What does it mean to be TagesWoche’s & Basel’s «EXPAT EXPERT»?
Dear Auntie SAM: I love the sound of the church bells throughout Basel. But I notice they ring at different times. What do they mean ?
Marilyn Monroe’s most beautiful movie is called «Niagra». Filmed on location, Canada’s most impressive falls vies for screen time with one of Hollywood’s most impressive rears. Mother Nature must have felt excruciatingly proud of that film.
In it, church bells narrate Marilyn’s character’s love, infidelity, immortality, hope, disillusionment, & despair. They also bring the three most central characters to face their fates. Perhaps something similarly beautiful happens each day in Basel…
Barely a toddler, your Auntie met her first friend while stealing apples. I had wandered across the tiny road in our village to sit on a stranger’s porch & luxuriate in the crisp fruit she had collected & left in baskets.
There were apples in baskets on my side of the road. Why I went to her house, we’ll never know. I was non-verbal & she is dead. Besides, it’s likely neither of us ever knew «why» anyway.
But for over thirty years she was my closest confidant. A widowed librarian more than sixty years my senior, when we were younger, she’d play the piano while I sang. When she became more infirm, she’d tell me stories from her youth while I cleaned for her. Throughout it all – my turbulent childhood, my krazy klub kid nights, my fears about not being good enough for The Good Life – she’d offer sound advice & reassurances. A child herself of strife – another woman blessed with love & tremendous inner resources – she always knew; she allowed me to believe: everything was going to be okay.
Being called «Basel’s Expat Expert» often feels like one of the most amusing nicknames your clueless Auntie could ever have. As a woman without children who arrived after her spouse had already been welcomed into his life, I didn’t have work colleagues or other parents from which to learn where to find what seemingly all expats want to buy or do in Basel. I learn so much more than I could hope to discover myself from them.
Simple things elude me. In my new home, at this time of year, I awake to darkness & come home to darkness because I forgot that apartments in Basel do not come with light fixtures. They come with wires that could kill you hanging from the ceiling. Friends tell me, «You should buy a lamp.» But I don’t want a lamp. Getting a lamp requires me to take time to find a lamp, spend money to buy said lamp, sneeze through dusting unwanted lamp, & then finding a fool to house unloved lamp after I decide what I really want. Buying a lamp means I’d have four problems instead of one – & so my nights are lit by candles … delightfully romantic, & is that really so horrid of a problem ?
On the weeks, such as this, when I wonder: «Who cares what I have to write about life in Basel?», I tell myself that ridiculous flights of fancy such as my resistance to buy a lamp are why I’m called «Basel’s Expat Expert». I have no idea if that farce rings true. But many of our world’s most ridiculous ideas do. And it is what sets me apart, so I accept contentment. Or something like that, after a pint of gin.
But, Darling, why ask the tough stuff on a Monday?
I have no idea why church bells ring. And I have no time or enough minions to investigate. I only know they ring; agree they sound pretty; & believe extremely strongly that, if they speak to you: answer.
Perhaps it’s axiomatic that people who choose to abandon all they know to attempt new lives abroad are mad. Perhaps it’s true that some of us host tea parties in which our true needs are never met. While others of us grin silently from trees. Or suffer indignities of jester courts. Who falls into which camp & when can vary upon arbitrary things such as the weather … or drunken little dormice in our tea.
These are the thorns that pierce our souls.
And although most things in your Auntie’s life now will likely remain «not for her» – one thing she knows for certain is: that when we, Running Crazy With Fearless Hearts, open ourselves to new world experiences, The Universe – in all her madcap, sinfully lovely, want-to-see-you-bathed-in-joy fun, conspires to meet us. Even greet us.
Ha. Ha.
So, Darling. If you & your rambling soul find yourself along red carpets awash in flashbulbs & requests to sign, as one abroad often does … Yet, through the clamour, the glamour, & Thor’s mighty thrusting, thundering hammer … your soul skips a beat to bathe in sirens‘ calls: answer.
The people & experiences you are meant to meet may not have the lasting power of my dear librarian. But I assure you, Precious Wild Heart; The One Who Yearns To Break Free: Calliope will be significant.
XO
AS
___
Your Auntie INDULGED PLEASURES too long … or, perhaps just LONG ENOUGH. Regardless, it’s too late to enjoy the concert TONIGHT, but WISE SOULS would take notice whenever MILYA plays…
Something FABULOUS is happening at Café Bar Rosenkranz, St. Johanns-Ring 102, 4056 Basel. KULTURAPéRO. FRIDAY, NEXT FRIDAY, THE FRIDAY AFTER. 6 PM
And, furthering last week’s GRACE: BAKE BREAD FOR KIDS. The GRITIäNZ TEAM of BAKERS & CHEFS DEDICATED to TEACHING YUM FOOD FOR ALL will host a BENEFIT in support of the ALADDIN FOUNDATION. ALL REVENUE will go towards FAMILIES WITH SICK CHILDREN & CASA FARFALLA. Hauptstrasse 53, 6045 Meggen LU. SUNDAY 10 AM–3 PM.