I quite like books with the word “joy” in the title, so how could I ignore the Japanese author Marie Kondo’s latest book, Spark Joy? A bit disappointingly, it is not about a female pyromaniac or a woman wrestler, but about a method of having an uncluttered living-space and mind.

For some strange reason, I had completely missed her earlier book (The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up) which was a super-hit world-wide a couple of years back. It tells you how to arrange your possessions. Each thing must be held (preferably close to the heart), and if you do not feel a deep orgasmic thrill (i.e., it does not “spark joy”) you must throw it away. You are then left with only cherished possessions and both your outer and inner worlds are greatly enhanced.

Your happiness is a combination of how many garbage bags you can fill and your folding skills. It can actually even reach a level of bliss, as once your house is tidied properly, you can see what is really bothering you, and husbands have been known to be been tidied away by this method.

The philosophy tells you how to fold your underwear into neat rectangles (her new book has illustrations of a little rabbit doing this) and then place them standing up in compartments in your drawer. You do the same with t-shirts and socks. Your drawers become works of art and you dream about them. You can suddenly see everything at once.

A friend came over and I showed her my drawer which I had used the KonMari method to tidy. She gasped and a glint lit her eye. She has since sent me photos of her newly-arranged pyjama drawer.

It is a creeping, possibly addictive, illness.

One problem than I can see emerging is a profound reluctance to change your socks, underwear or t-shirt as the alignment in the drawer compartment is disturbed. Another aspect that is troubling, but of great interest, is that in her first book Marie Kondo does not seem to wash or clean. This is rectified in her sequel, and dirt is classified as “natural”. A special wipe-down towel is necessary for both bathroom and kitchen. (Different one in each place.)

Her latest book also lets up a bit and allows you to keep, for example, the much-loved material of an old never-worn dress. This fabric can be used to wrap ugly electrical wires or drape a plastic water bottle holding flowers (as you have thrown out your real vase). She also suggests taking the garish labels off laundry soap and decorating the bottle with a ribbon. A frying pan can easily be used to pound in nails, so you can discard a little-used hammer. Family photographs can be joyfully used to decorate your clear plastic closet-arrangement-boxes, and all reading material, once read (or left unread) is redundant.

So, urgent message to my poor, dusty much-loved, read, unread, half-read books almost 10,000 km away: do not worry. I am throwing out Marie Kondo’s two books, and I am soon coming back to you all.

As a general packing rule, a few weeks before departure you designate a surface where you arrange all possible portable objects that you might need – edible, wearable, electronic, recreational. As departure time approaches, you discard what will not fit in your suitcase, and make rational choices.

For example, I have learned that the little Tokyo apartment I will be living in does not have central heating. This fact, combined with the current (wavering) cold snap in the Far East, means that serious slippers are a must. Warm air is blown into each room from little vents up at ceiling height which results in the well-known hot-head-cold-feet Japanese Syndrome.

So, at the moment, I have two pairs of slippers on the packing bed – one a delightfully multi-coloured floozy pair, called “snoozies” with martini glasses printed on them, and a more refined second pair of white leather, lined with rabbit skin, and decorated with Native American bead work. A choice must be made.

Then there is the current (wavering) butter crisis in Japan so I’ll have to take a Swiss block or two. Due to “el Nino” the usual supply of New Zealand butter has dried up a bit. Japan’s own butter comes from its northern island, Hokkaido. Miniscule little delicately-wrapped pads of butter are arranged in tiny little hand-crafted trays of six. I think they might be numbered and signed by the individual cows. Despite their high price, they disappear off the shelves immediately, and I’ve only once succeeded in purchasing my own butter set.

Then there are the Swiss tube-staples that can be used for all emergencies – Cenovis (marmite/breakfast), Le Parfait (liver paste/lunch), Euceta, and Vita-Merfen. I was extremely shocked to find out that these last two items (medical rather than edible) no longer exist and replacements must be found.

The phrase book, Japanese at a Glance, is a psychological crutch, and can never actually be used, as people tend to run away (often moaning) when directly approached. It has been explained to me that this is because people don’t want to be embarrassed by 1) not speaking English 2) not understanding 3) and anyway don’t want their day ruined by an unpleasant event. I keep the little book with me at all times in case I ever want to phone an unknown number to tell the emergency services that I’ve just had a car accident and think I’m having a heart attack and would like to send a telegram.

Then there are the presents. Fortunately, most of these (calendars, chocolates, prints, pens, and pencils) have gone on ahead. All I have to take at the moment is a little box of spices for the Swiss winter-time specialty “vin chaud”. This perks up no end a glass of ordinary (affordable) Peacock Department Store wine and is much appreciated by knowledgeable Tokyo wine experts.

So that’s already quite a good start an I’m feeling quite exhausted. Time now for a little rest and, hopefully, some serene cherry blossom dreams.

The circumflex accent in French is my favorite. I try to use it with aplomb and abandon. Much friendlier than the accent aigu or the accent grave—to a person who cannot tell their left from their right—it is just a little friendly hat that sits, preferably, over an “ô”.

Therefore, I am horrified that the Académie Français is finally, truly, abandoning it—fortunately just over the “i” and the “u”. For example, the old coût becomes the new cout. I, personally, would have liked it to become côut or, even better, côôt.

There are other exciting changes that also being seriously implemented some twenty-six years after the new rules were written. Numbers are being hyphenated, other words are being unhyphenated, and the two little dots over the occasional vowel (called a tréma in French and very close to my ü-heart) is being added or shifted to aid pronunciation—for example, the old gageure becomes the new gageüre--whatever it means.

As a Canadian, I am officially bilingual, but only write in English due to my timorous, yet perfectionist, nature. The arbitrary mysteries of the French language—the le and the la, the silent endings that contain many letters, the declensions, the conjugations, the agreements, the vexed question of tu vs vous, and many other social and grammatical points that I don’t even want to think about, put French into its own celestial cultural sphere of near incomprehensibility when written at its very finest.

Even paying the strictest attention, recalling all schoolroom language tricks, using spell and grammar checks, and the best brains of family and friends, I make mistakes. The missing “e” or “s”; the incomprehensible thought; the embarrassing blooper that I simply cannot see with my direct-vision Anglophone eye.

I blame it on my education. My high school French teacher was a haughty middle-aged English woman called Mrs Robinson. She had three Chanel-type suits that she wore on rotation with different scarves. She had a chignon and a nose that quivered. She made a great fuss about pronouncing the word plume perfectly.

These were the days of Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, and Mrs Robinson took her role seriously. She loved the garçons in the class, and the filles were just a necessary encumbrance. She handed out les cigarettes to the (male) smokers at recess time. I guess this was because plume rhymed with fume. Her first name was Irene. When the song Walk Away Renée became a Herman’s Hermits hit in 1968 she theatrically changed her name to Renée. Needless to say, all the girls hated her.

Sigh. I had a hard time in Mrs Robinson’s French class, and it didn’t really matter what you did with your accents. That the old événement has become the new évènement is my unexpected revenge.

In 1755 in an extraordinary one-man show, Samuel Johnson published the then definitive A Dictionary of the English Language. He is attributed to having said: “It is indeed a dull man who can think of but one way to spell a word.”

Vôila!

As family members and friends gradually retire from their traditional workplaces they either disappear completely or pop up cheerfully from time to time with morsels of coping advice.

This generally has to do with not letting yourself slip—which is presumably what has happened to those disappeared people. There are several categories which must be addressed: nutrition, time-planning, health, presentability.

Life is made up of those intervals of time that must be filled between meals. Never is this more apt than with the retired community. Seriously healthy eating is a major activity involving visits to the vegetable lady’s barn, and much consultation of almost-pristine cookbooks.

Inappropriate foods should be avoided: for example, a delicious, huge kebab I wolfed down a few weeks back had lasting and nefarious consequences. And a reliable source has recently mentioned green eggs and ham in an entirely negative way.

My oldest school friend from Canada has just retired and thoughtfully shared a stunning Sunday lunch tip: she and her husband are not allowed to drink alcohol with that particular meal if they are still wearing their pajamas. This reflects, of course, their stubbornly ingrained Protestant work-ethic and I don’t think applies here in the Swiss countryside. She did report that they did it once and didn’t get caught, so perhaps the slippery slope has been established.

Yes, the alcohol question must be addressed. Everyone knows that liqueur chocolates and white wine do not count, and I have a file folder full of clippings about the undeniable health benefits of red wine (there’s a particular Danish report which I find most uplifting.)

I also allow myself unlimited quantities of beer while ironing. A time-consuming activity, the very idea of turning mellow and singing along with the radio while pressing creases out of shirts and trousers in a cloud of steam is undeniably attractive. This works very well on warm summer evenings. Unfortunately, I don’t have much time to spare and so iron very rarely.

My sister has a lovely rule: you must not get out of bed before 8 a.m. Last weekend, for example, she said her husband only rose at 3:30 in the afternoon. Of course, you must check that people are still breathing, but sleeping, naps, and siestas must all be encouraged.

My old doctor (now retired, of course) once told me about his very oldest patient who was worried about going senile. She enquired what was the most important thing not to forget, and he told her lots of old folks forget to wash. The next time she visited him, she calmly informed him that she had solved that particular problem. She showered every morning, but in the evenings often couldn’t remember if she had, so always took another one.

So, in summary, enjoy yourself. Take a walk if the weather’s fine. Try to make a spinach soufflé every now and then. Change out of your pajamas late Sunday morning. Visit the junior family members from time to time wearing a smile and bearing gifts.

And, most important: try to stay under 80 for as long as possible.

You really have to search for fun during the January doldrums. Canadian friends, for example, have reported buying new martini glasses and changing their mattress. But now, in February, there are so many exciting things happening I don’t know where to begin.

Today, for example, is Groundhog Day. Traditionally, this is the day that the groundhog (a species of marmot—much hated by all farmers) wakes up from hibernation and pokes his head out of his hole to see what’s up. If it’s sunny and he sees his shadow he then goes back down to sleep for another 6 weeks and winter will continue. If, on the other hand, it’s a cloudy day and he doesn’t see his shadow, then winter is about to give up the ghost, and spring is just around the corner.

Here, in my village, the postman has reported that the hedgehogs are out running around and about busy getting run over. This is the same idea.

Next Monday is Chinese New Year, and luckily, we have a Chinese restaurant in the next village. Often quite empty, it is extremely authentic. In winter, for example, you usually have to keep your coat on to eat as it’s so cold. They have integrated well into the Swiss world and serve pizzas on the weekends. However, I’m sure that their Peking Duck will be most delicious.

Then, the day after, is Pancake Day. Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent begins, was the greatest day for lunch at our house of the whole year, as we ate our annual pancakes – orange slices, butter, and golden corn syrup–maple syrup was a luxury beyond our means. [For authentic Canadian pancakes beat 2 eggs, add 2 tbls sugar, 1 cup milk, 1/2 tsp salt, 3/4 tsp baking powder, and 1 cup flour. Beat everything for a couple of minutes and cook in a non-stick pan. Douse with butter, squeezed orange, maple syrup. Roll up and eat.]

Moving right along, there is Valentine’s Day on the 14th. This, of course, features chocolate and flowers which I have found one often has to buy for oneself in order to avoid disappointment. And this is followed by a relatively new holiday in Ontario, called Family Day. This is one of those odd half-holidays (i.e., not a national one), so there are some complaints that the kids are all off school and the parents have to go to work.

This is the same week as the Winter Break in the Geneva school system. Here there are 5 days off school and in the old days when there was snow, kids would be shipped off to ski camps. I don’t know where they will be shipped off to this year. Perhaps it will be a week-long Family Day at home.

So, altogether, there’s hardly a day free to work and worry about the usual mundane winter problems. The groundhog’s shadow, pancakes of different flavors and nationalities, flowers from shops and garden, the kids home from school. February is my favorite month.

Inexplicably, I’ve never been invited to the World Economic Forum in Davos. But last week, I was there, in spirit, eating canapés with the rock stars and the bankers.

I was there alongside Justin Trudeau as, you see, I knew the Prime Minister of Canada’s parents, Pierre and Margaret, intimately.

All Canadians of my generation did. Pierre Trudeau rose from the political ashes of the old turgid boring times. He was sparkly, urbane, much-travelled, witty, wise, and sexy. He wore a flower in his buttonhole. His politics were progressive as he sloughed off all things conservative and reactionary. He was interested in the new – as we all were in the late 60’s. Arrogant and dismissive of what he saw as nonsense, he struck a celestial chord in my teen-aged brain.

Thirty years her senior, Pierre married 22-year old Margaret. The philosopher prince wed the garden fey (she sewed her own wedding costume; it had a hood.) She had babies, and then became a highly successful Rolling Stones groupie. In his autobiography, Keith Richards says he was shocked. She then spilled all the beans in a book. The Canadian media had a dazzling time and Pierre got custody of the kids. An old University of Toronto comrade gleefully announced that after Justin Trudeau’s recent election, Justin’s mom contacted his wife, Sophie, and offered to give her some tips on being Canada’s first lady.

Anyway, the Trudeaus’ first-born was called Justin. “A Just Society” was the political slogan of the Liberal political campaign in 1968. Pierre Trudeau had also been Justice Minister before his election as Prime Minister. I dislike dynasties, but his father’s career was not only Justin’s name but also his destiny.

Justin Trudeau (age 44) wants to be kind to everyone. He came to Davos to promote a trade agreement between Canada and Europe. With falling oil prices, the high price of cauliflowers, and the state of the Canadian dollar, the country needs all the help it can get. He also wants 25,000 Syrians refugees in Canada as soon as the weather allows. Winter coats are a must. He wants women, children, and family groups. The odd man can come too, but he has to be gay.

I just heard Justin, in Davos, saying that he’s “a feminist” which complicates things even further. He wants to legalise marijuana which is a popular move among a certain segment of the Canadian population, but I guess won’t be much comfort to the dozen Swiss Army soldiers who got busted smoking pot while on guard duty at the Davos Forum.

Anyway, the children have come of age. May the force be with you, Justin, I wish you and your lucky socks all the very best in our modern world filled with mayhem and misery.

To chase away the January blues, I’ve just bought a pair of tall pink flamingo standing lamps. I think the plan is working. They have been tastefully placed in the dining room and give off a serene womb-like glow.

It’s not easy to find such beautiful pieces of kitsch in Geneva shops, and ordering things on-line just takes the fun out of the game. I once was fatally attracted to a life-size Grey Heron in a little under-stocked shop in Carouge and was told it was window dressing and not for sale. Deep shopping disappointment has been trailing me since that day.

Anyway, forget the Canada Geese and the first giant robin of spring, it is flamingos that come straight and sharp from my Canadian childhood memories. My very first best friend, Brenda, belonged to a clan of neighbours living over the road in a rural southern Ontario village. They were two generations of Georgian planters (three with Brenda) and had built themselves massive white houses to be near the elderly matriarch of the extended family.

Coming from the deep American south they were exotic with birdbaths and peanuts growing in their garden. My friend’s grandfather fashioned objects in his basement out of metal bottle caps – baskets, rabbits, jalopies. Brenda and I watched him work and listened to his stories of diving into Lake Ontario, inadvertently swallowing a tape worm egg, and having a tape worm in his stomach for decades and decades. We loved him.

Their prized possession was a pair of life-sized pink flamingos, and when a chosen warm summer day was coming to an end these would be placed at the bottom of the huge immaculately-tended garden. Two white lawn chairs would be placed behind them, a cooler filled with ice and soda bottles was put in place, and we were all ready for the evening hobby of car-spotting. Cars would drive slowly past, slow down, and driver and passenger (out for the evening motorized promenade) would stop to chat for a while. Strangers would wave. It was a glorious time.

It wasn’t my fault I bought the pink flamingo lamps yesterday. We passed them in the shop as we were on our way to see our just-born grandson. The shop was shut. Today, again, I took the same path to the Maternity ward, and they were still there. What was I to do? Abandon them to their cruel fate of having some strangers buy them, and perhaps even split them up?

Never. After top-level consultation with my grand-daughter, the pair now glow warmly together. One day in a few years time, my grandchildren and I will take the flamingo couple to the end of the drive way at the end of a warm summer day and plug them in. I will tell tall tales about my long-lost Lake Geneva tape worm. We will pop open the old-fashioned glass coke bottles that can still be purchased just over the border in France. Cars and bicyclers will slow down in awe and admiration and we will wave.

It’s not the same, but it’s not different, either. It’s a fine January dream of a July pink flamingo evening in Canada.

In these grey, wet, cold, foggy, soggy days you do not have to fly to Bali or Mauritius to find warm happy sunshine and friendly people. You need a car (or, in extremis, a bus or a bike or a cable car) and off you go – up up and away into the local hills.

Here at Foggy Bottom where I live down beside the Rhone River, there are days when the sun never shines. So you go up the Salève, the Jura, or even up the top of the next hill, and you are in a different world—a world of clear vision and light and smiles.

And, once there, you go for a little walk to pick up some energy to take back to the lowlands. On these walks you meet people like yourself who are out taking the air and enjoying the view—for once above the sea of fog, you instantly forget that there are human beings down there breathing the insalubrious vapours and busy being grouchy. You are on a disconnected higher plane of existence.

Firmly ensconced in this world, you mention to casual fellow-walkers that at your place it’s a horrible grey pea-soup fog. They either agree (they live there too) or express surprise, claiming they’d never have thought it (these are the ones who live a little higher). You cheerily hail people working in their gardens in a spring-like manner. They either say nothing (as they consider that you are a lunatic who has been let out of the asylum for the day) or they fall in with your happy fantasy.

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog 1818 by Caspar David Friedrich

A perfect conversation goes something like this:
–Bonjour! We’re just standing here admiring your view.–
–That costs two Euros.–
–But it was only 1.50 E last year!—

Guffaws all around and you’re off. You ask the obvious question to elicit easy answers. I suggest starting with –Are we in France or in Switzerland?– As your new casual friend will then feel a vague sort of pity for your innocence and immediately realize the non-threatening nature of your existence.

The state of the walking path can also be minutely discussed, as can the proximity of hunters and their dogs—who these days have a sort of radio wrapped around their necks. Noisy, smelly teenage dirt-bike hooligans are a common enemy. You give people directions to Santa’s Village and to the next cross on various bits of the St James Way to Santiago de Compostela (follow the shells) in the region.

So the horrid fog’s silver lining is to lead us up into the land of the glorious walks and, as my old neighbour up in the mountains used to say, to “causer bien”—to practice the fine art of conversation with perfect strangers.

I have made a huge mistake. Having been an English teacher with a close relationship to modal verbs for decades, I was curious about the mix-up concerning the climate change document that was produced at the Paris Conference a week ago. So I read the 31-page Paris Climate Change Agreement December 12, 2015. http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09.pdf

As my sister has wisely observed in this fraught pre-Christmas period, one is either sucking on lollypops humming Christmas tunes or one is spitting with rage. Stultified to the point of falling off my chair, I wanted to see if I could find the bit that is causing the linguistic controvery—the bit that takes the teeth out of the developed world’s legal commitment to saving the world. The bit where “shall” got changed to “should”.

No normally-constituted person should read this document. It is a repetitive masterwork of cajoling happy-energy. It emphasizes, notes, invites, requests, urges, strives, recommends, recognizes, takes note, calls upon, aims to, and encourages. It is a maze of time-lines and dates.

Despite this, I easily spotted the passage that shifts responsibility away from the developed countries. It is really there on page 22, Article 4, Section 4:

Developed country Parties should continue taking the lead by undertaking economy-wide absolute emission reduction targets. Developing country Parties should continue enhancing their mitigation efforts, and are encouraged to move over time towards economy-wide emission reduction or limitation targets in the light of different national circumstances.

Of course, the first “should” should have been a “shall”.

Now, everybody loves the word “should”. It’s an agreeable concept, filled with awareness of the problematic, but simultaneously considering potential improvement. “Shall” is a crisper word which expresses firm intent, decision, imminent action. We all know that we really should do something about our filthy, polluted, deluded world. We really should do something about the polar bears and the Adélie penguins hanging onto their tiny little ice floes and starving to death. Poor loves! And that Golden Toad that hasn’t been spotted since 1989, well, something really should have been done before it became extinct.

So, after two weeks of intense diplomacy, the final document was a day-and-half overdue. On Sunday, the American delegation saw the “shall” (signifying their responsibility and accountability) in Article 4 and threatened not to sign. The French government, needing a landmark climate accord, wiggled out of the impasse by claiming the drafting team had made a typographical error and everyone quickly agreed to sign the “should” (signifying a potential pleasant possibility) document.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. So, I shall see you all there sooner rather than later. I’ll be the one over in the coolish corner feeding the polar bears and humming Christmas songs. Hopefully, I should have stopped spitting by then.

 

I’m being bombarded with seemingly innocuous, but highly guilt-inducing little presents—name stickers, agendas, calendars, post-it pads, cards and envelopes, recipe booklets, wrapping paper, pencils, notebooks, and even the occasional ornament. I haven’t yet received the package of chicken noodle soup which was such a delicious surprise last year.

These presents are accompanied by an informative letter, some relevant visual aid and at least one payment form. They each wish me a wonderful Advent season and a very Merry Christmas.
Yes. It is charity / NGO fund-raising season yet again.

Now, I have nothing against sick children, sadly displaced people, polar bears, unemployed people, blind people, mentally ill people, leprosy camps, people living in the mountains, people living in religious villages in the Philippines, people who paint with their feet or hungry St. Bernard dogs. In fact, I would like to help all of them.

And I quite like the idea of giving my Canadian brother-in-law a little piglet that will be presented to someone in Haiti which will, in turn, allow schooling for the children; or 20 chickens (for only 40 francs) that will peck around somewhere in Bangladesh and create eggs and cash for an entire family.

He seems to enjoy receiving these no-frills, no-nonsense, non-presents. I gave him a ½ metre of Swiss steam-train track for his last birthday. I think he’s really enjoying it.

I also fondly remember the goat that my Swiss son-in-law presented us with a few years back. He had signed the card with his name—which I had unfortunately thought was the name of the goat for many many months.
Adopting a de-mining rat is also another really good idea, but so far no one has send me the relevant information. Fortunately, I have my own private sources.

Each of the above makes much more sense than the usual slippers, socks, and soap selections. But then, Christmas was never about sense, it was about miracles; and now, even worse, it’s all about stuff. And once you have your basic stuff – which boils down to a couple of smart little machines – all the rest is entirely arbitrary.

So, buy a solar lamp, a sewing machine, a duck, a latrine, a fishing net, or a blanket and proudly present the gift certificate to your person-of-choice. They will love it – but be sure not to forget the bonbons, the bottle, or the book that goes along with it.