The Journey: Week 3 . . . Swiss Family Retreat...

Geza, bless his heart, realized how weary I actually was, and didn't hold me unnecessarily long to my welcoming dinner obligations. They had a comfortable room awaiting me, and a much needed long night of sleep.

All of Sunday was conversation time for us. Geza is an attorney, still practicing at 76, with stories to tell, of the Soviet invasion of his country during his boyhood -- how they shot his mother and dominated the rest of his life, up to and beyond the time we met. He's also a Jazz buff favoring my own West Coast preference . . . but I hadn't learned that until well along in our friendship.

How we first got in touch with each other is a bit vague to me now, but it had to do with some off-beat American periodical that we were both in touch with. Geza says it was MANAS, but I'm not so sure. Anyway, it was before 'the Wall' came down, which happened just a year before my 1990-91 travels. In fact, when I was there, the Soviet Union was in the process of its collapse, and Geza was ecstatically celebrating the most liberating experience of his entire life.

For now, I had brought with me a DVD of Ian Lungold giving his Mayan Calendar presentation, a few years back, in the Yukon, Alaska . . . explaining how the stone monolith had been read and what it all meant. This was all new intellectual territory for Geza, and he had to translate it for Ancsi, his wife, as we watched the presentation. Unfortunately, the DVD had deteriorated in its latter portion, so we were deprived of its full impact. But Geza seemed open to as much of it as we were able to view.

The only way I could visit my friend, Georghe, in Romania, was with a round-trip railway run from Budapest . . . just as I had done twenty years ago. It was the final compromised portion, of my compromised Eurolines arrangement, and I was really sorry to abbreviate my visit with Geza, on that account

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The schedule adjustment I'd had to make, in order to reach my deepest European contact in Romania, called for a Monday visit by train -- for just a single night's stay -- to Timisoara. I felt it as necessary as the visit to Geza had been, for neither friend had been seen since that very first journey. In fact, Georghe (in Timisoara) at first could not recall me when I reached him by phone, even though he had sent me a 'remembrance plaque' some ten years ago, delivered personally to me by another visitor returning to Seattle! I had confirmed, through a Couchsurfing contact, that Georghe was still at his old address, but I merely assumed that he'd been advised of my intended visit. I learned otherwise when I phoned him from Geza's. At first, he couldn't recall my name. He quickly remembered, though, and said he'd meet me at the railroad station.

TIMISOARA, ROMANIA

Georghe -- the same age as Geza -- was 'special' for several reasons. He lived just a few blocks from where the political rebellion that overthrew Ceausescu (their former dictator) had begun, in 1989 -- and in fact, he had taken part in it, himself. He was also, in effect, an underground host in the Servas organization, having functioned as Romania's coordinating host during the years when it was illegal to do so. Besides all of which, he was just a sweet guy, whom I had met while being hosted by a Servas member in Amsterdam.

Their home, itself, was unique: on the street floor of a busy thoroughfare, but its street-facing rooms -- bedrooms all -- were actually 'buffer zones' that made sure the inside living and dining areas were entirely quiet and free of street noise. A seven-room (or larger) apartment, it had the feeling of a long-gone way of life and had put me instantly in mind of my grand-parents' home life in mid-1930s San Francisco from the moment I first saw it. And when I was served chopped eggplant, the way my family had made it . . . that sealed it for me.

All of this returned, on my recent visit; nothing seemed to have changed in twenty years of time's passage. Another index of 'the way life used to be'. Of course, a good deal had changed: both of their daughters had fully grown, by now, and left home for lives of their own; their place had not the 'rustle' of a family home, any longer, but more the quietude of an elderly couple left to their own. But I loved it, nonetheless.

I broached the subject of my current concern to Georghe: my alertness for anything having to do with a consciousness upgrade and a self-created reality. I didn't really expect, in Romania, that he'd have any awareness of this, at all. But Georghe brightened, and told me an amazing tale, of something that had very recently happened to him.

Not long ago, he was faced with the need to find some effective sealant for the inside of his chimney -- first, a matter of figuring out what to use for it, and then finding a sufficient amount of it. In the course of thinking about it, and on one of his daily walks along the bank of the stream that runs through the heart of town, he came across a neatly bagged can of the very kind of paint he required. It was just there for him: a large can of it, unopened, alongside the path as he walked it, alongside the river!

He walked me to my late-afternoon train back to Budapest, carrying the one bag for me that I had brought along . . . never offering a word of explanation as to why we didn't take one of the trams that plied the boulevard we hurried along . . . I honestly think that's why he was able to out-walk me, even with my luggage in hand. It's the way he lives.

That journey, going each way, was the only time I'd had to contend with what used to be standard border procedure: the mid-journey boarding by police, asking to see my papers -- not once, but twice (once on each side of the border) . . . feeling like something out of a long-ago movie of international intrigue. It was well after dark when I got back to the Budapest station, and Geza was eventually there to meet me and escort me back to his home.

The truly rugged part of my journey was done, with that return from Romania; but I still had to get up early, to be accompanied by Geza to the airport for a relatively short flight to my final journey destination: Geneva, Switzerland. It was my one and only transportation luxury -- indulged because I was frustrated by the complexity, at long last, and wearied of the challenge of trying to figure out how, by bus or rail, to get there. The triangular area between the Balkans, northern Italy, and Switzerland, had just too many possible routings.

LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND

With my departure for Geneva, I was 'home, free' -- in all but the literal sense of it. I had 'passed the exam', met my challenges, and conquered my age-related inadequacies -- at least, for that Eurolines roller-coaster I'd bought into. I had planned on Switzerland as my 'reward', for some very special reasons.

Firstly, I had never been there before. But more importantly, it was the tipping-point invitation from Johanna that had finally nudged me from just thinking about such a journey to actually going for it. I'm not at all sure I would have made the journey without her nudge.

We met about 23 years ago when I was attending Shoreline Community College, in Seattle, before I ever had a thought about going to the University. It was part of the unbelievable trail -- a story yet to be told -- that began with my arrival in Seattle 25 years ago. A series of path-following developments that had taken me through job-search, to an ill-starred residence on Whidbey Island, to a test passed with flying colors at age 60, for a year's worth of job-training . . . finally landing me in a year-long program on the Shoreline campus . . . and it was there, in a Philosophy class, that I met Johanna. The Philosophy class was just a freebie that had nothing to do with my job-training, if you were wondering.

Somehow, Johanna and I fell into conversation on various relevant things, back then, and she shortly invited me to a birthday party -- her 19th, I think. That was fun, and I later connected with her at the UW, where she also attended; and then one last time, at a beach town in southern California, when I was passing through on a summer vacation. But it felt more like I was in her way, that time, than any continuing basis for friendship between us. So I shrugged it off, and went on with my life.



You can imagine my surprise, then, when I got a Facebook message from Johanna early this year. In fact, it brought up a memory of someone else, for me, not Johanna. But we got that straightened out, and renewed our old connection . . . which led to an invitation from Johanna to visit. Still, it would not have been enough, except for my sense that it came not from Johanna, in a sense, but from what I've often referred to as The Universe. Or call it what you will; this became an established pattern with me, long ago: women cue me to my next move -- either in their own action, or by my inner response to them. This has often been one of my guidance elements. To me, Johanna's invitation came through her, not from her.

I was wise to save it for last: it initiated a thoroughly relaxing closure for me, from the moment Johanna and Chris -- her partner -- met me at the Geneva airport for the drive to their village residence, some 50 miles away. I really didn't see much of that first ride, though, for I was talking at a mile-a-minute with pent-up energy I really didn't know the source of. They live about 15 miles north of Lausanne, an up-the-mountainside city of remarkable charm: a cascade of hillside streets that one is hard put to imagine how it ever got built, in the first place. Johanna works there, so I got to see a bit of it in the five days I stayed with them.

The countryside, however, was a revelation. Unbelievably clear air; and quiet!! I could hardly believe the peacefulness of the countryside. Very few automobiles on those out-of-the-way roads, and I didn't hear any motorcycle whines or machinery noise. It seemed like I had suddenly arrived in the sort of world that I like to think is coming. Johanna tells me she is unable to return to the U.S., and I tell her to thank her lucky stars.



I got to know Johanna's three kids, though I could only speak directly with Jasmine, 14. as the younger two (Laszlo and Celia, above) only speak French. But Johanna was our translator, so there were questions answered and a few ideas exchanged.

I was blessed, once more, with a private room for my stay, and the sound-proofing was quite remarkable. As was a marvel I had never experienced before: a heated-from-beneath floor in a large and fully-equipped bathroom, just outside my bedroom door.

They are a musical family. Jasmine is a very graceful youngster who has a natural touch on the piano, and will someday be a magical performance artist, I am quite sure. Johanna, herself, plays the guitar and has organized a small jazz group that played in the basement -- music I could not sit still to -- the first night I was there. Jasmine was part of the ensemble.

A frost came, that night, and a very special view out the window when I awakened before daybreak: I saw the just-before-full moon going down, hardly above the snow-cloaked horizon; and after it had set, I looked nearly straight up, into the clarity of the night sky -- through my window pane! -- and saw the Pleiades. A star cluster absolutely impossible to see in present-day Seattle. And a kind of omen, it seemed to me, for one of my present persuasion.

As always, I was alert for anything that might happen, in that respect. Just one thing turned up: a flash of lost memory from my youth. We had gone into a bowling alley somewhere -- I was with Johanna and the kids, and they had been promised a bowling game. I can only attribute my 'opening' to the very characteristic sounds of a bowling alley; though I've been in others, here in Seattle, and not that long ago, with no such memories triggered. But in the high atmosphere of Switzerland, it happened...

On one of my youthful hitch-hikes, I had a trick up my sleeve for picking up a little extra cash. And the moment suddenly came back, very clear to me:

Somewhere, in small-town California (I can see the grassy street corner, though I can't say where) it was still too early to lay out my sleeping bag in some sheltered spot, so I went into a nearby bowling alley and offered my services as an experienced pin-setter. And they put me to work, on a pair of side-by-side alleys. I worked for several hours, that evening: sweaty, hard work . . . send the ball rolling back, throw the fallen pins up into the rack, jump into the adjoining lane and do the same; then back to the first lane again: repeat, but this time lower the rack to set the pins up . . . again and again, and don't lose track of the sequence. Yes, I earned two-bits for a line, and my evening's reward came to almost two bucks, and a really good night's sleep when it finally ended.

You won't find that in my hitch-hike book, Derelict Days..., because I hadn't remembered it before now.

That town way down below, by the way, in the background of my pic with the kids, was Montreux (of Music Festival fame) -- and here is a clearer photo of it, taken on the same day by Johanna -- we were on a mountainside excursion that day, able to gaze downward from high above Lake Geneva, not very far from Lausanne.



Well, all good things come to an end, and on the Monday heading into the following week, Johanna drove all of us into Lausanne, where they put me on a train headed straight for the Geneva airport and a flight back to London where, within another couple hours, I'd be on my way back to the U.S. One of my bags didn't quite make it with me, but I caught up with it a couple days later when I boarded the cross-country flight from DC's Dulles Airport . . . which I damn-near missed, by the way. The loading gate had actually closed by the time I got there!

It was a final act of Reality Creation... The ramp door was truly closed when I got there, and no one around, I swear. But a moment later, there was a fellow with a hand phone asking me if I was there for that plane. I weakly answered "yes," and he pulled the phone to his mouth and said, "Hold it open . . . there's one more coming!"

I wouldn't kid you, on that one.