Re: D's the real heroes? - rootless cosmopolitans


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Posted by Peter Ceresole on October 14, 2003 at 08:19:17 from 80.177.22.49 user PeterC.

In Reply to: Re: D's the real heroes? - rootless cosmopolitans posted by Katharine on October 13, 2003 at 21:43:01:

We adored the place....Going away from it, we were half drowned in tears....While away from it, as children and as grown-ups, we dreamt about it. No matter where I was, wandering about the world, I used at night to look for the North Star, and, in my mind's eye, could see the beloved skyline of great hills beneath it.....

I think that's the normal reaction of a child to a place where they were happy- and it does continue through into adulthood. My parents were Swiss and from 1945 onwards- the moment it was possible to travel after the war- we spent every summer holiday in Geneva with relatives. Although I lived in London all my life, and love it and think of it as my real home and would get misty-eyed about it when I was working in, say, Denver, I would always be happy and relaxed in Geneva and it had for me a quality of Shangri-La. It still does.

We have a tiny converted stone farmhouse in which, on and off, our family has lived since 1960 and which we now live in about three months a year. I'm 63; wherever I am in the world I can still in my mind's eye be whisked back in a second to the glorious Geneva summer skies of my childhood (just as gorgeous this year too). They glow at dusk above the sharp line of the Jura mountains- even as I type that, the thought brings tears of happiness to my eyes. I always thought I could feel AR's attachment to the lakes in much the same way.

It doesn't make you rootless at all; I love London as much as I ever did and one of the greatest pleasures in life is to get on a bus with Anne, my wife, and sit on the top deck in front, and watch London spool by. But that continuing experience of a place, Geneva, that I loved as a child is one that has enriched all my life.

I think that this childhood glow is one of the things that AR conveys so well.


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