Jump on and go

Winters are long here. Heck, winters are long in New York too, but I clearly remember how long they felt here.
Too long.
Winter always feels too long to me. I’m from an island, and even if I haven’t lived there in 15 years, every time I go back I remember. My body remembers. The sun, the salty air. The dry heat.

Summer is short here. It always felt short. This year, summer is right on time. Some would beg to differ, since the warmest weather started just as the kids were going back to school. But to me, that’s perfect timing. As much as I enjoy spending time with Sarah, there’s something that makes her very different from me, and much more like her dad. She is Swiss. She really is. There’s a bit of Italian in her, but really, she is Swiss.

Stella and I are strangers here. Technically we are not, but it feels that way a bit. As pretty as it is, it doesn’t feel like home really, not yet. It never really did.

I lost myself when I moved here. Giving up my dream job, saying goodbye to my friends, moving to a new place, where I didn’t speak the language and people were… cold. Or that’s how it felt, compared to Italy, and to LA.

And then there was the pregnancy. The baby. As much as I enjoyed it, it all felt… a little too foreign. And only now I realized that I allowed myself to be reshaped by my new family, by my new life and my new environment. And it got even worse when we moved to the countryside, outside of Zurich.

Going to New York I somehow rediscovered myself. I may have gained weight, but I’m much happier now. I’m more imperfect than ever, but at least I’m me.

So here I am, back. And this is the perfect opportunity to start over.

The best way to start over? For someone who loves traveling, start by behaving like a tourist. Pick places to see. With an additional perk: no hurry.

So the last two days Stella and I set out to see Zurich.

Yesterday we decided to jump on a tram and just ride it until the last station. There we were, outside of Starbucks, looking at the tram map… we picked number 2, which I had never taken all the way to the last station, Bahnhof Tiefenbrunnen. Here’s what we found:

A park, right on the lake. And boats. Stella promptly exclaimed excited: “BOATS!!” And we both started giggling. How had I never been here? Right there in the park there are steps into the water, and here the lake is shallow enough to swim in.

We slowly made our way back to Bellevue, where Stella enjoyed running after the birds, and keeping up with the ducks.. sort of.

But then we realized it was time to go get Sarah, so we took a little break… and then went back today and picked up right where we left off:  at Bellevue, feeding the ducks and swans!

And from there we made our way to the Arboretum, the park on the other side of the Quai Bridge.

Stella was so excited, and her excitement was contagious. I kept taking photos, wanting to capture everything exactly the way it was at that moment. And that’s when I realized: there’s always a good opportunity for a photo. I think I might be (dare I say it?) developing the eye of a photographer. Technique-wise, I’m far from it (which is why I’m sticking with my faithful CoolPix S620). But I think I get it – the way a photographer, like a painter, sees everywhere something worth capturing, worth sharing. Every moment unique, every expression a perfect pose.

And like the day before, I felt happy. Just like that. Being there, seeing the joy and excitement in Stella’s eyes, trying to capture it on camera… Somehow it felt special.
Having breakfast looking at the lake, feeding the ducks, walking around with Stella, looking at the boats, the swans… and somehow I felt like I could see things the way she saw them. Everything so new and exciting! Like a child, or like a tourist, or like a photographer, no matter – I just know that things looked beautiful, and bright, and that one single though kept flashing in my mind: I don’t ever remember having this much fun here.

Now, this is the way to discover your new home

Tagged as: a taste of freedom, it might workout after all, who knew it was so easy to make me happy?