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life in Brugge, Belgium Amongst the artifacts and despite the touristic onslaught, modern life in Brugge is vibrant (and 2002 is a great year to visit! Wish we were going...)

Lace-making ladies	You can't have missed the lacy background on these latter Brugge pages -- the work of the ladies pictured at left. Here's a tradition, very much alive, that informs at least part of the community with a legacy of pride in good work married to good works. (The lace salon shown here supports a church, museum, and youth program.)
In the museum, the walls are covered with exquisite samples of hand-knotted lace, both modern and old. What precisely does this tell us about the work of the women of this community?	detail of tippet at left

lace points

The November weather caused us to bundle up, but was kind enough to let us wander the streets and speculate about the kind of work done by the people living in Brugge today. In summer of course there must be plenty of renovation and preservation work, although the buildings seem to have been built to last.

For workers like me, who create a work space and use it as a portal to far-flung interests -- like the original merchants of Brugge -- this is a place abundantly outfitted with quaint and picturesque corners where a desk might overlook a fascinating, time-neutral prospect. Imagine sitting in the alcove at right, overlooking the canal, in space occupied by an unbroken string of similar workers and imaginers stretching back to 1480! Unavoidably, the thoughts of earlier days would shape your thinking about present and future, inviting you to a much broader view of welfare, happiness, and wealth. Restaurant row in Fall

Walking out on a clement afternoon, you see restaurant facades and bicyclists that might have come from any of the last thirty decades. Stop in at a cafe and sip beer made just as it was made in 1810. Would it then be easy to return to your workplace and make decisions about the next fiscal quarter as if it existed (as it does for most multi-national executives) by itself in a vacuum?

Better, I think, to do such work in a plastic and stainless steel environment far from Brugge. Here the works of the present adorn, illuminate, and occupy monuments to the brilliant past ...as can only happen in a place where the spotlight of global primacy has come and gone. For a week, we soaked ourselves in the complex vintage of this place, and now, thinking back to it months later, I see that it represented Europe's best to me: a place where time IS honored, and so becomes a rich substrate for a sensitive, sensible modern life. Brugge-eye view of "Modren Man" artist unknown

modern adornment of an old building corner Because there is honored history, the possibilities for change are finer grained. The automobile, for example, that tyrranical architect of so much of America's ugliness, cannot do much damage here where buildings were made to last and traffic patterns were determined to serve the needs of people, not commuters. The tow-path beside the canal, no longer needed, is sacrificed to progress, but the fine old buildings are lovingly maintained and restored. Perspective is maintained, and so provides artists and poets working to enhance and preserve culture with a vision of change that is deeply rooted in humanist tradition -- a painfully sharp contrast with America's latecomer utilitarianism. Omigod! I'm sounding like a europhile! It must be time to leave...

church roof framing detail at left: Markt square and clock tower at dusk

Near the end of our stay, we took a day-trip to Brussels. It was a grim, dark Novermber day unsuited to photography. We went not to see yet another European city, but to visit the Belgian Queen's bright and sunny little art gallery for a look into the aesthetic sense that powers and preserves little Belgium. (You can visit, too, in the Brussels wing of the Sabbatical Gallery.)

Our last day in Europe was suitably brisk and wintry, confirming our decision to go home. We got soaked on our way to revisit a favorite gallery, hoping to sit with a favorite painting, but that room was closed for renovations. Our favorite internet café had been taken over by an expensive charity Christmas show. On our way back to our rooms, the setting sun put on a suitable farewell show.

After dark we ventured out and found a cheery Thai restaurant. Quite early the next morning, packed and ready, we caught the train to Brussels International airport (where the apron was adorned with dozens of bankrupt Sabena's jets), endured the post-911 security melodrama, and before too long were jetting up, over England and Ireland, a broad boring patch of Atlantic, another sunset over New England, and finally a smooth landing at Chicago's O'Hare, there to begin our re-entry into America.

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