A dreaded word

No, not any of those that one might logical have come to mind.

Filing.

I am a very orderly-type person, probably inherited from my mother who had one of those large metal filing cabinets. I have folders from ever since I returned to Europe and Geneva in 1973 (and yes still have “important” – in who’s eyes? – documents from the first cars to the house we sold in 1979).

 

With the advent of Internet I was able to eliminate some of those paper folders, then found myself going back and re-starting some as finding one single document in a computer is like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. You can use every single search word or combination of words and not find that desperately needed document!

 

So for many things I have gone back to paper files. That however means that one has to actually file the papers – something I am definitely not good at. And it’s getting worse, the longer we are locked down the less time I seem to have for such tasks.

 

Still tax-prep needs to be started and to find anything means filing all those bits and pieces from last year – sigh. Tomorrow might be a good day to start!

 

 

 

A great gift

You know how sometimes you get just what you asked for, that’s already good.

But how many times do you get something that you really don’t want, nor have much use for? Probably more and more often as we age and our tastes run more to non-collection of “things” than to filling up spaces.

But then, occasionally, you receive the perfect gift, one that arrives when least expected and is truly useful. One that reminds you every time you use it of the person who gave it to you, and of course said person is always remembered with fondness.

 

I received a few years ago the most lovely cookie jar – from the family of a little girl that I “adopted” as my grand-daughter and whom I don’t see nearly enough now that we are in the middle of a pandemic, but who still has a large place in my heart.

 

Every year when I bake Christmas cookies, out comes the cookies jar. It sits on the counter for those of us in the house to help ourselves and remains there until the last of the cookies are gone when it’s put away from yet another year. I love it! Thanks L’s!

 

 

 

The unending chocolate box

I love, as in adore, as in my favorite, as in any time I am within a half a mile of this chocolate maker in Geneva I will go: Auer.

Now I discovered Auer long before John Kerry and it remains one of my all time favorites (can’t say for 100% as friends and family over the years have presented me with some of their favorites and it would be very difficult indeed to decide). My family know that there is nothing I love better for a present (and yes, thank you, any excuse is a good one: celebrating “we-finally-made-it-home” for example to purchase me some) than a few Auer chocolates.

This year I got a small-looking box from my younger son and thoroughly enjoyed the first layer, was very glad that there was a second layer at the end of which I thought it was done, but no the box felt heavy still and indeed there was a third layer: bliss is an unexpected layer of chocolates!

 

Finding joy

 

It’s such little things. Throughout the morning a friend and I were WhatsApping back and forth about how dumb the weather predictions are: “snow storm” indeed. My last post to her was around 12:30 when I had actually had perhaps 10 “flakes” hit my windshield on my drive back from town.

Nothing, nothing, nothing, until around 15:30 when it actually did start to snow. So beautiful to watch the mud, the dead leaves and branches, the dirty sidewalks and streets

Disappear.

 

I wrote another friend that we “finally had snow”, the earth was decked in a light mantel of snow. “One must find joy where one can”. Then I realized: it’s true, it doesn’t take much to feel joyful, one only needs to look!

 

 

Grandson friendly occupations

 

I love, as in adore, having my grandson over for the day.

However, at 19 months we stay in the living room, kitchen and entry – on one floor – as I have no stair barriers so will not leave him alone on any other floor, nor go up or down for any task that takes more than 60 seconds!

 

If I need to go up to the bedroom floors it takes three or four times as long as I need to encourage him to climb and come down on his own. (For various reasons I am not able to carry his weight now that he is growing and, besides, he needs to achieve these milestones as did his father and uncle before him).

 

Sometimes I read my papers, play a Sudoku or two and in general relax now that he is capable of playing on his own for several minutes at a time.

 

The other day though I had a brilliant idea: ah, ha, the refrigerator and freezer need de-frosting/cleaning.  Wonderful to not only entertain him, but actually get something in thee house finally cleaned and organized as well. Now I won’t feel guilty if I achieve nothing else.

 

 

Exigency or exigencies….

 What will you have?

I loved today’s A.Word.A.Day

 

We could ask for many things as an urgent need or requirement: that the world be a more peaceful place, that this pandemic disappear, that there be no more disease and illness, that we know no sorrow, that we win the lottery…

 

But would these really solve our problems or would we simply create more to occupy ourselves?

 

Perhaps the best exigency that I could request, would be that I be a better version of myself, that I be more content with all that I have instead of thinking that something else would make me happier, that I enjoy to the best of my abilities all the wonderful life that I do have.

 

The attendant example of this word was a poem from Emily Dickinson:

 

“How happy is the little stone
That rambles in the road alone,
And doesn’t care about careers,
And exigencies never fears;
Whose coat of elemental brown
A passing universe put on;
And independent as the sun,
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute decree
In casual simplicity.”
Emily Dickinson; Poems by Emily Dickinson: Second Series; Roberts Brothers; 1891.

 

OK my exigency for the day will be more poets like Emily Dickinson!

 

 

 

Mixing up names

 

wordle

It’s not just an adult being forgetful or unconscious, in particular a mother:

It’s a proof of love

 

At least that is what a very small article in a magazine accompanying the Sunday paper informs me.

 

Thank goodness: my kids always thought that my calling them by each others names had some sinister meaning, or that I was having memory problems. Non several American psychologists have studied the question and determined that one most easily calls one child or sibling by another’s name when one loves them! And apparently the phenomenon is not limited to any age but can happen at any one of them.

 

I always told them when it upset them that they should be grateful that I wasn’t calling them by one of the cat’s names, but now I can say, it was love, pure love. Thank goodness.

 

Of course there is one small fly in the ointment: these were American psychologists….

 

https://images.app.goo.gl/HQjNBmTAtMvhPcd5A

Living well

Writing those words – the title of an article in my local Sunday paper – I didn’t first think of the classical “living well” but rather of the more specific … a well (of water) that is alive. Why? It is amazing how the mind can take detours even whilst wanting to actually interpret something as written. I thought of my older son who has a Master’s in Environmental Engineering, I thought of my younger son who loves nothing better than to be out in nature and has perhaps come across a “living” well or two in his lifetime.

I meant, however to address the subject of living in such a manner that one can deem one’s life well lived.

That in turn brings up more questions than answers: living a long life?, living in comfort? living without illness? living alone? with a lot of people? living in the sun? living in the mountains? Or by the ocean? or in the middle of a desert? living with goals? living for others? living for oneself?  I think for the moment I’ll simply admit that I am not Plato, Aristotle nor any of a 100 modern and better-philosophers-than-I. I’ll just go out and continue to live my life – the one I have always loved – as well as I can, and by “well” I don’t only mean philosophically, but also health-wise. Tough indeed in the current world situation.

Spring

summer sunset

Fall

winter sunset

Bright new beginnings

 

La Couronne, 1246 Corsier, Switzerland

Or gray, dreary dull starts if one is talking about the weather!

But then again, I would rather not: they had predicted snow during the night so when I woke up to grey, drizzly I was not well pleased

 

Pleased though to turn over a leaf, shut down 2020, get rid of last year, call it what you will, gone forever more 2020 and even if 2021 does not come with a guarantee of better things, surely it will be generally better for all of us.

 

My endings were good: I “last-footed” one of my best friends, i.e. dropped by with a magazine (for those wanting to know more about “last-footing” it doesn’t exist, but rather was my on-the-spot interpretation for ending the year seeing a friend as opposed to the Scottish “first-footing”) First footing’s origins are nebulous, some feel that it was the blond-haired Vikings, which struck terror into the local’s hearts, but it is accepted that it is the first person to cross one’s threshold after midnight. They are meant to bring luck and should be dark-haired (referring back to the terror of the blond Vikings?).

 

I did not stay up til midnight! My family did not have a history of celebrating New Year’s Eve, and my husband mainly did precious little as well, so it is fine with me if we drink our champagne at any time after 18:00 that suits and say “well it’s New Year’s somewhere in the world” and go have a normal night.

 

This morning as I went out to get bread at the local bakery, there was not a soul about, so the first person I saw was the chap who runs the “La Couronne” in my village. Full of light I was gifted a to-go coffee and feel that that went well towards having my first foot in 2021 be a very pleasant one.

 

Written to friends and family yesterday: “As we say goodbye (ok good riddance) to 2020, we have high hopes for 2021: may they all come true! Gather our small groups, look forward and work towards a better day, one which we can all have a part in making come true. I am sure that if we try we CAN improve things as long as we remember to pull together, to unite (or re-unite), to express our feelings, but not expect others to agree - and above all be willing to listen to other opinions”.

I wish you all peace, joy and happiness.