Beautiful Belgium

 

 

 

 

Stuck in Bruges

Bruges is a UNESCO preservation village and therefore, extremely clean. The streets are steamed clear of debris; the horses wear special rubber sluices with bags on the end to catch droppings as they clop briskly along the rocky roads, pulling photo snapping tourists, for 35 euros a ride. Perhaps the preservation regulations contribute to the quaint uniformity of the town, which after four days begins to feel contrived; every restaurant offers pretty much the same menu, in three languages. Cheese croquettes, steak with fries, Mussels with French fries, everything with fries or just fries alone, Flemish stew, rabbit in beer sauce and prunes, which is quite good. We ate at Mozarthuis which is famous for its do-it-yourself grilling on a hot stone at the table. We decided to watch this process and ordered the asparagus instead.

White asparagus is in season in Belgium. I remember my Oma telling me how expensive and fancy white asparagus was; at formal dinners when she was a child and also as a new bride, white asparagus was so special, it was served as a separate course. There was even a special fork to be used just for this course. The utensil enabled the diner to hold the spear in place while cutting it. Asperges Flamande turned out to be eight white spears of asparagus, with their bottoms wrapped in smoked salmon, topped with a béarnaise sauce.

Mostly the cuisine in Bruges is creamy. Several places take a healthier approach, but mayonnaise still finds its way into things, salad dressings, blended with herbs and chopped onion for a sauce to drizzle on the vegetarian plate at De Bron, where you must ring the bell to gain entrance. They only serve one course but they have three sizes. Each plate has brown rice, endive and sprouts, corn salad, pureed carrots, a little pot of pasta in tomato sauce and a falafel patty. It was a decent change from the more tourist-y places, although we still had to dodge the lines of tour groups coming up Katelijnestraadt.

We rented a tandem bike and with much laughter, took off towards the outer ring road. We crossed the bridge over the canal circling Bruges like a moat, to the tree lined canal that runs between Bruges and Damme, the next village over. Daffodils and tulips lined the bank and all the trees on one side were leaning away from the water as if planted on an angle. Trunks are pruned into muscular knobs from which sprout small bristly branches. We seemed to have enough energy to pedal the 5 kilometers, even detouring through some farmland on the way. Damme is a white washed, stone village with a large church, a central square and lots of little restaurants. We chose Tante Marie’s for lunch, chatting and watching other bike riders arrive. There were muscular men with slender, elegant girlfriends, teams of ladies of a certain age in slacks and sensible pumps, although whether heels are sensible for bike riding seems questionable to me. People of all ages and sizes ride bikes, ringing tinkling bells as they pass. Now I understand how the Belgians can eat so much cream!

We spent one more night at Die Swaene in a different room. What at first felt elegant had begun to feel stuffy, the lace and cupids less amusing, the stale cigarette smoke permeating everything in our suitcases. We changed hotels again to a 300 year old manor house with a peaceful garden and view of the Minnewater, where swans float on the Lake of Love. The airline said we could fly home over the weekend, so we decided to take a train somewhere, anywhere. Amsterdam?

I have been trying to find some kind of metaphor for this unexpected change in plans. For one thing, a complete, relaxing rest was really what we needed, instead of dashing all over India in 100 degree weather. My personal “need” for planning keeps being tested; perhaps it really is time to just go with wherever the winds, and the cloud of ash will allow us.

Bruges

Before I went to Boston, I packed for India. We planned a three week trip around that vast country, from Mumbai to the Andamans. Since the plane uses the Brussels hub, we thought we’d spend a couple of days in Bruges, to take the edge off jet lag. Our itinerary took us to Mumbai on Friday morning, then across to the Himalayas in Arunachal Pradesh. My partner has been the main sponsor for a temple construction in this region for the past nine years. I packed for cool weather in Belgium and Arunachal, and mostly for very hot weather everywhere else.

Our flight was relatively comfortable. There were Belgian, French and Indian families and a group of Orthodox men, all carrying large hat boxes from Brooklyn, as if they had made the journey to New York expressly for the purpose of haberdashery. Midway through the flight, they all stood up, donned their hats and walked to the back of the plane for prayers.

We landed at 8 am, a little bleary but ready to locate the train in the basement level of the airport. Surprised by the number of stairs we had to negotiate with our suitcases, we walked down one flight of stairs and climbed another, located the correct track, direction Ostende. The train was a double decker, so we hoisted our luggage up and took seats on the upper level, watching the countryside roll by. Flanders is flat, green and decorated with clusters of brick and stucco farmhouses, tiled roofs and cement walls cut in a diagonal pattern that makes the side of the building look quilted.

Belgium is tri-lingual. People greet you and wait for your response, instantly deciding how to answer, in Flemish, French or English. I like to speak French to stretch my mind a bit, and try it as often as I could. Since I hardly ever have this opportunity I quickly break down, forgetting verbs, nouns, and giant chunks of grammar. People are patiently amused and speak to me in English.

De Barge hotel is a converted barge, sitting in the water of one of the canals. Our room had sloping lower walls, following the shape of the boat, tarps stretched on the ceiling, and two bright orange life preservers on the end of the bed. A sign on the window indicated the evacuation route was out, into the canal. Photographs of shipwrecks and a can of sardines with a plaque saying, “survival rations” in French graced the walls. Long barges floated by occasionally and several families of ducks swam around, just outside the window.

We set out to explore the winding, cobbled streets of Bruges. It is really a charming place, lined with 15th century buildings made of brick or stone, lace curtains, and stepped facades reminiscent of churches. Some have mullioned windows. Horse drawn carriages roll by, as well as buses and small cars and lots of people. We wandered towards the Markt square, which is lined with cafes and shops, and sat down in one café for a light meal. Mussels are steamed with celery and onion and served with fries and mayonnaise to dip them in.

Thursday, I went to the town alone for a while, poking into shops, churches and the Groeninghe Museum which holds Flemish paintings from the 15th century on, displayed against deep blue walls that bring the rich glazed colors to the fore. I met my traveling companion at the lace museum where we marveled at the lightning speed of the lace maker’s hands as she shuffled the wooden bobbins around the pins set in her pattern board. We wandered around through the streets and he disappeared into a hostel, emerging with an American woman who has been living in Europe for six months. It seemed she was friends with friends of his. We told her we were flying out the next morning and she said, No, I don’t think so. This was how we learned about the volcano in Iceland.

Our new friend, a photojournalist/English teacher, took us to a pub and set up her computer. We began searching the airline site, which was not informative. Airports were closing across Europe as the large plume of volcanic ash filled the airspace and spread over Britain, Belgium, Scandinavia and onward.

One thing I have learned since being widowed is that I am not in control of events. This is a helpful fact; I am off the hook for such things as erupting volcanoes which close the airspace over the entire European continent. It is clear that I have no say in what will happen later on today or next week. This has been a very hard lesson since I have lived most of my life under the misapprehension that if I planned well and stayed organized, things would go as planned.

I believed this because it could be empirically proven. Since I make contingency lists and planned for different possibilities, one of the possibilities is bound to occur, which proves the theory that I had something to do with this outcome. But, when you plan your future with someone you love, you don’t really know what will happen next. We always said we were in our marriage for the long haul; it was about 20 years shorter than I had planned. I thought we’d be together for a lifetime and we were; only just his. I still have a lot of mine left to live.

So now, along with perhaps a million other people around the world, I am stuck where I am, in quite a nice place. We are not sleeping on cots in an airport. We have dropped any attempt to go to India; the airport might open this evening but the earliest flight is not until Wednesday and even this could change. We have found a new part of town, a park with a tiny pond and fountain. We are enjoying the peace and quiet of this tidy European town. We are safe, comfortable and in a fine city. Die Swaene Hotel has welcomed us into its 13th century, roccoco arms. We might as well just settle in, be kind to ourselves and each other, and relax. The only thing we can really control is our own reactions. A swan swims in the canal, lovers kiss while taking pictures of themselves, children laugh and people stroll as the canal boat passes with its tri-lingual commentary. C’est la vie, la vie a Bruges.

Sisters

As the oldest sister of five, I have a lot of experience in family dynamics. When we were very young my sister was my playmate and an adoring fan until I morphed into a bossy know-it-all, complaining when she followed me around. Our third sister was much closer to the second in age and they became a team, referred to collectively as "the girls." Our one brother was next, and the fourth sister came much later and was our baby doll, our charge and the one with whom I watched the first episodes of Sesame Street after my day at high school. Later, we became much closer as we had our children and traveled back and forth for visits. This is the ebb and flow of our family relations, always shifting and changing, yet always remaining close.

Over the years, we have also become deep friends. We've helped each other through stages of life, parented together, created magical holidays for our children. We were Santa's elves, sewing dress-up clothes and fanciful aprons for surprise Christmas gifts. We've made puppets and puppet shows, themed birthday parties, slept on each other's couches and guest beds, cooked together, laughed uproariously and wept together. We've taken each other in when necessary, and talk at least once a week. When I was suddenly widowed and lost, it was my sisters who first rallied around me, holding me up every time I collapsed to the floor. One sister called me nearly everyday for a year, saying it was the "Sisters Assurance Program."

Many years ago, I made a dance piece called Three Sisters. It was inspired by my own family and by a poem by Adrienne Rich, called Women, which begins:

My three sisters are sitting
on rocks of black obsidian.
For the first time, in this light, I can see who they are.

Sisterly activities of sharing, talking, playing, growing through the same experiences taught me to cherish our uniqueness while rejoicing in the love that connects us and holds us together. We often discuss long ago events and discover that each of our perceptions are very different. This is an interesting and wonderful fact - every human filters experience through their own unique lens. One sister remembers something and another remembers something else. Both views are true; they are not the same, just as the sisters themselves have different characters and ways of being in the world.

We each grew some daughters of our own who are sisters themselves, and who are all different from each other and from their cousins. One is very organized and accomplished; her life is orderly and she prefers it that way. Another is a little wild and prefers to be impulsive and random. One is a dancer, another an actress, and another loves to skateboard. All of us are highly creative, but in different ways. My sisters, too, have different ways of expressing themselves; one is quite shy and gentle, another is very intellectual. All of them, from both generations are funny, intelligent, sassy and beautiful women who make an impact on the people they encounter, especially their sisters, mothers and daughters.

This weekend was Sisters Weekend. A small group of us gathered, arriving by plane, car and train. We slept in beds of sisters, I with mine and my daughters together, wandered art museums and the length and breadth of Boston in a day. We laughed and talked, shared and primped each other, and as sisters also like to do, we shopped. We encouraged and praised each other; we listened. We laughed when the younger sisters poked fun at us older ones, claiming we looked like identical prairie dogs in the middle of the night, alternately popping up and back down in alarm, in response to the loud party in the next room at the hotel.

This morning, we hugged and said loving things when we parted, back to the train, the plane and the car. We are all so alike and so different from one another. And we love each other because of this. It is a reminder that family life provides metaphors for human interaction - how we get along with our siblings is reflected in all our relationships. By lovingly accepting each other as unique and interesting, we encourage compassion towards others we encounter who live, think and respond in different ways.