last day with the fam

These past weeks and months have been difficult to write. These past days with my family are also difficult to put down. Some events and feelings have the ability to short circuit language and metaphor for me. I can describe an occurrence but lack the skill or objectivity to convey what it means for me.  

Mom and dad and I visited Lee in St. George. She's doing surprisingly well: working two jobs, living in her own apartment, running, and taking yoga several times each week. We went for several decent jogs, a yoga class, and a hike up Snow Canyon. We went to a movie, and celebrated her birthday and Thanksgiving early. In the evenings, mom and dad showed us the digitized 8mm films they'd made of my infancy and early childhood. It was a peculiar sensation for me, but particularly difficult for Lee who didn't have particularly functional nor protective parents when she needed them. 

So it was no surprise that she talked a lot about the way I stepped in and raised her. She still thinks of me as her mother. I suppose that I was her mother in nearly every way that counted when she was young. And now, I think I love her more than I love most people. I'm glad she's off the drugs and doing alright. 

Dad needed time to go hiking and biking with me. Which was fine, since I like to do these things and I like him. We hiked up Rattlesnake Ridge, and he found a "short-cut" down the mountain. Two days later, we took J's boys up Big Cottonwood canyon for a hike, too. 

I spent a lot of time with the boys on this visit: reading stories, rough-housing, playing make-believe, and tucking into bed. In the evenings, after a tuck-in, I stayed up with J and we chatted. 

I took Mom shopping, and we bought a bicycle trainer, to get her healthy. 

I've taken things a day at a time. And today was my last day. I'll miss them. 

Bicycle ride with dad

Dad took the day off of work because I was in town and he wanted to spend time with me.
"I feel like my best friend just came into town," Dad told me when he collected me at the airport last night. Me too.

I let him pick the day's activities. If he had his preference, it would have been hiking and biking all day long, but he had a flight of his own to catch at 1700 so there was a cap on the fun.

It's really freezing here. From what I hear, it's freezing all over CONUS. But this doesn't stop dad from wanting to ride. So we bundled up, and let the various exposed bits freeze off in little chunks during the two hours riding trails in the biting wind. We rode completely shit bikes with crummy helmets and wore enormous coats dad bought second-hand from Deseret Industries two decades ago. Dad rides this crappy bicycle every day for his PT because his knees won't let him run anymore. But he loves it. I will absolutely not tell him that his bike is crap because he looks at it fondly as he puts air in the tires and says, "you know, this has been a really good bike."

One of the things I like about dad is that he's game for anything. Anything. Ask him to Zip-line from the Eiffel Tower or hike in the Himalayas and the answer is yes. Doesn't matter if he's never done it before or even trained for it. Doesn't matter if he may not have the right gear. No problem. We'll figure it out. When I was younger, this embarrassed me because the lack of appropriate gear felt like amateur-hour and hick-ville. Rich and attractive people always were suited up to look like some magazine version of an expert climber or hiker while we had mismatched pieces assembled from the local second-hand shop. In college, I dated the son of the CFO of a major corporation and was mortified when he took me skiing - because his ski gear was perfect and olympic-grade and matched while absolutely nothing I brought looked like it had ever belonged to the same decade, let alone the same closet. But it's always been about the adventure for dad - never about the appearance. He skis because he loves to soar down the slopes, yodeling as he goes, not because he gives two shakes about what anyone else thinks about it.

For the past few years, my parent's church "calling" has been to hold religious meetings in the mental health unit in the nearby women's prison. This calling completed three weeks ago and its driving dad crazy because nobody else has been selected to fill the role. He worries about the women he's been ministering to. He talks about them, about their issues and their families and their sorrows. He worries that they will think nobody loves them since they've been left alone for three weeks. It doesn't occur to him to feel pleased that his new church "calling" is as the Elder's Quorum President - one of the biggest and most important positions in a Mormon congregation. If he was looking for accolades, he would stop thinking about those mentally ill women in the prison and get to work being an important person.

Dad had just arrived in Italy in July 2013 when the shit MIVD threw at me actually stuck and I lost my job. I was in shock, horrified, and saddened to lose my programs and work. It was also embarrassing to know that my father, who had come to witness my success and to learn about the work I'd accomplished, had to see this awful destruction instead. But, true to form, he didn't give a shit what it looked like to anyone on the outside. He was proud of me because I maintained my integrity. In fact, he's so proud of me for the way I stood up for the truth, he gets choked up when he talks about it. Fucking amazing.

As I get older and see the world for all its games and arbitrary rules, I realize now that it was probably the best preparation to have dad as my example. If people are trying to use shame and innuendo and social pressure to get you to do what they want, it helps to be raised by a man who doesn't give a shit about these things, and who plunked his 11-year-old daughter on a beat-up snowmobile and said, "this is the throttle. Turn this when you want to go faster. This is the brake. Pull this when you want to stop. Follow me."

Today, I was totally happy to get on that crap bike and wear that beat-up coat and mismatched helmet and gloves today and follow dad up the mountain.

surrogate

I offered to be a surrogate for S. I've thought about this for some time. I may not have the opportunity to be a mother myself, but I can give her and her husband the chance.

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.