Go For It: Why Book Covers Matter

Do you judge a book by its cover? Bookstores do, and so do potential buyers. Your book cover is your chance to make a great first impression, and since you only get that chance once, you don’t want to waste it. 

Italian language books on display at Feltrinelli’s recently opened RED Store in Florence, Italy, Photo Credit Jonathan Schilling

Make sure your book cover is eye-catching, unique, and fantastic. 

I had the cover for my latest book, Moon Tide: Cape Cod Poems, in mind before I had even assembled the collection of poems for the interior. It started with a lucky photograph I had taken of our local sailing fleet on a full moon low tide. I didn’t know at once how that would translate into a cover, but I was sure it would.

My lucky shot destined for cover fame

If you are not a designer yourself, there are designers out there for hire. If I had tried to make my cover, I’m pretty sure crayons would have been involved, so as a self-publisher/small press, the cover design was the only part of production I hired out.

It was worth it. 

A great designer made my lucky shot into a beautiful book cover

I found my cover designer through word of mouth. Networking with other writers, online or in person, is a great way to find resources. There is an entire community out there self-publishing, so you don’t always have to reinvent the wheel. 

I’m going to make an important disclosure: The designer who made the cover for Moon Tide is Sybil Wilson. She is wonderful to work with and you can contact her over at PopKitty Design if you need a great cover.

The Self-publishing school Self-Publish.com lists the following steps to finding a cover designer:

1. Research your book’s target audience
2. Brainstorm cover designs within your genre
3. Research book cover designer’s styles
4. Know where to find cover designers
5. Use a strategy to select the best cover designer in your budget
6. Begin the selection process
7. Use a rating process to help you choose the best book cover designer
8. Hire your book cover designer

If a potential reader can somehow relate to your cover, and it catches their interest, if they find it beautiful, and want to go in there and check it out, you have succeeded, and hopefully, sales will follow. 

Book stores are also looking for covers that look professional and entice readers in a display. First impressions count, make yours as beautiful as possible.

And as always, be brave and keep writing.

Go For It: Find Your Inspiration

The blank page. It looms in the half-light of the computer, a sterile surface untouched by text, empty of emotion, quietly waiting. We’ve all faced it. Is writing supposed to be this hard? Is the muse so fickle? 

photo credit Dysprosia at English Wikipedia

It’s chilly and prone to extreme downpours right now where I am in the Netherlands. The summer started with beautiful sunny beach days, but now we are back in the ice-box. 

The rain pours. A trapped hornet whines in the window. I cast around for something to blog about, and find only the blank page.

I’m thinking about inspiration and how to find it.

First, grab a cup of coffee. Then think about what grabs you. Google it.

History and poetry grab me, so I googled the earliest woman poet. 

Have you heard of Enheduanna? I can’t believe I’m this many years old, and I’m only just hearing about Enheduanna. 

Enheduanna, extract from the Disk of Enheduanna

Ancient Sumar, c. 2300 BCE. Enheduanna, the daughter of King Sargon of Akkad, is history’s earliest known poet. 

“My king, something has been created that no one has created before,” she wrote. Her religious writing helped her father secure power in the south of his kingdom.

 Echoes of her work resonate through history, in the verses of Homer, and the words of the Bible.  

She was the High Priestess of the goddess Inanna and the moon god Nanna. 

That’s the best part: She was a Moon Goddess!

When I wrote Moon Tide, a collection of Cape Cod poems, I was in thrall with the Moon and poetry. I guess I still am. At that point, inspiration was an open spigot.

Today I’m facing the blank page. It happens to us all, but not always.

For inspiration, try taking a walk a day in nature.

While I wrote Moon Tide, I walked the marsh and beach daily with my dog Daisy, and for every walk, Daisy somehow gave me a poem. 

Inspiration and magic usually come together. 

Daisy came from the Animal Rescue League in Brewster, on the north side of Cape Cod. If you are looking for a dog on Cape, start there.

One of my best friends went there looking for a cat but called me instead because he had inadvertently found my next dog. I drove down there the following day to check it out, and there was Daisy.

She was a pointer-lab mix, black with a white pointer stripe on her chest, and she looked like a classic Cape Cod black lab.

Logo of the Black Dog Company

Daisy and I spent three years roaming the Cape, and the poems piled up. The inspiration to write was somehow dog-induced, and somehow a gift from nature. 

It is still pouring here in the Netherlands, but I have let the hornet out and managed to write an entire blog.

“I, who am I among living creatures?” Enheduanna asked. 

Indeed.

Writing is not always easy, and hitting it right is an uncertain science.

Think of it as a combination of magic and coffee and sheer persistence. 

Inspiration is where you find it, people, and the best way to find it is to keep writing.

Daisy died three years ago of canine lymphoma. Moon Tide is dedicated to her.

If You’re an Artist, Record the Pandemic

We’ve spent years watching the end of the world on our movie screens: asteroids, aliens, nuclear explosions, and yes, global pandemic. It’s hard not to conjure Stephen King’s book, The Stand, as we live through these historic times most of us didn’t sign up for. But history isn’t going to spare our feelings: It’s going to sweep us along, willingly or not, and as it does, the job of the artist is to bear witness.

What were you doing seven weeks ago? I would have said things were normal then, but they weren’t.

What are you doing now? Are you social distancing to keep others safe? If you’re a creative, a writer, poet, photographer, songwriter, or painter, whatever your medium, you can use it now to record the events of the pandemic.

Many people are suffering terribly right now, and understandably not everyone has space in this situation to create, but if you can, documenting facts now can help us remember what normal means when we create a better future.

In this strange moment of pause between the pre and post-pandemic worlds, notions of normal are changing rapidly, even as we hear a lot about getting back normal as soon as possible.

But what does getting back to normal mean?

A return to the pre-pandemic normal is a return to the very conditions that created the pandemic. Predatory capitalism and constant assault on the environment were never normal. An unsustainable civilization out of balance with nature created a time of suffering for many, profit for a very few, and the conditions that created the pandemic.

Very few people will benefit from a return to the old normal, nor will the natural world. We’d probably just set ourselves up for another pandemic as we perpetuate the systemic problems that got us here, to begin with.

We can’t go back to the old normal if we want to survive in the long term.

Today, the pause between that old normal and the new normal we need to build is notable for the chaos and lack of preparation evident now in the US and the UK.

This is what artists need to record so we can remember what not to repeat:

The inability to provide basic supplies for medics and the inability of US citizens to access health care in a first world country. Mass graves in New York, a world in shut down, and the resulting unemployment and impoverishment of thousands with no safety net. National budgets that starve the arts, and the rolling back of environmental protections.

In the strangest way, we have been given a beautiful gift in this pause.

In this pause, we can imagine a different post-pandemic world, and artists need to record that, too:

Nature healing itself. While COVID 19 patients struggle to breathe, the planet is taking a deep breath. The air fresh and clean, the pollution clearing. It is quieter than it has been in living memory. We have been given the time to reflect, the time to see what a slower, homebound, quiet life is like. Time to question the rat race paradigm we have been exhausted by and destroyed nature persuing. Time to question the structures that fail the most vulnerable over and over again.

The pause will end.

We will need to come out of our houses eventually. We will return to the streets, and the cafes, we will hug our loved ones and we will appreciate them all the more. And when we do, we need to remember and reconsider the nature of normalcy.

We will need to remember the artistic record.

Because if we do, we can make the post-pandemic time our best time yet.

We can get rid of the things that aren’t serving us — the inequality, dysfunctional government, the lack of sustainable societies — and we can replace them with the opposite.

Equitable, fair, and sustainable lives for people and the planet.

This time of pause is a bridge to the post-pandemic world. We are on the bridge now. Artistic documentation can help us remember the reality of the pre-pandemic world, and the dysfunction of the pandemic so we can build something new and better.

If you’re an artist, write it, sing it, photograph it, paint it, record it, and share it.

In Europe, the Black Death led to the Renaissance. With any luck and a lot of hope, we are consciously planting the seeds now for the next rebirth.

Shopping the Dutch Market

Today is one of our first gray days, and I decided to spend part of it in our local market surrounded by autumnal offerings. In the month we’ve been back in the Netherlands, the sun and sea of summer has receded like our tans and the tide, and fall has arrived. As falls go, it’s been a gentle one. Instead of the strong colors, crisp temperatures, and possible n’or easters of New England, there has been beautiful sunny weather as the trees turn russet to yellow to brown.

The local market comes to Bussum, where we live just outside of Amsterdam, every Thursday. It is reminiscent of the farmer’s markets on Cape Cod, except I don’t think we are actually buying directly from the growers and producers here. Instead, we seem to be buying through middlemen. It’s a big outdoor shopping extravaganza where you can find pretty much everything imaginable, including lots of beautiful fall color.

As a means of possible distraction from the current news debacle, I though I’d walk you through the sights of the Bussum market. There are sounds here as well, such as vendors shouting out their offerings, the murmur of commerce, and the ding of bicycle bells. There are also the smells of chicken cooking, and flowers, and spicy warm sweet syrup. The market engages all the senses.

Flowers are big here. That’s bittersweet you see below selling for 3,50 euro a packet! I didn’t mention how it is taking over the yards and woods of the Cape as a sort of invasive species. Even so, it’s a favorite of mine.

Hardy fall mums and roses show their russet hues. We bought some delicate fall tulips.

I probably talk about cheese too often, but it really is a way of life here. We made our way through piles of it, tasted enough not to need lunch, and brought home a beautiful round of blue sadly not pictured here. This is farm cheese, with an image of the cows in the background. The cheese monger’s Dutch was so fast we quickly changed to English. We will slice it thinly and eat it on buttered bread.

My egg lady has a new table! You can ask for a box of ten double-yolkers here, and get them. They have beautiful bright orange yolks.

I think the cauliflower market is flooded. They’re giving it away these days…

Stroopwafels to satisfy the sweet tooth. They are thin waffles filled with syrup made on the spot as you order. The pan to the right holds the syrup and the griddle to the left is heating them. They are gooey, warm, and delicious.

I ran into this guy at the fish counter. I almost brought him home.

I always snag some of this beautiful French garlic.

I saved my favorite for last. We stopped at the supermarket on the way home and ran into the local jack o’lanterns. Even so, our house is still the only one on the street with a pumpkin on the front step.

 

Mary Petiet is a reporter, writer, and storyteller. Her work is inspired by both her native Cape Cod, where she covers the local farm beat for Edible Cape Cod magazine and her experiences in the Netherlands.  Mary is the author of Minerva’s Owls, (Homebound Publications) finalist in the American Book Fest’s Best Book Awards 2017, religion and spirituality. Minerva’s Owls remembers the divine feminine to re-envision the world.  Mary is currently dividing her time between Cape Cod and the Netherlands.

 www.marypetiet.com                                                   www.facebook.com/MaryPetiet/  

Wildlife Crossing

Dutch roads are busy and the driving is fast. At the same time, you almost never see any roadkill. What you do see are wide bridges spanning the motorway covered in trees and wildflowers. The first time I saw one I had no idea what to make of it. The greenery seemed out of place on a highway overpass, but that is the nature of the Dutch ecoduct, the wildlife crossing which allows animals access to fragmented habitats while avoiding lethal contact with cars. What’s not to love about a country that protects is animals to this extent?

Driving under the ecoduct. Note the trees above the road. The path flanking the road is for bikes, so they are also safe. (Naturrbrug Zanderij Crailo, one of our local ecoducts.)  Photo Credit: Door M.Minderhoud – Eigen werk, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=872710

The Netherlands boasts over 600 tunnels and overpasses to protect many species such as the European Badger,  wild boar, and deer. There are two ecoducts in my neighborhood, and one of them is the largest in the Netherlands and the longest in the world. The Naturrbrug Zanderij Crailo is 800 meters long and 50 meters wide. Finished in 2006, it spans a highway, a railway, a river, a sports complex, and a golf course. It is also accessible to bikers and pedestrians, and the other day I walked its length with my writer friend Clarissa Gosling.

Clari leading the charge over the ecoduct.

We started out early before the day’s heat built. It has been incredibly hot and sunny here for a good long stretch, but we earned it over the winter, when it rained everyday. Additionally, the summer sun does does not set until after 10:00, which we also earned over the endlessly gray winter.

To get to the ecoduct, we first crossed the heath. Access to the ecoduct is through a gate designed to keep the local herds of cattle wandering the heath from crossing the bridge. The path leads on. Crossing the ecoduct. This path goes over the motorway, the railway, a sports complex, a river, and a golfcourse. We shared it with bikers. Note the fencing to the right to make sure animals stay safe. Welcoming shade on the other side of the ecoduct.

There is much hope in the concept of the ecoduct as an example of how conservation and progress can work together. It shows human endeavor does not have to mean continued habitat destruction, and that corporate interest does not have to lead to extinction. Walking the ecoduct felt like a journey into a more balanced world, a world where the interests of all, including nature and animals, drivers, golfers, train passengers, pedestrians, and bikers, were considered in such a way as to make it possible for all to flourish. Imagine what the US could do if this kind of thinking could be supported by political will.

Mary Petiet is a reporter, writer, and storyteller. Her work is inspired by both her native Cape Cod, where she covers the local farm beat for Edible Cape Cod magazine and her experiences in the Netherlands.  Mary is the author of Minerva’s Owls, (Homebound Publications) finalist in the American Book Fest’s Best Book Awards 2017, religion and spirituality. Minerva’s Owls remembers the divine feminine to re-envision the world.  Mary is currently dividing her time between Cape Cod and the Netherlands.

 www.marypetiet.com                                                   www.facebook.com/MaryPetiet/  

Tiptoe Through the Tulips

In 1554 the Sultan of Turkey sent the first tulip bulbs to Vienna. From there they made their way to Amsterdam.

We thought that sounded pretty exotic, so we went to the Keukenhof a few weeks ago to see the blooming tulips in all their riotous, colorful splendor.

The Keukenhof, known as the Garden of Europe, is only open a few weeks a year when the bulbs blossom.  In the fifteenth century, Countess Jacoba van Beieren grew produce there in the Teylingen Castle Garden, the area Keukenhof garden would later occupy.

Because of the distance, it made sense to take the car, even though we ended up sitting in traffic and wishing for our trusty bikes. In 2017 approximately 1.4 million people visited the Keukenhof. Approaching with the car windows open, we suddenly smelled the salt air of the ocean. Then we were engulfed in a sea of color.

A sea of red spotted outside the Keukenhof.

The Dutch had never seen tulips before their introduction to the Netherlands via Vienna in the sixteenth century. In their uniqueness, tulips quickly became the hot item to have.

Entering Keukenhof we could see the shape of the English garden style outlined there in the 1800’s. It was awash with color and in some places reminiscent of Monet’s Giverny. We drank in the color with our eyes, but we there to look, not to acquire.

Giverny’s Dutch cousin?

The Dutch have a pragmatic business sense, which must have helped fuel what we now think of as the first financial bubble, Tulipmania. As the bulbs were bred to more and more exotic colors, they were traded for more and more inflated prices. I’m not much of an economist, but in the end, a large futures market featuring tulips apparently crashed when buyers, who were selling bulbs up to ten times a day, failed to arrive at markets. This may or may not have been a consequence of an outbreak of Bubonic plague.

The air at the Keukenhof was sweet and the sun was warm, and while the mania for buying and selling bulbs has certainly receded, a passion for seeing then in bloom has remained. The garden was bright with flowers and a truly international crowd of people, and at that moment, it seemed this is how the world should be.

Mary Petiet is a reporter, writer, and storyteller. Her work is inspired by both her native Cape Cod, where she covers the local farm beat for Edible Cape Cod magazine and her experiences in the Netherlands.  Mary is the author of Minerva’s Owls, (Homebound Publications) finalist in the American Book Fest’s Best Book Awards 2017, religion and spirituality. Minerva’s Owls remembers the divine feminine to re-envision the world.  Mary is currently dividing her time between Cape Cod and the Netherlands.

 www.marypetiet.com                                                   www.facebook.com/MaryPetiet/  

Marching for Our Lives in Amsterdam

Two Saturdays ago it got political. It just took me a little longer to write about it than I’d have liked.

Two Saturdays ago we went out into the gray afternoon to join close to 1,000 people gathered on Amsterdam’s Museumplein. Many were children. All stood in solidarity with American teenagers who wish to attend school without being shot.

We are in the crowd. Photo credit James Petermeier.

Pictures of the Amsterdam protest have appeared on the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Huffington Post. One picture, unsharable due to copywrite, clearly shows my husband chanting no to guns as we joined voices globally in support of the marchers at home.

I hope Washington heard us.

The protest gathered in front of the US Embassy, which was shuttered for the weekend.

There were posters, a banner, singing, and chanting. The crowd was goodnatured. While it felt serious because it was serious, the action of getting involved was also tremendously positive.

In a poignant moment, a European teenager read from the United States Declaration of Independence, outlining our unalienable rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. This was eery to hear in a foreign accent in a foreign city as he insisted the threat of gun violence deterred these most basic rights. I wasn’t tall enough to see him over the crowd, but his voice summoned the flawed but hopeful humanism of America’s inception, written by hands from many nations, calling us back to that early promise.

The kids ended up on Dutch TV.

My kids said it best in an impromptu interview by Dutch TV. They explained their protest in terms of raising international awareness, which they hoped could lead to a solution, and the very simple reason that they wished to support their school friends still at home.

In 1776, the Amercian founding fathers were more accurately the founding kids. Alexander Hamilton was 21 years old, James Monore was 18, Aron Burr was 20, and Nathan Hale was 21. Kids were at the forefront of the civil rights movement in the ’60’s, and today they are standing up again, this time to demand their safety.

Photo credit James Petermeier

Having come of age in the era of school lockdowns and massacres, the kids remind us that this is not normal.

They call on all the adults in Congress elected to represent us to pass legislation that will protect and save children from gun violence.

They demand the change grownups can’t seem to achieve, with courage from the front lines that will hopefully fill the ballot boxes in 2018 and 2020.

If these kids are the future, the future is ok.

Photo credit James Petermeier.

Road Trip to Brussels

It’s the crocus vacation. The schools are on February break this week in our neck of the Netherlands, so we piled into the car for a family road trip to Brussels. That’s about a two hour drive door to door, if you can avoid the traffic. We didn’t, but we got there in the end, and were warmly welcomed by old friends just outside of the city in Tervuren.

Tervuren boasts the Hapsburg folly of an unfinished Versailles, an ancient original growth forest, and a frozen fountain animal jazz band sculpture.

Brussels seemed quiet, but that’s probably because it’s pretty much a bureaucratic city and everyone had left for the weekend. Also it was freezing out, so we were some of the only tourists. It was actually a great time to visit if you can trade the crowds for the cold.

We rode the tram from Tervuren through parts of the ancient forest to Brussels center.

If you only have a few days, there are two main things to see in Brussels. One of them is Manneken Pis.

Manneken Pis is pretty much what he sounds like. Sometimes the locals dress him up. We found him in a flash newspaper suit. Look closely, he is peeing.

Even on such a cold day Manneken Pis was mobbed by an adoring crowd. The sculpture, which was once involved with a water fountain, dates to around 1619. It is attributed to Hieronymus Duquesnoy the Elder, and the one here is a duplicate of the original, which currently resides in the Museum of the City of Brussels. Manneken Pis may depict an infant Duke urinating upon enemy troops, or a boy who saved the city from a burning fuse by urinating upon it, or one of several boys who were lost, only to be found urinating.

There is an element of Belgian humor to Menneken Pis, but he is also something of a national hero.

The other thing to see in Brussels is the Grand-Place, or the Main Square.

The Grand-Place encloses the town hall, and The Museum of the City of Brussels. It is grand in the true sense of the word, with beautiful buildings decorated in gold trim. Standing there the opulence of a lost age is suddenly real. And so are the writers. Looking up we discovered two plaques claiming, one in French and one in Dutch, because that is the nature of multi-cultural Brussels, that Victor Hugo lived here. Right in this very house.

The Dutch and the French agree: Victor Hugo lived at number 26.

Things are old here. We stopped to try some beer in a place that probably pre-dates the Mayflower. It was great to warm up with some local brew. We found that each variety must be served in its own particular glass. Some are light, some are heavy, and all are refreshing.

Ancient beer place. Hergé of TinTin fame used to hang out here, too.

The best part about visiting Brussels was seeing old friends. The photos in this blog are the work of one them, Rikke Dakin.

Mary Petiet is a reporter, writer and story teller. Her work is inspired by both her native Cape Cod, where she covers the local farm beat for Edible Cape Cod magazine, and her experiences in The Netherlands.  Mary is the author of Minerva’s Owls, (Homebound Publications) finalist in the American Book Fest’s Best Book Awards 2017, religion and spirituality. Minerva’s Owls remembers the divine feminine to reenvision the world.  Mary is currently dividing her time between Cape Cod and The Netherlands.

 www.marypetiet.com                                                   www.facebook.com/MaryPetiet/ 

Into the Dutch Woods

“There is probably a smell of roasted chestnuts and other good comfortable things all the time, for we are telling Winter Stories.” ~ Charles Dickens,  A Christmas Tree

We’ve had a lot of rain here, and on a recent rainy afternoon we ventured into the deep Dutch woods. We were looking for chestnuts. I wasn’t at all sure what to expect, but it was a foraging expedition, and I’m always up for one of those.

Kind of like oystering. On dry land.

My extended Dutch family heads into the woods in search of chestnuts

I couldn’t get Dickens out of my head. I don’t really read Dickens, because I’ve always found the Victorians a bit ponderous, except for A Tale Of Two Cities. But I knew somewhere in Dickens there were chestnuts, and I knew from the Christmas song that they needed to be roasted on an open fire.

I wasn’t sure how we’d manage the fire part in the waterlogged Dutch woods.

There are certainly chestnuts in New England. They must be distant relations to the ones we were seeking that afternoon. The New England variety are known as Horse chestnuts, and if you look in front of the courthouse in Barnstable Village on Cape Cod you’ll find a magnificent specimen. Of course the American Horse chestnut tree is bigger than the Dutch chestnut tree, but I’ve always been warned Horse chestnuts are not the eating kind, so in New England we just collect them because they’re beautiful.

Now we were going to eat their cousins.

There is a familial resemblance between Dutch and American chestnuts, just don’t eat the American ones

The trail through the deep Dutch woods wound through the gray damp chill. We all carried bags with our eyes were glued to the ground where the chestnuts has fallen. It was enough to reveal the inner hunter/gatherer.

We scanned the ground for these, the chestnut is often found beside the prickly pod that housed it

We hit the jackpot and quickly filled our bags and fled the rain. Once home, we began to cook.

Turns out you don’t need an open fire.

After rinsing the soil and forest debris from the chestnuts, you put them in a pan of water, from which you remove any floaters. Floaters are not good.

The floating stage

Then you simply score each chestnut with a knife in an ‘x’ shape to avoid explosions and roast in the oven.

The going in the oven stage

They smell sweet while cooking.

The ready to eat stage

They taste warm, soft, and surprisingly sweet.

This Christmas I will appreciate the Chestnuts roasting on an open fire song in a whole new way. But I’m still not reading Dickens.

He’s not Dutch anyway.

Mary Petiet is a reporter, writer and story teller. Her work is inspired by both her native Cape Cod, where she covers the local farm beat for Edible Cape Cod magazine, and her experiences in The Netherlands.  Mary is the author of Minerva’s Owls, (Homebound Publications) finalist in the American Book Fest’s Best Book Awards 2017, religion and spirituality. Minerva’s Owls remembers the divine feminine to reenvision the world.  Mary is currently dividing her time between Cape Cod and The Netherlands.

 www.marypetiet.com                                                   www.facebook.com/MaryPetiet/

#DutchScoop RSS

Meet the Omafiets

The Dutch word omafiets translates to English as grandmother’s bike. A fietspad is a bikepath, a natural habitat of the omafiets.

You have to sit up straight when you’re riding an omafiets. The classic roadsters’ heavy black frame and wide comfortable seat demands good posture, and if you want to fit in, you ride the omafiets bare-headed. The Dutch do not wear helmets. I guess they missed the memo about concussion, they seem to prefer the wind running wild through their hair.

I have to admit it feels pretty good.

Bikes populate an Amsterdam sidewalk. Everything you’ve heard about the Dutch and their bikes is probably true.

The name omafiets suggests a lack of style, and I had to wonder, who would be caught dead on their grandmother’s bike?  But they are not nearly as stodgy as their name implies. Equipped with back brakes, one speed, saddlebags and baskets, they embody a gracious classic style fused with function. You can look good on an omafiets while hauling your friends, your animals, or even small pieces of furniture, all while you bring home the groceries.

If you’re going to get an omafiets go for an old one. Flash new ones get stolen. While Holland generally has a low violent crime rate, it does have an omafiets theft problem. My bike’s rear tire involves a built in lock system, which activates with a key. I’ve been strongly advised to lock my bike whenever I’m not on it, anywhere, even in our own bike shed. Bike sheds are as ubiquitous as the omafiets, and while cars are left outside in all weather, the omafiets gets tucked in at night.

It’s fuzzy because I was riding my bike at the time and everything was in motion. Also it was foggy. Look carefully:  The boy is standing up behind his mother rushing to make first bell at school. The bike is standard bakfiets. The bak is the covered box in front.

If the omafiets has a partner, it is the opafiets, which translates as grandfather’s bike. The opafiets is distinguished by its crossbar. Both bikes work for individual transportation with goods, but if you need to move the kids as well, the Dutch have you covered. The bakfiets is specially designed to haul the kids around with a large front box-like compartment. A bak is a box. I have not ridden in the bakfiets, but my daughter has, and she tells me it’s terrifying due to its speed and close proximity to the ground.

A high-end baksfiets three-seater. Note the headlight.

To my American eye the omafiets has an Oxbridge-ey, Brideshead Revisited sort of look. I half expect black-gowned undergraduates to swoop Harry Potter-like through the streets of our Dutch town, which my daughter says looks like a fairy tale village anyway, complete with thatched roofs and herringbone patterned brick pavement. The bricks are highly bike-able. If you see bricks, you have probably found a fietspad, and there are fietspads wherever there are roads.

I’ve been following the fietspad on my omafiets for two reasons.

Definitely because it’s fun, but also because I will bike a long mile to avoid driving here.  I have managed to avoid driving overseas for many years, as it seemed all too frantic an exercise. But now I have had to step up to the plate and become a real euro-driver, which involves every man for himself as huge pan-continental trucks resist my attempts to merge onto highways, and cars speed through village streets too narrow and congested and completely full of bikes carrying denizens of all ages. Pizzas and the daily mail are delivered on bikes. There are babies and small dogs clinging to handle bars and kids riding pillion. Some bikes are motorized and some are actually Vespas.  The Dutch are as home upon their bikes as they are in their living rooms.

The bikes have right of way, and they assert it boldly, so when driving the car my main goal is to not hit a bike. I count it a good driving day when I successfully navigate new roads and manage to park the car without having hurt anyone.

The view from the seat of an omafiets.

I figure I am much better off on my trusty omafiets and I think I know why the Dutch are so devoted to theirs. A convenient way to traverse a flat country, ecologically sound and supported by a solid infrastructure of connected bike paths, designed to lend the slightest hint of glamour as they buzz along through the fresh air, the omafiets, opafiets and bakfiets are intrinsic parts of Dutch life. And the people riding them tend to be smiling.

The Dutch are having fun.

Mary Petiet is a reporter, writer and story teller. Her work is frequently inspired by her native Cape Cod, where she covers the local farm beat for Edible Cape Cod magazine. Mary is the author of Minerva’s Owls (Homebound Publications, April 2017), a book remembering the divine feminine to reenvision the world.  She is currently dividing her time between Cape Cod and The Netherlands.

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Shedding Skin and Moving Cheese

Dutch cheese lines a shelf.

“The snake can also shed its skin, which we can imagine as a metaphor for the idea of the stages of life, or even the idea of successive lives.” ~ Mary Petiet, Minerva’s Owls

It would be all so easy if you had a map to the Maze. If the same old routines worked. If they’d just stop moving “The Cheese.” But things keep changing… ~Dr. Spencer Johnson,  Who Moved My Cheese

Two weeks ago we finished shedding our skins and moved the cheese.

We are starting a new adventure. We have given away, sold, or donated most of our possessions. Right now we each have one trunk full of Important Things, one suitcase full of clothes, and six boxes of winter gear in transit to arrive at a later date.

All family heirlooms have been wrapped, boxed and stored in the attic, making me wonder if I am actually a curator for the next generation, but that is another story. We have rented our home of nearly 20 years to another family. We are traveling light. We have divided our time, relocating from my native Cape Cod, where we will return each summer like migratory birds, to my husband’s native Netherlands, where we will spend our winters.

We brought the children and the cat.

Shedding the skin took longer than moving the cheese. I think it started about a year ago, when we first took the idea of moving seriously. We thought about it, talked about it, imagined it, and finally last March we travelled as a family to Holland to really investigate it. We went native. We jumped on bikes, we looked at schools and houses and settled on a town we liked. The bikes offer a healthy freedom, the schools an excellent education in a child-centric world, and the entire place resonates with a safe calm. The Pilgrims left the Dutch town of Leiden for Plymouth in 1620. We could leave New England for Holland in a reverse migration.

Back in the states we decided to make it happen.

Starting this new adventure meant sprucing up the house for renting and clearing out almost 20 year’s worth of accumulated stuff. Each item shed represented another skin, especially my books.  As we shed, we lightened the load both physically and emotionally, and the distinction between owning stuff and being owned by stuff became clear. It was a grand purge of stuff, a viking funeral of sorts, with the hope these things would continue to blaze on as someone else’s treasure. Gifting, yard sales, craigslist, donations and dump runs, for months on end it seemed.

How had a family of four accumulated so much?

Through all the shedding and the letting go, there was one profound moment, one hugely green, green light discernible as we let go of the hardest thing without intending to, our black pointer lab mix Daisy. We had every intention of bringing her with us, which is as complicated as you’re probably imagining, but two months before we left she was diagnosed with lymphoma. She died within two weeks.

I wonder if she didn’t want to leave her marshes and her sand flats. She was an ocean dog and we were heading to inland Holland. In the oddest way her surprising departure was a form of permission, a final shedding of the entire skin I’d wrapped myself in before, the comfortable skin of rambling beach walks and the smell of wet dog in the way back of my big American car.

If you’re heading out on a big adventure, it’s easier to move your cheese after you’ve said goodbye and shed your many, many skins.

In his book ‘Who Moved My Cheese’ Dr. Spencer Johnson presents an allegory featuring four mice who live in a predictable maze with a predictable hunk of cheese in a predictable place-until one day the cheese is moved to a new place, forcing the mice to adapt.

When the kids were little we saw ‘Who Moved My Cheese’ performed as a play by the Sunday school at the Barnstable Unitarian Church. The concept stuck, and every so often one of us would feel that feeling that comes with change and say, “Hey, who moved my cheese?”

We have been in Holland for two weeks. Right now our cheese is probably somewhere at the bottom of the harbor, and the absence of the old cheese is what is allowing the new cheese to age. Cheese takes time, it needs to cure in special places.

My husband ended up with a great job opportunity in the Netherlands. He is opening a Dutch office for his US company. My kids have the freedom of their bikes, are making friends, and have started attending excellent Dutch schools, which is an amazing academic opportunity for them. They’re finding their cheese as they learn Dutch and each Dutch word they gain grows a bit more new skin to cover the tender bits where the old skin shed. We are staying in at my in-laws house in a beautiful town called Laren, which I think of as a sort of Osterville without the sea, until our own house in the adjoining town of Bussum is ready next week.

We have traded the stuff for the adventure. We are making our own shift through a larger world in flux, and we find ourselves fitting into new skins about a half an hour outside of Amsterdam, and luckily, the Dutch excel at cheese.

Mary Petiet is a reporter, writer and story teller. Her work is frequently inspired by her native Cape Cod, where she covers the local farm beat for Edible Cape Cod magazine. Mary is the author of Minerva’s Owls (Homebound Publications, April 2017), a book remembering the divine feminine to reenvision the world.  She is currently headquartered in The Netherlands.

http://www.marypetiet.comhttps://                                                            http://www.facebook.com/MaryPetiet/

 

 

 

 

 

 

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