jalléCafe

I managed to stand up at the edge again...

I managed to stand up at the edge again..., originally uploaded by jalléCafe.

You saw my Zermatt mountain days last February. July, the Swiss Alps, and a need for new perspective drew me back: this time to the home of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau. Here is the Eiger. I hope you can understand a little. (BTW - You can click the link under the photo to see the rest of the story on flickr.com.)

Vision and long tables - continued

I promised a photo of my long table vision.   Sorry for the one day delay.  I had to figure out how to make it a photo because I actually pulled it from a magazine.

This is the perfect long table image for me.  I searched months for it.  It shows exactly the contrast between modern (check out the lights over it) and charm I feel growing in my spirit.  Beautifully long it is!  Yet unexpected in narrowness. You would need to sit close together.  Breathe on each other.  Bump elbows. Spill food.

I've grown to respect that images like these which appear in my soul and mind mean something.  I cannot always explain.  At least not right away. Two friends and I talked over a drink last night (at a long table outside, in a garden restaurant that juts into the river) about how important it is to be able both to invite people and to be a guest at long tables.  That someone always needs to instigate and organize. That the point is to make everyone feel warm and welcome.

There are no people in this image yet.  But I know they are coming soon.

Long tables

I have been thinking about long tables.

I thought about them last night while I walked in a coldish rain.

In July, undesirable chill.  Yet cool and fresh on my face.

I reached out to touch a hot pink hydrangea along the street (a hydrostahl, as a lovely German man tried to translate at a party over the weekend because we sought common vision of these old fashioned flowers he said he grows on his terrace).

Wet, strikingly cool bloom.  When was the last time I touched a flower in the rain?  I asked myself.  When did I ever do it?

I was thinking about my last weeks and months.  Lots of dinners with friends.  A lot of long tables with food and wine.  I found a photo of the perfect long table in a magazine while I sat backwards on the fast train from Paris that I will show you tomorrow.  I will also tell you why it is my vision for my life.

There were lots of long tables when I grew up. Picnics.  Family birthdays. Christmas. A good deal of food, but no wine when I was a kid.

And at work: amazing long tables!  Groups of 20 or 200.  Employee cafeterias, Italien restaurants with clients, board room style meetings.

Now I want a long table of my own.  I always gathered around them. Perhaps once I will gather them around me.

Change & Centeredness

I'm writing this blog during the second Wimbledon rain delay. 

The Euro 08 ended.  My preferred spectator sport continues: tennis, especially with its current stars. Roger Federer gains my favor: Swiss, classy, unbelievably poised for a young man.  And Nadal brings Mediterannean flair, muscles, macho.  What more can a girl want in athletics? 

It's raining outside my window.  Not all flowers and sunshine in Zurich. By last Friday, I had felt so tired from meetings and deadlines that I could barely think straight. I am fighting a cold passed on no doubt by an employee at the end of the week.  Spent a few Sunday hours in my office. Then at home on my computer.  

Sounds like the old jill?  Not for a moment!

My neighbors invited me for breakfast this morning that lasted until 1:00 p.m.  And I'm not packing for an early morning flight.  I'm eating roast chicken that I cooked myself. And finishing a book I started to read last weekend. And writing.

I realized last week that I have not moved, or changed jobs, or changed friends, now for a year.  Nearly four years for everything except the job. Can you believe that for me this is a long time?   What a difference stability makes.  What a difference it makes when your life is surrounded by people, places and opportunities you love. Like Zurich itself, I will never again take this for granted.

But I do hope Federer wins!