Photoessay: Amsterdam, month one

Hard to believe--it feels both much longer and much shorter--but we've been here one full month now.  Here's what it looks like (and apologies for the elegiac music, that's Apple's idea not mine):

In the Neighborhood

I had been trying to write a quick post about how things are going here, now almost a month in, but Talia beat me to it. So, for the first time, we're going to have a guest blogger on Brekkie. Ladies and gentlereaders, my wife:

It's quite funny to be back in a house that you custom designed 12 years ago. Some of the aspects are not, as it turns out, timeless. Having been put to the Rental for 9 Years Test, I am grateful that most is very well built, but why did we install so many hooks? Perhaps when the weather turns and these long summer clear sky days turn inevitably to dark, rainy, and wintery ones it will all become clear.

It's wonderful to be back on this block with many of the same neighbors who lived here all those years ago. Some we knew, the ones with kids, and some who didn't have kids then but do now we met recently at a party our downstairs neighbors hosted. One such neighbor even recalled that when I was pregnant with Felix our street was being re-cobbled and when we returned from the hospital Alec had written Hoera! in front of our home with loose bricks. We certainly didn't remember, but it was truly touching to hear this at the time total stranger relay this lovely story. Alec, ever the historian, was able to pull up a picture of it [above --Ed.]. It's very much how we are all feeling right now about being in Amsterdam again.

I think at the time I was uncomfortable meeting the many people who lived across the street from me, who know so much about me (as I do about them) since it's a pretty narrow street and our windows and lives are always open and in each others faces. I think I thought then that if I didn't know their names or acknowledge them on the small street perhaps they won't be able to see even further into my life than they already do.

Somehow with this party our neighbors hosted, whatever that feeling from 12 years ago when we first moved in to Saxenburgerstraat, washed away. And it's a relief. 

There are things to adjust to: the so very many and narrow stairs, needing to weigh the fruits and veggies before going to the cashier, that finding a decent spot to park your bike is only slightly less challenging than finding parking for your car. It's a very very crowded city, especially now with all the summer tourists.

There are things I forgot that I'm so happy to have again: the herring is even better than I remember it. So is the yogurt, which has become our evening family ritual - we polish off two containers between the 4 of us and our newest favorite flavor is hazelnut. A morning run in the Vondel Park. Jumping into the Amstel to cool off. 

We are getting settled: as of this week we have both cell phones and internet at home, the kids are schedule for camps (Gideon will start with two weeks of language camp, and Felix with one week of sailing followed by a week of language camp). We are arranging a bike trip with another family to Friesland. We are working on our travel calendar for the year. I'm starting to look for a job locally, but also because timing is sometimes funny have a new SF-based client for survey work.

We both use WhatsApp, and so should you. FaceTime, Skype, Signal, happy to receive your messages any which way, including your birthday wishes and holiday cards by snail mail.

 

All [our] love,

 

[Us]

Rough landing

They didn't make it easy to go, those friends of ours. Tugged at our heart strings they did, with this send-off video, and many an accompanying hug and farewell from those friends, from family, from neighbors, from co-workers even. And California itself those last few weeks, the green and the gold, the bridge and the ocean, how can you leave such beauty behind? By buying a plane ticket and then alternating between panic and drunkenness until the moment that plane takes off. At least that's how we did it.

Well, almost. There was certainly a good deal of panic. Every day for many, many weeks, it was the same: awake at 5, fret for an hour or so, then leap out of bed only to be reminded there's no way to fry an egg and hardly a cup to pour oatmeal into, only the first of the day's hurdles. So start leaping: over boxes, over piles, over mounds of earth and rock (link to a future post, a story in itself), over bridges, over contracts and papers and emails. Then, at some point, most days, things turned: a friend stops by to help, or one realizes it's only a shot or two before that bottle can be recycled, and somehow work is done and drunkenness begun. Sleep and repeat.

I got through it all by envisioning that moment right after takeoff when I would recline and fall asleep, floating away to a land where there would be no boxes to pack, where I could live in peace and quiet rather than next to a construction site. But the universe, with a sense of humor somewhat less mature than Gideon's, arranged things otherwise. For starters, this scene at SFO:

Stepladders near a jetliner's engine can only mean great delay, and certainly these did. Then there's this:

Those are keys left behind by nine years of renters, nor were these the only keys, nor keys the only detritus. Pillows and electrical converters and cups and mayonnaise...turns out our packing isn't done, it's only time for round 2. Ha ha, what a jolly sense of humor the universe has! And did I mention we're splitting the apartment downstairs with the neighbors below and they, unlike us, aren't waiting a minute to get going on the rebuild? Topping things off I have the worst poison oak of my life and the Netherlands is suffering from drought so severe there's real concern about fires in the tiny Dutch forests.

So it's been a bit of a rough landing, but drought means the weather's very nice and once you clear out the clutter our apartment turns out to be in great shape (and, with the expansion, actually larger than our house in the US). We've got bikes and library cards, and are borrowing a neighbor's wifi--KPN can't get around to turning ours on for a full fortnight, please don't get me started. I expect we'll have our residence cards next week and, immediately thereafter, new mobile numbers. We're legal to work and to live and tomorrow we go to the garden house to immerse ourselves in friendship and the Nieuwe Meer. In short, we're doing great and are happy to be here.

Living on

I took this picture a couple of months after we found out that two of these children were very likely, sooner or later, to lose their mother. It's been almost three years since, which in the timeline of this particular cancer is much later, a fact to be celebrated, even as we receive the news that the mother's time may be nearly up. All of these children now know their parents much better than they did at that moment, and all of them are now old enough to preserve those memories throughout their lives. In the face of a grim prognosis this mother has gone to extraordinary lengths to buy that time for her children. She may soon go, but she surely will not be forgotten by those who most need to carry her memory with them: whatever the outcome, she has successfully cheated the disease of a great part of the harm it could have done her family.

The picture tells another story, too, the title and body of which is simply "community." Our community has shared these trials, and that has helped these children cope, I think. We will continue to do so, come what may, with scooter rides and ice cream and all the life and energy that those of us who are spared have and now appreciate all the more. Our thanks, our admiration, our love forever.

Enduring conviction

Jury summons, and me about to depart for foreign shores. Why not just postpone until I'm no longer a resident of Marin County? Ah, but like as not the next summons, by mail, will get misplaced and I'll end up facing a contempt of court charge when I return. Better to get it out of the way...after all, what's the chance I'll be selected again?

And so I found myself impaneled. No DUI this time, rather a whole slew of felony charges, chief among them Attempted murder. Here's the list from the County's Public Booking Log:

Charge	Description	Level	Bail	Charge Authority	Release Date
664 187(A) PC	Attempted murder	F	$0.00	Court order
245(A)(2) PC	Assault w/firearm on person	F		Open charges
422 PC	Threaten crime to terrorize	F		Open charges
273.5 PC	Inflict Corp inj on spouse/cohabit	F		Open charges
273.6 PC	Viol crt order to prevent DV	M		Open charges
236 237 PC	False imprisonment	F		Open charges
136.1(A) PC	Prevent/Dissuade Wit/Vic	F	$500,000.00	Court order

This list is incomplete and incorrect but close enough, the point being this wasn't going to be a simple matter, nor a quick one.

The case ran for a bit over four weeks. Most of the first quarter was jury selection, a tedious process punctuated with occasional admissions by my fellow citizens that they are unable to set aside personal bias or, in a fair number of cases, even think rationally. The jury finally formed and some other preliminary matters attended to, the trial began in earnest. A full two weeks were consumed in testimony and the presentation of evidence and arguments. Interesting days, with witnesses, police and other experts, even a jail house stool pigeon, an entertaining but very bad man, brought to us in manacles. The evidence, though presented, was never provided for our study. It was there solely to register in open court that these are the bona fide tangibles of the case: photos, diagrams, hand-written notes, computer printouts, brown-flecked garden shears, a snubby gun, bullets. We will get this, all together, but only once we retire.

The witnesses come and go, the stenographer types, the clerk shuffles paper and swears people in, the lawyers likewise shuffle paper, present, and occasionally dispute. The bailiffs roam about, generally few and small in size except on those days when we have visitors from the jail, when more bailiffs appear, and bigger ones. And the judge...well, the judge is a busy man. He decides the order of activities, the start and the stop and the occasional day off. He also rules on the disputes, of course, which is to say he does what most of us think of as "judging," accepting or rejecting the objections of the lawyers. Mostly he explains things, to the lawyers, to the people testifying, and to we jurors.

He has a lot to say to us. There are the questions--about our identity, our social network, our employment, our previous experiences in court, and the biases this all may have left us with--that made up the bulk of the jury selection process. When he sustains an objection he instructs us what to make of that. Not least and never forgotten, before each break and again at the end of the day, he orders us not to discuss the case with anyone, even each other. This prohibition has nothing to do with secrecy--the proceedings take place in an open courtroom--but rather is meant to prevent us forming opinions individually prior to deliberating as a group.

I do not discuss the matter, but I do puzzle over it, day and night, throughout. I am especially challenged because in this instance I must be certain "beyond a reasonable doubt," the standard of proof in criminal cases but by no means the standard of proof I use for most things. The judge, at the beginning of the trial and again in his final instructions to us before we begin deliberation, clarifies this with further language stating that we must have an "enduring conviction" to rule the defendant guilty on each point. I wake up three or four times a night, every night for weeks, with my brain running, running, trying to find conviction. Not being able to talk about it is frustrating. The other jurors are similarly obsessed.

Finally, a month of calendar time in, closing arguments complete and we twelve retire to deliberate. The critical moments of the attack took place while the defendant and the victim were alone together. There is a rich body of circumstantial evidence, but the heart of the matter is her testimony alongside his. To my surprise, resolving the inevitable disparities is not terribly challenging. What is most difficult is the question of the timing of his murderous intent: that he meant to kill her is unambiguous--you do not stab someone a dozen times, much less choke them to the point of unconsciousness, without murderous intent--but exactly when did that intention form in his mind? Did he come to her house with the plan already formed in his mind? Did he have some other intention, less awful, but subsequently overwritten by rage at her horrified reaction, a killer instinct that surfaced in response to her running from him?

We had many questions to answer, and many more than six charges to consider, what with the potential for lesser charges should we find him not guilty of the primary ones and the aggravating conditions to rule on if we did. It took us a full week of deliberation to decide it all, but in the end we reached unanimity on almost every point, ruling him guilty of all charges and most of the aggravating conditions. As for intent, we found him not guilty of premeditation.

We submitted our determination on a Monday and returned two days later to begin a second trial: the defendant had pled not guilty but also not guilty by reason of insanity, and this latter plea requires an entirely separate procedure. To our surprise and frank relief, the defendant withdrew that plea in the interim. We were dismissed, our duty done. But it is the jury's job only to determine guilt or innocence, not to hand down punishment. That is a separate process, and must come later, as both parties are given a chance to prepare a fresh set of arguments in response to the jury's findings. I returned to court today to observe sentencing, a fascinating process in its own right. The judge concurred with the prosecutor's proposal to give him 17 years in custody, without possibility of parole.

*******

In my maturity, I actively avoid judging others. My work is all puzzles and probabilities, so I get my fill of analysis there. I have no appetite for tragedy, the world being what it is, but to be in court is to be face to face with tragedy--literally, I've never seen so many people crying in public--every day. And while I do believe this jury did a fine and important job, I am not happy to have been associated with a process the end result of which is to deprive someone of their freedom. Still, while no one seeks out jury duty, I'd recommend no one miss it.