bridges

Confession: even though we've owned a camper van for years now, we've never driven it south of the border, partly because in my head Italy is a country of narrow, potholed streets, reckless drivers, and dingy-to-nonexistent rest stops. I have on some level been afraid that if we drove down there the van wouldn't make it back. And...while *maybe* this is actually true somewhere (the streets of Naples??) it certainly isn't the case in Emilia Romagna, which features broad freeways and these stunning (!!) Calatrava bridges that delighted me every time I spotted them on our way to and from the hotel in Correggio. See also: this awesome train station.

So thank you, travel, for your stereotype-busting power; and apologies, Italy, I stand corrected. As if to drive my error home, just after we crossed the border back into Switzerland, traffic came to a standstill. I was tired - sleepy-tired, tired of being away from the kids, tired of walking at old-person speed, tired of Swiss German, tired of casual racism, tired of being embarrassed by my social skills - so I gave up and dug out my headphones and listened to the compline service I'd missed on Monday and the On Being conversation between Amichai Lau-Lavie and Krista Tippet (unedited version). Both of which, in their own ways, offer God-optional religion - an idea that religious insiders and I suspect most of my bus companions would disdain as "spirituality lite" at best and heresy at worst, but to me feels like a breath of fresh air. It was like Radio Free Susannah from Lugano to Lucerne.

There's something about bridges here - between dying churches and living spiritual practices, between being home and being away, between where I am and where I imagine I'd like to be. I indulged my On Being habit again today with the Jonathan Rowson conversation about the intersection of humanity, spirituality, society, and environment.

"People are experiencing a kind of waking up, and it’s quite diffuse; it’s often quite subtle; you can’t be sure if you’re kidding yourself, if it’s happening. But there’s a feeling of a sort of planetary immune response emerging, and levels of awareness and attention that may give rise to some new way of seeing the world and seeing each other."  

I am hereby adding "You can't be sure if you're kidding yourself" to my list of life mottos.