Swiss Miss
Upon reviewing my diaries that I wrote at the time, my memories of my teenaged trip to Switzerland were a bit compressed and simplified. I'm sure that's what memories do, when they get faded and folded away like a once favorite shirt that one can't bear to throw out.
I found an entry for one particular day - parts of which I clearly remember. The other parts were folded into the memory of my first day in Italy. Now I see that the experience of getting lost and found by the river happened on the very same day that I jumped into the Rhine River on a whim.
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We had to get up really early and walk to the station from the train to Lausanne, then on to Bern. The five hours in Bern were well spent - Cathy and I were together all day. At first in Bern we got lost, and saw only the huge ugly buildings of the business/factory section near the station. Descending to the river Aare, we saw a totally different side of the city - the beautiful color of blue/gray/green water and its texture, next to green banks of trees and a nice bridge, too. We sat and waded and watched patterns of leaves against the sky. Lunch was a picnic at a pool. We went to the huge cathedral's park and ate oranges. Then we climbed the steeple and saw huge bells.
Riding to Zurich, on the train, I thought of how much water in that river is like me, with its unformed consistency and its changes - forming over things, smoothly moving but the whole of it is churning, whirling. It's just such a beautiful thought - to be water - and I can't decide if its good or bad that my movement is too fast for a definite form, or if a shaped personality would freeze me.
We're at a youth hostel in Stein am Rhein, it's not terribly nice but I think I had a myth in mind when I think of a hostel. Tonight Cathy, Jean and I walked to the small bridge in town and saw people diving from it. So we gave our shoes and contacts and purse to Jean and jumped in, too. It's the most fantastic river - swimming in the Rhine - it doesn't seem possible to swim in what has always been a squiggle you've had to label on a map. We went a long ways and when we got out it was a fenced in swimming area. We finally escaped through a private home's yard. I touched some sort of plant that made my skin feel on fire.
I found an entry for one particular day - parts of which I clearly remember. The other parts were folded into the memory of my first day in Italy. Now I see that the experience of getting lost and found by the river happened on the very same day that I jumped into the Rhine River on a whim.
------------
We had to get up really early and walk to the station from the train to Lausanne, then on to Bern. The five hours in Bern were well spent - Cathy and I were together all day. At first in Bern we got lost, and saw only the huge ugly buildings of the business/factory section near the station. Descending to the river Aare, we saw a totally different side of the city - the beautiful color of blue/gray/green water and its texture, next to green banks of trees and a nice bridge, too. We sat and waded and watched patterns of leaves against the sky. Lunch was a picnic at a pool. We went to the huge cathedral's park and ate oranges. Then we climbed the steeple and saw huge bells.
Riding to Zurich, on the train, I thought of how much water in that river is like me, with its unformed consistency and its changes - forming over things, smoothly moving but the whole of it is churning, whirling. It's just such a beautiful thought - to be water - and I can't decide if its good or bad that my movement is too fast for a definite form, or if a shaped personality would freeze me.
We're at a youth hostel in Stein am Rhein, it's not terribly nice but I think I had a myth in mind when I think of a hostel. Tonight Cathy, Jean and I walked to the small bridge in town and saw people diving from it. So we gave our shoes and contacts and purse to Jean and jumped in, too. It's the most fantastic river - swimming in the Rhine - it doesn't seem possible to swim in what has always been a squiggle you've had to label on a map. We went a long ways and when we got out it was a fenced in swimming area. We finally escaped through a private home's yard. I touched some sort of plant that made my skin feel on fire.
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on Wednesday, December 15, 2004 at 8:16 AM.
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