The View from a Drawbridge

Tag: Netherlands

  • A Superior American’s Inferiority Complex

    You have to live with this dichotomy in America.

  • The Weird News That We’ve yet to Hear

    Every once in awhile we’ll hear a story about someone, or some group, that has been locked away for years. The latest is a group of six adult children, ages 18-25, who have been locked away in a farmhouse in Ruinerwold, Netherlands for 9 years. Some of the children have been so isolated that they…

  • Not Cut Out for Grit Labor

    When I was 19 years old, my eldest sister was in the Air Force, stationed in Holland. Between my freshman and sophomore years in college, she invited me to go there for the summer. What, are you kidding? Of course I said yes, with visions of jet setting around Europe dancing in my head. Upon…

  • “De kleine tafel!”

    I was living in Holland one glorious summer (I call it my summer of love), and one day I was helping a friend move from one apartment to another. The car was nearly packed and I was standing beside it while my friend was inside looking for anything that may have been left behind. Suddenly,…

  • Exploring Vancouver: Fireworks without the Patriotism

    I absolutely love fireworks. I think of it as art, writ large. Light is the paint and the sky is the canvas. It’s the purest form of joyously explosive creativity. That’s why the 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays here in the US. So when I heard of the annual Celebration of…

  • The Betrayer of Anne Frank

    I “discovered” Anne Frank and her famous diary at the age of 12, so for me she felt like a contemporary. It seemed as if we went through puberty together. We discovered boys together. We were age-appropriately bratty and self-absorbed together. We had issues with our mothers together. (The fact that she was actually born…

  • Language Barriers

    When I was around 14 I rode the bus to school every day with a bunch of kids from migrant worker families. I was the only one on the bus who didn’t speak Spanish. It drove me crazy and they knew it. They’d say something, look over at me, and laugh. I hated being left…

  • The Black Sheep in the Family

    Every family has one. A relative who refuses to play by the rules. Someone who causes unbelievable heartache, unspeakable scandal, and enormous amounts of frustration. Someone who generates really, really interesting family stories. In my family that was Uncle Dave, my mother’s little brother. When my mom was young, she was bedridden with whooping cough,…

  • Views from my Windows—Part Two

    For the beginning of this story, check out part one. No matter our circumstances, my mother never let it be a question in my mind that I’d be pursuing higher education. She wanted more for me than she ever had herself. I got scholarships and loans and grants and she helped me as much as…