Fall firsts

Fall symbols may include coloured leaves, flannel pjs, crisp cold and other things. One of those other things happened yesterday – twice.

At lunch we ate in front of the first fire of the season. Then at night when I was visiting with friends, the host made a fire. While Mom cooked, the two little girls carried in enough wood to keep the fire going, although the three-year old kept a small piece of kindling to decorate with magic markers and sparklers.

The fire provided warmth, light and the cosiness that is only possible in late fall.

But then it got even better. Marshmallows, skewers, pieces of chocolate and crackers, not quite graham but fine enough to make more than respectable s’mores. We ate them by candlelight enhancing the firelight. S’mores are much more than gooey fingers and sweetness. They hold memories of other fires and other s’mores, each to be treasured in its own way. Thus I added this evening to the night Sam, Eva, Bill, Susie, Llara and I made s'mores on Tavern Road in Waltham with Nikki the German Shepherd hoping for her share and the time Llara and I used a candle during a black out to toast marshmallows.

No wonder fall is my favourite season.

The book sale

Once again I volunteered to help set up for the Library Book Sale at the American Church. The sale reminds me so much of the church fairs of my youth, albeit it with one product, books.

The efficiency of the all-volunteer staff is amazing. All year they take donations, catalogue and price them so by the time we volunteers arrive they are in boxes under the tables marked fiction, non fiction, self-help, etc. I wouldn't begin to guess how many, but the books out number many small libraries.

Calls, of "who has the scissors," are matched with thumping of books ontp the tables, the smell of paper and eventually coffee as the workers were given a break for coffee and cake.

This year I was extra tired, not having slept the night before. Well maybe I dozed as I flipped between BBC, CNN and MSNBC. One can only take so much of the blond haired guy who was constantly being corrected by his interviewees. I prefer the more scholarly interviews by BBC. CNN fell somewhere in the middle between MSNBC and BBC with its calm and often scholarly approach. None of the pretty graphics and expensive stage sets. I prefer the dignity of BBC when we are dealing with issues that not only affect the American future but the world's.

Tired was matched by exhileration. As I walked into the library Wed. morning a woman I had seen Tuesday morning raised her hands in victory. We did a small celebration dance then went back to work. May Congress work as hard.

Je jure

I wore the green suit inherited from my daughter and my late grandmother’s black jet beads. I wanted the essence of these two adored women with me as I took my oath for Swiss citizenship. My late grandmother has given me my strength, my values and my perseverance. My daughter taught me how strong love can be and both are in every eon of my being. So by wearing their things they were with me on this, the second most important day of my life.

The reception room to the Hall of Oaths in the hotel de ville http://www.geneve-tourisme.ch/?rubrique=0000000152 had stone arches and red tile floors. People of all nationalities mulled around recreating the sounds of Babel. Before we could go in to be transformed into Swiss citizens, we had to present our invitations and give up our Permis C, the document that has allowed me to live such a high quality life all these years. In the ancient hall surrounded by symbols of the ages, it seemed strange to jettison that treasured permit into a cardboard box that for the past 16 years meant I could walk the streets safely in a city that is routinely considered one of the best ten in the world to live in. I was able to have six weeks holiday mandated by law and I never had to worry about health insurance. I was surrounded by incredible beauty, although I have never learned to take it for granted.

A man in a green livery uniform ushered each of the 91 future citizens to their assigned place in red leatherette chairs arranged in a U-shape. Before us were polished wooden desks, modernized with a microphone and buttons marked, oui, non, abst. At the open end of the U shape was a raised dais. The walls were marble and eight large windows, four on each side of the hall were decorated with stained glass symbols of the different cantons interspersed with frosted glass, but not in square panes but in different geometrical shapes: trapezoids, triangles and shapes with no names.

A man with a floor-length red cape and a tri-corner black hat led in the official who after taking his place high above us on the dais, explained the oath we were about to take. We stood, raised our hands as he read it. Then he read each of our names and we responded either with Je jure or Je promis. I chose to swear, thinking that stronger than promising for anything as important as upholding a constitution and respecting the tradition of Switzerland and the Canton of Geneva. In because in becoming a Suissesse I also became a Genevoise, which is far stronger than just becoming a citizen of say Massachusetts.

Our oaths given we sang the national anthem, mercifully only the first verse and backed by music piped in.

As instructed we stayed in our seats while each person was given an envelope with the necessary documents to get our passports and identity cards (which can be used as passports throughout the EU), our certificate of nationality, a certificate with a real ribbon and separate seal from the Canton and our first voting package for the election to be held November 25^th.

We marched out to shake hands with the officials and to have a choice of wines and juices. Large pain surprises were strategically placed. They are large round loaves of bread hollowed out, sliced and made into various sandwiches which are replaced and then covered by the dome of the bread, a typical Swiss accompanment to any apero. As we left the hall we were given a coffee table book about Geneva.

In the cold sunlight on cobblestones and streets I have walked a hundred times http://athos99.romandie.com/post/1656/7275 before, I was now in my own country. I passed the old buildings with their plaques telling of who lived there and what they did over the past 300 to 400 years.

I walked through the Place du Bourg www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/photo497656.htm with its fountain ablaze with yellow mums. I wanted to do a Mary Tyler Moore type circle and throw my beret in the air, except I had no beret and my hood was attached to my coat. I made my way down to the new town where I bought chocolate for my returning housemate and sushi, another symbol. When I filed my dossier at the Bureau de Naturalisation, three years, eight months and three days before, I had wanted sushi. I was late getting back to the office and the stand that sold it, still wasn’t ready to serve. It was only fitting that today I have sushi even if a fondue is more in order.

My final act before heading home, and my first official act as a new citizen, was to stop at the bank and pay my taxes. I paid them happily.

The Washing Shed

The Washing Shed

The washing shed cooks in the sun.
Women stand by soapstone sinks
scrubbing stains from clothes
as their great grandmothers did.
The smell of bleach and soap
mingles with sweat.
They brush hair from their eyes.
Children play underfoot
as the river flows by.

They talk of Pierre beating Marie,
Sophie’s new job in Toulouse, Michel
cheating on Chantal, fresh garden
basil, the price of apricots.
Some own washing machines
white and shiny in lonely kitchens.
Better to carry baskets and powders
To the shed where gossip steals time
as the river flows by.

A simple question, complicated answer

Rosie O’Donnell and David Letterman have recently been asked on television if they want the US to lose the war. Although it is doubtful I will ever be interviewed on US national television, my answer to that would be another question, “If you had a much-loved child that was a serial killer and mass murderer, would you want him locked up?”

The US has become a serial invader and mass murderer. Whether you accept the estimates of Iraqis deaths at 30,000 or 650,000, these are people who would be alive if the US hadn’t invaded, which makes our paltry 3000 9/11 deaths seem very small indeed. And we shouldn’t forget the 3,000 soldiers who have died avenging those 9/11 deaths right now a one to one ratio.

If this were the US’s only war crime, because invading a sovereign nation is a war crime, we might be able to blame it on the shock of 9/11, but we have invaded other countries, toppled other rulers, sent death squads to help dictators.

After WWII both the UK and US seemed devoted to establishing a better world built around multi-national rules. The US has thwarted many of these proposals and treaties with their itsUN veto or agreed to them only if the US is exempt. (A good book on this is Lawless World: American and the Making of Global Rules from FDR’s Atlantic Charter to George W. Bush’s Illegal War by Phillip Sand, an international lawyer.)

Getting back to O’Donnell and Letterman, our national discourse has become so limited that saying outright “I want the US to lose,” would prevent any discussion on the immorality of the war just like Kerry was jumped on for pointing out the fact that most of the nation’s elite do not participate in today’s armed services. His alleged insult of the troops drowned out the class and economic implications that are behind the phrase. Another sound byte killed the opportunity to delve into a very real national problem.

So yes, if my child were a serial killer and mass murderer, even though I adore her, I would want her locked up so she could do no more harm. I also want the US stopped from continuing to fight and kill Iraqis and American soldiers and if losing in Iraq helps, so be it. I want my country to stop harming and killing others. Perhaps if we are soundly defeated, the American people will not be so easily mislead the next time.

Panic, panic, panic

One of the advantages of being a minimalist is that it is harder to lose things. Right? Wrong?

Although my oath-taking as a new Swiss citizen isn’t until tomorrow morning (Monday) I woke today (Sunday) and prepared all the papers that I needed. I had my invitation, my permis C that will be replaced by an identity card and red passport with the white cross, and the music and lyrics to the national anthem that I will sing (whisper) along with the other 90 people scheduled to take the oath with me.

What I couldn’t find was the seating plan with my place marked in a neat red cross. I looked through all my papers. I checked the papers the cleaning woman had put out with the recycling. I wondered if I had filed it with my insurance papers that arrived in the same mail. Nothing.

Getting Swiss nationality was not something lightly done. How could have I lost this paper? Could I wait at the hall until everyone else found their place and sneak into the one empty seat? Could I confess I lost the seating plan?

Then I turned the invitation over. The seating plan was on the back. I hadn’t lost it.

Relief. I put it back in the purple closed folder a type that exists in Europe but not in the US and sat on the bed almost shaking but laughing at myself as well. A few minutes later I got up prepared the green suit borrowed for the rest of my life from my daughter, my black blouse, shoes and stockings.

I am ready for the second most important day of my life. The first was my daughter’s birth and the third was the day I heard my first novel would be published.

Most importantly I put the purple folder where I can find it easily in the middle of my desk where it will wait until tomorrow morning.

Bise tests and other musings

Bise test: Not having found a duvet coat long enough to replace my old one, I had bartered the price of a beautiful slate green coat from 300 Euros to 180, but the question I had would it be as warm. Buying a coat on a warm September day, didn't provide a good test. Today was the real test: 4° C and the bise blowing surfable waves in the lake. The coat held. I was toasty with my hood and gloves.

Javel Mt. Blanc: Mt. Blanc rising above the Salave, above the wave-filled lake into the royal blue sky looked as if each snow flake covering it had been bleached in Javel, the French answer to Clorox.

Babel: The father and the little boy of about seven or eight were talking animatedly testing out a new telephone. I would say there was nothing unusual about a father and son sharing a good moment, except the father was speaking Spanish and the little boy was answering in French. There was any doubt they both understood the other totally. In Geneva multi-lingual families are the norm, and as we rode through the dark Geneva countryside I tried to think of a uni-lingual family and I couldn’t. With the multi-nationals it is guaranteed and even my Swiss friends usually speak at least two languages. We won't discuss the friends who speak four to seven languages.

Paranoia: Not just I and my friends are paranoid. We often talk about our fears going into and getting out of the US and look around wondering how insane we are. However, today, I was at Mañana, scoffing down guacamole and refried beans and eavesdropping on the people at the next table, also American. I would say they were perfect strangers, but I don’t know about their perfection, but they were total strangers. They were saying they weren’t sure if it would be safer to go to the US if the Republicans win or the Democrats and asking how much more dangerous is it if the Democrats win before they take office in January. Like my friends they were talking about renting cars and escaping through the woods into Canada. Like my friends they had made calls, sent emails and letters to support policies totally opposite this administration’s. One had a copy of today’s Guardian with the story of the international poll naming the three most dangerous people in the world. Bin Laden was number one, Bush was two, and the bad-hair guy from North Korea was third. Like me they have relatives they want to see over the holidays. I don’t know if I feel better or worse in my paranoia knowing it is shared by others.

Splurging: The photographer that took a photo of Llara and I a few years back for my mom took the photos today for my new passport and identity card that I will apply for next week as soon as I take my oath as a new Swiss Citizen. I could have spent 31 CHF less by going to a booth, but I wanted a good photo. The problem was my hair. Having just come in from the cold and having washed it that morning static electricity made it stand out from head a bit like the woman character in Frankenstein. He kindly waited until a water-dampened brush made it lay still. He could do nothing about the colour that will clash a bit with the cover of the passport.

Bonus Material: I saw the movie Queen today in V.O. at the theatre where with my 30 CHF card all entrances are 10 CHF for a year instead of 16 or 17CHF. One of the problems of being in a theatre is that there is no bonus material afterwards. I know there are several movies that I want to rent just for the bonus material including Mrs. Henderson Presents, Paris Je T’Aime, and now this to name a few. Of course, I could wait for the DVDs, but it is hard to walk by a marquee advertising something I really want to see.

Foreign Affairs: No, it is not a confession about a lover of a different nationality. It’s a publication I miss. I used to read it regularly when I waited for my daughter to finish work at the Brookline Public Library and also when I taught at Webster.

So I was extremely happy to see copies being given away when I went into the American Library. Although it is a 2005 edition I am looking forward to Wars and Public Opinion by Melvin Laird, The Battle Within Islam by Zeyno Baran, Dangerous Democracies by John Owens, the Politics of U.S. Bases Abroad by Alexander Cooley, but the one that I am looking forward to the most is the one by my favourite economist Joseph Stiglitz (even more than Krugman) on the Morality of Economic Growth.

There is a reason Wolf Blitzer

Wolf Blitzer asked why Iraqis aren't more appreciative of the Americans who have sacrificed for Iraq.

The answer, Wolf, is simple. The same reason Americans don't appreciate the sacrifice the 9/11 pilots made.

People don't appreciate having their country attacked.

A truthful cliché

Three friends of mine have walked the Camino to Santiago, an 800 mile trek/pilgrimage through Northern Spain, Barbara’s husband, a Geneva writer, and May, a Scottish friend living in Argelès. The concept always intrigued me, so I jumped at May’s invitation to come and watch a DVD and look at slides.

Another couple was there, and a quick conversation determined they spent much of their time in Argelès but returned to England frequently. The normal questions of what followed such as which town.

They are from Beckenham, which was where a friend had lived for three years and I visited often. Although I couldn’t remember the name of her street, I was able to situate it by the train station and St. George’s church. I had obviously walked by their house on my visits.

I mentioned she was active in the little theatre there.

“We always go to their plays,” the woman said.

“I saw On Golden Pond. My friend had the Katherine Hepuburn role,” I said.

They saw it, although we couldn't determine if we were in the theatre on the same night. I forgot to mention how she had won best actress in a competition among little theatre groups. When I see them at La Noisette, I will mention it.

The cliché phrase, a small world, is based on reality.

139 to 1 Another Anti-Peace Vote

The lead on the BBC Friday morning news and bbcnews.com is below...
“A United Nations committee has voted overwhelmingly to begin work on drawing up an international arms trade treaty.

“The measure would close loopholes in existing laws which mean guns still end up in conflict zones despite arms embargoes and export controls.

“It could also stop the supply of weapons to countries whose development is being hampered by arms spending.

“Only the US - a major arms manufacturer - voted against the treaty, saying it wanted to rely on existing agreements.

“A total of 139 states voted for the motion.”

I could find no mention of it on the CNN site, and as of 7:30 no mention of it on CNN international. Although I fell asleep before the end of NBC nightly news, I saw no mention of this important story on the msnbc website, which seems as an important story in this war-torn world.

Of course no treaty will stop arms smuggling such as Aegis, the Private Security Company under Tim Spicer as reported by Malaysia Today. “AEGIS: In June, the Pentagon's Program Management Office in Iraq awarded a $293 million contract to coordinate security operations among thousands of private contractors to Aegis, a UK firm whose founder was once investigated for illegal arms smuggling. An inquiry by the British parliament into Sandline, Aegis head Tim Spicer's former firm, determined that the company had shipped guns to Sierra Leone in 1998 in violation of a UN arms embargo. Sandline's position was that it had approval from the British government, although British ministers were cleared by the inquiry. Spicer resigned from Sandline in 2000 and incorporated Aegis in 2002.”

However, back to the problem of too many guns, killing too many people, once again we find another example of the US trying to block a step that would give a form for a more peaceful world. Nothing will accomplish it completely, but treaties that work toward it is a step that humans can’t afford not to try to make and keep.

Flour OR sugar

From her front gate to the door the left side of her front garden was ablaze with a flower that had both orange and yellow blossoms on the same plant. The white-haired woman, middle-aged thick, with an apron was clipping back any leaf that wasn’t perfect.

Here people don’t have yards they have gardens, even when flowers are non existence. Grass is not popular, stones, flag or otherwise, potted plants or statues.

In French I told her that her garden was magnificent.

She smiled. “Do you know, all this,” she swept her hand over the yards and yards of flowers, “came from a single plant?” With her shears she cut a single blossom and offered it to me in her gloved hand. “Put it in water with a spoonful of farine ou sucre. You will get roots.”

“Flower and Sugar? I asked, quite touched by her offering.

“Un ou l’autre. And let me know, how it works.”

The blossom is now in a glass of sugary water in the middle of my blue placemat on my table. I am not sure it will root in time for me to plant it one of the large blue pots that flank my front door before I return to Geneva for the winter. I hope so. However, my 18-inch circular garden will never hope to be as beautiful as hers.

Purry Weather Forecaster

Some people foretell cold weather by the furry caterpillar. I have a more sound method. I use a four-footed, grey and white, fuzzy purr machine.

During the summer, Munchkin can barely be found. She is out wandering, keeping company with her feline friend Goose and living up to what I think of as her nickname, Mouse Breath.

However these last few days, out is for necessity and time is spent holding down sunbeams on my bed. I don’t need to look when I enter my room. The constant purr defines her location.

I am a dog person, not a cat person EXCEPT for certain cats. When my daughter lived with me, the antics of the Lady Gwen and Morgana kept me entertained, although Morgana slapping me in the morning to get up and feed her lacked relationship-building tact. I actually missed them when they moved back to the States. Our pets in general are probably better travelled than many humans, carrying their own passports (a nice little booklet with all their shots and certificates).

Munchkin is one of those special cats. When she is not around I miss walking along and suddenly feel her head under my hand as she keeps pace with me as she walks on her hind legs. Today when I go out, I know I need my coat. The sunbeam in my bedroom is occupied telling me that it is coolish outside.

Tea

Tea…I drink it like others drink coffee, starting my day with it. Often I am drinking tea while my Brit friends drink coffee, creating a cross-cultural cacophony.

Tea has been a ritual, with different pots properly preheated and the tea measured with concentration then left to brew. Tea has been a catalyst to conversations, serious sometimes and funny others.

Most mornings one of the first things I do is make myself a cup of tea be it brewed in a pot or a bag thrown in a cup. The tea can be my new favourite, Prince of Wales, or the hard to find Bengali Bay, or Earl Gray served in a bowl like the French do flavouring the air as much as the palate.

One of the real pleasures of staying with friends of mine, which I often do, is that mornings I hear a tap on the door, and the gentleman of the house comes in, still in pyjamas, carrying a cup of hot tea that he puts on the table. It happened this weekend. The cup was a smoky blue, the colour adding to the pleasure. However, on Sunday morning, a second treat awaited me when he returned with a second cup that had cardamom added.

In its brew I remembered the Arabian mint teas I have enjoyed poured high in the air into small glasses, the mateis of Damascus sipped through silver spoons while sharing with the women friends of my friends, the Christmas tea served in Paris by a Tibetan woman.

Sometimes the best gifts are as simple as a cup of tea brought to you in bed before the day starts.

Wimping out/Finding joy

A weekend with friends is always a treat, but this Sunday, there was an impromptu suggestion to go hiking in the Alps of the Valais. Proper shoes and a jacket were located that fit me and my host and I were off to catch the train.

After 16 years here I should be immune to the scenery. No vaccination against beauty exists and if it did I wouldn’t take it. Both my host and I oohed and ahhed pointing out mountains, apple orchards, quaint villages. We shifted trains, changed plans and finally ended up at a trail. All over Switzerland walking trails are marked including the time to the next destination on small yellow arrows.

That I love to walk is not a secret. I think nothing of walking across the city, or taking walks in the mountains or parks at the drop of shoelace. That I love the mountains is less of a secret. I am a latecomer to this terrain, always having thought of myself as an ocean person, but only after moving here did I discover mountains have as many moods as the ocean.

What I don’t like is height. In fact it terrifies me. I always stay far back from any precipice. The path we had found started with a railing that stopped the drop to the village below. This okay. I can do a trail with a barrier even when the barrier is made of tree tops. However, the rail and tree tops disappeared leaving a path barely two people wide with a rock ledge on one side and nothing on the other to keep me from plunging below followed by an area with more protection.

I did the first exposed path and the second bit and was rewarded with a waterfallette, trickling down the mountain. After the third and not knowing what was ahead, I found myself clinging to the ledge unable to turn around.

My host was kind. He suggested going a few more feet where the ledge receded and I did.

I have often said it is okay to be scared, it isn’t okay to let it stop you. Then on the other hand, maybe there are times when stopping is better. I encouraged my host to go on. He needed a little urging, but after leaving me with chips, a book and apple juice headed onwards.

I found a pile of rocks and sat as far back from the edge as I could. My geology long forgotten, I suspect the rock was slate and I found myself using one piece of rock to draw a ship on the flat surface of another rock. The smoothness of the stone was silk-like and warm under my fingers. Among the rocks were small plants, some turning fall colours, some still green.

The sun was warm. When I looked into the distance I saw white peaked mountains, green lush hillsides spotted with yellows and reds and wooden chalets.

The only sound besides an occasional train or airplane was the wind and even that was more the rustle of the leaves.

The sun, warmed me, and instead of fear or disappointment in myself at wimping out, I was filled with a moment of unmatchable joy that I was there in that spot, totally alone surrounded by incredible beauty.

My host returned, I forced myself through the scary parts on our return route with less fear than before, but in no way was I comfortable. However, the feeling to total and unlimited happiness carried me beyond that fear.

Had I gone on would I have felt that wave of emotion? Would I be less afraid of heights? I don’t know. What ifs aren’t ever knowable. What I do know, is that I pushed myself a little, but I still wimped out, but my wimping brought me a gift. It is enough.

R.I.P.

R.I.P.

R.I.P. USA

July 4, 1776 – September 28, 2006

The USA has its first birth pangs July 4, 1776 when the principles that have formed the framework of our country’s core beliefs were put forth. It died September 28, 2006 when the Military Commissions Act was passed gutting the Constitution.

Over the last 230 years of my country’s history we have done some wonderful things. We have done some terrible things, but good or bad two things stood…the framework of our principles and The Constitution.

We have had bad presidents. The framework stood. The Constitution stood. It stood through Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.

Over the last five years I have watched as we as a nation have done terrible things: attacked and destroyed a country for false reasons, tortured people directly or had them rendered to torturers. Held people with no recourse to law, violated the privacy of our citizens. I don’t have to mention names like Gitmo, Abu Ghraib we all know them. We have seen the photos and read the articles.

Still the framework stood. The Constitution stood. The principals even if not followed were there.

September 29, 2006 they were no longer there. My country died. There will be an entity that continues, called the United States of America, but what was good and right and just, at least in principle, are no more. And if part of The Constitution goes down when will the rest follow?

I weep, I mourn for the death of a loved one.

I am told that the Military Commissions Act will make us safer from terrorists. Who, I ask you, will make us safer from ourselves.

Musings while walking to the post

As I walk to the post, I pass grape vines freed from their fruit, a field plowed and ready for the next year’s seed. I smell fresh mown hay still in clumps that will be rolled into cylinders.

A Muslim women, veiled from her head to toe but with her face showing walks by pushing a baby carriage with a bonny, smiling infant. We smile as we exchange bonjours. Her accent is better than mine.

I think of the brouhaha created by Jack Straw who said he could communicate better with women constituents when they weren’t veiled. I think of the put downs on the choices made by Muslim women. I have talked to some and listen to their reasons for the scarf, the veil, full hijab. Agreeing with them is not required. Appreciating their point of view is. I hope I do. I’ve tried.

Still as a western woman, a feminist, part of me will not let go of the idea that women should not need to protect themselves from men’s eyes. That implies men are weak, stupid, etc. Equally I am annoyed the morality is usually synonymous with sexuality.

My sexuality is my own: it is not my father’s, brother’s, lover’s. What I do with it is my choice, although I may decide to enter into agreements of fidelity and if I break those agreements, then my morality is in question.

At this point in my thoughts I have reached the blueberry bushes and my thoughts drift to other questions of morality.

People can get hysterical over Bill Clinton’s or Mark Foley’s sex life (although if it brings new faces into Congress, there's an upside). They are quiet about the immorality of the 650,000+ estimated dead Iraqis and the almost 3000 dead American troops -- all for a lie. They don’t scream about the morality for our bought and paid for Congress by corporate America who put power before their constituents and play with the lives of the citizens of America. They say nothing about the morality of the war profiteers who have stolen American money in Iraq but worry that a gay couple might marry.

Maybe it has to do with something I witnessed as a cub reporter where a New England town meeting voted a multi-million school construction budget without a peep and argued for hours about a $300 town decoration scheme. Small things can be understood more easily than big. $300 is understandable, millions aren’t.

I have reached the post. I chat in French with the people in line. It is a friendly village. An aristocratic woman, her silver hair in a bun, her black dress on a body that most women would die for, says “Have a good day,” to me in heavily accented English.

“You too,” I say and turn to the older man in front of me. “Funny no one thinks my accent is Swiss.”

He and his buddy laugh. They are probably about my age. “Maybe it is Vaudoise, not Genevoise.” We don’t discuss morality.

Bomb threats

There are two bombs at Cornavin, the voice on the phone told the Geneva police. Last night the train station was shut down for almost three hours as the bomb squad went over the station. Another bomb threat was received for the Globus Department Store (don’t worry Llara, the cheddar is safe). Likewise the UN lockdown their security after attack threats.

Nothing was found and today things are back to normal.

If a terrorist wants to hit a spot nothing will stop him or her. Smart terrorists won’t use telephones or email to discuss their plans. They will just do it. Of course any country can check who gets on airplanes, what is in cargo, make sure their nuclear plants have proper security, but there is no way anyone can patrol an entire country. A quick vial of a chemical in water, a bomb hidden and detonated, easy-peasy.

Meanwhile The Guardian has quoted a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health study in Baltimore, which was validated by four separate independent experts that over 640,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the war. Maybe that gives reason to the claim by 16 US intelligence agencies’ claim the war has increased terrorism. After all if the US was so angered by the death of a mere 3000 people on 9/11 can you imagine how annoyed the Iraqis and their friends must be at 645,000 deaths not to mention the 350,000 that died prior to the war from our sanctions (substantiated by Madelein Albright). I understand why anyone would want to become a terrorist after watching the death and destruction that the US and the UK have poured onto their countries, their people and their families.

I know it is not a popular point of view and I apologise to those Americans whose loved-ones died thinking they were protecting their country. Their motives were good. Sadly, they died making their country less safe. But then again, all is not loss. Think of all the companies servicing Iraq like Halliburton and have made tons of money (war profiteering was always good business) while creating a situation that can in turn further hurt the US. Thank you Halliburton and all those other companies who have made us less safe.

A profile of Edith Hall

When Edith Hall, a childhood hood chum of my grandmother, sent out Christmas cards she used the cards she had been sent, crossing out the name of the sender, obliterating it to a point that she almost tore through the paper. One would have thought she was poor, except the cards often included checks written out for anywhere from $100 to $1000, no small amount in the 40s, 50s and 60s.

Hall was an old maid when the term meant just that. She owned a two-apartment house on High Street in Reading that she crammed full of everything imaginable. There wasn’t a surface free of books or papers and sometimes even as a child I had to work to manoeuvre my way around. To my ten-year old eyes the piano bench seemed especially dangerous as books were piled higher than I was tall.

My grandmother and Edith had cooked up the idea that Edith should give me arts and crafts lessons. Unlike today when children are programmed for every lesson under the sun after school, my afternoons were free to run in the forest near the house, read, write, skate (ice or roller depending on the season) and do a 1001 things all of my own choosing. I liked it that way. Still for several Fridays dutifully I was dropped off and made my way through the thicket of things.

Edith was clever, and in retrospect I suspect she was a real artist, and she showed me how to make pink rosebuds from crepe paper. Hers looked real even close up. Mine looked unreal even from a distance.

After a number of Fridays, I rebelled. My grandmother pleaded saying how much the lessons pleased her friend. I won and I don’t know what excuse my grandmother made, but I am sure it was tactful.

Years later, freshly back from Germany with my new husband, we rented the upper story apartment as my parents had done when they were newly married. Only the paint had changed. The gas stove even in the sixties was from another the depression era, black with white oblong ceramic handles. The bathtub had claw feet. Because the rent was low we stayed there two years.

By this point Edith was convinced the previous tenant was breaking into her house and stealing things. The stacks from my childhood had grown, and both my husband and I were sure she lost things in the morass. He often helped her look, sometimes finding what was missing, more often not.

I avoided the apartment as much as I could. To save money, for I was still a university student, we used her telephone, and the passageway to reach her telephone was through a cavern of possessions. Even going in made me claustrophobic. Yet, I heard from my grandmother how pleased she was to have us (and our German Shepherd Kimm) there.

Finally, tired of her constant fears that assaulted us each time we came home, we moved. Once again, I suspect that my grandmother soothed the waters, for we did not want to hurt her feelings.

I am curious if today anyone but myself remembers this woman, a combination of eccentricities and kindness mixed with artistic talent. It is like when my brother and I are both dead no one will remember my grandfather, my Uncle Gordon. People live their lives on this planet and die, then disappear after the last person who knew them is also gone. But for a few minutes more anyone who reads this will know of a strange woman named Edith Hall who reused her Christmas cards.

I have THE DATE

November 6^th. I will take my oath and become a Suissesse and a Genevoise for your canton is considered almost as important as the country. It will be three years and eight months since I filed my application and will be the second most important day of my life. The first is the birth of my daughter.

I look at Geneva in a new way. I am not a visitor, an ex-pat or even a re-pat. This country, this cantonm, this city now feels like it is mine. Today was a medley of the beauties of this ancient city.

The Hotel de Ville (City Hall not part of a chain of hotels like I thought before I learned French) is in a building from the middle ages marked with Romeo and Juliet type balconys around a cobblestone courtyard. There are no stairs between floors, but ramps pebbled with small stones and as you walk up you see patterns including a large heart. I peeked into the special hall where the ceremony will be held.

Later, waiting for the bus to take me to lunch at WIPO with my former neighbour, the early autumn sun warmed my face. The buildings around the stop were a mixture of new, old, ancient. Underneath the bridge where the number 5 stops the Rhone swirled Coke bottle green and its clean water smell mingled with that of the roasting chestnuts coming from the stand next to the stop.

A woman played the saxophone, My Way, which unlike most believe was not written by Paul Anka by Claude François. If you don’t believe me listen to an interview with François in English http://youtube.com/watch?v=nPyKtsiGzJU

The notes faded away just as the bus arrived but the feeling of contentment rode with me.

Peaches

Don’t tell me the sale price of peaches.
Tell me if you bought them at the green grocers
where the woman chats about recipes
while her fingers dance on cash register keys?
Or were they stacked high between
apples and apricots at the supermarket?

Had you been searching for peaches or
were you looking for carrots
when peaches caught your eye?
Did you fight temptation
thinking yourself weak to give in?

Tell me about their perfume
I want to know if fuzz tickled your hand
when you dropped them into a plastic bag.
Did the first one taste sweet
when you bit into it,
or was it tasteless,
over engineered,
travelling well and
looking pretty in a bowl,
but never meant to impress taste buds?

And when you finished,
did you want another?