Notes from Below Sea Level
Let it Be—Well, At Least for the Time Being
I get this new wallpaper on my computer each morning at work. A beautiful scene from somewhere I don’t recognize but is mesmerizing in a sort of meta way; the colors are surreal, the balance perfect, the composition masterly. And last night I had the last of a wonderful corn chowder I made from scratch, with thin toasted slices of a traditional baguette—with a small serving of pork roast my son and I made earlier in the week. My musical choices lately have tended to those from the 60s and 70s for a bit of comfort and familiarity. Most evenings I’ve been reading a bit from The Letters of Seamus Heaney and contentedly going to bed a bit earlier than usual after making the rounds outside to ensure the possum, Babe, has fresh fruit in her bowl and the cats have fresh water. What I haven’t done in a couple weeks is read or listen to any political news. I figure—though this is hard to predict—I will continue doing that for at least another couple weeks. I simply refuse to dive into a medium that has so lost its way, one which has consciously abandoned its crucial role in our society in an unholy quest for some mythic grail of silver and gold.
Now I have time to discover that the photograph on my computer is apparently a place called Appenzell Innerrhoden, Switzerland. You may not know, but that is one interesting canton in the Swiss Confederation. It was formed from the lands controlled by the Abbot of St Gall, hence “Abbot’s” “cell” (the abbot’s estates). It is the smallest canton by population and the second smallest by area and has a very colorful history. Named after St Gall—one of the Irish Saints that himself is clouded in mystery and conflicting histories—this area is also the most conservative area in an extremely conservative nation state.
Appenzell Innerrhoden holds the distinction of having voted against every single proposed change to the Swiss Constitution since 1848 and was forced to grant by the Federal Court to allow women to vote in 1990. And while it might seem wild that women weren’t granted the right to vote in that place until the canton was forced by Federal authority to change a century’s-old law, realize also that it wasn’t until 1990 that a woman (two, actually) sued the canton for that right. A study of this tiny area tucked away in the northeast corner of modern-day Switzerland is a micro lesson of the macro politics of Europe. Its fight against landed rulers, skirmishes over grazing rights, its short-lived membership in the Swiss Confederation, its tenuous relationship with the Hapsburg dynasty and particularly the Catholic Church, the lines drawn during the Reformation, are each illustrative of nation-building tendencies in European political history and some vaunted struggle for individual rights (or at least the right of the privileged old guard to dictate the rules laid out to control the majority).
So, in addition to perfecting my cream sauce and catching up on reading, perhaps I’ll start getting in shape and learn a new skill. [My father was a pretty good carpenter, and I’ve always liked woodworking (as a side interest).] Maybe I’ll write more or get my meager garden better organized. For sure I am going to dive back into history (my minor in undergraduate school) and expand my horizons in ways that are as impractical as they are distracting. I will retreat into my own hermitage and use this time to remember how insignificant lifetimes can be in the immense continuum that is human history—call it a strategic retreat of sorts. In one sense, I am resigned to watching the world burn from the safety of an Alpine mountain top of my own creation, comforted in the knowledge that what the arsonist destroys eventually can be rebuilt.
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Cheers everyone and here’s to a lovely Friday and a relaxing weekend.
Be well, be kind, and appreciate the love you have in your life.
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Grab your coffee or tea and join us, please.
What's on your mind this morning?
