Nearly Midsummer

18 June here, and Tuesday. Glittering sun, after several utterly sodden days of pouring rain and other sogginess and what's called "benauwd" (buh-NOWD) weather here -- stuffy, airless, unstable, heavy atmosphere.

Spying window washers on my tiny street this morning, I hired them (not cheap, as it turned out: 45 Euros for all external windows, which are only three in front, though large, and six in the rear, also large), and it's embarrassing to realize how dirty they were. The house's owner (a long time ago, to judge from the state of them) in lieu of double glazing or anything else, installed double windows on the outside of all ground-floor windows. While yes, they inhibit break-ins, they're impossible to clean from the inside, and also can't be opened! So, there's only the transom window over the French door to give ventilation to the entire ground floor.

Life becomes rather more domestic when one's not studying into the wee hours. My freesia bulbs have produced plummy and white blooms, with that heavenly fragrance. At least two of the cala lily bulbs are producing stalks. The three periwinkle hydrangeas planted are doing just fine. (While I'm renting this house, bulbs and plants are so cheap that it's worth it to plant some things.)

And the light. To those of you now bored rigid with my goings-on about the light here, this will be brief. The light is beyond description, really. Today, it is utterly clear, with a robin's egg pale sky and puffy clouds. It is precisely the light that Vermeer had for those wonderful internal pictures of ladies' maids pouring thick milk (all milk was thick then and doubtless delicious, compared to what we have now) in Haarlem and elsewhere. It is the light that, filtered by the thick glass of Vermeer's houses, almost has a visible texture. It is almost unbearably beautiful.

Even the lack of light is lovely. It has been light here until well past 10pm for a few weeks! On one of my study nights/mornings, I was up until 04:30, and it was already a bit light then. In Washington, even at this time of the year, it was always dark by about 9pm. The evening late light is such a strange sort, similar to eclipse light. It dissipates so slowly that one doesn't realize that it's growing dark. It's terribly atmospheric.

Adding to my repertoire of new experiences here was a match.com adventure over the weekend. I'd noticed a "profile" of a man on the English south coast. His writing was a bit unusual (all lower-case, no spaces after periods, and other things). In one field, he wrote "a man in uniform . . . sexy or what". I figured that he was in the military. One can view profiles of people who have looked at one, and apparently he did that with mine, or I may have written a note; I can't remember how it started, but we ended up chatting. During the second chat he asked if I were interested in what work he did, and then he told me that he worked in a JAIL, in Lewes, and had for the last 15 years. I asked him how that was, and for the first time in my life, heard a bit about how that was. He was a very sweet guy, fairly articulate and clearly well able to work in another environment, which I mentioned. He had gone to sea as a kid, then worked in other maritime fields, but had been through a couple of redundancies (lay-offs) and said that the jail work was stable, somewhat interesting and would give him a pension in a couple of years. Aside from the obvious, I realized that my entire interest had been due to his resemblance to a long-deceased beau and wrote him a nice note. It made me re-examine my view of people who worked in jails, though. I think I'd largely lumped them in with the inmates. It made me again grateful for the options I'd had in life.

One also realizes such things being here in Holland, where the majority of the population does not attend university, but has an array of interesting alternatives from which to choose, unlike in the States, where more vocationally-oriented education is not well developed. Being a university student here has put me in a special class (despite my age as a very adult student). I've been very surprised to realize (although I have no statistics yet) that most people train for their professions in other than university environments. It's so sensible! Everyone has talents, but is not necessarily suited to academic situations.

Partly due to having a lifelong close friend based in Lebanon (the north: Tripoli), I can't get the Middle East's powder keg situation out of my mind. My friend has lived a few times each in both Cairo and Beirut (I've visited him in both), through thick and thin, but yesterday admitted that he might have to leave sooner than later, which scared me, since he is the most intrepid person I know. I urged him to get the hell out of Dodge, while the getting was still good, but he's there and knows how it really is. Leaving will mean reneging on his university contract, but he's visibly not a native of the area and would be an easy target of anti-Western potshots, if it came to that. The recent turbulence has caused him to cancel several concerts of his two choirs, which also was a first. For the large group of his friends around the world, his possible departure will be a hard pill to swallow, both from concern for his safety and also losing our window on that part of the world. War is so unevolved, as I heard when living in San Francisco.

A Nine!!!!

I got a NINE (10s are mostly in the mind)!

Finally. I'd given up hope, knowing my written Dutch was inadequate ("onvoldoende") for most purposes. I was content to get passes (6s and above) and the occasional 8, and also, sad to say, occasionally not passing. Most exams and serious writing assignments (of exam level) here get two chances, so one can improve. My wonderful Russian friend ("Jenia") routinely gets nines, but she works a lot harder than I do, and she's been here a year longer than I have. She also has the most remarkable memory -- nearly photographic, whatever that is. She looks at things once and usually retains what she sees. It's a marvelous gift. So, my nine was awarded to a "portfolio" we turned in last Monday, a compilation of newspaper and other clips on a chosen topic (mine was "traffic and transportation", thinking I'd see lots to do with shipping), short writing assignments on both our own topic, a political party of our choice (mine was the Socialist Party, "SP") and this shared with another classmate's choice of party, another piece on our native country contrasted with Holland, and finishing with our interview of a Dutch family. I included illustations (the dishy cabinet minister of my topic, who at 35 is the third-youngest minister of "traffic and water conditions" in history; photos of the political party chairs, bios of the U.S. ambassador to here (who's French-born and Montreal-bred) and the Dutch ambassador to Washington, D.C., and ending with a photo of my street, for the family interview (my neighbors). It was all fun to do, but like every assignment here, a huge amount of work, with constant checking of spelling, grammar and articles and hours spent coming up with ideas. Nonetheless, seeing the 9 made up for a lot of earlier disappointments and made me feel that I had made some progress. I had to tell someone!

Now, to trudge on to three exams next week. It's an odd life, and different from what I expected, somehow. I can't wait to take a few days off and ride the train around the country (after 25th June).