The view from the “throne”

 

Or a great holiday week.

 

I have been blessed many times over, in particular in my son’s choice of wife and their willingness to let me be a part of my grandson’s lives. I say grandsons as the older is now 2 years and 7 months (its all counts at that age, his counting in French is excellent and the English is coming along) and the younger 5 weeks.

 

As a protective father my son wasn’t too enthusiastic about our wish to have a small family week together right after Christmas, but my DIL and I said, as long as there is a hospital within easy reach it really isn’t an issue. We found this most beautiful Airbnb in Marsens, Switzerland and up we came.

 

The view and “throne”: I ended up in the master bedroom with its’ attached bathroom, including the washer and dryer nicely hidden behind cupboard doors. From the toilet (isn’t “throne” a much better moniker?) I look, during the day, out of the window that looks out on the countryside: at night I look up at the big dipper through the skylight directly about. Lends new meaning to “the throne”!

 

 

View out the window of one of the bathrooms

 

Always leave…

Before you’re ready

 

I had the most amazing holiday last month. Enjoyed the privilege of being able to spend time in the mountains of the Valais with my older son, his wife and my grandson. It was especially great as I was allowed to use her sister’s apartment and thus was right there, no walking even yards to go up, come down and the like.

 

Just chilling: I was able to let them take a couple of walks on their own whilst I watched my grandson, we had very companionable and full of laughter evening meals together, but still all had time to do our own thing, read, write, walk or simply be.

 

I didn’t turn on the TV once, did download my newspaper every day by using my cellphone as a hot spot (no wifi in the apartment). What a break, what a family. I was not ready to come home, but thinking it through, that is so much better than staying that one day too much.

 

To be repeated!

 

Wind blowing on the peaks

Surrounding mountains

More surrounding mountains

 

One of the local birds: tiny and in the snow!

Family and Friends

The most important people in the world.

Many months ago in one of our regular skype sessions K and I got to talking about her upcoming “big one”. Now to the outside world she is known as my sister-in-law, but within the family she is our sister and as such was going to enjoy the tradition started when I turned 60: the possibility of choosing the weekend getaway or activity.  This was even more important in light of the fact that we didn’t get to do this for my “little” sister.

She had always wanted to take a cruise, my brother less so. I had not been able to take a cruise the year we went to Alaska so that was my first choice – one with which she readily agreed – now to sell it to her husband. Persistence and the fact that Alaska is much more of a “natural” destination with sightings of wildlife and beautiful scenery led him to agree.

Important however to also visit my other sister in California so we all met here for a weekend.  Bless my sister as she organized for us – me in particular – to see some of her best friends and people to whom I have become close over the years. Yesterday was a day of sun (we are in California in June), of friends, of family, of laughter along with a few tears, of remembering, of bonding, of strengthening our spirits.

Today we played tourists and went to “the city”. Brunch with my nephew and his wife and the, to me, grand-nephew dog, outside in the sun, then on to a part of the shore that I had never explored “Shore Point” and the fort built there in 1861. Wisps of fog, a slight breeze, more fun and laughter – family and friends: the best part of one’s life!

Golden Gate Bridge, June 12, 2016

Privileged

I am privileged:

 

• To have been born when I was, in the state that I was, to the parents that I was
• To have grown up in a fairly carefree era: things were booming, jobs were abundant
• To have spent three years in Hawaii as a teenager, swimming after school (never mind going barefoot to school – o.k. so it was also the period of home perms and my hair was always frizzy – mostly positives), shelling on the beaches or surfing on weekends
• To have gone to a boarding school in the beautiful Napa valley
• To have had a sheltered life
• To have had a strong family and parents that worked hard to provide us with things that they themselves had not had, i.e. piano lessons (unappreciated), freedom from care, love, a stable environment and much more.
• To have had an education – one that although we all worked part time and contributed to our fees, saw four children through university without student debt
• To have been able to travel
• To have had two of my university years spent in France
• To have returned to Europe
• To have met my husband and had my two sons in Switzerland
• To have enjoyed a great health care system, one that made my husband’s life with cardiac problems a lot more bearable and one that has seen me through medical issues, including two bouts of breast cancer

But, above all comes the privilege of family.

My father was one of 9 children, six of whom had families – one of his sisters was the motor keeping that side of the family connected and I have many fond memories of us all meeting, especially the camping trips in Yosemite.

My mother grew up with her cousins – they also were 9 from three different sisters – and those cousins were the ones that lived closest to us whilst we were growing up so there again family was present. One of my mother’s younger sisters went with her when their aunt took them 3’000 miles away from their own mother and as she never married, we were her children, spoiled in ways that our own parents couldn’t afford – a second mother whom we lost too young to cancer.

My husband’s family – with the exception of himself – all remained within a 30 kilometer radius so keeping in touch with them as easy as well, never mind that our oldest son was born on the oldest German cousin’s birthday (twenty years later, so what)!

I have always been aware of family and my husband and I worked hard to make those trips to one or the other a fairly regular event so that our own children knew their cousins.

On my side of the family there was the summer when my sister and her husband brought their two sons to Europe: kids staying two months with us, they traveling. This forged bonds in between those three oldest, bonds reinforced over the years. However, as they grew, finished school and went on to their own lives it has become more difficult, especially as all six cousins live in different cities (o.k. my two are temporarily in the same city), different states with four in the USA and two in Europe.

Imagine thus the luck that it took for my sister’s two to be here at the same time, not only that but for both of my sons to be in town: serendipity doesn’t come much better. Thirty years later and two years after the wedding that last had all six together, four were able to spend 3 nights catching up and enlarging the bond to include a wife and girlfriend.

As I sat at the table the night we were all together, I could hardly believe the privilege that I enjoyed, that of having the next generation seated at my table, that of listening to their plans and dreams.

It may not happen again, but oh the joy of having enjoyed it now: carpe diem and don’t let the chance for family gatherings pass you by.

Distant Relatives or…

Relative distances?

Sure does make a difference in how one is thinking when one pronounces that phrase: what most pops into the mind is relatives that are second, third, fourth cousins - or even further removed.

In my family’s case it is simply distance as a numerical measure of how far apart one person is from another.  We are three siblings, each with two sons (and as on my husband’s side there were also only boys, we sisters-in-law stick together!). One of the nephews is married – yeah. Our current living locations:

California, USA, 4

Alaska, USA, 1

Washington, USA 1

Alabama, USA, 2

Chattanooga, Tennessee, 1

Switzerland, Europe, 1

Peru, South America 1

Niger, Africa, 1

So it’s pretty cool that we were all together in California last September and fun that in the past few weeks the one in Peru and the one in the state of Washington, USA found themselves at the same time in the same city in South America. Currently the one living in Switzerland and the two living in Alabama have just met one of the ones living in California for lunch in Columbia, South Carolina.

One could deduce that we’re a wandering family, but that, for all that, we are family and no distance is too great when it comes to getting together!

The phrase “I’d travel to the ends of the earth for you” certainly is true in our case: I love it!

Happiness is… or

At least for this moment.

Three smooth flights: all on-time and with sufficient transit allowed to not have to rush to catch the next one (o.k. it made for just as long of a day as going all the way to the West Coast of the USA with only two flights). I didn’t dare say it by the time I was waiting for the last one, but I have rarely had as easy a trip.

Laying vertically after all those flights and a 24-hour day

Seeing the moon out the window over the mountains as I lay in bed.

Waking to see the rising sun out the same windows (guest bedroom has a whole wall of windows looking out over the surrounding mountains: not a road, nor person in sight, only trees and nature. It is hard to sleep under those conditions as one could spend the whole time just enjoying the view.

Being able to get into the walking trousers that I had left behind (see former blogs about recent not-so-much-a-diet as a got-to-come-to-grips-with winter kilos. Now I didn’t say that it is a pretty sight, but at least it was doable.

B & K’s having gone to the trouble of buying me a lemon for my morning drink (o.k. no juicer meant that I had to get creative, but peeling and cutting into chunks and putting through a garlic press certainly did the job: as they say, necessity is the mother of invention); of having also pointed out to me the various coffee options available in the house.  Not my only addiction, but perhaps the best known one is my need for a cup of coffee in the morning and somewhere in between 15:00 and 16:00 in the afternoon.

Taking a walk around the “loop”: my brother’s street circles at the top of Monte Sano (appropriately named meaning as it does “health mountain”). The temperatures were perfect for a light sweatshirt and a brisk walk. Enough low-level up and down for me to feel that I have had a walk: there were birds that I don’t have at home such as red cardinals, robins, but there were other more house sparrow types that I do have; the trees and vegetation is in about the same flux of spring as at home; the streets still quiet.

Knowing that I have three whole weeks to enjoy being here.

Having family and friends who are always willing to house-sit and keep the home front secure.

Happiness is: also tempered, and thus made more precious, by not having Domino to walk with me; thinking of favorite walking spots and missing the beach by my younger sister. Losses make us appreciate even more those who remain, both human and animal.

But this happiness won’t be denied: my current waves of the stuff could warm many a corner if I could only think of a way of canalizing it.

Happiness is: being alive to enjoy it!

Celebrations

A friend's birthday; 6 years since I became Swiss; dinner with my immediate family – catching up on 5 weeks in all our lives.