Swiss Mayberry!

Autumn days on my bike as the sun is setting... rolling hills of green, the quiet contrast of climbing a hill with not a soul in sight only to hear bells from cows on my way to the top. I stop more on these rides, wanting to take it all in. I ride through open narrow paved roads.. pausing and pulling over tonight for a tractor to pass.... welcome pauses. I ride for a mile or two and off in the distance I see the red steeple of a church with a big gold clock on the side. I continue on and as I reach the next village I see another bright steeple, and clock. It has become a hopeful sight to see a small town or village surrounded by this symbol and with my chorus of cow bells... it has made me think...

One Saturday morning I headed out for about a 20 minute ride to Alison's home where we were going to meet and take the train to Zurich....see the city. Alison's village is one of those that I have been thinking about. It has 600 people that call it home, big Swiss style homes, green farm land, children laughing, tall sunflowers along the path, and a feeling of a secret garden protected from the world. A Swiss Mayberry, I began to call it. Her home is a beautiful older farm home which makes you think, "If these walls could talk." We walked up the stairs to the second floor where there were slanted ceilings, wooden floors and views of a green farmland out the window. It reminded me of a tree house and as we looked in on one of her daughters, sitting on the floor writing-- it reminded me of one of Richard Wilbur's pieces----

The Writer

In her room at the prow of the house
where light breaks and windows are tossed with linden, My daughter is writing a story

I pause in the stairwell hearing from her shut door a commotion of typewriter like a chain hauled over a gunwale

Young as she is, the stuff of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy. I wish her lucky passage

But now it is she who pauses
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure
A stillness greatens, in which-- The whole house seems to be thinking

It seems that my new experiences have brought thinking and doing that has pushed me to new understandings. I have thought on these rides, "This is my new starting line."