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Moments in Time: Worb, Switzerland
This week’s journey takes us to Worb, Switzerland….specifically to a particular bench that was one of my favorite places to sit and regain perspective. Worb is a small village southeast of the city of Bern. It was our home for 4 1/2 years while we lived in Switzerland. We loved it. We lived in a house that sat halfway up the “Worb Hill,” as we would often refer to it. Down the street sat the 13th century Worb Schloss, Worb Castle. We stayed in the converted stable of the NeuSchloss, or the New Castle of Worb. A quick side fun fact to the Neuschloss, the Von Grafienrieds family, has owned…
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Listening to Time
Tick. Tick. Tick. If we are just quiet enough, the constant tick of a second hand can penetrate the subconscious. Even seep into the depths of our souls. It is the sound of a deeper truth that we both yearn for and fear. I remember hearing a story in Switzerland, the land of “time”, about a young gentleman coming into a store to look for a watch. Upon inspecting a certain watch for about 5 minutes or so, he looked up at the owner and asked: “What can it do?” The store owner simply replied, “It tells the time”. “That’s it?” asked the young gentleman, and walked out. Time is…
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A Beautiful Closure
There was a moment. Dawn. The birth of a new day. It was the 8th day of our visit back to Switzerland and the first rays of sunlight illuminated the mountain peaks of Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau, or the “big three” as we like to call them. I arose early and walked outside at 6:15 AM to catch a glimpse of the sights and sounds that I missed both in my dreams and in my conscious thoughts since we moved back to the States. As I began to walk the narrow paths and streets of Mürren, Switzerland I rediscovered that deep sense of awe that had struck me so many…
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The Castle on the Hill
A few weeks ago the lyrics echoed through the household just as I heard them for the first time. That time years ago when driving my two sons down the narrow country road in Worb, Switzerland. “I’m on my way Driving at ninety down those country lanes Singing to “Tiny Dancer” And I miss the way you make me feel, and it’s real We watched the sunset over the castle on the hill” -Ed Sheeran “Castle on the Hill” Listening then, as we passed the 12th Century Worb Castle like we did every day, I couldn’t help but wonder what impact this song, this place, this castle would have on…
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Change
We can learn much from a tree. Colorful. Spectacular. Beautiful. Standing, being who they are meant to be. That said, in a few weeks they will experience loss. Bare. Exposed. Vulnerable. Enduring change after change after change. Nevertheless, there they remain. Bold. Present. Living. Standing, being who they are meant to be. “In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.” -St. John Henry Newman
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Yes, I Am In Your Business
Since moving back to the States, chances are that if I was in the next aisle from you in Target, I heard everything that you were saying to your friend on the phone. I heard what type of cheese you ordered standing in the deli line at the grocery store (and how many people were coming to your house for the dinner party). I heard every single conversation that 20 different parents were having at the bus stop, all at the same time! Even sitting now at a local café I am completely distracted by not only the conversation between the two workers behind the counter but also the conversation…
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“Uniquely Me”
It has been two months since moving back to the U.S.A. from Switzerland. Two months of raw emotions filled with both extreme highs and extreme lows. Two months of anxieties and clarity. Two months of a new kind of loneliness and reunions with friends and family. As the dust continues to settle, words are still hard to come by to explain exactly what is happening within my thoughts, my heart, and my soul. That said, every once in awhile there might be a song that comes on that can highlight a feeling. There is a T.V. show or movie that can give words to the unrest that lies beneath. The…
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Cold as Stone (3 Years Later)
Three years ago, our lives changed. We blindly boarded a plane with a few suitcases and a one-way ticket to live on the other side of the world. It’s hard to fathom that we have now called Switzerland our home for this long. There are days when it seems surreal, and there are days when it is very real. There are days when we feel grateful, and there are days when we feel the grind, and we complain (A lot). This past Sunday, the exact date we left 3 years prior, I sat and tried to come up with something to think about, write about, or at the very least…
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Turning the Big 4-0
They say that when you turn 40 you enter into a new stage of life where you begin to see things more completely, or maybe better put, you begin to see things as they really are rather than what you want them to be. Ideology and theory become less of a focus and the messiness of what is real life becomes more of a comfortable norm. Maybe it is about being content within the “grey” areas of our lives, a place where we seem to be better suited to hold two opposing things together without discounting either. This has certainly been the case for me as I reflect upon the…
