Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. And try to live the questions themselves. Do not seek the answers that cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will, then gradually without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. (Rilke)
As I joked with a fellow shopper in our local grocery store this morning, I was reminded about my shopping adventures during the first year that I spent in Switzerland. In my first encounters in grocery stores there, I found that the other shoppers, mostly women, were not to be trifled with. At least I couldn’t understand what they shouted at me as I stood in the aisle doing my mother’s extensive-time-reading-labels number, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have been pleasant. I would be whatcha would probably call frustratingly slow, trying to understand what the heck I was buying, and how many Swiss francs it was gonna cost me, while other shoppers would rush by me at breakneck speed, somehow managing at the same time to neatly arrange their purchases in their carts in what was likely alphabetical order. I would give them what I hoped was a wide-eyed and innocent American stare, and they would look back at me suspiciously with narrowed eyes and go off muttering to themselves, likely repeating to themselves what I came to learn was the national phrase, das hand mir nid garn, or “we don’t care for that sort of thing.”
In a global community which is all about political correctness, I hesitate to attribute any characteristics to those from a particular country lest I be perceived as casting ethnic slurs, but the reader of previous blogs may remember that I am Scotch-Irish, and while we may appreciate order, it is not the guiding light by which we live our lives. Those whose ancestors starved in a potato famine or ran naked down the mountains to meet their foes in head-on battle don’t give much credit to alphabetical order.
While I never got the knack of what color garbage bag I should use for whichever day I was putting out my garbage, or understood the nuances of where to sit (or not) in train cars, nor fully comprehended which public bathrooms were off-limits, I loved Switzerland. Its amazing beauty, and the kindness of its people (reserved though it was — but we cynical Scotch-Irish types understand “reserve”), and even its predictability were warming and reassuring and uplifting. I mean, there’s a lot to be said for a country where the dogs are allowed to carry their own leashes in their mouths and never snarl at each other in restaurants.
And order? I can be as obsessive-compulsive as they come, particularly when I get anxious, and want my world to be secure and predictable. Being a very small country like Switzerland in the midst of what historically has been a chaotic Europe would create a certain national flavor that tended toward being careful and watchful. Like Piglet in Winnie the Pooh, life can be frightening when you’re a “very small animal” (not that I’m sure Switzerland would appreciate the comparison — after all, think about all their money!)
Uh, oh, I think I may have lost my way in this blog . . . What am I saying? What is my point? Do I have one? Do I need to have one? Where is my pithy conclusion, my wrap-up, my zinger of an ending? My answer???
I don’t even know the question!
Ahhhh . . . It’s okay . . . Sometimes blogs . . . and life . . . just aren’t orderly. Or predictable. Or safe.
And it’s still okay . . .