Swapping the rivers

Airplanes fly fast and transport people from A to B in the shortest possible time. Emotions, on the other hand, are sometimes slower.

That’s how I felt on my journey from New York to Switzerland, which I started this week. Suddenly I found myself in Basel. In my apartment with a sweeping view over the city. In the silence, in the smells of Basel, in the single life. Everything was familiar and yet somehow still strange. Like the daily rhythm, which was shifted by 6 hours. It took me a few days to settle in and when I opened my eyes, I was no longer surprised for a moment as to where I was lying. The wet and cold days without sunshine didn’t help much either.

First things first

I had a packed schedule and apart from the day of my return, the upcoming appointments left me no choice but to arrive and get started without further ado. 

Besides household chores, most of the tasks involved the property management that I take care of and which I found difficult to tackle from New York. There were assignments for web development, with which I also earn money on the side, so I was able to dive straight into my work and spent most of my days in my beloved studio.

Some art of course too

I continued to work on further prints of the Swiss birds there, although none of them are ready to be presented and I will have to go over them again next week. The mountain picture of Piz As-Cha has been transferred to the painting surface and I’m looking forward to getting right back to painting.

More active days

The second half of the week was a little more varied in terms of things to do. And I finally got a little closer to nature in bloom. During the visit to my father in Germany on Thursday, there were green landscapes everywhere with white bushes in bloom and flowering trees lining the roads. 

A day later, on my first jogging tour along the Rhine, I had to stop briefly at every flowering shrub, admire the blossoms and inhale the scent that I have been looking forward to since the beginning of winter. This scent of dogwood blossoms always makes me look forward to the coming spring, to balmy air and warm sunny days. Just like the song of the blackbirds at dawn that accompanies my waking up at this time of year. 

A different river

Instead of the mighty, wide Hudson, I now jog along the more manageable Rhine again. The two rivers correspond to the two worlds between which I commute. There, everything is a little bigger, louder, wilder. Here, more reserved, quieter, more leisurely. I enjoy jogging along both banks just as much.

Seeing good old friends again

At the end of the week on Sunday, a birthday party in Liechtenstein was on the agenda and I took the train across Switzerland and back as well. Finally seeing mountains again! At least from the train window or from a distance. It’s been a few months since the last mountain tour and I’ve missed the landscapes. Like the scent of dogwood blossom, this sight makes me long for warmer days in nature…soon!

Switzerland, Germany, Liechtenstein; flowering shrubs and trees; mountains, rivers and lakes; property management, web development and art; all in all a very varied week that I actually wanted to take it easy.

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