Running with a friend

Today was the Marine Corps Marathon.
I've been a bit more bike than run this summer so I certainly hadn't logged the miles to have any confidence in my own marathon-capability. But I waited at Mile 23 for a friend and then paced him past the Pentagon and into Arlington Cemetery.
It felt good to be in a race again with so many people and so much good energy, and I remembered how much pain I was in at the Las Vegas marathon when it came to Mile 23. God, I don't remember a single part of me that didn't hurt. So I felt a bit guilty to be so fresh and running with all these wounded bodies. It was one thing to stand on the side for an hour, clapping and whistling and calling out encouragement. It was quite another to step into the fray and make a mockery of the shin splints and the aching knees. I saw one overweight old man putting in quite the effort in spite of a bleeding nipple that had rubbed itself raw against his white T-shirt for the previous 4 hours.
"Hey," I told my friend. "Tell you what..about a half mile from the finish, I'll sprint on ahead so I can snap your picture crossing the finish line."
I thought it was friendly and nice. But he groaned.
"That is the meanest thing you could say to me," he said. And I guess it really was. But he finished, and that was good. Plus, I brought him ibuprofin which is a god-send when your legs feel like hell.

This evening, I worked on my Dutch - particularly the past participle of action verbs. So now I can say, "Vandag, Ik heb met mijn vriend gelopen" instead of perpetually using the present tense: "Vandaag, Ik lope met mijn vriend".

Also, I wrote (Ik hebben geschreven vijftien pagina's vandaag)  I'm up to May 2013 now. Peculiar to remember the strangely pivotal moments that changed everything. "If it bothers you so badly," said John. "Just open Pandora's box."

Disturbing messages

I'm nearing the end of the reconstruction. This project has taken the better part of four months and will clock in at around 200,000 words.   I have little time to finish this. I'd like to be done within the next week before I have to start working. A significant amount of editing lies in front of me.

The most difficult task for me as I near the end of this story is to accurately represent Sjors' messages and character during those last months. His messages are disjointed and strange and I do not understand the person, or people, behind them. I feel that it's important to maintain integrity in all reconstructions but this one baffles me. Additionally, because his messages are harsh and cruel, it is emotionally difficult to reread them. I feel that I am assaulted and accused all over again.

I'm grateful for Marie's critical opinion as I write. She always had a greater COP of this part of my life than most people, but this completes the picture. She reads and gives me regular feedback. I'm grateful for her analytical objectivity. It was difficult to fight Sjors' team and she stood in my corner, ready to deconstruct the punches and strategy, every time the bell rang.

Marie is the person who reminds me to not take those ugly messages at face value. I'm grateful for her defense of Sjors because everyone else wishes to assault him for the pain he caused. I have no way of understanding the complex pieces of the puzzle that comprised Sjors' life at the time. I have no idea who had editorial authority over the messages.

My sister Jane called me unexpectedly tonight. We've been trying to build a relationship. The parent-child dynamic we used to have when she was young and fragile became a liability to her as she healed and needed to stretch her wings. Now, we try to become adult friends. I told her about my project and was surprised to hear that she supported it.
"Sometimes, you need to tell the truth regardless of consequences," she said. She would know. The consequences for her truth telling have impacted us all.
"People will be uncomfortable," I said.
Jane said, "When I started work as a nurse, people used to share things with me. They would tell me about how they were afraid of dying. They would tell me about their anger with their bodies. This would make me very uncomfortable. I would always change the topic. Then, one day, I decided: It's okay if I'm uncomfortable. I made peace with it."
"That's really good," I said.
"Well," Jane said. "It's okay if people are uncomfortable by what you write. Just tell the truth."

I rode my Dutch bicycle into Old Town tonight, ate salmon, and then strolled the street, wandering through shops and a local art gallery. I've continued writing at a coffee shop as the darkness deepens outside. Better to be here with strangers than holed up on my own.

Recording

Tuesday I met Marie for lunch at our sushi place. We keep saying that we'll find someplace else to eat but we never do because we both like sushi too much. Afterwards, I stayed in the area and worked at a nearby cafe. As it turns out, the cafe was a hang-out for people from my former work. I found this out - not because I recognized anyone  - but because everyone had tremendously bad OPSEC. I derived not a small amount of pleasure listening in on their conversations. Apparently, employee reviews have just completed. There were two adorable analysts completely pleased with themselves and preening with their assessments of their performance. 

I work just about everywhere I go. I can't stand to have an idle moment. It isn't always "work" work, though. I've expanded the repertoire since returning to the U.S. Now, as I wait for this next contract to start, I'm taking this down period as an opportunity to do things I used to enjoy, but forgot to. I've been working on my French and my Dutch - I'm taking language lessons at the Belgian embassy. I run and go for long walks.I call friends and have coffee. I paint. I read math books. Actually, I read tons of books. (Recently, I've started reading a book about Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford who probably wrote Shakespeare. Fascinating). More than anything, though. I write. I hope that these records will mean something someday. 

Van Gogh

I had my coffee and run this morning. I showered, packed up my things, and walked to the train station. I needed art.

I love that the National Gallery is a free museum. For all the trouble we have with getting things right in this country, this is one thing that we definitely got right.

I recall trying to visit the museum when I first returned to the U.S. It was impossible for me. The art stimulated such emotion, and I was already raw. I couldn't tolerate it. It was a painfully loud noise in my head.

Today, I felt hungry for the images and textures and shapes and colors. I needed to get to the museum. I couldn't drink in enough. I was surprised to discover that so much of what I used to love - the calm precision of Vermeer; the elegant brush strokes of Sargent; the brooding light and shadow of Rembrandt - none of these could satisfy me the way I needed. Even Monet's fluttering play with color and texture seemed tame and prissy.

I found what I needed in another room. I needed Van Gogh. I needed his bold, restless lines. I needed his unpretentious self examination. I needed his manic disproportionate sense of color and contrast. I needed the heavy sorrow and emotion belying the simple beauty in a vase of roses.

I first visited the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam when I was dating Hans. I wasn't a particular fan of the Dutch artist. I preferred representative realism. Later, I took my mother to the museum because it was a nice thing on the "to do" list in the Netherlands. I was very depressed at the time, and I believed that it was largely pointless to visit an art gallery in this state. I generally can't feel any beauty when I am depressed. But my experience was utterly different. The paintings moved me in a way I never could have predicted. I felt them. At a painting of black birds flying over a harvest field, I began to weep. I believe that there is an emotional truth in Van Gogh's work that can't be adequately described. It has to be felt. And I wonder if it is ever possible to feel it if you are in a "normal" state of emotion?

The Van Gogh museum is one of the few real-world locations I visit in my dreams. Sometimes I dream about Pozzuoli or Limbe. More often than not, the landscapes of my dreams are unknown to me. But these are stand-outs. Why would I find myself back there?

I think about Vincent's tormented life. I think that a normal person was not able to feel what he felt. So he tried to show us. It was not a perfect translation for emotion any more than a book is a metaphor for actual human experience. But the man certainly came close. I wonder if the art served to give him the modicum of peace that it is able to impart to me.

No safety rails

Yesterday afternoon, I had lunch with an amazing woman who used to work for the U.S. military, conducting capacity building in Africa. She was, to my mind, an impossible ideal of effectiveness and cultural compassion. She was very good at her job. She was exceptional.

But the woman I saw yesterday was shaken and torn. Broken. I recognized the look: she reminded me of myself in 2012.

She told me that she had fallen in love. This was what had wrecked her. Now, she cannot be with her husband of more than 20 years. He wants to "make it work", but she, knowing what she knows, cannot go back to her marriage - even though she cannot be with her lover, either. She is tormented. While we talked, she expressed surprise that I did not condemn either her choices or her pain. When she said this, I realized how often I have been on the receiving end of such condemnations.

There seems to be a particular intolerance for people who are deeply affected by love. For all that movies and books focus on the subject of romantic love, there tends to be a safeguard placed on the actual practice. Love, but don't love so deeply that it destroys you. When a relationship ends, the pain is supposed to be temporary, solvable by a pint of Ben & Jerry's and conversations with your girlfriends.

But the pain caused by true love does not fade with time. It does not become less real or relevant. It does not yield to rational argument.

I know that Sjors was a spy, and that he lied to me about that. I know that Sjors was married and that he lied to me about that. I have good reason to believe that, when faced with potential consequences to his career, he lied about his relationship with me and, through this betrayal, caused me to lose my job. I know these things and my rational mind tells me that I should hate him for what he's done. But I do not hate him. I love Sjors, and I will always love him.

I don't often share what I'm doing or thinking with people. The fact that I still think about Sjors every day seems to them that I am dwelling in the past: looking backwards. There is a peculiar pressure from the rest of the world to "move on". I'm sure Sjors received the same pressure about me.

"It was a relationship. It was a breakup. Move on."

But people say these things because they cannot understand what it is to be with the person you are supposed to be with. They have never been wrecked by the absence of that person.

Translation support

I wanted to protect certain identities. So I went looking for translations of various words. The synonym floored me. God has a sense of humor.