What’s the most surreal experience you’ve ever had?
The most surreal experience I still have is the déjà vue of a daily prompt day after day that I wrote at least a year, sometimes two years ago. It follows me, reoccurs and makes my blogging life a misery. And now for something completely different.
“Let’s take a walk to the village church” Mr. Swiss always has good ideas for our tours in the afternoon, although our churches, like most other things worth seeing in Switzerland, always seem to be situated in high places. Nevertheless we continued, Mr. Swiss leading and me following. I felt like one of the 7 dwarves known as “copycat”, although that would be dwarf No. 8. So onward I stumbled, climbed, holding on the iron bar with both hands as I climbed the stairs to the top. Yes those churches think of everything, they even build stairs to make sure you arrive.
I got there safe, but perhaps not so sound. It is a catholic church, our area being predominately roman catholic, but churches are not fussy who visits, and we had no intention of going inside. I stood for a while to gather my breath and ensure that all my limbs were in place.
“Do you mind”
“I beg your pardon.” No it was not Mr. Swiss, he had already turned the corner.
“I said do you mind, you are standing on my gravestone.”
I bent my head and discovered that I really was standing on a gravestone, with name and dates and everything that belonged.
“But you are dead.”
“I might be dead, but in my life time I was respected as one of the elders of the village, one of the people that had something to say and to prove it I had a pole position in the graves surrounding the church.”
I looked around and discovered that there were a row of graves on the floor and even on the walls of the church there were stones commenting various pillars of society, some of the names being from familiar established families in the area. I was a little perplex but mumbled an apology.
“I should think so, you graveyard tourists have really no respect. The next thing you will probably do is to produce one of those new fangled digital cameras to take a photo.”
“I was thinking of it.”
“Then take a few steps around the corner. One of our show offs, the painter Frank Buchser Frank Buchser who lived in the village has a monument. He thinks he is something special, although I believe he is well known, not only in this area. Take your picture there, I just want to have my peace and quiet.”
I decided to move on, being carful not to walk on the other stones and not wanting to wake more dead. Of course I took a photo of Frank Buchser’s monument, it was too good to be true.
“Who are you talking to?” called Mr. Swiss from somewhere in the distance.
“Just a dead person that is buried here” I answered truthfully.”
“Huh?”
“Forget it.” I decided I did not want to confirm the fact that I sometimes have illusions, he knows it after 46 years of getting used to me.
I continued with my walk, still avoiding the dead people and decided to take a few photos from the church. Three of my photos included the graveyard belonging to the church where the normal unimportant dead were laying. Who knows, one day I might ….. forget it. It’s too early I hope.
I turned a corner where Mr. Swiss was standing, examining a stone engraving in gold letters on the wall. Another one of the dead that made it in life I suppose. I then saw a wonderful view, the photographer’s dream. I was patient for a few minutes, as Mr. Swiss was standing on the lefthand side of my photo viewing lens. Eventually he moved and I took the photo. When I uploaded the photo at home, I realised he was a figure on the lefthand side of this Pulitzer prize suspicious photo, so I cropped him out and here is the result.
The white building in the middle in the distance is our local stables of which I have blogged now and again on my marathon walks.
We eventually walked down the hill to the top part of the village. The church is known as St. Niklaus and so it the top half of the village of Feldbrunnen. I could hear voices saying “Goodbye, come and see us some time, it gets quite lonely here now and again” as I left.
“Who is that calling?” said Mr. Swiss.
“Oh, no-one important, just a few happy spirits I met on the walk.”
He probably thought another Mrs. Angloswiss weak joke but what did he know.
Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss 
Lovely! You are inspiring me to get out for a walk today to our own local graveyard – except it’s been raining all night, and it gets very swampy after the rain. Oh well, maybe I’ll wait until tomorrow…
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We are also staying at home today. It has been raining today, not too much, but enough to keep us indoors.
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Hope it clears up so you can walk again tomorrow!
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I was out working today, and on returning, at the bus-stop I met an elderly lady, sitting there with a zimmer-frame on wheels and a football fan-shawl of the local team. She started talking to me, as she complained about the cold of the metal bench and I joined in (I said they were cr** – ups – unusable when they were put up – as most of the year they’d be too cold to use) and she told me, how she came to go to the stadium. Her late husband of 46 years (that is what you have in common with her) who died 2 years ago had shared that love for our team. And now she goes to the matches with their son.
So you see, I met “a spirit” too – and a woman who was married for 46 years.
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Oh, well, something comes over wrong, of course you do not have a LATE husband in common! Just a husband for 46 years.
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No problem, he is eight years older than me. I used to go to football matches in my teenage days (West Ham United, London). the problem with those benches today I find is that they make them very modern and they are just a bench, no part to support the back.
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When I first moved to the East Coast of the United States (from California) I was absolutely shocked and amazed that they had graves not only in the churchyards surrounding the churches but inside the churches. Dead people surrounding the churches and on the very floorboards we were walking on??? >>shiver<< That took a bit to get used to.
On the West Coast, we put all of our dead people neatly in cemeteries and surround them with big, iron fences to keep their spirits inside. But on the East Coast, and especially in the South, one can stumble on graves just about anywhere. I worked in a campground one summer and there were three gravestones just sitting there in the middle of the campground under a big tree, happy as you please. It was a bit of a culture shock, let me tell you.
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They are very fussy in Switzerland. The most importnt people, ex government people, local artists and well situated families are all in the special places. Everyone else is on the cemetery. the cemeteries are very well looked after. If you have enough money, you can buy the ground and stay there, but if you are normal, you can only stay where you are for about 30-40 years (am not exactly sure how long) and then you move on. Don’t ask me where to. In any case you are on a safe thing if you are cremated.
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It really depends on where you are here in the States… We’re a huge country with lots of open space, and it differs depending on what part of the country one lives in. Some parts of the country have more room than others…
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Switzerland is a small country with 26 states and eight million population, but according to which state you live in, you are buried according to their laws. True, the space is not so much, but more and more are being cremated.
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Same here in the States… more people are getting cremated because it’s “green”.
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You’ve been taking some really excellent pictures. All of today’s are great!
You have such a good relationship with the dead, you could take up a new profession. Become an exorcist! I hear the pay is not too great, but you are never bored. And just think of all the material you’d have for writing!
If you like that kind of thing, I’m going to suggest you might want to read the Felix Castor books by Mike Carey. He’s a British author, originally from Liverpool. The books (you should read them in order) — only five of them unless he makes us all happy and writes some more — are available for Kindle and as audiobooks too. They’re really well written. I think they might be right up your alley.
“The Devil You Know” is the first one –
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I don’t know about that exorcist thing, although I do have two cats as familiars. Mr, Swiss found it very amusing when I told him. I love taking photos, but the uploading takes time. I have them in Flickr, on my second computer (more than 10,000) and on an extra hard disk, just to be sure. that is why it takes so much time.
As for the book, yes definitely up my street and today I will upload No. 1 on my kindle/iPad. I have just finished reading Faust in German by Goethe as it seems it was missing in my repertoire. Did I like it? I am still not so sure. In any case the good ones all went up in the elevator and the bad ones went down. It was all very poetic, and even rhymed in german. It was a bit long winded. the book was 200 pages and Faust only met Gretchen on page 110 or something like that. Perhaps I should read it again, but I did understand every word.
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Have just uploaded the book, quite reasonable in price
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you have the best walks! And now, talks, also!
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Walking weather now changed, more rain and colder, but who knows, I might risk it all the same
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