We spend hours watching the clouds, my oldest and I, sitting on a wooden bench, admiring the view of the Swiss Alps. The clouds were passing by fast that day, alternating between revealing and hiding the different rock formations and mountain peaks. He loved the view as much as I did, my 16 year old son. At one point, he even said to my husband,'' I think I like the Swiss Alps more than the Rocky Mountains.” I winked at him and smiled. “I get it and I agree with you.”
A couple days before that, we had arrived at this picturesque mountain town, a place that felt so familiar to me. I came here for the first time as a tiny baby. My parents started coming here regularly before they even had kids, and then continued to come here every year, sometimes twice a year. Even when I became an adult, we would meet up here several times.
I remember as a kid not being able to sleep from excitement the night before the eight hour car ride, and, when it was time to go back home, crying silently on the long drive back.
I loved coming here. This is where I fell in love with the mountains, fell in love with skiing and hiking, fell in love with the sound of the bells hanging from the necks of cows that, to this day, roam around freely in the fields breathing in the fresh mountain air.
My love affair with Switzerland has lasted now for over 40 years, and no other place in this world gets my heart beating faster.
We went to Europe last summer. It was a trip down memory lane for me, introducing my kids to places of my childhood, first in Germany and then in Switzerland. We enjoyed our time in Germany, of course, but it wasn’t until the morning we crossed the border into Switzerland that my heart couldn’t contain my joy about finally visiting this beautiful place with my American husband and kids, the place where I spent the happiest days of my childhood.
Some old family friends had offered us to stay in their charming vacation rental for free, a cozy vintage decorated apartment on the third floor of their home. This couple, who are now in their late seventies, have known me since I was a baby. They are more like family to me than friends, and when we arrived and I saw them for the first time in more than 20 years, I hugged them tight.
That night I went to bed, the bed with the flowery reddish sheets and the vintage night stand next to it, and I kept thinking, ”I cannot believe I am back. And this time with my own family.” I had dreamt of showing my family this place for a long time and now it was reality. I felt I had arrived home.
As I am reflecting on this time, or what I would call the happiest days of last summer, I realize that it is probably strange to talk about a vacation place as home. Of course, I have loved it my whole life, but I never lived there - only spent weeks at a time every year, enjoying the beautiful nature. When I was 17, I spent a whole summer there working at a hotel, but that was it. I had never lived life there with all its ups and downs. Life that, no matter where you live, can bring you down to your knees.
But this visit struck deep. For the first two months after our trip, being back in the States felt surreal. I felt like I was experiencing everything through a foggy vision. It was hard to come back here, and I think we all (especially my kids and I) experienced different levels of culture shock when returning home. “Culture shock is real, Mama,” one of them said repeatedly. I may have googled “Jobs in Switzerland“, experienced feelings of regret for not moving back to Europe when we had the chance, and resentment towards my husband for bringing me to the United States. I know…not good and definitely not fair. I made my choices for very good reasons.
I guess we all experience times in our lives where we think “If only” and “I wish I had”. But there is no use and it’s not a healthy place to get stuck in. I came out of it eventually.
Home means different things to different people. Home should ideally be a place of safety and comfort. Home is often the place where you were born and raised. Home is a place where you are loved and cherished. Home is where you are known and seen.
Home is also a place where things happen that others don’t see.
The tears, the conflicts, the moments of despair.
At home, we can leave our masks at the front door.
At home we are loved despite our weaknesses.
Home.
I love this word. In German it’s “Heimat”. Both express comfort and warmth to me just by the way they sound.
The truth is that I have had a hard time feeling at home anywhere I have lived so far. There is a longing in me for home and it seems that I haven’t found it. Maybe it’s a longing for something that will never be.
It’s certainly been strange and challenging to raise my very American kids in America as a German. There were so many times that felt surreal to me and strange and foreign.
There was something missing, a familiarity, a connection that I hadn’t been able to share with them.
I think that changed last summer. Visiting my favorite place in the Swiss Alps with my kids, a place that feels like home, a safe and comforting place, familiar to me in so many ways, changed so much. I connected with them in ways I hadn’t been able to do before. I shared with them something that was part of me, had been part of me for many years before they were born.
They saw me in this place and they understood. They got it.
On the morning we had to leave, I wanted to stop by my favorite bakery. A bakery that I had walked to and had visited many, many times as a kid. I wanted to get coffee and pastries on our way out before we were heading to a different part of Switzerland.
My older son came with me to help. As we walked into the bakery, my heart started to feel happy and heavy at the same time. I was grateful that I had come back here with my son and sad that I had to leave this place not knowing if and when I would be able to return.
When we got back in the car, I couldn’t hold back my tears. I didn’t want to leave.
My tears were running down my face and I wasn’t trying to hide it.
But what was so beautiful about that moment is that I felt seen and understood by my family in a way that I hadn’t before. I felt so loved by them. I felt safe and comforted being able to cry quietly while they knew and understood exactly why I was so sad. They were sad, too.
They had gotten to know me in a different way. They had seen a part of me they didn’t know before. Despite my sadness, I felt so immensely grateful that now, while not necessarily feeling at home in the place where I lived, I felt more at home being with them than I ever had before.
Wonderful words. One thing, or rather, one word, that stays in my mind is heimat. I find myself wondering whether there is any distant historical connection, some sort of common root, with the Welsh word hiraeth or its near cousin, the Cornish version hirath.... probably not, probably just my fanciful thinking.
That brought tears to my eyes! I am so happy for you, that you got to experience something like this with your sons and husband. One can feel in your writing how important this moment must have been for you! Thank you for sharing!