An Angel Gets Her Wings

Tonight, as I was changing the lights on my Christmas tree (favorite lights+wrong current=poor idea), I kept accidentally ringing the bells that are nestled on several branches. Each time, I thought of It's a Wonderful Life, where Clarence announces that each time you hear a bell, an angel gets his wings.
For the past month, my friend and former coworker Dawn has been on my mind. She was diagnosed at the beginning of November with late stage cancer that had thoroughly invaded her body. I was invited by one of her dearest friends, another coworker, to join Hugs for Dawn, a Facebook group.

Customer Service... Not

Signal #102 that living in Switzerland is different: customer service is about the commercial entity, not the customer.

I called my bank to make a request (email takes several weeks to receive an answer). I need to go in to the bank in person to accomplish what I need. In the particular bank, there are no appointments, so one must go, and there may be a wait, said the receptionist.

Then, I called the rental agency. The one person who handles my rental is out till later. I was asked to call back later (no voicemail and no message-taking on their end).

A wooden leg named Smith

Last night I finished an eleven day conference. As I was pushing my scooter from its parking spot, a car turning the corner ran into me, knocked me down, and ran over my foot. In contrast to my last accident, which happened days before my brother's wedding, this has been a relatively easy experience. The Swiss health care system was incredibly efficient.
My coworkers have been lovely. One escorted me to the hospital and then to my house, where he took Desmond out and even gave me a lesson in how to use crutches. Another took care of bringing my scooter to the office, and yet another took the computers I was carrying. The Danish Red Cross team witnessed the accident, and they gave police statements and cared for me while I was waiting for the ambulance.
Last weekend at TEDxRC2, I saw a presentation by a doctor from Afghanistan who ran a prosthetic clinic. He told us about an afternoon when the streets of Kabul cleared suddenly, leaving only a man, Mahmoud, in the middle of the road. The man had no legs and only one arm. Although the doctor's clinic had been closed by the government as "non-essential," Dr. Cairo asked Mahmoud to meet him there the following morning. The leg-less man, with a line of others, were queued before the doctor arrived.

After Mahmoud received prostheses and learned to use them, he returned to the clinic, asking for a job. He said that he was tired of begging and wanted to do something that would make his family proud. He didn't want a hand-out; he wanted work. The doctor was skeptical, but gave Mahmoud a week's trial. Mahmoud became the most productive worker in the artificial leg factory. This instigated a policy of "positive discrimination," wherein the clinic proactively tries to hire people with disabilities to create opportunity and hope for others. (P.S. Keep an eye on www.tedxrc2.com for the touching video of Alberto's story.)

Black Thursday? What next?

The NYT had an article on Veterans Day about stores in the U.S. opening late at night on Thanksgiving evening in order to beat the Black Friday rush. On the same day on Facebook, a friend posted a picture of Nordstrom's sign, which announces that they do not decorate for Christmas until after Thanksgiving. I have boycotted Macy's since 1992, due to their progressively more advanced Christmas decorations, which I believe now appear around Labor Day. Barring the obvious arguments about loving the season you're in and the commercialisation of a religious holiday, I think there are some other considerations afoot with this advance Black Friday movement.

I live in Switzerland. One of the first things I learned about Geneva is that all businesses are closed on Sunday, with the exception of 1) restaurants; 2) bakeries (the Swiss feel fresh bread is a natural right); 3) farmer markets like the one right near my flat; and 4) businesses willing to pay double their employees' salaries for working that day. This is because they view Sunday as a family day. They also close business around 7pm daily and actually in the past few years voted against having later shop hours. The result is that not only is it somewhat harder to get quotidian errands done, but one also does much less mindless shopping. I consume less here - and that's actually rather good.

It Isn't Enough to Love; We Must Prove It

I just finished reading The Happiness Project, picked up during a layover in Atlanta. Tonight, I glanced for the first time at author Gretchen Rubin's site, and her video challenge of the week is to hug more, kiss more, touch more (appropriately, of course). She closes her brief injunction with a quote from St. Therese of Liseux: "It isn't enough to love; we must prove it." (N.B. I know Mom will love this quote, since she urged me to visit her patron saint's chapel last year while I was traveling with a friend in Normandy.)

Reading about a contemporary's search for greater happiness, divided into 12 monthly installments, struck a chord with me, particularly as the reading coincided with the celebration of my birthday, an entree to a new year. I don't know whether to call it stubbornness, procrastination, or simply the hunt for the "just right," but I am still formulating my resolution - my challenge - for this new year of life.

But I'm coming close. A friend posted a birthday wish on my wall, that he hoped this was the beginning of a year full of magic, wisdom and love. And those are the right elements.

Feeding the Angels

Thursday morning, walking Desmond in the park next to my temporary flat, I noticed a man on one of the benches. He was surrounded by shopping parcels (everyone here uses recyclables!) and was eating something out of a bag. I had noticed a small shed in the far corner of the park weeks before, and Friday, it had a sleeping bag spread out, visible through the bent tin door.
Desmond woofed at him - of course: he's male and a stranger - and then stopped, sidling up to investigate what he was eating. Opportunist. I apologized and shooed Desmond away. And as we returned along the path, the man approached and asked my name and place of origin. He was pleasant and friendly, and yet I did not tarry long, in part because work awaited. His name, he'd said, was Seraphim.

Seraphim stayed with me that day, an invisible presence, but a source of pensiveness and perhaps guilt.

My Avocation and My Vocation

Years ago, I was reading a favorite author and came across a reference to "Two Tramps in Mud Time," by Robert Frost, an American poet whom my family often quoted. The final stanza struck me then. Its resonance has deepened through my adult years:

But yield who will to their separation,

My object in living is to unite

My avocation and my vocation

As my two eyes make one in sight.

Only where love and need are one,

And the work is play for mortal stakes,

Is the deed ever really done

For Heaven and the future's sakes.

The poem was written in 1934 in the midst of America's Great Depression. The author is chopping wood when two tramps emerge from the forest, one stopping to watch the author, wanting - no, needing - to substitute his own hands on the axe in order to earn a bite to eat, an indoor refuge from the mud and chill of an outdoor bed.

Why do I write about this today? Ten years ago today, on a beautiful Indian Summer September morning, I was working from my home in Arlington, VA.