Exploring Brussels

When we first began talking about moving to Belgium, there was a time that I was rooting adamently and passionately for living in Brussels. There, I was sure, I would be able to carve a niche out in the expat community, I would feel like I was living more of a cosmopolitan life, and I would, most likely, find an easy commute to a job in the city.

We, of course, didn't end up there, but we're close enough sometimes to feel the city's tugs and nudges. I have been to Brussels several times since we settled in Leuven, for various errands. We spent a weekend there a couple of weeks ago, after the last of my Dutch Level 2 test, and we walked from the north to the south in one go on Sunday morning, through dreary skies and bustling markets. I came away feeling like I knew the city just a little bit better. It's a city that has a lot in common with my former home - Philadelphia, with a brooding center that will also take your breath away with its monstrous, elaborate, and yet lonely architecture. Brussels, I feel, has that same personality, a monumental but serious beauty, one who will let you admire all you want, but will give you the cold shoulder if you try to snuggle up too close.


A city with its shoulders clenched a bit, built for deep-cutting winds and dreary rains. Or perhaps it's because I've never been there on a sunny day. Either way, I guess I prefer my cities with this kind of personality. Like feeling a city's flexed muscles. Its pose should be unwavering.

Passed

Just a quick update: I passed, with pretty good marks. Level three starts Monday! Whew!

Exams for beginners

I promise pictures in the next post (or maybe the one after that...heh heh), but I just had to write about this first...

Last Thursday and Friday, I took my first Dutch final exams. I always knew that the educational systems in the U.S. and Belgium were different, but one week of intense studying and a few panic-stricken days of threatening all kinds of crazy nonsense if I didn't pass, I sympathize much more with the Belgian student situation than I did before. This doesn't exclusively have to do with the cultural difference, it also has to do with my own personal background - I was an English major in college, and as all English majors will testify, nine times out of ten the "final" is a clean, double-spaced ten-page paper, typed out over late nights of thinking and analyzing and drafting and thesis-making in your pajamas, at your pc, spicing things up with some nuggets of delicious research after spending a few solitary hours in the library stacks followed by meticulous footnoting. My papers were things of beauty, my friends, and "exams" (the type where you sit down for two hours without any props or booster texts to help you along the way) weren't even a glint in my eye most semesters. And that's the way I liked it.

Here, it's not just that I've changed what I'm studying (I will admit that there is something to be said for testing language students). It's that all those little homework assignments, all those writing tasks and vocabulary activities count for naught. We even took tests to keep us on track with the curriculum - they mean nothing in the face of the final exam. Even showing up to class on time and on a regular basis (which I did -- perfect attendance, I might add!) only means that you can hope (hope!) all the class anecdotes, all that time put in will give you a head's up during the exams.

In the U.S., all this work during the semester would give you accumulating credit for your final grade. Lots of it.

For this exam there were exactly four hours and ten minutes (albeit, broken up over two days) reserved for me to prove myself worthy of moving on to Dutch level three. And even after I felt ready with the material, I was still incredibly nervous: What if something terrible goes wrong? What if you wear the wrong sweater and your back itches through the entire four hours and you can't concentrate? What if your stomach is suddenly not behaving? What if, ten minutes into the exam, you suddenly have to pee so bad you can barely hold it, but they refuse to let you out of the exam room? All nightmares of a novice test-taker.

Oh yeah, and as a former English major, I will also say that memorizing stuff is hard.

I took the exam, and thankfully, little interrupted my concentration besides a slight draft in the room and a few squeaky chairs here and there. I'll find out tomorrow if I passed or failed. So stay tuned...

Styling up

Everybody knows that coming to Europe means learning to tie a scarf in about 40 different ways, to fit any outfit and any occasion. I know of two, but don’t challenge me to a scarf-off with those two, because you’d be scrambling to gather your little threads off the floor at the end, my friend. I’ve mastered them.

A fashionista I have never been. But here in Belgium, I am both blessed and cursed with a family-in-law filled with women who are, as they say in Dutch, modieus. It’s not so much that they are interested in fashion as they are careful about looking quietly stylish, with just a touch of elegance, at all times. Imagine my surprise the first time I bounded down the steps in Belgium, ready for a day of site-seeing with H’s family, in a t-shirt with my alma mater splashed loudly across the chest, shorts and sneaks (of course, what else for a day on your feet??), only to be greeted by his sister. In a skirt. And high heels. Boy was my American face red.

But, as they say, when in Rome…Here in Belgium, I’ve begun to make an effort, at least most of the time, to dress nicer on a daily basis. As in, not just for nights out and special occasions. Of course, I wore high heels at my former job all the time, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t slip them off at the end of the day and throw on some flats to get me home. The less time I spend in them, the better – that was my motto. But here, I was lucky enough to find some very comfortable high-heels that I’m actually wearing to walk around town. In the daytime! By myself! Admittedly, the first time I wore them I shifted my weight wrong and the heel toppled in a ridiculous jolt to the side of my foot about eight times in the two hours I was out. (Then I debated whether looking decent was worth the humiliation of not being able to walk right in high heels on uneven cobblestone streets. I decided begrudgingly that it was.) It’s getting better. My average now is maybe two times of slight tripping per day.

So, my resolution is quickly evolving into results, and I feel good about that. Not so good as to drop my habit of slipping into my pajama pants and a comfortable sweatshirt the moment I get home for the day, but at least I look decent in public. And perhaps in the next few months I’ll even try a third scarf-tying technique. Not to get ahead of myself, but you never know. I just might be ready for it.

Time away

When I was a junior in high school, I was accepted into a summer academic program, a sort of overnight camp for nerdy types, and my parents dropped me off and left me hours away from the house I grew up in. It felt huge. I spent six weeks living in a college dormitory and attending a class on African literature (of which I remember very little, so don’t ask), and by the fourth week, it felt like an adrenaline rush to the finish line, a tight-rope walk to when I could be home again. I still vividly remember, after getting home, standing upstairs in the hallway that led from my parents’ room to mine, running my hands over an old quilt that they hung on the back of a chair, and feeling like I could relax, like there was something in me that had stayed tightly wound for all those days and hours that could finally unravel a little bit.

It’s funny how, as you get older, big gobs of time feel so much less epic, and not much more than a drop in an expansive ocean. Six weeks now rushes by in the blink of an eye. We’ve been here for about one blink, and there have only been one or two fleeting pangs of homesickness. Home over the past ten years has been divided between so many places – my hometown, my college town, Philadelphia – but I’m lucky to be far enough away from the entire expanse of my country that I get to miss it all, in one fell swoop, every now and then. Technology makes it so easy to keep in touch with the people I’m close to, and to see them, so that most of the time I don’t feel so far away. But every once in awhile, something sets my head reeling just for a moment. Seeing pets over the camera is one of them. You can’t chat with pets, and when my sister’s cat makes her way into the camera’s view, I feel the distance a little bit more. When my mother’s dog looks pitifully at the talking computer that seems to know his name (before he scrambles away – he’s the sweetest dog, but he’s incredibly cowardly), I feel like tearing up, just for a second.

I was a frequenter of independent coffee shops first and foremost in the States, and I only ever went to Starbucks because I was desperate (and it was the absolute only place to get a warm drink in the independent-business-wasteland of a neighborhood where my job was located in Philadelphia), so when I saw that big, round, green and white glow during a recent trip to Antwerp, I was surprised at how jelly-legged I suddenly felt. It was a cold and overcast day, so I sat and had an Earl Grey tea. The smell evoked something vague and desperate, no specific time and no specific place, not even specific faces. But it was something melancholy that made me think carefully about where I was, and, just for a minute, reminded me both cruelly and sweetly of where I was not.

Laundromat treasures

There's something just a touch romantic about laundromats. Okay, okay, I know, that's a strange thing to say, but I bet you can think of at least one romantic scene in some movie or t.v. show that takes place in a laundry mat (remember Ross and Rachel on Friends?). How many commercials have there been with the laundry mat as its setting - the soft whirl of the dryers, the florescent lighting that puts everything in plain view, the gorgeous girl folding her delicates, and some guy's inner monologue -- "Oh God, there's Megan. Okay, just say hi to her...be cool. Be cool." You know you've seen it. Multiple times. It usually ends in them sharing a coke or something.

We don't have a washer here, but thankfully, there's a laundromat practically right next door to our apartment. I did the laundry there for the first time yesterday. Not that I'm in it for the romance. Truth be told, it was cold and felt dampish and I was the only one in there besides an older Hungarian woman who literally sat right in front of the washer and did nothing but watch it spin around and around in a bit of a creepy way, and who spoke to me in Dutch and then tried to speak to me in Hungarian (she kept saying that I LOOKED so Hungarian).

But romance comes in all shapes and sizes. I always end up washing things that don't belong because I forget to empty my pockets - spare change, receipts, grocery lists, gum wrappers, all kinds of things. As I was transferring a load from the washer to the dryer, I picked out a wet receipt that was globbed to the damp ball of clothes, and, after putting in the money and hearing the comforting sound of the machine at work, went to throw it in the trash. Lifted the lid, and there, on top of plastic rap and lint balls, empty detergent boxes and water bottles, was a fifty-euro bill. Literally, just sitting on top. Waiting for someone to find it. Yes, it was in the trash can. But it was dry, clean trash. It was crinkly and had the slightly faded look of a bill that had just gone through the dryer (like I said, I've seen plenty of those in my time). I closed the lid. I opened the lid again. I looked at the Hungarian woman who was intently staring at the whirl of her clothes in the dryer, paying me no mind. I hesitated. I shut the lid again. Do I take it? It's not mine, it really belongs to someone else. But how would you even go about finding the person who threw it away (and we'll assume it was by accident)? You can't. You just can't. But I'd feel kind of sleazy. I mean, it feels a bit like stealing. Then again, if I don't take it, the next person will, and why are they more deserving than me? Or worse, nobody sees it again and it ends up in a landfill. When I could have taken it! After all, if I found it on the street, just lying on the sidewalk, I would have no qualms about picking it up. It's in a public place. In a trash can... Blog reader, I opened the lid again and took it. Slid it casually down in my pocket. I examined it at home that night, and it has all the appearance of being a legitimate 50 euro bill. Is it pretty gross that I took it out of the trash can? Perhaps. Does it make me a greedy, sleazy person? Maybe. Will karma come swinging back around to show me a thing or two? I don't know. I'm considering it a down payment on 10 future loads of laundry. A reward for not rushing out and spending money on a washer and dryer, money that we should be saving. Maybe I was meant to find it. The universe, after all, works in mysterious ways. At the very least, it'll make my next visit to the laundromat a little bit rosier. Who knows what I'll find.

Bike culture

In Philadelphia, I had a bicycle that I was really excited about and then rarely used. A few rides in Fairmount Park, and much fewer into the city. When it got down to it, I was often concerned that I would have to carry things home (I had no basket on my bike), or make numerous stops (and who wants to lug a bike around to 10 different stores), or the weather was bad (I just couldn't ride in the winter. Just couldn't do it.), or the city traffic seemed to whiz by at just the right amount of intimidating for an amateur rider like myself.

Okay. So it was often quite often the last reason there.

When I first put foot to petal in Philly, it was the first time I had ridden since I was about 10 years old. And even as a kid, trips around my tiny hometown block seemed like excitement enough for one ride.

Here in Belgium, the bike culture stands tall and firm as reality. Everyone bikes here - the kid going to school to the mother buying fresh bread to the retired. Bikes are just as frequent as cars, and it makes sense - cities are too small and streets are too narrow to worry with a car for a simple errand.

H and his family found the bike that was destined to by mine in a bush at his grandparents' house. At least I think that's the story. When nobody came to claim it after 3 months, they figured it was fair game, and I got a free bike. I'm glad to have it - it really does make some trips so much quicker. But, mind you, I'm not quite up to Belgian riding standards. You see expert riding here - people literally carrying a bag of groceries and biking, or biking with someone perched on the back, or just pedaling away with their hands at their sides instead of on the handlebars. (This always makes me narrow my eyes. Stop showing off, you Belgian cycling nut.) It's like they were born attached to a bicycle.

It's the carrying things that's the problem for me. And the few times I've tried it, it just hasn't gone well. Last week, I got groceries with my bike and was smart enough to bring a messenger bag I could wear on my back. Until it fell forward, tipping me over into the side of a truck. I literally fell into a truck. I've biked to my new gym a couple of times balancing my gym bag carefully on my right shoulder. For any Belgian, a quick flick of the bag when it seemed to be teetering towards the precarious place where shoulder meets arm would be an effortless and casual readjustment while pedaling perfectly straight uphill. For an unpracticed American amateur biker, it's me chanting in my head 'please don't fall to my arm', raising my right shoulder awkwardly while I try to find a good place to stop pedaling and coast a bit on a quiet stretch of street. This, so that I can reach my hand up as quickly as possible while letting the bike swerve out of control for a second to secure the bag. And I don't always make it. The bag has fallen before and thrown me off balance. Today, I literally just fell off my bike in the middle of a busy intersection. I also couldn't turn quite sharply enough and ran into a pole.

So much for fitting in, I guess. But of course, I'll keep trying. Until then, I hope the Belgians know to get the hell out of my way.

P.S. - We finally have internet in our apartment! Finally...

Wireless in Leuven

I've hinted at this in earlier posts, but finding free wireless in Belgium is like finding a contact lens in a pool of unpoppable bubbles. Last week, when I first got here, I scoured the city looking for a coffee shop with the tell-tale signs - quiet tables of one, laptops out, brows furrowed and eyes wide with the possibilities of all the virtual worlds there in front of them. The idea of asking whether a place had internet before ordering (and then, if answered with a negative, turning around and walking out) totally mortified me, and seemed beyond rude in a culture that puts even culinary simplicities like afternoon coffee before wireless access, so on the first day of looking I made it a point to order a drink first and then, ever so casually, ask if they had wireless, with a smile and a shrug if they didn't. I had three cups of coffee that day. (Okay, so it wasn't coffee every time, but it sounds much more dramatic that way.) I saw only a single person on a laptop that day, in a cafe that I eagerly made my way into, only to find that he must be connected to the University's wireless system, password-protected.

I find it both charming and frustrating that this small city doesn't offer more wireless. It's nice, in a way, that people still go to cafes to visit, and enjoy an afternoon treat. It's also nice that apparently this country isn't so addicted to the Network. The University Library, for instance, has about two computer terminals that I've seen. We visited the reading room in the spring during finals time, only to see a sea of students with their noses pointed into books, a practice that I think, sadly, is dying in higher education in the U.S. How charming!, I thought at the time How refreshing and healthy.

Yet, when I found an American style coffee shop down not two blocks from our apartment, with free wireless, laptops perching at attention, and individuals ordering drinks in a mix of accented English, alone, ready to turn their attention to their virtual connections, I couldn't help but sigh with relief. It just feels so familiar.

Dutch for non-beginners

When I signed up for French courses at the Alliance Francaise in Philadelphia, my last experience with language learning, I took a placement exam that literally included 5 minutes of conversation with the head of the school, followed by a simple recommendation from her about how I should be placed. For some reason, when I showed up to take my Dutch placement exam last week, I was expecting something similar - an informal, easy-going, in-and-out-in-ten-minutes kind of deal. I showed up fully planning a big grocery shopping trip afterwards, bag in hand. I was led to a large lecture hall with at least 80 other students, their pencils sharpened and erasers at the ready, and what I got was a formal, timed test - two hours for 100 multiple choice questions and an essay, followed by an oral exam with a language teacher furiously scribbling notes about my stilted performance. Three hours later, I left after it was dark outside, and with the exciting and slightly scary reminder that I was, in fact, now a student at a real university again. Because I was lucky enough to go to a graduate school that offered dutch in the U.S., I came here with two semesters' worth of knowledge (albeit that knowledge is now over 3 years old). Hence, I signed up and tested for the third level. I went into the language school bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning, scanned the posted roster for my name, only to find myself listed with the second-level students. And so, to class I went with a slightly bruised ego and the wrong books. There are around 20 students in the class, and at least 4 of them are retaking it after failing the first go-round, which makes me sweat a little bit, but will also hopefully light a fire under me. Six weeks and 3 hours a day, I'm suddenly relieved not to have started work, and hoping for a quick adjustment into a territory where I feel at least comfortable with everyday conversations, like pulling off a band-aid. Of course, the university reminded me with their definitive placement of my skills in the second level, not to put the cart before the horse. So, I am both humbled and hopeful. I'll stay on my toes, level two.

P.S. - Forgive me for my sparse appearances on the internet for the next few weeks - we have no connection at home, and it's the devil trying to find free wireless in this town.

A new home in Belgium

I arrived in Belgium on Sunday, after an unplanned stop-over in Lisbon, and slept embarrassingly late on Monday morning (let's just say, it was after lunchtime when I finally sidled downstairs to H's parents' kitchen). With a few bursts of melancholy here and there, a couple of minutes of discomfort about being away from my family and friends every few days, this move to Belgium has felt like just about any other move in the states. Perhaps it's because I have family here that I know I can trust, perhaps it's just being older and more easy-going, or perhaps it's the giddiness of being with my husband after six weeks of distance, but it feels natural and fine. Then again, I've only been here five days, and perhaps there are rockier paths ahead.

We have a beautiful apartment in Leuven - three floors of a large rowhouse with balcony space and floor-to-ceiling windows to please all the nosy neighbors. The second floor - the kitchen - even has two balconies - one on either side, and opening the sliding glass doors in the morning to hear the bustle of University students on their way to class, and to enjoy the fresh, crisp air makes for a perfect morning cup of coffee. That is, of course, when the weather isn't being particularly Belgian and rainy. We have big plans for outside table and chairs, for quiet dinners with sweeping views.

We have been busy going back and forth after H's working days to retrieve the necessities from his parents' house - a good hour by car or train, so our nights have been late. We have now set up a kitchen table with two chairs, filled our cabinets with odds and ends of dishes, and lay out a couple of twin mattresses for the bedroom until we can get a proper bed. I'll be relieved when we get a couch to curl up in. I'll be even more relieved when we get internet access. (I post this from a Quick - European hamburger chain, and just about the only place listed when I Googled 'Leuven and free wireless'.)

I promise to update this blog much more frequently from here on in. I suspect it will become more of a lifeline here, and a way for me to chronicle my adjustment. For now, I head into my new city with its gnarly, compact streets to find odds and ends for our new home.

Furniture breakdown

When we moved from the small college town where we received graduate degrees, H and I just took everything and made a new home out of our old furniture. It was still a student home - a hodgepodge of hand-me-downs that matched just well enough to offer some interior cohesion. I remember standing in the doorway of our former neighbors - eyeing the Ikea splendor that was their apartment. They had painted their walls a series of matching soft rose colors. The angular, clean couch was situated just-so behind a rug that matched everything perfectly. The t.v. was flat screen. There were plants. Plants! When I returned to the white-walled furniture potpourri that was our apartment, I could only just sigh and shrug. Plants weren't my thing (I've killed every one we've had). Our 10-inch t.v. was over ten years old (it had a VCR built in, for God's sakes), but it was still chugging along. Interior design just wasn't my thing.

My furniture ignorance showed through when I tried to describe various items over the phone to some poor volunteer at a local charity. What kind of wood? It's...brown. Err...like, kind of a darkish, reddish brown color. It's, you know, an old-fashioned writing desk. With drawers and stuff. (Yes, something to that effect came out of my mouth. It was more than a little bit embarrassing.) I had to stop and really consider our collection of things only when this local charity wouldn't take certain items (they did take the writing desk, and a chair). Really? Is my furniture so horribly ugly that I can't even give it away? To our household's credit, the charity just blanket didn't take certain items. And so, I frantically looked for neighbors to unload the last few things onto someone - anyone. And as everything went out, scooted by strangers' hands, I felt not a smidge of nostalgia, but only a sense of relief. Goodbye ridiculously heavy couch! So long burdensome, old-fashioned writing desk! The only time I felt any kind of regret was when I balanced the television badly on the closed car trunk as I was loading the last of the items for a trip to Goodwill. It fell with a terrible crash while I helplessly looked on from the other side of a car door, and the screen shattered into tiny crystals that we did our best to sweep up, and if not up, into the large cracks in the sidewalk. You always hope the stuff you get rid of will find a new, good home. But some things, I suppose, you just can't save.

Still in Philadelphia

Haven't I been updating my blog? I could have sworn that no time at all had passed between this post and the last, but now I see, an entire month has come and gone, and my little space here has languished.

I promise to update often once I'm settled across the pond, at the very least. I'm not there yet, though my head is somewhere in between, maybe hovering over the tip of Greenland and leaning ever more heavily to try and move east. H leaves this Sunday with three large suitcases and a list of apartments to see next week. I'll stay state-side until the end of September, a choice I'm now regretting a little - we're dealing with all our big furniture and books and winter clothes before he leaves, so a rather empty apartment will await me every night. More than that, we're having epic conversations about the future, and I realize now that I'll miss him much more than I thought. The second year we were together we spent on separate continents, surely six weeks will be nothing. But I can't help wishing we were making the leap together. My head, anyway, has seen all it wants to see of the tip of Greenland.

In the meantime, I'm trying to focus on work - editing videos of people talking endlessly (a stutter or a throaty hesitation sounds so absurd when you hear it ten times over), and staying altogether very calm and unsentimental about leaving. The only time I do have slight fits of panic is when I'm trolling websites looking for jobs. Would it be unwise to take time off and write my memoirs? A romance novel? A niche nonfiction history of salt and pepper shakers?

A Pittsburgh view

Pittsburgh View

Duquesne Incline

The Fourth - Pittsburgh style

We spent our last Philadelphia fourth of July away from Philly altogether - skipped the nation's first capital for one of the rust belt cities that's seeing a comeback on the horizon -- Pittsburgh. I love hills, so it was in some ways a place for me, one steep reach after another with the city center nestled in between. When I was in graduate school and applying for jobs, I eyed one with good benefits in Pittsburgh. I decided not to apply, for various reasons (one of them - a trusted elder asserted that Pittsburgh was "no great shakes" - I remember it very clearly -- ), and have had a vague pining regret of it ever since. I really should just apply to any job I consider. I always end up regretting the ones that I don't.

We battled it out for a great view of the fireworks on a stunning hill that overlooked the city, and let me just say, people are not kind when the stakes are as high as a good view of fourth of July fireworks. There was the overloading of teenagers on a public statue of - ironically - George Washington (one person literally sat on poor George's head), there was the small posse who stood in front of a poor wheelchair-bound girl, and there were nasty comments galore (Where do you think you're putting that chair? -- How am I supposed to see now? -- Am I bothering you? Damned right I'm not bothering you!) It was a sad display for a national holiday, and it made me believe a little less in the power of collective intelligence and respect. Or perhaps I'm just not a crowd person. But the fireworks were lovely. And I'll be damned if there wasn't a single head between me and the view.

Stuffed

Thinking about packing everything up, particularly in this heat, has been making me feel the need to purge and purge quickly. I'm not sure how we accumulate so much junk, but H and I have agreed wholeheartedly that whatever apartment awaits us in Belgium, it will be all the better because it won't be so stuffed. Whatever we pack up and lug back to my hometown will wait out the years ahead of us in my mother's basement, dank and dusty, until we're really settled and have more space. We must get rid, now, of whatever we can possibly bear to part with. Which, I'm afraid, it turns out is not much.

I've started with the desk drawers. We managed to accumulate about 20 highlighters over the years, sets of different colors, fat and still functional. I dumped them all in my work bag and smuggled them into the supply closet at the office. That's right, I've been reduced to pawning my old, personal office supplies on my coworkers, and if I get into trouble, it'll be for putting things in the supply closet rather than stealing from it.

On the same journey into the dark depths of our desk drawers, in between crevices stuffed with old scrap paper and Christmas cards from five years ago, I find something, I think, that we can quickly and easily make a decision on. A sweet, small present from H before my grad school days that's now old, chalky, and hasn't been used in years. Attached to the zipper is a furry monkey key chain. I'm getting rid of it! I say. H just looks at me. But I gave that to you! he says, puppy-eyed and quivery-lipped. It's sweet. It's really for a student, though - I just don't need it anymore. I thought it was a decent, sensitive argument. Suppose you could use it for work in Belgium, he counters. I start to feel guilty about giving away a gift, but even so, I stick to my guns. Must be strong! Too much stuff! Nope, it's going in the get-rid pile. He hangs his head, before mumbling the final, sad request: At least keep the monkey. And so, the knickknack goes back in the desk drawer for another stretch, and I'm left shaking my head at our weaknesses minimalism. This is going to be a hard, mean battle.

The more time passes the harder it is

Because the more time passes the harder it is, exponentially, to begin writing once again after a hiatus, I will spew a few words here to press the reset button, to finally in one confident stroke rip off the band-aid.

I'm sorry it's been so long. I was away, and even though the internet was accessible, I decided to take a break from my blog checking and writing. And so I declare with certainty that I, for one, am not addicted to the internet. I can do without for days on end. I can curl up with a book or a magazine, tuck my feet under me and feel cozy and (almost) totally satisfied with the day's reading material. I have no blackberry, no i-pod, no rectangular, vibrating, hand-sized device that absorbs my attention, and I feel happy that I don't have the need for one.

Or perhaps it's just that my need for abundance and drama has been fed through other channels of my life in the past few weeks. Things are changing. We are unofficially-officially moving to Belgium in late summer, and I'm going two or three times a day to stare at the little squares that mark out the days between then and now, between Philadelphia and something entirely different. The weeks don't seem like enough. There are still places on our list - day trips to do, city restaurants to sample, art galleries to peruse. And I'm looking at the little blank squares and thinking - Will it all fit?