I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to put down roots. For someone who dislikes change as much as I do, I think it strange I should have such a gypsy heart. I wonder if I'll ever be satisfied with settling down, planting my feet in the dirt, and growing deep into the soil of a place. I have fantasies that one day we will settle in a small New England town where we will call the postman Junior, I will own an inn and frequent the town diner, and everyone will know our names and our favorite flavor of ice cream. And then I realize I'm dreaming of a Gilmore Girls episode, and I'll never own an inn or be witty in real life.

I also fantasize about moving to London again and living the big city life, where we are surrounded by interesting people who do big city things. There, I will follow in the footsteps of my literary heroes, and we will live near the river and drink copious amounts of tea from a place called Orange Pekoe. And then I realize I'm dreaming of the life I used to live, before my husband developed an aversion to rainy weather and I birthed three kids. Still, I feel the soil of the city clinging to my feet.

We have one year left before we have to pull up the tender roots growing down around Switzerland. They'll never grow deep here, and I hold the loveliness of this place lightly in my hands. But, I wonder about the future and, truth be told, I worry.We are told we can always go home again, but when we do, we realize we are not the same. Each street and town and country leaves a mark on our DNA. We change, we grow different, molded into a new shape influenced by the people and places we discover. We find the things which delight us in one place, may not delight us in another. The land that inspires and feeds a dream in the early years, may not nourish us in the years to come. And some places don't nourish us at all.

I don't know where we will be in a year. I don't know if we'll have to bend ourselves into the shape of a place, or if the place will shape itself around us. But I do know it will always leave it's mark.

Tell me where your putting down roots. How is it changing you?

The ache of spring fever is slowly creeping in. I feel it working its way up through my toes and I think about putting on the running shoes, but I grab the camera instead and decide to take it slow. I walk, long enough for the sun to warm my face, long enough to ease the ache, long enough to wander through woods to water and paths of golden grass.

I smile when I see a sign posted lane, and I wonder what hi-jinks occur between the hours of 6pm and 6am amongst the Amphibian crowd.

I pass dogs and horses and aging lovers. The light on the forest floor shifts between branches and I focus and frame the view in front and to the side of me. Then I remember to turn and take one long look at the path behind, and I realize it is just as beautiful as the one that lies ahead. I try to remember that and I think if only I had a pencil I'd write that down.

And then I smile at myself because, really, my thoughts are not profound enough to require a pencil to commit them to memory.

I drink my fill of shadows and light and sloping hills. I swallow cool air and bird song and feel them strum beneath my chest. I look back and I look forward and I think about how lovely it all is when you're looking through the right lens.

This weekend I celebrated my thirty-seventh birthday. Birthdays that fall on the weekend are the best kind of wonderful. Children make homemade gifts and do their best to behave, and husbands clean kitchens and bake knock-off Starbucks peppermint brownies. It so beats having a birthday on a Tuesday.

We crammed heaps of my favorite things into three days, one of which was a hike in the nearby forest. We started out under a cotton ball sky and walked down to a creek bed filled with ice and moss draped stones.

Well, no one is going to be giving me a Mother of the Year award. I sent all three of my kids to school today. Jet-lagged. A little bit sad. In the bitter cold. The littlest and I had a date with a box of Pop Tarts at one in the morning. That and a little dose of Benadryl. Sue me. I need my sleep as I am having a busy day sorting through laundry, making lists, staring into space and contemplating the formation of toast sweat on my white china.

I have been sitting in front of the laptop for a while now, willing the words to come. They're not really. I tried this same tactic with the treadmill and the silence was deafening. I haven't run in a week. I am woefully behind and I don't think I have the heart to keep up a training schedule. I'd rather eat chocolate. For some reason, this doesn't seem to present the same challenge that writing and running do. It's Dove chocolate. It's not even Swiss for crying out loud.

Today, life feels a bit like a fractured fairy tale. We are here and our family is there, and our sadness spans the ocean and endless sky. Those skies won't be carrying us home for good anytime soon. When you agree to life abroad, no one prepares you for the worst. And let me tell you, this is the worst. These fractures take faith. I know they will heal, and the moments will again have meaning, but for now I want to eat chocolate, contemplate toast sweat, and wonder if my kids will ever forgive me.

I'll give them time. And maybe a little chocolate.

I was on my way to pick my kids up from school, and I stopped to take this photograph in spite of being rather late. I can't help myself. I can't take a drive on a clear day without stopping somewhere along the road to take a photo of the mountains. One would think after nearly two years of the same view, I would learn to stop living like a tourist.  My husband told a friend that living here, looking on the beauty of the Alps is a spiritual experience. That might sound dramatic and all existential-y, but it is true. Our friend knew just what he meant, responding by calling it a 'thin place'.

Thin places are the ones where the line between the world we know and the one we don't begins to blur. It is where we catch a glimpse of God's Kingdom within the boundaries of our own. I think we can experience them in all manner of ways, they aren't just mountain top experiences. Thin places may show up in the birth of a child, in the way you love and are loved, in your work, in the change of the seasons, in the miraculous and in the messy. The thin places are there.

I've been thinking about these places as I think about art. For me, good art is that which expresses a thin place. I think that is part of the role of the artist. To find the thin places. To capture them in words or music or color, to trap them behind a lens or mold them in clay. An artist sees beyond what this world is to what it should be, they see the hard and know that somewhere in that, there might be Holy too.

Yesterday I put on my Hot Chilly's, packed the car with three snowboards, one pair of skis, and three reluctant passengers, and drove up a mountain. It was snowing, and the police were pulling some cars over half-way up the mountain and forcing them to park. To say that I was concerned when they allowed me to pass and continue the drive up is an understatement. However, we arrived at the top safely with a few of my nerves still intact. The snow and wind picked up as the four of us fought to get into our gear and to the slopes for our lessons. If you've ever tried to put ski boots on a fussy six year old in a tempest, then perhaps you can understand how close to the edge of sanity I was inching.

A long story short:

Gear on. Instructors located. Brave face, the kids are watching.

Blizzard. Ski lift. Big mountain. A fear of falling.

Falling now. Repeatedly. Instructors laugh.

Oops. Wrong turn. Instructors stop laughing. A walk back up.

Feels familiar.

White out. Can't see. Worried. Kids continue. Mama doesn't.

Day over. Snow swirling. Slippery, slow drive down.

Brave face, the kids are watching.

The moral of this short story? Fear it. Face it. Know when to order a hot chocolate and call it a day.

Even if the kids are watching.

I'm so excited that Emily has extended the invitation to unwrap more gifts on a Tuesday. I don't know about you, but I need to be more purposeful in my thanks giving, and Tuesdays Unwrapped is the perfect opportunity to do that. Join us?

PS If you are new here, the following post makes more sense if you know that I am an American expat living in Europe. Otherwise, I sound like a crazy person. Because only crazy people take German lessons and get a turkey from a butcher unless, of course, they live in Switzerland.


I managed to procure the turkey. I am happy to report that at no time did I imitate a turkey by gobbling or resort to hand drawn bird cartoons during my two visits to the butcher. It wasn't without a little drama and some embarrassment on my part, but the bird was purchased, cooked, and eaten with delight.

Around the holidays, we try to make the experience feel as authentic as possible, but it's never quite the same. For one, there is no indulging the tryptophanic stupor when Thanksgiving falls on a regular school day. There isn't Mom's Cornbread Dressing or Aunt Carol's Apple Pie to run off the next morning. And there are no familiar hugs and how are you's. There is thanksgiving sandwiched between everyday and life.

On Friday, my German tutor asked me about it. She wondered how we fit the bird in our (not much bigger than an easy bake) oven, and if I could find all the fixings at the supermarket. Then she told me about a few of her family Christmas traditions; the advent wreath, the Christmas goose, and Grandfather trimming the tree on Christmas eve while the children wait expectantly in the next room. She showed me a photograph of her mother's dog called Lia, and one of her nephew who is two and best babysat during nap time.

My eyes watered a little, and the photos blurred.

As we talked, I realized that the consistent feeling of being on the outside looking in, was starting to shift. As if the front door had been opened without my having to knock, and someone had called my name to invite me in. I felt like I'd been given a gift, an invitation to know and be known by another. And if all I can do is say 'Hello, my name is Frau Coyle' after four hours of lessons, then I'm still coming away having learned far more than how to make an introduction.

I'm not sure if she realized the difference she'd made, but that night I gave thanks for the gift, for the open door, the invitation and the chance to find something lovely sandwiched between everyday and life.

We recently spent a weekend in the mountains, Interlaken to be exact, and I kind of, a little bit, lost my mind and allowed my husband to convince me to go paragliding. I have a confirmed, long standing fear of heights, as well as an aversion to anything that might make me vomit. You can see how this was a difficult decision for me. However, upon learning that my nine and eleven year old children were fearless enough to do it, I signed up. There was no way I was going to let a kid who still likes being tucked in at night out-brave me.



It was glorious, just a wee bit scary, and definitely nausea inducing, but worth every moment. I nearly cried on the way up the mountain when the pilot informed me he had only been flying since May. E turned to me with wild eyes, as I silently devised a way to fling us from the vehicle while not falling off the cliff. After a very awkward pause, he said 'May of 1996'.

Never let it be said the Swiss don't have a sense of humor.



We reached the launch site, and after a running start down the mountain, the wind lifted us above Interlaken for breathtaking views. The currents blew us above alpine forests, lakes and the town below. Just above us, two eagles circled and we followed the pattern of their flight for a true bird's eye view.


I don't know that I would do it again, as it took me about 45 minutes on land to gain a sense of equilibrium back. But to drift to the current of the wind beneath eagles wings was the chance of a lifetime. I'm glad I took it.

Kimberly

PS Photos from the air were taken by husband. I would not have had the presence of mind to do so, nor was I about to release my death grip on the safety handles.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Get a little crazy with encouragement for the five minuter who linked up before you.

Prompt: Beauty (or How to Love the Unlovely)



I can talk about beauty. I wake up to it every day, to emerald waters against snow capped mountain, to rolling green hills and alpine forest. I live in a place that can only be described as God breathed. No man could create such a thing.



But, as life is temporary, so is my situation. It's likely that we'll be leaving Switzerland to move back to our adopted home state of NJ next year. Cue the weeping and gnashing of teeth. I don't find much beauty in a place populated by strip malls and highways. My husband says we need to bloom where we are planted, and after I resist the urge to poke him in the eyeball with a fork, because obviously he is blind anyway, I try to see what beauty can be found there.

I try to look past the never ending skyline of suburbia and see to the heart of my home. I see beauty in the well worn path to the home of a dear friend, beauty in my place of worship and in freedom, and beauty in knowing that familiarity does not actually breed contempt, it breeds a sense of belonging.

STOP.

Head on over to Lisa-Jo's and read more about beauty. The real kind.

Kimberly

The return to Zurich is weighing heavy on my mind. It will involve three little people, five suitcases, some carry-ons, and only one responsible adult who does not bear up well under pressure or a lack of sleep. Our last trip ended with my son's (possibly accurate) observation that I wasn't 'setting a very good example'. You might agree if you believe yelling at one's kids and generally acting like a crazy person is considered a bad example.



Our time here in the US has been all kinds of wonderful. Being with friends and family who know my true self, and still like me in spite of it, fills up the fissures and cracks that have appeared over the last year of living away. Having said that, I am excited about this next year in Switzerland. It is likely that we will return to the US next summer, so there is a lifetime of travel to be squeezed into a very short twelve months. There are new friends to make and expat friends to keep. Mountain views to be enjoyed and forest paths to run. Kids to raise and laundry to complain about.



It's going to be a good year. A very good year.



Do you have big plans for this next school year? And by big, I mean anything from the care and keeping of your family to trying a new hair color.

Kimberly

It's been exactly one year since we joined the expat ranks in Zurich. The longing for home hasn't decreased with time, but learning to call another place home has become easier. And let's be honest, it's not like I'm living on the plains of Africa. I think I might give myself a little too much credit for making such an "easy" transition. It's hardly difficult to enjoy living in a place that is safe, clean, and populated by multi-lingual people who enjoy eating large quantities of cheese and chocolate. 

for some photographs. I have been terribly remiss in keeping up with things here. It can be difficult to come up with new ways of saying 'Today I bagged two lunches, ran three loads of laundry, pondered a new way to make chicken appear appetizing, and spent two hours shuttling my kids back and forth'. Rinse and repeat, every dang week. That sounds ungrateful, which it isn't. Just real. I know you understand.

So let's add a little beauty to an otherwise ordinary day shall we? A few weeks ago we took a cogwheel train up to the very top of Mt Rigi, also known as the 'Queen of the Mountains'.



Rigi Kulm is the point from which all of the other mountains in Switzerland are measured. From below the mountain everything was obscured by gray cloud cover, but the beautiful thing about Switzerland is that the sun is always shining further up.

Half term break is nearly over, and I am happy to report that it has been equal parts fun and lazing about.  There was a day trip to Mt. Rigi where we (and by 'we' I mean my mister) had hoped we could attempt death defying acts of snow sporting also known as sledging, which was unfortunately (and by 'unfortunately', I mean quite fortunately) deemed impossible due to a lack of snow.

I'm so happy to be back in Zurich, in my little grey house with a view.  We arrived on Thursday after a flight that began with one child spilling an entire cup of juice on a sibling's seat and another child spiking a fever.  Note to self: do not travel without children's tylenol or another level headed adult.  The trip ended with one of our six suitcases losing a wheel and my son stating in a very calm voice usually reserved for wild animals and small children "Mom, I do not think you are setting a very good example for us."  Need I say more?

A few weeks ago, when trees still held their leaves and skies did not threaten snow, we spent an afternoon in Zurich.  We were, as always, too loud and too American.  Zurich was, as always, neat and tidy and quiet.