Becoming Swiss

I wore my green suit that I inherited from my daughter and a black necklace from my grandmother to take my oath as a new Swiss citizen. In a way it made me feel as if they were with me. It had been a long haul. Fifteen years eight months and six days.

My being in Switzerland at all was an accident. Because I'd heard getting work permits was impossible, I hadn't applied in Switzerland. I'd sent over 800 CVs (resumes) to France, Germany and Austria and that was after I started counting.

Getting the IHT for European want ads from the the Out of Town news stand in Harvard Square, I found an ad for a post in Neuchatel, Switzerland for someone who knew French, German and Digital Equipment Corp. I had two of the three, sent a fax, was hired and was given a Permis A. 

After three months I had a Permis B which was held by my employer and after 5 years a Permis C which gave me the right to work anywhere and more.

On the 12th anniversary of moving to Switzerland, on my first day eligible, I filled out the citizenship request form beginning a three-year process of interviews. I cried in relief when it was granted.

The oath taking ceremony was held in Hotel de Ville, constructed in the 1400s. I entered by the stone ramp where in the Middle Ages people rode their horses up to meetings. I was greeted along with 89 other soon-to-be citizens by a man in a medieval costume. 

As we filed into the hall, we tossed our cardboard Permis Cs in a box. Today the Permis are plastic.

On my designated seat was my voting package for the next votation, one of the four each year where citizens wishes are put to an all-country vote. It was complete with my name, address, signature card, information, ballot and postage paid envelope. There were also forms for my identity card and passport to take to my local mairie. 

 As a group we sang the Swiss national anthem. I've a terrible voice. I'd been teased by friends if they heard me sing, the government might change their mind about accepting me.

A few officials made welcoming speech and we took the oath as a group.

Outside the grand hall, there was champagne and a  pain surprise. The layers were salmon, ham, and a local cold cut. Everyone was given a book with photos and the history of the Canton.

Leaving the Hotel de Ville I walked past the hall where the Treaty of Alabama was signed in September 1872 by the Americans and British the final step ending the American Civil War.

I passed one of the old fountains that had been built so people did not have to walk down to the lake and lug it back in the time of Jean Calvin. More were planned by the city fathers, but they did not want to pay for more than one.

As I walked through the streets of old town, the same streets I had walked to go to the oath taking, I felt somewhat different. I was still me, but also I was Swiss.

 

Thank you Maga

 

Thank you Maga for making it possible for Trump to tank the world economy. Over six trillion dollars in losses, the most in 95 years.

Thank you Maga for electing Trump so his tariffs is creating one the largest drops in the stock market not just in the U.S. but around the world.

And thank you Maga for the world-wide recession that is being predicted by people who really know the basics of economics.

And thank you Maga for allowing him to cut back on education grants that means your children will have less learning opportunities.

And thank you for giving him the power to hire so many incompetents like the Secretary of Defense planning strikes on non secure lines. I guess the secretary learned from Hillary.

And thank you Maga for letting him threaten the income of millions of old people.

And thank you Maga for letting him streamline FEMA. Especially thank you to the Maga people in Kentucky who are flooded out. I'm sure you will be able to help yourselves. Those in other states like Florida will have plenty of time to prepare for the next hurricane. 

Thank you Maga for voting for Trump for all the tourist money that won't becoming into the U.S. because people are afraid of going through U.S. customs and being arrested or deported.

Thank you Maga for voting for Trump for the fired scientists who will leave the country and take their knowledge and ideas to other countries. Other countries are thrilled to have them. There's nothing like a good brain drain to make a country better, you think?

Thank you Maga for all the American-made products that won't be purchased because they are American. 

Thank you Maga for the Trump tariffs that once again will hurt American farmers who will lose their international markets.

Thank you Maga for Trump whose tariffs will add thousand of dollars to the price of a car because the manufacturer had to buy parts that were hit by tariffs.

Thank you Maga for the tariffs that will reduce everyone's 401K. Along with reducing Social Security you won't mind working longer and harder and maybe forever.

 

You guys and gals in the red hats did a great job in helping to destroy the country. U.S. enemies must be thrilled to see how they hurt the country without firing a bullet.

Visit https://dlnelsonwriter.com 

 

 

 

 

The Crossing

November 1962

I was about to take a ship from New York to Le Havre, France to join my husband who was stationed in an army band in Germany. A year before, I was a college freshman not allowed by my over-protective mother to even visit a friend in Attleboro, MA less than an hour from my home.

I had met my father's family for the first time at a shower where all my aunts, uncles and cousins gave me cash-filled envelopes attached to a model ship. As I opened each envelope and said thank you to Uncle...and Aunt...I scanned the faces until someone reacted.

My father and stepmom drove me to New York City from Scituate, MA. My dad was so excited. He adored boats and was building a 38-foot cabin cruiser in his back yard.

As was the custom of the day, everyone was dressed up. My stepmom even wore her mink collar. Heels and stockings were required. 

My dad saw that my much-traveled trunk, a gift from my stepmom's father, was properly stored aboard. I knew as we walked the deck, looking for my economy stateroom, he would give anything to be going too.

Once installed in my stateroom (no window) my dad left me with my stepmom . He reappeared with a German passenger, about my age. Heidi was an army wife going to join her new husband. She had moved from Germany to live in America and was less than happy at going back. I noticed she wore white shoes, something that was a no-no after Labor Day where I grew up.

My dad had arranged the table where we would eat and made sure I knew how to reach the lifeboat that I was assigned to. Heidi and I chatted through the drill later that afternoon.

Reluctantly I had a final hug with my parents, the parting whistles blew, the tug boat pulled the ship, and I watched the Statue of Liberty disappear.

Meals were wonderful. The other people at our table were older, but not old. We would share all meals with them.

There was a library where I selected reading matter. At the movie theater I watched Gypsy. A number of young officer wives were traveling first class but snuck down to economy to join us because we were more fun, especially at night when a band played. We danced and danced. A German young man named Dieter feel in love with Ellie, an Army wife, who didn't reciprocate. I listen to him describe a broken heart.

A woman, maybe in her sixties who got so drunk each night that she had to helped to her stateroom. I felt sorry for her while relishing my youth and future.

A storm hit on our third night. The band skidded across the dance floor. We were told to return to our cabins. We needed to hold the side ropes as we made our way. The next day I was sea sick, but when we outran the storm, I recovered.

Coming to the green Irish coast, row boats met us with Irishmen selling Irish knit sweaters. I did not have the funds to buy one.

A stop in the U.K. was followed by crossing the English channel and lots of tossing, but then all was calm in the Le Havre port. Economy passengers were the last ones off, but the boat train taking us to Paris waited.

The train ride to Paris was exciting as I imagined what it had been like when the Allies fought their way through the German troops. 

I managed to buy train tickets in Paris and then in Nancy before I stepped off the train in Stuttgart into my husband's arms. 

For someone who wasn't allowed into Boston, who didn't speak French, who didn't understand the 24-hour clock, who had a six hour wait in a train station, and said no to a Frenchman who wanted me to go home with him, I managed it all, although the Englishman, who worked with baggage in Paris, put me in a taxi with directions to the driver to take me directly and not run up the bill was a help.

For the rest of my life whenever I see movie or a TV program on a luxury liner, I realized that I had lived the experience and was grateful. All other crossings of the Atlantic have been by plane.

Visit D-L's website https://dlnelsonwriter.com
 

Demonstrations-YES!

 

In the mid 80s when I was writing The Card, a character was caught in the 1968 student-led Parisian riots. I spent hours and hours at the Brookline, MA library going through microfilm (pre-internet) trying to glean enough information on the riot. I used my imagination to write it.

Today, I was reading Paris Notebooks by Mavis Gallant who wrote a day-by-day account and mentioned Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a red-headed instigator of the demonstrations. Last night Cohn-Bendit, at 79 and white-haired was on French television. He'd been active in politics throughout his life. Part of me felt smug that everything I wrote could have happened, but had I had Gallant's first-hand accounts, I could have added so many details.

The 1968 demonstrations were a watershed moment in French politics. 

April 5, demonstrations are scheduled all over the U.S. Find one near you and go. The only way to stop the destruction of the good things in the U.S. is with action. Make April 5th a watershed moment in the U.S.

 

 

Free Write - Empty Chairs in the Sun

 

This week's Free Write still has three writers in two different countries. Rick's prompt was a photo was taken in our small French village, but the country isn't important. It is the chance to poke one's creativity encouraging it to slip into other aspect of our  creative lives. Anyone reading this might want to try a Free Write. If you want to share it, please do.

Rick's Free Write 

Empty chairs, empty tables.

Reminds me of a Les Miserables song after so many young men had died in a failed revolution.

But these are peaceful empty. A Sunday afternoon in a quiet village in the south of France. Normal. Tranquil.

The next morning these chairs will be filled with people talking, sharing their lives over café, thé and chocolat chaud. If the wind is down and the sun is out, the umbrellas will be up.

Sundays are my favorite in the village. Fewer people, fewer cars. Mostly dog walkers. Maybe kids playing football on the church plaza (unaware it used to be a graveyard).

Sunday afternoon used to be the time we caught up on news from our birth country through the talk shows. But they have become nauseating since the election as we witness the country’s accelerating destruction.

We think we are ‘safe’ in our little out-of-the-way enclave. But are we? Will there be war in Europe? Will the forces of evil stimulate civil unrest that reaches even us?

It would be wonderful to imagine we are immune, living in a bubble of the past, carefree… but is there any such place on the earth anymore?

Will these tables fill with happy people again? Or will they remain empty through intimidation and fear?

Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices.com 

D-L's Free Write

Toni walked by the tea room's outdoor chairs and tables. The sun was bright. No one was sitting there. The tramontane was blowing at full force sending leaves racing down the street. 

It had been five years since she been there. She and Paul had had coffees after their divorce hearing.

It had been a friendly divorce, if such a thing was possible. She and Paul had thought they'd found their life's partners in each other. The problem was they wanted different lives.

Paul loved his florist shop, owned first by his grandparents and parents. It was part of village life. Toni found herself sneezing when she was near many of the flowers.

She wanted to be a game develop and when she had a chance to work with two friends from her tech school, she couldn't pass it up,

Unfortunately the job required a move to Paris, or made not unfortunately because she loved Paris.

Today, she had not planned to get off the Paris-Barcelona train where she'd left her marriage. Something seemed to propel her when the train stopped at the station.

In the last five years some stores had changed. Some were the same. So many espressos had been shared by her and Paul while sitting on those chairs as they people watched.

She peeked inside. She saw the back of Paul's head. He was holding the hand of a very pretty woman as he used to hold hers.

On the way back to the train station she felt sad at what wasn't yet happy they'd made the right decision.

D-L has had 17 fiction and non fiction books published. Check out her website at:. https://dlnelsonwriter.com 

 Julia's Free Write

It was a beautiful sunny day.

The terrace lay waiting, every chair and every table still empty.

Who would come to sit and enjoy a coffee or tea?

Who a snack and a glass of wine?

Who perhaps a full meal?

It looked to be a great place also for people watching – a small Pedestrian zone.

Oh, here comes the first client of the day: the chap in somber clothing, always with a hat on his head, never a smile for either

The waitress nor the waiter – and just barely a word either, simply the strict minimum: “a glass of white wine, a Chablis, please”.

He is soon followed by the second – a woman in her 50ies, wearing a lovely spring dress, the appropriate handbag, shoes and jewelry,

In truth a bit fancy for this part of town. She orders “a small glass of red wine, the pinot please. And settles in to await a friend.

Her friend duly arrives – an indeterminate 40-something, dressed in very casual slacks, but a nice blouse. She turns out to be a teetotaler so orders only a coffee.

Then comes the young couple, so much in love that they have only eyes for each other. They order a sandwich (after consulting their change) and a soda.

The family is next: loud, boisterous – they order a small meal.

And so it goes until the lonely terrace is full of various individuals

All enjoying their time in the sun in this small town in Southern France.

Julia has written and taken photos and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/

What would you do?

 

If someone offered you a choice between taking $1,000 or $50,000 as a gift, no strings attached, which would you select?

I imagine the $50,000.

I don't understand why people say the 1,000 people killed October 7th in Israel gave Israel the right to kill 50,000 people who do not have the right to defend themselves. Not just kill but destroy everything in their lives, starve them, destroy their hospitals.

It's amazing that according to Netanyahu they only bomb where Hamas is hiding. 

Growing up, I learned about the Holocaust. I believed Israel had a chance to build a place free from prosecution. Up until the 1967 War, I thought Israel could do no wrong. Okay, I was naive and really hadn't read much about it.

Only when I was student teaching, did I meet my first Palestinian. She talked about how her family had been displaced, the land Israel had stolen from her family, the limitations forced upon them by Israel.

Moving to Geneva in 1993, I had Palestinian neighbors. One woman taught me and other friends belly dancing followed by great meals.

I met more and more people, not just from Palestinian but also from other countries in the region, especially Egypt and Syria. I was lucky enough to have a neighbor that became a sister-of-choice and spent time with her family in Damascus seeing life through the eyes of people who lived daily with the uncertainty of the region.

In the U.S. if you are pro-Palestinian, you are considered anti-semantic and thus anti-Jewish. People forget that almost all of the people in the area are semantic people. 

Taking a country from one people to give to another is a sure way to breed hatred. I imagine that the Gaza children who survive this war, whose parents and siblings were killed, will have little mercy for Israel. Destruction breeds hatred.

The argument the land belonged to Israel historically is equally sick. Country borders move. They are artificial. I wonder what would happen if everyone in the United States that is living on Indian land was suddenly driven from their homes so Indians could have it back.

There was no way that I could be anything but horrified by the genocide of the Jews during World War II. I am also horrified by the genocide in Gaza even if the numbers are smaller. The Oct. 7th attack was terrible by a group that is fighting back against the Israeli oppression.

1,000 against 50,000 is disproportionate. 

Taking hostages inflamed Israel, understandably, but the hundreds of Arab prisoners in Israel who are held without trial and rough conditions again tips the scale on what is disproportionate.

I'm horrified about the illegal settlements, the unfair rules the Arabs lived under that make it almost impossible to have even the base things that we take for granted. 

Destroying a people does not make anyone safer. It creates more hatred.

I am horrified that if Israel does it, they get carte blanche along with weapons from the U.S. to increase their killing ability. I am horrified about how they treat the Arabs in the area, the breaking of international laws. That people fight back, is totally understandable.

When Americans talk to me about Israel having the right to defend themselves and I ask them what they know about the history, it is next to nothing. Gaza has the right to defend itself too.

I wish everyone of them would invited a Palestinian to dinner and listen to their side of the history over the last decades.

Now merely saying you are pro-Palestiniancin the States, especially if you are not a U.S. citizen can get you deported, denying the speaker's freedom of speech. If you invited Palestinians to your home, and under these current U.S. Administration you are leaving them open to  being grabbed and deported even if they did nothing but have ordinary lives. 

So $1,000 or $50,000...what will it be? Isn't it time to look at both sides? Invite a Palestinian to your home and listen to what they have to say.

P.S. I am not anti-Jewish, but I am anti the atrocities of the Israeli government.

 

Holding My Own?

 

Rick's parking karma held as he slipped into the last spot in the bibliothèque parking. I looked up to see pretty blue shutters and flowers in a house. The wall is on a house that is probably at least 300 years old. It was more than a pretty window. It was a reminder that not everything in this world is coming apart.

In the center of our French village, the houses, including ours, are 300-400 years old. The ground floors used to hold goats, cows and chickens, but are now modern living and dining rooms and kitchens. The streets are narrow and parking is non-existent which is why we search public parking. 

I've been fighting with myself against frustration and depression about the destruction of my birth country by incompetent, demented, immoral people. There are people too afraid to fight back, or too greedy to do what is right. I feel anger too at the people who voted them in, for not seeing what was there if they'd just taken the time to look.

In our village, we find many French who want to talk about Trump, usually with disgust. Canadians, Danes, Swedes, Germans, Brits ask us if we are relieved that we are no longer American. They were anti-Trump during his first administration. Now they express shock that America could sink so low so fast.

This tiny village has a long history of pain from bad rulers. It was territory that went back and forth between French, Spanish and Catalan aristocracy over the centuries. Towers still sit on mountain tops to help who ever was in power to see the latest invasion. 

Power struggles aren't new. Fighting against them isn't new.

In 1939 the 3000+ village residents became 103,000 as people crossed the Pryenees, fleeing Franco. These refugees were put in concentration camps along the beach. The bad treatment of refugees and immigrants is not new.

The village did not submit easily. Women protested in April 1942. An elderly man, who lived through it, told me how there were resistance fighters living in the village. He lived on the renamed rue de Resistance.

We tried going off grid to restoke our morale, but when we're on our computer information about evil acts of the administration sneak in. Then we give in and check news in France, England, Switzerland, U.S. and sometimes Germany. We see old and new frightening stories. I will look at Fox News on the internet and see a totally different world to what other news sources are reporting adding to my pain, fear, frustration at the lies and manipulation.

I am trying to hold on to hope for sanity, by hanging on to what is good in my little village: our friends, local and international, the wonderful fruits and vegetables, our pup, the smell of bread baking from the boulangeries, the cafés where we can sit and people watch, chatting with those walking by. There is the surprise of a beautiful window when we lucked out by finding a parking place. It helps, but it is not enough.

Hopefully, the village, the U.S., the world will survive the maniacs in D.C. and those enabling them, just as this village has survived everything over the centuries and too many battles to list here.  

I wish I could do more. Making phone calls, sending emails and writing essays isn't enough. On April 5, I wish I could be on Boston Common, in front of the State House where my grandfather did engineering repairs in the early 1900s. 

Can the people who failed to see the danger before November 5 see it now and act?

Will Republicans develop backbones and stop bleating their approval?

Will the many Americans who will suffer, and suffer they will even more than now, fight back?

Will the Army refuse to fight if America attacks other countries Putin-like? 

Meanwhile I will try and channel my pain, frustration, disgust, fear of what the U.S. is becoming.  

Those shutters are a lovely jade of blue. The flowers mean spring is coming. My dog wants to sit on my lap. The weeks of rain seems to have stopped lessening the drought. 

Hang on, hang on, hang on. 

Like all bad governments, rulers, things will change. Don't think about the price in lives ruined, think of the shutters which are a lovely shade of...

Check out D-L's website: https://dlnelsonwriter.com