And just like that (click) it all changes

 The birth of my son shelled me and softened me. Before you start your tirade of how much harder it was for Cambrie:

    1) I know.
    2) I am invested in this. We're in this together.
    3) Don't minimize the role of a partner. It doesn't help.

Now you can go ahead with your tirade, I'll listen.

Here were some thoughts I had along with a bit of a journal entry.
9 months (and one week) in the making but he was finally on his way Monday morning at 5am. We only had a few hours of sleep that night (what fools we were then. What children! Throwing away precious sleep like some piece of over-burnt toast. Cherish that sleep-toast past-Bryce. Cherish it like the sweet, scarce commodity that it is!). The contractions slowly increased in intensity and regularity until 11am when we decided to go to the hospital. 

Cambrie is tough. 

I had my phone ready to call a taxi and Cambrie stopped me. 

"I want to take the bus."

"Excuse me, did you say you want to take the bus while you're in LABOR?"

"The contractions are less painful when I stand."

"..."

So we took the bus.

At the hospital she went through contractions until two. The midwife (really great people, midwives) and I did our best to support her and try every possible position. This went on every few minutes or so until 2 when it was time to start pushing. The midwife's shift ended and a couple more came to take over. That's when you know this is taking too long.

She pushed for 1.5 hours. Tears poured down her reddened face between contractions. She did all of this with no medication. 

Finally it was determined that the baby was in the wrong position and couldn't be corrected. After all her struggle, a c-section was strongly recommended.

"A c-section was sweet release after what I went through" -Cambrie
I sat near her and held her hand in the operating room. By this time they had stopped the contractions and numbed her lower half. She was splayed on the operating table in such a manner that the verse in John "Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again". At that instant there was more in those words than I had ever seen. Suffering and pain of both parties is inescapable in the beginning of life.

My mind was flooded with emotions and fears, but in the middle of these hard times life becomes much clearer somehow. The most important things in the world to me were right here. I prayed to God that he would watch over my wife and child.

I watched as the doctors cut open my wife and pulled my son from her. The first time I held him in my arms there was an immediate change in me. I can't explain it except that I guess biologically this is what I am meant to do. To protect him and love him. I held him in my right hand and held Cambrie's now violently trembling hand with my left. 

I watched as the doctors massaged her organs and put them back inside her body. It is still insane to me that a human can have that happen to them. That she was cut open, another human was pulled out, then she was stapled back together.

After the surgery we all went back to our room and the whirlwind continued. Tests, cuddles, more tests, skin-to-skin, instructions on how to keep him alive. That's basically how the next several days went. We had never been happier, more exhausted, more in pain (Cambrie), or more overwhelmed before.

The hospital is situated across the Aare river from our house with a beautiful view of Bern. I couldn't stop taking pictures of the view, of my new son. I felt so cliché and predictable doing it, but I couldn't help it. It doesn't often snow in Bern, but it seemed like the clouds opened up and snow drifted down just for our new little boy.

Thoughts on scarcity

"Not the blood, sir. But all of a man's water, ultimately, belongs to his people-to his tribe...the human body is composed of some seventy percent water by weight. A dead man, surely, no longer requires that water" -Dune, by Frank Herbert

A roommate from college challenged me to read the book in 2008. I made some dismissive gesture with one of my eyebrows (especially after seeing a clip from the 1984 movie). Now, 12 years later I finally took the challenge. The book brings home some hard truths (it's also kind of strange, but that's neither here nor there). 

Here on planet Earth we face Dune's problem. 790 Million People. That is 1 in 10 people who don't have consistent access to clean water. Such a basic aspect of life that I so often take for granted. The last time I was truly thirsty is actually documented in this blog. I complained incessantly and have rarely felt so miserable. 

I can't help thinking about how much excess I have without necessarily appreciating it. How much of that excess should I morally/ethically keep for myself? If I believe that every human is equal (I think I do), then when do I start acting like I believe that? At what point am I comfortable enough with my life that I start reaching outside my own bubble? Looking beyond those right in front of my own face?

In the later stages of Cambrie's pregnancy, and with the ever-present pandemic lurking in the shadows of my thoughts I have not travelled around Switzerland as much. But that has not stopped me from trying to get to know the city I live in. Bern has so many things. One is water. There are 100+ fountains scattered around the city. Think of it. 1 in 10 people in the world don't have access to clean water, yet here it is pouring out of fountains and down channels in the street. Clean, cold, potable water. 

Here are a few of them:

This one is right outside my house. Yes, that's a tiny bear with a gun. Switzerland.

Out of these the most disturbing is perhaps the third picture. One of a man eating babies. Again, Switzerland.

Beyond the fountains, on the backdrop of the city runs the river Aare. The life of this city. Ask a Bernese citizen about the Aare and a dreamy look sweeps across their face. Tradition pulls people into the water in the summers to float down the river. 

This is along my favorite run near my house:

This is comes out as a jumbled mess of my thoughts on scarcity as I experience it (or rather, don't experience it). What I'm trying to get at is that I realize that I live in a bubble. Not just living in a place with access to water, but having access to health care, a stable job in the middle of a worldwide pandemic that has torn the lives of millions to tiny shreds of worry. I want to commit myself to looking farther than 2 inches from my nose. Looking past the Netflix lineup for the month. 

As I write this at my desk, I look outside my window. Snow is falling on the Berner Munster. A homeless woman drags her cart to the doors of the church many days and sits under the awning. Someone needs help so close to me I could yell to her, Ebenezer Scrooge style. But I don't know the German word for 'goose'. Fear continues to hold me back. 

Fear is the mind-killer. -Dune, by Frank Herbert
 

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag: A birthday for the ages

I turned 34 last week. My favorite thing to do on my birthday the last few years is to just be in nature, reconnect with who I am, who I want to be. Try to spot what is going right and what is not. 

Covid 19 has defined this year. It governs every decision from how to go to the store to how to travel around. To combat the fatigue of quarantine, every once in a blue moon we try to get a little farther from home. Renting a car helped us extend the leash that has tethered us to our apartment.

Friday we went to a remote region on the Swiss section of the Tour du Mont Blanc (an ultra marathon route going through France, Italy, and Switzerland) so I could get a bit of a taste for it. Let me just say that it was oh so sweet. The trail was pretty stunning but rugged. 

Cambrie came and opted to hang out by Lac de Champex while I went for my excursion of self-discovery.

The actual trail peaks at Fenetre de l'Arpette. I was 800 meters away, but it was a bit too snowy and boulder strewn to find my path without risking breaking my leg so I shifted my plans a bit. There was a steep chute that seemed to give a similar view so I risked the scramble and was satisfied enough with what I saw to come back.

The next day we thought we would take it easy. Let me try that again, we THOUGHT we'd take it easy. We tried driving to Oeschinen lake and found out once we were there that it's a four mile round trip hike with quite a bit of vertical gain. I asked Cambrie what she wanted (you know, 8 months pregnant Cambrie) and she suggested we saunter along the trail and she would stop whenever she got tired. She did the entire thing! Hero points for her. We had great views of the valley below, even though the lake was a bit crowded. 

 

An Insider's View into the Mind of an Expecting Parent

10:30 pm. 

I settle into my comfortable chair and started reading a Chinese sci-fi, not my typical choice but it's turning out to be pretty interesting. It was an exhausting 13 hour day of work starting early and ending late. Cambrie is getting ready for bed. I hear her call my name across the apartment. Not uncommon, she loves attention. I lazily respond, "What?". She yells again, but this time I detect a hint of worry in her voice. Not a lot, just enough to real in my attention.

I get up to investigate further.

"Bryce, I fell."

"Are you ok? How did you fall?"

"I feel fine." Uncomfortably long pause, "I fell on my back, so not on my belly. What do we do?"

My fingers grip my phone and ask the parenting gurus of the internet for help. This is what hours of Instagram scrolling has trained me for. Cue Rocky soundtrack as my fingers sweep across the phone with the dexterity of a teenager. It only takes a few seconds.

"Call the midwife. Definitely since you're in the third trimester."

During the call my brain is waking up again. For the first time in my life I feel pangs of worry for my child. Wait, let me re-punctuate that last part...MY child! I can't help but worry that this seemingly small incident hurt him, possibly seriously. As my mind spins through worst case scenarios, eventually I can't help but realize how woefully unprepared I am for what's coming. 

Even in the best case scenario, I am in for a lifetime of these kinds of worries. Every time he trips and bumps his head. Every time I carry him around and risk dropping him. Every time he leaves my sight. No matter how careful I am, this little guy is going to get hurt sometimes. He's going to feel pain, from the very beginning. 

If you would like to live your life not knowing an uncomfortable truth, skip this next paragraph. If you read on you will lose just a little bit of that childish innocence you still cling to. It will haunt you. I wash my hands of this and you have been warned.

.............................................

I recently learned that babies born via Caesarean section don't come into contact with essential bacteria from the mothers' vaginas and that causes problems with developing healthy gut bacteria. This has been solved by swabbing the baby's face with the bacteria after birth. However recently doctors have discovered that bacteria from the mothers' feces is missing. Researchers have started feeding a dose of it to babies and it seems to be helping. My point of delving so deep into the disgusting reality of human genesis is that our very beginning of life is horrifying. So much that it's hard for people to even think about. I mean, did you enjoy reading that little fact? NO!

...............................................

I am brought back. We make our way to the hospital. The midwife is wonderful. So cheerful, peaceful, calming. She asks many questions. We listen to our child's heart for thirty minutes. He is fine. We go home. We are exhausted. 

A few days pass. Now as I sit in bed I can see his shape moving on Cambrie's belly. A thought occurs to me and I play Pachelbel's Canon in D, holding my phone to her belly so maybe he can hear. He kicks and wiggles. We laugh.

"With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy." -Max Ehrmann

Home is Where the Heart is: A Walk Through Bern

 

Since the pandemic pulling a "Pinky and the Brain" (taking over the world...get it?) right now, we are forced to shut in a bit more. Nonetheless, I get antsy pretty quickly so instead of exposing ourselves to public transportation, restaurants, hotels, and people in general, we have been exploring around here more lately.

First we start with the bears. There are three who live on a hillside by the river 5 minutes from us. I assume this one takes his porridge particularly hot and is pretty upset about someone sleeping in his bed.

We took a stroll today to enjoy Autumn in the city, so here are some pictures of that.

Bern with the Alps in the background

I don't know why, but I always love seeing mushroom clusters

Under the bridge

A very unique part of Bern is that clean water surrounds you at all times. The crystalline Aare River surrounds the city (it is a tradition to float down the river, which we have done several times). There are also 100 public fountains around the city center, most from the 16th century. In the background the Zytglogge, an 800 year old astronomical clock tower, can be seen. We live just to the left of this fountain above an antique shop. I hope I am never numb to the beauty of this city.

Great Swiss Bakeoff

I don't know if it's her motherly instincts kicking in, the excess time-off, or inspiration from above, but Cambrie has been baking more than she ever has. Everyone voted and we're happy about it.

It's so fun for us to plan new things to bake and to find new occasions to justify the effort. I think it's also funny because Cambrie has always sworn that she hates cooking in any form. People have often tried to convince her that if she just gets into it she would like it, but she adamantly argued that she was never born to cook. I guess our interests, passions, and convictions change over time. It does make me think that there could be hobbies or ideas out there that I have rejected but I may like now. If anyone out there in the universe reading this has an experience like that I'd love to hear about it.

While we've been in Bern (about a month now), she has baked mini key lime pies:

She made cinnamon rolls (pictured unfrosted, how scandalous):

Cookies:

And my personal favorite, the elegant cheese danish:

Not pictured, healthy muffins...weird that we didn't take a picture of those...don't read into it.

............................................

Added Oct. 25th 

Phenomenal pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.

Lauterbrunnen and Mürren

 We wanted to celebrate Cambrie's birthday a few weeks ago by taking a small trip to the Dolomites. However, several weekends of rainy forecasts have delayed us. This weekend, despite another rainy forecast, we decided to go to Lauterbrunnen and Mürren. It ended up being wonderful. We waited for the rain to finish in the morning and arrived just in time for some clear skies. 

We have been to the valley before, but this time it was even more magical. The mountains had just been dusted with first snow and the valley walls poured run off down countless waterfalls (we actually did count them once and could see around 15 large waterfalls). 

I went for a run through the valley and Cambrie for a walk. Running tends to ground me. I haven't been able to run all week due to some weird health issues (BPPV is a special kind of hell. I've never tried psychedelics before, but it felt like I was on what I imagine a bad trip to be). 

After we explored the valley we decided to explore the cliffs above by taking a cable car and train to Murren.

We have wanted to ride a snowy mountain train so it was exciting to find this one. When we got to Murren we were both surprised how abandoned it was. Only a few travelers were there, which for me made it even more magical.

Meiringen to Grindelwald

Last weekend I ran the trail from Meiringen to Grindelwald. It's about 14 miles. It's so hard to get myself moving in the mornings after a long week at work. But every time I do there is a moment when I first realize it's completely worthwhile. This was that moment last Saturday. The woman is just some random backpacker, but I love how this picture captures how I felt about the day. Excited just to see what was around each corner.

I chose this hike for two reasons: 

1) I had never been to Grindelwald, and have heard good things about it

2) One of my ancestors is from Meiringen and I wanted to see it (Melchior Kohler, cool name right?). 

The trail was incredible. I didn't run out of water, and 14 miles seemed like a cakewalk compared to my last trail run here.

The run led up to a ridge dividing the mountains. This is the view I was rewarded with for my long climb. Grindelwald is far below in the mist. There was a woman selling cheese in one of those little huts (I was tempted to stop and get some, but didn't want to carry a wheel of cheese the remaining 6 miles). 

At the end of the run I met Cambrie in Grindelwald. We originally intended to spend a bit of time in the town, but I had just run through it and she spent the morning there on her own hike (btw, I'm super impressed how independent and brave she is. Totally over the culture shock). So we decided to enjoy the beautiful train ride through the Alps back to Bern.

 

Zermatt/Matterhorn

We took a trip to see the Matterhorn. No deeper thoughts on the trip, just a fun morning with Cambrie. She was super impressive. We hiked 6.5k. That's 1k for each month of pregnancy! All it took was us taking our time, no rush. Lots of her scowling at me as I would run off to look at a glacier or something. You know, taking time for the really good stuff in life. 

The Matterhorn itself had half cloud cover, so we didn't get an iconic shot of it, but you work with what you have.

Hardergrat Trail

 I want to take full advantage of where I live. There is so much to do here for someone like me. I have been asking around for hikes to try and one that came up (thanks Tyler) was the Hardergrat trail. I did a bit of research and determined I could do it without dying (though I wasn't totally sure about the last part).

I said my goodbyes to Cambrie and my unborn child and set off at 6 am. I started the trail by quarter to 8 in Interlaken.

By 8:30 I had sweat through my shirt. But I was rewarded with a first glimpse of my trail.

By this point I realized that I may be in trouble with lack of water. But I figured that I am from the desert and have been through harder hikes than this. "Water is a luxery." I was a fool.

I made it to Augstmatthorn with about 3/4 of my water, but I was dehydrated already. The terrain also became more technical. I wasn't able to just run and push through as fast as possible. I'll skip the build up, but yes, I ran out of water. I had about 5 miles to go until I knew I could fill up. Those miles were slow and painful. But I did them. I wish I could have enjoyed them fully because it was incredible terrain, but I did learn some deeper things about myself. For example, I like how my voice sounds better when it's all gruff and manly.

There is also time to think. Time to process. On this run I thought about how I spend my time. Where my efforts are dedicated. There were moments when I truly questioned the merit of activities like this. Do they have a place in my future? Can I make time for them when my attention is demanded elsewhere? What benefits do I gain from them? 

It helps to have the backdrop of the Alps to help convince me to keep coming back for more. 

All in all, it was a 27 mile day with insane elevation change. I was tired, mentally and physically. But as a postscript, I did go on another run 2 weeks later. A much, much easier run. I guess I did learn some lessons after all.

The Big Move to Switzerland

We stayed in Heidelberg. Lovely college city on the edge of the Black Forest. Cambrie took a nap while I went for a much needed trail run along the famed Philosopher's Trail, catching views of the city through the trees along the way.

On our first day in Switzerland (before unpacking anything) we took a quick trip to Lauterbrunnen since we still had a car. 

A view of Bern. We have quickly fallen in love with this city in the foothills of the Alps (sort of seen in the distance). We live right behind the Berner Munster. 

Bavaria

Top of the Zugspitze

View of Blindsee

Obligatory trip to Neuschwanstein

Best schnitzel I've ever had along with German potato salad and Apfelschorle. Killer meal.

Met up with my coworker and he treated us to some great ice cream and great company. 

 

Somber Reflections

Germany comes with a lot of history. Some good. Some bad. Some inspiring, some depressing. I won't go much into my thoughts on these, but thought I'd write some experiences, things I've stumbled across.

There are brass bricks in front of many houses in our neighborhood in Wannsee with simple inscriptions. They're called Stolperstein, or "Stumbling Blocks". This one says, "Here lived Wolff Joseph Deported 10.9.1942 Theresienstadt Murdered"

The gate at Dachau. It says "Arbeit Macht Frei" or "Work Sets You Free". Work did not set these men and women free. I find it hard to believe that anyone reading this lie perpetuated and disseminated to the prisoners actually believed it. Why was it there? In hard, cold metal? Was it for the liar? Did it help him sleep at night? 

 Site of the Potsdam Conference where Churchill (and Attlee), Truman, and Stalin determined how to deal with Germany post-war. 

The doors of the church where Martin Luther (purportedly) nailed his 95 theses. The doors have actually since burned down, but the actions of Luther and others like him sparked a movement that changed the world. Luther was the spark, but others taught principles that laid groundwork for lasting change. Luther wasn't perfect (far from it, he was an avid anti-Semite in his later years; something other reformers fought with him about. He also had meniere's disease and I guess became much grumpier as a result...sorry dad, doesn't sound very pleasant), but going here caused me to think on my own right to judge a person using my own moral lens. It's getting harder to hold any historical figure as a hero. I suppose my mindset should change: holding people on pedestals, demanding perfection throughout their life changing to lauding the amazing things they DO accomplish (credit where credit is due) while acknowledging flaws. Still sending this one through another few spin cycles. 

A window inside the church.