Civilized voting

 

Today was a big day in our family. Rick voted as a Swiss citizen for the first time.

He received his acceptance of Swiss Nationality. 18 February. In early March he received his first voting package automatically. A majority of Swiss vote by mail.

Those who don't, go to their local voting place, usually a marie (town hall) and drop off their ballot. These are open from 10-12.

Four people, other village residents, greeted us with smiles. We asked if we could take a photo of this important moment in life.

They checked his ID against the signature card that must accompany all ballots which are sealed in a separate envelope.

Then he was led to the ballot box and I was given time to get the camera ready.

After we were invited to have coffee or tea as well as a croissant or pain au chocolate, which we did.

Probably next time we will vote by mail, but there is something about the warmth that convinced us we were both right in becoming Swiss.

The results were announced later in the day. 

Voting should be this easy everywhere not a political battleground.

The Saudi Woman

 

Rick really wanted to go to the 48th International Inventions exhibit. I was neutral, but I learned long ago that neutrality usually leads to some great discoveries. This was no exception.

The first thing I noticed was the welcoming hello in more languages that I could even guess as we entered the exhibition.

The other thing that stood out was the majority of exhibitors were Chinese or from Asia. The rest was a hodge podge of European countries and one from America. This is worrying economically for both Europe and North America.

The booths had everything from high tech to green alternatives and much that was in between.

As communicators, Rick and I noticed that signs had much too much to read. Many were both in English and whatever oriental language

Rick did find a couple of things he will find helpful in his work. I found things that piqued my interest. I also was appreciative of the vast amount of creativity that surrounded me. And admittedly, there were things I didn't begin to begin to understand. Even explanations didn't help.

I passed the Iranian stand, and next to it was was the tiniest exhibition booth I have ever seen. One could not stand in the middle and hold out both arms. It was womanied by a woman in burka from Saudi Arabia.

"Mahaba," I said and added I did not know much more Arabic.

We decided English was easier for her than French.

She was a researcher working thru a university to find natural antibiotics. She explained to me about her four white rats and 4 levels of tests complete with slides of results.

Since no one seemed to even notice her, I felt I was not taking up her time that she could spend with someone more important to her needs.

She was impassioned with her work.

She apologized for it, opening the door to a slightly more personal discussion.  

There was so much more I wanted to ask her as she fiddled to keep her head scarf in place.

How was it to be a woman at a university in a country where women were so limited? How did she become interested in her field? Was she married? Children? What was her daily life like? How did she feel about the burka?

I didn't, but told her, under different circumstances I would love to share a cup of tea with her. She agreed. I could tell by her eyes she was smiling. 

She asked if she could take a selfie of us. 

I said yes.

Rick waited patiently for me and we moved on to a booth where there was a test for a dog allergy test and we took the literature to show our vet. 

My great discoveries? The chat with the woman and perhaps a solution to Sherlock's allergies.

 Rick has a dueling blog at https://lovinglifeineurope.blogspot.com/2023/04/change-world.html covering the more technical aspects.

DeSantis

A classmate asked me why I felt Florida was destroying my birth country. Here's why.

1. The introduction of S.B. 7050 making it harder to register to vote. It is the third change in recent years all of which limits the right to vote, more often by minorities.

2. Book banning. This is a tactic of dictatorships-want-to-be. I've read almost all of the list of books. For the teen books they included books my daughter read and loved. More important, banning books also reduce the chance to see anything other than the powers that be do not want people to see.

3. Limiting gender affirming health care for trans kids. I object to any government trying to control health care for any group.

4. Don't say gay. It's okay to get a gun, that other three-letter g word but not to utter certain words. 

5. Refusing to allow important parts of America's history to be taught producing a generation of ignorant citizens. Tom Hanks said it better about his not learning about vital parts of America's history https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tom+hanks+texas+massacre That he should have known to be a fully informed citizen. And that was long ago. Much I should have been taught growing up in the 60s, I wasn't. Florida has taken it so much deeper that it is frightening. Things that America has participated in 105 wars, four of which are ongoing.

6. Trying to ban universities from teaching diversity and negates the experiences of a major part of the population. It's like trying to tell the entire store of elephants by touching two inches of an elephant's trunk while blind.

7. His interference with Disney, the top income generator for Florida. Disney is not my favorite company for lots of reason, but having this type of interference for political reasons is dangerous for the economy.

8. Drag queen limitations for youth. Hmm...did any see Tootsie or Madame Doubtfire? Were they traumatized? I doubt it. I guess no kid could ever have gone to a Shakespeare play in the Elizabethan times because all the women parts were played by men. And what about all those Roman soldiers in skirts? Kilts for Scots--impossible. 

9. Abortion being denied to women in various ways. No politician should have the right to deny health care to anyone. It should be left to doctors, scientists, and the person whose body needs or wants it.

Although much of what I was taught in school was only part of the story and other parts were left out, I truly believe in democracy. I believe it is the job of government to serve the people not decide which group of people best serves them and cater to their whims over others.

If more of America follows Florida's example it will not survive as a democracy and as Winston Churchill said, "Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried."

 

Next blog over the weekend

 We are travelling

Scattering Her Ashes

23 years ago on earth day, I scattered my mother's ashes. I stopped by my girl friend's house...she was supporting me. She was dressed in jeans and sneakers.

"I checked Emily Post on what to wear to an illegal ash scattering the ashes of a woman I didn't like," she said. 

We met my brother who had picked up the ashes. 

When it was done, we went to McDos with my two dogs, Amadeus and Albert. It generated this poem. (I write very little poetry and do not consider myself a poet.)

SCATTERING HER ASHES

Offshoots 9

Geneva, Switzerland

 

 

Clumps of sodden earth

cling to our boots.

The forest whispers,

whines.

A brook, too full

complains,

falling over itself.

A bird

Trills a prayer

for no more rain.

 

My brother carrying the

carboard carton,

goes first.

As he pushes through brush

he forgets to hold a branch.

It hits me like another

forty years ago

in a different wood.

 

We come to a meadow with

last year’s grass

engraved in mud.

He lays the carton

on the ground.

“Here.”

Inside, a plastic bag.

We each take corner.

The wind catches the powder,

lifts and plays creating

a mini cloud

too close to earth.

 

I think

How much power

that ash once held,

how little power now.

Done.

We walk back

trapped

in our ancient silences.

Lemon and Lemonade

 

We are staying in a luxury hotel in Florida for a conference. It's a state I never liked and now because of the politics I feel dirty just being here. 

The governor is pushing everything I don't believe in of which includes banning books, bigotry/racism and violence and that is just a part of what seems like a run up to Fascism.

One the other hand, I've always been a proponent of lemonade made from lemons.

The staff at this hotel are incredible, especially the people who make up the rooms and serve in the restaurants. I've made an effort to talk to them which is enriching.

I've found that:

• Luigi admits to being Italian and speaks Italian, English, Spanish. He has been a waiter at the hotel for 14 years and says the wages and benefits are good, including the health insurance. This is good to know.
  
• Jean-Paul is originally from India, has two daughters, the older in university. Before working in hotels he was on cruise ships, but he didn't like to be away from his family. He took our napkins and folded them to form a slipper, Mickey Mouse ears for Rick. I was decorated as the Statue of Liberty.
• As for the women who make up the rooms, all had cheery smiles. One and I ended up hugging after our conversation. 
• I didn't get everyone's name. I do know they come from Egypt, Haiti, Puerto Rico (which is American). In one conversation with the Egyptian waitress she brought Tim to our table. It was his last week. He graduates next week with a degree in marketing. He was the only non-immigrant working the restaurant floor.

Each encounter, each mini-conversation enriched my day. 

I know there are people risking their lives to come here, fleeing horrendous conditions, some of which the U.S. helped create. I am in a beautiful room overlooking a pool and golf course. 

 

Each morning I wake to an incredible sunrise. I am beyond lucky. I just wish I wasn't contributing to the economy of a place that I feel is helping to destroy my birth country.

This essay is from a column I wrote for a now defunct British writer magazine in 2006. No matter how many books I publish, free writing to me is like warming up before exercising. Most of my blogs are warm up exercises before I get to my "real" writing.

THEORY

Many writing teachers urge new (and not-so-new writers) to free-write daily. Free-writing comes under other names called practice writing, daily writing, etc., but the concept behind it is the same. Regular writing exercises are for a writer what playing scales are for a musician or hitting balls are for a tennis player or golfer. They warm you up. They help you fine tune your style.

What is free-writing? It is taking a piece of paper or your computer keyboard and you start to write without stopping. You never worry about spelling or editing. You don’t think, “I can’t say that, it will hurt my Aunt Minnie.” You say it. You let it come out.

Even if you freeze you are supposed to go on by repeating your last few words such as:
I went to the store to buy a case of Coke, a case of Coke, a case of Coke because I loved Coke since i was a kid, a kid, a kid, and my mother only would let me have three and my brother had the other three and and and and I often stoled his.

Yes there are mistakes, yes there are repetitions, but the idea is to keep going.

So many times as writers we are stopped by what we feel is safe and correct. We need to get away from that concept in our free-writing. What dedicated free-writers find is that often the free-writing produces the energy that leads to other good writing. Take the free-write about the case of Coke. That led to a short story about sibling rivalry acted out with a brother and sister stealing each other’s treasures in the third person from the point of view of adults.

What if it doesn’t produce anything? So what? Does each piano scale produce a sonata? No, but with enough scale practice the sonata will be played better.

MEASUREMENT

There are two ways to measure free-writes. One is by a timer set for ten minutes. The other is to fill up three pages. Less than that really isn’t enough. More is fine.

STARTING

Put your pencil/pen/fingers to paper/keyboard and start and don’t stop until the time/pages are filled. Don’t answer the phone, go to the toilet or take a sip of tea.

WHAT IF I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO START?

1. Find a trigger such as emotional phrases: I love…, I hate…, I want…, it pisses me off…, I remember…, I don’t remember…

2. Use a color. I wanted to wear red as child but mother said it clashed with my hair. Work your way through the rainbow. Just think how many writing exercises you can do around different words for purple: lavender, lilac, violet, mauve, purple…

3. Find a sentence in a book, newspaper or magazine and use that as a trigger.

4. Use a piece of conversation that you overheard.

WHERE DO I FREE WRITE?

Anywhere you want: on a bus, train, airplane. In your kitchen, office. At a café. Sure it is ideal to be locked away with quiet or soft music in the background, but it is more important to do it.

WHAT DO I WITH WHAT I WROTE?

1. Ignore what you wrote. No one ever needs to make every word written count. We don’t see the canvases that the artists didn’t like. A professor at Simmons College once said that every writer has 250,000 bad words in them. Free-writing gets rid of some.

2. Go get a cup of tea or coffee and come back and reread what you wrote circling something you like.

3. Transfer what you like into a journal for later use or not.

4. Develop what you started. Turn it into a full essay, story, novel or play.

Check out my website www.dlnelsonwriter.com

Immigration, a reminder

Immigration  is an issue where the people who struggle to come to the US are often disparaged. CNN has shown what hell people go through to walk to the states. Immigrants are often chided for not working and taking up resources. They are treated often like animals and told they should come legally, a system that is so broken that their method has a greater chance of success than going through the system.

Of the immigrants I've met over the years, I find spirit and courage.

Rose is an example. This was my first time using a wheelchair at an airport. It was four airports. Toulouse, Heathrow, Miami and Orlando. All those who helped me were immigrants: Pakistani, Indian, Haitian. All were exceptional in the service and I talked to all three about their lives.

Rose was the most  impressive. Between poverty, crime, and corrupt government, she decided to leave her country, Haiti.

The first thing she did in the US was to learn English. Her life long dream was to be a doctor, but she felt she needed to bring her mother to safety first. She worked two jobs and finally did it.

She fell in love and had three children. Her husband encouraged her to become a nurse, although financially she had to work two jobs beside taking care of her family and going to class. She enrolled and loved her studies.

Her husband became ill. While nursing him through his illness, her studies were slowed. Her husband urged her to not give up, when she felt she couldn't go on.

She is still mourning his death. Her oldest child, a 14 year old girl and an all A student has taken over his encouragement. She  knows she's a role model for her kids so she keeps going. She says her daughter says she wants to be a doctor to fulfill her own dream as well as her mother's.

While she was pushing me, an angry man came up to say how long his parents had been taking to get two wheelchairs. She immediately called her supervisor to get them help, but he did not stop being verbally abusive. She never lost her cool even when he ignored her comments on how she was trying to help.

Rose has one more year of studies. She is grateful for her job, saying how her employers are supportive of when she has to do special classes or has exams. There are times she needs a second job to make ends meet.

I asked why she wanted to be a nurse. She replied she wants to help people. I believe her in the way she treated me, making sure of my comfort and safety. It was more than routine. She cared.

Rose will be 40 when she begins working as a nurse. The US had a shortage of 800,000 I heard on CNN. She will be a valued American citizen.

Rose is one of many immigrants I've met who work hard to build a good life. In doing so they will add to their communities. I'm not sure how many people who disparage immigrants would be able to face the problems and level of hard work necessary to succeed.

Dreading going to the US

One more day in Europe before I head to the US.

I dread it. 

Business and my husband are the reasons. I will be in a state that actively promotes ignorance, bigotry, and violence, three things I abhor. Book banning and history class cutting plus censorship is guarantying another generation of ignorant people. 

It is a state that is destroying my birth country with its division and hatred and is contrary to most of the values on which I was raised and what I was taught that the US was based on. 

Granted, the more I learned, the more I read, some of those early lessons were myths, but the good thing about myths is that they are a goal post to try and reach. And some were more than myths, they were truth.

As a reward after the conference I will go to my home state to see my daughter for two nights and a day.

My home state had/has its problems too. They once considered burning witches a good thing, but have not done much of that lately. They have done their own share of racism. However, they have over the years produced a large number of American thinkers, writers, presidents (more of the better but far from perfect ones) and some of the best universities in the world--and a few so-so ones.

In the first few days in the US, I will meet some people in person, I've known over Zoom or through my husband but never face-to-face, which will be fun. 

Some of the conference sessions will be interesting even though it is not my field. We are both writers and our work sometimes overlap and interest in each other's work almost always overlaps at some level. 

I will get a chance to eat at the hotel breakfast my husband says is the best in the world. I will always get a great breakfast in my home state at a place that has become special to us, a tradition now for my daughter, husband and me.

I will be  a good corporate wife. I really, really, really respect and admire the work the organizer of the conference does and that is why we will be there. 

And there's the comfort this will be the last time I have to be there.

It Takes a Village to Raise aDog

 It was one of those days.

9:00 a.m. Meet with Swiss neighbors for coffee at l'Hostalet for coffee.

10:00 Rick goes back to the house to meet with Gigi friend/plumber about  the leak under the sink.

11:15 Take Sherlock to the toilettage for a bath, face and nail trim. Ask what time to pick him up. Send Rick to double check time. Think she says 15:30.

 

12:30 head to lunch at Danish friends. Try out my new cane to help sore hip, ankle, knee. Have a wonderful meal and great conversation in a warm, friendly home.

14:55 Get phone call from the Swiss friends we had coffee earlier with telling us they have Sherlock. They will explain when we pick him up, they say. Finish dessert and limp home to pick up dog and find out how he ended up at their house. All locations are within a block.

15:30 Turn down Swiss friend's street  to see Sherlock with friends talking to our French neighbor friend, Sylvie. 

Learn the story.

Between, English, French and Russian accents we didn't get the pick up time right between us. Lovely toiletage, owner is worried. 

French friend Sylvie brought her Westie Muffin (pronounced moofen) in for her bath. Owner explains she's worried that Sherlock has not been picked up.

Sylvie takes Sherlock from the Swiss friends who live across the street from each other and around the block from us. The Swiss friends phone us. They take Sherlock in who is ill at ease while waiting for us. The Swiss man takes Sherlock for a walk.

15:32 We take Sherlock home. He is overjoyed to see us.

15:45 we go to  toilettage to pay the owner and apologize. We decide next time to write down times for pick up rather than worry about accents and mispronunciation. Speak to Muffin who is on the grooming table.

Back home plumber arrives to fix leak. Looks and says first thing, "I see you found Sherlock." 

He knows the story. Have no idea how. Hard to keep a secret in a small village. At the same time everyone helps. It takes a village to raise a dog.

 

A1 yes or no?

 

See this photo. 

My husband who has no (his words) artistic talent generated it through an AI program using this description. "Text description prompt: sepia tone old photo style - several people, including children in ragged clothing and carrying rucksacks, huddled around a fire on the beach in Argeles sur Mer in winter of 1939, La Retirada refugees from Spain, escaping General Franco."

Compared to real Retirada photos from the period it is pretty realistic.

He also generated a drawing of me.

I have mixed reactions-

WOW...I can generate illustrations far superior to my own work.

ARGHH...in the current insane world filled with lies, how will we ever know what is real and what isn't.

Both my husband and I are writers and even when against deadline, we weigh each word in our work. If not each word, each sentence, paragraph and placement of them all,

When there is time we polish. Get rid of that adverb. An ing verb is weak and get rid of adverbs. Show might replace tell. 

We may come across a better fact.

Would A1 do the polish necessary? Would it be accurate?

Because I'm a writer I admire great and good writing. Probably  AI won't cut that "ly" as I often do. They will be lazy and over use adverbs.

Rick and I often show each other good photos, good art work and read good writing to each other. 

We follow news from several different countries. Even then we want to know the source to test the accuracy. Doubts with AI will increase in various percentages.

As for art, I can admire beauty, but we collect art wanting to support the creativity of the artists. I don't feel too emotional about wanting to support the creativity of a computer or a data base, although I can admire the knowledge of the people putting that database together. 

Then there is the misinformation problem. Manipulation by governments and corporations. The lack of using our own minds.

I suspect I am feeling the same as a cottage worker during the Industrial Revolution.

Seeing in photos or in person

 Rick and I often read in bed, books, Facebook, e-mails, magazines, whatever early in the morning before getting up. We share some things we read.

"I love when I see where I've been." He showed me photos of Annecy and Edinburgh's Holyrodod Palace. Both places we've been often. They may be places that people who only have one crack at a place would choose to go, but we look in anticipation for next trip there.

Holyrood always had a special fascination for me because of my interest in the Tudors and Mary Queen of Scots.

We are lucky because we leave in Europe. It means we can drive to places that others have to fight long airport lines to get there.

In both of our homes in Geneva and in Argelès we can go to France, Spain, Italy for lunch and for the first two even to food shop or leave our dry cleaning in Geneva.

Also, we get a chance to travel to research our writing.

As a child, I seldom left our small town, which was very nice, but limited. My mother knew of all the places I would either visit or work in. However, she felt she had seen them without leaving the comfort of her home and town.

I could never make her understand, a photo, was only part of the experience. The smell of a croissant baking from a French bolangeries, or the sound of bagpipes.

Sometimes it is easier to disagree.

 

Chapter 66

Lexington, Massachusetts

April 20, 1775

EVERYTHING SEEMED VEILED when James opened his eyes. He couldn’t keep them open. His stomach ached as it had never ached before. He smelled bread baking and meat roasting. James heard voices as he lay in a bed.

Man: You’re crazy to help him.

Woman: He’s not going to live. He’s lost too much blood.

Man: He’s a bloody lobsterback.

Woman: He’s still Christ’s child, someone’s son, maybe brother, maybe husband, maybe father.

Man: We’ll never know. There’s no identification.

Woman: We could try and send him back to the British, when he dies.

Man: You are …

The voices faded and it sounded as if they were going down a flight of stairs.

James thought of Bess. It hurt to breathe. Then he couldn’t breathe at all.

 

 

Chapter 67

Argelès-sur-mer

I MOURN JAMES. For over a year, he has been with me almost every day in two different countries and many cities and villages. He has lived with me through a pandemic and quarantine.

I’ve tried to feel his pleasures, hopes, and fears, knowing all the time how he would die, where he would be buried in a grave marked on a battlefield of the American Revolution.

My other characters, in other books who have become real to me, can go on with their lives.

Not James.

There are real unknown soldiers buried in Lexington, not just in that one grave. Would they have been mourned by fathers, mothers, wives, sons, and brothers in faraway countries? Would not knowing what happened to their family members haunt them or would they not care?

May they all rest in peace throughout the ages.

24 July 2021

Argeles-sur-mer, France