deep breaths

...and then there's that night when you think, "oh wow, that was an emotionally exhausting week, I'd better get myself to bed early" and you go brush your teeth and just then your son wakes up in some kind of a night terror and vomits all over your bed.

mottos

Hmm, I tried adding these to my profile but then the blog preview looks silly. So I'll put them here.

My Life Mottos, in as much as I can remember them right now, in order of discovery:

‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.’

Progress has been made, but more remains to be done.

Es besteht generelle Kotaufnahmepflicht.

You can't be sure if you're kidding yourself.

10q

...and speaking of God-optional religion, it's almost time again for 10q, an online re-imagination of the Jewish High Holidays. You answer one question for each of 10 days, starting on Rosh Hashana and ending on Yom Kippur, and then your answers get locked away in a "vault" and you don't get to see them again for a year. Why? Well, their FAQ says it well:

Because reflection is always a good thing. Because you haven’t written a journal for fifteen years and the thought of spending ten days a year chronicling who you are and what you think and how you live your life is an interesting prospect. And because in a year’s time you may want to visit with your old self and uncover some of your life’s greatest themes and patterns.

The vault opened today and I can read six years' worth of answers. A lot has happened! And nothing! It's fascinating and I recommend it. That's all I've got to say tonight.

"Slingshot Park" aka Hardaupark, Zürich

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.

A load of Bologna

Day 4 of the parish trip was to Bologna, as I said, and I'm not quite sure how to describe it. The day started out on a jaw-dropping note, with our guide telling us about a fresco in the San Petronino Basilica that depicts Mohammed (helpfully labeled, in case anyone might be confused) being tortured by demons in hell. A certain member of our group commented, "ooh...I like that!"

WAIT WHAT??

Our guide said well, certainly this is an outdated belief, but this fresco is important so art historians have argued that we shouldn't change it. I don't know, man. I just don't know. I can see why we wouldn't want to whitewash history, but surely erasing the name and putting up an informative plaque explaining that it was erased and why would be appropriate here? In a place that bills itself as not just a tourist attraction but a living church? The truth of course is that it isn't an outdated belief, as my travel companion helpfully demonstrated. Two thousand years after Jesus's death, we're still working on this whole love-your-neighbor concept.

The funny thing about the fresco of hell is that right above it the holy men of God are depicted robed and sitting in neat rows in what is clearly a lecture hall. Heaven, ha! Bologna is used to mixing church and academia, being home to the oldest university in Europe. The basilica also boasts a tiny hole high up one wall that projects an image of the sun onto the longest meridian line in the world. And a Foucault's pendulum. The high school physics groups were certainly an interesting addition to the usual church tourists...

The craziness didn't stop there. We also visited the anatomy lecture hall at the university, which dates from the 17th century (when the church finally allowed dissections), except that it doesn't because the building was destroyed by the Allies during World War II and what exists today is a painstakingly-created reconstruction.

And speaking of painstakingly-created reconstructions, next on the itinerary was the indescribable Basilica of Santo Stefano, a whole complex of interconnected churches including a reproduction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built according to tradition in the 5th (!) century on the site of a temple to Isis. Our guide explained that building reproductions like this allowed the faithful to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem without getting dangerously far away from home - and indeed, here is a whole list of them. Did you know this? I had no idea.

The last visit of the day was to the Basilica of San Dominico, home to the remains of St. Dominic, founder of the Dominican order. This church was aptly summarized by our guide as "...maybe not the kind of church you'd expect from men who take vows of poverty." So.

After all that my head was spinning and I, like Olivia in Venice, required a gelato.

Ice cream vs. Bologna

Emilia Romagna, day 5 + 1

We got in late last night and I went straight in to cuddle my poor abandoned daughter who has been sick all week without me, so no posting. It wasn't exactly a banner day anyway, we were "on the trail of Giuseppe Verdi" and saw the house where Verdi was born, the church where he played piano and organ as a boy, and the estate he later bought and lived in, where one can see: some plants Verdi planted, his treble-clef-shaped pond, all four of his horse-drawn carriages, his bedroom, his partner's bedroom, his signature hat and scarf, a painting of his pet bird AND his actual pet bird, taxidermied and under glass. I guess if you're a groupie all this stuff is interesting, but as an uncultured idiot I would have been ok coming home a few hours earlier.

After worshipping at the shrines of Verdi we had another long Italian meal, which I also could have done without, not because one last meal of Italian food wasn't amazing, but because of the tired old formula (my social skills) + (German) = (not pretty).

As a farewell to Italy here's the house specialty, which I remembered to take a picture of before I started eating it this time, so you can't say I didn't learn anything on this trip!

That's a martini glass containing Campari jell-o, inverted over a piece of ham and a blob of cream cheese. Which is definitely one way to start a meal and end a crazy trip.

Emilia Romagna, day 4

Today we went to Bologna, which, in comparison to Parma and Modena is big and full of tourist groups and even-more-dramatic Italian architecture. The experience requires some processing and it's very late so instead of tourist photos, here's what I had for dinner:

Kindly but unfortunately, the hotel translated the menu into German, which means I won't get the Italian food names right. Not pictured: the appetizer ("Grüsse aus der Küche"), which was a couple bites worth of something like a spinach Spanish tortilla.

First course, salad with Parma ham, Parmigiano cheese, and Aceto di Balsamico (so, all the local specialties). The smear in the back is my fault and not the kitchen's; I forgot and took a bite before I took the picture.

Second course, potato soup with truffles and these amazing toasted bread things. I have no idea how they get the bread so thin - freeze it and put it through the meat slicer??

Third course, lasagne. I had a few bites here too but I like this picture better than the cleaner one I took because check out how many layers of pasta that is! I could have eaten another one of these except...

...for the fourth course, which was guancialini (not sure what this is, Google says maybe cured pig's cheek?) with some sort of amazingly delicious sauce served over polenta. So good. So rich. Absolutely could not have gotten it down if I'd had a second piece of lasagne.

Fifth course, tiramisu. Delicious, except for the feeling that I might explode.

I have successfully not exploded and it's definitely bedtime now - tomorrow we're "on Verdi's trail" on the way home, via another multi-course meal. (!!)

Emilia Romagna, day 3

Did you know about THIS?

A depiction of Saint Wilgefortis (aka Kümmernis, Uncumber, Liberata, Débarras, ...) in the Parma Baptistery. In the version of the legend we heard today. she kicks off her gold princess's shoe to thank the fiddler for keeping her entertained while she dies on the cross. As you do.

Or THIS?

Josephat, a thinly-Christianized Buddha. Also featured, Helios the sun god and Selene the moon god. !!

...if so, you'd definitely beat me at the pub quiz category, "mythologies of the Middle Ages." But in any case: the Baptistery in Parma is amaaaaaazing (and the Wikipedia page in English is sadly just a stub, try the Italian Wikipedia page or this site).

On a more typically Christian note (though this is something else I learned about only recently), here's Mary the Mother of Mercy, who if you can ignore the V-word is kind of an awesome image of feminine strength.

"Be merciful to me, oh God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge." Psalm 57:1

Emilia Romagna, day 2

Day 2: My children are suffering. I am...not.

Today, a visit to the cathedral in Modena, a gigantic cemetery, and a farm where they make super authentic organic traditional cask-aged aceto balsamico di Modena.

What I learned:

- The Modena cathedral has, over one door, the oldest known sculpture of the legend of King Arthur. Also a bunch of Aesop's fables. I am fascinated and encouraged by the fact that the artists in the 12th century apparently didn't bother so much about whether these stories appear in the Bible or not.

- The Italians bury their dead above ground in sarcophagi, don't ever move them again (shocking to the ever-efficient Swiss, who only keep their relatives in the ground for 25 years), and use plastic flowers (also shocking to the Swiss, though this is possibly to avoid standing water, which breeds the dreaded tiger mosquito).

- the "balsam" in balsamic vinegar refers to the fact that it was originally used as medicine, though I'm not sure for what.

- one does NOT put super authentic organic traditional cask-aged balsamic vinegar on salad. Horrors!

Moving swiftly on to the photos:

Yes Dorothy, we're still in Italy.

Here's the cathedral in Modena. You can undoubtedly find better pictures online, but I liked this one because you can see how both the church and the tower are pretty wonky. There's been some settling in the last 800 years.

The doorway with the King Arthur legend (on the arch above) and some fables (below). 

At another doorway, some possibly-Roman lions.

And over the north entrance, the early days of man...Adam and Eve look so goofy and embarrassed in the last panel, just as you would if you had to hold fig leaves over your private parts.

The wonders continue inside - this I sadly didn't capture well but it's stunning.

At the San Cataldo cemetery, the "house of the dead" by architect Aldo Rossi is supposed to be very high-concept but to me just looks a lot like the new apartments in our neighborhood...hmm...

From the inside: the graves on the upper floor aren't filled yet.

Here are some on the ground floor. You can see that the Italians do not skimp on their artificial flowers.

Acetaia San Giacomo

Yumminess in the making.

Emilia Romagna, day 1

In the last few days the apartment got a halfway-acceptable straightening, I cleaned the floors, and Dan cleaned the bathrooms. So some progress was made on the house front. On the weekend I did some urgent work projects and tried to get some quality time with both kids, because then this morning I was off again, feeling super mommy-guilt-y and also kinda panicky because...I'm going on a trip with 44 Swiss retirees?

Ok to be fair there are a smattering of other under-65s, so maybe only 40 Swiss retirees.

But still I feel kinda silly.

Though on the other hand, it's hard to argue with 5 days of real Italian food.

Today the whole coach full of us left Zurich promptly at 8:10 am, stopped at the Gotthard rest stop for coffee and a peek at my very favorite rest stop chapel, crossed the border in time for a 5-course lunch, visited a Cistercian abbey, and arrived at our hotel in Correggio in time for a drink and 4-course dinner.

They may have to roll me home.

The interfaith...chapel? at the last rest stop before the Gotthard tunnel on the Swiss side. I think I've talked about this before. The "stained glass" windows are made from broken bottles sandwiched between clear glass panes. Pure genius. Here are some better pictures of this.

The beginning of lunch. If I'm going to become a professional travel photographer I am going to have to learn to take pictures of my food before I start eating it. The glass on the right contains Campari jell-o (!) - it arrived inverted over the ham. All of it was delicious.

Approach to the Abbey of Chiaravalle della Colomba. You probably already know all about the Cistercians? But just in case you are like me and missed all of European history, they are a religious order that spread rapidly across Europe in the 12th century, famously aided by the mystic Bernard of Clairvaux. 

Knotted columns.

The Abbey shop, staffed by two of the five remaining monks.

The inner courtyard (I know this has a technical term but I'm too lazy to look it up right now).

The evening light was so pretty.

My first (but I suspect not last) glass of Lambrusco, the local wine.