duality

Oof, it's been a while. I think I'm so used to Lenten projects ending at Easter that I lost all steam after that. And I'm currently rather down on the church project in general. And as for the Swiss project, well...

We were in the U.S. for a week during Chris's spring break. The day we flew home, we had some time in the morning to collect American goodies to bring home, and he was on the verge of tears in the ice cream aisle of the supermarket, "why can't WE have a freezer big enough to hold a quart of ice cream?"

Or, you know, more than two reliable flavors?

One can well argue - and I do try, in my head - that having a freezer big enough to hold several quarts of ice cream and access to a supermarket big enough to sell us dozens of flavors - not to mention the car culture that makes it possible - is precisely the sort of indulgent, unhealthy, disasterous-for-the-environment excess that we should be trying to tear ourselves away from. But on a gut level, I'm right there crying in the aisle with him. Things just feel so much easier in the U.S. It's not just the language (though of course that's a big one), it's the feeling of dynamism, the friendly instructions instead of condescending notices...and something about immigrants that I can't quite put my finger on. Here in Switzerland I'm maybe more likely to hear foreign languages when I'm out and about, but the pressure to integrate-or-leave and the social punishment for not doing so is relentless. And the idea that immigrants might contribute something other than labor to Swiss society? Forget it. It's not a melting pot here, it's a forge. 'Cause we've got everything figured out already, weisch?

But of course I'd be crying if I had leave here and move back to the U.S., too. Probably not in the aisles of the grocery store, but definitely on the train whisking me efficiently to the airport.

My self image is currently an amorphous blob. Am I old or young? Fit or slobby? Helpful or useless? Motivated or lazy? Trusting or critical? What is my profession? Where is home? And is there a way out of this soup? I don't know.

I suspect that wasting my wild and precious life scrolling Instagram is not a way out of this soup. So I'm trying to start a practice of picking up a book first thing in the morning, just to read a page or two. I started with The Creative Act by Rick Rubin, which I loved (and will write about sometime, I hope?) and I've now moved on to the 2002 reprint of the 1967 (!) classic (?) The Supper of the Lamb, by Robert Farrar Capon, which leapt off the shelf at Barnes & Noble One Loudon into my carry-on bag for the plane. It's solid and encouraging and makes me laugh. Perhaps in defense of my old, slobby, useless, lazy, critical self:

There are more important things to do than hurry.
     That, of course, has always been true--even when most men had to work so hard that contemplation seemed a luxury. The day after tomorrow, however, it will be truer still. If the prophets of automation and cybernation are right, leisure, not labor, is going to be the normal condition of man. Men will become philosophers, artists, and poets just to stay sane: Contemplation will be the only defense against drowning in our own spare time. Even now, the doctrine of justification by work is difficult to defend. Jobs are shorter and more boring than they used to be. It's hard to believe that five hours a day of button-pushing and paper-shuffling are the heart and soul of human existence. Heaven help us, then, in the bright new day of guaranteed income and the twenty-hour week. The grim old religion of salvation by rushing will go bankrupt altogether, and we shall go straight out of our minds--unless we learn to sit still.
     The habit of contemplation, therefore--the ability to sit down in front of something and care enough to let it speak for itself--cannot be acquired soon enough. Accordingly, I invite you, too, to put your feet up on the stove. If some true believer in the gospel of haste comes along and asks us why we are wasting time, we shall tell him we are busy getting the seats of our pants properly shined up for the millennium.

"Tire Fire" by Josh Weilepp, part of the Model Railroad Extravaganza at the Ashburn Library, brought to you by Northern Virgina NTRAK.

And real trains in Switzerland. Sometimes I'm doing my best to be miserable and the sunset looks like this...