Narcissus in the garden of the changing seasons

On the fifth day

The weather turned on Friday, low clouds and rain. At breakfast we couldn’t see past the grey eiderdown wrapping the windows in a damp chill. Both boys had colds with wracking coughs that woke each other up at night. Instead of riding the gondola to the Mittlestation and walking the smooth wide walking trail that is as easy as a road we walked around the lake, fed the ducks,

and looked at the old-time classic cars that were in Arosa that weekend, inexplicably, for a race. (Check out that fog!)

And everybody went to bed early.

On the fourth day

Wednesday night at dinner we decided to cancel the yoga sessions for Thursday so that we could start out early on the hike that would turn out to be the highlight of the week: a five hour (walking time) hike from Arosa to Medergen to Sapuen Dorfli (which, may I say, is the cutest Dorfli in. the. world.) to Langwies. From Langwies we would take the train back to Arosa.

Our path took us past the Stauensee

and up through the wooded hillside on the other side of the See.

Once out of the trees, we passed by an Alp. In English, when we speak of “the Alps,” we’re thinking of the of the Swiss Alps, the French Alps, the Austrain Alps. We mean the whole horizon-swallowing mountain range. In Swiss, an “Alp” refers to the summer home of sheep and cattle and the small cluster of buildings, the Alpenhutte, required for their care. So we passed by eine Alp: one woman tending one hundred and twenty eight cattle through the summer.

The cattle were friendly - a hiking trail passed through their grazing grounds, they were accustomed to people - and well-cared for and remarkably clean. It is these cattle and sheep, these summer grazing ranges, that make the Swiss mountain meadows - the Wiese - so beautiful. The cattle graze down the grasses and scrub which then allows the meadow flowers to bloom.

Our path leveled out as we headed towards the moutain village of Medergen where we ate lunch - crisp green salads from the local gardens and Bergkaese (mountain cheese) - from the cows we had just walked past.

We sat outside in the sun. We ate mountain cheese and hand-made bread and drank coffee topped with whipped cream.

We lingered too long, because it was all too perfect, and finally tightened our laces and continued on our hike with a backward glance at Medergen that had fed us so well.

Between Medergen and Sapuen we passed through Alpine meadows and saw, at a distance not worth photographing, a cluster of elk.

And then we crossed a river, passed through a field, and entered the tiny village - the Dorfli - of Sapuen. There were four children playing in front of the school when we passed through and refilled our water bottles at the village fountain though the school was closed; Sapuen is not inhabited year-round anymore.

And two minutes later we had passed through the entire village and Sapuen was behind us.

We rested one last time at the edge of a meadow, drinking our mountain water and crunching fresh sweet apples. We were about to start the climb down to Langwies, back through the woodlands, out of these high meadows and unobstructed views of the mountains. We knew we had to press on to make the train in Langwies but we were all reluctant to rise. Reluctant to say goodbye to this view.

On the third day

On Wednesday I slept through the morning yoga sessions and took an easy walk on my own so that I could stop for as long as I wanted in order to take some pictures.

Ever forward

Slap. Slap. Shuffle. Slap. Slap. Shuffle. This is the sound of Little Boy C, on the very day he turned nine months old (yesterday), crawling from the playmat to the couch. A short distance, a meter, perhaps a little less. Yet never again will he cover as much ground as he did just then - those first unstable but determined movements into autonomy. Into exploration. Into action. Those first independent moments forward, alone. His bold achievement, celebrated, applauded; in my heart, a small goodbye. It has begun - it began the moment he was born, in truth, but it has become obvious now. He will move ever forward. As it should be. But in my heart, the first of a lifetime of small goodbyes.

“For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.”
- Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet.

Protected: Right here

I remember this

The yoga is getting better. I still do not feel long and luxurious, cat-like, but my movements are more fluid and my stretches are getting longer and deeper. My spine, a stiff trouble spot since Little Boy C was born, feels more supple. I am bending more like a willow and less like a pine tree and it feels good. I flow through my sun salutations, gradually adding repetitions every few mornings. It feels good. It feels familiar. It feels like something my body remembers, something my body has missed. Yes, my body says as I deepen a pose, I remember this.

Slowly, slowly

I unrolled my yoga mat this morning for the first time since before Little Boy C was born. He is eight months old now; that’s a long time between Downward Facing Dogs. I can’t even call what I did this morning yoga - I did what I used to consider a series of warm-ups before the real yoga positions.

It was a revelation, and not the good kind. I cannot bring my head to my knees - an entire person could fold her torso to her shins in the space left between my forehead and legs. I was dismayed at how shallow my Downward Dogs are, a slight bump on the horizon instead of the sharp precise angles I used to form. I couldn’t quite remember the sequence of the Sun Salutation and had to glance at my exercise book before I began. I moved through the positions slowly, gingerly. I remembered something Christina once wrote, and rather than berating myself for this sorry state of affairs simply apologized to my body for my months of benign neglect. It’s all I could do, besides finishing off the Sun Salutations.

But as I did the exercises I could feel my body remembering, making small adjustments, striving for perfect posture. I’m a beginnner again, no doubt about it, but the person who practiced yoga for years still lives inside my body. And when I finished saluting the sun I felt the familiar tingle of my blood flowing through my body. And when I took my shower my posture was a little better than yesterday.

Like dragons in the sky

Two fighter jets scream through the grey waiting for rain sky, their afterburners announcing themselves like dragons. Flying dragons. I point them out to my son, all excitement, tracing their receding shapes with my finger.

“Do you see them?” I ask my three-year old. “There!”

Teaching him the words “fighter jets” then telling him the German Kampfjets so that he can tell his grandfather what he saw. I do all this before I have time to reflect that - military blood on both sides of the family notwithstanding - I do not want him to think these dragons are exciting. The jets circle and pass again, a training exercise, two jets low and fast and close together sending a cry out over the sky that rumbles in the clouds like thunder long after they have passed from sight. Again, unbidden, I follow them with my finger as if painting their paths.

“Do you see them?” I ask my son.

“Ja! Ja! Fighter jets!” he answers.

This is how it begins, isn’t it, with these gestures that speak before we have time to form words. The body language of teaching, of impulse, of naming, of love. I give my son the names for his world, even these names - fighter jets, Kampfjets - for this imperfect world. Arming him with this one thing I can be sure of, these nouns and the pictures we can paint with them.

“Listen!” I say as the jets rumble off. “They sound like dragons in the sky.”

Fresh

A storm is blowing in. A is at the Tagesmütter (babysitter) and C is napping upstairs. I’ve got the windows open downstairs, a hard breeze clearing out yesterday’s thick humid air and stirring the sheer orange curtains, wildly spinning  the rainbow pinwheel in the garden. An occasional bang and rattle outside, open windows in the apartments across the street, the neighbors too filling their home with this fresh air coming down off the mountains.

When the wind blows just right, blows over the Alps and down into the city I can taste the snow in it, taste the last melting snowpacks.

C is awake. Storms seem to unsettle him as they unsettled his older brother. They are our barometers, our weathervanes these little boys.

Off I go to shelter my boy from the winds.