The Volcano is Erupting

Since before I left the US I had been hoping to visit my friend Paul in Brussels. Brussels is a gorgeous city, I have not been there since 1970, I love Paul, I have not seen him in a long time either, and Paul is moving to Switzerland next week - so this weekend was the last possible moment to visit him in Belgium. I left Zuoz on Tuesday to escape the slush and mud, to visit friends here and there, and above all, to make it to Geneva to catch my plane to Brussels this afternoon. And then this stupid Icelandic volcano begins to erupt!

It's now Friday am, I am at my sister's, pirating the neighbor's unsecured internet connection - at least I do have a connection now, which was not the case last night when I tried to figure out the situation. At this point it looks like the flight is a go (at 3:30pm) - but this is in a long time from now, and I won't believe it until I am in the air. I also hope that they will not push it and that it would also be really safe to be in the air!

I left Zuoz on Tuesday morning, after only 5 hours of sleep. The night before I had my Rumauntsch class, meaning it was past 10pm when I got home. Fortunately my train was not too early on Tuesday, but nevertheless I had to get up at 6:30am - which was the time when I used to get up to go to work. By the way, today is the anniversary of the loss of my job. It's hard to believe that a whole year went by. I am still grieving for it, I am still trying to come to terms with it, I am still trying, as you all know, to figure out what to do next with my life.

My first stop on this 2 week trip was Val D'Illiez, the town where my friend Marianne has her chalet. It was her parents' chalet, but both her parents died recently and once again, we are in a similar situation. Some of you know about Marianne and me - let me summarize this extraordinary friendship for those who don't. We met in a supermarket in Beaverton in 1986. She started talking to me because she had heard me talk in French to my kids. Where are you from?... from Switzerland we narrowed it down to the street where we grew up - my family at number 30, hers at 33! Our lives have had incredible parallels: we both formerly were lab technicians, we both married men of Czech origins, her husband studied at the same Canadian University as Martin and I, she moved from the east coast to the west coast, she divorced more or less at the same time, etc, etc. She is more my sister than my friend. We have traveled together, our kids are like cousins, we knew each other's parents. She now lives in my neighborhood in Portland. All this to say that I miss her a lot and taking the train on Tuesday morning I was excited as if I was going to meet a lover! It was awkward to be with her in such a different place from our usual haunts, and yet, it was so familiar, so warm, so easy, so comforting!

Her chalet is in the mountains, of course, but at a lower elevation than Zuoz, and we were able to take a couple of walks amidst green grass and flowers! On Wednesday we drove to her brother's in Geneva, playing tourists along the way. I identified a few beautiful ducks on Lake Geneva...


Of course I also knew her brother who graciously invited me not only to stay in his house, but also to a delicious and typical dinner of filets de perches in a small local restaurant.

Yesterday morning I was alone in the big house when I woke up: Marianne had to catch her 7am flight back to Pdx. I spent the morning purchasing a flight to New York to go see Eric perform at the end of June! This is a huge milestone for me: at this stage in my uncertain life I am having terrible difficulties making any plans because the fact that I don't know what to do with my life is interfering with my ability to make even small trivial ones. Then I had to tackle the Geneva public transportation system to make it from the nice villa in the country to the train station (where I left my suitcase), and then over to my friend Claire-Lise whom I met for lunch. Claire-Lise used to be the secretary in the research institute where I was a technician in Geneva. I had not seen her since I left both the Institute and the country in 1977! What a pleasure. She still is nervous when she plays the piano in front of someone else, and she still has the most pleasant laughter - like little bells ringing. We laughed a lot when we worked together, and we laughed plenty yesterday. It is so heartwarming to see someone after so much time, active, healthy, happy, keeping herself physically and mentally fit! I love tying these threads from my current life back to my past - it definitely helps me in my attempt to make sense of it all.

PS: My flight was canceled. Details in the next posting.