Experiences you never expected

There’s little prep work that came with making a visit to the microstate of Liechtenstein. A friend of mine had decided to torture his body by competing in their uphill marathon, and I simply wanted to check this tiny place out at some point in my life. So with an easy excuse to go, I booked a plane ticket to Zurich in order to tag along as a bit of a sporting tourist.

You again?

And in coming here, I quickly discovered that there was a fringe benefit I hadn’t exactly foreseen: I was granted a return visit to my favorite set of mountains. Ah the Alps. They’re the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe. For me it’s a place of strange magnetism that will never lose its pull. Blame the sentiment on having first come here during a period when I was highly impressionable, but whatever the reason, I still can’t shake their significance. The cluster of ranges knuckles together like a Chevy Suburban jammed with barely tolerant Mashpee kids thus making me feel protected while at the same time an outsider. It’s ultimately the experience of being a human in our society: navigating family life where you spend your days weathering constant iterations of belonging and low grade alienation.

Eventide transition

But here, even though I have no prior knowledge of this Upper Rhine Valley, I still feel the familiar compulsion to stare out forever at the depth of view as it slices and spans multiple European borders. Come evening, the closest massif slowly goes dark  and then suddenly blinks back to life once the sun completely leaves the vertical and horizontal axes. Only then does the entire façade become an imperfectly strung Christmas tree–and even then it is hard to pull your eyes away.

At the end of each street, a view of three countries

My fifteen year old niece has been asking me lately about the possibility of studying abroad. Moxie, as we call her, has no real sense of whether she’s got the grades or the financial backing to do it (though I know my family didn’t have the money, either)— but all the same I know without hesitation that if she can, she must do it.  I went to the Alps just after turning sixteen and it changed my outlook on things forever. And I suppose that if I had stayed home, the natural course of growing up would have changed me to a positive effect as well. And I suppose that I could have been sent to Alice Springs or somewhere a bit more unusual, but the fact that I spent a year cradled in a place that was simultaneously bewildering and exhilarating— I wouldn’t trade my individual life shift for anything else on the topographical map.

Complicated yet ultimately enjoyable to ponder

My crazy travel-marathoning companion and I have been driving down the Liechtenstein mountains, snaking back and forth along the hairpin turns while espousing the merits of going abroad. Traveling will change you, whether you want it to or not, and this was my experience in the Alps. It’s also the reason why I chose my line of work.

Still feels like I’m getting away with so much- and I’m gonna keep running till I get caught.

I have no idea where my niece will be planted when she blinks and suddenly finds herself my age. I have no idea what her preoccupations will be, or whether she will get the chance to do the things that seemed important in her fifteen year old mind.  Whatever happens, I hope she exists in a place where, from time to time, she can look up from whatever she’s muddled in and find a well-loved piece of herself that she can come back to when she least expects it.

Hoi and à bientôt

Time and life move incredibly fast. For as much longer as I’ve got on the meter, I hope to squeeze out at least a couple more of these chance reunions before I’ve gotta pack it in. Whenever that moment does finally come, I have a feeling that things will still be okay. The next pack of Hallinans are coming up quick and soon they’ll be scaling their own personal Alp. It’s gonna be great, and I can’t wait to watch them discover the path.