Tuesday Free Writer - Darkness

Our car is in the shop and cafés are too far to walk, so Rick and I  go out in the garden for our Tuesday free write. No "victim" walks by so we use for a prompt a line from The Life of Adele La Rue by V.E. Schwab: "But the darkness keeps coming."

D-L's Free Write

The darkness kept coming.

No moon.

No stars. 

Only the headlights pushed pinpricks of light onto the forest road. 

No other cars were out. Why should they be? They were in the middle of the Maine wilderness after midnight.

"You okay?" she asked Jack. "Not sleepy?"

"Don't worry. We'll get to your folks in time."

In time. Time for her father to die. 

The forest's darkness didn't scare her. She'd grown up here. Her father's work was a botanist, a tree specialist. She'd learned to live with the loneliness. Her dog Skipper had been her only friend.

How different her life had been when she went to Boston University, returning only for holidays. 

She loved her parents, loved Skipper, but she needed more things like the internet. She and Jack were a couple, but even in the city she valued solitude.

"Take a right at that big rock." It probably had been dropped by a glacier.

There were lights in the windows of her parents' cabin.

The door opened. Skipper hobbled out, his tail wagging at seeing her. 

Her mother followed. "You made it in time."

Rick's Free Write

The  darkness keeps coming. He couldn't shake the feeling of foreboding. No matter how many things went right during the day, he continued to have a sense of tragedy.

It wasn't just the recurring aches and pains of old age. The chronically sore back, the frequent stabbing pains below the should blades, the pinprick in his chest, that the doctor told him to ignore. 

It was the occasional over arching sense of dread that something terrible was going to happen in their lives.

Yet life was overall good - even great. They were in love, they had sufficient money, plenty of good friends, lived in wonderful places. 

Too good to be true? Too good to last?

He busied himself with his to-do list, ticking off small things. procrastinating on the big projects.

Why start something you might not be able to finish?

 

1962 Stuttgart

 

Our first apartment as a new bride in Germany

The Neighbors

A terrible argument between a man and woman from the room next door woke me on my first morning as an Army bride in Stuttgart. My husband had already left for the base where he played trumpet with the 82nd Army band. The yelling stopped followed by a knock on my door.

I was terrified to answer, terrified not to. Answering won.

I opened the door. A huge couple spoke in rapid German. 

I didn't understand.

I burst into tears.

They switched to English. Regina explained that her husband was an actor: she was helping him rehearse before she went to work as a secretary for Disney.

Sunday the four of us went for a walk splurging on a hot chocolate.

Das Zimmer

Our room held two twin beds that could be disguised as couches, a round table, four chairs and der Shrank for our clothes. All looked like antiques. The rug was probably Persian. Gold-framed paintings pictured bucolic scenes. 

We entered our room through a hall twice the size of the room with six doors leading to the two other rental rooms, a toilet, an alleged kitchen and the living quarters of our landlords, Frau and Herr Theissen.

 The Toilet

The toilet was two steps from the entrance. Frau Theissen forbid us to use American toilet paper, insisting we use the torn scraps from the Stuttgarter Zeitung. The newspaper regularly clogged the toilet.

The Alleged Kitchen

Double the size of the toilet room, it had a sink with cold water, a hot plate and an electric coil to heat water. No stove. The refrigerator was the window sill. Frau Theissen would bustle in whenever I was in the kitchen and open the window so the stink would not go into her living area. Regina said she never did it with her. 

Die Strasssenbahn

Each morning, I left at the same time to go my German lessons on the base. The tram stop was outside me door and always had the same conductor.

"Der Hauptbahnhof," I would say.

"Der Bahnhof," he'd correct and give me the small square paper ticket.

The next day I'd try "Der Bahnhof," only to be corrected to "Hauptbahnhof."  This went on for several mornings until I said, "Hauptbahnhof oder Bahnhof." He laughed. 

The next morning he said, Der Hauptbahnhof oder Bahnhof?" 

"Der Zwei," I said, the two. It became a game with smiles for all future rides.

German Lessons and Library

The army offered free intensive German lessons. I'd pick up a glazed doughnut and coffee and spend the rest of the day battling with verbs and declensions. I finished before my husband so I would wait in the library, a joyous place for me. Often my German teacher would join me. He was a Spec4, from Chicago with an English Lit masters. His plan was to go on for his Ph.D. and teach literature at a university.

I had left university as an English major to marry but wanted to finish my degree as much as I wanted to breathe. 

We would whisper conversations about books and movies being shown at the base 's Jayhawk theater at a cost of 25 cents, affordable even on our limited budget.

 

The Accident

One of the band's sergeants took my husband, his wife and me on a drive on Die Autobahn in his new-to-him black Mercedes sedan. It was wunderbar until a car smashed into our trunk pushing the car under a truck. Miraculously we were neither hurt nor beheaded. The sergeant kept crying about his car until we were extricated.

 

 Christmas

Having no money for decorations, I pasted my red roller hair curlers in a Christmas tree formation on our mirror and created a garland of safety pins.

I'd planned to heat a can of chicken and a can of peas and open a can of cranberry sauce for our dinner. Fortunately, one of the sergeants wives invited us to a real Christmas dinner.

Washing

My husband was able to shower on base. I had to heat water with the coil and do the best I could to be clean. My fantasy was a bath or maybe a shower depending on the day.

As for washing our clothes, fortunately we could use the base's facilities.

The Final Straw

My husband and I had come home early and fallen asleep before dinner not waking until evening when it was dark. We woke to a flashlight and footsteps walking through our room. We watched Herr Theissen going through our papers. The next day we found a new apartment.

The Better Studio

The new flat was in an apartment building on the second floor. It had a small living room with a fold-out couch, a kitchen with a gas stove and a mini-fridge. Because tap water ran through a heater that lit from the water pressure, we had constant hot water and most importantly it had a bathtub and a toilet paper holder for normal toilet paper.

Donkeys and Peace Makers

 

The donkeys are gone, all six: the baby, three teenagers and parents. So is their hay bale where they ate each morning.

We sit on a bench staring at the cut field, the forest and Alps beyond. 

Sherlock sniffs in the field, probably hoping for a mole like the other day.

The church bells chime eight. To our right a flock of birds fly left, fly right, doing bird zoomies, before settling in the field to pick up what ever breakfast they can find.

No cars, no people. Just quiet.

Twenty minutes away the quai will be packed with cars, drivers on the way to work, their minds planning how they will deal with the day's responsibilities.

They are bankers, business people. A large percentage work for the alphabet agencies of the United Nations. Their mandate can be labor, agriculture, health, weather, world peace. Many are dedicated to the causes. Others see it as a good gig, nice pay, school benefits, a chance to hone their power skills all while living along beautiful Lake Geneva.

We stand, amble home to start our day. When the grass regrows in the field, the donkeys will be back.

 

Personal Librarian

 

 

As a writer, I found almost as fascinating as the book itself were the writers' notes at the end. 

Transferring history to fiction while keeping the "truth" at best is difficult. The two authors admit where they juggled a date, but everything I checked on was accurate.

Equally fascinating was how a black woman could pass as white, succeed to become a leading woman in her field where women did not participate. 

I did do a quick check of the book I am writing about 1,000 remarkable lesser known women and she was on my list.

https://victoriachristophermurray.com/

Feeling Places

My mother claimed she never needed to travel because she could read about any place in the world.

Reading isn't the same as experiencing the feeling, I told her.  I want to feel the places I go be it another country or cooking lunch in my kitchen. It is not just seeing a flower, it is noticing a delicate lighter line on the petal, experiencing it. It's being amused a misshaped carrot or hearing the bubbling of a soup as a reminder to turn down the heat.

Meeting Eleanor

Eleanor of Aquitaine intrigued me from childhood. I read anything and everything I could about her. Nothing compared to standing at her tomb, her husband Henry and her son Richard the Lionhearted near her. The remains of the people buried in those caskets had lived lives full of power, happiness, sadness, war, peace, good meals, sex, adventure and I was in the same room where they lay. It was if I'd flown back in time.

 

Mary Queen of Scots

The guide in his kilt stood on the spot within Stirling Castle where the baby Mary was crowned. Granted the church around her was no more but the spot that I could walk on was a historical reality carried into modern times.

On another trip to Scotland, we were at a house where Mary had slept. I could look out the window and see what she saw when she first woke in the morning. Downstairs there was a piece of the cloth from the dress she wore at her execution and a lock of her hair. Again, I could reach through centuries and feel the past I'd read about.

Sagas

The room was dark to preserve the Icelandic sagas in this Reykjavik museum. They told of events in the 9th and 10th centuries, their version of the internet. Some were written later. I couldn't read them in the original. My knowledge of current never mind ancient Icelandic is non-existent, but that didn't stop me from feeling a connection to the scribe in a room dipping his quill into his homemade ink and copying the words. Maybe he was waiting for a call to dinner of what probably would have been fish. Did his children interrupt his work? Was he cold and did he need to put an extra log on the fire.

Vandoeuvre

Vandoeuvre is the tiny village outside of Geneva where we live. It is a combination of farmland, modern mansions and a château or 2 or 3 or more. The center of the village is where the Tuesday marché is filled with vegetable and food stands. A few years ago they excavated the center to find a Roman villa. In my imagination, I picture a family in togas, with the wife carrying a basket and buying carrots from the marché. 

The violin playing puppet

Unlike the sweltering rest of the world, the temperature along Lake Léman was perfect for ambling along.

The puppeteer was thin, young and working the strings of his puppet. Although I don't know the music's name, its notes reach my soul. The puppeteer had mastered his craft so that the puppet stroked his instrument to the music. The tiny creature dipped and doves as if he were real and for a moment I felt he was real. I hope the puppeteer treats the puppet gently in reward for his performance.

 

 

Sunflower fields

Going to the next village we pass two fields. One is filled with sunflowers so tightly together that I almost need sunglasses. Next to it is some other green crop and spread out among the green  plants are about 20 sunflowers that have popped up far apart from one another. It is almost a metaphor for an escape from congestion to space, from following the crowd to doing one's own thing. Of course it is temporary. The sunflowers and the mystery crop will be harvested, their moment of glory at an end. I shiver thinking of their short lives recreating earlier fields of sunflowers and predicting next year's crops.

Long ago, I discovered that people do not necessarily think and feel as I do. They may be content to read as my mother was. Some will drive past those sunflowers without noticing them. I think of the phrase to each his own and it's okay.

Maybe some of the things I feel will sneak its way into my writing. Maybe the feelings will be part of a memory that I can bring out and savor, a thought of sunflowers on a rainy day or during a winter snow. 

It doesn't matter. 

It is enough that what I have felt has brought me happiness in otherwise chaotic world.

10 on the 10th

 

August 10th was the 10th anniversary of Rick's and my commitment ceremony. We didn't want a legal marriage for many reasons including my not wanting to give up 41 years of single bliss and French/Swiss inheritance laws. 

When we cleared those hurdles in 2015, we legalized our relationship at the Corsier village mairie. In France and Switzerland, the ONLY legal marriage is one done at city hall. Three million church weddings for the same couple would have NO legal recognition.

What a ride it has been. 

We have had less arguments than we have fingers on one hand, not counting the thumb. Lots of discussions. Our no pussyfooting rule, I think, sidesteps any issue that might arise.

We weathered my cancer thanks to Rick's wonderful care. Getting him to be a legal resident was a challenge, solved by our marriage. 

Then there was all the paperwork for Rick's nationality and his battle to learn French to pass the necessary tests. His hearing problems did cause a few blips. His accent is far better than mine, however.

Never mind the joys of each day, the adventure of discovering new places, developing (always) our writing, breathtaking scenery. 

art of my happiness is just being with him. We can be alone together or together together, it is all good.

To celebrate we decided to take a three-hour lunch cruise of Lake Léman. 

While waiting for the boat, we discovered a violin-playing puppet and talked as best we could with a Moroccan tourist family who had two of the cutest little boys. It was a hodgepodge of English, French, Arabic, Spanish and the warmth of sharing a moment by the beautiful lake.

The Savoie tooted her readiness to leave as we settled into the upper deck dining room. I've taken several lake cruises over the years, but every time, the pleasure is a little different. Besides views of the jet d'Eau and Mt. Blanc, we identified the docks and beaches where we've regularly walked.

We identified the house where I once lived by the solar panels, the Aga Khan's former mansion and the Little Mermaid.

The lake is in both France and Switzerland and more than once we've enjoyed a trip to Yvoire, France  (about 20 mins. by car) for lunch and poking around. It's a different view from the lake.

Prosecco to toast our anniversary, a good meal, followed by a meringue with double cream only added to the pleasure. I had a bite of Rick's polenta, the best I've ever tasted.

We went out on the deck for the remainder of the voyage. Unlike most of the planet, which is sweltering, the temperature was comfortable, the blue sky was dotted with clouds.

Before we docked, we had to take a picture on the machine that powers the boat. It was Swiss spotless.

Sigh. 

It was over as we strolled hand in hand thru the Jardin Anglais to head back home and our dog who was overjoyed to see us. 

I'm more than ready for another 10 years.

Tuesday Free Write-The woman alone at a table

 

Our regular café for our Tuesday free writes is closed for holiday. We found a new one in a nearby village. We both described the woman, whom we selected as a prompt, the same way. The chocolate chip bun and black tea were delicious. The flowers and view of the lake titillated our creativity.

Rick's free write

She has served her time. now it was her time.

Each morning, when the weather co-operated, she would walk down the hill from her modest apartment and take the same seat at the same table on the café terrace overlooking the lake. A cup of tea, a buttery croissant and a bite of Martel chocolate with a cigarette chaser.

She had managed on a secretary's salary to travel throughout Europe and the Middle East, sometimes on the NGO's expense account thanks to her attractive looks and her willingness to look the other way at minor indiscretions. 

She still had a girlish figure, although she hid it under a sweatshirt and jeans.

Her hair had gone whitish gray. Her dark rimmed glasses still stylish, but needing new prescription lenses.

The neighborhood calico cat approached along the marble wall of the terrace fish pond, which was her cue to leave. She was allergic to cats. And come to think of it, to people, too.

D-L's free write

Annabel sat on the terrace staring at the garden watching the bees flit among the pink flowers.

A calico cat strutted along the wall, looked at her and walked away.

Her gray hair was in a pony tail, the way she hadn't worn it since the 60s.

She glanced at her watch. Two more hours to kill before she could go home.

Home. That was a word that didn't fit her house. How long had she pretended, making sure it was decorated for holidays and parties. Only one room was hers where she escaped to paint, when social obligations lightened.

Harold had been shocked when she has said "good" to his "I want a divorce." He told her his new love would never go out in a sweat suit like she was now wearing.

She lit a newly bought cigarette, her first in 22 years. Harold didn't approve of smoking. Coughing, she wondered why she had ever enjoyed it.

The lake below glistened. She glistened.

Donkeys and two lives

 

Yesterday we were in downtown Geneva, Switzerland, an international city. We passed stores, saw the Jet d'Eau, and went to a book sale. A bit of a bustle as lots of people did Saturday errands and searched for places to have lunch. The canicule had passed but it was still warm moving toward hot.

This morning we woke to 17/60° degrees, a wet patio from the night's rain. Sweatshirts were needed for our morning dog walk.

None of our neighbors were stirring, probably still in bed. Even the dog walkers, whom we usually passed had not poked themselves out of their houses.

Sherlock usually selects the route. Today he passed one of my favorite gardens with roses, black-eyed susans and lots of white, pink and purple flowers I name as pretty.

After one field whose amber grain has been given a crew cut, we passed a passage where seven donkeys ate from a rolled bale of hay on a cart. There was one baby and one teenage donkey.

One donkey only took hay from the top, while another went for the middle. There was no pushing and shoving, as if they were following a donkey good manners book.

Sherlock wasn't sure what to do. He strode up to the fence with a certain bravado, but when one donkey interrupted eating to stroll in his direction, a bit of hay on her lips, he went into reverse.

I was struck by the contrast the three kilometers from our village to the city offers. I bask in it.

Broken Bones

 

I can tell by my daughter's voice something is off. We are talking on Facebook with no video. She says she's slipped on the floor at the T station in Boston. I am in Geneva, Switzerland. She's waiting for X-rays to see if her arm is broken.

Dar, my grandmother, never went anywhere, except one year she decided to visit her brother and sister-in-law in New Jersey. An hour after arrival she went outside their home to look at blimp, turned her ankle. She spent the rest of her holiday in a cast and being waited on hand and foot, something she said made it a wonderful vacation.

After my divorce, I lived with a woman who specialized in breaking bones, hers not someone else's. We were at the point after one of many accidents, I would simply ask "hospital?" She'd nod and we would spent the next few hours waiting for the cast to be put on whatever bone was broken.

I didn't break any bones until my sixties when I fainted. I broke my face and needed a plate inserted in my right cheek. I carry a photo in my wallet when I travel in case I set of the metal detectors.

They didn't cast my broken nose, but I was told I couldn't blow my nose for a month. On the day I could once again blow, we had a group blow. Friends from around the world claimed they reached for their tissues at the moment I once again could blow my nose.

A good-good friend slipped on the ice walking along Lac Léman.  With the wonderful Swiss system, a care worker arrived morning and night helping her with dressing and undressing while she was in a sling.

"It's broken below the shoulder and above the elbow," my daughter tells me. She will catch a taxi home. 

No home carer in the U.S. but her brother and sister-in-law swing into action to set up things to make it easier to cope. Her planned race in Sweden next month is off, but she will still visit her friend there. 

She orders the cat sitting service that she uses when she's traveling to come in and scoop the kitty litter every other day.

Flowers arrive from her office. 

My husband and I send a case of Irn Bru her favorite Scottish soda. At first she thinks the package is for Rick, not from us but was able to open it.

She is ordering in meals, including breakfast from Dempsey's, a favorite place. 

In a few months her break will be a memory, joining the others.

Keeping in Touch

 

Over my birthday croissant and cup of tea, I was catching up with a friend of 30 years. 

We started talking about how friends stayed in touch. For the two of us it could be anything from intensive to every few months with checks on Facebook or irregular emails. 

Of course living in different countries part of the time explains some of it. The rest is both of us have busy lives with clear priorities and hierarchies of the most to the least important. 

We have reached an age where we cut through the BS of life for things that are important. 

When we were young the telephone and post were the way to keep track of the comings and goings.

I remember going to the post office to see if there was a letter from my then fiancé who was stationed in D.C. rather than wait for the next day's delivery. "Bunny," the man who worked behind the counter, would always smile when he handed me a letter and shake his head sadly when there wasn't.

There were party line phones and I remember before there was dials, an operator took the number you were calling. When it was a friend, we might exchange plans.

Long distance calls were expensive. In the 1960s when I was living in Stuttgart and called my mother in Massachusetts, we had a nice conversation, which wasn't that long. She cried when she got the bill - $400, a fortune in those days. Now I can talk to my daughter from Geneva, Switzerland to Malden, MA for as long as we want for free on Facebook.

And if we don't use FB, there's email, Skype, ZOOM, blogs and internet etc., but my friend pointed out that a friend of hers from kindergarten prefers post cards to all the digital choices.

I chat with my daughter on Facebook at least once a week. Other people might telephone weekly. My grandmother and her brother, one in Massachusetts and one in New Jersey always talked regularly on Sunday night. This would be a good thing because she could ask where her sister-in-law put this or that in her desire to be helpful when they visited.

I wish there was more time to sit face to face with the many people I care about it and still have the time to do all the other things in my life. Meanwhile, I'm grateful for the digital age. In many cases it works better than waiting for a letter.

 

The pig

 

People, who know me,  know that I am a minimalist. 

Behold my pig USB key, bought in 2010. 

It is the only USB key I own and have owned. I save everything on it, as well as my hard drive and the cloud.

It has a bottom half that I can connect in case it has to go in my pencil case when we change countries and I don't want it to be damaged in transit.

I want to keep my life as uncluttered as possible. Why have 2, 3, 4 or more things if 1 will do? 

I love my pig.

Swiss National Day

 

Yesterday was Swiss National Day, celebrating the country's 732nd birthday.

In 1291 the leaders of three cantons met in a field to form a mutual protection bond. 

It was Rick's first as a Swiss citizen, my 17th.

Its president changes annually, always from one of the seven cabinet members, often called the seven dwarves. Multi parties make up the parliament, based on the U.S. congress.

We'd checked the various celebrations in villages around and those around us for things like raclette, sausage, alpine horns, speeches, singing of the national anthem,and parades, deciding our village was the one. 

The day was blessedly cool after the days and days of canicule, with many rain showers. On our morning dog walk, we noticed the different Swiss flags decorating the houses. We had put up four small ones in the garden.

Tuesdays are the farmer's market, but because of the holiday it wasn't there. Stores close to celebrate holidays, which are not an occasion for shopping and sales. 

Restaurants were open, We ate at one of favorites.

As writers, words don't stop entering our heads and we did spend the day on our projects, keeping an eye on the weather. We also watched the American news, hoping for an announcement of Trump's indictment. 

Changing nationalities does not mean that we stopped caring about our birth country and we've watched in horror at what we see as the internal destruction of the place that bares little resemblance of what we where we were raised and believed in.

A Facebook call came from my daughter  saying she was at Brigham and Woman's hospital after a fall at the Park Street Station in Boston.

In the end we opted to not face the potential showers nor did I want to miss hearing the results of my daughter's X-rays. We know the evening went ahead when we heard fireworks, much to Sherlock's concern. He didn't freak out, just went on alert for the potential need to protect us as if seven pounds of rescue pup could.

Today Switzerland starts its new year as a country that's far from perfect but works more than it doesn't. My daughter is in a sling and cast for six weeks. My dog knows he protected us from fire works. Rick and I are back to our projects.