I Heart Blackberry

It turns out that the World Blackberry is a terrific service, even if it means that hubby can call you eight times in one morning from Brussels while you are really wanting to declutter and organize the study. Why is a device that facilitates the interruption of such domestic bliss terrific? Because I got to hear the following:

1. "The grounds are even lovelier at St. John's than they were when we visited in January!"

While I am sure he did not use the word "lovelier", it's what he meant. And loveliness matters because in next week we will be traveling to Brussels with the kids for the first time. Their number one destination is St. John's. And frankly, the better it looks, the better the kids are bound to feel about moving there.

To tell the truth, I feel an enormous amount of stress about this trip. Its raison d'etre is to get the kids on board with the move. Part of the problem with this is that vacationing someplace -- staying in a fancy hotel, eating out three meals a day, having time with parents with no work responsibilities -- is not the same as living somewhere. It's not realistic, and I guess that worries me a bit in terms of the impression it will give. But the other side of that coin is that the first experience is likely to highlight the differences between current home and new home, and addressing those differences is something I expect to be challenging. And while I love that challenge for myself (see Packing Up and Moving On), they may be among the most important maternal challenges I shall see. So . . . if St. John's looks great, and if the kids say, "Oooh, what a nice playground, what a nice building, what a nice bench to sit on and read," their optimism will soar and so will mine.

Not they aren't already optimistic. When we told them in January that we may move to Brussels, they jumped up and down and began planning our trips from Brussels to Paris and London (first day), Italy and Spain (second day), and Egypt and Tanzania (third day). We'll eat great chocolate, they said, trained to love Neuhaus from dad's frequent European business trips. We'll learn French, they realized with enthusiasm. And when I came home from my exploratory trip to Brussels and told them that the national dish is moules et frites (mussels and frites), they were delighted. (The boy loves exotic seafood and the girl could live on potatoes. I didn't tell her the frites are cooked in horse fat.)

So I guess I don't want the trip to ruin the extant enthusiasm. Is that a tall order? I don't know.

2. "The Carrefour is more like Walmart than it is like Target."

Why did hubby waste time in Belgium checking out the local supermarche when, heaven knows, there were hours to be billed? Because he knows, as I do, that this is true:

The odd thing in making a big move is the knowledge that your life will be
composed of hundreds of small things that you will arrive at only by trial
and error, and that for all the strikes and seminars you attend, the real flavor
of life will be determined, shaped, by these things. . . . Where will your hair
be cut? What kind of coffee will you buy, and where?

This is from Adam Gopnik's Paris to the Moon, a terrific tale of the New Yorker author, his wife, and their son and their relocation from New York to Paris in 1995. Gopnik is a skilled writer and, as is obvious from his chapters, a keen observer of the intricacies of human behavior. His stories make important points about the differences between French and American culture, sometimes through the lens of international events, sometimes through the eyes of a pair of American parents raising kids in a foreign land.

And he says, so succinctly, what I know to be true. That moving to Brussels won't be all about moules et frites, handmade pralines from Chocolatier Mary, and weekend trips to Paris and Amsterdam. It will mostly, in the weight of time and effort, be about moving what we do -- sleeping, eating, cooking, learning, playing, working -- from here to there. So the Carrefour and its products will matter indeed.

3. "I love you."

This is critical. No explanation needed for this one, right?

Je t'aime.