Unexpected Intersections

I first encountered the poetry of Robert Frost in high school, and I was captivated enough to buy my own unabridged collection of his poems, which took up residence on my nightstand along with the collected works of Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle. Frost's Stopping By The Woods on a Snowy Evening is one of the first poems I can remember learning by heart. It is the poem that taught me that poetry holds, at its essence, potential energy. For the first time I connected with a poem so deeply that it took up residence and became a part of me, where it remains at rest, until suddenly it isn't. I'll be walking a dog when the night is dark and snowy, and the trees stand silent vigil between the brook and the pasture, and the poem is drawn spontaneously, instantly, into motion, its lines moving easily, rhythmically through my mind, perfectly capturing my experience in that moment and I think "This! This is what Frost was distilling onto the page." I love the m...

We are truly living through, as it is officially referred to in Switzerland, an extraordinary situation. As the world grapples with the COVid-19 virus, many parents are grappling with how this is impacting their children, which means more than just trying to figure out continuity for education during this crisis. It also means addressing any concerns or anxieties that their children might be having right now. I remember the first time I realized, as a young teen, that "normal" life could be completely upended by events with a world-wide impact. I felt very unsettled as I learned about World War 1 and World War 2, and realized that adults didn't really have things figured out to the degree I assumed they had. For the first time, I felt fear on an existential level. My life-long interest in history is, in my opinion, directly rooted in the desire of young-me to deal with that existential fear by assuring myself, through learning about history, that the world had alway...

(re)Reading... Pride & Prejudice , by Jane Austen. Listening to... the audiobook of Anne of Green Gables , by L.M. Montgomery. Researching... Circuses in the U.S. circa 1910. Waiting to Read... A Seat at the Circus , by Antony Hippisley Coxe. I'll be cracking this open as soon as it arrives in the post.

It's almost February, which means it's the time of Fasnacht here in Switzerland - our version of Fasching (Germany), Mardi Gras or Carnivale . Clubs work for months preparing floats (often around a parade theme), while brass bands practice their  Guggemusigg  (parade song sets). I had experienced Mardi Gras before, and knew about Carnivale, but until I moved here, I had no idea that similar celebrations took place in some of the Swiss cantons (only the Catholic ones - although one or two of the Reformed cantons are having parades these days). Since Fasnacht is not widely known outside of Switzerland (and perhaps, Germany), I was surprised to encounter it recently while listening to an audio book.