Reflections on Switzerland

August 15

     Switzerland, the land of milk and honey, the land of abundance, where the soil is rich and gives much, where beauty abounds and traditions persist... 

I've been watching you from a distance since I have been here, like a quiet judge, evaluating you, trying to decide what to think of you... I know it's too early and I will have to let myself be tamed by you, let my guards down and enjoy you, at the risk of deciding to stay... But for now, I am just watching from a distance, as a stranger in a strange land, discovering a new culture. 
Your people appreciate simplicity, because it is all around them in its most beautiful form. They appreciate the simple pleasures of food and wine with good friends. They have more time to slow down. 

Shops are closed for lunch and sometimes for nap time too! They are closer to nature and appreciate it. I wonder if they are complacent. When you have so much at your finger tips, why fight for change? Why look for something else? Why change, why create? When there is so much security, why depend on anyone else? Why turn to God? Is that why churches are empty? Would I become complacent if I stayed here? Would I loose my vision? I already feel like some of the dreams that have been on my heart the last two years are somewhat irrelevant here... There isn't such a need for it... Who am I here? Who will I become? Everything that has been true about me in the last few years doesn't seem to matter as much here. And I struggle with my sense of identity. It will have to be redefined. I will have to learn to just BE, versus always DO, because this is what this season is about.

Good Bye LA

August 1st

Good Bye LA

You have been good to me. You have taught me much, you have changed me much and you have healed me much.  In the beginning, you scared me. I felt lost in your confines, disoriented. I didn't speak your dialect, didn't understand your people and felt like a fish out of water. But you have tamed me over the years. We've had a love and hate relationship, for sure. I started off hating most everything about you, like your size, the smog, the traffic, the heat, the lack of character. 
But you have taught me how to find beauty in the 
ugly, and now,

there are many things I will sorely miss about you.

The thing is, you're surprisingly rich. Rich in hidden treasures, things that require time to discover... 










Like charming "hole In the wall" coffee shops or antique stores, canyons in the foothills, urban farming communities, jacaranda framed streets that bloom and rain all purple each May, and friendly, friendly people everywhere.   

From artists to scholars to laborers, a smile is so easy to get here. You have given me the best friends of mylife, the most amazing community I could have ever dreamed of, you have allowed me to blossom into the person I am meant to be and break free from cultural and family patterns that were suffocating. You have allowed me to be successful, creative and visionary. You have seen me add three letters After my name, become a therapist, business owner and mom in a little over a decade, and a blessed, blessed woman with much to be thankful for. I still hate your smog, traffic and heat, but I have discovered your beaches, islands, mountains and national parks, year-long sunshine, and I must say, you have it all. 

You are ugly-beautiful, and I will love you forever. You keep luring me in because you have so much to offer, and so, I must take a break from you, to gain clarity. I don't know if it's time to break up, or just to separate for a while. But my homeland is calling, and I must go and see if she might be what my family needs... I will miss you and your people terribly. I have become a woman, a strong one, who can drive on a six lane freeway with ease and juggle motherhood and career. 

I feel ready for this next chapters, and for the rest it will provide. You are exciting, but you are exhausting. I will miss your weather, surfing sessions, sunsets on the beach, the haul of coyotes and the song of crickets at night, starting up conversations with strangers at the store, Trader Joe's and Target, my beautiful friends and my church, other foodies, EFT colleagues, my sons' amazing schools and all that you have to offer, still. there is much Loss and grief in my heart, along with excitement as I go experience the things that I have missed for the last twelve years. 

Good Bye LA!

It's for real

July 22^{nd, 2013}

What an emotional weekend. My girlfriend from High School, who is a flight attendant, arrived on Friday night. Having her here, speaking French with her, talking about the hikes we are going to take together in Switzerland, made me feel excited… Did you know that I hadn't seen her or been in touch with her for many years (like 19 years), and then reconnected with her through Facebook, then in person, since she travels  my way once in a while, and it felt like we had never parted? But I digress...

 I went from grief and sadness to joy and excitement, to grief and sadness again, after our good bye party on Saturday. When everyone was gone, I sat down and read all the cards friends gave me, and cried. So many meaningful relationships, such dear friends, such kind and touching words… To hear what I mean to people, to ponder on our ties, to bring both worlds together, by introducing Caroline to all my friends here, and to feel torn between that friendship that goes way back, and the newer ones of the last few years, both so good, both deep… what a roller coaster!

This weekend was also amazing because Caroline has initially booked K1’s flight before her schedule was set. She then requested to be on his flight, and due to a computer glitch, she got the flight the day before his. She tried to change it but couldn’t. So she came to LA to pick some of our suitcases, and connected us to her colleague who was going to be in the airplane with K1. But once in LA, she decided to try and change K1’s flight instead of hers, and requested for him to be in her plane. And it worked!

Have you ever sent your child on an airplane across a continent and an ocean without you? It’s scary. The thought of my child floating up in the air, so far away from me, makes me feel so powerless. Aaah, the beauty of surrendering. Seems to be the season for that. Well, let me just say that knowing that Caroline was in that plane with him made all the difference. It was such a relief, such a balm on my grieving and overly emotional heart.

At the check in, Caroline was able to make a few more little miracles happen that were true gifts in this stressful process. When we left K1, he had just met the crew and as I turned around to wave good bye one more time, I saw him shaking the captain’s hand… and felt so proud of my boy, flying all alone to Switzerland, leaving it all behind and embracing this adventure. May I be as brave as him…

Promise

July 2013

I am sorting through stuff, even though I really don’t have time and should just all put it in boxes to sort through next year. But tonight, as I was sorting through my cook books and piles of recipes, I found these photocopies from a recipe book I read in the South of France last summer, when we stayed at my grandmother’s house. I had hand copied some recipes on a page, and then, must have felt inspired to journal the next minute, because on the same page was this beautiful reflection of my heart at the time. It was almost exactly a year ago:

“Sitting outside my grandmother’s mazet, sipping tea in the coolness of the evening, while my brother’s guitar is playing a Francis Cabrel song, a melody that evokes Michael and I's courtship days in this part of the world…

The crickets alternate between symphony and silence, and my heart vacillates between nostalgia and bliss.

Today we went swimming in the river Gardon, North of Anduze, in the heart of the Cevennes.

The road leading there was everything I love about the South of France. Old stone “Mas”, tall and narrow, with blue shutters, standing proud in the midst of olive tree orchards. The colors are warm. Orange, yellow, ochre. Old medieval towns still untouched and unaltered by progress and technology, leaking of history and memories.

The river was perfect. Deep. Crystal clear blue, wide with big smooth rocks to jump from and little waterfalls to swim up to.

 Fresh, but warm enough to stay in it for a long time. I recognized all the rocks I used to jump from. I swam up the river and felt it all cover me, envelop me, the happiness, the innocence of those childhood years, the bliss of being back in this place.

 I swam non stop for 10-15 minutes and back. A lady, reading on a rock, looked at me with a smile as I was swimming back, the smile of a mother delighting in her child’s play. It surprised me, and within the next second, I felt God’s look on me, a tender look, smiling, delighting in my pleasure. It moved me to tears as I presented to Him the longings of my heart, to be reconnected to this place, this culture, this environment. Nostalgia and bliss.”

A year later, I remember that moment, and have actually thought of it often since then. I remember what happened next, a prayer, a request to be back here again, to experience this more often, and as I dove underwater to take a stroke, this still small voice whispering to me: “you will”.

Grieving

06/17/13

We are about 6 weeks away from the big move. It feels surreal. And we are starting to hit some real grief over here. Or at least I am. And some of our friends are. And some of my clients.

It’s amazing how when you are about to leave something, you start really appreciating it. I had several of those moments today. It started at work, when a client of mine, who I’ve been working with for 5 years, started processing what our relationship means to him. And the sense of loss and grief he feels at the thought of me leaving. And how I’ve been a healing agent in his life, and all those wonderful, meaningful things about my job. Then he shared the empathy he feels towards me as he imagines how hard it must be for me to leave and what a difficult decision that must have been… and that’s when I lost it. Tears rolled up in my eyes, and there was nothing I could do to stop them from rolling down. All my usual tricks failed. A few seconds later, I was the one with the tissue box, wiping my eyes and blowing my nose. So professional! Touche! Oh well, what can I say, I’m human. And he understood. I apologized for my tears and expressed appreciation for “going there”, processing that stuff with me. We had to end the session and said “to be continued”. And there will be many sessions like that, in the next few weeks, where I have to try and hold it together while my clients process their grief, loss, fears, disappointment, anger… and I will have to hold them in it, while trying to contain my own emotions about this move, this leaving I’m doing.

Then I drove home, feeling under the weather and exhausted from a full weekend filled with good bye parties and last dinners with friends, and there was my little African American neighbor, Helen, looking through our recycle bin in the driveway to see if she could find any bottles.

She was a little bent over, as skinny as ever, but looking pretty with pins in her hair and a smile on her face, so happy to see me and all worried that we had left already. I gave her a hug and told her I would never leave without saying good bye, I had just been real busy with this move. She told me stories about Bill, her 98 year old father-in-law whom she is taking care of (she is 80!) and how good the Lord has been to her, and how she talks to Him all the time, and how He led her to my house right when I was coming home so she could see me.

And there I go again, tearing up and just feeling the loss of what is so sweet and familiar, what has taken years to build and is irreplaceable, what makes my simple life more meaningful and brings sunshine into it. Helen always makes me smile. She’s always thankful, happy to see the kids, and though she is forgetting things and telling me the same stories over and over again, she is as spunky as ever and I love her dearly.

I said I would visit soon to see how Bill is doing.

Got inside, changed into comfy clothes and went to the rose bowl to pick up my raw milk from the coop I’m a part of. Sam was there, waiting for me, as I was running late, saying he was gonna take care of my milk for me if I didn’t show up, providing I would house him when he comes visit in Switzerland. I drove away feeling so blessed to have such a community, such connections, access to such great healthy food, and wondering, ironically, where the heck I was going to find raw milk and pastured eggs in Switzerland.

Then I had to go mail my taxes in and had another one of those moments. I entered the tiny post office on Lake and sighed a sigh of relief when I saw only 2 people in line. “I love Altadena”, I thought to myself. There is rarely a line at the Altadena post office. At the desk, two African American ladies. Mine was friendly, funny, casual… I loved it. It was “so Altadena”. And I just realized how I’ve come to love my routines, the things that feel familiar, how small this part of the world has become for me (considering there are 17 million inhabitants in LA!) and how I have come to understand the culture, the diversity, the pecularities and the uniqueness of this place (to an extent), while at the same time, there is always more to discover.

People are sad we are leaving. I can feel the fear in their sadness, that we may not come back. And yet the acceptance and understanding that we must do this. As my client said this morning, “if you don’t do it now, you will always regret it and wonder what it would have been like”. Yes, I know. I know that I know that I know. It doesn’t make the leaving any easier.

How it all started...

                                             

June 15th, 2013

So here we are. I’m starting a new blog, a family blog, because our family is embarking on an adventure that we hope will mark us forever, that we hope will bring us closer together, and will change our life for the better. But the truth is, this was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make! Because truly, we have loved it here.

We feel like we grew up here. Our friends feel like family. We love our community. We live in an awesome place with great neighbors, we have everything we could wish for… Things are going well, really. 

My practice is at its peak and I am starting to really build a reputation among professionals. My clients refer their friends to me and I love what I am doing. My kids go to great schools, our oldest goes to a great TaeKwondo studio that is shaping his character, we have a wonderful church that is awesome for the kids as well, we make decent money, we can go surfing, sailing, hiking every weekend… So why leave?

The truth is, I have asked myself that question so many times this year… And on the flip side, the other question I have asked myself is, “Why not?”. Over the 12 years I’ve been here, my heart has probably been split between two places for at least 8. Until finally, about 3-4 years ago, I went home after a long stretch of 2.5 years, and told everyone there that I felt at home in LA, that this was it, I felt great there, and didn’t see myself coming back.

Well geez, that didn’t last very long! That sweet spot where you finally feel integrated, like you’ve reconciled the two parts of you… About two years ago, it started to hurt again. This longing, this yearning for my country, my culture, my language. Perhaps it was the kids growing up and not really speaking French, watching my oldest becoming a little American, being influenced by his friends at school and watching my culture slowly die in our family… Or perhaps it’s approaching the forties, and going through a midlife crisis. I started having flashbacks of my childhood, memories of things I did as a kid, and longing for my children to have those experiences: building cabins in the forest with sticks and leaves, picking grapes in the vineyards in the fall, going skiing in the winter and building snowmen outside our doorstep, learning those childhood songs that I sometimes sing to them at bedtime, and most of all, spending time with family.

Watching my kids grow up with their cousins, celebrating birthdays with grandparents, aunts and uncles, sleepovers with cousins, all these things I have felt robbed of for them, for years… Continuing to live our increasingly comfortable but increasingly stressful life in LA felt increasingly painful. I felt grief, in the deepest parts of myself. I panicked. I got angry. I did not want this family to loose my cultural heritage, and the way this was going, that’s what was happening.

One day, as I was having a meltdown after an argument with my kids over speaking French, my husband said: “why don’t we just go for a year or two, live with your parents, I work for your dad, the kids go to school, become bilingual, and then we come back?”. And that felt right. And I felt happy and excited. So we started moving towards that, until we bumped into walls and obstacles and fears and “what about this” and “what if” and thoughts about everything we had to loose. It was a headache. Like having a constant migraine for 3 months. And I couldn’t take it. So I dropped it and decided to give it another year, give ourselves more time to figure it out.

Well, the thing is, with those things, when it’s the right thing to do and you turn away from it, it doesn’t go away. It comes back around. And so it did. It’s a long story, which we’ll spare you, but basically, in February, some things happened that made us realize this: If we don’t do this now, we will regret it. What are we afraid of? Yes, there are risks. Yes, there is much to loose. But we feel in our hearts that this is what is right for our family now, this is what we are supposed to do. We feel that God is leading us that way. So with 5 months left to plan, we started moving in that direction. This was the first journal entry about this process, which I saved for later, when we’d have time to start our blog. We have since jumped with both feet into our new life here in Switzerland. There will be ups and downs. Will you join us along the journey?