I didn’t intend to go (relatively) silent in the blogverse back in June.
The initial excuse – moving – holds some substantial weight. I was responsible for 98% of the packing and unpacking. Despite all my best intentions to prepare and plan, life got inconvenient and a bit messy. Setting up a new home with a clingy, curious toddler and a husband overburdened and overcommitted with work was a lot more challenging than I had anticipated.
All those weeks and months in between, I’ve written (mostly in my head) a dozen, or so articles about parenting, motherhood, and life in the Netherlands. Feedly, Pocket and Evernote became my best-friends, littered and cluttered with saved columns and hastily written down notes that only I could decipher. Keeping good on my promise though was regularly updating my Facebook page. I didn’t want to lose touch with those who are kind enough to read my words, who give me support and encouragement with every like, comment and message.
Now that I finally find the time and space to sit behind my computer, I stumble, unable to fill words on a blank screen. I hesitate. Pause. Breathe. Where does one even begin again?
It took me nine long, hard-earned years to find a place in the Netherlands that I could finally see myself settling in. I’ll always have a soft spot for Utrecht, the place where my husband and son were born. But it wasn’t a place where my heart wanted to establish roots – not with a young family. Maybe in a couple of years but not now, not with my little boy who loves exploring the world. I didn’t like the mom I was in Utrecht- the “No” kind of mom intent on keeping my curious child alive and safe, who doesn’t understand the incessant dangers of canals, bikes, mopeds, and cars.
We weren’t the Dutch suburbia kind either – the perfectly manicured lawns, identical newly built homes and quiet characteristic of all commuter towns didn’t feel quite right. My allergies against 12 different types of grasses and allergy-induced asthma held me hostage at home, unable to freely roam the suburb built in the heart of endless Dutch grassfields. When weekends came, we were always a bit too enthusiastic to get out and explore, unable to comfortably stay local. We weren’t unhappy in Houten, but if we were truly honest, we were a bit too lonely and bored.
Eventually we found ourselves regularly driving towards the Dutch forests. We loved wandering aimlessly through the wooded paths, the clean air and the space. And so on a whim, we decided to move to Doorn, a small village of 10,000 people nestled within the Utrechtse Heuvelrug National Park. Utrecht, or Amersfoort were only a twenty minute car ride away, but we felt like we were miles and miles away from the chaos of urban city life.
It wasn’t necessarily all the responsibilities with the move that prevented me from writing. Granted, it was impossible for me to ignore the boxes and the ensuing frustrations of living disheveled and disorganized. Someone had to settle us in and that someone was me, myself and I. As many writers can enthusiastically attest to, unless there is an environment that fosters creativity, any attempt at writing would be in vain. I needed to set up my entire home (not just my designated writing room) to clear my mind.
But one can hide behind the “just moved-in” excuse for only so long. No, there was something else going on with me. I started flirting around with the idea of my own impermanence, about what if my Catholic upbringing misled me to believe that my consciousness would be perfectly intact? What if Stephen Hawking was right, that “there is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.” If life were a movie, you can press play to REM’s Losing My Religion, the mandolin chords giving way to universally familiar words, “That’s me in the corner. That’s me in the spotlight, losing my religion.”
Sorry for sounding melodramatic. I am a writer after all and the artistic license of being emotional applies to me just as much as a musician, painter, dancer, photographer, designer and what ever other creative outlet there is. I feel things. Deeply.
Ironically, it was finally being able to find a place to call home and in a good place that served as a catalyst for my mild existential crisis. Life is good – so good that it hurts. I started asking the hard questions – Why am I writing? What am I writing about? To Whom am I writing to? Why Should I Continue to Write? Is what I am writing about even interesting to people?
I’m starting over. It’s official. I’ll continue writing about life in the Netherlands and all my cultural observations of the Dutch. I’m also now intent on curating my blog as an on going love letter to my son and my husband. Along the way, I’m going to foster a community of expats, Nederlanders, moms, dads and anyone else who’d love to receive random updates of my life in the Netherlands, of stories that move the spirit and anything else in between celebrating life.
I hope you continue to follow me on my journey. Here’s to Finding Dutchland, whereever you may be.
