My Dutch neighbor, beer buddy and fellow sports fan became even closer to me last month. He became an American.
We “Yanks” sure need the help. I can rest a little bit easier knowing the Bas to Karen ratio is improving amongst my nationals…
As the natives are prone to do, Bas and I could have focused on our differences, like his two sons versus my two daughters or his height and my, um, middling height or his strong career and technical skills compared to my also middling verbosity, but we found a way to work through it and forge a friendship. (See the beer bud part.) We even have managed to look past my Braves besting his Pittsburgh Pirates (huh?) in consecutive Game 7-deciding National League Championship Series in the ‘90s (remember those outcomes, Bas?).
As a creative writer, I’m a big fan of uncommon connections. As a fellow with feeling, I absolutely love stories, experiences and relationships that show humanity cutting through all the artificial obstacles we erect in this world: race, socioeconomic status, political leanings, nationality, etc. I think of my brother’s family recently visiting the Swedish household of a man who had boarded with my sister-in-law’s family during a study-abroad year decades ago, a cousin who still keeps up with friends Down Under and a friend breaking through old family grudges while visiting his girlfriend’s Guatemalan hometown.
There’s no place like home when you’re this far away, the lyric goes. When we expand our horizons, who knows what else expands? Definitely experiences, quite possibly minds, maybe even the chance for a special, enduring connection or two. Sometimes, if you’re lucky like me, it only takes expanding the social sphere to the end of the block, which is where Bas resides.
He and I initially bonded over humor without borders and “product confrontations,” which was our faux-fancy industry-speak for trying new beer varieties together. After a recent dry spell on the beer front, I tongue-in-cheek texted my neighbor, “If you’ve moved on to better American friends since becoming an American I’ll understand.”
Bas quipped back, “No, I can use my old American friends. Ever since I got my citizenship it is the Europeans that bother me.”
bleeveblog 