wee pooh

after meeting winnie the pooh at mickey's house owen ran inside the hundred acre wood store in disney's critter country--

goodbye Amersfoort

In my final day here in Amersfoort as I prepare to leave for home tomorrow. My next trip will be to Norway on Feb 6. I will post some pictures of my tour around town last Sunday.. get a close look at the coffee connection pic -- you will see the Space Needle, because everyone knows that Seattle=coffee.

uncle sal

happy earth day (early)

revisited an old band that I like -- and a song I completely forgot about:

It's April 21st and everybody knows today is Earth Day
Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday to whoever's being born
And now I'm trying hard to think of something
meaningful and worthy, kind of earthy
to make everybody ask themselves just
What are we doing here?

- Dramarama


of course we know that earth day is indeed Owen's birthday and falls on April 22. I'm not sure why Dramarama sang about the wrong day.. there's probably hidden meaning in the song that I'm not seeing.

I get to post some pictures of Owen too.. so here you go.. this was taken right before I left.

heavy

i'm sitting at my desk in my office corner, sun coming in through the window glaring the screen, listening to track 3 "the kiss" from the hours soundtrack probably for the 876th time. really. i read some several hundred books listening to these same movements over and over again, it became the sound of reading. to me it is the sound of women writing, reading, yes, in this very humanistic pre-feminism virginia woolf collective kind of way. but i'm sitting here enjoying hte diffuse light because again nana has taken the train out and is playing legos and watching sesame street with owen. and she demands that i go upstairs and work. and what i see on my screen is this picture. it's my favorite, right now, its my moment iwth my boy, the one i carry with me in my mind's eye.


and i've put it everywhere i want to work, it seems. because, i think, it's so ephemeral, it reminds me of the beauty of the fleeting moment. my owen always running off screen, and all i can do sometimes is watch and smile. and whenever i can, hold him close, just for a moment and tell him how much i love him before he squiggles and squirms and runs off again. it's a balancing act really, holding him and letting him go. putting on the headphones and taking them off. writing draft after draft of this chapter and playing with glue and stickers.

i'm thinking of all of htis because there is a tremendous well of loss. and pain happening around me. and all i can think to do is find the most beautiful paper i can, the simplest and most honest words and send off all the love i can spare--and send more. and i feel a deep sense of tragedy for the lives that have disappeared, that were too ephemeral. but it doesn't seem enough. nothing can possibly be enough. you cannot replace lives lost, lives that never got to be. it just leaves a heavy. and i mean heavy as in a weight, a blank reminder. and you live with it i think, and you build around it. and you share it sometimes, i think, with the lightness in your life. and as milan kundera reminds us ever so poetically, that too can be unbearable. but for that heavy, i leave, as woolf does in orlando, a great blank. because i think she wouldn't mind the plagiarism.











































































x

wednesday

why wednesday is the very best day of the week:

bedtime

just enjoying a little quiet time by the fire, owen is sleeping in his big-boy bed and i have anywhere from an hour to three before he gets up, opens his door and toddles down the hallway to snuggle up with me in my bed. it's our routine. lately it means that i have enough time to put him down to bed, do a sweep of downstairs of colorcrayons, peeeople, and chex, and then sneak some chocolate and run back upstairs. on saturday night i thought it was safe to take a nice bath and finally wash my hair but just as i was halfway sudsed up and having a calgon moment a footed-pajamed owen came sobbing in the bathroom covering up his eyes and just devestated. so of course i got out, soaking wet and quite cold, put him in bed and snuggled up with a hand towel (why i never think to get a bathtowel ready when i take a bath is a mystery even to myself). and i know i know i should put him back in his own bed and not reward the nightly strolls by surrendering all three feather pillows and sleeping sideways (careful not to disturb the cat and ever encroaching dog).

but here's the thing, it's our routine. so when nana spoiled us by not taking the train home friday and staying overnight she of course completely wore out hte little guy and then expertly rocked him to sleep and tucked him in ever-so-perfectly so that at 1 am i woke up in my queensized bed feeling like quite the queen all stretched out with yes, three pillows. and not only was there no owen teasing my hair in knots and kicking me in the nose but there was no dog creeping up michael's side of hte bed and no cat sitting on my toes. the dog, of course, is smart enough to know who will walk him earlier and the cat, well, who knows with the cat. anyhow, it was terribly lonely and when at 1:30 owen sat up in bed and quietly sang "mamamamammmmaaa" you bet i ran in there and picked him up and whisked him into bed with me.

Rijksmuseum

took a trip into Amsterdam this morning/afternoon to catch some art. yeah, Rembrandt is the big man around here, but was absolutely blown away by the use of light introduced into his pictures. i think i was most impressed w/ Johannes Vermeer -- who does that girl w/ the pearl earing painting.. that piece is over in the Hague, but did get to see these paintings:






not too shabby. ok, going to get some pizza and get ready for the Hawks tonight against da Bears..

my buddy

so what ever happened to those "buddy" dolls? ok maybe the whole point was that they weren't "dolls" but whatever-- owen has a yellow duck bag and we can call it a purse if we want to. anyhow, remember that song?

my buddy
wherever i go
he goes
my buddy and me
we like to climb up a tree
my buddy and me
we're the best friends that can be

i may not have the song right but i say move over fisher price, here come owen and west.

rockin' in p-town

fun in the NW

for a few days after new years day, cara, owen, and I went up to see the Fidlers in Puyallup. It worked out that I could take off from SeaTac to travel back to Amsterdam, while Cara and Owen could head back to Orange County at the same time last sunday (1/7).

We had a blast in Puyallup seeing the immediate family, and Linda and Jamie who stopped by on Saturday night. Owen really enjoyed the big playroom at Grandma's house and seeing his cousins Riley and Macy -- who helped him learn how to play more and be more vocal.. he really grew up some more while we were there.

We also took a trip out to see my parent's new property out on Anderson island, and will be fun for future visits to go check out the progress. I'm including some pictures of Owen and his cousins, as well as a group shot from Anderson island.

In the meantime, I am back in Amersfoort and will be here until the 26th... I've been busy catching up with work and getting back into the swing of being over here in the NL. Also busy planning the next few months -- plans are to be in Norway starting early Feb.. probably two trips of 3 weeks a piece, and Cara and Owen to come over starting mid/late March until early June... very exciting.

- michael