Tuesday, June 5, 2012

In a Sentimental Mood

In a Sentimental Mood

    I’m currently reading a fantastic book called Expat: Women’s True Tales of Life Abroad.  Along with the Paris guidebook, it was also a gift from my husband for Christmas (it was an easy-gift-themed-Christmas).  The book has made its way around my house for four months with hopes of being opened and read.  It smiled for some time in the guest room with the other books about travel, rested patiently on my bedside table for weeks, and then started incessantly tapping its foot on the coffee table in the living room before I opened it last week.  I had to be prepared to laugh.  The first few months we were here I just didn’t have the perspective or the distance to laugh at anything, yet.  (Not consequently, is also why the blog began in April, and not January. I just don’t think anyone would want to read what I was really going through and thinking at the beginning in my jet-lagged, sleep-deprived, overwhelmed state.  I was intimidated by everything outside my home, and most things inside: the stairs, the washing machine, my children, and the gas stove which requires lighting with a match.  You get the idea.)  So last week, seeking a literary deviation from the History of Europe book I’ve been exploring, I decided I was ready to open it.  Snuggly settled on our couch, glass of white wine in hand, ESPN America showing a day-time baseball game to entertain my husband, I opened the book after both my children had been put to bed by 9:00 p.m.  I was welcomed to an array of colorful, insightful, and eerily relatable short-stories from women across the globe.  I couldn’t help myself as I laughed hysterically and re-read an essay to my husband about a 27-year old girl who moved to France in the footsteps of her father, who completed the exact same move in reverse to America when he was the same age.  She entertainingly illustrated that despite her French roots, knowledge of conversational French, and numerous visits to Paris throughout her childhood, none of these experiences truly prepared her for the reality which was to become, finding a job and living on her own in Paris.  “I realized that language fluency and love of a culture, even a passport with Republique Francaise emblazoned in gold, do not make for an intuitive understanding of a place.  Real cultural integration lurks quietly in the subtleties, waiting to trip you up when you think you know what you’re doing,” Christina Henry de Tessan writes. Beautiful and insightful, V and I laughed relating her experiences with our naivety of moving to the country in which he was born and where the majority of his family still remains.  We reflected on our struggles thus far, and will continue to have, as we navigate the Dutch culture which could have so nearly become his own, like a simple page turn in a Choose Your Own Adventure novel, had his parents not immigrated during his infancy.
  I’ve been reflecting a lot on my experience here, thus far.  It’s an interesting challenge as not only have I moved across the world, but my job has completely changed.  I never knew life as a stay-at-home mom in the States.  I never really knew life with two children in America, either.  It’s been a challenging transition from all perspectives, and it’s difficult to pinpoint with accuracy what the driving force is behind my frustrations as well as my joys.   But in reality, it does not matter.   We’re here, and we’re living it, best as we can and every day is an improvement upon the last. 
    With that said, I was also thinking about some of my status updates on Facebook.  I’ve cooked fried chicken twice and announced it to the world.  I’ve written about my excitement of finding Dr. Pepper at our local Jumbo and after months of fruitless searches for cornmeal in Dutch grocery stores, my surprise and relief of finding some in France.  I made a Betty Crocker cake for my daughter’s 2nd b-day, after finding the mix and frosting at a small shop in Leiden which specializes in imported goods.  Although, not publicized, I have eaten at Burger King more than once.  (I haven’t even eaten at a BK since I was probably 10 in the U.S., but a lack of Five Guys and an honest attempt at eating a ‘local’ Dutch hamburger, made me desperate.)  Our train station boasts one of three Starbucks in the country and their caramel macchiato is even better here than at home.   I won’t even get started about the Mad Men Season 1 we bought (which we can watch in English, Dutch, or Flemish, if we choose to do so.)  As a self-proclaimed adventurous woman, who prides herself on becoming bored with routine, do I feel a little guilty about all these things?  Perhaps.  Do I feel like a fraud for not completely embracing my new Dutch culture?  At least, a little.  And what in the world would explain my obsessive-compulsive-like behavior of trying to track down cornmeal?!?  How can I possibly justify myself? 
   Luckily, the introduction to the book helped me gain a little perspective. “When we travel, we are craving a break from routine, so we seek out the different and exotic at every turn because we know that in a week or two, we will be back in our safe little worlds.  But when we move away, the home we’ve left behind can tug at us in surprising ways. . . Having wanted to take travel to its furthest extreme, we end up coming full circle as we learn to cope with the most mundane tasks in a foreign place. . . Balancing the need for the familiar with our desire for the exotic is at the heart of the expat experience,” Christina Henry de Tessan writes.  This is fantastic.  I love it!  This justifies my bike-riding in the rain with my two kids with my jumbo travel mug of coffee tucked into the pocket next to the bike lock.  This explains my love of kaas and beschuit for breakfast every morning and fajita cooking at the same time.  This clarifies the pre-sets on my internet radio: 99.5 The Wolf country station out of DFW, NPR, and a lovely Paris Jazz station where I find even the French commercials soothing.  I can alternate my Burger King Combo meal with the Doner kebab kapsalon special across the street without guilt.   And those are the extremes, the opposites.  I’m enchanted by the idea of finding the balance between the two.  Nowhere is this more apparent than in our home.  We were fortunate, as part of the rotation through E&Y, to ship our furniture from the U.S.  Anyone who has been to my home knows that I have an eclectic collection of furniture from my grandmother, parents, and some purchases of my own.  The baker’s rack that spent my pre-childhood displaying pots and pans in a Hemphill Wells department store in Lubbock, my childhood in my Grandmother’s kitchen, and my newly married days in my home in Plano, looks fantastic in a Dutch home built 100 years ago, as does all of the beautiful antique furniture we shipped that once belonged to my Grandma.  After transporting my daughter’s crib, Pottery Barn Kid’s rug, and miniature ice cream parlor table and chairs my siblings and I used to play on when we were kids, we fully rounded-out her bedroom with a daybed and wardrobe from Ikea.  And I have to say, it looks pretty cute!   Newly purchased lamps outfit every room (we didn’t bother to ship any of ours due to the wattage conversion requirements).  I found an antique dealer in a nearby suburb and complemented my style with a few more endtables, one in which was created from antique crates from a Delft salad dressing company (Delftsche Slaolie) which has since gone out of business.   I’m proud to say it is home, with the furniture full of sentimental value and with its three floors and width of 6.7 yards – it’s displayed in a style and setting you’d never find in America.  It’s been fun to decorate and mesh the two cultures.            
    We’ll continue to find the happy medium behind exotic and familiar, as we bike, explore museums, travel to different countries, and cook at home because it’s just easier with two kids.  In the meantime, my husband came home today with a product proudly displayed on the Dutch shelves as “Nieuw!”  With a smile on his face, he handed me a 1000 gram package of “Polenta”.  There are instructions in seven languages on the package on how to make it, including boiling water and emptying the polenta onto a wooden board, but for my practical purposes, it is cornmeal.  Now I just have to hunt down some black-eyed peas.      

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