mission

Living each day as my last.

A June adventure that I haven’t yet had a chance to share…

When a meeting of world leaders coincided with the 64th birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s opposition leader, Gordon Brown requested that her face be projected on the outside of European Parliament… with just 2 hours notice I hopped onto a train. As the Eurostar rolled into Brussels I received an email that the Belgian authorities were on high alert because 500 Belgian farmers had descended upon the capital on their tractors in protest… and that the projection potentially risked interfering with the snipers’ vision on top of the parliament buildings. Upon arrival, however, I found that the greatest challenge was closing 585 window shades in locked offices to improve the quality of the projected image… by myself! I headed into the building, ready to pretend I was on a game show with a 6 hour challenge of reaching 11 floors. In the end, though, it took four hours of arguing with guards in French in various Parliament buildings to for entry clearance, as well as a master key to the offices. Finally, by 10:30 pm, I was off, dashing into offices, climbing under and over desks to pull the shades and finally create a surface for this image to be projected onto.

exhale

7th January: Day 86 of doing one thing as if I was living that day as my last.

I had great plans of going to the gym. Of getting myself organised. And getting to bed early.

But I really just needed a familiar voice. And to pour out everything that’s been happening. Especially to a friend who will tug at each end of my accordion-folded life, lengthening and flattening from peaks and valleys, allowing the page to exhale, breathing more freely as a slightly creased strip.

M and I ended up speaking until it was so late that I missed my shower curfew of 11 pm (I may be moving, but Mary is still keeping a tight reign), but it was worth having to go to work with wet hair the next day…

water

16th November: Day 35 of doing one thing as if I was living that day as my last.

As Sunday approached, I kept thinking about the story in Matthew.  It’s one about a woman who poured very expensive perfume upon Jesus’s feet.  I had heard numerous sermons about it over the years.  The bit that stayed with me were that this perfume had cost the woman a year’s salary.  The sermons usually left me feeling challenged, but a bit overwhelmed, really.

This weekend I began to see it in another light, though.  I went back to another story – the one about the master that gave out talents to his servents, left for holiday and found varying results upon return.  The bottom line was that a few servants had big returns on their investment, but one had been a little hoarder.  In 2002, I heard a different take than the usual invest your gifts and money moral.  Alternatively, I was challenged to consider if perhaps these talents represent suffering.    Hard earned, they have so much more potential for reaching the silver lining, than if they are swept under the basement rug.

The little aha came just as I prepared for my baptism.  I was to speak beforehand about my story.  It would have been so easy to give a generic plotline.  But I had fluid on the brain, luckily only in a metaphoric sense, and I kept thinking about pouring myself out.  Sharing what I did have, what was more costly than money, the narrative of my year in Brussels.

And so I stood before two hundred people and tipped the pitcher.  I emptied my heart of my story.  I felt the superlative of vulnerable.  But it captured the significance of plunging beneath the water.  And whilst I hesitate to say it, I will anyway.  My outpouring was met.  I saw tears in eyes in the eyes of my friends.  I had twenty-five people come and talk to me afterwards.  And I felt loved.  Supported.  At peace.  That I had done what I was supposed to do.  And that somewhere in the middle of all of this, there was a very shiny dash of silver.

brussels

15th November: Day 34 of doing one thing as if I was living that day as my last.

Here are some of the very, very special ones who sew back my buttons because they know I’ll never do it, bring me tupperwares full of meals when I’m running ragged the week before an event, cry when they watch me have a big moment, and make up part of my family.

But really, these words can not describe their amazing spunk.

So instead, images.

My very best friend, P.

J, my stylist.

Settling in at Cook & Book.

So many choices!

Ahh, Kriek!!

Right side of the table.

And now left.

Do I qualify for human growth hormones?

Playing footsy!

My partner in the lovely swirling s chair for two.

I’m never leaving!!

Just about to have a veritable chocolat chaud.  Seriously, truly hot chocolate.

One of my favorite places in the world.

family

5th November: Day 24 of doing one thing as if I was living that day as my last.

I’m a keeper. Less into seasons. More into a lifetime.

The people I keep make it two in my little pea pod. They are the possessors of my next thought. They are the knot in the wood on the opposite wall that my Pilates instructor says to locate as my ankle and knees wobble. They are the ones that say I Love You as a paragraph. They are my family.

My family keeps growing. These golden girls give me massive hugs. They make me feel like I’m not just a little orphan on this side of the lake. They worry about me if they don’t see me. They feed me yummy soup. And then send home the leftovers in a container wrapped with plastic bags so they don’t spill while I bike home.  Like tonight when the flavour was sausage and bean.

Now people are coming to me, rather than me to them. I’m amazed. Especially by the family here that sought me out and said they will be my home to go home to. That there is a bedroom with my name on it whenever I like. That there is always a glass of wine to share with the amazing mom. An audience for the words that tumble out. And a caring voice to answer back.

I don’t do seasons with these people. Or the ones before them. Or them.

emerson

Haven’t read Emerson since the days of high school American lit and all of those Song of Myself-y pieces. But I did come across something that catches me, even despite my tired regard of stand-alone sentences that teeter on their tippy toes, trying to reach the heights of inspiration.

“finish each day and be done with it. you have done what you could. some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. tomorrow is a new day. you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. “

I’m not so much inspired as halfway through having a bit of an inner battle – my perfectionist self, saying “I didn’t have any blunders or absurdities!” or “It wasn’t just a blunder it was the end of the world!” and my realistic self saying, “Chill the hell out!” By the end, though, I can let out a sigh and tuck away all of the nonsense and the self that takes it all way too seriously.

green

My fingers are covered in green. Green thumb puns aside, I am a proud liker of green. Not just because the word is trendy. (Nearly) the whole pantone range. The neon color that I used to think I would paint my first apartment kitchen in (to accompany my black cabinets with sleek silver handles). Where the Wild Things Are shadowy-nearly blacks. The kelly green-I’m Irish! color my uncle insists on always wearing – whether he’s at a family party or out at the hopping Connecticut pubs where other “Irish” are. And I can’t forget the color of my ipod that I heart heart heart.

SO, the fingers. Green cupcakes in the oven. My past colleague has been hounding me for cupcakes. For her purpose they’re not going to be St. Patrick’s day cupcakes but “muffins” that have been in my trunk for a bit but only got a little moldy…

yum

I have amazing friends here who invite me over and feed me!!!

L & her delicious risotto

J & the lasagna that was worth facing my fear of parallel parking for!!

soiree

So much misguided European thinking that cupcakes are the same things as muffins, I endeavored to set the record on Saturday. With one of my closest Brussels friends heading back to Singapore, I heated up my easy bake oven and produced a sampling of cupcakes for a Surprise Bon Voyage/Happy January Birthdays/Happy Groundhog Day While We’re At It – Party.

Southern Red Velvet

Coconut Almond

Death By Chocolate

Brussels introductions go like this: “What’s your name? Where are you from? How long are you here for?” Being just a one year-ling, I have had people say they don’t want to invest in short stay transients (but of course not me, they all claim). M was one of the first people I met my first Sunday at church in Brussels and she was undeterred by my drifter status – as she was to let her feet touch the ground longer than I.  Since then I have been a regular fixture in her swanky Sablon flat.

After getting over the surprise of being the one left behind, I can’t help but think that I am so going to miss our long brunches and five hour conversations. and the dinners that end in sleepovers when my car got blocked in. oh yes, the sunscreen smelling coconut tea, rice pyramids, chocolate covered spoons and boursin flavoured pasta whenever I was too overwhelmed to cook last fall. and maybe even her bluntness and ridiculous freak outs. but I guess skype will do the trick for the last two!

K (who dj’s on the side), S & J, my first arrivals.

U and T – who dared to bring red wine to my white flat!!

J & V and their amazing apple struedel.

U’s first cupcake. ever.

Two very special women.

Yes, special would be the word for them.

And the aftermath:

Not. Actually, this more makes me feel like a bad host by not forcing more wine!

birthday sweets

When I first started working at a European company I began receiving emails about birthday sweets. Men and women alike were announcing their birthdays and offering up “candy cakes” (false advertising! the base is just for display!), brownies and divine Belgian chocolates. Though psyched about the offer of free sugar, I couldn’t help but think, what losers… they don’t have any friends to buy them a massive cupcake and sprinkle some confetti between the keys of their keyboards!

Then again, my American perspective is also shaded by the fact that I had the most incredible colleagues ever in NY. Case in point: 2007.

Without my nutty NY coworkers in 2008, and faced with the Belgian tradition of “it’s my birthday and I have to supply my own sweets”, I spent my birthday slaving over my tiny “easy bake oven” to bring in decadent chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and milk chocolate shavings. A great way to meet people when I’ve just started working at this company…. next time, though, I plan to simply hand over a few euros to Marcolini to spend my birthday somewhere besides the kitchen!

merry happy 2008

merry happy 2008

946 photos
1 police warning

“love generation” -bob sinclar and gary pine

the glow

The most inspiring quote I have encountered recently:

“I have learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou

Needs very little explanation, except that I can’t help but think how much this applies to my friend M whose email it was at the bottom of. She espouses this quote – her eyes glow, her spirit invites, her arms welcome, her words give power and affirmation, her South African spirit surrounds you and lingers.

And she is just one of my new friends in Brussels. One of the other M’s (yes, all of my friends have names that start with M – I’m at my quota and don’t want any more M friends lest you all think I’m giving my one friend multiple personalities) complements her in another way – her email to me yesterday: “I am terrible at writing emails. So I shall cook you a meal when you return here.”

I have it good!