ALL PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY JON MACDONALD!

Today marks the anniversary of my residency in the little village of Buchillon, between Lausanne and Geneva, on the shore of Lac Léman. I could go on about how time has flown, and how incredible it is to think that a year ago I was a confused immigrant uncertain of her future, and now I’m a villageoise who treks through the vineyards to go for a dip in the lake.

But rather in the manner of a Christmas card, I’d like to use the anniversary celebration to relaunch this moribund blog of mine, which could certainly find better things to say than just provide feeble trumpet calls whenever one of my translations is published. After all, that is the job of the publisher or the author; not to belittle my work or say I’m not proud of all the books that have come out and will come out, but I want to use this venue to put my thoughts together about other things–the expatriate life, the Swiss, other people’s novels I’ve read, trips I’ve taken, and then maybe something about translations I’m working on…

One of the most interesting things, after a year, is to see what remains afloat of California. Not that it has sunk, but inevitably my own memories and impressions recede. Some things I miss a great deal, some things I think, thank god I’m not there anymore. There are odd feelings of amputation at various times, when I  do a sort of double take, wondering where my missing limb has got to, or if I’m not missing a limb, then where am I…these odd feelings are usually brought on by watching American films, and it takes me a few minutes after the credits to remember where I am. This last week I watched two excellent films, one Hollywood (”Rendition”) the other independent (”The Visitor”), both of them scathingly realistic reminders of the recent Bush regime. More reassuringly, I follow on the BBC or YouTube Obama’s adventures with flies or exploding tele-prompter screens (My goodness), and am glad that I can be here and not have to apologize or be ashamed any more. Everyone I meet, unanimously, is fascinated by Obama. The only character who exerts equal fascination, in Switzerland at any rate, is Roger.

Federer that is. He is the national soap opera (Nadal last year, his tears at the Australian Open, the recent epic final at Wimbledon, his imminent fatherhood), the reason to be proud to be Swiss (or to be living here). He has put the country on the map far more elegantly than the cuckoo clock or chocolate or disreputable bankers. And he seems to be representative of a younger generation of Swiss–multilingual, obviously, but with excellent English, and a global background (his mother is South African, his wife a Slovak) that is very representative of what the country has become. Dynamic, multicultural, elegant.

But I’m digressing. To get back to California, too; apart from friends, obviously, and the nature which has a wildness and openness you cannot find in Switzerland unless you know how to climb glaciers (and even then…) what I find myself missing the most? Supermarkets.

Alas. That is a miserable confession. I should be praising the twice-weekly farmers’ markets with their garden produce from the Valais or even excellent imports from France or Spain, but they require an amount of time that I do not always have (I like to keep my mornings for work, and they fold up at noon…); but I never ever thought I would miss Whole Foods and Mill Valley Market and Trader Joe’s to such a grouchy, impatient degree. The cracked pepper from the Coop is not as spicy as Trader Joe’s. The fruit and veg at my local French chain Casino makes Safeway look like Harrod’s. And wherever you go, fresh herbs are either not fresh, or gone by noon (cilantro and dill are always missing). These are daily reminders, but they are trifles. I tried to grow my own cilantro but it didn’t like the garden. The rosemary and basil are doing very well. I’ll just have to change recipes. As for cracked pepper…it gives me something to scout for, wherever I go. And a new supermarket, the Swiss institution Migros, will be opening soon just down the road…good stuff, but no booze, a constitutionally dry supermarché. Fortunately I stocked up on a few crates of the village wine…

In one year I have translated five whole books and have two underway and two more waiting. I’ve also done short translations where I’ve learned about petanque balls and Bordeaux winemakers and innumerable sorts of dietary supplements, the specialized vocabulary banging in my head like the heaviest of those petanque balls. But the things I may be proudest of are the little human accomplishments that take one back to childhood and youth–the first time you learn to do something.

When I moved into my little house, skeptics said I wouldn’t last six months. I would have to learn to go up and down a ladder to my mezzanine upstairs (bedroom and study), and light a wood fire for heat. The ladder was a matter of course–just remembering to be neither drunk nor about to pass out from low blood pressure before negotiating the first rung. The wood fire was more of a challenge, but by the time I’d stacked my first new woodpile in February, ready for the next winter, I knew I’d manage. I had to learn to live without a car. It has been nothing but a pleasure. Gone is the expense, the fear of other drivers (except when I’m in someone else’s car), the hassle of parking, the fear of driving at night or in the rain or on icy roads. Independence is equally available by way of my small railway station, an hourly train, and from Lausanne or Geneva trains can take me all over Europe. With time to read.

With summer came two more new pleasures. I finally learned to use a barbecue. I had two barbecues in Mill Valley and never lit either one (they stayed with the respective apartments). Well, for obvious reasons:  too much wind and fog. But here, summer is serious business–it is 28 degrees celsius as I’m writing this–and the smells from neighbors’ grills just became too enticing. I now specialize in lamb souvlaki and paidakia, with oregano from the garden.

Finally:  the bicycle. I have wings. My angel’s wings–I like to think, gallows humor, that the Air France flight that brought me here 14 months ago from San Francisco crashed and I went to heaven. And finally in May I earned my wings. I don’t ride far–it’s a new old-fashioned bike with 6 gears and a plastic basket for going to the…supermarket…but it’s the little circuits I can do around the village which are thrilling. Through vineyards and woods, along the lake, into the medieval village of Saint-Prex  (where Nancy Reagen was once fêted with the sort of oppressive security you find in the films I mentioned above), where I can buy an excellent Bosnian wine (!) and Pain Provençal that make me forget Whole Foods, et al.

I’m still learning, still discovering. Switzerland is not the country I left in 1985; it is far more open and hospitable, and also more dangerous and degenerate. People seem to be tending, almost without noticing, toward a California sort of lifestyle and values — not always the best. There are too many SUVs on the road, and the next village, behind me, is turning into Menlo Park with office buildings and strip malls.

Still, if I hang on long enough, maybe Whole Foods will open up down the road (they’re already in London…) Fine by me if they don’t destroy a vineyard to move in, stay small and sustainable, and are within cycling range.

While I’ve been writing this, the sun has gone down, and there is just a tiny last tender splash of pink on a cloud on a mountaintop across the lake. I curse myself for sitting here looking at a screen when the most beautiful spectacle on earth was taking place outside my window. There will be other days, other sunsets…but, I’ve also learned in a year that no two are ever the same. The constant view of the natural beauty of this place never fails to enthrall me and make me again incredibly grateful (and wonder if I went to heaven).

The old paddle-wheel steamer just went by, the captain tooting his horn, I am told, for a local erstwhile flame.