Husband woke up at 4:45 this morning and got up to follow reporting on the US Presidential election returns.
I went back to sleep and didn’t join him until a more civilized 5:45 am, but regardless, there we were, foregoing much-needed sleep to studiously eye the electoral college estimates and state-by-state tallies.
Why? Because we care. We care deeply.
I’m not going to share with you whether we were on TeamWin or not, because that isn’t the point.
Neither is whom we each cast our ballot for or why. How we voted isn’t the issue here; how we feel about our country is.
The popular vote count ticked ever highward and key states were called in favor of one presidential nominee or the other.
Finally Mitt Romney conceded to Barack Obama, both contenders speaking first to each other, and then to their devoted followers.
I am always in awe of the ability of the losing candidate to publicly concede defeat after an exhaustive, often bruising campaign. I empathize with putting your heart, soul, time, energy and effort into a cause for months (indeed years) on end, only to have it snuffed out in the final hours.
Romney kept his concession remarks brief but gracious; Obama kept his appreciative and conciliatory, attempting to forge a united electorate out of bitter rivalries.
That’s what you do when you transition from candidate to President: you set aside your role as outward face of your political party and take on, or in the case of an incumbent President, continue on with your role as leader of the American people.
Whether they agree with you or not. Whether they believe in your way ahead or not. Whether they share your views or not. Whether they like you or not. And for Obama, that means roughly 48% of the voting citizenship.
Much will be made of what the Republicans should have done or neglected to do or of the Democratic ticket taking such a decisive victory in the Electoral College (currently anticipated to be 303 to 206 electoral votes); of the shifting definitions of the tags ’independent’, ‘moderate’, ‘political center’; of voter turnout and the voting predilections of various sub-groups by gender, age, race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, religion, sexual orientation, geographic region.
You can talk all you want about trends, shifts, nuances, subtleties and clearcut changes in voting patterns.
Those endorsing the victor will celebrate the results; those supporting the losing candidate will lament them. There will be extensive analysis by both sides of what worked (and didn’t), what resonated (and didn’t), what mattered (and didn’t).
But there is no getting around a simple fact: asI write this, out of the estimated 115 million Americans who voted in this election, the winning candidate did so by approximately 2.3 million votes. In a country of 320 million people.
Almost 59 million people voted for Obama; nearly 57 million of his fellow countrymen did not. Now he must shift gears and do his best to lead the nation, a divided nation. A deeply divided nation.
He must spend his days and nights working tirelessly to move the country forward: bolster a sagging economy showing minimal improvement in fits and starts; get the unemployed, underemployed and those who have simply given up looking back to meaningful, productive, lucrative work; deal with myriad national and global political, economic and security challenges; put forward legislation to try to solve problems, mend fences and improve the lives not merely of the most vulnerable and fragile members of society, but of everyone.
A couple months ago I read a post that was starting to go viral at the time. I saw it on Facebook, but it was getting shared across a wide array of social media venues.
In it, the author calmly reminded his or her family, friends, coworkers, associates and/or followers that when they castigated or demonized members of his (or her) political persuasion - which remained unstated – they were, in essence, speaking directly to him (or her).
If you vocalized that conservatives or liberals were ignorant, arrogant, unfeeling, stupid, uncaring, unsophisticated, holier-than-thou, idiotic, unpatriotic, lazy, hard-hearted or any other of a long list of slurs, it was as if you were saying it to him/her when you chatted before the morning staff meeting, over coffee or at lunch, while picking up your children from school or dropping off their child from carpooling, over drinks at happy hour or over dinner in their home.
You can’t spew negativity at a group and then turn around and say ‘oh, but I didn’t mean you’. If you know someone whose political views differ from yours - at home, at work, at your place of worship or in your classroom, on the soccer field or at the ballpark, while volunteering or sharing a hobby or other interest – and care about them in any way, you can’t ascribe negative connotations to followers of those political beliefs but claim that the person you know and care about is an exception.
Enough with the negativity. Enough with taking one issue and making it your litmus test for acceptance or rejection.
Enough with the articles and speeches and talking heads telling us that one party believes in religion and values and security while the other believes in jobs and personal freedoms and acceptance.
Enough already.
Because when I look across my extended family, across the friends and acquaintances I’ve accumulated over the years, across the colleagues I’ve toiled next to in various jobs over a couple of careers, I know that we all care deeply about a whole host of issues, none of which are the sole purview of one political group or another.
Just as none of the values bandied about belong exclusively to one group and not the other.
It’s about respect, decency, democracy.
We are all good, kind, hardworking, caring people who want the best for our families, our communities, our nation, our world. We may differ as to the sources of various problems and societal ills, or the policy prescriptives to remedy these challenges, even the legislative and judicial fixes and the very people we want to see creating that change.
So when we badmouth this group or that, this party or that, this candidate or that, this individual or that, we are talking trash about those we respect, care about, perhaps even love.
I’m not going to pretend that there aren’t difficult challenges ahead. Of course there are, and always will be.
But I’m sick and tired of the ‘us vs. them’ mentality. And believe me, it goes well beyond the United States. It is pernicious and infects people, groups, countries around the world.
Wars have started over as much, not to mention bigotry, persecution, alienation, objectification, conflict, violence.
I’m tired of the snide comments and smug cross-cultural insults floating through the blogosphere, media and social media. Because when you criticize another nationality, another group, another faction, you are perpetuating this dark whorl of negativity.
I don’t slap labels on your views, your religious preference, your causes or pet issues, your nationality, your political systems. I don’t wonder aloud or online why ‘you people’ don’t do this or try that or can’t get your act together on the other.
When you do so, not only are you ignoring the complex and complicated roots of so many issues while advertising your own lack of cultural understanding (and please note that I said understanding, not acceptance or agreement), you’re really labeling me, and those I love. Whether you meant to or not.
Enough already.
No more ‘us vs. them’. There’s far too much to do in this world to make it better, to ease pain and suffering and promote equality and justice.
Yesterday was Halloween, and it was a smashing one indeed. It began dry and sunny (two big pluses during autumn here) and remained so throughout the day; Halloween night was, well, amazing.
Halloween is HUGE in the United States, and every year, more and more Dutchies and other internationals join Americans in celebrating this fun-filled holiday. Cross-culturalism at its best. May I just say that I love it?
Love. It.
I’ve always loved the thrill of deciding what you wanted to dress up as, putting the costume together and heading into the darkness with friends for an evening of trick-or-treating. All that and a huge candy stash at the end. What’s not to like?
As I got older, trick-or-treating morphed into attending oh so fun Halloween parties, and eventually to being the one to stay home, oohing and aahing over the little childrens’ costumes and giving out the candy.
Quite simply, it is one of my favorite holidays of the year.
Our little Ten Hovestraat and its sister street Vivienstraat were filled with the sights and sounds of costumed trick-or-treaters rushing up in feverish anticipation to ring doorbells or slam heavy iron door-knockers, sometimes both.
This year I kept it simple, dressing in black and orange, topping it off with a witch’s hat. The kids are always pleasantly surprised when you make an effort to dress up, even just a bit; one of the accompanying parents even whipped out her camera and caught me dispensing mini chocolate bars to a horde of the living dead.
Last year we had six houses on our little, one-block long street participating; chez Janssen received 96 little ghosts and goblins.
This year? Ten houses got into the festive spirit and we had 105 creatively attired witches, zombies, fairies and ghouls.
Best of all was our featured Halloweener, little Elliott. Dressed as Little Red Riding Hood, she was adorable.
How adorable? Afterwards, Daughter couldn’t stop telling Husband ‘she was so cute, she was sooo cute!’
Elliott is the 18 month old daughter of an American woman and her Dutch husband now living here in The Hague. Theirs is an expat love story as they met while both were working in Dubai; they made their way back to the Netherlands just before Elliott’s arrival.
Mom wants Elliott to have an understanding of American holidays in general, and in particular a sense of the magic of Halloween. She found last year’s Halloween post on Adventures in Expat Land, and contacted me though the blog’s Facebook page.
So the entire family, including their four-pawed furry child (a docile boxer), came to Ten Hovestraat to join in the fun. How great is that?
And yes, Catarina came by with a group of her Dutch classmates. We didn’t get a chance to talk, but underneath the zombie face paint I did get the head tilt, sweet smile and half wink, so we’re cool.
My only regret is that I didn’t have a chance to grab my camera and document some of the merriment in pictures. Oh, and how to get rid of the leftover candy…
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
For most of my adult life I’ve viewed autumn as the major period of change.
Yes it’s my favorite season, for sensory as well as emotional reasons, but it’s more than that. It seems to be part of my genetic makeup, my brain’s hard- and/or soft-wiring.
You’d think it would be springtime with its planting and blooming and growth (and perhaps it is for you), but no.
September, October, November? For me, it’s the call of the new, the fresh, the different.
I’ve put a lot of thought into this over the past few weeks, and the result is captured in my October column over at Expat Focus, Autumn Equals Change.
Guess what I realized while writing this post? Husband’s and my decisions for our past two moves, including taking the plunge into expat life here in Nederland, both took place in the fall.
Go figure.
Do YOU have a favorite season or time of year that seems to be your ‘changemaker’? Do share!
It’s been almost three weeks to the day since my last post.
Believe me, I know. It’s been weighing on my mind.
Not in an ‘oh cr@p, I have to post something on that d@mn blog’ sort of way, because this blog has never been like that for me.
It is a labor of love, perhaps sometimes with more emphasis on the latter, other times the former. But it has never, ever been a drag on my life or a chore to post.
I’ve just been out there dealing with real world problems and situations that impacted my time and ability to conceive, write and post on this blog. They’ve affected my time, ability, sometimes even my interest in, or otherwise interfered with writing non-blog things as well.
After I posted last, I was running around helping get Daughter ready for a nine-day school service trip to Thailand over her autumn break. She’d gone last year, fallen in love with the country and working with the children of Burmese refugees, and saved up babysitting funds for a return trip.
The morning after she left for Thailand, I jumped on a plane to go back to the US to visit my parents. I’m never quite sure when I’ll be able to visit again, so I decided to go while I could.
It was a quick trip in that I was only there one week. That may not seem like a short trip – or maybe it’s just because I’m getting older – but I don’t bounce back quite as quickly from jet lag as I used to.
While there, my priority was spending time with my parents and Son who was visiting on his own four-day university autumn break. I did do a little writing, including starting some drafts of blog posts, but my parents don’t have wifi and the set-up they do have is so archaic that it takes forever to get internet connection, and even longer to do them once online.
I know what you’re thinking and no, it’s not worth it to arrange for wifi for them. Or at least not at this point. They only barely grasp using email and Skype, and any change to their established routine will only result in unnecessary angst, chaos and confusion.
Don’t even get me started on the pervasive lack of wifi at local restaurants: I’ve learned the hard way that the internet police at the Panera Bread cafe near them severely limit usage hours during the only part of midday when I could have snuck away (their nap time) to try to get anything done.
No local Starbucks, either.
Seriously, how strip mall/rural do you have to be in the United States to not rate a Starbucks within reasonable driving distance?
Throw into the mix the fact that I’m taking two writing courses, and my attention to blog posts took a further hit. Now you might be asking why I’d sign up for two courses at the same time, and you would be a wise person to do so.
Short answer? One’s local in the Netherlands, taught by my mentor Jo Parfitt, and I wasn’t sure when she’d be offering it again. The other’s online, taught by a favorite American author/writer/blogger of mine; I wanted to take this course now because it’s helping me prepare for some things I want to do in 4-6 months.
Different writing courses, different writing instructors with different specialities and perspectives, different writing foci (for me), same limited schedule. Unless someone has figured out how to get more than 168 hours in a week, I’m left with making the tough calls and shoehorning in whatever I can, when I can.
The reason I share all of this with you is not for sympathy. You’ve all got busy lives with your own litany of must-do’s that are claiming your precious time. I share this because I’ve been asked by a few people whether I’ve stopped blogging for good.
‘It’s only been three weeks, people,’ I think to myself. ‘I’ve checked in on any number of blogs now and then, and found them on temporary hiatus and didn’t automatically assume they were defunct…’
They ask it as if that’s a bad thing, something which would make them unhappy, so I take it they like what I’m doing and want me to continue. Which is very kind of them. I’m flattered. Or they just want me to continue blogging because it makes me happy. Which is also kind.
Whatever the reason for their inquiries, I did not get the sense they were encouraging me to stop. Which is kinder still.
I’ve also been contacted by sweet people asking if I’m okay. Yes, but life is rather challenging right now, and some days are better than others. Visiting my parents was equal parts wonderful, bittersweet and frustrating as he!!.
Believe me, I’m sure my presence contributed a bit to the latter, but I’ve also come to a stark realization: no two ways about it, the intersection of advanced aging and illness sucks.
(If you know me, you know that I can’t stand that word, but it is truthfully the most accurate one I can find in this situation.)
Dealing with my father’s terminal cancer is difficult. He’s started receiving mild chemo treatments to ease (not reverse) things and they’ll scan him in two months to reassess, but for now the prognosis is under a year, possibly under half a year remaining.
It’s hard on him, my mother, my siblings and me, the rest of the family and all of my parents’ friends. But it dawned on me on the flight home that it is actually some of the more challenging symptoms of advanced aging that have tended toward making it all harder still.
We’re also dealing with other family members who are ill, including some particularly challenging developments, things we’ll continue monitoring and dealing with in the days and months ahead.
To add a truly American ‘and then the dog ate my homework’ quality to it all, my dog does have a cancerous tumor on his flank.
In the past three weeks, I’ve taken poor Oli to appointments with the veteranarian for a biopsy, and an ultrasound. Today was the surgery.
He can’t walk for a few days, needs to be carried everywhere and for everything. He’s even wearing large, snap-at-the-crotch ’onesies’ to prevent him from picking at the stitches. It’s like having a baby in the house.
We’ll find out next week whether we can rest easy or are in for more decisions on unpleasant courses of action.
Let’s just say that I’ve been practicing many of the suggestions and tips for maintaining emotional resilience in turbulent times included in my book. The one about which still more people have inquired.
It’s coming along, slower than I’d like, but I am making progress. I wish it were faster, but when I think about the other things going on, I am comfortable in the knowledge that I’m doing the best I can. And that’s good enough for me.
So in the end, it’s pretty simple. Just because you don’t see the results doesn’t mean I’m not writing. And even when I’m not writing, it doesn’t mean I’m not turning things over in my mind, plotting and planning, getting creative in different ways.
You didn’t think you could get rid of me that easily, did you?
It is an exciting day here in Expat Land: we’re madly flapping our wings for take-off, determined to catch the wind currents, achieve flight and soar.
‘What’s with the flight metaphors?’ you ask. ‘They’re flying left and right.’
Heh heh.
Today marks the book launch of the second edition of Forced to Fly: An Anthology of Writings That Will Make You See the Funny Side of Living Abroad (Jo Parfitt, editor & publisher, Summertime Publishing, 2012).
This is no simple reprint; the immensely popular book of humorous stories of expats traveling far and wide, finding themselves in exotic (and not-so-exotic) faraway lands and ridiculous situations has been updated considerably.
Sure, the same great stories and suggestions for making it through those tough transition days that made this book a hit the first time around are all still there.
The tales of culture shock, culture clash, overwhelming change, figuring out who you are when most elements of your identity (family, friends, work, language, activities, community, culture) have been stripped away, creative fixes and innovative workarounds, eventual adjustment, simply trying to make it day by day, and repatriation will amuse and delight you.
Some will have you laughing uproariously, and others will also tug at your heartstrings and have you nodding in empathy.
Now Jo’s brought Forced to Fly firmly into the 21st century with a chapter on the importance of emotional resilience in expat life (woman after my own heart) as well as twenty more amusing stories from authors, writers and bloggers who’ve been there, done that and lived to tell the tale(s).
The ultimate ‘expert expat’, Robin Pascoe, graciously provides the foreword. I could blabber and gush and make a complete fool of myself over Robin Pascoe, so let’s just say I’ve read five of her highly regarded books on making your way in expatriate life and leave it at that.
I’m in very fine company indeed, wowed beyond words.
(Well, not for long. You know me.)
Earlier this week I had a fun conversation with fellow contributor and friend Maria Foley of I Was an Expat Wife. We chatted about finding the hilarity in expat life, writing humor and how laughter can keep you moving forward.
And yes, we laughed almost the entire conversation.
I’m in the midst of a technical snafu, but posting difficulties will be overcome and I’ll share Maria’s words of wisdom ASAP. In the meantime, why not wander over to her site and see what we were up to?
And by all means, please check out Forced to Fly: An Anthology of Writings That Will Make You See the Funny Side of Living Abroad. You can find it at Jo’s Expat Bookshelf and Amazon (paperback and Kindle).
Here’s the trailer, complete with a song written especially for the occasion by Niamh Ni Bhroin.
When the doorbell rang late Sunday afternoon, it took a moment to register in my brain.
Lounging lazily in the family room with my feet propped up on the coffee table and the Sunday Times Culture magazine section spread across my lap, I suddenly felt my shoulders tense and the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
‘Uh oh,’ I muttered under my breath as I tossed the newspaper aside and stood up. ‘D@mn…’
The Dutch rijtjeshuis we call home in the middle of our quiet, one-block street rarely gets all that many unexpected visitors.
If it’s midday during the week, the chime of the doorbell usually signifies a delivery package to be held for one of our neighbors; similarly, if it’s a weekday early evening, it’s likely someone collecting for the latest Dutch charitable foundation or overseas humanitarian crisis.
But a Sunday afternoon?
That could only mean one thing: Catarina was back.
Now many of you know Catarina as my darling nine-year old Dutch neighbor who has given me many wonderful moments in our 3+ years living here. I close my eyes and can see her wide smile, head cocked to the side and eyes squinting in the dappled sunlight weaving its way through the leafy coverage of our tree-lined street.
She always rushes to greet me, pulling on my arm while her Dutch words tumble out, telling me the latest in games, friends or school projects.
She is such a happy, easygoing child, unembarrassed to be seen talking to a middle-aged American woman. She is friendly and outgoing, and I love being pulled into her world, into the creative mind of a child.
My (adult) friend Nicky – yes, I do have friends my own age – always says that if she were reincarnated she would want to come back as a Dutch child, and I can see why. Catarina is a poster child for that belief.
As I explained in Learning the Language? Child’s Play, my intermediate language skills are well-suited to conversation at the 8-12 year old level. I understand most of the vocabulary, the sentence construction and verb tenses aren’t overwhelming, and they tend to speak at a pace reasonable enough that I can keep up.
Let’s just say she is very persuasive, what with that sweet smile and the head tilt/squinty eyes/innocent face thing going on.
It’s just that she gets a little…possessed caught up in the excitement of collecting and trading the promotional freebie of the moment.
Sort of like a junkie, desperate for the next hit, the next fix, the next score.
[Note to self: better lay off the late night crime shows...]
She’s always pleasant but politely insistent.
I can’t blame her: after all, there is much at stake. And with her entrepreneurial mind, the wheels are always spinning. This time the Albert Heijn giveaway features animal cards.
‘Ze zijn super dierenkaarten!’ she exclaimed breathlessly as I opened the door. Oh dear, no semblance of the usual pleasantries and polite greeting, just straight to the point.
This was serious. She was caught up in the thrill of the hunt, and she had it bad.
But that’s how we peeps roll, her just blurting out the treasure in the grocery store’s latest giveaway promotion, me instinctively understanding just how AMAZING super animal cards are without having a clue what they even look like.
She knows me. I’m her loyal lieutenant, someone she can depend on to come up with the goods. I’ve got her back.
‘Heeft u gedaan de boodschapen nog?’ she asked, eyes gleaming with excitement. ‘Moet u naar Albert Heijn?’
Patiently I explained that I’d done the grocery shopping the day before so no need for a trip to Albert Heijn. The crestfallen look on her face was like a knife in my heart.
‘Oke, misschien morgen?’
‘Ja, ik denk zo,’ I replied, making a mental note to be sure to go shopping the next day.
The famously furrowed brow softened slightly, and she turned away, tossing a heartfelt ‘Bedankt’ and a half-smile over her shoulder.
Catarina took two steps and suddenly swiveled around.
‘Vergeet niet om ze in de brievenbus!’ Her instructions to put any dierenkaarten immediately in the mail slot rang out as she ran off.
As if I could forget.
I know what I’m up against. She is a formidable presence, a force of nature.
Her obsession is nothing short of intimidating. The pressure is intense, the stress excruciating.
I couldn’t leave too much time between grocery trips or she’d be on my doorstep in a heartbeat. Sure, she’d inquire in that sweet voice of hers, but her disappointment if I failed her would sear into my soul.
As I slowly closed the door and headed back to the family room, an idea came to me.
No more amateurish attempts to duck behind cars to avoid her on the street or hide behind the curtains, quaking with fear, if I were remiss in my efforts to score the valuable trading cards.
Not because I am a grown woman, but because this time I would be prepared. I’d have a plan.
Since you receive one animal card for every 10 Euros spent on groceries, all I needed to do was ensure that I didn’t ‘leave money on the table’.
If my grocery tab looked like it would hit 16 Euros, I’d simply grab a bottle of wine to round it up to 20 Euros and nail a second kaartje.
Similarly, if the bill was headed toward 12 or 23 or 31 Euros, time to put back an item or two until the next visit.
More importantly, every afternoon I would place a card in Catarina’s mail slot.
Every. afternoon.
Like clockwork.
By doling out the kaartjes one by one, I’d be covered even on days when I hadn’t shopped, and she would be none the wiser.
Sheer brilliance!
Flush with the confidence that comes with a well thought out plan of attack, I smiled. I was secure in the knowledge that I had resumed the upper hand in our relationship, or at least some semblance of balance.
That is, so long as she doesn’t find fault with the pace of my deliveries…
You know the old adage ‘two heads are better than one’?
Well, during the summer when I learned that Evelyn Simpson (aka The Smart Expat) and Louise Wiles (aka Success Abroad Coaching) were joining forces to conduct the Career Choice & Accompanying Partner Survey, I knew this dynamic duo would be a formidable combination.
I’m a fan of both of these women and already follow their individual sites, and now I’m eagerly tracking their new joint business site, www.AccompanyingPartner.com, as well.
Depending on the source, 50-60% of all those in international assignments have partners. The majority of these partners want to continue working when they move overseas. Often they know little of the myriad obstacles and challenges that make it difficult to do so.
In carrying out this groundbreaking project, Evelyn and Louise surveyed more than 300 accompanying partners in 59 countries around the world, exploring the decisions these partners make in relation to their own career choices when they relocate to accompany their partners in an international assignment.
Both women are highly qualified, well regarded professional entrepreneurs. They share a passion for coaching and working with accompanying partners as they take on the challenges of adaptation and relocation to their new lives abroad.
Equally as important? Both Evelyn and Louise are seasoned accompanying partners with a total of over 40 years of expat experience between them.
They know what it’s like to leave behind careers in other fields to support their spouses in overseas assignments.
They’ve done the tough yet necessary business of relocating a family and helping all members settle in during the expat transition cycle.
They’ve each gone back to school for the necessary coursework, training and accreditation, and successfully launched new careers for themselves.
With this endeavor they combine all of their talents, skills, training, experience and know-how to help create change that will benefit others who find themselves in the similar situation of accompanying partner.
I for one am thrilled that they conducted the survey and have put together this highly effective report.
By focusing on the wants, needs, challenges and opportunities of the relocating partner in general and career development and employment options in particular, this survey report goes a long way toward helping address the issues that can make or break an overseas assignment.
The extensive survey draws several important conclusions, which Evelyn and Louise share here:
The majority of accompanying partners do want to work in some form whilst on assignment and this makes the challenge of recruitment and retention of employees who are a part of a dual career couple very real and relevant to organisations.
There are some very real obstacles for accompanying partners to working whilst abroad in addition to the well documented and recognised challenge of work permits. Understanding these obstacles will help employers to target the resources that they use to support accompanying partners in a more effective and therefore cost efficient way.
Assuming that partners are happy in their supporting role is not always valid. Whether accompanying partners do not work due to circumstance or choice it may have a negative impact on their level of assignment fulfillment.
Accompanying partners require support in helping them to identify purpose and meaning in their assignment experience regardless of their ability or desire to work.
I’ve read the entire report and find it accurate, thorough and comprehensive. Evelyn and Louise have done their homework (pun intended), and have conducted a thoughtful and indepth analysis of the data provided in their survey results.
Perhaps the most important point made (with plenty of data to back it up) is this:
Instead of seeing accompanying partners as an additional cost and a difficult issue, the study proposes that partners be seen as an asset in the relocation process.
You have no idea how refreshing that simple statement is.
Just how invaluable is this report?
Consider this: it has already been shortlisted by the Forum for Expatriate Management for the European EMMA 2012 Awards in the category of ‘Thought Leadership’.
If you’re a current or aspiring expat, global nomad or international/transnational employee or partner (or know someone who is), you’ll want to check out the free summary report of the survey findings and Louise and Evelyn’s insights and assessments.
You can do so by clicking on this link Career Choice & Accompanying Partner Survey; you’ll receive the 13-page summary report as well as informative news updates on developments in these issues of interest.
If you’re a Human Resource professional, talent recruiter, global relocation and mobility specialist, cross-cultural or expat coach or consultant providing services to the expatriate community, by all means purchase the full report.
Ingest every word, put your thinking cap on and ask yourself how you can take immediate action that will enhance the satisfaction and wellbeing of the people you serve.
It’s not only good business, it’s a smart strategy that will reap benefits for your employees, customers or clients, and just as importantly, for their families.
Glancing at headlines in the news yesterday, one in particular caught my eye. It seems today, September 21st, is World Gratitude Day.
The seed of an idea planted in 1965 has grown and taken on a life of its own over the past five decades.
It seemed rather fortuitous that the concept of gratitude was raised since I was in the middle of writing on the benefits of positive psychology (also referred to as learned optimism).
The premise of positive psychology is simple: go beyond traditional forms of psychology which focus on alleviating suffering and treating mental illness to take a more proactive approach to improve the human condition.
Or, as I like to think of it, an emphasis on prevention (beefing up the positive) rather than or in addition to treatment (diminishing the negative).
Positive psychology seeks to enhance daily life and help build thriving individuals, families and communities through scientific understanding of and effective interventions to encourage well-being.
Personal growth and flourishing through affirmative thoughts and actions. Thriving rather than simply surviving.
Now before you start thinking that positive psychology is simply a bunch of new-age psycho-babble about hugs and kisses and rainbows and cuddly kittens, bear with me.
Thanks in large part to the pioneering work of Martin Selgiman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, positive psychology has come to play an important role in maintaining our emotional health. It’s an evidence-based discipline with significant research to back it up; it’s centered on positive emotions, traits and institutions.
To practice gratitude is to make the effort not only to recognize and be thankful for positive aspects of our lives but also appreciate their presence. It’s a method to help us develop, project and reinforce an optimistic view of current and future events and an upbeat presentation. Gratitude is only one of many such methods, but a powerful one nonetheless.
Positive psychology in general, and gratitude in particular, both contribute to our personal reserves of emotional resilience.
Emotional resilience is the psychological ability to weather whatever life throws at us – all the negative stuff, the tough challenges, even the worst we can imagine – while maintaining or eventually working our way back to a sense of feeling good about ourselves.
I happened to be looking at the benefits of positivity to an individual: in other words, why you and I reap the rewards of practicing gratitude and related conventions. Yet Seligman and other positive psychologists believe you can extrapolate the benefits beyond the individual to the family unit and the broader community.
So why not the world?
It certainly isn’t easy.
Expressing appreciation for the good that exists on a global level is challenging on the best of days when there is so much conflict and strife, so many in need. It has become even more difficult in recent days when the clash of cultures in terms of individual rights and religious convictions have turned threatening and violent.
A cyber friend of mine who is Muslim wondered whether the effort to differentiate between moderates and radicals had simply become ‘Muslim white noise’ to non-Muslims.*
I’ve been pondering how you convince others that people speaking, writing and filming foolish and offensive things does not equate to agreement by those who lament the insulting nature of the discourse but staunchly support their right to spew it, an abstract thought to someone not raised in a society in which speech is an inalienable cornerstone of individual and collective freedoms.
If you work feeding the hungry, housing those without shelter, teaching the uneducated, reuniting the disposed, helping those without a voice, it can get pretty grueling dealing with the emotional fallout day after day.
And that is precisely why we need a day dedicated to gratitude on an international scale.
If as individual voices, groups and governments we’re going to keep trying to deal with all of the $h!t that is flying around without throwing up our hands in despair, if we’re to make headway in improving the human condition, if we’re to shift the dialogue from anger to engagement, we need emotional resilience.
Collective emotional resilience on a grand scale.
Have a look at the words of Edna Lemle as she recognized the accomplishments of Sri Chinmoy, head of the UN Meditation Group and recognized founder of World Gratitude Day at a UN ceremony back in 1977:
‘WHEREAS, words of praise and positive thoughts generate dynamic harmony, and
WHEREAS, decisions made from a grateful heart are endowed with intrinsic wisdom and engender prosperity; and
WHEREAS, gratitude, the opposite of “taking for granted,” is a positive emotion which generates good will, is a basic emotion which is indigenous to all people, is a peace-engendering feeling;
AND WHEREAS, September 21 is a special day. It is an equinox: one of the two times of the year when the sun passes over the equator and night and day are everywhere of equal length and everyone is equal under the sun;
THEREFORE let us proclaim World Gratitude Day, a holiday for all peoples, a day of meditation for all religions, a day of celebration for all humanity, united by knowledge of simultaneously shared emotion, a day when triumph of the spirit can make a world community.’
World Gratitude Day offers a reminder that sometimes we need to dig deep and recall all that we have to be thankful for on a global level so that we can get up tomorrow and keep working on all that remains to be done.
*Updated 26 Sept 2012 to reflect Aisha Ashraf’s great article ‘The Truth About Islam’ on Expatlogue.com
Last month I mentioned that I was catching up on reading in the broad genre of expat life stories.
At the time I was hopping between four distinctly different books: a memoir sharing insights and experience for those considering a mid-life move abroad, another about the journey back from the dark side of depression, still another filled with sweeping stories of an author enthralled with a certain Spanish city, and an Adult Third Culture Kid’s (TCK) saga of multigenerational expatriation (see Riveting Expat Reads: Expat Alien by Kathleen Gamble).
No sooner had I finished these four – and yes, I’ll be writing about the other three in the coming days – when five more promptly took their place.
I share this not to impress you with my reading prowess. It’s actually rather pitiful if truth be told, consisting mainly of stolen moments throughout the day: while morning coffee brews, a laundry cycle completes, dinner simmers or waiting in various parking lots for Daughter’s activities to finish.
I am nothing if not the Queen of the ten-minute interval.
I share this to highlight the good news of how varied this rapidly growing niche has become. There has been a slow but steadily growing upsurge in books written by and for expats/global nomads/TCKs which examine life lived cross-culturally.
Today I want to showcase a book published earlier this week which holds special meaning for me: Catherine Transler’s Turning International: How to Find Happiness and Feel at Home in a New Culture.
Why is this book important to me?
Several reasons.
Earlier in the year I was doing research on my own book on emotional resilience in expat life when I came across Catherine’s website ExpatScience.com.
A PhD and researcher in developmental, cross-cultural psychology, Catherine had finished a manuscript on the psychological and neuroscientific underpinnings of many of the emotions and behaviors associated with the expatriate experience.
Not surprisingly, she, too, emphasizes the impact of differing cultures and building resilience.
However, editing had taken a back seat upon her dismaying diagnosis and subsequent treatment of cancer.
While differing in format, approach, style and some content, our books do share many issues and concepts, and I couldn’t wait to discuss these with Catherine and learn her views. She graciously shared her draft, eager for any feedback and suggestions I might have.
With Catherine living only 40 minutes away in Rotterdam, early spring saw us meeting at a cafe there for a lively discussion on an array of topics.
Over cups of verse munt thee we traded stories on moving abroad, expat life in the Netherlands, what went right and what didn’t, parenting. As authors we commiserated on the extended timeframe for non-fiction writing projects of this sort.
She mentioned feedback she’d received, I shared my perspective and together we tossed about ideas and possible ways to incorporate them in the ongoing editing.
In short, it was the quintessential expat experience. We didn’t let a little detail like not knowing each other stand in the way of beginning a conversation that I look forward to continuing in the months and years ahead.
Now that Turning International has been published (available in paperback at Lulu.com here and on Amazon here, and soon to be in ebook form), it’s time to celebrate this amazing milestone with Catherine.
When someone decides to pick up and move abroad, they tend to have a sense of the many opportunities that await them: enriching experiences, personal growth, the chance to travel and possibly learn a new language, broadened perspectives, enhanced cultural understanding.
But challenges exist as well, and Turning International outlines and explains them with great clarity: discomfort with transitions, questions of identity and belonging, feelings of loneliness, social isolation and alienation, missing the familiar, longing for people and places in one’s past, figuring out how to fit in.
The book is a thoughtful mix of key psychological concepts relevant to these challenges, comments and experiences shared by other expats, and French-born Catherine’s refreshingly candid insights into her own struggles to make a new life in a foreign country.
In her case, that came with a newborn baby, fewer options for maintaining her emotionally and financially rewarding career, lack of familiarity with the language and a marriage going down the tubes.
In succinct language that helps make complex concepts easy to understand, Catherine explains the ‘chemistry’ of loneliness, process of acculturation, physiological basis for anxiety and other negative feelings we might posses when living in a culture other than our own.
She also addresses how to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty, language struggles and perhaps above all, the need to reach out to others.
If there is an overarching theme to Turning International, to me it is the benefits of connectedness: by widening our support networks we are more likely to find emotional, social and physical wellbeing.
Catherine doesn’t neglect our own internal resilience, including an array of methods useful in dealing with stress and challenging situations such as meditation, mindfulness, visualization, exercise and relaxation techniques.
Her chapter ’Cultural Differences in Values and Attitudes Across Societies’, based on the pioneering work of Dutchman Geert Hofstede, goes far in illuminating how great a role our previous cultural experience plays in our perceptions of subsequent cultures in which we may find ourselves.
Understanding where our base culture falls on the continuum for each of five pairs of cultural diversity factors as compared to the culture in which we currently reside is particularly insightful.
Finding Turning International a book with much to offer both the new and seasoned expat alike, I offered to write a short review for inclusion on the inside cover. It is a testament to Catherine’s generous spirit that she not only used a shortened version as a back cover blurb but also mentioned me in the Acknowledgements.
Small wonder that she is also donating half the profits from sales of Turning International to Kiva.org for ‘loans that change lives’ by creating opportunities and alleviating poverty.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s how I started my last post, written two days ago.
I’ve got several posts lined up in my mind, generally upbeat topics and interesting things I’d like to share with you, and I thought I’d get to one of them later this week.
In the meantime I’ve been keeping up with Dutch elections. Voters went to the polls yesterday to express their views toward creation of a new coalition government, with important implications not only for the Netherlands but also for the future of the European Union and Euro Zone.
I’ve also been lamenting the sorry state of affairs in the Middle East, but that’s another story.
I’ve even managed to squeeze in some work on my book; it’s going slower than I’d like, but progressing nonetheless.
While focusing on reading, writing and doing some research these past two days, the theme of gratitude has been on my mind.
You know how you read an article about a topic, and catch a snippet of the same issue in a blog post, on the radio or in the news? It seems to be everywhere, in part because you’ve opened up yourself to being receptive to that subject. Your antennae are poised.
Yet there’s no denying that it also feels as if the universe is trying to tell you something. All things considered, I think gratitude is a pretty good message to have reinforced, from cosmic messengers or otherwise.
So I was puttering along with gratitude and emotional resilience on my mind when I got the equivalent of a karmic bitch slap upside the head.
Let me digress.
In my extended visit ’back home’ this past summer, much time was spent catching up with a lot of family and friends. Much of the time the news was upbeat; sometimes it was up and down (my father’s situation), and sometimes downright difficult (visiting my friend suffering from a cancerous brain tumor).
Yet even in the midst of the darkest moments, the flame of resilience continued to burn. The concept of gratitude for life’s blessings was present as well.
However, during a relaxing lunch with a former neighbor, I was stunned to learn of a heartrending scandal (no other word to describe it) that had rocked the neighborhood since we’d left more than three years ago, one involving our former next-door neighbors and another family.
No need to go into seedy detail, suffice it to say that it involved adultery, a very public lawsuit about a sexually transmitted disease, two marriages in tatters and two families ripped apart.
I’m not writing this to share salacious gossip or cast stones. I’m not assigning blame or passing judgment. I don’t believe it’s my (or anyone else’s) place to do so; it is my belief that a higher order (in my case, God) will sort all that out and he/it doesn’t need my help.
I couldn’t help but be surprised and deeply saddened by the turn of events. These were nice people, good people (well, 3 of the 4 at least, I’ve never liked the fourth, and let’s just say he appears to have been showing his true colors in all of this).
These weren’t some unknown people caught in the news with tawdry headlines, they were people I have known and liked (Mr. Fourth notwithstanding), people I care about. I felt for their pain and shame and humiliation.
Above all, I felt incredibly sad for the children involved: six innocent children, undeserving of the grievous pain and embarrassment served on them. Their lives upended, torn apart, because of the actions of the people they loved most.
None of them live there anymore, they’ve all moved away.
This isn’t the sort of news that you hear once and forget. It remains tucked in the back of your mind, periodically coming out whenever you are reminded of someone involved. I especially think of the children from time to time, wonder how they are doing, whether they are coping.
In the year before we moved (and so a little more than a year before decisions were taken that irrevocably propelled them all down a path that I daresay each regrets), my next door neighbor was almost killed in a freak accident when another woman ran a red light at high speed. Miraculously my neighbor was barely injured.
We didn’t usually hang out together much, but I remember her ringing my doorbell one day, eager to take a walk and talk about the accident. She was shaken, a jumble of conflicting thoughts and emotions. She was still stiff and sore and dazed in the way only a person who has truly cheated death can be. She expressed concern for the other driver, critically injured and near death in a nearby hospital.
Above all else, I remember her being immensely grateful: for having survived, for being given another chance at life, for more time with her husband and children.
How could twelve+ months have changed everything so much?
It’s not as if this sort of thing doesn’t happen everywhere, because it does.
It happens whether you spend your life as a global nomad, serially wandering from one exotic locale (or hellhole, depending on your perspective) to the next. It also happens, in the case of my former neighbors, when you stay put all your adult life.
Expat life is rife with stories of wayward spouses, marriages cracking under the strains of constantly moving and living in different cultures. My mind immediately goes to the softspoken woman whose husband chose to dump her by moving on to his next assignment without her or their daughter, then sealed the deal by moving in with a young woman half his age.
Or to the family that was here one day and suddenly gone, repatriated when the marriage collapsed and the wife and children no longer had visas. Or a particularly messy breakup played out publicly in the halls and grounds of one of the local international schools.
This morning, as I occasionally do, I popped online to check out the local newspaper from where we used to live. Headlines exploded amid allegations of potential wrongdoing in the workplace.
Another neighbor (seems the neighborhood was such a hotbed of activity, who knew?), having dumped his wife and mother of his children sometime after we had moved, now forced to resign his prominent position and under investigation for alledged improprieties regarding work-related travel with his well-known girlfriend.
Another household torn apart, four more children waking up to the latest in what has likely already been a series of emotionally painful and now highly embarrassing developments.
So many adults who lost sight of gratitude. So many children, vulnerable, struggling to make sense of their world, hoping for the pain to ease, in desperate need of emotional resilience.
Emotional resilience is more than simply surviving whatever life throws at you: it also includes maintaining or returning to a healthy, positive view of oneself, during or after the turmoil.
I can only hope that these children (the adults too, for that matter) find their way back, sooner rather than later.
As the day approached, I felt a gentle shroud of melancholy descend and wrap around my shoulders like a soft caress.
I had a productive day yesterday, one in which I not only made good progress on a project, but also laid the groundwork for two new ones. One personal, one professional.
I went to sleep last night pleased with my efforts and content in the knowledge that I am moving forward.
Today dawned cool and rainy, another Dutch autumn day. Yet it’s felt anything but ordinary.
I don’t wish to hide away, I merely desire solitude.
Time for reflection. Remembrance. Loss, and grief.
I wished a friend ‘Happy Birthday’. It’s his 50th, a major milestone to be acknowledged and feted. I remember a few years ago his quietly telling me that September 11th was his birthday, how it had always been an ordinary day for others, but a special day for his family and him.
Until it wasn’t anymore. Until it changed.
He is a sensitive soul (I think he wouldn’t mind my saying that), and so his words were neither angry nor indignant, but gentle and understanding.
It was, and then, it wasn’t.
He deserves a wonderful birthday, full of celebration. And I told him so.
He deserves to have his lovely wife and beautiful daughters gather around him, mark his day with love and laughter.
I don’t know when the tears started to fall. They took me by surprise, first a lone teardrop slowly tracing its way down my cheek.
It was joined by another, and another, so many I’ve lost count.
I wasn’t expecting them. They don’t always come, perhaps because I’ve spent so long with them bottled up.
I suppose I’ve willed them to remain inside, out of embarrassment that I, here today, writing this, should have the privilege of shedding tears when so many cannot.
Sometimes I cannot fathom how far away I am from that day, how much my life has changed. It was two houses ago, two towns ago, two sets of friends and community and daily happenings ago.
A different country, different profession.
It’s still not a topic I feel comfortable writing about. I don’t know how to explain it except to say that it feels too sacred. Too holy.
But writing requires throwing open the doors to our soul, being open. Creativity demands honesty. Vulnerability. Even when it’s painful or isn’t pretty.
You can’t create positive works of beauty and light when you have a deep pain hidden away within you.
Eventually it demands to be recognized. Then acknowledged. And finally, accepted.
The rain stopped hours ago, the temperature has risen and it is now a brilliantly sunny day. The tears have dried although the melancholy lingers.
Shortly I will go to watch Daughter play soccer. It usually gives me joy to do so because it gives her great joy to play.
There is a beauty in her strength, an artistry in her movement.
It will not give me joy today, but it will give me comfort.
It is a different life now. But I have been marked all the same.
I must confess that it still astounds me how, in this day and age and in the comfort of my own home here in the Netherlands, internet connectivity and the various social media venues it has spawned allow me to maintain contact with friends and family and build associations with others.
Like the old Bell telephone ad campaign showed us, it’s never been easier to ‘reach out and touch someone’.
Except how often do we do it by phone anymore? Not when we can text or email or interact via social media.
You want to realize the power of internet connectivity?
Consider this: I am able to Skype with my elderly parents who aren’t on social media sites; get news highlights, touch base with fellow writers around the globe, and reconnect with a different cousin on Twitter; grow a professional presence while seeing what my aunt is up to on LinkedIn; marvel at the ultrasound pictures of my niece’s first baby, ‘chat’ for a moment or two on the odd occasion I can catch either Son at college or my nephew currently deployed in Afghanistan, see the photos of the latter’s growing little girl posted by his wife, and stay in touch with my siblings privately on family matters – all on Facebook.
The access to information of all sorts offered by global connectivity is staggering. Want to know something, anything? Simply type in a few letters and check a search engine.
‘Look it up in the encyclopedia or dictionary’ was the usual response when someone would ask a question in my parents’ generation.
Nowadays the answer has changed to ‘Google it’. Encyclopedias themselves are online, joined by gazillions of pieces of other information and trivia.
Yes, gazillions is a technical term for ‘lots and lots’. Google it if you don’t believe me.
Instantaneous access to news and information can’t help but stretch our minds, widen our vistas and broaden our perspectives.
How did I happen to get on this roll? It all began so innocently earlier today. I was over on Facebook, sipping my koffie and catching up.
I read about a North Carolina friend and teacher’s jam-packed, exhaustingly productive day; caught an inspirational quote from my cousin in South Carolina; saw the latest paintings from a relative in upstate New York; checked in on the progress of Matt Krause now six days into his eight month walk across Turkey; learned how very different Matt’s breakfast was from the more whimsical one shared by an expat friend and well regarded marketing coach for entrepreneurs; and learned the latest on the burgeoning musical career in London of another friend’s extremely talented lead singer/songwriter rocker chick daughter.
That was all before I saw new family photos from one fellow writer/blogger, ace alliterator and cyber friend in Canada, and the latest post from another.
The latter woman is someone I’ve come to know fairly well. For some time we were both part of a four-way monthly virtual blog from the four corner of the earth (quite literally: Japan, Australia, Canada and here in Nederland).
A few years ago and you couldn’t even have a ‘virtual’ four-way blog!
A fan of each other’s work, we’ve ‘known’ each other for quite some time. We’ve shared work leads and professional contacts. She interviewed me for a magazine article she wrote last year.
We’ve even had a Skype conversation, our updates on current writing projects and potential future collaborations bleeding over into the personal realm of children heading off to university and illness in our respective families.
We were all set to finally ‘meet’ face-to-face when she was here in the Netherlands for a business trip recently, and would have if not for some sudden developments on her end.
How could any of that happen if not for our connected world?!
Nowadays, we share bits and pieces of ourselves, in our writing and online. Never quite the totality of our lives as we might eventually offer in person with family and best friends, but certainly more than with acquaintances and polite strangers.
Over time, more and more of our true selves is revealed, and we see insights into each others lives. We see what moves us, inspires us, the local and global issues and causes that preoccupy us.
Once again, we have technological advances in connectivity to thank. And these interactions with others in our ever-widening circles can’t help but spark creativity as a result.
Creativity in what we observe, what we learn, what we think about and what we do.
Back at Facebook, I scrolled down the screen and clicked on the link offered by yet another talented writer/blogger friend sharing his foray into Vizify, a new social media venue that connects your interactions on other sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, etc. and then displays it visually in a ‘graphical bio’.
He and I often share info and thoughts about writing, social media and minimizing time/maximizing connections, so it was with an open mind that I perused his Vizify bio and got a sense of how it all worked before sharing a comment on my initial feedback.
Yes, we have to be vigilant not to spend more time in a cyber world than living in the real world.
I can be awed by photos of Mother Nature’s majesty, but not at the expense of getting out and enjoying the waves crashing on the sandy beach of the North Sea or the softly filtered light that inspired some of the greatest painters of all time.
But once again I was taken aback by the sheer innovation and creative genius of visionaries such as the creators of endeavors such as Vizify, apps, products, websites.
Cutting edge today, possibly gone tomorrow. Or gone mainstream, used by millions. (Gazillions if they’re really lucky.)
Who knows how the roll of the dice will turn out? I just love the entrepreneurial and inventive spirit, seeing what people are thinking, working on, dreaming of.
Then I happened on the little gem below, tagged by a dear friend of a few decades years.
She herself is one of the most creative people I know: adept at design, fashion, art, writing (a children’s book published in Germany), philanthropy (founding a local charity, fantastic at fundraising), community activism and various other forms of culture.
In her ever-evolving entrepreneurial artistic life, this imaginative and talented painter of highly sought after oils has expanded into jewelrymaking and a job as the Deputy Director of a new regional art center.
Watch the Netherlands Radio Choir, and I dare you to not feel the tugs of creativity pulling deep within.
My mind is buzzing, the synapses firing on all cylinders and ideas flying.
Today is the first Monday in September. For many, it’s merely the start of yet another work week.
Whatever ‘work’ means for you.
Getting the children off to school before running a long list of errands and volunteering in the classroom. Pulling into the factory parking lot with a double shift ahead.
Trading stories at the corporate water cooler of weekend highlights (or ennui, if you’ve nothing of interest to share) before the morning staff meeting.
Numbers to crunch, factors to consider, decisions to make.
Tackling those loads of laundry that have piled up, taking the dog to the vet, calling the plumber about the leaky toilet tank.
Opening up shop, doing the inventory, ordering new products, ringing up sales. Shelves to stock, orders to place, telephones and emails to answer. Vendors peddling their wares.
Preparing your lecture, grading papers, planning a field trip. Finishing hospital rounds, poring over X-rays, monitoring vital signs in the neo-natal ward, administering anesthesia in the first surgery of the day.
A big rig to drive across country, jets to refuel, bus routes to follow, taxi fares to pick up. Ground to till, vegetables to gather, crops to water. A house to frame, drywall to put up, roofing materials to order.
I’m sitting here typing but my mind is six hours and some 3,900 miles west.
Different country, different work culture.
Today Americans will awake to Labor Day.
A national holiday to commemorate the economic and social contributions of workers and employees across the US, Labor Day has come to represent different things to different people.
Industries, organized labor and trade unions celebrate the victories of met goals and contracts negotiated, and lament the losses in membership and representation. Economic indicators remain dour, unemployment remains high: millions still out of work, others fearful they’ll be next.
At the same time, the majority of Americans will wake up to enjoy a day off. Plans loom for a picnic or backyard barbeque, grilled burgers and cold beer, watermelon and potatoe salad and ice cream, a dip in the pool, waving flags and listening to the marching band at the local parade.
For students, it’s the last hurrah as the remaining school districts begin the school year bright and early tomorrow morning. Those who have already returned to the classroom welcome a day to sleep in and get caught up.
It’s the end of the season, the demarcation between hot weather, summer camps and the annual vacation, and cooler temperatures, shortening daylight and leaves falling.
After today the door has slammed on wearing white, unless you’re fashion forward enough to do so deliberately and in a cheeky, ironic manner. Otherwise you’ll simply be seen as having committed a runway faux pas or (worse yet, gasp!) dreadfully out of date.
As I reflect on the meaning and nature of work, I’m mindful of deadlines looming: an article and a blog post to be written today, a review this afternoon, an extensive conference application later this week. Not to mention more chapters in my book that need considerable work, pages to edit, references to include.
And let’s not forget the mandatory school meeting late this afternoon and required paperwork to submit.
How I labor today is very different than it was two or five or fifteen years ago. It’s me, my laptop and my mind, limited only by my imagination and creativity.
The writing projects are of my decision and design, the goals self-set, the deadlines (well, many of them) self-inflicted. It’s creative and demanding and scary and exhilarating all at once.
As I sit here in The Hague organizing my ‘to do’ list, outlining the day’s chapter and checking facts, sunlight streams through the sheer white curtains of the open French doors. If I listen carefully I can make out the joyful sounds of Dutch children playing at recess in the elementary school a block away.
Beyond the school are the roads and intersections leading elsewhere, tall office buildings full of workers like Husband doing what they do, avenues and tram lines to the city center with its Dutch ministeries and foreign embassies, international organizations and local businesses, boutiques and department stores.
I am one bee in the industrial hive of business and commerce, laboring away.
I like where I live, I enjoy the culture in which I find myself, I am energized by what I do.
And yet I cannot help but wish I were several time zones earlier, turning over in my sleep, content in the subconscious knowledge that today is a glorious opportunity for one more day of relaxation and respite before facing the world.
Not because it’s the first day of September, although I must say that autumn is my favorite season and I’m very partial to this month.
Just a few moments ago, Matt Krause – writer, traveler, former expat and Heathen Pilgrim – took his first steps on his long trek across Turkey.
All 1,305 miles of it, give or take a bit.
This is no mad dash by bus or car. It’s what promises to be an eight-month journey walking the landscape, one foot in front of the other.
Each night he’ll either pitch his tent in the great Turkish outdoors or accept the kind offer of a place to stay from one of the many people he’ll meet along the way.
If you’re a fellow Adventurer, you’ll know how much I respect Matt’s writing. I truly adored his book A Tight Wide-Open Space about the years he spent living in Turkey.
I even read Soapbox, his collection of short stories, on my flight back to the US this summer.
Let’s just say that his story about saying goodbye to his dying grandfather had tears rolling down my face. There I was at 36,000 feet with Daughter staring at me simply aghast in mortified embarrassment and a flight attendant concerned that I’d lost it.
By the time you read this, Matt will have already begun this epic voyage, leaving from the beach town of Kusadasi on the Aegean Sea, heading eastward to the border with Iran.
And no, in this case ‘epic voyage’ isn’t hype. His plan is truly impressive in both scale and detail (epic), and his campaign will take him far afield (voyage).
Why is Matt doing this?
In part to challenge himself and face his fears, and doing so in a very intimate way – under his own power, on foot:
‘It is me putting my life where my mouth is. It is me submitting to the world. When I walk, my speed is low, and my range is limited. I have little choice but to accept the world as it exists in front of me. Because I am less mobile than the people around me, I have little choice but to submit to their way of life, to learn how to exist in the world they have created. There is no hopping in the car and escaping a problem.’
It is also about gaining understanding, which in turn allows one to be receptive to ideas and the creative flow.
‘After all, if I am busy insisting I understand something I don’t, or trying to control something I can’t, it is awfully hard to be open to creativity and inspiration.’
In the end, it all boils down to this:
‘Walking makes this trip into a personal pilgrimage.’
Matt has plans for certain writing projects to come out of this, and I for one can’t wait.
I hope you’ll consider following along with Matt as he undertakes this journey. You can get updates from his Heathen Pilgrim blog, he’s on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/heathenpilgrim and on Twitter @mattkrause.
If you’re so inclined, you might consider being part of it all either by joining Matt along his walk or chipping in to offset costs via Kickstarter.com. Or both. The folks at Kickstarter have been creating some great videos and are including updates on his progress on their site, too.
Lots of interesting news in the psychological research arena these days, particularly with regard to possible links between studying abroad and creativity.
According to Sam McNerney’s article yesterday on BigThink.com on Why Traveling Abroad Makes Us More Creative (Part II) first up was a 2009 series by researchers at Northwestern University (Maddux and Galinsky) which found that students who studied abroad scored higher on tests for creativity.
As McNerney explains, experiencing different perspectives, as in the case of studying in a foreign country, opens us up to broader interpretations as to the meaning for any given thing.
Essentially, when you physically and emotionally experience cultural differences, as opposed to merely reading about them, you are changed by it. And that change seems to encourage a wider thought process including stimulating creativity.
Then came a study out of Indiana University (Jia et al.) which found that ‘psychological distance’ can boost creativity. How so?
Students were tasked with listing as many forms of transportation as possible. Those who were told the instructions came from students studying in Greece had longer lists of modes of transportation with more originality than those told the task was developed by students nearby.
Think about that: just by believing that the task directions originated in a foreign country, those students were more creative in their responses. Did they somehow feel empowered to think more broadly, coming up with wide-ranging and innovative responses?
Now the latest: a study released last month ‘On the Cognitive Benefits of Cultural Experience: Exploring the Relationship Between Studying Abroad and Creative Thinking’ by researchers (Lee, Therriault, Linderholm) at the University of Florida at Gainesville.
Students were split into three groups (had already studied abroad, were planning to study abroad or had no interest in doing so) and given a series of creative activities under the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults which measures general creativity and the Cultural Creativity Task measuring culturally specific creativity.
Not surprisingly, the group of students who had previously studied abroad scored higher on the CCT. But by also scoring higher on the ATTA, the U of FL researchers believe they have found a linkage between study abroad and increased creativity.
Now they are the first to point out that their tests don’t determine causal or correlative relationships, only that a relationship appears to exist. Further tests are needed to support their findings, especially those that do pre- and post-study abroad assessments and also controlling for factors such as length of study and location. But in general:
‘We were excited to find that students who studied abroad generated ideas that were higher in quality and more novel in both a general as well as culture-specific measure of creativity (compared to students who did not study abroad). We believe our findings have relevant implications regarding the benefits of multicultural experiences in creative thinking.’
Additional testing will also help address whether the findings to date have been causal or correlative: that is, whether study abroad increases creativity or more creative types often choose to study abroad.
McNerney extrapolates the research on studying abroad to living in a different country/culture, and by inference, traveling extensively. He speaks of gaining a ‘cultural footprint…one that will influence you to generate more creative solutions to everyday problems’. I think the same would hold true for interns working overseas as well.
Tom Jacobs joined the discussion earlier this month with his article on CreativityPost.com To Boost Creativity, Study Abroad (originally published at Pacific Standard magazine). His perspective on the study by Lee and colleagues?
If you’re looking for employees to think creatively and come up with outside-the-box or thought-provoking solutions, one consideration is whether a candidate has studied or lived abroad.
He cites the latest study’s researchers that their results suggest ‘the actual immersion in a foreign culture’ boosts one’s creativity.
‘Our findings indicate that studying abroad support cognitive processes involved in developing innovative solutions.’
My take?
It makes sense to me. I’d like to think that studying abroad in Mexico during university days opened my mind not only to a new country and culture, but also to the ideas, beliefs and ways of thinking of the people I lived with, studied under and/or encountered along the way.
I also know that before I studied overseas I already knew I wanted to live in different countries and multicultural environments someday. I was already deep into international affairs as a course of study.
Do I think it made me more creative? I hope so, just as I hope (nay, dare I believe?) that I’m far more creative now having lived as an expat in the Netherlands for several years and having traveled to dozens of countries across five continents.
I also realize that it’s hard to isolate that factor from my career change to a more creative field: writing.
Do I think creativity requires living abroad? No, of course not.
But I sure do like the odds that living across cultures helps enhance the creative mind.
In simple terms, it’s the creation of a diagram to visually display information.
You start in the middle of a page with whatever you wish to map: a topic, issue, problem, question, project or whatever you want. Then you brainstorm, tossing out thoughts, ideas and related information to flesh out your mind map.
Brainstorming itself initially referred to a free flowing group discussion to address a challenge or solve a problem. Nowadays the definition has broadened to mean the process of capturing thoughts on any topic, whether working with others or by yourself.
Just so you know, I absolutely LOVE mind-mapping.
I mind map to brainstorm ideas for anything from identifying the perfect birthday present for a friend to topics for future articles or blog posts.
I use mind-mapping to plan writing projects including my non-fiction book, novel work-in-progress and some short stories in the works.
Often I’ll map to take notes while listening to an online webinar, watching a teleseminar or in a meeting.
As a writer, my preferred learning style is primarily visual in nature. If I’m attempting to learn something new, I like reading words and then looking at a diagram or drawing, in that order. I listen closely to ensure that any auditory instructions synchronize with what I’m reading, but for me, written directions take precedence.
I’m also a copious note-taker, grabbing information and jotting it down in chronological order, row after written row. If a speaker jumps around among topics, introducing new ones and then returning to an earlier one, it drives me nuts because I want to put all related info in one place.
Mind-mapping is slightly different. It’s more spatial in its approach. I like that I can group related information together, or link ideas that are in some way connected. I can see patterns or relationships where previously I didn’t.
The main reason I use mind-mapping?
By combining visual and written display of information, I’ve found that it actually opens me up to being more creative.
When I use it for planning projects, one idea tends to lead to another and another, often in rapidfire fashion. It unleashes my creativity.
It helps me ‘see’ my project: where I’ve got conflicting details, a weakly fleshed out character or a storyline that is out of balance. It can cue me visually to more fully develop certain plot aspects or remind me where I need to do additional research. I can find weaknesses quickly and correct them.
Another reason I mind-map?
Because once an idea or thought is out of my mind and on the map, I don’t have to worry about it anymore.
I can’t lose it. I won’t forget it because I don’t have to remember it. I can toss out all those little scraps of paper where I’ve scribbled a note to myself about plot structure, chapter order, story arc or character motivation.
And if I’m in the middle of mind-mapping I don’t panic that I’ll miss anything. I can just write a word or two for each point and move on to capturing the next, comfortable knowing I can always go back and fill in the blanks.
So how do I mind-map? There are various online software options, but I happen to use MindMeister.
It allows you to do online what you’d normally be doing with a pen and paper. They give you an array of templates to choose from, or you can start from a blank page. As your map grows, it’s easy to edit, add or delete info and move parts around.
Even better, its use of cloud storage means that your maps don’t take up space on your hard drive AND can be accessed remotely anywhere in the world, from any computer or internet-enabled device (e.g., I-phone, I-pad).
I signed up for MindMeister’s Basic plan which is absolutely FREE and allows me to generate a total of three maps. (Be sure to look for the Basic option, usually found at the bottom of the page showing price and benefits of the paid options. If you’re being charged, then it’s not the Basic membership.)
If and when I decide I need more maps, I can upgrade to a paid membership for a small monthly fee. The paid membership options allow for sharing ideas and working collaboratively on maps. I haven’t had the need to do so yet, but it’s good to know that I can should the need arise.
I’ve recommended mind-mapping in general and MindMeister in particular to lots of people, including my Son (outlining papers at university), Daughter (class notes, planning her own writing projects), and members of my Writing Group.
Then I opened an email I just received from MindMeister.
Knowing that good news travels quickly and people are more apt to consider checking out something new if they receive word-of-mouth encouragement from those who aleady know and use a product or service, MindMeister is offering an enticement to current Basic members: a free map for each person referred who checks out the site and signs up.
How do they know if you’re referred by me? There’s a code in the MindMeister links in this post that link to my account so they can keep track.
Don’t you just love when serendipitous moments occur?
Let me be clear.
I’m NOT selling anything here. MindMeister didn’t ask me to write about their mind-mapping software. I’m not receiving money from MindMeister.
I’m finishing a post I’d already intended to publish. I’m sharing a tool that I find incredibly useful and believe you will, too. I’m also suggesting that if you’re interested, sign up for the free Basic membership (limited to 3 maps) and play around with mind-mapping to see if you like it.
If you sign up, I get one free map. That’s it. No more, no less. (Yes, they actually offer those with paid monthly memberships some sort of small value cash incentive for suggesting MindMeister to others, but that’s not me.)
I use mind-mapping. I love MindMeister’s free Basic membership. I’m betting you might, too.
As with Alice in Wonderland, this summer I fell down the rabbit hole and ended up in a parallel universe.
It’s still my life, or is it?
It all began innocently enough, back in that London hotel room on Easter afternoon. I can still visualize myself resting on the bed after a full day of sightseeing and a celebratory pub lunch. A casual look at Facebook, taking in the message from my sister-in-law that my father had had an emergency appendectomy and was doing fine.
Except that eventually he wasn’t. First they found gall stones, testing led to the discovery of a tumor, another surgery with heart complications, then the diagnosis of cancer.
Let’s not forget the pulmonary embolism which was detected weeks later during testing to ensure his heart could withstand the pending six to eight-hour surgery to deal with the cancer.
Overlaying my father’s medical drama was the awareness of the continually creeping memory problems, forgetfulness, lack of focus, reduced concentration and mobility affecting both parents. It’s not as if my mother doesn’t have her own health issues which require monitoring as well.
There was no denying it: we were all coming face to face with the tough issues associated with aging.
Not those experienced early on in the process: the need for reading glasses to peruse a menu, not quite catching all of a conversation, aches and pains as our bodies remind us that we aren’t teenagers anymore.
I’m talking about the more difficult challenges associated with being elderly, however that state is characterized in one’s culture.
My parents are 81 and 79. Just as we’ve seen with Husband’s parents, somewhere along the line they passed the threshold from an active, vibrant retirement into something far more sedate and limiting.
That is not to say that life isn’t still enjoyable and enriching, because it is. They have a relatively active social life in their retirement community, with plenty of treasured friends and neighbors keeping track of each other and appreciating each other’s company.
They can still get around fairly well and care for themselves, but the cracks in the armor are clearly beginning to show.
Arriving in the US for the first time in two years, we headed directly to my parents home near the west coast of Florida. My father had lost weight (who wouldn’t, after a month in the hospital?) but his color was good and he was regaining strength, walking up to a half mile most days.
Surgery loomed over us, but one that promised to nip it all in the bud. Buy time, hopefully years. He and my mother were upbeat, choosing to focus on the positive rather than go down that other path.
Leaving them to head north and check out some candidates in Daughter’s university search, it actually felt good strolling those campuses in the summer heat, listening to cheerful coeds and earnest administrators regale us with the impressive merits and virtues of the various schools.
Taking in the mesmerizing information and corresponding visual imprint at each campus, it was easy to slip back into a life that feels full of options, choices and endless possibilities.
Inhaling the intoxicating perfume of youth does that, doesn’t it?
We were slowly making our way back south in the middle part of our trip when the call came. Another ‘where were you when…?’ moment.
The cancer, aided and abetted by the time-consuming pulmonary embolism, had spread rapidly. There was nothing the doctors could do.
Talk about a game changer. Out went the old plans and in came the new.
Reeling from the shock, flights were changed and itineraries adjusted as we all clamored for time spent with my parents. Husband and Son would accelerate their arrival.
Emphasis was on helping my parents through this new turn of events, and sharing that most precious of commodities: more time with my father.
Prior to returning to my parents’ home for what would now be an extended period of weeks rather than days, Daughter and I paid a visit to Husband’s mother in a different part of Florida.
Suffering from dementia, albeit a kindly form, this petite 86 year old resides in a well regarded facility of wonderful caretakers who ensure she doesn’t wander away. There is much she has forgotten, yet it is a blessing that she recognizes her family. She also believes all of her relatives and friends – a lifetime’s worth – are alive and nearby.
Her mother? Meeting her for lunch later at their favorite bistro. Her husband? Away on a business trip, returning next week. Her closest friend, the one who attended Husband’s and my wedding? She’ll be seeing her the next day.
Except she won’t, as they are deceased. And so it is another blessing that she doesn’t recall that, or get angry or confused when time passes and they do not show. Because she’s forgotten, and is already looking forward to new things. She can’t be disappointed about things she doesn’t remember.
She retains much of her former personality so is easy to converse with, often recalling past events if you jog her memory. She generally spends her days in a pleasant mood, enjoying the people surrounding her, always surprised by and delighted with the actual visits of family members.
When Husband visited her a couple weeks later, amazingly she still recalled Daughter’s and my visit, telling him all about his own daughter as if he is unfamiliar with her.
We are fortunate to still have her, grateful for the chance to spend time with her and trigger whatever connections we still can.
Would she consider herself lucky? I have no idea.
As for my father, his prognosis for time remaining is being reconsidered, but it may well only be months. In re-biopsying the tumor, it appeared to be a slower growing one than originally thought. Rather than the six months initially mentioned, perhaps it was now a year or two.
That jubilation was sadly short-lived, however, as subsequent review now shows that it is a particularly aggressive type of tumor after all. To say the news took the wind out of our sails is an understatement.
As I’ve learned in my time spent down the rabbit hole, peering through a distorted looking glass at one’s own possible future, there’s always another doctor with whom to speak, yet another appointment to attend.
More doctor’s offices, hospitals, waiting rooms. More options, however limited, to discuss and consider.
It’s more than a ‘before and after’ thing going on here, not simply splitting my world into two parts separated by the news my father was in deep trouble.
And it’s more than acknowledging that we really don’t have any time promised us, none of us, hence a reminder to truly live life to the fullest each and every day.
It’s the bigger issue at play: realizing that in living in the presence of the aging of others, we face our own advancing years. Our own mortality.
Okay, today’s post is both global and deeply personal in nature.
August 19th is officially designated World Humanitarian Day 2012, marking the 9th anniversary of the bombing in Baghdad that took the life of Sergio Vieira De Mello, then serving as both the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Iraq. Twenty one members of his staff, all hardworking humanitarians, were killed as well.
The purpose of World Humanitarian Day is to encourage and inspire people worldwide to do something, do one little thing, to help raise awareness of the tremendous work being done by the World Health Organization and other UN agencies to help those in need across the globe.
This year’s theme is I Was Here, also the title of a ballad sung by Beyoncé Knowles. Beyoncé not only performed this song for the General Assembly at the UN Headquarters in New York and family members and colleagues of the fallen, she also has thrown in her support with several public service announcements.
There are many things you can do. The WHD website includes a page with ideas and suggestions from an array of humanitarian organizations as to how to Take Action.
My ‘one little thing’ is to write about World Humanitarian Day, helping to get the word out to others about the tremendous need that exists in our world due to natural and manmade disasters such as civil war, violence, terrorism, human trafficking, refugee flows, famine and drought.
I’ve written before about the fact that there are 15.4 million refugees and 27.5 million internally displaced persons throughout the world (One is Too Many). I’ve also discussed the horrors of human trafficking (The Ugly Truths) and of course drought and famine remain in various parts of Africa (Somalian Sorrows).
We need only look at the daily news to now read about terrible developments in Syria, Mali, Niger.
When a new crisis breaks out, no one tending the other crises gets to take down their tents and move on: rather, many scramble and more people are mobilized, more money is raised, more aid is dispensed to those desperate souls who sorely need it.
I’ve been honored and privileged to host Tracey Buckenmeyer, a member of the UN High Commission for Refugees’ team in Ethiopia, twice on this blog with the heartfelt posts Tough Neighborhood and Geographical Gingerbread Man.
I do it because I can, and because there is such need. I’m a writer and blogger, I have a tiny pulpit, and it is the very least I can do to help showcase the serious work being done in this world to help alleviate suffering and distress.
So why is this personal?
Many of you know from UN Reverie that in a past life I spent two years as the Director for Peacekeeping Policy in the US Department of Defense. As such, I worked for high level politicos (I was a civil servant) in DoD in monitoring and developing policy for potential and actual response to global crisis situations.
For 24 months my life was one long string of every conceivable crisis, hot spot and potential flare up imaginable: Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Angola, East Timor, Ethiopia and Eritrea, Haiti, Syria, among many, many others.
We worked within the US interagency structure with the National Security Council, State Department and intelligence agencies to understand, assess and develop US policy for each and every crisis area, as well as planning for eventualities in multitudes more.
Susan Rice, now serving as the US Ambassador to the UN today, was then the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, meaning her seat at the interagency table rarely got cold.
Let me say this: despite your political views, the United States and indeed many other countries of a similar mind work very hard, day in and day out, quietly behind the scenes to help the UN do its work in serving the often overwhelming needs of others.
You will never read or learn of certain efforts in the press, and that’s fine. The machinery of governments and international organizations does seem to work incredibly slowly at times, but that is the nature of collective arrangements in which parties differ as to action. But they did and still do save lives and make a considerable difference.
Our unit worked closely with our sister office responsible for Humanitarian and Refugee Affairs; you’d be surprised how something would start as a political crisis and boil over into the humanitarian arena, and vice versa. It was no joke that we were collectively referred to as Crises ‘R Us, a play on the name of the American toy store chain.
To say that we dealt with unimaginable human suffering is an understatement.
In order to be of any value in the solutions being forged, you truly had to steel your nerves when reading the inpouring intelligence reports of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man or the extremely dire straits in which victims of natural disasters found themselves.
The time to grieve was pushed aside for another time, another day.
We also worked closely with the US Mission to the United Nations, with the UN missions of allies and concerned partners, and with the UN Secretariat staff itself.
At the time, the storied Brazilian career UN employee Sergio Vieira De Mello was the Under Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. He had previously served in many demanding and prestigious positions, and despite his overburdened portfolio would often be given yet another hat to wear during the latest crisis de jour.
In addition to being talented and dedicated, Vieira De Mello was also charismatic and an inspirational leader. Several of the high level leaders I worked for in the US government knew Vieira De Mello professionally and respected him; his assessments were astute, and his word was given the gravitas it deserved.
One of the military officers who worked for me had, in a prior assignment, met and been involved in operations involving Vieira De Mello. He had nothing but positive things to say about this legendary humanitarian.
Every knew he was a rising star, a savvy diplomat in the political arena and highly experienced on the ground. That he one day would have become UN Secretary General is undisputed. The world lost a luminous figure that day in Baghdad nine years ago, a light who burned brightly before being darkened forever.
That Vieira De Mello and his staff members were cut down in the prime of life while working to address humanitarian needs in Iraq in 2003 is devastating. Yet there is no place they would have rather been, helping those in need.
It is a dangerous world. Bad things happen, terrible things that make you lose sleep. Almost make you lose faith.
That there are those who risk their lives to help others in the very worst of times is something to be lauded. For that reason, and to remember those who gave their lives, is why World Humanitarian Day exists.
I hope you’ll consider doing one little thing, too.
Last week I was away spending some well deserved time alone with Husband, Son and Daughter. After the hectic and emotionally draining summer we’ve had, it was nice to enjoy the sun, surf and sand on Captiva Island in southern Florida.
It was good for us to reconnect as a family, relaxing individually and collectively as one day slipped into the next. We also made sure to store up the sunlight for colder, darker days ahead back home in Nederland, but we needn’t address that at the moment.
One thing I did do while relaxing was to catch up on some expat reading.
I’m approached fairly often by expat and travel authors to read and review their books. I’m truly honored to be asked, and wish I could always say yes without a moment’s hesitation. But it’s gotten to the point where I simply can’t read every offered book that comes my way.
Well, I suppose I could, but then I wouldn’t have much time to do the other things I’d like, such as writing, blogging, staying connected with friends and keeping the family fires stoked.
I’ve had to become more discerning with my time, limiting myself to those books that are less technical and ’how to’ and more memoir and ‘here’s why’.
Let’s be honest: I want emotion and feelings, words that evoke and share, explain and expand. I’m a sucker for a story that moves me. If it does that, I’m guessing it will move you, too.
Currently I’m reading several such books, all of which fall into the broad genre of expat life stories.
Yet each is distinctly different: one a blueprint of experience for considering a move abroad, another about the journey back from the dark side of depression, still another filled with sweeping stories of an author enthralled with a certain Spanish city.
I’m sharing the fourth with you today, an Adult Third Culture Kid’s saga of multi-generational expatriation.
The book?
Expat Alien: My Global Adventure.
Some of you may be familiar with Kathy’s blog of the same name, Expat Alien. Her tagline is ‘Foreign in My Own Country,’ and when you read her book, you’ll begin to understand why.
On the surface, Expat Alien is one woman’s story of growing up in places as exotic and diverse as Burma, Mexico, Nigeria, Colombia and Switzerland. For the little time she spent in her own passport country and the myriad challenges she has faced while acclimating to life there, you could just as well add the United States to the list.
But it’s so much more than that.
Born in Burma in the late 1950s to American parents living in the tropics halfway around the world, Kathy’s story is also the story of her parents’ generation: idealists personally committed to improving the human condition by virtue of her father’s lifelong work in Third World agriculture primarily with the Ford Foundation.
It’s also the story of a young girl growing up globally, moving so often and to such disparate cultures that, despite her family’s closeness, she winds up feeling restless, rootless and different. It’s no surprise that she meets and marries someone born in the US but intrinsically tied to his Russian homeland, a foot in each country.
As she’ll later learn through the teachings of Norma McCaig (founder of Global Nomads International, which eventually morphed into today’s Families in Global Transition) and Ruth Van Reken and the late David C. Pollock (Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds) , Third Culture Kids and ‘crossculturals’ have much in common.
When her husband ends up moving ‘back’ to Russia to further his burgeoning career in journalism, Kathy joins him. Raising their son while forging her own career in a country that seems ‘home’ to her husband yet just another foreign culture to her, she brings her experience and resilience to bear as they carve out a life together in Moscow.
The sinister circumstances under which Kathy’s family is suddenly forced to repatriate to the US further test her abilities to embrace change, adapt and build a new life not only for herself but for her TCK son.
Among the reasons why I enjoyed Expat Alien so much? Here are three:
The juxtaposition of her parents expatriate experience helping others while generously supported (relatively speaking) by an international organization with that of her own family’s situation of moving abroad for job opportunities that come without any support system.
The tenacity, bravery, openess and self-reliance of a young girl growing to womanhood in the largest international classroom imaginable: our multiculturally diverse world.
The reflections as an adult TCK, looking back and making sense in retrospect of bits and pieces of her nomadic life.
See? I didn’t even have to mention the plane crash, earthquakes and military coup she survived.
Expat Alien is available in paperback on Amazon.com and in Kindle format. Why not jump over to Kathy’s blog site and learn more?
By now many of you may have noticed that I haven’t been posting regularly.
Or much at all, if the truth be told.
I’ve effectively been under an enforced ‘internet interlude’, partially of my own making, but mainly due to connectivity issues.
As I’ve shared in Bite of the Generational Sandwich, the main focus of our trip back to the US this summer was my father’s cancer diagnosis. We’ve extended our time here to be with my parents as long as possible.
I’ll be candid: dealing with my father’s condition and what lies ahead has taken almost all of my energy and focus for quite some time now. Writing has taken a back seat for the time being, and understandably so.
Still, I find myself awash in so many new subjects, having different thoughts, fresh ways of looking at old perspectives and beliefs. New angles, new ideas. My mind races and I’ve been jotting things down for future consideration.
I’ve continued writing, but much of it has been offline. Which brings us to the more pressing reason why I haven’t been posting much recently.
The calendar may say that it’s August of 2012, but don’t let it fool you: I’m held hostage in a connectivity wasteland, circa the electronic Middle Ages.
It is a long, involved story that centers mainly around the fact that many elderly people (I’m talking late-70s and older here) don’t exactly have state-of-the-art internet connectivity in their homes.
And why would they? So much of what the rest of us take for granted in our daily lives was invented after they reached retirement age.
So let’s just say that I’ve been languishing in the aforementioned internet hinterland, and leave it at that.
Little in the way of posting on my blog, virtual silence on Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn. Very little on Facebook, and even less on email.
Oh, and I did manage to squeeze in Skype sessions with my dear Jane at Wordgeyser and Maria at I Was an Expat Wife last month that were absolutely instrumental in keeping me connected, sane and on an even keel.
Seriously, those Skype conversations and some in person visits with several fantastic friends in North Carolina (including Carol at Pause and Smile) in mid-July have kept me going. I am a lucky, lucky gal indeed.
So I am alive, doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances, and grateful for every extra moment here with my parents.
I thought I’d end with a few bits and bytes that I want to share with you.
First up, I got a MAJOR shout out from my absolutely favorite British expat in Oz, Russell at In Search of a Life Less Ordinary, when he was interviewed by the Telegraph’s Suzi Dixon for Top Expats on Twitter. Good writer, good blogger, good soul. Profuse thanks to a great cyber friend and great guy.
Then another regular expat contributor at the Telegraph, the British Chris Marshall now residing in Spain, interviewed me for his article Why Have Expats Set the Blogosphere Alight?
I’m not entirely sure when I’ll emerge from my internet interlude, but it won’t be much longer. My apologies for not keeping up with so many of the great posts and articles written by so many other terrific bloggers and writers, but I will eventually catch up.
Recently I introduced Expats A to Z, a new series of posts about the little things that can make a difference in how we approach some of the challenges and experiences of expat life.
I’m talking about those qualities and traits that we can nurture within us to help not only survive, but thrive amid constant change.
You know, the characteristics and features that can help smooth the way.
I won’t be writing this series in alphabetical order, because I like mixing things up.
And quite frankly, it’s a whole lot more interesting when you don’t know what’s coming next. More fun for me as well.
I do hope you’ll follow along and share your own thoughts and experiences.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
O is for Open
I’m often asked some really interesting questions about expat life.
I not only do my utmost to answer them, I also take note. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that what one person wants to know is often what others are interested in as well.
And those are also the kinds of things that still others could benefit from if they knew to think to ask about them, too.
I’ve been approached by readers and visitors to this blog who often leave a question in the comments section or contact me behind the scenes. Sometimes folks read one of my articles or guest posts elsewhere and drop me a line via email.
I’ve been approached on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Google+, and had several people come to me by way of typing in ’expat life’ or ‘moving to the Netherlands’ or similar phrases in Google or another search engine.
Occasionally I’ll get questions like ‘where can I get a 3-bedroom apartment for X amount per month?’ or ‘how many converters/adapters will I need?’. That’s when I gently redirect to expat information websites.
But often the questions tend to be along the lines of:
What’s the most important trait necessary to be a successful expat?
What one thing can I do to ensure my family has a good expat experience?
How can I have a great/fulfilling/exciting time while living abroad?
What’s the secret to building a life overseas?
What three things can I do to make the adjustment to expat life easier/smoother?
What’s the single biggest thing I should know as an aspiring or soon-to-be expat?
Each of these questions falls into the category of what I refer to as a ‘go with your gut’ query. There’s no one right answer as we’ve all had different experiences.
It’s akin to posing that infamous early 17th century toughie ‘how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?’
Ask a dozen people any of those questions on expat life and you’ll get seventeen answers. Yes, I realize the math doesn’t match, but then again, few people can limit themselves to just one response.
That’s because there are so many nuggets of wisdom and bits of info that we’ve gathered along the way.
We want to share them, but not because we think we know everything. That’s a laughable thought, really.
If nothing else, living in a different country/culture teaches us that we can’t possibly know everything that will come our way. Just when we think we’ve got a handle on some aspect of living abroad, we may encounter something unexpected. Perhaps even get blind-sided.
Sometimes it’s a wonderful new perspective we hadn’t thought of. Other times, it may be a bracing dash of cold water on dreams and illusions.
We learn that we’ll always be learning something new or different or unusual, to make life easier or better or more interesting, and hopefully make us more thoughtful, respectful and a tad wiser.
The truth is that we learn by trial and error, by experience, by researching answers and asking questions ourselves. Sometimes we experience it first-hand; other times we witness it with others, learn about it in a conversation or read about it from someone else who’s been through it.
We share because in doing so we are connecting with others, imparting hardwon knowledge, excitement, even the occasionally necessary warning.
We encourage, extol, marvel and shake our heads.
We offer what we know about the good, the not so good and the just plain odd
Even the horrible, the painful and the bittersweet.
So in answering these questions, I’m going to go with my gut. You know, the answer you’d give your best friend or family member if you only had 30 seconds to reply and couldn’t take it back or add a single word.
If you take all you’ve learned and distill it down to one sentence, what would that be? What matters most?
In my humblest of humble opinions, the single biggest thing you can do is this: be open.
Open-minded. Open-hearted. Open eyes, open arms.
Open to the new, the different, the difficult, the mundane, the wondrous.
With the big and the small and everything in between.
