When the Trickster Leads you Home

A hallmark child of the nineties, various phases and interests piqued my interest per year, some sticking through time more than others. There were, of course, the fads that found their way more universally among my peers: pogs, Beanie babies, Tamagotchis and Lisa Frank merch. I shared in those. Then there were the other phase obsessions that found their way to seemingly me alone, for whatever reason. One of them was wolves. Wolf posters and plushies abounded in my bedroom, howling under full moons or huddling in their dens. Another was an unslackable interest in Switzerland (and the Alps, in general). A small Swiss flag sat in the cupholder at my desk, next to Rainbow Brite magnets and Lisa Frank erasers. Exactly why the interest took hold, I will never be able to say for sure, though I have a few suppositions. There were the NOVA specials on PBS I would watch with my Dad in the evenings, showcasing breathtaking landscapes, biomes, flora and fauna across the globe, some of which featured the spanning panaroma of the Alps. There was my copy of the National Geographic Society’s book on the Alps (prepared by the Special Publications Division), with its cover showcasing the snow-peaked Matterhorn mountain in all its majesty. And there was of course the movie, The Sound of Music, with Julie Andrews. One of my fondest memories of my Mom: a summer of nights making make-shift quilted forts in the living room while we ate raspberry sorbet out of the carton and watched the timeless film.

So this past year, when my spouse announced a work training trip that would be taking place in Switzerland for two weeks, I begged to tag along. We arrived in September, before the October fog rolls in.

Days before arriving, I was spooked by signs. There were the four crows all in a line, pecking just along the last row of gravel before the paved slab of my driveway (a Druidic heralding). There were the Morse code messages flickering as the power blipped during a thunderstorm when my cat Sherlock got scared, (when he never has been afraid of storms), running to hide under packing paper in the study. The last was driving home from work on the night before the departure, the shuffled music turned to the song, “Don’t Fear the Reaper” as I shuttled down the dark streets to home. Some solace: another heralding in the form of a spam email that read, “Mercury loves you.” Mercury, or Hermes, one who I have loved back on occasion: a protector of travelers but also, a Trickster. Despite landing into occasional misadventure, more than other times in my life, when traveling I have often felt the archetypal and uncanny presence of travel spirits and guides. They are also often playful and tricky or wily in their own ways, forcing routes and signs that are unexpected. Their silver filigrees tendril and take root; they envelope, protect and hold yet also challenge.

Though I had started physical therapy (for various assundry issues regarding my back, hip and neck) only a week or so before our arrival, and was told to “not overdo it” and “just relax,” I am the sort of traveler that feels the need to see and do everything, cramming as much I can into my days and nights as possible. Even though it hurt, I pushed myself on steep alpine climbs, lugging my camera and several lenses in my backpack. I thought of Ansel Adams and how he would carry his over 50 pound camera set up unforgiving slopes and wait all day for the light to change. I bought a Swiss Travel Pass and almost every day got on the train to new city or destination to explore. I beheld the architecture of Zurich, its art museums and clean, bustling streets. I also had my debit card stolen there. Even more captivating was the Medieval architecture of Lucerne with its twin spires and Chapel Bridge. There were the dizzying cable cars and cog train of Pt. Pilatus, a mountain still hiding its dragon. There were the Bernese Alps whose waterfalls fell into the Thon and Interlaken valleys below. There were the sailboats billowing around Geneva. There were the cave grottos that boasted stalactite-dripped goblins.

Switzerland, a land of clear glacial lakes and rivers reflecting snow-peaked mountains and sky, singing back to one another in their disorientating reflections across, not knowing just where the mirror begins. A land of giants, dragons, gnomes, kobolds and dopplegangers, the landscape imitates its mythological inhabitants with its stark stratospheric heights and sinking cave depths. There are the rolling hills peopled with cows, short mushrooms and linden flowers. Mists and clouds wove and sluiced between mountains, both hiding and revealing their hidden spaces; shadow and light. With this duality, the mythology of the doppelgänger came through most perhaps strongly, another trickster in its own right. Each day I woke with new hunger, more so than before. At the hotel breakfast, I ate two of everything I picked: two croissants, two soft-boiled eggs, two juices. As if I were eating for both versions of myself, me and my doppelganger. There resided this ongoing feeling of expansion and contraction, of what was veiled versus exposed.

The last weekend, we traveled all the way south to Zermatt, a tiny ski-resort town, presided over by the Matterhorn. The Matterhorn, that coveted mountain I had longed to gaze upon since I was seven or eight years old. When we got off the Glacier Express train, my eyes welled up when I first caught sight of it in the distance: a dusty yet gleaming tricorn hat looming on a shelf high above its counterparts. During the two days we had trekked as high as the cable cars would allow to go, walked among ice caves and photographed the surrounding Alps in the slanted afternoon light. We got as close as the altitude nausea and fatigue would allow. The cold caught us unguarded. So much that we had had to buy some more warm clothes in the town before going up. I bought some gloves and a warm pair of socks with foxes printed on them. We hiked in the valley along the river and across chalet-spotted hills. I used my macro lens to photograph the peaks and used the Bokeh effect on the wildflowers.

It was now the last night before we had to leave to go back to the States. I decided that despite my fatigue and soreness from all the alpine treks, I would walk out into the clear night to take some last photos of the Matterhorn beneath the stars. Toting my Nikon ZFC and 50 mm lens, I left the airbnb and ventured into the cold night alone. I walked until reaching the small stand of benches we had passed earlier in the day. The benches, along with a coin-operated binocular stand, faced the Matterhorn. The stars were wheeling above its stark white peak and a half-moon glowed horizontally, to the West. The wind howled and bit though my clothes and I was forced to remove my gloves to operate the camera dials. I didn’t have a tripod with me so I would have to improvise. In order to take clear photos at night, it was necessary to use manual mode and longer exposures. If the camera shakes even a micro amount during a long exposure, it will blur the photo. The challenge was to find the optimal f-stop and exposure time ratio. It took several tries with my shivering hands and ensuing blurry photos. Finally, I propped the camera atop the coin-operated binocular stand--holding the camera taut and straight out from the neck strap around my neck—braced against the wind, pressed the shutter-release button and held my breath for the length of the exposure. I checked it on the display screen and there it was, with an f-stop of 2.8, ISO of 2000 and a gruelingly long exposure of eight seconds--one my now-favorite photos I have ever taken. One to make my seven year old self proud—the Matterhorn reaching up to crisp, cold stars above, the warm glow of town lights against fence-hugged hills at its base.

Tears welled in my eyes as the wind funneled me back into town. The gentle roar of the river sounded to my right. I couldn’t quite remember what turn to make and what set of stairs to take to get back to where we were staying. My eyes blurred and the frigid air continued its assault on them. When all of the sudden, there was a gray flurry of movement in front of me. I squinted and beheld the bushy tail of a beautiful gray fox. Fox, one of the original tricksters, an expert of illusions and double dealings. In my excitement, I forgot about trying to find my way back to the airbnb. The fox was trotting swiftly ahead of me, darting gingerly between hedges, rocks and lampposts. I tried to take a photo, but Fox was too fast. The photos all came out blurred. I put the lens cap back on my camera and exhaled, still walking. In the same brief glance down, I caught sight of my new fox socks and smiled. When I looked up, Fox was gone. I looked around. To my right, was the exact ascending street and set of stairs leading back to the airbnb. I whispered a quiet thank you to Fox, protector of travelers. At least this traveler.