Yup, I’m now officially a passport carrying Canadian.

I feel like James Bond, who also has a stack of passports. Only difference: his are fake.

I guess I have to make a trip abroad now…

Today was the day of the Citizenship test. I had myself reasonably well prepared but as I wrote before I’m not very good at studying dry facts. So I was a little bit nervous. The invitation mentioned I should take 3 hours for the test and you can ask a lot of questions in 3 hours.

First I had to wait in a waiting room with about 50 other people. Sitting there I noticed my nickname on the wall, right under the Coat of Arms of Canada. I had seen the Coat of Arms before, but had never read the Latin motto underneath it. It says “a mari usque ad mare”. It means “From sea to sea” and I interpreted it as a good sign.

We were then led into the test room, with rows of desks, all with a freshly sharpened pencil on top. One side for people that took the test in French and the other side for us English speakers. The test consisted of 20 questions of which I needed only 12 answer correctly. They were all really simple questions, and just reading the booklet would have been enough to answer them. One of them for example was: “What are the two official languages of Canada?”. On top of that they were multiple choice so I was finished in 5 minutes. For good times I went over all questions again but then I really had to hand in my answer paper. I would be surprised if I didn’t score 100%. I was the first to finish and then had to go to another room where after a short wait I was interviewed to see if my understanding of at least one of Canada’s official languages was sufficient. I started in Mandarin but then switched to Spanish.

The women checked if all the stamps in my passport matched the dates that I had indicated on my application form as dates I was outside Canada. They matched. Subsequently she asked some questions about my housing situation, sources of income, and if I had a partner and what his/her profession was. And then it was over and just 25 minutes after I had entered I was outside again, where it was still snowing.

In about 2 months I’ll have my swearing-in ceremony where I have to sing “O, Canada” and swear allegiance to the Queen. Better start practising:

They had snow in the Netherlands this morning. Chaos everywhere, 880 km of traffic jam, hundreds of accidents, trains stuck in the middle of nowhere etc.

The amount? 4 cm.

Via illicit channels I stumbled upon a yet unreleased movie about the thesis subject of a fellow web-logger. I downloaded it, burned it onto a CD-ROM and gave it to her. And since I had it on my hard drive I decided to watch it.

“Noise” is about a man (Tim Robbins) who can’t stand the noise in New York, especially the blaring car alarms, and he decides to do something about it. I won’t give away the whole plot here, but it involves breaking car windows and cutting battery cables.

Now is this a subject that lies close to my heart. During my last years in the Netherlands I was kind of obsessed with cars. I didn’t mind their noise that much, but I couldn’t stand them driving through red lights, not giving priority to pedestrians and bicycles on crosswalks and generally breaking traffic rules. So I actually had more of a gripe with their drivers than with the cars themselves. But since they were hiding in the sacred cows it was easier to hate cars, period. This all originated to a few incidents I had where I told (or gestured) some cars that they shouldn’t drive over my toes and was subsequently assaulted and beaten up by the driver. And this, instead of making me more timid and restrained, made me even more vocal and focussed on car’s errors. I once threw my bike in front of a car to stop it from entering the one-way street I lived in from the wrong direction (this happened a lot because it was a huge shortcut between two main streets). And I could get totally worked up when I saw cars jumping red lights, even when they were far away from me. I was a totally self-righteous asshole, stopping for every red pedrestian stop light, even in the middle of the night when there was no traffic at all. If I followed the rules I could critique everybody else who didn’t.

This happened only when I was riding my bike or was a pedestrian. When I drove a car myself I could stand traffic violations much better. So for a while I drove to my studio, even though that actually took more time and was a hassle with parking.

During the worst period I couldn’t even watch out of my window, in fear of getting totally worked up over cars running in the wrong direction. There were days I couldn’t leave the house. I suffered from a special case of agoraphobia. During the nights I was plotting evil plans involving setting cars ablaze that were parked illegally and acquiring a rocket launcher to, as in Doom, blow cars into pieces. Just the thought that I couldn’t afford being apprehended because it would affect my immigration process, withheld me from actually doing these things in reality.

When I was visiting Montréal I had none of these symptoms, probably because I didn’t have to “defend” my territory, because I was a visitor. But even now, when I’m not a visitor anymore, I only rarely have the urge to fight cars. I even jaywalk sometimes!

Anyway, the movie wasn’t a masterpiece but watching it brought back a lot of not so nice memories. Not so much that I started to hyperventilate, but enough to cause a slightly elevated heartbeat. But I was also relieved that this period was over, that I was “normal” again.

When we paused the movie we heard the neighbours dogs barking very loudly and we started to laugh about the coincidence.

It became even more hilarious when two of our tenants came down and rang our doorbell complaining about our dogs. I pointed them to the neighbours house and had to close the door fast because I couldn’t hold in my laughter.

Seeing a Dutch film in our neighbourhood cinema with French subtitles is a strange experience. Hearing people around you laugh about jokes that you thought were typical Dutch was even stranger.

The movie was “Garçon !” (“Ober”) written, directed and played by Alex van Warmerdam, a Dutch multi-talent (he also designed the poster and drew the storyboard) who’s work I really like. His humour is quite absurd and harsh, and for Canadian viewers sometimes even misogynist and racist. I myself? I laughed a lot.

Let’s start with a joke:

A man in Chicago calls his son in New York the day before Christmas and says, “I hate to ruin Christmas this year, but I have to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing; forty-five years of misery is enough.”

“Pop, what are you talking about?” the son screams. “We can’t stand the sight of each other any longer,” the father says. “We’re sick of each other, and I’m sick of talking about this, so you call your sister in Atlanta and tell her.”

Frantic, the son calls his sister, who explodes on the phone. “Like hell they’re getting divorced,” she shouts, “I’ll take care of this.”

She calls Chicago immediately, and screams at her father, “You are NOT getting divorced. Don’t do a single thing until I get there. I’m calling my brother back and we’ll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don’t do a thing, DO YOU HEAR ME?” and hangs up.

The old man hangs up his phone and turns to his wife. “Okay,” he says, “they’re coming for Christmas and paying their own way.” Via.

It sounded vaguely familiar.

The funeral was Saturday and it went well except for the hot air balloon that we tried to launch as a ritual but that nearly went up in flames, ripped open and finally ended being buried with my mother’s coffin instead of flying. I read a poem, and didn’t choke nor stutter. I almost started to cry when I made eye-contact with my best friend in the audience, but I changed my aim and it went away. It’s not that I’m afraid to cry in public, but I don’t like to do it in plain view. I also cry at funerals of people I don’t know, I even cry when there are funerals in movies. In short, I don’t like funerals.

There were a lot of people, considering my mother’s age and quite a few family members that I hadn’t seen in decades and probably never will see again. Not much to say that the usual “So you live in Canada now?” phrase. Many people asked me when I’ll come back and I honestly can’t say. I don’t envision attending the funerals of my brother and sisters and their spouses and offspring but maybe I’ll change my mind when that time will come. But the frequency of my visits will definitely go down. And the death of my mother will make me more Canadian, since there is one link less that ties me to the Netherlands. I will make less trips to Europe and spend the time and money on other trips. Hopefully I can explore the rest of Canada a bit. But I’m also a bit afraid of doing that; I might like it and secretly wish I had moved to Vancouver or Calgary instead of Montréal.

While in the Netherlands I can’t stop comparing: this is better, that is better, that is worse and OMG! this is really awful. I should compile the definite list someday. Seeing signs on the street like in the photo above doesn’t make this country more appealing. This was just after I wandered through a 99% Muslim neighbourhood where every apartment had their own satellite dish to watch Turkish or Moroccan television. In Québec there are currently discussions about integration of minorities, but that sight proved for me that in the Netherlands that integration clearly has failed. Or am I just watching the Netherlands through really dark sunglasses so everything looks dark and gloom? I honestly don’t know. What does suck is that my bike, borrowed from a friend, was stolen yesterday, probably because it had a very bad lock, but maybe also because I parked it in the wrong place. But Alison’s bike, also loaned to somebody, was also stolen in Montréal recently, so I can’t really claim Rotterdam is worse in that respect. The weather is far worse however, it rained every day last week and now it is dry but extremely cold. Only minus 1 degrees Celsius but it feels colder than -10 in Montréal because it is very humid and it is always windy here.

I’ll stop now, sorry for all the complaining. It is about time I do something constructive again. A few more days and I’ll fly home again, as a free man. I miss the dogs and Alison, and I want to see if I’m still able to ski.

Christmas comes early this year. After I came back from a day in Rotterdam to Nijmegen, where my mother and sister live she handed me my inheritance. All of the art my mother owned was described in a long notarized list and my brothers and sisters decided that it was better to give me my part now, because shipping would be too complicated. I thought the timing was a bit awkward, the night before the funeral, but I had no say in this. So now I have a suitcase filled with a couple of drawings and a water colour, an old Arab book illustration, an African sculpture, a tiny mexican sculpture (probably fake,) the snuff box of my father, a ring that belonged to my mother’s father and a collier made of rock crystal beads destined for Alison.

I hope it will fit all in my suitcase, because I also bought a couple of bottles red grapefruit sirup and lots of dropjes, since I have to stock up.

[This necrology I wrote while sitting next to my dying mother. It is rather factual probably because I’m not ready yet to become personal. It’s still too close, too recent. But I want to tell my mother’s story now as a way to distract myself and at the same time getting closer to her. There are certainly a lot of factual errors in it. I will talk to Amadou, her Mauritanian friend who considers her his second mother, to fill in some details and make additions and changes. It’s telling that he knows more about her life than her own children.]

Margrit was born in a upper middle class family in Sankt Gallen, Switzerland. Her father was head of the bleu collar civil servants, and amongst others responsible for hiring labourers for snow removal. He had a lot of friends when visiting a bar. She was the youngest of 4 children, two girls and one boy. Her mother became very ill when she was a toddler and spent her last years in bed. Because little Margrit was still at home she got a lot of attention from her mother, who told and read her a lot of stories. Her love of books and reading must have been originated at that age. The blow for her when her best companion died when she was 6 must have been quite fierce. Her father immediately started an affair with the live-in house keeper which surely didn’t help.

During her teens she got a major traffic accident that scarred her face and caused major damage in other areas.

Margrit went to university to study physical education. However after a year and a half she herself fell ill with tuberculosis. She spent two years in a sanatorium in the Southern Alps where she read a lot and had extensive conversations about religion with patients and staff. During this time she decided to change her religion from Protestant to Roman Catholic, much to the dismay of her family.

When she was cured she wanted to change subject and start to study medicine to pursue a career as a doctor but her father told her that her study funds had been depleted by the sanatorium dispenses and that instead she should get a job. And thus she started to work as a doctor’s assistant. She didn’t have any diplomas but soon she did many medical procedures because she was better at them than the doctor she worked for and he was not afraid to acknowledge that. She really liked her job but one night she found out that her boss also carried out (illegal) abortions which totally conflicted with her moral and religious beliefs. She quit her job and after some other small jobs managed to become a sports instructor and landed a position as a group leader and sports instructor at a boarding school for Dutch asthma patients and children of diplomats (the latter financed the other, poorer students) located on a steep cliff near Montreux overlooking Lake Geneva. There she met Karel, a Dutch Language teacher from the Netherlands who proposed to her shortly after they met. She hesitantly accepted. Soon thereafter the school was closing its doors because of a lack of funds and the pair got married in a ceremony in the school’s auditorium followed by a short honeymoon in a hotel at the other side of the lake to where they travelled in exotic modes of transportation like a funicular and a Mississippi paddle boat.

Immediately after the honeymoon, Margrit and Karel moved to the Netherlands where Karel, being a Dutch Language teacher, had more chance of landing a job. She never worked in the Netherlands, lacking the required certificates.

Even though it was a couple of years after the German occupation and the Second World War the Netherlands was still lacking resources and there were big housing shortages. So the pair moved in with Karel’s mother and youngest sister in Nijmegen, a university town in the East of the Netherlands. Margrit was shocked, being used to the rich Swiss circumstances where they gained from the war instead of suffered from it. Living in with her mother-in-law also caused a great deal of tension.

To their great joy Margrit became pregnant, even though the doctors had told her that conceiving a child would be impossible after her accident.

Their first child was a girl they named Aagje, and soon after her birth Margrit got pregnant again and a boy, Peter-Jan, was born. After a few months he suddenly died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome leaving the young couple devastated. Soon thereafter, when Aagje was 2 and a half, they adopted Ronald.

Margrit got pregnant two more times and with Maaike and Barbara the family now consisted of 6 people.

They moved to another house, located opposite from the care facility that she lived in during the last year of her life and where she also died.

There, seven years after Barbara, Mark was born. Karel and Margrit tried to conceive another child as a playmate for him but after a late miscarriage their doctor strongly advised against getting pregnant again.

Even though she had many children Margrit never was a very warm and dedicated mother. The marriage with Karel was also not always easy as he often retired in his office to work on his dissertation, that he finally finished after 13 years, leaving most of the care for the 5 children to her.

She did the best she could but also tried to get as much away-time as she could by reading large quantities of books in as many as four languages. She wasn’t very happy in the Netherlands, but also didn’t feel welcome in Switzerland anymore when she visited there, but at least the books gave her an escape to live far more interesting lives in far more interesting places.

She was often plagued with health problems, had chronic and recurring bronchitis, a misdiagnosed herniated disk that was much later diagnosed as an inoperable cyst in her spinal column, causing a lot of back pain and painful pressure on certain nerves in her leg. She also suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, especially in the morning when she hadn’t moved for a while.

In 1970 they bought a house in the country near Nijmegen that belonged to their maid’s mother. The house was in terrible shape, basically a shack, but it was very nicely located near a pond and a forest, just on the other side of the dike along the Maas river. They saw the potential in this house and worked for many years to improve it and make it their Garden of Eden.

Then Karel’s aging mother moved in with the pair and their two youngest children who still lived with their parents. This caused a lot of tension in the family when Karel had to decide where his loyalties lied, with his wife or his mother. It culminated in Karel getting a major stroke that, although it didn’t cause physical damage, made him less capable to do his work and after a short while led to his early retirement.

A few years later, Karel developed a major manic episode during which Margrit didn’t feel save anymore so she left the house that she loved so much to live alone which eventually led to a divorce.

The divorce turned out to be very positive for Margrit. Instead of relying on his circle of friends she had to make her own now. She started to do volunteer work for the refugee aid organization “Vluchtelingenwerk” that made good use of her strong language skills, and became really good friends with a couple of refugees. She also went on long and adventurous organized hiking journeys to faraway countries where she often was the oldest participant, but nevertheless connected with some like-minded people. During these travels she also made strong connections.

After Karel finally acknowledged he was ill and received successful treatment for his mental problems they became good friends again, maybe better friends than before. But she didn’t want to give up her newly found independence by moving in with him again.

Karel’s death a few years later caused quite a stir in the relationship with a few of her children. Accusations were made back and forth and only after many years they came on speaking terms again.

Over the years Margrit’s health also began to deteriorate. She suffered from a series of Transient Ischemic Attacks (TIA) and then a major stroke on the day she bought a ticket to visit her emigrated son Mark in Canada. That stroke paralyzed the left side of her body which turned her suddenly from a very active hiker to a wheelchair bound. She had to leave her own house, had to get rid of a lot of her art and her beloved dog.

[I was writing this story while I was sitting beside Margrit’s deathbed. After writing the previous line my mother coughed twice and then stopped breathing and died.]

She was moved into a care facility where she spent her days reading and watching television. Her paralyzed leg became very painful and she required a lot of pain medication which in turn made her very drowsy. She couldn’t concentrate on complicated tasks and only pretended to read the books her friends brought her. Her friends played along, not wanting to make her feel more miserable as she already felt.

During a heat wave she developed serious pulmonary problems which resulted in yet another hospital visit. But her body wasn’t ready yet so her heart fully recovered. She also survived a double pneumonia combined with heart problems a year later.

In December 2007 her lungs started to deteriorate and she was often out of breath. When the nursing home doctor wanted to admit her to the hospital she refused and said she was tired of hospitals. They administered pain medication and she died peacefully after a couple of days, in company of her son Mark, who was coincidentally just visiting the Netherlands.

[photo: Goedele Monnens]

I’m sitting here in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, next to my mother. She’s trying to fight off another pneumonia. Yesterday she indicated that she didn’t want to be transported from the nursing home to a hospital. They are administering morphine in increasingly higher doses. She doesn’t talk anymore, just sleeps while breathing heavily. I hope she has nice dreams.

No, I didn’t go to the Netherlands for an emergency visit. This visit was planned a long time ago and I saw her two days ago, when she was still lively and alert. Things go fast sometimes. Coincidence? I don’t know.