Hi there. It’s been a while. I wish I could say I haven’t written because I’ve been busy churning out papers for my classes or doing some other brilliant writing project. But I haven’t. It’s just been a slog-through-it kind of year so far. A lot of baseline COVID stress, not much leaving the house, few things that feel picture- or writing-worthy. I doubt I’m going to get back to writing regularly, yet, but this essay was born yesterday so I’m posting it and maybe it will inspire more, who knows?
Six years ago, my friend’s son George was stillborn. Since then, I’ve done two things: developed a keen eye for depictions of saints with dragons and discovered the children’s section of the cemetery. Swiss cemeteries are smaller and prettier than their US cousins – unless a family has the means to pay for a family grave, the dead only stay in the ground for 25 years, during which the family is responsible for maintaining (or paying someone to maintain) the grave site. Seasonal plantings are encouraged; vases of dead flowers a definite no-go. But there’s always one section where it seems the rules on aesthetics are relaxed a bit to compensate for the crushing grief it represents: rows of simple white crosses, many with only one year on them, littered with faded stuffed animals or wilted bouquets of roses. I always stop to remember George, to send some cosmic energy to all those whose grief is represented here, and to remind myself that life is a precious gift.
In August I’ll be finished with my theology classes. If I manage to write those papers, I’ll even have a certificate. It’s not looking good on that front…but in any case, after August there will be no more lectures to attend. What comes next? A real theology degree? A real job? How about…another part-time, nonaccredited program? Oh just writing this sounds silly. But there it is: I’m thinking about the One Spirit Interfaith Seminary, a two-year, one-weekend-a-month program about religious traditions and ritual. Intellectual stimulation for two more years of housewifery, then when Christopher goes to secondary school I’ll finally get serious about finding an appropriate job.
Is the idea. Which I myself do not seem to be sold on. I wrote the application essays, got accepted, and…have not signed on the dotted line yet. What if I hate the classes? What if I don’t fit in? Shouldn’t I be earning money instead of spending it? How will this prepare me to get back into the job market? Why does this objectively trivial decision feel like it’s weighing me down so much?
The kids have another two weeks of vacation coming up so yesterday I decided to take advantage of what could be my last block of alone-time in a while and go for a walk to clear my head. Dan said he could take care of lunch, so off I set around 10:30 with no need to get home until 3, but also no particular energy or ideas. It occurred to me that I’d never seen the inside of the Catholic church in Höngg, the neighborhood across the river, so I set off in that direction – over the train tracks, over the river, up the hill, and through the old cemetery next to the old (originally Catholic, now protestant, because the Reformation) church with its sweeping view of the vineyard below it and the river heading out of the city, with our scruffy-but-functional neighborhood of Altstetten on the other side.
The (newer, built in the 60s) Catholic church was interesting enough but I didn’t feel inspired to sit and meditate, and walking right back home seemed like a waste of an opportunity, so I headed further up the hill to join the Green Marathon Zürich, a 42-km loop around the city whose green signs have intrigued me for years but that I’ve only recently got around to looking up. My new goal is to walk the whole loop; the other night I walked from our apartment towards the river; now I decided to try taking the trail back in the other direction.
The weather this week is about as perfectly end-of-April as it can get and the sun and breeze did help me get my mind out of fog mode. I wandered past the Findlingsgarten Kappenbühl (this deserves a post of its own – do other places set public space aside for…boulders found in construction sites?). Next up was the Hönggerberg cemetery, which I decided to walk through rather than around. The children’s cemetery wasn’t even on my mind but suddenly there it was: the white crosses, the single years, the rusted toy cars. A posted sign gave notice about the disinterment of old graves and a wave of outrage at the bureaucratic stubbornness of my adopted country ran over me. The rules shouldn’t be the same here! These aren’t grandparents whose well-lived lives are ready to slip into memory! They’re children, whose parents’ grief is surely still very much alive!
And then a morbid sort of parallel struck me. Maybe I’m feeling so much resistance to setting out on a new path because I haven’t worked through the grief of the old one. The old ones. The cemetery of my professional life: Chemist (1994), died in utero. Biomedical Engineer (1996-2006) couldn’t compete with the boys. Technical Editor (2007-2010), abandoned. Family Minister (2018-2021), victim of pandemic-related sectarian violence.
There are times when I can see my schizophrenic résumé as Meant To Be: my life as a braid of different interests each successively coming to the fore. And there are times I can see that significant parts of this sorry scene were out of my control. But the overwhelming feeling is one of shame: why can’t I get it together and bring any sort of job past the entry-level stage and into maturity? And despair: with a track record like this, it’s downright amazing that my two flesh-and-blood offspring are doing as well as they are! Acceptance is still elusive; “meaning”…well, hope springs eternal.
I rejoined the Green Marathon trail past the cemetery and back down towards the river but gave up before I’d walked it all the way home and took a shortcut past the train station instead. My legs were exhausted and I had a blister and I felt less tense but very tired. Fitbit report: 12 km. Lunch: leftovers. Then I sat down on the couch and plugged into my Ignatian meditation app, which announced:
“Today is Friday the 23rd of April, the feast of St. George…”
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