April 28. Den Haag, Holland

Sunday April 28, Den Haag, Holland

Dear Trail Friends,

We are staying with longtime friends Jan and Christopher in Den Haag. Jan is an art historian who worked for the national art museum, who was forced by government policy to stop working when he reached retirement age, before he was really ready, and who still (post-retirement) works parttime for the museum. It is interesting to look at Jan’s bookcases that reflect his lifelong passion for history, a subject I have never explored deeply. Christopher is a retired Jungian analyst also forced into retirement, in his case by health crises. He had a serious stroke five years ago and continues to make surprising recovery gains, but was robbed forever of the work he loved. Both are almost my age, just a year or two younger.  Chris met Christopher in 1975 (six years before Chris and I met), her second year in San Diego after moving from New Jersey. Christopher was a student at California School of Professional Psychology, where Chris taught during most of the years when she was teaching at San Diego State University and chairing the Religious Studies Department. 

Our visit consists mostly of quiet conversation, catching up on each other’s lives, excavating and polishing shared memories, telling stories about our lives. Christopher hasn’t recovered enough for walks, so Chris and I go for walks on our own in the neighborhood. I notice lots of people on bicycles and lots of bicycles parked on the sidewalks here. Photo 1 was, I thought, an especially picturesque bicycle. I wondered if its owner chose a yellow bicycle to match her beautiful rose bush?

As we walked home from dinner tonight, Jan pushing Christopher in a wheelchair (Christopher gets around the house fine with a cane, and other places with a walker, but for a walk of quite a few blocks like this the walk to the restaurant, he does best in the wheeled chair) and Chris and I walking beside them, Chris commented on how similar the buildings were.  Jan spoke of the architectural history of the neighborhood, how they were built in the 1880s when Holland was an imperial power and there were many new jobs in the capital in the government. The builders built blocks of identical houses, not wanting to spend money and time on new designs. But a few blocks further down, he told us, you could see the buildings becoming more modest as years passed and the brief era of imperialist wealth began to wane. 

I like it when people help me to look at my surroundings in new ways, through fresh eyes. And when Jan talks about history, he is never pedantic or pompous. His passion for history is so clear and he is simply sharing it. 

Jan and Christopher’s house - their new smaller house chosen to fit  their changed financial circumstances - is near the canal, which is a pleasant place to walk with lots of green. I was happy to see a swan in the canal (photo 2). 

I hope tomorrow I will get a photo of Christopher and Jan and perhaps one of the neighborhood. Meanwhile, I do want to show you all the hair ties I found. I’m not sure I’ve told you about hair ties. My niece Josie Angel (who died in August 2017 of complications of the disease of addiction) had beautiful thick black hair and used lots of hair ties. She sometimes left them around and when she did the cat generally requisitioned them as cat toys. There was a special playful connection between Josie and the cat, as well as Josie and her Mom, which the hair ties came to symbolize. After Josie died, Judy would sometimes find hair ties lying around not just the house but the streets. Once she found one on a checkout counter at Trader Joe’s. “This must belong to my daughter,” Judy told the cashier. “She leaves them everywhere.” I have began to watch for hair ties on city streets and sidewalks and when I find them I feel as if Josie has reached out from the other world (be it a world of spirits or imagination, the invisible unknown world where the dead dwell) and given me a gift which is also a message, a reassurance of continuing love and connection. 

On April 26 (Judy’s birthday) I found a purple hair tie in Seattle. Today in Den Haag I found quite a few, probably because Saturday was a holiday (the King’s birthday) with lots of festivities and people on the street. Photo 3 shows my little collection of ties. 

I am very grateful to Judy and Josie for the way the hair tie “game” has transformed city sidewalks and streets for me. I have the same sense of wonder and discovery that I have on the beach. I walk on the shores of an unknown world, watching to see what will wash up from the other world carrying secret messages. Just as I love to look for sea glass on the beach, I love looking for hair ties in the city. Chris calls me a “sidewalk comber.” I feel that my niece who has been my greatest teacher in learning about how to love goes on teaching me by this little game that helps me to walk through city streets (where I am less at home than in the wilderness) with an open heart. 

 

Enough for now. Thank you for walking with me. I hope to see you on the trail again soon.