Sunday Morning Thoughts – June 9, 2024

A rollercoaster of a week.

I can’t go into details as to what happened, but I was given a masterclass in gaslighting this week. While it wasn’t the best of situations, it’s gonna help me finish two of my book chapters. Gaslighting is so harmful and it’s difficult to know it’s happening while you’re in the situation. Raising awareness is the key to so many things.

Everything that happened this week led to me finishing a jigsaw puzzle in a day on Friday (it’s the cover image) and then reading The Midnight Library yesterday. Puzzles calm my mind and I just needed to read that book. I wrote a bit about the overlap of Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library and my upcoming book yesterday.

I was asked if I’d recommend Matt’s book. I didn’t know how to answer that question. I mean, I wasn’t sure if I would be okay reading it myself or if something might get triggered. Suicide is a difficult topic and I got all tense and anxious at the beginning. That went away quickly though. Matt has done an amazing job dealing with it in a way that makes it suitable for everybody. Very short chapters at the beginning just setting the scene. It was the perfect book for me to read yesterday.

So, I’d say it’s not for everybody (just look it up and you’ll know), but there is something for everybody in it. For me it just confirmed that I’m so on the right track and that I got this.

But I do have a book recommendation for you: An immense world. Now, I haven’t actually finished reading it yet because of its information density. I mean there are so many fascinating facts and then there are even more fascinating footnotes to go with them. It’s the kind of book where I really want to intentionally sit down and read. It’s not the kind of book I can pull out at a bus stop or train station while waiting. I want to fully immerse myself - phone off and everything.

I have so much energy at the moment, and I’m happy to say that I now have an art trolley. Yes, it’s technically just a piece of IKEA furniture that I added wheels and some boxes with colors and brushes to, but it works. And there is an area for canvas paper and for paintings to dry as well. Tomorrow I’ll learn a new painting technique. Really excited about it. I’m so ready to learn. I don’t think I’ve found my medium yet. I mean I like acrylic paint and I read up on things and it’s what’s recommended for beginners, but … Watch this space. I’ll be painting.

And on Friday I found out that I live a mere 16-minute bike ride away from a branch of the biggest art supplier in Switzerland. I don’t actually know if it’s the biggest and I’m not looking up stuff when I write on Sunday mornings, but it is the one that everybody’s been recommending to me. I just had no idea they had a store this close to where I live. I was gonna go to the one in Zurich. This is closer and a lot more convenient though. I can easily get there by bike. Kind of perfect. For my Swiss readers – it’s in Unterentfelden. I don’t think too many of you will know that town, but hey I grew up just a bit further up the valley. I know it well.

Have I ever shared the Lüthy family crest? You know church bells and such? Lüthy means bell in Swiss German. It can be the doorbell or the bell on your bicycle. Church bells we actually call “Glogge” (from German “Glocke”). And that’s the same word we would use for cow bells. Oh and I would not spell the word Lüthy. I only did that because that’s my last name. I would usually say “Lüüti”. Same pronunciation as the ‘h’ has no function, and the ‘y’ is pronounced the same as an ‘i’. I don’t think Lüüti has a corresponding word in High German. I could be wrong though. So, here’s the crest.

And Holziken (the place mentioned) is just where my family is from originally. It’s this special Swiss thing called “Heimatort”. I think historically it was the town that was responsible if you got into financial difficulties. I remember it being important in school. They always wanted to know where you lived and what your Heimatort was. In my case it was Holziken twice. Teachers thought I was a bit slow when I said Holziken for both. Even back then it wasn’t common to grow up in your Heimatort.

The weather around here still thinks it’s April. It clearly didn’t get the memo that it was JUNE already. I shared a bunch of reels on IG where you can see snow that’s several meters high up in the mountains. Some of the mountain passes are open to traffic now, so you can drive along those massive walls of snow. It’s kind of fun.

Almost forgot to mention that we’re voting again today. If any of you are interested – here’s what we’re voting on. Talking about weather not behaving as expected, I’m just gonna link that to climate change and that makes this Federal Act an important one. Remember when the climate grannies won their case in The Hague? Well, the Swiss government has to put almost everything to a vote - not sure how fair it is to blame them for not doing enough when a certain part of the Swiss population just says “NO” to everything related to climate action. But there you go.

Results will be in by mid-afternoon. For my canton it’ll be even earlier than that. We count fast and our polling stations close super early. In my town they are open today from 8.30 to 9 AM I think. No idea really, I voted ages ago.

It’s a really rainy weekend here, but I can see the sun trying to make it through the clouds. So, I’m gonna have to leave you here and go for a morning walk.

Please let me know if you read any of the books I mentioned. No spoilers in the comments!

Happy Sunday everyone.