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A brief trip to Zürich, just five days, to teach a seminar at the Institut. I really don’t travel much these days, do I?... dusting a suitcase, running through the list I made years ago when I was studying so I wouldn’t forget important things…
First of all, airport security in Newcastle has been enormously redesigned. This is actually interesting, because it is much more high-tech and faster – it is also more sensible, though no passengers are ready for it. The man at the last desk tells me it’s only been in place for six weeks, so they’re all getting accustomed to it. Actions and spaces are grouped, they seem to look at everyone in the same way – it is actually more complete, but also faster, which is an interesting combination.
The flights and the stop in Amsterdam are quite smooth, elegantly efficient, without the sweaty, chaotic crowds of summer tourists. The Swissness of Zürich airport is easy and clear, and I have been given a taxi from the airport without a fee. The driver is a garrulous grandfather (I suppose there are strong similarities between us) and an interesting one – we talk all the way in about countries, weather, grandchildren – he is a former immigrant who has been taken care of, and he would never want to leave Switzerland.
The hotel is new to me – a good location, it is designed a bit for the agile young (attic ceilings and a low bed), but pleasant.
I realize I want Swiss winter food for a late dinner – there is a restaurant still open two blocks away –
It is small, energetic, and quite crowded. Is there room for one, I don’t have a reservation? But I’m the only one in the room being diffident; the energetic, fast-moving proprietress practically pushes me into a chair with generous impatience, and that sense that everything will be taken care of if I don’t dawdle.
I get a generously homey plate of rösti, sausage, mustard, on a long central table that has small groups along its length. I soon realize I’m facing a table of ten brawny Swiss lads, probably a winter sports team. They hand a smartphone to the proprietress, who aims for a photo – they all smile and look their hearty, stolid best, and she stands on tiptoe to do it, because she is also tiny.
They aren’t the only boisterous ones in the restaurant – across the room, a bit behind me, a group of old ladies with white hair are laughing at their own jokes. It is a fun crowd, on a cold winter night on a dimly lit side street in the town center.
The Swiss look healthier, more energetic, in winter than the English – there is a brisk sense of getting on with things, and often there are various winter sports in the background. The town is not crowded; there are a few visible tourists but not many, and there is a general sense of well-being.
***
On Saturday, I do errands – train tickets, bottles of water – and then fall into a long, somewhat broken sleep. Of course, I feel guilty for spending a large part of the day in my room, but it seems that I need it.
An analysand is having a crisis around working on his thesis, which parallels my own smaller but still neurotic relation to the presentation I have to have for Monday (plus the final corrections to the Bussotti article, which I’ve been complaining about for months, and which will, when I get to them, probably take two hours, if that). We have several points of contact during this trip, and I even call him, across Europe – I’m not normally so pushy, but it seems necessary in this case.
When I wake in the afternoon and finally get into the shower, a flood of water covers the floor of the bathroom, then goes several feet into the main room. I’m dismayed but get dressed before calling the front desk for help. The pleasant Ramon, who is really intelligent and charming – and fortunately apologetic and helpful – comes to clean up, with a mop; this is not a first time and is indeed a major problem on the top floor of this hotel. I have strong opinions about just how adequate this is for a modern, and above all Swiss, hotel, but I save them for the hotel owner on Monday.
In the evening I go off to my favorite tapas restaurant – a popular, rumbustious place that always leaves me with a sense of sangria-fueled well-being. Oddly enough I am seated at a large quarter-circle table that already has six people at it – it turns out that consists two groups of three, each a couple plus a friend, one group younger, one older. I am at first a bit worried about this arrangement, especially as I am at the center of the outside curve and thus in the midst of strangers, but they are all very friendly. Already nearly done with their meal, they offer me what’s left of the tapas, though I feel this might be going a bit too far…
I talk for a long time with the young, dark-haired, frankly beautiful woman on my left, who is there with her husband and their (obviously) Gay Friend, who is an amusing cosmopolitan with a shaved head (see, we are clichés). They are from western Switzerland, the area between Italy and France; their Swiss German is relatively delicate, and she shifts smoothly into a graceful French at points. On my right, the other group of three are from further east, and have more heavily Germanic accents – the older woman, who talks a great deal, is originally from Russia; what she says has more of a demand for attention in it than any real content, but everyone gives her that attention without working too hard at it. These three are older and more sedate, but pleasant, and everyone talks and has a good time.
***
It is Sunday, which is made known by the church bells – you can’t tell by the sound but I know there are probably as many Catholic as Protestant ones ringing. I am feeling better, more coherent and rested. I know that I need to do some serious work on Monday’s presentation, but on closer examination realize that what I have is actually quite solid – though I still want to make some tweaks, add some examples. Opera, musicals, some other songs and possibly a dance number, used as ways of looking at complexes, archetypes, and above all individuation….
But today is a day on the train to Geneva to have lunch with Barbara. The ride is fairly long, a bit over three hours each way – I will want a table if I can get one, somewhere to put the laptop and work on the presentation. A cloud of mild anxiety – have I handled the day pass correctly, did I remember to check it in the electronic slots? – but it all works out eventually.
Barbara and I go to a restaurant in the middle of town – one that is very French, and also a bit arrogant and weary of tourist trade. But the food is good, and of course I love talking to Barbara about, well, everything.
On the train back to Zürich, I sit across from an older woman who is wearing mildly spectacular clothing. She lives in Fribourg, with her daughter who has recently gotten a position on the faculty of the university there – I tell her it’s a good choice, Fribourg is highly respected but also a pleasant, relaxed university, from what I hear.
We speak in French the entire time – it is amazing how much I’ve forgotten of my high school French, but it is also amazing how many words pop up out of nowhere. She is Portuguese but lived for years with her Swiss husband, who died last year; we talk about changes in later life… there are traces of desolation when she talks about his death, but they are only part of a landscape of personal energy, enjoyment, and various memories and plans for her future.
When we have talked for about an hour, we reach her stop; at the last moment she gives me an entire bag of cookies she brought from her family in Portugal – I promise that I really do protest, but she insists, as she has more bags and boxes of food from home to share with her daughter. I admit to her that, as the youngest of four children, I find it easy to be given food. Then she is gone.
***
Monday contains a four-and-a-half-hour seminar on opera, musical, song, archetype, and individuation, at the Jung-Institut in Küsnacht. Although I’ve taught this topic four or five times in the past few years, this is actually the first time I’ve ever taught it live – which makes it a lot more fun, more relaxed. I know I will scribble on the whiteboard and wave my arms around a lot.
And it goes well, although I do trip over a man my age who keeps interrupting the class for thoughts that usually turn out to be distant from the main topic – I don’t really catch on enough to redirect the class until the third segment, and about forty per cent of the material goes unused. I promise the class I will send them the slides later – I’m especially proud of the series of different frames I’ve shown around the large and loosely defined world of individuation, so I suggest they spend some time with them.
That evening, impatiently looking for other interesting restaurants, I find one on the other side of the river, in a quiet, dark neighborhood. It is remarkably quiet – I am late, there is mist and occasional rain – but the restaurant is a fine one, self-consciously but successfully so. The owners, though they have very different class styles and accents, are as assertive as the woman was in the first restaurant of the trip, certain that they have really good food and all the skills required for hospitality – and they are right. The large, dark room has only a few patrons in it, and I read and eat, pleased at both experiences.
***
Tuesday is remarkable free of demands. I have a pleasant lunch with Robert, who has brought a belated graduate gift, a new book by Renate Daniel – both Robert and Renate were my supervisors. We talk about everyone, sitting in a sunny café next to the Opera that looks out on the Zürichsee – everyone around seems happy, voluble, energetic, as the Swiss have been throughout this trip.
I know that I need to go to Läderach, and even better Sprüngli, for really good chocolate to take home. The woman behind the counter in the small Sprüngli near the Stadelhofen station is in a mood – a very energetic, fun mood; we fall rapidly into comic multilingual banter, and I give my choices over into her hands. It is obvious that for her, today, a life of selling chocolate is the best life imaginable.
That evening is my last night in Zürich, and I realize that a number of rich and interesting meals have left me feeling a bit overwhelmed. Where can I go that is pleasant and quiet, and of course near the hotel, where they might give me the equivalent of – I don’t know – a small bowl of rice, with a few sesame seeds?...
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