Loving Brussels, whether you like it or not

Didn't even know Brussels had a
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

I like to think I can find some version of beauty anywhere. No podunk too dunky to find a po little piece of purty in it. And with some time and a camera, I reckon I could fill up a memory card just about anywhere and at least have myself a passable screensaver.

But Brussels. Oh Brussels.

Maybe it’s because I’d just spent the weekend in Paris, a city so beautiful you can nab something nice while putting the lens cap on wrong, but Brussels just... It just wouldn’t cooperate.

Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of beautiful things there. Old facades, careful corners, and hunks of history sitting in the sun or resting in the rain. But every single dern one of ‘em had a big heap of crap in front of it. Canine or municipal. Pigeon-piled or city planned.

Have a cute little mansion? Why not
build a giant glass thing looming over it?

But that’s just it. It’s not planned. For a city renowned and maligned as the home of bureaucracy and civil interference, Brussels seems to have grown up without any oversight whatsoever. In fact, I just learned that in urban planning, the term Brusselization means: “the indiscriminate and careless introduction of modern high-rise buildings into gentrified neighborhoods” and/or “haphazard urban development and redevelopment.”

Want a big beautiful church? Here, have seven. And each one gets a buddy, snuggled up nice and close, perhaps a neon Pizza Hut or an obese hotel that wishes it was in Miami, but usually a neo-brutalist concrete monument to capitalist dominance and sociopathic success.

Or you can just let it rot and paint eyelashes on the saints. That’s cool too.

But somehow in the chaos, the glaring glass and clumsy corners, I kind of fell in love with Brusselsian ugliness. It’s not exactly ugly, it’s just...kind of flailing. Uncontrolled and accidental. Tripping over itself and knocking over the altar. It’s kind of like life, built in steel and drywall and error.

Place des Martyrs

I’m glad not every city is scrambled eggs like this, but I’m also happy not every city has the unity of Paris, or the modernity of new Amsterdam, or the rotting Victorian urbanity of Oakland. And as San Francisco struggles with a malignant housing crisis, and the principle of supply and demand suggests we should build some modern high-rise buildings in our gentrified neighborhoods, I pray we don’t Brusselize ourselves into oblivion.

But strolling around the city, down traffic-afflicted streets with torn up cobblestones, I started to fall for the place, and by the time I sat to dinner in a sidewalk cafe with a peculiar blend of Moroccan, French, and Malaysian flavors, wouldn’t you know it, I’d filled up a memory card.

What Brussels is to me

A random street in Schaerbeek, a Brussels neighborhood just
across the tracks from the now infamous Molenbeek.

Brussels? The first memory that comes to mind is feeling like an episode of The Office had leaked into real life. These guys, with their corny jokes and awkward attempts at flirting, worked for a paper company. It was just so perfect.

I’d contacted a Belgian tour company and they’d sent me to tag along with these business trippers for an hour. I was fascinated by the improbable story of Belgian independence, but they mostly talked about sports, and the only thing I wrote down was “Don’t talk about something you can’t show.” Can’t say I’ll always obey that edict, now that I am a guide, nor can I follow it in this post

Because how can I show the swirl of emotion as very different images from Brussels slam into the news? The horror and sorrow and empathy and anger and confusion and sick knowledge that this happens much more often in a few other countries, and is no less horrible in commonality than rarity, perhaps only more so.

And fear. That’s in there too. But not fear of a terrorist attack, which I still believe is not something you or I will ever actually experience. Shark attacks, plane crashes, terrorist attacks. They are scary, they happen, but they are not factors in how I choose to plan my life. I like swimming, I take a lot of flights, and I believe there is far more goodness, more peace, in the human soul than violence.

I never did find out what was going on
with this. Somewhere in Brussels.

No, the fear I feel is that we will assist the extremists in their goals. That we will respond in exactly the wrong way. Because that conviction of mankind’s goodness is difficult to maintain sometimes. In myself, when I feel the desire to see someone punished for the violence, and the first image is more explosions, and I wait for my animal amygdala to give way to my human neocortex, which understands that violence only creates more violence.

And that fear is strong, that conviction of human goodness strained, when I watch the Republican primaries, and the bragging demonstration of a viewpoint that scorns such understanding. Scorns much understanding at all, as far as I can tell. It seems clear to me that Donald Trump is running on a platform of willful ignorance, and such arrogant idiocy has never been more dangerous.

Because make no mistake, the lunatics who killed people in Brussels would like nothing better than to see Trump elected. Their gameplan is fear, anger, reaction. Us versus Them. No comprehension, no discussion, no progress, only a devolution to a world of warring tribes and caliphates. That’s what terrorism does. It removes the evolved brain from the decision-making process. As I’ve written before, terrorism is the strategy of the weak.

Brussels is not a city of fear. This statue gives me an idea
of how I'd like to mentally respond to Trump's candidacy.

I for one do not want to live in that kind of world. I’d rather live in this one, where awkward businessmen in semi-fitting suits can ignore tour guides while I sit in the back of the bus, a peaceful piece of person afloat in a beautiful world, because even though that world has its problems, I have faith that humans are determined to make positive progress towards a better future.

Or you can vote for Trump.

There are worse things than having been racist

The contractor was measuring the ceiling in my lady’s house when he noticed he’d tracked dog poo all over the kitchen floor. It was awkward, but he helped clean it up, cleaned his shoe, and we all went on with our day. He did not go deliberately step in more and lay fresh prints.

What if his coworker had left the smudges before he arrived? Should he say “Well, I didn’t start it” then go find a steaming fresh pile of Rover’s Revenge to spread around? It’s easy when we’re talking about puppy poop, but what if it’s something worse?

In episode 349 of The Savage Lovecast, Dan Savage talks about the early days of the AIDS epidemic, when asserting the virus was an STI could get you in a fight, as people resisted the guilt of having inadvertently caused harm. But eventually they accepted the facts and evolved. He compares this to those who still deny climate change. There comes a time when you have to accept that what you've been doing isn't right anymore, and update.

He doesn’t advocate convictions for past mistakes, or tortured guilt for things done when we didn’t know any better, but to double down and willfully continue them once you do? That’s a problem.

Scaling back from lethal disease and global catastrophe, how about being accidentally offensive? Tonight in the Netherlands, and tomorrow in Belgium and Luxembourg, Zwarte Piet will help Sinterklaas deliver presents to all the little boys and girls. Zwarte Piet (Black Peter) is basically one of Santa’s elves, with one glaring difference: he’s in blackface, big red lips, afro wig and everything.

Controversy over the figure has been growing for decades. The (white) majority says “But it's our tradition!” (True.) “We don't mean anything racist by it!” (Good, thank you.) And sometimes “If I meet you you’ll get a bullet through your head.” Charming.

I know people resist changing traditions, but just a couple sentences for perspective:

-Halloween was long based on vandalism, not changing to its current emphasis on costumes and treats until World War II

-Thanksgiving is increasingly about family, and less about genocidal religious extremists, or is that just me?

-Even Zwarte Piet himself didn’t show up until 1850, his name not standardized until the early 20th century, around the same time Sinterklaas stopped kidnapping naughty kids into slavery. And did anyone grow up believing Saint Nick came from Turkey? Well he did, but we changed it to the North Pole (and Sinterklass moved to Spain) without undue rage. So why cling so fiercely to an outdated racist icon?

(Zwarte Piet briefly took over the child slavery racket, though that’s been phased out too. We’ll talk about the function of a black character selling white children into slavery another time.)

This is all very easy for me to say; I didn't grow up with Zwarte Piet. Also, I don't really give an enraged caboodle about changing holiday details (no, I don't watch Fox News' preposterous War on Christmas either). My lady, on the other hand, grew up in The Netherlands in the days before people saw Piet as racist. She had those happy childhood mornings, when the friendly character threw candies and handed out gifts. She loved that character, but when age and perspective showed her its racist overtones, she adjusted. In her words: “A short moment of nostalgic pain is MORE than worth it for doing the right thing.”

Now want to hear something cool? The Netherlands is showing its impressive character yet again. Not waiting for everyone to find their empathy, they are changing, slowly but steadily. In previous years they’ve toned down the blackface by removing the big red lips (and earrings), consciously avoiding portrayals of him as inferior to the white Sinterklaas, and this year they’re adding other colors of Piet, including cheese yellow and (gasp!) white.

I can only imagine it’s a matter of time until people look back and say “Remember back when we had that awful racist character? Nutty!” (Though I expect the overtly racist and anti-immigration parties like the PVV and Vlaams Belang will cling to their crusty obstinacy far into the future.)

So as America roils, burns, and shatters under the weight of our own racism and malfeasance, the sickness in our system that seems unwilling to change, and I figure out my own minuscule part in it, I’m going to look at the waffle-striped Piet this year with a smile, and hope that the arc of history might speed itself up a bit here too...

Back to Belgium, aka What's the Atomium?

I went to Belgium for one reason. One destination: one town, one street, one house, one woman. Describing K, attempting to summarize our past, present...and future...would take a book. And this is only a blog.

So I’ll hoard the emotional geography, the plateau, erosion, collapse, darkness, renewal, ascent, comprehension, acceptance, construction, optimism, and final mountainside with a very nice view.

But what I can share is the last day. A great afternoon to finish a great week.

How much French do you hear at the Eiffel Tower? How much Italian at the Coliseum? English at Buckingham Palace...okay, I’ll give you that one. But it’s an often (and halfheartedly...quarterheartedly?) lamented fact that people rarely visit their own country’s postcard landmarks. In Belgium, this is true of the Atomium.

Have you heard of it? Has anyone sent you a postcard from Brussels lately?

The Atomium, as the Eiffel Tower and Seattle’s Space Needle, was built for a World’s Fair, but was just so darn pretty that they kept it afterwards. A model of an iron molecule increased 165 billion times, the structure is 335 feet tall, and was originally designed to stand on its molecular links alone (“Quantum whatnow?” asked the 1958 scientist). Luckily, those trusty Belgians test things before they build them, and noticed that the whole thing would have tipped in 80 kph winds. Belgian winds gets up to about 140 kph. They added some supports.

I’d seen the thing, hulking in molecular mystery on the horizon as I caught the IR train between Brussels and Antwerp, but it never occurred to me to visit the dern thing. But what better way to cap off a visit you never expected to make, than visiting a place you never expected to go?

It was built in the dashing days of 1958, gals and gents in comic-book “The Future Is Now!” smiles and wardrobes. The Space Race was just underway, War was over, and the future was so bright, they had to wear shades. (Nuclear overtones included.) You can see exhibits of those days, their furniture, architecture, and dental hygiene, in the various rooms of the metal marvel.

Then get on an escalator between Dutch kids and German adults, and ride through the psychedelic tube to the next ball. There is a restaurant where you can eat and gaze, plenty of port-holes with views over Brussels, and the sort of bemused tourist shuffle that puts a smile on most faces.

As long as there’s no line for the bathroom.

In the end, I’m glad we went to the Atomium.

But not nearly as glad as I am to have gone back to Belgium. Love still lives there.

It's all ending; it's all beginning.

On the night I left for Nicaragua, a year and a week ago exactly, I took a moment on the drive to the airport to take my hands off the wheel (the road was clear and it was just a moment) as an acknowledgment to the gods of Travel and Chance (who are cousins) that I was not in control of the world, then I took the wheel to start piloting my way as best I could.

This time I have no illusions; I am not remotely in control. The foundation of my life as I know it, the incarnation that began four years ago when I became more the person I am today, has crumbled out from beneath me.

I've made mistakes I never thought I would make, and I don't yet understand how. Four years ago I changed who I was, and I thought that meant I knew myself. Turns out I was wrong, I'm not yet there. I've had blessing beyond belief in this life; love and friendship to make the angels cry, but there is something missing, something in me that I've lost sight of.

I don't know exactly how to find it, but my path starts now. I am sitting in a corner cafe in the airport in Istanbul, where they charged me more for the orange juice (whose price is not obviously listed) than they did for the sandwich (which is), and looked uncomfortable when I remarked on it.

I guess that's the lesson: it's easy to be good when everyone is watching, but it's what you do when you can get away with it that counts.

K gets here on the next flight, T minus three hours and counting, and leaves on Sunday, D minus 3.5 days and counting.

So the next few days will be an Eden of company, then a Hell of farewell.

And after that?

I have no idea.

Walking in the world

They spoke Dutch when I got on the train and French when I got off, though the ads were always English.

Brussels North Station is next to the Red Light District and surrounded by neighborhoods of Middle Eastern immigrants, so you quickly go from women showing most of their skin to women showing none.

On the street I heard Turkish, Arabic, and Farsi, though I confess I cannot always tell the difference between the last two.

I started off walking but it was farther than I thought, and I was running by the time I found the embassy I needed, between those of Ghana and Lesotho.

Walking back, I heard Spanish, saw a note posted above a mailbox in Polish, and bought a piece of the tortilla-like flatbread I used to eat in Morocco, which I remember being called msemin, though I can google no confirmation of that.

As I ate, I passed a corner store called “Madina-gsm” (Americans: gsm is European for cell phone), which advertised calling cards to Kenya.

I stopped to take a picture of a blue door, and the names on the mailboxes were Azzaimi, Garcia, Deryckere, Ahmed El Kamoun, Boeckx, Tsuranova, and Baschirov.

Brussels gets a bad rap in my opinion (though I wouldn’t necessarily want to live there) but as I walked back to the train station with my visa for Myanmar in my passport, I was in love with the brazen internationality of it.

That’s a good sign, since I’ll catch a flight to Turkey in three days.

Life is one big game of Super Mario Bro's

My brother-in-law pointed it out.

We were talking about how to drive a hybrid car in the most efficient way possible, and noting that even though our efforts didn't make much of a difference, we couldn't help but try our best.

I thought it was just an ecological ethos, but I think he had the right of it.

“We were raised on video games; we want the top score.”

They were more right than I realized until now

My video game credentials are pretty poor. The last system I played on a regular basis was Sega Genesis, which dates me to about 1992. “Look! Three buttons!”

I've played a little playstation 2, and found being a Spartan warrior with swords flying off one's forearms to be eminently enjoyable, but most modern video games make me yearn for a game of freecell and/or a good book.

In '92 I liked Mortal Kombat, with 8 characters and half a dozen moves. I tried Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance around 2005 and lasted about five minutes. 22 characters, each with three different fighting styles, 3D movement...I was already nauseous.

I just want to hit C rapidly. Sega hockey was in my wheelhouse.

But that fundamental video game frame of reference persists, and combines well with my OCD tendencies until I have a particular method for most everyday tasks. I don't have to follow them, I'm not that neurotic, but I prefer to rinse dishes over the other soapy ones so the falling water does half my job for me, and if left to my own devices I will pre-sort the groceries before putting them away so that everything that goes in the refrigerator is laid out within arm's reach.

The less time the refrigerator door is open, the better score I get.

But one of the cardinal joys of video gaming is harder to find in real life: the level up.

I am in the intermediate stages of teaching myself to juggle, I count that as a level up, but yesterday I received a more tangible example.

The customs stamp for Iceland joined one for Morocco on the penultimate page of my passport. The rest are an artwork of ink fading faster than their corresponding memories. With Asia on the horizon, I was out of room.

Three hours of torture in the waiting room of the US Embassy in Brussels, where CNN blared its relentless assault of profane idiocy at us (arguing about Michael Jackson's doctor? Really? Really?), an $82 fee(!), and I now have a Level 3 passport.

(It was the same price to add 24 pages as 48, so I skipped right over Level 2.)

All those pristine pages...I can't wait to start putting stamps in there. Think of the XP I will earn!

Happy Eostre and Easter from Belgium!

Easter last year was dinner with (full-grown) family then a midnight flight to Nicaragua. This year is a little different, in one very large (and very small) way.

A small smile keeps coming back as I remember my own childhood Easters. Putting hard-boiled eggs in copper wire holders, and lowering them into dye that will forever come to mind when I smell vinegar. Then hunting for those eggs in my grandparents' backyard (there was always one hidden by the frog fountain) before a big British brunch where we consumed far more cholesterol than would be permitted nowadays.

In Belgium the eggs are chocolate, and finding them was a no-nonsense pursuit for the day's red-cheeked focal point, who went about the task with meticulous care and stalwart enthusiasm. (Suddenly I suspect she is an old soul who still holds pagan fertility symbols to be serious business.)

We also, appropriately enough, are taking care of the neighbors' pet for a week while they go skiing. The pet? A rabbit. Delivered the day before Easter. “Kijk! Een konijntje!”

A very happy Easter and/or Eostre Day to all of you.

The country is freezing, and in unrelated news: if I stay too long I'll have to eat the ones I love.

Spring is waiting for something this year. It's the first time Belgium has had this much snow in mid-March since 1952, it's the coldest March (23^rd at least) since 1873, and the big storm a couple weeks ago led to a record length of 1,038 miles of traffic jams during rush hour (which, by my rough google maps calculations, is enough to span the length of Belgium upwards of five times).

Personally I think Spring is being polite, and waiting until we install the blinds on the full-length bathroom windows so that when the neighbors return to their backyards they won't be able to chat with us while we're in the shower.

Is that fresh lemonade? Can I have some? Let me just finish shampooing real quick, as you can see, I'm almost done.

The house may be under construction (which doesn't bother me in the slightest), but I consider it a lottery win to have found. Not only is it nice inside, good location, and great roommate/owner, but it has chickens.

And not just any chickens, they are two Chinese silkies who are nearly never more than a meter apart, have curious personalities, and have promised me eternal love in exchange for the wax rind off the gouda cheese that I eat massive quantities of.

I give them different names every time I see them. Right now they're Agnes and Maurice. Yesterday they were Mortimer and Gertrude, Rupert and Maximilian before that.

But for now I am enjoying my walks around our new hometown of Lier. There is a rather impressive public swimming pool complex with a normal lap-swim pool, sauna, steambath, and four other pools of various temperatures and currents for kids the kids; the open Grote Markt central plaza is all repaired after a plumbing project last year found remains of a Roman chariot; and the library has a reading cafe where I sat for a few hours with the English-language guide book for Sri Lanka I found.

In other news, I am now going to Sri Lanka.

But first, it's chilly strolls in my boots (which do not travel with me, despite being made for walking), periodic indulgences in Belgian food (fries of course, plus beer-based beef stew, chocolate, and a tasty homemade rabbit stew, and waffles asap), and the upcoming spectacle of K's ridiculously adorable niece hunting for Easter eggs.

We'll just have to see how much ice there is on Sunday before deciding whether the hunt is indoors or out.