Year summary -- from the most beautiful place on Earth.

This momentous glacier used to be hundreds of meters higher.  The great Aletsch Gletscher and the entire habitat around this great but thinning beast is my favorite place on Earth.  A friend's apartment, situated in a steep hill overlooking a deep valley and faced by a few more friendly and less imposing Alps, is my place to come to myself.  Every morning of my week retreat, I take out my yoga mat and do my exercises accompanied by the cling clong of bovine and sheep bells, the occasional cricket, and the soft sound of the mountain cable car/gondala starting up.  This week I'm alone.  My children couldn't join me because of the week change and the fact that their dad had already booked their vacation.  So be it.  At the beginning of the week, it was manageable, but at the end of the week, I'm missing their needs, the games, the irritations, the fun, Abel's bread experiments, reprimanding them for taking too long of showers, and just their cheery voices.  But, I've made the most of it.  Day one:  hiked to Riederhorn, exalting in the first good look at the distant Matterhorn, disturbingly devoid of snow.  Day two: massive hike to the top of Betterhorn via Riederfurka, continuing about half of the Gratweg direction Eggishorn, then all the way back via Riederfurka.  I was passed on the first leg of the journey, the famous hard warm up of getting from Riederalp to Riederfurka, by trail runners.  Huffing and puffing up the last bit to Riederfurka is basically standard, but these ladies and gents jogged by.  They must have done this more often. I called after them, "respect!" and they laughed and gave a thumbs up.  I told myself at the top of Betterhorn that I didn't have to go further, and that I was officially allowing myself to call it a wrap and head back. For some reason, I continued over this bizarre path of boulders and stones haphazardly piled on top of this mountain, held together by magic forces completely baffling the bigger force of gravity.  At a certain point, where hands and knees seemed safer than pure legs, I decided that enough was enough.  For day two I think it was fine.  I ordered my reward coffee at the restaurant at the top of Bettmer (I just love Europeans... always building places to eat at the very tip top of mountains whenever possible), and headed home, where I almost sobbed when soaking my exhausted legs in the hot bath.   

I decided that the next day would be easier.  Knebelbrücke.  Sounds cute, right?  It was neither easy, nor cute.  In fact, it was terrifying.  Apparently, I should have looked at the website, because part of that trail was officially closed.  There was no sign restricting entry at the start of the trail, so I went optimistically expecting a rather low key hike, and instead was confronted by the opposite.  I hadn't though of bringing hiking sticks (ski poles) with me, because I didn't need them on the previous hikes.  I quickly realised that it was absolutely necessary.  The trail dropped steeply down and was a mix of slippery dirt, uneven rocks, and roots.  After 1/2 hour of gingerly trying to avoid exerting too much pressure on my (bad) knees, I decided that walking sticks of any sort were imperative.  Thankfully, I was surrounded by pine trees in a forest that had had quite a bit of battering, and there were the perfect size of branches next to the trail.  In a mum of time, I had two sturdy sticks that helped me get through the ordeal that I was going to face for the next 4 hours.  As I continued on this ridiculously steep descent, I began to get worried about the consequences for the round trip.  It would mean that I would need to go up at the end of the day.  Thankfully, however, this was to take place on the other side of the mountain, with normal trails.  Because this trail was anything but normal.  In fact, I began to surmise that this trail had not had maintenance for a very long time.  At times, the trail was half dropped away, leaving my left foot just a small place to step on, while my right foot hung over ridiculously steep inclines.  There were makeshift little bridges to pass over sketchy rifts between cliff boulders, there were prickly plants that were overrunning the path, and at a certain point, the trail simply disappeared.  I climbed on top of a fallen tree and walked it's length, and spied the trail about 20 meters further, in the meantime having gotten all sorts of prickly seeds deposited onto my pants.  However, the harshness of this trail is accurate for it's historical meaning.   For hundreds, perhaps a thousand years, this trail was used to create an ingenious system of water management and irrigation.  Water from the wet glacier side was diverted into wooden troughs/mini-aqueducts around the mountain to be brought to the dry Eastern side of the Alp, where farmers needed it.  This aqueduct systeem was exceedingly dangerous to build, and I felt at least a small bit of that danger.  Here below is a picture with some remnants of those wooden troughs banged into the mountainside.  

Anyways, I survived this day, and decided that the next day would be a rest day.  And so on Wednesday, I stayed in the apartment, read, and decided to finish some choral arrangements of Michael Jackson's Earth Song and Lady Gaga's The Cure, which I hope to use (to great merriment) at Buitenkunst next week.  

That brings me to Thursday, where I decided to do another great loop, this time around the Betterhorn and the Eggishorn, meaning that I would go up the Moosfluh, descend and basically walk alongside the great glacier until the pass at Märjela, then I would turn around the mountain to gaze upon (with open mouth) the second neighbouring glacier, the Fiescher, before returning all the way back to my starting point.  This might have been the most spectacular hike that I have ever taken.  The sheer majesty of the glacier(s), the swarms of butterflies at the little dappling waterfalls crossing the trail, the blue bells waving in the breeze, the sheep bleating and clinging their bells, the silence and abandonment of being almost entirely alone in this awe of nature, the mountainside full of jagged boulders contrasted by a sudden green slope, the half hidden pond teeming with tadpoles, and of course the steep steep carved mountains surrounding me.  

My feet sent signals of absolutely putrid hatred towards my brain.  Real muscle exhaustion paired with blisters, makes "home"coming the more sweet.  And so my last day might be a bit calmer, especially since the chance of storms in the afternoon halt any plans of elaborate hikes.  

This week has not been enough to answer the questions in my head that have been swirling around, but have remained unanswered due to the sheer quantity of activities that my whirlwind life caught me up in.  

Am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing?
Am I utilizing my talents to their full potential?
Have I lost talents, and is that because of time constraints, Lyme, or just age, (or parenting responsibilities?)
Do I need to cut some or even many of my work places to focus fully on developing my goals?
What are my goals anymore? Why have I let certain dreams go? What other dreams have presented themselves?
Why has the situation with my father had such a profound influence on my life?  Why is creative spirit diminished so intensely because of what he has done and continues to do?  Can I find my self worth again by forcedly pushing his crushing hatred aside?
Can I take on the responsibility of making my mother's story public?
Where do I want to live?  Where do I need to live in order to deal with complicated family and financial situations?

I'm continuing this post on the day after I wrote this first part.  Let me start by sharing some photos of what I described about yesterday's hike.  The first is a picture from Bischofssitz, which overlooks the glacier from afar.  On the crudely drawn red line is the first part of the hike that I took yesterday.  The region's air is suffering from forest fire smoke blown in from northern Italy, which is why the view is less clear than normal.  

So, I woke up this morning ready for my last day of hiking, and lifted the window blinds.  Shock.  The entire valley was filled with haze.  I knew that thunderstorms were expected later in the afternoon, but this did not look like fog.  And sure enough, when I opened the door and stepped onto the porch, the stench filled my nostrils.  Forest fire.  I quickly shut the door, and plopped myself behind my laptop to search for any news about wildfires in the area.  And can you believe it?  The specific website for forest fires in Europe was not only filled with pop ups, worked incredibly slowly, but was also extremely inaccurate and incomplete.  In the end, I'm ashamed to say that Google Maps was the only reliable source of finding wildfires, and even then, there was a 9 hour delay.  How are people supposed to be informed in an emergency?!

It turned out that there were three large fires in northern Italy, and the smoke was blown north into Switzerland.  I decided to stay in, fearing the effect on my lungs if I exerted myself on another long hike.  However, I also knew that thunderstorms were expected in the afternoon.  In the meantime, here's a picture on clear day featuring the (alarmingly snowless) Matterhorn. 

And here is the haze that clogged the valley this morning.

At 10:00 I weighed my options.  I could stay in the apartment for the rest of the day, and force myself to think about all of the daunting existential questions that I named above, or I could walk around the most beautiful place on Earth some more.  I assumed that the air quality over the Riederfunka and into the Pro Natura forest/Aletsch side would be cleaner than the air on the Riederalp side.  All I had to do was climb up the first stretch to Riederfurka, and then I would be in the clear.  And so I stoutly put on my hiking boots, slapped on some sunscreen, threw the leftover sandwiches from yesterday in my backpack, and resolutely left the house, leaving the questions for later.  I turned out to be a good decision.  I don't think the answers would have come to me in an apartment with haze for a view anyways. The wind was doing wonders in the meantime, blowing the smoke slowly away from the valley, and once I reached the Pro Natura forest, I felt that breathing was significantly easier.  I decided on an easy hike that I've done several times before, to a clearing introduced by one of the most appropriately named trees:  the Bischofssitz.  See for yourself, is this worthy of a bishop? The view you can see again in the picture with the red line a few photos back.

 I used this week to come to terms with myself.  I'm not sure that those terms are finalised yet, but they are a bit more clear than the entangled mess that they were in at the beginning of the week.

I gave myself the instruction to write down all of the work related things that I had done last year.  Here is the result:
conducting ---
Ad Hoc Orchestra
Apeldoorns Symfonieorkest 
Ensemble42 benefit concert for Doctors without Borders (which I organised as well)
Vox42
playing: Ensemble42 chamber music
singing: Hollands Collectief (including Maestro), all projects and tours with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, the Matthew Passion and Rautavaara projects with the Nederlands Kamerkoor, Worakls in AFAS live with Vox42
education--
ASVO elementary school group 6-8, 16 lessons plus a final concert.
ASVO introduction strings course (12 (lessons) - resulting in 50% going to private lessons, two specifically wanting lessons with me.
Slotermeer elementary school group 3-5, 16 lessons plus a final concert
Slotermeer, cultuurcoach
Muziekplaats Slotermeer: violin teacher for 3 introductory lessons for 4 (5?) groups
Diemen - violin teacher and organiser/conductor of beginning orchestra on Saturdays (sometimes catchup on Thursdays)
Leerorkest Noordrijk, violin teacher and conductor

Last year my goal was as follows:  sing and conduct professionally as much as possible, give back to my community by working in education and bringing quality music education to children who would otherwise not come in contact with it.  I think that I succeeded wildly and way over the top in that last bit, so much that it drained me by the end of the year.  The sheer mass of the need engulfs you once you realise what a complete dearth of actual music education is available to children today.  So it's this time of year that I need to evaluate:  what can I give versus what should I give without losing my energy for my personal goals that are now still achievable? 

I already made the decision to drop Leerorkest.  The director of the elementary school where I was working basically wilfully or perhaps unconsciously ( though I feel the former) sabotaged our work there.  And where the children were mostly enthusiastic and joyful to work with, a nagging feeling of negative energy from the school direction gave the final push for me: I wouldn't put in my valuable time for a cause that is consistently undermined.  

Why did I exert myself so intensely in music education this last year?  I had decided that constant travel to random cities in the Netherlands to conduct choirs and orchestras was simply not motivational for me anymore.  It drained me so completely, and I looked on with leaden eyes how choirs simply got older, because no young people had connection with classical music anymore.  Furthermore, if they did, they didn't have the tools.  Most people can't read music anymore.  I decided to do something about it instead of mope and complain.   I kept on one orchestra and became the conductor of another, and dropped all of the choirs. The Amsterdam music school welcomed me with open arms, and the schools that I was assigned to seemed happy with what I had to offer.  Furthermore, in the past 17 years I have grown from a rather intense musician unable to understand how to work with children to one that is specialised in it.  A class of school children in the Bijlmer or Nieuw West doesn't daunt me or faze me.  It has made me grow as a person, but it has also helped to let reality descend upon me more than my colleagues who leap from one professional project to another, never immersing themselves in the actual society that they live in.  That society is changing at such a rapid pace.  Their work might not exist anymore if they don't put in the work to build the foundation that music needs.  And good societies need music.  Healthy strong societies need music.   

Enough for one post.   I'll finish with some more pictures of my favourite place on Earth.  Thanks dear Kristina, for sharing your heaven with me.