Lasting friendships

Friendship is one of the greatest gifts we receive in life.  It turns ordinary moments into extraordinary memories.  Whenever a feeling or experience is shared with someone, it takes on a greater meaning.  It morphs into a drop of glue that binds you to the person you shared it with.  Some friendships last a lifetime and have countless shared moments binding them together; some last only a short time but stick with you forever.  None the less, every friendship is an irreplaceable addition to the composition that makes us who we are.

This has been a difficult week of goodbyes.  My first four months in Geneva have been a whirlwind of fun adventures with an amazing group of diverse friends from all corners of the globe.  The only problem with adventurous individuals is that they do not stay in one place for long.  Many of my new friends left this week to return to their homes or move on to new destinations.  It has been a bitter sweet reminder of what it means to live a life of travel and adventure.  It means living in a constant state of impermanence.

As I went into this week, I was feeling negative about the lifestyle I have chosen.  I had a few thoughts playing on repeat in my mind; "I am tired of starting over," "I am tired of always saying goodbye," "I am tired of losing the friendships that I have created."  Watching all of my friends pack up their Geneva lives and take off for new horizons brought up feelings of loss and loneliness.  When I expressed these emotions to one my friends she replied, "but if we had all stayed where we were before coming here, we would have never met in the first place."  This statement slapped me back into my reality.  I am blessed to live a lifestyle that puts me in the presence of so many interesting and loving individuals.  Although brief, every one of these friendships has been a gift of learning and sharing.

The most beautiful thing about friendships is that they continue on past your physical presence in a place.  The lasting connection that you share with your friends binds you forever to where you were and what you experienced together.  These connections are the glue that keep you bound to every different stage in  life and they are what transcend time and distance.

So even though I am sad to see my friends go, I am grateful to have these ties that will forever bind me to the moments we shared.  We will forever have the Jungfrau looming from above and reflecting off the pristine lake below, the warmth of the hamam followed by bubbling cheese fondu, the poem recital of Saint Nicholas, the warmth of the sun as we broke through the never ending fog above Lucerne, the taste of Belgian beer presented by an expert, the sangria made by a Spanish professional, the Sunday brunch with eggs to feed an army, the Swiss Thanksgiving that kept me full for a week, and of course the hike with cows and beers that started it all.  We may no longer be present but our memories always will be and I wouldn't give them up for a million years of stable consistency.

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

Identity crisis

A constant human battle is making peace with the world around us and remaining true to ourselves no matter what our surroundings are.  We ask ourselves, "how can I stay pure and full of light in a world of shadow?"  The answer is to be content from within.  We don't need a perfect world to be at peace, start with an inner peace and let it emanate outwards.  Our surroundings do not need to define who we are.  The stronger we become with our own choices and identity, the less the negative perspectives and projections of others stick to us.  Pretty soon, you will be able to dance through the shadows in your own ray of light.

I have been confronted with many identity issues since moving to Switzerland.  I sometimes find myself thinking, "why didn't I just stay at home where everyone is American and I understand how things are done and why they are done that way.  I understand the school system and everyone in my classes would speak English and I wouldn't have to work so hard."  This week I had a teacher question my ability to succeed in her class due to language barriers.  I am the least prepared for the class academically, socially, and linguistically.  I am not a native speaker, I did not do my undergrad in a French speaking country, and I have never studying phonetics or linguistics before. The world around me suddenly became very dark and daunting and I felt all alone.   It would have been easy for me to give in to the darkness and say, "you're right, I don't belong here.  I should go back to where life was easy."  But, I didn't.

First, I tuned out all of the opinions I was hearing around me; "you can't do this, you aren't prepared, you don't belong, Americans are bad at languages,........... "shhhhh quiet".  Then, I sat in silence and enjoyed the calm of a quiet head, "ahhhhh they're gone."  Now, I started to listen to my own voice and ask the important questions; "why am I doing this, what am I good at, what will this master's do for me?"  And I waited for the answers to become clear.  "I am a student, I am here to learn French, I am capable of anything, I am great at teaching languages and this master's will allow me to do what I love at a higher level."  Once the decision was made, my path became clearer.  The school hallways became lighter and my classmates opened up and started to offer help and advice.  All of a sudden the resources that I needed to succeed appeared in front of me.  It took a moment of doubt for me confirm my place here in Switzerland.  Once I made up my own mind that I was here to succeed, the path to success opened before me.

My identity crisis did not stop at student.  It carried on to the identity of "American abroad".  This means accepting all of the negative identities projected on Americans and rejecting them as being my own.  Americans have a lot of work to do in establishing better foreign relations and those of us who venture out into foreign lands stumble into the brunt of this job.  Most Americans are safe at home surrounded by other Americans enjoying not facing the reality of what our country has become.  We are not liked!!!  I respect and encourage any American who is actively participating in the world around them and reestablishing real connections with foreigners.  It is not an easy job.  Everyday, I hear things like; we are the most violent nation, we value capitalism, we are the biggest consumers, we are wasteful, we use force and violence to steal the resources we need, and the list goes on for miles.  The worst part of it all, is that it's true.  Despite the fact that many of us surround ourselves with individuals who are trying to change these generalizations and live differently, we are still part of a country that, as a whole, carries this negative identity.  We as a nation have a huge job of re-identification to do.  Most Europeans feel that if there is another world war nobody would come to the aid of the U.S.  Part of me says, I don't blame them. 

I thought that staying in my little town and changing the way I lived would be enough to make a difference in altering the "American way."  It's not.  We need to change how we act at home and abroad.  We need to carry our positive energy outwards and re-establish relations with our neighbors.  We need to apply the same strategy that I applied for determining that I was going to stay here to how America is going to determine its new role in the world.  We all need to tune out what everyone has been telling us about who we are, reflect on what we want to become, identify with it, and carry it out into the world around us.  We need to transform what the word "American" means.

finding your happy place

Finding happiness is about listening to yourself long enough to understand what it is you need.  No one can tell you how to be happy because happiness looks different for everyone.  A yogi once told me that the more you allow society to tell you what is important, the less you will know what is actually important to you.  The same applies for happiness.  We are constantly filled with images of what is making other people happy; advertisements, movies, facebook, pintrest.  They all tell us what we need to do to be happy just like the other people we see.  We begin to think "if only I had that, looked like that, or lived like that, I would be happy."  False.  What you need to do is turn off your cellphone, television, and laptop and turn inwards.  Listen to what your spirit is telling you.  Where is it most at peace?  Where are you calmest?  What are you doing when you can literally feel your heart smiling?  When you can answer these questions for yourself, you will find your happiness.

I moved to an apartment yesterday.  It is right down town Geneva one block from the lake and two blocks from the red light district.  After arguing with the taxi driver for charging me 46CHF to drive me 2 miles, he crammed 10 of them back into my hand and left me on the corner with three suitcases, three giant bags of groceries, and a yoga mat.  This posed as a huge dilemma as I am not in the best area of town and there was no way I was going to carry all of this in one trip.  I loaded myself up with as much as I could possibly carry and scurried to the front door searching for the crumpled piece of paper with the entry code.  As soon as the door clicked open, I threw everything inside and rushed back to my pile of belongings blocking the sidewalk and repeated the process.  I then had to fit all of this into a 3ft by 3ft elevator to get up to the 5th floor.  I closed the metal gate behind me with an inch of spare room between me and the heaping pile of my junk three suitcases high threatening to bury me alive with one false move.  As soon as I opened the elevator door, I came tumbling out followed by my life's belongings.  I was home.

Silvia took my 2,100CHF, handed me the keys to my new apartment, and left me to slowly unpack my life.  It doesn't take long to move when your worldly possessions consist of what you can bring on an airplane without being charged extra i.e. two suitcases of 50lbs and one way over-packed carry-on.  Once everything was where it belonged, I sunk into a warm bath and stayed there for over an hour reveling in the fact that I was alone.  The residence had sucked more life out of me than I had recognized.  There was never a peaceful moment with the slamming of doors, chit chatting, and nuns making announcements on the loud speaker.  The next morning I made pancakes and drank my coffee looking out the window at all of the people walking to all of the mysterious places they had to be on Saturday morning.  As I washed the dishes, tears of relief and joy streamed down my face.  I had found my happy place.

There are a few things that I could never put a price tag on; silent moments in the mountains, a kitchen where I can spend entire days creating delicious food, and access to cultural experiences.  I now have all three here in Geneva.  I would pay 1,000 francs a month just to have a kitchen to myself.  The smell of banana bread is filling my new apartment and I am contemplating what I will make for dinner with the wide assortment of ingredients that now fill my refrigerator and cupboards.  When I am in the kitchen, singing along to my favorite songs, and creating a tasty treat, I am in my happy place.  This is thanks to my beautiful mother who also finds peace while baking.  Some of my favorite childhood memories are centered in our kitchen as she showed me exactly what consistency the cookie batter should be and how to thicken a gravy that was too runny.  Thanks mom!!

I have listened to my soul and it has told me how to be happy.

surrendering to love

"Healing is surrendering to love."  

This is a quote that I heard at a meditation clinic here in Geneva.  We can all be so guarded concealing worry and doubt from others carrying our pain alone.  We do this in fear of letting the wrong person in and ending up broken hearted.  What we forget is that by closing off, we are standing stagnant in our own mistrust and past wounds.  The only way to heal is to take a deep breath, exhale all of the fear, and surrender to the love that's all around.

Stepping out of Buena Vista Colorado and into Switzerland is like dancing in a cleansing rain.  I can feel all of the pain that I was hiding from slowly drip away as I open to the beautiful world around me. I am coming out of a four year trance during which fear and memory of pain controlled my decisions and relationships.  Here, there is no evidence of the past only hope for the future.  I have spent enough time dwelling on what went wrong in my life and learning from it, now it is time to rinse it all away and start anew.

In Geneva, I am surrounded by highly motivated individuals with a wide array of incredible stories about how they ended up here.  There are people from every corner of the world studying or working with the goal of self discovery and world betterment.  My skin tingles as I realize how much good is circling all around me.  I am so grateful for all of the friends that I am meeting here and the little pieces of knowledge and care they share with me.  There is nothing better than exchanging ideas and feelings with others.  Each idea shared spurs the creation of ten more.



    

The realization of dreams

 Returning to school after joining the working world 6 years ago is not a cake walk.  I am not the oldest student in the class but the majority of the students around me are about 6 years my junior.  This poses a number of problems when trying to relate to my classmates.  The most obvious difference is their perspective of the world and the role they will play in it.  Let me explain with an example.  Last week I left class and had some time to kill so I approached a group of my classmates sitting in the grass.  Not long after our introductions they began to role a joint (we were sitting 100 yards from the university entrance.)  I immediately put a wall up between me and them when I explained that I used to smoke a lot when I was in college, but had given it up a year ago.  "hmm you're in college now dummy."  Is probably what they were thinking.

As the marijuana took hold of their malleable minds, they began to share their dreams and aspirations in relation to what they were studying.  One kid wanted to become a lawyer and change the world by fighting for things like justice for Tibet, another kid wanted to study medicine so that he could discover a cure for currently incurable diseases, and the last wanted to study language so that he could travel the world living the dream of a wanderer.  This brought back memories of my own aspirations when I was an undergrad student.  First, I wanted to be a doctor so that I could join doctor's without boarders and save the world, then I wanted to teach languages and travel the world.  The first aspiration died when I passed out watching a rabbit get neutered and the second slowly became less of a whimsical dream and more of a hard reality when I realized it was not easy to find work abroad and programs that offered help were a rouse that drew a picture of you living and working comfortably in a foreign country when really they didn't pay you enough to live in more than a cardboard box and put you in charge of a classroom of 16 year old hooligans who had no interest in learning what you were trying to teach.  I then thought about how the last six years of my life had helped to sculpt my perspective of reality today.  It is not that these years killed my every hope and dream it is just that they dragged my feet back to the ground and reminded me that life is not always a flawless realization of your every dream.  I began to transform my hopes into tangible goals and learned that these goals were in fact the realization of my dreams.  I chose these two paintings as examples of dreams that come true but in a slightly different version than what we imagined as kids.  Both are images of when I went to visit my friend Gael in Thonon France.  The first is of a para-glider taking off from a mountain.  How many children say that one day they want to be able to fly?  Well this may not be flying but it is a way that an adult has adapted the dream of flight into a tangible reality.  The second is of a view from Gael's patio.  How many children say that they want to live in a castle by the sea?  Well his apartment may not have been a castle or even on the ocean, but it was an adorable flat in a historic fishing village right on lake Geneva with an incredible patio overlooking the lake.  All dreams do come true, just not exactly as we had imagined.

Difference

 Difference is something that we encounter everyday. We find ourselves next to people with different hygiene standards, different interests, different educational backgrounds, different jobs, different social statuses, and many more differences that make us all unique individuals.  Traveling abroad heightens one's sense of difference.  Possibly because we are looking for it and possibly because there is more of it to be found.  I chose these two paintings for this post because they represent one of the most fundamental differences between populations, religion.  For some reason, religion has been a difference that many societies have not been able to reconcile.  Someone is right and someone is wrong, but who?  

I refuse to choose one religion because I am incapable of deciding which one is correct.  This is the same sentiment that I feel towards cultures.  Every culture that I experience has something amazing to contribute to the world and also something that they could do better.  There is not one culture or religion that is "right."  What I find most unappealing about religion, is the mindset that it holds the only truth.  Many cultures have this same mindset.  Switzerland likes to think that they have all the answers and that they have done it "right."  In the meantime, they don't have many nice things to say about other countries in Europe or outside of it.  It is still surprising to me how unpopular America is.  There is nothing like an attack on your country to make you want to defend it.  When talking to Swiss people about America I hear things like, "you are all fat, none of you home cook your meals, all of your products come from large corporations, your judicial system is unfair, you created unhealthy food and made the world fat."  Some of these accusations are partially accurate, but none of them are the whole truth about America.  I had an argument with a boy the other day about how it is America's fault that Swiss people are becoming obese eating McDonald's, Burger King, and Starbucks.  I had to laugh a little at his desire to blame anything negative about Switzerland on the U.S. and then pointed out that we were not holding them at gun point forcing them to eat.
There is strength in patriotism and religion.  They are forces that unite people under a common cause, but these forces can also divide.  If these forces are being used to separate people of difference, then they are no longer being used for their original purpose and become tainted.  Cultures and religions are most beautiful when they are being shared providing an opportunity to learn and grow.  The greatest injustice that one does to a culture or religion is to have one encounter with it and label it.  There is more than one type of American just as there is more than one type of Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist.    

Why do I love Europe?

After a few weeks of feeling a bit overwhelmed and lost in a world of unfamiliar, I began to settle in and appreciate what is around me.  A weekend trip to Annecy awoke the dormant passion that I have for France. We wove through a sea of people buying their weekly cheese and sausage at the market, savored a picnic in the grass over looking the lake which is nestled among mountains, and leisurely paddled around the lake on paddle boards finishing the day with two exquisite scoops of hand made gelato.  Nothing could have made this day better except the realization that this is now my life.

The feeling of comfort is beginning to settle in as I locate all of the basic necessities around me.  I now know which markets have the best fruits and veggies, which grocery stores have the cheapest dry goods, which bakery has the best croissants, and which fromagerie has the biggest selection of cheese.  All of the essentials are now in place.  I also know how to pay my tuition fees (which happens at the post office), buy more minutes for my phone (which happens at the grocery store), and buy a bike (which happens in the basement of a high-school.)

The other great thing about beginning to belong is meeting friends.  Most of my friends here are not Swiss.  This was not by choice but by matter of convenience.  I am not partial to where my friends are from as long as they walk a similar path of life.  All of the people who have been open to exploring and making new friends have been other foreigners in the same situation as me.  Last night I found myself at a free salsa class surrounded by a group of people from the Czech Republic, Spain, Belgium, Finland, and India.  All of them were here in Switzerland either studying or interning in an incredibly inspiring field.  I used to think that I was pretty worldly and cool and now I just feel like one more person following her dreams and aspirations to different corners of the world.

Geneva is not Switzerland.  Although it may appear to be in Switzerland on a map, do not be deceived . It is a country all of its own.  It is one of the most international cities in the world, and because of this, it has lost a bit of its Swiss charm.  It lacks the adorable shuttered buildings with flower baskets hanging out the windows.  It lacks the markets that fill entire blocks of cobble stoned streets.  It lacks the culture of stopping at five different specialty shops to get your groceries.  And most of all, it lacks the incredible bakeries that both Switzerland and France are known for.  Despite all of these disappointments, it does provide a dynamic cultural experience in which you can be a part of thousands of different cultures in the same city.

Luckily, France is nearby to offer mouth watering pastries, cheese, sausage, coffee, and gelato in artisan shops that are scattered along cobbled streets that every so often cross over meandering canals. I imagine that I will be spending a lot of time in France.

My Dream

As the plane lands in my new home, my stomach flutters with nerves and excitement.  Moving to a foreign country provides a unique sort of high that you cannot get any other way.  This high is started by fear; the fear of the unknown, of losing your way, of being alone, and of starting over.  You begin to experience the high as you begin to realize that you are overcoming all of these fears one step at a time.

Geneva is a relatively small city making it very possible for a country bumpkin as myself to navigate it. Of course I can still be seen walking down the street with my nose in a map and a bewildered look on my face. In the first month of life abroad every outing is like an orienteering race.  I like to prepare for my outings tracking my route on my map before leaving the residence and having a solid plan of action on how to get to my destination. However, when I step out the front door, the real world looks nothing like the world on my map.  Then I spend my time walking thinking things like "was it left out of the building or right?"  "I have no idea which way North is."  "Nothing looks familiar." "Wow, I'm way off track." It is also very difficult to know who to ask for directions in Geneva, as half the population is probably another foreigner just as lost as you.  Needless to say, I usually walk an extra mile before arriving at my destination.

Once I arrive at my destination, I generally have another grand adventure trying to accomplish what it was I went there to do.  Even my fluent French does not hide the fact that I am as out of place as a mountain goat on a beach.  How would any american know that the post office is not only for sending and receiving mail, but also buying a telephone and opening a bank account?  or that there are three different ways to put a credit card into a credit card machine depending on what kind of card it is?  or that the only place to buy anything on a Sunday is at the train station, because literally everything else in the city is closed?  Every little chore that took me 10 minutes in the U.S. generally takes me about 3 hours here.

Then the realization hits that my standard of living has now been sliced into a fourth of what it had been.  My room is smaller than my dorm room in college.  I have a communal bathroom, shower, and kitchen.  I have a key to open a little cubby hole within a group refrigerator and another key that looks like the key from the secret garden to open my cupboard space which is in a separate room from the kitchen forcing me to carry a pile of dishes and spices across the residence every time I want to cook.  I then cut my vegetables with a knife that does a better job at mashing things than cutting them and cook on an electric stove from the 60's that takes an hour to heat up and then burns everything.

As all of these realizations soak in and occasionally leave me feeling bogged down, I take a little journey down to the lake.  I find a quiet rock off a pier with a view of the Jet d'eau and I begin to paint this incredible city that is now my home.  As I paint each stroke, I think about everything I learned in the last few days, all of the incredible people I have met pursuing their dreams, all of the delicious pastries I have been eating, and every historic building that I have walked by.  The challenges that make travel difficult are also the experiences that make it worth the effort.  I went to the opening meeting for the humanities department today at a school that was founded in 1559 in a building that was built in 1868.  As I sat there listening to the director speak about the importance of the humanities in French a chill ran down my spine.  I am living my dream.

New Beginnings

New Beginnings always start with a goodbye.  A goodbye to the life you had before embarking on your newest adventure.  Goodbye to the community that you belonged to.  Goodbye to the routine that you had become accustomed to.  And, most importantly, goodbye to the ones you cared about.  Jack represents so much more than a single goodbye.  He represents my goodbye not only to my best friend, but also to the lifestyle that I was trying to create.

When I picked Jack out at the pound, he was a symbol of my commitment.  He was going to be the anchor that held me sturdy.  He was going to provide stability and routine.  Choosing to adopt him was my way of saying, "I'm here for the long run."  He ate my $150 sunglasses and picked fights with other dogs.  I left him inside too long and accidentally sliced his paw open with my skis.  We both gave and took and slowly learned to love each other.  It was through Jack that I learned that unconditional love really is possible.

It is hard to imagine someone loving you no matter what you do.  Growing up, I lived in fear of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing and potentially becoming unlovable.  I had no concept of unconditional. Leave it to a dog to teach you that even when you are so angry you could squeeze their eyeballs out, you still love them with your whole heart.  It took Jack a long time to settle in with me.  He had been adopted out two times before and was returned because of his "flaws."  After about a year, he finally began to relax and trust that at last a human loved him for who he was and would be there for him forever.  Or so he thought.

As the car drove away from Jack, I felt my heart cave in upon itself.  I choked on my own sobs and lost sight of reality swamped in by tears.  I was not only failing Jack but myself.  The one thing that I needed to feel in my own life is what I was taking away from him, my unconditional love and presence.  I had failed at giving the one thing that I needed most.  How can you ask to receive what you are unable to give?  My wanderlust had once again dug its claws into my heart and torn me away from the home that I had created.  It is both my inspiration and my handicap.  Without it my fire dies and with it my heart constantly breaks.

Being back in Europe has awakened my spirit and filled me with joy, but it is not without consequences.  It is in reflecting on what is left behind that I doubt my spirit's ability to guide me to love.  Is this lifestyle able to harbor relationships or will it continue to break them on its uneasy shores?