Growing Family

Holland 2014 - Geitenstal

This week we've been staying at a fantastic AirBnB find called Geitenstal, with my brother and his family. We chose a semi-rural cottage, 25 minutes from Amsterdam. The highlights of the property include a really funky and fun design sensibility, and room for our children and their two cousins to run and play with the resident rabbits, chickens, dog, and the somewhat more elusive cats. 

 

In addition to the animals, there is a garden between the guest house where we are staying, and the main house where the owners live. We've been picking fresh herbs for our meals, and the children are enjoying picking fresh strawberries to snack on.

I love a house with nice things, and even better when the nice things are meant to be used every day.

I am very inspired by this DIY long table and bench made by the house owners. Evidently it was created with some plans found online, and wood from the local store. I'm taking some notes to try it at our place!

Note the cheese and wine on the table...this is definitely an eating holiday. My body is not thanking me but oh, so good!

My brother has a drone and has been getting a good amount of fly time in every day. Some flights have ended in mishaps, or reshaping the hedges, but it has been very entertaining.

I love the bright and happy kitchen (and the Smeg fridge!). My sister in law and I have created some pretty tasty meals this week, if I do say so myself (and I do).

 

I love the tiny room under the eaves where the girls have spent endless hours giggling and playing My Little Ponies. The colors are fantastic.

There are so many cozy areas to relax in, and the side porch is my favorite to curl up with a magazine. That's what holidays are all about, isn't it?

 

We have been watching the World Cup and cheering for Australia, Holland, and the USA!

So, greetings from Geitenstal, from which we have explored the lakes created by peat extraction, on foot and by boat. Most importantly, the children have spent hour upon hour playing outdoors together, and we adults have spent night after night talking long after the stars have risen in the night sky. If you ever find yourself in this corner of the world, come check this place out.

Holland 2014 - Family Weekend

We are having a wonderful time in Holland. I don't imagine any of these blog posts will be super inspiring, but I want to document our trip as we go. By the end we won't be able to remember the beginning.

After arriving in Amsterdam near midnight, we arrived at our hotel to find we had two rooms, on two different floors. No worries, we pushed three single beds together in one room to make one big nest. It was touch and go for awhile, with the jet lag and exhaustion turning the kids into twitchy monsters, but we finally fell asleep.

The next day we met up with The Captain's college friends who live in a picturesque little town. Their house backs on to a canal, with a view of sheep. We took a lovely walk and enjoyed a water pump and sleuce at the nearby park.

Next we went to Zandvoort, where we lived when we were first married. We spent several hours sitting in the sun at a beachfront cafe, sipping drinks while the children played in the sand.

 That evening we arrived at the country house where we would spend a weekend with The Captain's family. They gather every year to spend a weekend enjoying each other's company.

The weekend included a ride in a horse drawn cart. Each of the children took a turn riding on the front bench and asking questions. I could see Sprout entering the "horse phase" of her girlhood, right before my eyes!

 

Isn't the farm house gorgeous? 

We ate SO MUCH good food, but let me just mention pancakes with Dutch syrup, called Stroop. Yum!

 

I had so much fun riding the "skelters". My sister in law and I even raced around together.

Sprout, who has struggled to ride her own bike for about a year, saw her four year old cousin riding his bike with no training wheels, and suddenly found the motivation to learn how to ride. By the end of the first day she was owning that bike, and so proud of herself.

 

 

 

The weekend was fabulous, and it was wonderful to spend time with my husband's family. They're great people, and I am so fortunate to have married into such a wonderful family. The farm house property was bordered by a dyke. I had a lovely walk along the top, marveling at the great expanse of sky and green.

Now we're on another adventure that I'll report on soon, but the 2014 Family Weekend was a great success, as always!

In Between

It is in the in between spaces that our family feels the most solid and secure. Sitting in an airport lounge, we know the drill. We have done this so many times.

In the place where we live, we don't fit in 100%, and in the place we are going to, we will stand out. Intercultural marriage, transracial adoption, and multiple citizenships mean that we fit in everywhere, and nowhere at all.

I walk to the airport bathroom holding Sprout's hand. "I feel the most solid and connected as a family when we travel, do you feel that?" "No" is her simple seven year old response.

Do they feel these cracks? Do they feel this third culture straddle we are always doing? Maybe not.

The rules of travel are clear and straightforward. Take off your shoes, belt, and jewelry, and be exposed down to your bones. Once you remove the exterior embellishments, the bones are all the same. Sprout sends her doll through the x-ray machine, "I saw her, she didn't have any hair!" she exclaims. Only the frame shows, the rest is erased.

In the in between spaces I let my diction flow into what feels comfortable and "me" at this point. Jacket becomes jumper, and trash can becomes bin. I feel my voice lift and lilt in ways that set me out as different and potentially try hard in my new life, but simply sound like my voice to me. I stop censoring myself for what I "should be" and just am.

We watch novice travellers, full size pillows brought in hopes of comfortable sleep. My children pull their entertainment out of backpacks, and Sprout dances in the lounge aisles, knowing how confined she will soon be.

I remember the time I brought jump ropes, and we passed the time in Kuala Lumpur skipping.

We tally up the flight times, the layovers, and imagine, many hours from now, falling exhausted into foreign beds, our rental car being our new home away from home, the one thing that will be constant in three weeks of travel. Maybe that's just me, needing something secure?

"Remember this is a night flight. You can eat dinner, then watch one movie, and then it's bedtime." we remind them. Yea, yea, they know, they've done this all before.

This is somewhere we belong - in the in between spaces. I am happy here.

Rise

Today wasn't a "Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day", but it wasn't a prize winner either. Half an hour past when bedtime should have been, I dragged myself out to walk the dog, with a crying child in the doorway calling down the street after me. My feelings were neither warm nor fuzzy.

As I walked, I mulled the day over. Where did I go wrong? Why did so many moments go awry? I wanted to be gentle, but I was stern. I wanted to give space, but I pinched moments. I wanted to stay calm, but my nerves frayed. I failed to be the woman I wanted to be.

I spoke these things out loud, letting my confessions fall amongst my footsteps. Then, the Still Small Voice spoke to me.

"When you feel that you are sinking, you grab hold of heavy things. It's better to hold onto something that floats."

 

 

Tethered

If all goes according to plan, one month from now we will be spending our second night in our new house. The sound of my husband's voice reading stories to our children will be drifting down a different hall. In the night I'll wake up, and be unsure of where the door frame is, or how to find the bathroom or a glass of water. It will be some time before I can navigate, eyes nearly closed, a space that has become my own.

Tonight I walked the dog in our neighborhood, peering at the houses and their gardens, remembering seeing them for the first time. I remembered that feeling of being untethered, nearly a wisp to be blown away, so lacking connections and so unknown.

As I walked, I passed a neighbor and his dog. He told me about the Indian supper his wife had made that night, with heirloom tomatoes harvested from plants I gave them. Their verge garden overflows with lofty plants, fruit tumbling heavy on the vines, each tomato a warm, weighty, handful of joy. They have gotten out the canning supplies to manage a bumper crop. A crop sprung from seed that I planted and nurtured on my bedroom window in the winter sunlight.

When I planted all that seed, I didn't know who would harvest it. My heart craved generosity, and a community that shared its bounty. Sadly, my own tomato plants have made a lackluster attempt at fruit production, but my kitchen shelf is lined with luscious tomatoes from my neighbors.

It's hard to start again. It's hard to leave a place I've grown to love. I comfort myself with the thought that this next house will be the last house for several years, and likely the only Houston house. "The next move will be back to Australia, and professional movers will do all the packing" I tell myself as I wrap another wine glass in layers of paper and pop it in the box.

In the meantime, a trip to Europe awaits, a great family adventure! And then we'll turn our energies to creating yet another home, and filling it up with the kind of life we want to live.

 

 

Wanting-Having-Living

Why is consumerism a slippery slope that tastes like chocolate?

- Austin Fitzpatrick

Living in America as a privileged white woman, I feel as if I can have just about anything I want. Materially speaking, that it. I like clothes. I buy them often. I still love shopping thrift stores, and the sale rack at Target, but I could easily drive to the nearby high priced boutiques and shop there. I shop at the mediocre local grocery store but I could shop at the nearby fancy organic fair trade store. I can shop on etsy, or online. I can get anything I want, nearly immediately, at rock bottom prices...materially speaking. And if I'm unahappy in any way, I can return the goods, with or without a receipt. "The customer is always right" means I can make demands, and watch prices drop, or pitch a fit and get things for free.

I met an Aussie mum at the ballet school recently, and quickly found a kindred spirit. She spoke tentatively, trying to gauge where I stood on the American consumer spectrum, "Houston isn't so bad...you can live here very comfortably...but I miss the beauty of Australia." I cut to the chase and said "Houston is fantastic, if you want to accumulate alot of nice stuff." We then connected over memories of village cafes, walkable neighborhoods, and a quality of life that you can't order with a credit card (although, if I could order a skyfull of NSW blue, I would swipe for it in a minute!). 

Several years ago, I remember standing and talking to one of my parent's friends, trying to explain the freedom I felt, raising my children in a culture less obsessed with consumerism than America. I felt like I was speaking a different language. I felt almost disloyal for expressing something so embedded in the American cultural mesh.

This week I read The Great Tampon Debate on Kristy Rice's brilliant expat blog. One of the comments carried this addiction to consumerism home for me. An Aussie girl asked an American if the plastic applicators on American tampons were biodegradable or recyclable (they must be either or, right?). She was horrified to discover that American women throw away or flush tons of plastic for something that in her opinion, was completely unnecessary. Wasteful. In Australia, I never found plastic applicator tampons.

 I have heard it said that here in Houston there are more restaurants per capita that most anywhere else in the U.S. Food is cheap and we have eaten out more frequently than ever before in our lives. I can count on one hand the number of times I felt truly nourished, and like I've had a good meal. All this quantity does not equate quality, and even the quality does not bring happiness.

I don't know how to manage the myriad ethical dilemmas living in this culture presents. The clothes we buy are made by workers in poor (dangerous? illegal?) conditions. The food we eat contains unknown contaminants, pesticides, and gmos. The waste we produce is massive and piles up in landfills. For every fair/free/organic choice we make, there seem to be 10,000 others we are failing to make. Our soap is poisoning the Great Lakes, the vegetable plants we buy from the big box garden stores are killing the bees we are trying to save, and everywhere there are people begging on the street corners. 

How do I explain that when I went to Australia and began to understand that there wasn't anything frightening in the milk, that in general people cared about the environment, that the poor were less poor because as a society there was a different value placed on all human life, and that there was a thoughtfulness surrounding what we buy and what we do with it, it was like I could breathe more freely? 

It is too simplistic to say that America is full of gluttons and Australia is filled with conscientious consumers. I have no facts or data to present. What I have is memories of conversations with friends about milk. "Do you buy organic milk? I ask. "Why?" my friend asks. "Well, so that you don't have hormones or antibiotics in your milk." I reply. My friend looks at me, the answer comes slowly. "We just have the one kind, and it doesn't have hormones or antibiotics." 

In Australia, life is very expensive. All choices make a big impact on the wallet. I consider the choices more carefully when a children's tshirt can easily cost $20+.

Several weeks ago I went to WalMart for the first time in about a decade. I wanted to buy a bike ramp for Small Sun for his birthday, and they had them there. The box took up the massive trolley, but while I was there I bought more. I bought 12 pool noodles for Finch's pool party. At $1.20 they were a fun party favor. Then there was an enormous plastic tub to put the pool gear in. Next I came across a patio side table, perfect for all the times we just hold our drinks in our hands because there is no place to set them down. Onto the stack it went. I strained to get the cart, piled high with made-in-China treasures, waving pool noodle tentacles in every direction. I couldn't see over the pyramid of cheap goods I was getting. I started to wonder if I could fit it in the car?

I payed what seemed a pittance when you considered the time, resource, and effort invested in manufacturing and shipping these goods. I loaded them up in the cavernous boot of my minivan. I needn't have worried about space, there's always room for more.

I drove home thoughtful.

I don't know how to live here. That is, I don't know how to live here with an engaged conscience. Every choice seems wrong, a violation of someone else's rights, a failure on some level.

I cook from scratch most nights. I grow some of our own food. I buy second hand. I do the things that I know to do, but there are so many, many ways I feel we are falling short.

I don't know how to explain how a clear conscience is part of the lightness I feel living in Australia. In America we are not bad people. We are not trying to take advantage of others. We are not trying to poison the planet. It's more like we're stuck in a web, or that "consumerism is a slippery slope, and it tastes like chocolate."

 

Small Corner

Houston is a big city, but I'm finding I live in a small corner. Ten months in I am bumping into people I know, or who know people I know, everywhere I go.

School's out, YAY! I enrolled the kids in a nearby VBS on the recommendation of parents from our private school. When we rocked up this morning, suddenly our kids were bumping into friends from our private and our public school. Immediately they felt at ease, and I knew they would be fine.

A friend came to help me make the most of my two hours kid free, and we packed up our books and then I threw some plants in a planter for her. She came to help me...armed with shoes to give me, fresh yums from the bakery, and fresh fruit for us to snack on...you know, as new friends do (I am so lucky). The world is full of amazing people. If you're settled with established friends and feel your crowd is full, you might want to think again, you never know what amazing person you're crossing paths with that might become a dear friend.

As my friend and I dashed to pick up our kids, I remembered I had to pick up some pots I arranged to buy off a local trading group. I wiped the dirt from my cheek, and washed my hands with a wipe before dashing in to pick up the kids, seeing more people I knew. Half an hour later, when I arrived at the house to pick up the pots, I discovered that the mom had just picked up her child from the same VBS! We knew the same people.

Before heading home, we drove past the new house, just a couple blocks away. When I saw a child looking out the window and waving, I felt caught being a stickybeak! Then Small Sun calls out the child's name. Unknowingly, we've bought the house of one of his music teachers from school and he knows the child that lives there.

Houston is a big city, but we live in a small corner. That is a good feeling when you're far from home.