To My Watcher

I've wanted to write to Sjors but I find myself writing to you instead. You: the watcher. The monitor of all my words. What do you think of this situation? I sometimes wonder what its like to be you: looking in on someone else's life. Do you have any opinions about this? Do you feel like a voyeur? Do you feel the irony of responding to my accusations of privacy violation by  violating my privacy further?

I confess there is something interesting about voyeurism.  Actually, there are few places better suited for this than your country. When I first visited the Netherlands, it was Christmastime. I was in Haarlem visiting Hans and I remember enjoying all of the lighted windows with orchids on the sills: nobody closed the curtains. People would be talking or eating or watching TV and I would look in on them as I walked by. Sometimes I think it makes us feel like part of humanity to watch, unobserved, the little things that make other people human: preparing food or patting the dog or playing with the kids.

But my relationship with Sjors is so intensely private and it matters so much to me. Surely you have some sense of this. You must know how deeply I care for him. Do you also have a sense of how the actions of your organization have profoundly affected my life? Sjors made a choice to return to his cage and shut the door behind him. This is a decision that haunts and pains me and separates me forever from him.

Does the ethic of national martialism outweigh the ethics of love? Do you believe it does? He is lost to me in every way that matters. And he matters more to me than he will ever matter to your people. Do you feel like this about someone in your life?

I do not hate you. You are only doing your job. But consider that I am not an abstraction. When your organization chose to treat me as an abstraction and a liability, they took something fundamental of my person-hood from me. When they pressured and coerced Sjors to give me up and re-frame his paradigm to exclude me, they took something fundamental from his humanity.

I remember reading George Orwell's 1984 when I was very young. Have you ever read this? If you haven't, you should. I'm sure you've heard of it. To me, the horror of the book was not merely the totalitarian regieme, or even the re-writing of political history, or the constant surveillance. The horror was the complete invasion of the independent and personal thoughts and ideas and the personal love of Winston and Julia: the fact that the party so alters Winston's paradigm, making him betray and, by so doing, hate Julia. 

During Winston's political "re-education", Winston is told (of the party's assertion of reality): "there are three stages in your reintegration . . . There is learning, there is understanding, and there is acceptance.' But Winston resists. In his prison cell, he awakens, screaming: "Julia! Julia! Julia, my love! Julia!"  But, after torture and re-education, he does betray her and "loves" the party instead. When he sees her again, Winston finds that he dislikes Julia. Likely, her presence forces him to suffer the subconscious pangs of his own betrayal. When we experience loss of our individual integrity, we often rewrite our paradigm so that we don't have to confront this truth. Do this enough times and it becomes easier to compartmentalize and entertain two opposing ideas at the same time. Orwell calls this Doublethink. Doublethink requires its true practitioners to hold contradictory and self-nullifying beliefs simultaneously and persistently. Winston practices Doublethink. Sjors practices Doublethink.

I do not believe that the people in your organization wish to be malevolent. From my interaction with members of the Dutch military, I find you to be individualistic and motivated by the desire  to impact the world positively. I'm drawn to your people. Very likely, your organization views itself as good, and performing essential functions. So how do you reconcile this with the tremendous evil you have done to me and to Sjors? Do you have any concept of the wrongness of these acts? You may monitor and remove bad actors from the world stage. I support these actions. But I was never a bad actor. I was never a threat to him - nor to your organization. I never wanted anything but to love him and be with him and support him. I have had so many professional and personal passions in my life - but I would surrender every one of them if I could be with him. Even now, I would give up everything I have if it meant I could make love to him every night, and wake up with him beside me. If I could see him smile and know that I was the one making him smile. Indeed, I have trusted him so deeply and loved him so much that it nearly cost me my life. Have you ever loved someone so much that you would trade anything you have for their wellbeing and happiness? After more than a year of knowing he was lost to me, my heart still involuntarily reaches out for him. When I awaken in the morning, I feel a pain in my chest and it sometimes takes me a few minutes before I can identify it: I feel the lack of Sjors as a physical and psychic pain. His physical and intellectual and emotional and spiritual removal from my life have injured me beyond what I can hope to articulate to anyone else. How can an organization do such great harm and still consider itself to be "good"?

These are my thoughts. How I wish I could have a genuine discussion with you and know what you think! There is this inherent barrier between us. You cannot answer or acknowlege me. But I believe you're a thinking and intelligent person with a strong system of ethics and beliefs. How else would you be selected for the job you perform? I wish that you could talk to me - even if you disagree with my ideas. I  wish that I could convince you to help me somehow. But I don't know how. What would I even ask? Maybe you know what you can do. Maybe you will do something for me.

I think that Orwell's ending to 1984 is likely and believable. But it is not inevitable. I believe in forgiveness, and I have faith in the power of love. I believe that love has the ability to overcome many evils. Orwell depicts the final betrayal of Winston and Julia for one another as an irreversible ending for the both of them: a final termination. But I have been both betrayer and betrayed. I know what it is to long for forgiveness and to also feel such love that it is possible to forgive terrible things. If you have been briefed on my background, maybe you know what these things are.

Alkmaar

Today, Jan and Mandy gave me Alkmaar.

I wish Sjors had given me that gift a long time ago. He should have walked beside me. I should not have been his secret. He should have been proud to have me with him. But he could not acknowledge me publicly and maintain his separate lives - and he lived in Alkmaar with his wife and children. To be seen with me would have been to acknowledge his infidelity. In many ways, I think he made me less than I am. As I have mourned the loss of Sjors,  I have also mourned what I lost because of him.

Mandy wore red boots and Jan made sure that I bought cheese because Alkmaar is a cheese town. It was Noordwouds oud. This is Hans' cheese.

Hans used to put it on brown bread in the morning for me with rucola.  When he was being extravagant (and could afford it), he would buy smoked salmon and put this on the bread too because he knew that I liked it. He used to make me coffee, and then he would put his chair next to mine because he wanted to be closer to me when we ate. He would smile this shit-eating grin and snuggle next to me: leg to leg and hand on my shoulder, or leg, or the crook of my neck.

I haven't been able to eat Noordwouds cheese since I flew to Schiphol for Sinter Klaas and then told him I could not be with him. We went shopping in Haarlem and I bought his sister wine glasses.  I bought himan i-pod that year and went with him to his family's house to open presents. He never used the i-pod.

Sjors knew I was flying to see Hans and, though he told me sometimes,"Go back to Hans",  he also told me, "We will be together until we're 85". He told me, "When we have children, we'll have to hire a nanny. And a housekeeper because, darling, you're a disaster in housekeeping." He picked me up and carried me into the rain. He danced with me in a chocolate shop in Amalfi. He made love to me like his life depended on it. He did the dishes naked. He told me bits and pieces about his work and his ethical dilemmas. He told me that he could do difficult things if we were together. We could fight the world together, he said. He told me he could fight the people he worked for. He said he would get out. He sent me a picture of the engagement ring he wanted to buy me. He talked about the characteristics of the children we would make together. During all those minutes and hours and days and weeks that I agonized over the way I felt about Sjors and my relationship with Hans, he did not tell me he was married.

 I wonder whether Sjors and I would have been able to develop a true and lasting friendship if he had told me this. If he had allowed me to be his friend then, and been honest with me, I could have been his supporter and ally during difficult times. Maybe with the right friendship and support, he could have gotten that divorce afterall. And done it peaceably. But this requires a high level of
trust. He had no precedent for trust. And the people he worked for fed his distrust. So he pretended that his life was different than it was. He imagined what it might be, but then feared the consequences if he tried to be truthful with himself and me and his wife and parents and friends.

I think that we are all so afraid of what people see when they look at us. For me, it is still so difficult to think of how Hans looks at me in his mind. He removed me as his facebook "friend" after I visited him in Haarlem over this last new-years-eve to tell him that I had been unfaithful to him with Sjors before I'd broken our relationship. I remember how he used to look at me with such love and deep affection, and I saw that look die forever. It still is so painful to consider.

I am slowly becoming reconciled to my own shortcomings and frailties. I wish so deeply to be forgiven by Hans but I do not expect it will ever happen. I can imagine that Sjors has the same horror and fear of his own. How can he begin to ask forgiveness from others when he can't forgive yourself? When you can't come clean about the things you've done? Your other option is to compartmentalize yourself into smaller and smaller pieces until you can't remember which box you put things.

Jan and Mandy know much about my history with Sjors and Hans. They know that it is difficult for me to come visit the Netherlands because of the memories and the meanings. They also know about Sjors and Mac and about the shit his organization pulled. I do not fear telling people the truth - but I found myself withholding his name. I'm not sure why, and I don't know if I will continue to withhold (Mandy calls him "mister Alkmaar" and tells me I deserve better). I think I don't want to make things bad for his wife by putting this information into a tight community of submariners and wives. She should hear it from him first. He should tell her. It would be a start, at least.

looking

It is strange for me to talk to people. Keep them on the subject of work, or their lives, or tell them funny stories or about one of the hundreds of books I read. But then they ask about me. I think that they mean to be courteous. But I hate this part. I talk around it, redirect. I am not very good at redirection. Because what I am thinking is, "Every day, I look. Every second of every day, I am looking for a new thing. A new person or project. I'm looking for a reason I should stay on this planet a little longer." I've lost something fundamental to my life. So what do I have to do to keep breathing?

Evigheden

The rain has started. In Naples, during the winter, it rains. There is only one word for this. Rain. This is not true for rain everywhere. When I was in London two weeks ago, an old lady was describing the weather. She said, "when I went to my car, it was spitting...but by the time I arrived at Tesco, it was fairly tipping down". If you live in a country with perpetual rain, you simply MUST have multiple descriptors. Like the Eskimo's 200 words for snow. Sometimes I wish that the English language was more adaptive.

I have often felt that, if I could find the right words, I would be able to find that secret language that we both understood once. I would speak and you would hear me with your soul. And the spell would be broken. You would know who I am and you would remember us.

Sometimes I am Kai perpetually trying to form the word, "Evigheden" with his shards of ice. And I am sometimes Gerda, pleading with you to be my Kai again.

Lament of the Syndicate

1. They said unto the man: The woman is forbidden. For she is fearful to us. For she caught us in our wickedness and, verily, she hath it in her power to hand our respective asses to us.
2. Is it not right and good that we should do as we wish? Even that which is illegal and sneaky - for it is our will to behave in this manner and, behold, we have the blessing and sanctification of the State. Does this not justify our illegal actions?
 3. We have taken the man and bent him to our will, yeah even over a barrel; telling him to turn this way or that, demanding his compliance. And, behold, he has complied. He has become our tool to do with as we please. And we glory in his compliance. 
4. But the forbidden woman threatens our peace.She tells the man that he has his own will and own heart. Yeah she maketh him to think that to be our tool is not good for him. She will prosecute us and bring our actions into the light. And in that day, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

5. If it come to pass that we are exposed for our evil deeds, we shall take the man who has become our tool. And we shall turn our tool into our scapegoat and, verily, we shall cast him to the wolves.

E-mail from dad

My father is amongst the most well-intentioned of men. He would not hurt me deliberately - and he would be sad to know that he had hurt me.

I've wanted to write to him lately. I think about him and mom a lot. I am the second of six kids and don't really require much from them by way of physical or financial support. Accordingly, those who need attention get it. But it is difficult to almost completely lose contact with them as they focus on the other kids and the grandkids. So I try to write more frequently. Dad writes back. Today, these were his words:

"Let me be frank. So good to hear from you... Quite independently, I've been thinking of you.... I've been thinking that you should decide what kind of man would be the very best husband and father for your children... Then move back here, which I think is the very best place to find a good husband... Then put these men through the test to find the best one.  Simple.  Oh yeah... and then there is the part where God who can read hearts... finds the guy with the true heart."

I pulled the message down just before I got on a train through Germany. I meant to spend the time on the train writing a response. But the process made me cry. So I sat on the train, my computer propped in my lap, writing to my dad and crying. I used the blue linen scarf I carried as a handkerchief.

I have to think of all the things he doesn't mean. But it is difficult to miss the things that he does mean. It is so simple for him. So straightforward. It is a calculation in the same way that relationships are calculations for so many other people: seek out a target-rich environment and find a suitable companion. Marry. Reproduce.

Does he not see me? How can he not understand what has happened? Does he not know?

Does he not even remember who I am?  I am the woman who would absolutely terrify the shit out of any good Utah Mormon boy.

I decided to be as honest with him as I could.

"I appreciate that you try to think of ways for me to be happy. I know that you love me and want me to be happy. You have been frank with me so I will be frank with you. You think that it will make me happy to be married to a man with a good heart who can be a good companion and a good father to my children. You believe it is lack of opportunity that keeps me single.

"If I could name companionship as my goal then I could find a companion. I could find someone who has good intentions and a good heart (even outside of Utah!). Before now, this may have been sufficient. Sometimes I wish very much that I could have stayed with Hans and never known anything different. I loved him so very much and he has such a good heart.  But I found the companion soul to my soul. I knew this the first moment I saw Sjors.

"When I am honest with myself (and I try to be) I know that, to be with anyone other than him is a lie. Even if I could somehow adjust my feelings so that I could spend the rest of my days with another man, it would not be kind to this theoretical good-hearted man to commit to be with him when I will always know that I belong with someone else.  I often wonder why I was damned enough to see and feel and know this truth only to spend the rest of my life feeling its lack.

"Why be shown a truth if you cannot touch it? If there is a god, then there is such cruelty in this act. But I suppose it is unreasonable to believe that everyone is supposed to have happiness. So few people do.  I see suffering all over the world and know that mine is not the only pain, nor the greatest.

"If you pray for anything, then pray that this deep sorrow will be alleviated enough so that, even if I can’t have the husband I was meant for, then I can at least have children.  Daniel has kindly volunteered to donate for me – but it is so unkind to have children if you are unhappy and I have been tremendously depressed.  Children should be born and raised in a place of joy. I would not be so cruel."