothing like being surrounded by the silver-haired, liver-spotted, orthopedic-shoe wearing masses to make me feel spry. Yes, there were some younger couples there with children but for the most part the greenhouse tourists were comprised of folks collecting retirement checks. (Don’t remind me that that will be me before I know it. Let me imagine a huge chasm separates me from the cane-carrying crowd.)

E has always been a gardener, even when he was a buff 23-year-old bachelor working his first full-time job. The sun-bleached blonde hair and deep tan might have led you to believe he hung out on the beach paddling a surfboard, but in reality he got that look weeding and hoeing in his garden. Before we were married, I was afraid he'd be lured off by some Grrrl with great bulbs, but instead he married me, the non-gardener. It's true, love is blind. My friend Mark used to say it was also deaf, dumb, and stupid, but I digress. Back to the king's green houses...

Having visited vast and showy gardens like Keukenhof in Holland, we were expecting something along the lines of wall to wall flowers. However, the beauty of the Royal Greenhouses lies as much in the architecture as anything else—the graceful curves of the metal work, the vaulted passageways, the dramatic dome in the main building, the unexpected vistas along the way.

Stepping into the orangery and smelling the impossibly sweet fragrance of orange blossoms, one is transported into a lush, tropical world. The myriad specimens and varieties of plants that follow on the tour aren’t identified with placards but are undeniably exotic.

Yes, the glass tunnels with six-foot tall geraniums climbing the walls and fuchsia blossoms dripping from the ceiling were magical and colorful, but often what impressed me as I walked through the displays was the variety of foliage, and the multitude of shapes and textures in the plants.

Some leaves were puckered like seersucker, others were curly, and some were crinkled like a receipt jammed into a pants pocket. A ground covering of short-stemmed plants was like a lime-colored frisé carpet and begged to be touched. The woody stem of a tropical tree was alarmingly hairy at its base, not unlike an orangutan’s back. It contrasted with the cool, smooth bark of another tree. There were plant leaves so enormous they could be umbrellas except that they sported natural drainage holes along their central stem. Pointed, rounded, scalloped, lacy, and ruffled—the foliage was like elaborate fashion trimmings draped by a skilled designer.

We shuffled along with the other visitors, pointing our camera this way and that until the batteries died. Of course shortly after that happened, we passed through corridors and rooms with unexpected views and lovely classical statuary. One statue of a naked cavalier wearing nothing but a feathered hat and holding a riding crop made me nudge E and knowingly arch my eyebrow.

He pretended not to notice. I suppose his mind was on the flowers. Mine was elsewhere—I  really wish I could have shown y'all that naughty cavalier.

May 1, 2007

© 2007 Veronica McCabe Deschambault and V-Grrrl in the Middle. All rights reserved.

Tapestry buying trip to Gent, Belgium

Today I joined a group of American women on a day trip to Gent. It's  a lovely historic city at the confluence of two rivers. It has a long history in shipping, and in the 13th century was one of Europe's major cities with a population of about 65,000. It's not a major tourist attraction in Belgium, being upstaged by Brugges, and yet it offers everything from medieval castles to classic Flemish, Roman, Gothic, and Baroque architecture. It has markets and squares, belfries and churches, watchtowers and guild houses, and lots and lots of unique and interesting shops.

One of the American women has cultivated a relationship with the owner of a tapestry shop.  Belgium is renowned for its tapestries, a reputation it developed during the middle ages. Belgian tapestries hung in castles, palaces, and chateaus across Europe and were commissioned by popes for the Vatican. Today the tapestries are no longer handwoven but are still made in Belgium. The shop in Gent featured tradtional and more modern designs on wall hangings, pillows, handbags, runners and and luggage. The owner of the shop offered our group a special discount and also arranged for a tour guide to acquaint us with the town's historic landmarks.

I'm not particularly into tapestry, but I was eager to get together with some women friends. E has been interested in acquiring a tapestry as a souvenir of Belgium and so I shook him down for euros and combed through the shop. Most of the wall tapestries feature classical images--medieval scenes, castles, ladies in gardens, flowers, maps, etc. While many of them were nice, they just weren't me. I couldn't imagine where I would hang them. I didn't want to have yet another piece of wall art languishing in a box somewhere. I am always buying art, and I don't have many places to hang wall art in our Belgian home.

I was, however, interested in the table runners. I have a few antique pieces that have cheap crocheted lace dresser scarves covering the imperfections on their tops. Over time, the lace has become stretched out and droopy and I've  been plotting to replace it but didn't know what to replace it with. Buying tapestry table runners for these chests and dressers seemed a perfect solution and a practical way to satisfy E's yen to bring a bit of Belgian tapestry into our home. 

There were loads and loads of throw pillows with all sorts of scenes, images, and patterns, ranging from the traditional, to reproductions of famous paintings, to whimsical themes. As much as I liked some of them, I kept resisting because no matter how attractive I might find decorative pillows, I hate having to find a place for them every time I want to sprawl on the sofa or clear off the bed at night.

Still there was one pillow in the shop calling my name.

Yeah, I know it's cutesy and sentimental, but I have three good reasons for buying it.

Reason number one is Petey.

Reason number two is Amy.

And this is just one of six bookcases in the house--reason number three.

Now you know why the pillow belongs in my home (notice, it also matches the sofa!).

April 27, 2007

Sunday evening in an enchanted forest

We were all a little tired after a weekend of travel, camping, upset stomachs, and church meetings. It would have been easy to collapse on Sunday night, but we didn't. Instead we headed to the Bois de Halle outside of Brussels to see the fabled bluebells in the forest. Magic. The only thing more wonderful than the sight of these violet colored flowers was their scent permeating the woods.

More images of the bluebells are in my online Photo Album.

April 22, 2007

Wondering about the weather....

We’ve had beautiful sunny weather since before Easter, and each day it gets warmer. Early on, temps were in the upper 50s but now at the end of spring break they’ve climbed into the 80s.

I’ve loved the sunshine flooding into the house, the chance to see the stars in the night sky, eating meals out on the terrace, observing the way the leaves have unfurled and gilded the trees, the proliferation of flowers coloring the landscape, the sight of people biking, walking, and running.

But I don’t like the heat.

Normal temperatures in Belgium this time of year top out in the 50s or low 60s. Seeing 83 degrees for a string of days in April gives me pause. Last summer we suffered from a record heat wave from late June until the end of July. I became increasingly listless and miserable. Keep in mind that homes and businesses aren’t air conditioned in most of Europe, that when it gets hot there is no where to go to cool down. All those charming brick and stone houses with tile roofs turn into solar hot boxes. After a few days, I begin to feel as flat as a pizza in a brick oven. There’s just no relief.

Plus, with global warming and climate change constantly in the news, there’s a sinister undertone to every freakish weather occurrence. I felt unsettled when Nance, who lives in northern Ohio, said she’d had a green Christmas and a white Easter. When Belgium, which normally sees average highs of 70 degrees in the summer, has weather in the 80s and 90s for weeks on end, it’s worrisome. My brother in New York was buried by record-breaking snowfall last winter, my sister in Maine had floods, and all the violent thunderstorms whipping through Virginia have cost us thousands of dollars in tree service costs.

So when a friend tells me the bright warm weather is supposed to continue all this week, my smile is a little wan, my happiness tempered by thoughts of ozone inversions, melting glaciers, droughts, and fears of the unknown spanning both the short-term and long-term. Really, I’m trying to appreciate the sun, but I think I’m ready for Belgium’s trademark gray skies and rain to let me know all is right in the world after all.

April 15, 2007