I don’t know the motivation of what IE did below, but what turned out is an absolutely beautiful video/picture of celebrating a stranger. Wouldn’t it be awesome to be cheered for and celebrated by people who didn’t know you? It’s amazing to watch the smiles and looks on these people’s face as they try to figure out what is happening. I love it.
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WELCOME TO HOLLAND
by
Emily Perl Kingsley.
c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have notshared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this……
When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”
“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”
But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around…. and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills….and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy… and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away… because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But… if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things … about Holland.
Our sexuality is not a mere biological function; rather it is the impulse of something far greater and more meaningful than the thrill of an orgasm can satisfy. We emote sexual feelings because we seek impact and connection. We seek to find what it is that we were created for; to get inside of someone and to have someone get inside of us. It is of no surprise that in dealing with these longings our sexual being becomes difficult to ignore. We cannot escape the arousal and excitement when the reality of these longings is highlighted. We hope to seduce and be seduced into experiencing the other in such a way that a mere biological function feels apathetic at best. While there are many biological aspects of our sexuality as humans, there exists too great of an emotional connection to our sexual being that prevents biology from reigning supreme.
- A couple sitting outside, very intently engaged. She has a quizzical look on her face often changing between compassion and confusion. She isn’t talking very much, just listening. He is drinking from a travel coffee mug adorned with a rox shox sticker and a carabeener. On his backpack is a bike lock with the brake handles from a mountain bike hanging beneath the lock. At one point, he gently pulls the hair back on her head and whispers something into her ear. She smiles.
- Two women sitting next to me, one with papers and folders. She’s intent on making sure that her counterpart knows that she is being honest and is shooting things straight. She has said at least 5 times in the past 5 minutes “I’m going to be as honest as I can be.” The other lady is shaking her head in agreement, yet is very timid and anxious.
- A guy sitting outside, reading a large book (like a coffee table book), drinking coffee, and stroking his beard. He occasionally looks up to see what is going on around him, but not for long. He just put his yellow rain jacket on, and is getting up to leave. His pace is quick and with a goal in mind.
- A dad with three girls who all appear to be 2-3 years old. Prior to sitting down, the dad pointed very sternly at one of the girls, whom I am assuming is his daughter, and in a raised voice said “I’m going to get a straw, listen to me, I’m going to get a straw.”
Me. Sitting at a table, a cup of water, a half-full americano, an empty cookie plate, a computer, bag, and phone. I’m reading and writing about people outside this cafe when I’d much rather put my things away and sit with each of the people I’ve described here, and listen to their stories. I’d rather fantasize about them, their conversations, their longings and why they are here. What is it that they are looking for
I was watching a video online the other day, and had a stoke of genius. How will my kids fare growing up in a digital economy, specifically in the age of digital media?
During this video, the speaker was showing some pictures of himself as a kid. You’ve seen these kinds of pictures from the 1950’s, and earlier. They’re brown/sepia, torn edges, faded, and are few and far between. If my parents, or this speaker, wanted to go back and look at the memories of the family, they would have a tough time doing this from their childhood. There just aren’t many images or videos that they can go back and look at. Part of me wonders if this is more beneficial than the digital picture craze that we currently live in.
I’ve spent many moments with my kids in the past few years closing my eyes and trying to imprint the image of their faces, their bodies, their voices onto my ‘memory.’ As I sit here typing, I am finding it difficult to remember those moments, even though one such moment was less than a week ago. Naturally I’m wondering why that is the case, and immediately my thoughts go to iPhoto on my mac. In a simple very easy to manage photo program resides the memories of 7 years captured by digital film. If I forget the face of my daughter when she was 2 years, 4 months old, I’ve got a picture for it. The point is, our lives are documented in so many different ways.
With the invention of film, we created an ability to capture life and preserve the memories associated with it. I have many fond memories that are spurred on because of some pictures. I get to see the scene, the people, the setting, and the movement from when the picture was taken. Some of these memories have led me to great joy, while others have led me to prfound saddness. I want to forget some things, and nothing short of lighting the pictures on fire will aid in that act of forgetting.
Where am I going with this post? Some of the pictures I’ve seen have challenged my perceptions about life. I’ve begun to look ‘deeper’ into videos and pictures of my childhood, wonder what was happening beyond the lens, beyond the film, beyond technology. What interests me about this topic is of the next generation. My kids, as mentioned above, will have the ability to examine so much more of their lives due to the sheer volume of information that has been devoted to their lives. We have over 4,000 total pictures in our digital library …. that’s roughly 5 years of pictures.
My questions about all of this is whether all of this information is aiding in the collection of memories, good and bad, on a computer disk or in the minds of my kids? Will they find it difficult to remember life because if they need to, all of their memories can be accesed with a few clicks of the mouse? And finally, will they know more about the failure and pain that they grew up in due to the sheer volume of pictures and videos?
Here’s some fancy photos of young-me 
One of my favorite things about coming downtown to school … Rounding the corner and seeing the giant cruise ships parked just a block away from our school. They take my breath away.
from my chat with Harry this morning…
“busy, and fantastic. went over to a friends friends house (4,000 sf, with a view worth $2.5mil, litterally) on friday night, saturday we went to the UW Baseball game (highs in the low 70’s and sunny (amazing), saturday night had a cook out with some friends, drank margaritas (I hate them), sunday went to a pump-it-up birthday party (huge inflatable party), sunday night had a date with steph for our sabbath meal (see twitter for the menu).”
I held off on getting a facebook profile for a long time. I caved in a few weeks ago and literally within a few days had accepted more ‘friend’ requests from more friends than I thought I knew. I also held off on getting a twitter account for plenty of reasons, though none more important than wondering why anyone would want to know what I ‘am doing’ at any given time in my day/week/life?
I’ve had a blog for a long time, and it’s main purpose was to gave a space for me to put thought to things that I’d been kicking around in my head. It’s still a great space for that, but I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions about my ‘internet profile’ lately.
The main question surrounds wondering if my use of facebook, twitter, and a blog a means for me to feel more important because I have “x number” of subscribers/friends/followers? Sometimes I wonder if all these web apps create in me a false sense of reality. This ‘reality’ tells me that if I have ‘x number’ of friends/subscribers/followers on my facebook/blog/twitter profiles then I must be liked and important enough for people to care. Why do I need these apps to tell me this? Am I looking to these things to feel bigger, to stroke my narcissistic ego?
Three of the four most important people in my life don’t get on my blog, or twitter, or facebook account. They just want to play with me, wrestle with me, and laugh with me. I hear them downstairs right now, and though I want to write lots more here about plenty more thoughts I have about web 2.0, I’m going to go play with them.
Are you missing anyone because your profile needs to be updated?
Forgiveness is the act of not splitting.
I have hope, therefore I speak.
