Noise

The noise gets to me.
It is the one thing more than any other that makes me determined I will not retire here. I will not be 72 years old and hearing and feeling someone's car speakers shaking my house to pieces. I will not be 72 and be awakened at 7 a.m. by someone's barbecue music. I won't be 72 and listen to the drug buyer yell at the drug dealer at 3 a.m. at the top of his lungs and then top it off with the sound of squealing tires pulling away. I won't be 72 and living where polices chases, gun shots and police helicopters are a normal routine part of everyday life.
I am now a regular purchaser and user of ear plugs. It is the only way I get any sleep at all most of the time, and especially in the summer months. The warmer it gets, the hotter the streets, the louder the sounds.

The bad thing about going to Paris is that unless you are well off, or well connected enough to actually move there, eventually you have to come back home. And I'm pretty stinkin' sure that there is no "home" that is more difficult to return to than my community. When I board the return bound jet, I die a slow, agonizing 9 hour emotional death. I never feel more like my true self than when I am in Paris, but when that plane begins to descend, I feel myself drain rapidly away, like sand sifting through my fingers. Within a couple of days, nothing is left of that woman or the spirit that rang so true within me. And I struggle to believe my memories were even true. Did it really happen? Was it really that beautiful?

When I return, the sunlight I so joyfully celebrated takes on a cruel intensity. It highlights everything, the poverty, the dirt, and the utter not - ness of how this place is so unlike Paris. It makes me want to shrink away, pull the blinds, pull the blanket over my head and ultimately my mind. I hate it here, because it is not there.
I try, and barely contain my resentment of everyone around me. The only reason I am here speaking to you is because I am not there. And you are not my friends from Paris. You are not the ones I miss. You are not the ones I connect with on a level I never before felt possible.

I chide myself. I tell myself I an suffering from nothing that a big dose of maturity and adulthood would not cure. It does not work. I rack my brain trying to think of ways to make my dream a reality. I scour the web and read over and over how nearly impossible it is for an American to find work in Paris. But I don't need a lot of jobs, just the one.

Hi Blogspot. I think I miss you. I think we need to spend more time together. Wait here, I will be back soon.

Jack in the Pulpit

January 7, 2011

For much of my childhood, we lived on various farms. My most enjoyable memories involve solitude and nature. Hours were whiled away, wandering fields and woods, dabbling in springs, creeks and ponds, playing with animals, and soaking in the beauty around me. It was everywhere with a lushness I would not appreciate until city living made me aware of the acute absence of it. Nature and solitude. Except in my dreams, waking and sleeping, I see precious little of either in my present life.

I travel back there though in my imagination, and it is nearly as real to me as it was when I experienced it as a child. My feet travel swiftly across the hardened dirt paths trailing across the shaded yard, alongside the flower beds, and past the crab apple bush. Then along the tractor path back to the woods. Queen Anne’s Lace, moss, Jack in the pulpit, clover, trees, goldenrod, mustard, milkweed, cat tail, and tiger lilies, black walnut trees, black cherries, elderberries, mulberries, wild strawberries, everything around me was living, thriving, growing!

Now my world, more often than not, feels like a walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Children come and go to school not knowing which of their peers may not return the next day. Instead of gardens, there is the corner store. Make sure you check the sell by dates on your purchases. There are vacant lots, cracked sidewalks, potholes, boarded up stores and businesses with hand painted misspelled signs. There are drunks and gang bangers and the occasional lady of the night meandering down the street. And there is the harshness of a world that can’t hide the reality of its barrenness in the unforgiving daylight.

A news report, the death of another child to gun violence, the harshness with which people inevitably treat each other in such a social landscape, all set my heart longing for the reality of my youth. I close my eyes and there I am, watching Jack Frost work his mischief on my windows, rubbing my pony’s nose while watching his frosted breath hang suspended in mid air, laying on my back and watching the sunlight scatter through dancing leaves. It doesn’t last long. It is only a matter of time before my daydreams are banished by a siren, a gunshot, a police helicopter, squealing tires, loud music or loud voices.

A different life, a different calling.

Zurich + Paris II

After leaving Zurich on the train, we ventured to Paris. We booked with the same bed and breakfast I had booked with on my last trip, but this time our accommodation was a wonderful surprise, rather than a gloomy disappointment. We found ourselves staying is a gorgeous mansion just about 2 blocks from the Eiffel Tower. We could actually see people standing on the tower and the color of their shirts from out bedroom windows. Our rooms were decorated so beautifully they ended up being one of the highlights of the trip.
Having been in Paris before, I let Beverly tell me what she wanted to see. We managed to see quite a bit despite the few days we had. We went to Sacre Coeur, Montmartre, Galleries du Lafayette, Printemps, Barbes Rochechouart (my favorite), the Louvre, Champs Elysee, the Bastille, the Marais, Place des Vosges, and just about walked the length of Rue de Rivoli.
Beverly was really into souvenir shopping, so I went along with her without complaint and ended up having a lot of fun, except for spending over $10 for a coke in the heart of Montmartre. Oh well.

Zurich + Paris

I just returned from my fourth trip to Paris. the more often I go, the more I love it. This time I went with my friend from church, Beverly Morris. It turned out that we are very compatible travel companions. We Flew into Zurich and stayed there for about three full days and then took a train to Paris. That was nice, but I was disappointed because I had booked a window seat and still ended up next to a partition between windows. Zurich is a beautiful little city, very quaint. My main goal was to see the Chagall windows in the Fraumunster church. they were exquisite.


Our Hotel was small and wonderful. The Hotel du Theatre was located right at the beginning of Old Town and just a few blocks away from the main rail station and the beginning of the main shopping thoroughfare. The location could not have been better. We explored the Old Town the evening we arrived.

We found out as well as being near old town, we were also located conveniently next to the red light district of Zurich. I've seen several red light neighborhoods in Europe, and I have to say this was one of the tamer versions. On our second day in Zurich we explored the upscale shopping district on Bahnhofstrasse. It was as one would pretty much expect it to be. A beautiful street lined with beautiful shops. I will say this, the Swiss do indeed take their chocolate very seriously. After passing by countless gourmet chocolate shops, we stopped in a little artisan chocolate shop on the way to Fraumunster. It was there that I purchased chocolate for my sons and experienced chocolate laced with absinthe. It made my head feel like my brain was full of champagne bubbles. I could see the allure.


We bought scads of souvenirs. That was a new experience for me. I do bring back gifts from my trips, but usually it isn't something one would normally classify as a souvenir. But I enjoyed it and had a lot of fun looking at the magnets and snow globes, etc . . .

We had a nice boat ride on Lake Zurich. The houses are built on the side of the surrounding hills/mountains, so it seems like everyone has a view of the lake. The houses are very large and have beautiful gardens. We also managed to pass the Lindt Chocolate factory while on the boat ride.

On the third day we had to catch our train to Paris in the evening. Since the station was close by we went ahead and walked over to double check our arrangements. There was a beautiful little market set up in the train station. It was mainly marketing Swiss products - kind of like a farmer's market. We decided to go ahead and have lunch there. Beverly bought roast chicken and I had wanted to try Raclette , a Swiss specialty, before leaving the country. It is actually just melted cheese on bread with sides of different pickled vegetables. Simple, but good. We sat down at the tables with red and white checkered cloths, and a waitress came over and offered us something to drink. I had the best Bailey's Coffee I think that is served on the planet.

There was an old gentleman sitting across from me. he had long white hair past his shoulders and wore a baseball cap. He would lean over and begin talking to me during our meal. We kept telling him we did not understand - but on he rattled. Not having learned and Germanic language, I am really clueless and unable to decipher hardly anything. None the less, we still enjoyed our meal.