Lilac Colored Glasses

Music.

Music has always been one of the strongest memory triggers for me. The Little Nash Rambler makes me think of my late aunt Ronnie, sitting in her car while she sang to me in an Elmer Fudd voice to make a pint sized me giggle.

How You Remind Me by Nickelback takes me back to a gravel parking lot after dark my junior year of college where my roommate Peep and I sat, belting the song in my green Pontiac, both of us trying to plug up the void of a broken heart.

Lemon Parade by Tonic puts me in my car at the age of sixteen, driving home from a night working at Long John Silvers, after my second “real” kiss with a guy.

So music seemed the obvious path to choose this weekend when a surprise visit to my blog by an ex inspired me to do a short series discussing my exes and what I learned from those relationships.
But after I made that decision, something strange happened. Or perhaps it is always happening, I just rarely notice it anymore.
Every time I started formulating a post in my head, I would look at CB, or he would say something to me and I was overcome by how very much I am in love with him. I was actually choked up a few times, the feeling of utter completeness was so strong. I don’t think I’ve ever looked into the eyes of a man so confident in his love for mz, so happy when I’m happy…until now. I rarely, if ever, think much about my exes since I met CB and while I do maintain that I learned something from every relationship I’ve had, it all seems to pale in comparison with the feeling of “right” I have with CB.

However, that doesn’t diminish the men from my past or what they’ve taught me. I even occasionally exchange an e-mail with a couple of them. But rather than go into a detailed analysis of each (I lose the desire to do that pretty much any time I’m with CB), I’m going to put up the song that reminds me the most of each one, along with a thank you. Because without lessons learned from the past, we as people wouldn’t be able to build better futures.

Pie Jesu

Bub – Thank you for teaching me that there are people out there who can love me unconditionally.

Miss America

Asshat – Thank you for teaching me not to lie to myself about my emotions just to make asshats people happy.

It Ain’t Me Babe

M. – Thank you for teaching me how to be more independent in a relationship.

My Immortal

Chinchilla – Thanks for teaching me that chemistry, while important, is not the basis for a good relationship.

Long December

Cabana Boy – Thank you for all the lessons you’ve taught me and for all the lessons yet to come in our life together. Thank you for making me believe in the impossible. Thank you for loving me.

Gent is not the place to go if you’re looking for fast food. Or chain restaurants in general. In the entire city they have one McDonalds and one Pizza Hut. They don’t even have a Quick, which most Belgian cities have in abundance.
And this doesn’t bother me at all. In the U.S. I ate way too much fast food, but that was for conveniance, not because I really enjoyed most of it (except Arbys…mmmmm…Arbys). So now, if I’m in need of something fast, it’s just as easy to go to a Panos (the only mega-chain foodwise in Gent) and get a reasonably priced, reasonably healthy, mediocre sandwich. I mean, Panos is okay, but the only choice you get is white or brown bread. Half of the time. The other half they’re out of brown bread, so tough shit. Cause the service is usually crap too.

CB has rarely eaten fast food in his life and actually tried Subway for the first time while we were in Cologne. He was a bit taken aback by the fact that he could basically pick whatever he wanted on whatever bread he wanted, toasted or not toatsed, etc. but otherwise he really enjoyed it. In fact, his exact words may’ve been close to:

“It’s a shame we don’t have Subway in Belgium, they’d kill Panos.”

And lo, last week in Brussels south Station, what did we see? A Subway!
And later in the week we spotted another one…in Gent center!!

So after some errands the other day, we hit up Subway for lunch. I ordered a large club, toasted and when it was time to choose veggies I asked for everything but onions and jalapeños. We ate our sub, it was lovely, and we were on our way when about halfway to the bus stop CB said, “I see what you did with the vegetables there.”

And I, confused, said, “Huh? What do you mean?”

“Well it’s just so American. No European, when asked ‘what vegetables do you want’ would reverse the answer and say ‘everything but these two things.’ They would pick 2 or possibly 3 vegetables, if the server wasn’t getting annoyed by then, that went well with the sandwich.”

“But I got a club! All veggies go well with a club! I mean, if I’d gotten steak and cheese, I’d only want lettuce and tomato…”

“But that’s not the point. It was just funny the way you asked for ‘everything but.’ It’s so American. But it was good! I liked having all the vegetables, it just never would have occurred to me to ask for it like that.”

So hey, at least some of my American philosophies are good for something, right?

I blame my mother for this.

No, really, I do.

Cause my mother is one of those uber-giftwrapper extraordinaires. Every edge of the paper is neatly, evenly cut with the keenest of scissors. Every ribbon is color coordinated and curled to poofy perfection (with aforementioned scissors). Occasionally she’s super inspired and tosses some glitter or confetti in to make things extra festive. And we won’t even get into her calligraphy pens, but I will say that it’s been almost 16 years since my bat-mitzvah and people are still talking about the invitations and decorations.

So, growing up with the Martha Stewart Grace Jones of gift wrapping, it’s simply unacceptable to buy a gift bag, jam some tissue paper in it and present gifts to family and friends in the same manner in which a college freshman throws herself together for the walk of shame from frat row to her dormitory.
I take the time to pick nice paper and matching bows (my ribbon curling instincts have not fully matured) and I wrap gifts properly (insert nervous tic here). Which has led to the inevitable.

Not only am I now the resident fruit salad specialist, but I am also CB’s gift wrap bitch. A few days before Christmas I spread all of the gifts we’d bought out in front of me, got my roll of paper, scissors and tape and meticulously began wrapping each item. CB walked in and said something like, “Oh, you like wrapping gifts?”

To which I shrugged noncommittally and answered that I didn’t mind doing it for holidays and birthdays.

So when he bought gifts for his godparents today (I’ll try to remember to explain the Belgian godparent thing soon) he looked at me and said, “You’ll wrap them?”

Because of course now I’m the gift wrapping bitch. And yes, I could’ve refused, I know, but I kept getting mental images of what happens when a heterosexual man plays with wrapping papers and tape.

I let CB choose the paper. I did the rest.

I just hope no one asks me to make fruit salad.

Today we’ll be out all day visiting with CB’s family. But it seems it’s becoming a tradition for me to post pictures of our New Years Eve meals so I wrote this out last night and scheduled it to post today. On our first New Years together we made Tandoori chicken, Buddha’s delight, an impromptu Chinese soup and ginormous margaritas that resulted in sleeping through the actual countdown to midnight. Last New Years we made seafood gumbo with rice (photo lost to the hacking in June) and I believe we had Pecheresse to drink with it.

Our menu this year is as follows:

We Wish You All A Happy, Healthy 2010!!

I suppose moving to Belgium the way I did is indicatory of some degree of naiveté. I’ve always thought that we’re no different than the other international couples I’ve met here, but truth be told, we are, for one major reason: I took an intercontinental leap of faith based on what, at the time, was a relationship in it’s infancy.

Most people here knew their significant Belgian face to face for months or even years before they decided to expatriate.
I? I had known CB face to face for one week.

Like I said, leap of faith.

And there’s some irony in that. By the time I was 22 or so I was already pretty jaded about relationships. I was alone and had become, for the most part, very accepting of my situation. It’s not so much that I thought all men weren’t good, just that no man was good for me. I’d seen real, true love but had given up on ever having (and keeping) it myself. Following some rough and even traumatic experiences in college, I intentionally disconnected myself from most of my friends as well as my past. I kept little contact with anyone outside of my family and made no real new friends once I graduated. I occasionally e-mailed a hello to some friends from college, but I chose times that were inconvenient for me or for others in order to keep the interactions minimal. I figured I was much better off alone. No one to hurt, no one to hurt me and no pesky emotions to interfere with my judgment. Because I am a person who is very easily overcome by emotions of any kind and I know this about myself. Emotions turn me into a roiling pit of irrationality and erraticism and there are not many people in this world who are able or willing to interact with roiling pits of erratic irrationality.
Point being, I spent years building little walls and speed bumps and deterrents around me. I was aloof and disconnected from my emotions and above all, I trusted nothing and no one (besides my close family). I only confided in people who were far away and never actually interacted with my life. The people I came into contact with on a daily basis I kept at a distance. So making the move I did- taking CB’s love at face value and trusting that things would work…well, it was a throwback to the childhood me. The me that was gullible and believed outlandish stories as long as they were told to me by someone who I considered a friend. The me that was hurt so often by people who had no problem exploiting my willingness to trust people. The me that once believed that I could do whatever I wanted if I cared and tried hard enough. The me that believed that every work of fiction is secretly real, even just a little bit; that somewhere, hidden from the world we know, there are unicorns and fairies and Valkyries and magic.

It was that part of me that took off at a run down the unmapped road of a new relationship in a foreign country. And the road has been rocky, as you all well know. There are pebbles on some days and boulders on others, but I’m still on the path and in my heart I know it’s the right one. It has a few more detours than I’d like, but as long as I’m travelling it with CB it will always be the right one.

You’ll never find anyone more grateful for a glimmering spark of naiveté.