I’m privileged

(pictures to come soon!!)

I'm privileged. This is my way of saying how lucky I am, but with a greater world vision. In a world where some have not enough to eat, or fear for their lives, or are just waiting until sickness makes its way to their home, I consider myself privileged to live in relative calm, to have a job that feeds my passion, to know that I can (almost) always be warm, eat well, share my life with others, and travel to worlds far away from my own.

It is when I travel – when I am confronted with change, when I am surrounded by foreigners, and far from reference points of my own culture – that I realize how privileged I really am. I'm not rich. I count my dollars… each and every one of them that has hit its 'all-time low' against the Euro time and time again in the last few weeks. Yet I am practically limitless when it comes to making my way around the world and experiencing the high life. Like these past few days in Interlaken, Switzerland.

Mark and I took a long Easter week-end trip to the other side of the Alps to visit our friends – two of the very best people in the world – Rolf and Susan. Rolf and Susan live in the quiet city of Interlaken, Switzerland, nestled between two lakes and surrounded by mountains for skiing, hiking, and even hang gliding (I don't hang glide, so get that out of your head). In a short few days, we had delicious meals 'at home', a heartwarming Easter brunch with their family, we took a few walks, enjoyed a drink at the "Happy Inn", watched two DVDs, shared stories and photos, and laughed a lot. On Saturday, I got to go skiing with Rolf. This is when I began to remember how privileged I really am.

The weather for Saturday was supposed to be hazy at best yet the sun (that seems to be following me around Rennes, a city that had its sunniest winter since 1950) poked its head over the mountains and continued to shine for most of the day. We jumped in Rolf's Fiat Punto early in the morning and made our way to Grunwald (?) just on the other side of the lake. Rolf, in his obsession to be too nice, purchased my ski lift for the day. I purchased my ski rental and at that very moment I began to realize again how very privileged I am. Let me explain how in the space of 2-3 seconds my mindset shifted miles away from where it was.

I'm standing at the cash register in the perfectly organized, runs like a machine, ski shop where I rented my skis and boots. I just learned that Rolf had discretely purchased my ski lift. I gave him a little punch in the arm and told him he shouldn't have. But to be honest, I wasn't surprised because he and Susan tend to do this generous sort of thing and really enjoy making their friends happy. For example, on Easter morning, we had to make a quick stop at Susan's hairstylist /friend's house so she could drop off an Easter basket. There were also two baskets for their niece and nephew, one for a god child, and a surprise of goodies from Rolf to Susan. Mark & Andrew got their Easter basket as well that morning, filled with tons delicious Swiss chocolate and hand painted Easter eggs. So of course I wasn't too surprised when Rolf forked over the Francs to pay for my day pass. But I was surprised to find out how much my rental was for the day: roughly $63. So in the space of time between the moment when I read the figure on the slip, and signed my name, I went from sticker shock, to resignation, to realization of how lucky I really am and how, in fact, I should feel thankful for how privileged I really am in this world. For $63…

I learned that I still can ski. It had been well over five years since my last descent down a mountain, I think it was a 'White' mountain in New Hampshire with my Aunt Maureen; that was one of my favorite days ever in my entire life, and you'll just have to believe me on that one 'cause I'm sure you'd want to kick me if I digressed again here. But before my skis hit the snow (we're back in Switzerland again), I was already reviewing in my head, listening to what my first ski instructor, Yannic, told me almost 20 years ago: how to bend at the knees, keep the skis parallel, and use the shoulders at each turn. I could also hear my friend Benoît telling me (about ten years ago?) how to negotiate the turns, set the pole and turn around it, place my weight on the outside ski, and push. So while I did my best to look calm and self assured (I didn't want Rolf thinking that he was going to spend a day waiting for me to get my ass out of the snow and back on my skis), I slid gingerly off the first ski lift and glided to the top of my first slope. It was red and I was white with fear, on the inside. Calm with optimistic confidence on the outside. With a few words of encouragement from Rolf, I headed down, made my first turn, got the wobbles out, and learned that I still can ski. And with more helpful hints from Rolf, I was able to follow him down almost every slope around (we never made it to the black slope because that was closed. Avalanches. Nuts. ) So I learned that I could still ski and it was already worth those $63. But that's not all I got for my money...

I learned that my body still can hold its own. I hadn't had much real exercise in months but that didn't stop me from remaining on my feet the whole day (well, almost… I had a few 'almost falls, but never took a tumble). I felt my thighs burning from being thrust into the role of shock absorbers for about 6 hours. And a few days later, those thighs are still reminding me that I pushed them further than they had planned. They hadn't planned on only taking only one break for lunch, another for a coffee with amaretto (danke Rolf!), and a few short rests as we ski lifted our way back up the mountains. The lazy side of me could have easily called it a day by noon, but the other side, the one that waited for its cues from Rolf, keep my in motion until about 4pm. So 6 or 7 hours for $63 ski and boot rental really wasn't that much, because with that $10-11 per hour…

I learned how privileged I really am. Skiing alongside me down those mountains I saw Brits and Americans, Swiss and Germans, French and Spaniards, and even Indians, Japanese, Koreans, and Pakistanis. They two are privileged. But having them with me made me scan the globe and envision the far off regions where it never snows, or where there are no coffees with Amaretto, or where there are no cars to jump into to get to the slopes. I see images from news reports of families fleeing genocide in Darfur, Tibetans trying make a living with a Chinese yoke over their shoulders, Iraqis still clinging to hopes of normalcy, Afghans struggling to build a one-room schoolhouse, Brazilians catching (?) fever at a rate of 2000 per day, and even Louisiana shell fishermen scared that if the delta doesn't rebuild itself soon their catch of the day will dwindle down to unsustainable levels.

So as I pried off my $63 boots, knowing very well that my dogs were gonna be sore and that climbing stairs would be a struggle for the next few days… and as I headed back to the ski shop, weaving in and out of an international parade of late afternoon quitters, I thought again about how lucky I really was to be hobbling down a little road, at the base of a mountain, in a quaint little town, in Switzerland. I thought about what Mark and Susan had done all day, and I knew that we would be returning 'home' to a home-cooked meal, plenty of anecdotes, a great mix of tunes on Rolf's iPod, and a nice bottle of wine from his cave.

I really don't take this life for granted. In the past few months, I crossed three international borders, I wandered through the same rooms and routes as kings and queens of France and England, I worked my way through the Swiss countryside where William Tell honed his archery skills, I skied down the same slopes as Body Miller, and I was blessed time and again with the company of amazing, witty people with hearts open wide and the promise of another get-together sometime in the future. It is a privilege to have friends such as these and to share with them a life that most of the world's population can't even conceive, let alone imagine.

So as I sit here in my train across France, working on my laptop, listening to my iPod, snacking on Swiss chocolates and sandwiches that Susan made with the greatest of care, I am asking myself what I can do, or what I do do already, to balance things out a bit. Do I spare more change on my way to school each day? Do I give to more charities or attend more fundraisers? Do I crusade for democracy? Do I save the whales? To be honest, I don't know if I can do much more except try to be more cognizant of my place in this world, try to appreciate more the gifts it brings me, and share this appreciation with others. Maybe I have a hidden agenda here. Maybe I secretively want to feel less guilty about living the high life. Or maybe I secretively want those who read these words to take a moment and realize how privileged they are too, privileged to be sitting at a computer, connected to the world, and knowing that life could be a heck of a lot worse. Don't you think?