Little o' this and that

I like this song, but I don't understand it yet.


Another thing I don't understand: why it's so hard to come up with solid research questions!? Ugh! I asked Pierrick if he ever feels like he has days--no, whole months--when he can't seem to find a single good idea in any corner of his brain. He said yes, and recommended a vacation as a remedy for me. But I suspect finding good ideas is a bit like drawing good pictures. You have to draw a lot of bad ones first, so you might as well keep the pencil to the paper till you're through them.

After two unusual and difficult weeks, things are starting to feel more on track again at work and personally. I'm especially enjoying time with my lovely roommates. I couldn't have asked for better roommies, and considering that we were all strangers before, I'm extra thankful that we found each other. The dude is sitting on a beach somewhere in Spain at the moment, so we temporarily have a girls house. The chats in the bathroom while we get ready for bed, girly movies, friendly and funny messages on our dry erase board, sharing coffee in the morning and dinner in the evenings is all lots of fun! I still miss Pfeffingen a bit, but I feel like I'm in a good place in town for this stage of life in the Basel area.

Overcoats of Clay

Emily Dickinson wrote that when a person dies, the spirit lays off an overcoat of clay. A friend died on Friday morning before work. He was 30 years old, with a wife and two baby girls he loved very much. Tomorrow I'm meeting mutual friends and we'll go together to the funeral--my second funeral in Switzerland. Sharing in funerals here, like sharing in weddings and babies being born, knits me into Switzerland a little bit more. Strange to think that our lives were tooootally separate a couple years ago; we didn't have a place or a person in common. And now here I am, staring out the window instead of working, wondering how his wife will manage, and looking at the new baby at church and wishing his sweet daughters would remember how much they meant to him. Thinking about friends and acquaintances who were much closer to him than I was. Some losses seem so untimely and unreasonable. I know people are resilient and do recover, at least in a sense, from grief over death. But I don't know how recovery happens, really. Life doesn't go go back to the way it was, and we always miss people we love for the rest of our lives once they're gone (or at least, I miss a lot of people so far!) Why does comfort work at all? I think that's very curious. But I pray his family and friends will find comfort anyway.

Death is a Dialogue between
The Spirit and the Dust.
"Dissolve" says Death—The Spirit "Sir
I have another Trust"—

Death doubts it—Argues from the Ground—
The Spirit turns away
Just laying off for evidence
An Overcoat of Clay.

-Emily Dickinson

Wallis Weekend

A few weeks ago, Raph and Ed and I drove south on a Thursday night to Raph's family's vacation house in the Wallis. From Thursday night to Sunday Afternoon we read books, watched An Idiot Abroad, went for a walk, visited an outdoor thermal bath with a nice view of the Alps, flew a helicopter in the house, embroidered a pillowcase and generally had fun relaxing together. I did the stitching; they navigated the airspace, in case you were wondering.