Ice plant.

Tempted to let the following text stand and let you make what you will of it. That is what happens when you dictate in English and spell check is in French. 

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I do vaguely recall that my point was about visual sightings being triggers almost as much as olofactory ones.

Marcel Proust, a French writer has become famous, for amongst other things, his description of how a French sweet (madeleines) could recall whole episodes of food and the like.

For me recently, it was seeing, here in the Swiss Alps, a patch of ice plant.

When my family returned from a stint in Hawaii, I was sent to boarding school, whilst my parents rented a house in Southern California and started building one in the same city.

Many years later what started out as the first house in the residential area was surrounded by more. And they even built up the hills.

In Southern California the heat in the summer can be horrendous and many plants don’t survive: ok tumble weeds kept me in one whole Easter vacation and cactus is ok.

But once things were developed the sloping banks around their house were all planted with what was called ice plant: why in an area where there was never ice?

But I later learned that it was one of those rare plants than can take extreme temperatures: in both directions.

It always warms my heart to see it come out here in the alps in the summer.

Fond memories of childhood, triggered not by a smell, but by a sight.

 

Alpine beauties

One only needs to walk about ten meters along an alpine road. One doesn't even need to go off track to find many alpine beauties.

A couple of winter months that had nothing of winter about them. Then, a spring that turned into summer for almost a month.Followed by, let's go back to winter and be cold again, has brought out the alpine flowers in masses.

And to make it all, just perfect, a lovely dog, gambling in the wayside grasses.

Blog, blogging, blogger…

I got curious.

And did a web search for the etymology of the word “blog” finding out that it was the shortened version of Weblog.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/blog

Developed only in 1993 and shortened to blog in 1994 – funnily enough I was one of the first persons who wasn’t in a business of all the people I knew to rent a computer back in 1991 – its’ meaning has evolved over time from being something more personal, or an online diary if you will, to being a vital instrument of businesses. 

Personally, I blog simply because I enjoy doing so, sometimes mind assume the function more of a personal journal, sometimes I am feeling philosophical, sometimes there is a word that hits my eye and I feel propelled to expound.

Why put it out there? Probably simply because one can.

Good, bad or indifferent

Tomorrow’s another day! 

If it’s good, perhaps one would like to repeat it: if bad, one wants to get rid of it as quickly as possible.

 

Indifferent?

One isn’t perhaps quite sure.

Is indifferent better than bad, or not quite good?

 

France – and the world for that matter – just lost one of its’ best philosopher’s

Edgar Morin, who would have turned 105 this coming July.

 

Firstly, sad that he didn’t make it, secondly, sad that he wasn’t very well known in the English-speaking world as he did write 60 some books!

 

An all-around person who excelled in making sense of things – or even in changing his mind as time and history evolved. One can learn a lot from him, and for anyone interested the Wikipedia article is the short introduction:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Morin

 

Perhaps he could have made better sense than I about my phrase.

 

It is however, true, that in spite of our joys, our sorrows, our trials, our tribulations (a word that is no longer much used), once the sun goes down, and there’s a new day on the horizon, it is a new day. The slate is wiped clean and we have the choice of remembering the good, of wallowing in the bad, or simply accepting the indifferent.

Tomorrow will always be another day.

 

 

Changing one’s mind isn’t...

Always bad!

 

Recently I have had a spate (ok a flood, but hey spate sounds a little more bearable) of events, not all of which have been positive.

 

We won’t go into the emotional ones, but there was a physical one that was enough to

drown the best of us: my cell phone that has a cover, that has a very good screen protector and of which I am usually careful, dropped from about 3 feet to the floor.

 

Of course it landed on its’ face, open.

 

The screen didn’t break, but something inside did and slowly over the next few hours, it became totally unusable: not because it was broken, but because one could no longer see anything. Some applications and functions I remembered by heart, so the first 12 hours were bearable.

 

Of course, as life would have it, I had no time that day to go to either a repair shop nor to the main shop of my provider: everything now is online, so there are very few physical sites left where one can perhaps (I say, tongue in cheek, perhaps) find a physical person, who again, may, perhaps be able to solve one’s problem.

 

I had to buy a new phone.

Of course I bought a new cover as well: the saleslady proposed black or red. In the beginning I chose black (creature of habit that I am), before changing my mind to red.

 

I have blessed that decision ever since. Do you realize how much easier it is to locate a red cell phone that you have laid down in some odd place?

 

I will never regret that change of mind. And perhaps it will lead me to re-evaluate other such decisions?

 

 

« No man is an island »

         Yet we are all alone.

We are born without choosing to whom,

We live, mostly by our own choices, but

Mainly influenced by first our parents, our friends,

Our cultures, our friends – and then our own

Choices: good, bad or indifferent, shape what

We become.

 

But within whom we become, we can change,

We can become more educated – it won’t change

Whatever intrinsic intelligence we are allotted at birth.

We can become kinder; we can become the listener,

The family member or friend with whom one can

Simply be oneself.

We have the potential for great evil, but also the

Same potential for tremendous good.

Our choices are our own.

 

John Donne’s poem came to mind this morning, for

Some unknown reason, but then in my life, there is seldom

Something so random so there is a meaning: up to me

To find it.

 

For those who need it today:

 

“No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.”

John Donne, 1624

The poem was published in 1624 as part of Donne's collection of essays and meditations, "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions".

Last steps

   

They took their last steps – walked their last trip.

First hoping on a bus into town, changing on the lake into a bus to the train station. Walking along the corridors and up the stairs to the train level, into train number one where they relaxed a couple of hours before getting off that train and into another one across the way: they had to run for the last 20 feet as the train was much shorter and had stopped much further up the track. They disembarked after a ride along another lake and walked the small village in search of noon sustenance for their owner. Back to the train station and another smaller train through the passes and down to another lake. A run at that train station from an outer track to one well down the way and relaxation again on their next ride. A couple more changes, the final rest and final walk from train to bus, to bus, to down the street to home.

 

Having enjoyed a lot of walking and hiking in my life, I now have a few minor problems with my feet: tonails that have been pushed too hard, too often, spots that get more wear so develop the odd corn and the like.

 

I no longer even think about wearing heels – why would I be so silly as to risk falling and I do have rather elegant flats for those rare occasions when my usual mocs don’t work.

 

I still have some very good tennis shoes, but on a day-to-day basis lacing and unlacing every hour or so doesn’t suit my lifestyle (here we still take off our shoes when we enter the house).

 

Several years ago I stumbled up the “moc”, a slip on shoe with a thick sole, one with a profile that allows walking on all surfaces, one with a higher back (my foot doesn’t have a very good back bone and other shoes slip off way too easily), one with a slightly larger base (my instep is very high), but not too large, and so it goes. Also my left foot is longer than my right which often meant that if the shoes was comfortable on that side, it was too big on the other.

 

One learns: I found about 10 years ago the perfect shoe for my foot. I won’t mention the brand as I don’t believe in providing free advertising, but this is it for me. I now have them in black, gray and navy blue. I wear until worn.

 

The last trip for the black pair saw them seeing a lovely bit of the country. They walked through at least 6 trains stations, around a couple of villages and got me home. Faithful companions, they are now being retired for their replacement – exactly the same.