April Weather

Springtime by Kameolynn at Deviantart.com

Reflections of gold
in the vivid blue
there’s only just me now,
no more you.

Freshly sprung shoots
of fragile green,
I no longer see you,
you can no more be seen.

The flickering red
of a fire that burns
and the breeze
of a white Northern wind.

Good bye winter’s baby,
good bye icy dreams!

April is never
quite what it seems.

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Eleven Years Ago On This Day

Photo: CC Champagne

When I say to some of my friends ‘did you know that today is exactly eleven years to the day since I left Switzerland?’ I know many of them would simply sigh and remind me how it’s no good burying yourself in the past. And I admit, I do have a tendency to do that, bury myself in the past, get stuck on minute details, get my knickers in a twist about things that others might not event notice, but this particular day, this event in my own past, is up there among the big ones for me. Big ones like birthdays, the day my grandmother passed away, my wedding day (even though I’ve been divorced for many years) and things like that. On this day eleven years ago I left Switzerland with tears running down my cheeks and an emptiness in my heart that might have diminished over the years, but that has never really gone away.

I reminded my mother this morning that it was eleven years ago. She knows, she was there with me on the day as she’d flown down a few days earlier to help me pack up. Not that I’ll ever know, but things could have been so very different if I hadn’t had to leave! No, really! They could have been! I had my first mental collapse little over a year after I had to leave, my first of many longer depressive bouts. And that has changed my life, maybe even more than having to move home again did.

Photo: Private

We slept the last night in a hotel down by Landesgemeinplatz, my mum and me, since my furniture had already been picked up and I had handed the keys to my apartment over to a friend who would oversee the cleaning and the handover to the landlord. My wonderful flat with a balcony that easily fit fifteen people and had a (slightly obscured but still) view of the Zugersee and the Alps, but most of all Rigi, the Queen of Mountains. All the days and nights that had been spent on that balcony… *sigh* It was a miracle that I had the flat at all, but when I got it I saw it as nothing less than a sign from whatever Gods rule the worlds that I was supposed to stay. That Switzerland really was my home.

I have said it before and I’ll say it again, I found myself in Switzerland. I found a me that I kind of liked, a me that was independent and strong, a me that was fun and actually even rather cute… It took a while, at first I didn’t want to move to Switzerland, the language was scary and incomprehensible and I was supposed to be a luxury wife while the husband (now ex-husband) worked. But all that changed when I arrived, and even more when I started working and finding my own space. When I allowed the Alps to work their magic on me, to hypnotize me. And they did. The language also got easier with time, and once I started to get to know some people I suddenly realised that I had found my home.

The separation from the ex-husband was almost a natural step after that, though I won’t claim it was easy. I just realised that I loved myself far too much to live the way being with him required. And I set off on my own. The flat I got through a friend who turned out to own some apartment buildings (she was worried I might not want to live there since the previous inhabitant had killed herself) and it was just perfect for me! But little over a year later I was standing in line at Kloten Airport in Zürich, passport and deportation papers in hand on this day exactly eleven years ago.

I left behind an apartment I loved, a man I was hoping could become ‘the one’, friends who still make me cry when I think of how wonderful they are and a job I might not still have had, but that would absolutely have lead to interesting things. But most of all I left behind a country I loved and a me I had just begun to discover. Eleven years ago today… I died a little eleven years ago on this day and the memory of that day makes me die a little more every time I think of it.

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31 March: Did you know?

Did you know that on this day in 1492 Queen Isabella of Castille issues the Alhambra decree, ordering her 150,000 Jewish subjects to convert to Christianity or face expulsion? Or that it was on this day in 1889 the Eiffel Tower is officially opened?

And on this day in 1909 construction of the ill fated RMS Titanic begins, in 1917 the United States takes possession of the Danish West Indies after paying $25 million to Denmark, and renames the territory the United States Virgin Islands, in 1918 Massacre of ethnic Azerbaijanis is committed by allied armed groups of Armenian Revolutionary Federation and Bolsheviks. Nearly 12,000 Azerbaijani Muslims are killed, in 1959 the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, crosses the border into India and is granted political asylum, in 1990 200,000 protestors take to the streets of London to protest against the newly introduced Poll Tax and in 1994, as another piece of the Human evolution puzzle, The journal Nature reports the finding in Ethiopia of the first complete Australopithecus afarensis skull.

Some birthdays you may want to remember on this day are René Descartes, French philosopher, mathematician (1596-1650), Johann Sebastian Bach, German composer (1685-1750), Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer (1732-1809), Richard Chamberlain, American actor (1934), Christopher Walken, American actor (1943), Al Gore, American politician, 45th Vice President of the United States and Nobel laureate (1948) and Ewan McGregor, Scottish actor (1971).

Need a reason to raise a glass of bubbly on this day? Why not turn off the lights and help celebrate Earth Hour (20:30 local time in various areas, 2012), or if you would rather look into the celebration of Freedom Day (Malta) or César Chávez Day (United States of America)?

For more information about historic events on this day, please go here.

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Squirrels and Elephants

I like the thought of an elephant
on a trampoline, no less.
A happy, bouncy elephant,
relaxing, without stress.
I like the thought of an elephant
admit it, wouldn’t you?
If you could see that elephant
on his trampoline, too!

This is my entry to Thursday Poets Rally Week 65.

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30 March: Did you know?

Did you know that it was on this day in 1814 Joachim Murat issues the Rimini Declaration which would later inspire Italian Unification? Or that it was on this day in 1842 Ether anesthesia is used for the first time, in an operation by the American surgeon Dr. Crawford Long?

And on this day in 1867 Alaska is purchased from Russia for $7.2 million, about 2 cent/acre ($4.19/km²), by United States Secretary of State William H. Seward, in 1949 a riot breaks out in Austurvöllur square in Reykjavík, when Iceland joins NATO, in 1981 President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John Hinckley, Jr. and in 2006 The United Kingdom Terrorism Act 2006 becomes a law.

Some birthdays you may want to remember on this day are Francisco Goya, Spanish painter (1746-1828), Robert Bunsen, German chemist (1811-1899), Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter (1853-1890), Ingvar Kamprad, Swedish entrepreneur, founder of IKEA (1926), Tom Sharpe, English author (1928), Rolf Harris, Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, painter and television personality (1930), Warren Beatty, American actor and director (1937), Eric Clapton, British guitarist (The Yardbirds and Cream) (1945), MC Hammer, American rapper (1962), Tracy Chapman, American singer-songwriter (1964), Piers Morgan, British journalist and television personality (1965), Celine Dion, Canadian singer (1968) and Norah Jones, American singer-songwriter and actress (1979).

Need a reason to raise a glass of bubbly on this day? Why not look into the celebration of Land Day commemoration (Palestine / Israel) or Spiritual Baptist/Shouter Liberation Day (Trinidad and Tobago)?

For more information about historic events on this day, please go here.

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Retro life

Disassembled,
reassembled
and pawned off as new.
Can you see past the lie?
Can you see through
the sales-talk,
the phony smiles,
when laid on
so thick…?
You do know,
I hope,
that it is a trick?
All the sales talk,
the phony smile,
I hope
you see them through,
see past the lie,
all the way to
the disassembled,
the reassembled
that is pawned off as new!

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