9/15 - Part 5

Mid-September marked another milestone that offered more opportunities for reflections. September 16th is when I first set foot on US ground at Kennedy airport, 24 years old, a cultural refugee from the banking capital of Europe, in search of my soul, my creative expression, my deeper, or as I like to call it Lower, rather then Higher Self.

Four years of living in Manhattan had made my prior dream of living in San Francisco, another big city, unappealing. My coat to coast trip across the US that started out in a Hippie Magic Bus had given me a taste for the immensity and awe inspiring beauty of this land. It had gotten me to wonder about a small American town, pleasing and diverse enough to be worth living in.

28 years ago we arrived in the City Different in his red Toyota pick up. At the Coop bulletin board we found a note for a rental of a studio on Cerro Gordo, a rather picturesque part of town as it turned out. Next day he had a job and I was stuck up on the hill. 30 years old I had not yet learned how to drive a car, although I had taken every opportunity to practice behind the wheels of his truck earlier that year. (Curvy highway 1 got on his nerves though and he would dampen my enthusiasm by taking the steering wheel back in to his own experienced hands.)


Anemic and suffering a staph infection I had a rather hard time adjusting to what must have been the altitude. I woke during the nights struggling to catch my breath while during the days I felt tired and limited not only by my energy, but also my budget, I was broke. It took me nine months to find a position in a spa in my profession as a massage therapist. The spa business was then not yet booming as it would be in only a few more years. It took less then two weeks to realize that I was not for all practical purposes in Mexico, even though we are only a six hours drive from the border. Was I surprised when the rooster woke me to a magical, white landscape. It had snowed in late September! These were the times before computers and learning anything and everything on the internet. Following my inner guides and promptings it had never occurred to me to consult outer guides such as maps much less tourist manuals. So our 7,000 feet and then some altitude was a big surprise to me. Having grown up with measurements of meters and centimeters, I still have trouble comprehending the meaning of anything measured in feet, my Germanic mind just can not grasp such an imprecise measurement.

I did learn to drive eventually. I still feel thankful that parallel parking was not part of my test. Downtown parking and traffic congestion had not yet become a  problem, there still were plenty of open spaces downtown and wherever the eye would wander off to, especially for one who had lived in one of the most densely populated cities of Europe, in Amsterdam.

So here I am having lived in the City Different now for 28 years. Some friends thought I had it made, that I was living the American Dream once I owned my own home and drove a brand new car. Of course living the American Dream was not, has never been and will never be my dream. Living a life of consumerism and materialism is not what brought me to the US. These days I wonder if in an attempt to escape the suffocating materialism of my place of origin, Zurich, Switzerland I fell from what we would say 'Regen in die Traufe'?

9/15 Part IV - My Seventies

I wanted to give a bit more of a flavor of my seventies, so I dug up some old photos to share with you.

This is Alec Rubin in performance at The Theater Within in a very characteristic pose of his, focused simultaneously inward and outward, likely in process of making his artistic choices at that very moment; what feelings to follow and reveal, which to ignore.

 

Stoni, my Swiss buddy, friend and New York room mate. Later he would have his own dance company in Berlin. Together we were able to afford an apartment on the 'very lower east side' of Manhattan.

717 East 5th Street (Avenue C - D)

New York, NY 10023

A seriously rough and tough neighborhood.

This particular building resisted gentrification for long. 

Odd that later I would move in to 717 Manhattan Ave..

Out of the drab neighborhood, inside my first home of my own (Stoni, a dancer soon moved on to study Skinner Releasing Technique in Seattle) cheerful colors pleased me. 

I was happy in my abode despite the roaches that were aplenty, and one freaking rat next door.

 

What I left behind was my dear friend Joe, 

artisan, actor, and painter 

with a truly artistic, sensitive soul.

 

Here he posed for me in front of his store

with one of his own, gorgeous carpet shoulder bags 

(so like the bag that held my belongings

when I first entered the US.)

Joe was able to create anything he put his mind to, so it seemed. Joe's Creations were masterly crafted pieces of practical art, be they furnishings, as he was so generous in gifting our The Stuebli with, or clothing as with his intricate vests and house shoes or accessories like hand and shoulder bags with secret compartments created with the use of recycled silken ties.

9/15 Part III

This was to be my account about my arrival to the US. Instead, I digressed and lingered with what had come before. Why did I ever leave Zuerich and later Amsterdam?

Zurich has been named consistently as one of the world's most contented cities and certainly boasts one of the highest living standards. Why would anyone leave? I consider myself a cultural refugee and friends that immigrated like me to the US agree. We felt hampered in our development, stultified by Swiss social norms and expectation and the forever powerful push to achieve and play it safe. 

I was hooked, line and sinker, into the kind of unconventional art therapy we practiced. The idea of exploring the unconscious and bringing it up to the light in a creative, artistic, expressive form made total sense to me. What can I say, I am from the Pluto in Leo generation, the attraction was inevitable, a perfect fit. It was our anti-dot to the analytical, way too intellectual, divorced from the body, Jungian approach, prevalent then in Zuerich. It was this desire that propelled me on my search and got me, a Cancer home body to explore not the exotic East at a guru's feet in India (although I surely was tempted at various times) but brought me to Amsterdam and the US eventually. It was my conscious choice to stay rooted in a psychological, rather then a spiritual tradition and in that way to renounce the temptation of salvation through a distant exotic guru, like Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Hey, it was the seventies, temptations were many!

I longed to fully immerse myself in those transformative processes, and so I did for my first few years in the US with Alec Rubin's Primal Theater.

9/15 Part Two

We had listened to Krishna Murti in Brockwood, England, spent a few days in London and it was time for me to leave everything I knew behind and board the cheapest flight to America. I wore my  favorite Genie pants,  created by dear Joe just for me from old soft curtains that flowed wide down my legs and gathered around my ankles. The other pair was at the bottom of my carpet shoulder bag, another work of practical art from recycled fabric by gifted Joe, a former actor turned artisan. I had perfected the art of traveling light and had become a true carpetbagger! There were two convenient outside pockets. The front one held my money,  passport, pen, special color pencils and Chinese diary, the back one held my toiletries, no room for a  hair brush, but chopsticks and a package of Miso (Barley Paste.) Little did I understand that plenty of Miso was to be had in the Asian parts of New York City.

The stewardess would come around to offer drinks and food. I did not accept. I heard them wonder out loud if maybe I was afraid of cost and if maybe I did not understand it was included in the fare. True I barely understood English and was not sure if I was expected to pay, but I also felt snobbish, as I had been eating very clean, involved with the Macrobiotic Restaurant in Amsterdam for over 2 years and limited to vegetarian fare ever since I had moved out my parent's home. I despised conventional meat based meals. Of course I also was young and anxious, in no mood to eat. Now I am old and eat any time anywhere, although I am still a snob of sorts as to the quality of food. But then I often preferred to abstain from eating for extended periods of time, especially while traveling.

When finally I arrived in the US, at Kennedy Airport, it was after midnight and the buses had stopped running. Of course I would not dream of spending my money on a cab, much less would I have known where to take it to. So I settled on one of the benches in the back, prepared to spend a few hours until the first bus would take me in to Manhattan proper. This black worker noticed me and asked where I was going to and assured me he would wake me and take me right after his shift to the first running bus. This he did and as we were crammed in early morning traffic he inquired about where exactly I was going. No idea I told him, he insisted that I must know someone in New York. So I took out my address book and showed him my only New York address, the one of my mentor/teacher. I was not even sure how, if and when I would contact Alec, but this black guy decided this was where I was to go and he would bring me there safely. He got us in to the A train that of course would not stop on W 72nd street which did not deter him, we got out and right back the other way until he safely deposited me at the proper station. All the while he would comment on my incredible calm. And he was right, I was on alert, focused and present. Say what you will about New York and black guys, but that man gave me an impressive welcome. Talk about the kindness of strangers, specifically from a black guy to a white woman, with no strings attached! He did more then got out of his way and this after a long night's work.

I was Alec's guest for several months. Barely able to speak English, I took part in an extemporaneous performance series that kept us busy most nights in to the early morning hours. I practiced the slipping in and out of altered states. Form Follows Feelings was Alec's motto and we worked hard at perfecting our form at any given moment and were diligently in the pursuit of our feelings. I practiced my Mermaid  persona at the edge of the pond in Central Park. On my way I would pass the Dakota where John and Yoko had their home. (The night of John's murder we were attending a piano concert by the amazing Keith Jarret, only blocks away.) Alec had taught at the Actor's Studio, had been a Ballet Dancer and had developed his very own style of performance art. The man had charisma with a great sense of humor. Our rehearsals were adventures in to inner space. We never knew where it would lead us and if we would have the guts to follow - all the way. We practiced our emotional vocabulary and grounded ourselves in to our bodies.

I took up Contact Improvisation a form of movement that relies on gravity and a smooth, uninterrupted flow. I gave up on Tai Chi, Chinese martial arts, too boring in comparison, so it seemed to me then. Although with my Dutch master Joe Onvlee, Tai Chi had never ever been boring, but Joe with his beer belly, greasy hair and sparkle in his eyes was extra-ordinary and employed methods by Gurdjieff that kept us on our toes, or rather in our core or Tantiem. He would yell at us: "Relax, relax, relax" and then burst out laughing. He would tell us funny stories while we had to hold our space for what seemed an eternity, with no adjustments to alleviate any discomfort. He would have us practice in front of a mirror, confusing us. He would pick a senior student to invent a form we had to follow, on the spot, as if we always had done so. Joe Onvlee was phenomenal and had an international following and was likely the first to spread Tai Chi in and through out Europe and beyond.

Yeah, it was the seventies and I had the good fortune to have come upon some charismatic folks: Dear sensitive Joe the actor turned artist and expert crafts man, the one that made it possible to leave my parent's home while I was still a student, Dwuno, the powerful and mysterious Dutch/Indonesian puppet maker, bohemian and Taoist, Joe Onvlee, the Dutch sailor with his wicked smile, that introduced Chinese martial arts to us Hippies, Paulo Knill the Swiss director of the Lesley College Theater department, who gave us absolute permission to be ourselves, even sleep through his classes in order to please ourselves rather then him the teacher. Last but not least Alec Rubin, former ballet dancer turned therapist and acting coach along the lines of the Actors Studio. I had been deeply involved with each of those gigantic souls. They each transformed my life. And all of this happened outside any formal school or institution, with no need to pledge future income for decades. With no aspirations, at least on my part, to garner certificates or titles and letters behind my name. We were driven by our own excitement only.

to be continued ...

9/15 - Part One

Today, September 15th, 32 years ago, I left Europe for good, not knowing then that I would become a US citizen and would make my home in the United States. I was a reluctant adventurer, nervous about not knowing where, what and how. I had no family or friends in the US only friends that had been to California and had experiences I too longed to have.

In the seventies, in Switzerland, most of us in our teens and twenties, we considered ourselves the alternative, the cutting edge, of what, we did not really know. We had our own tiny tea room (The Stuebli) where despite rumors, no drugs were to be had. We all sat on the floor, on carpeted pillows crafted to perfection by my dear friend Joe. We sipped herbal teas, welcomed strangers and fed them brown rice with sauteed onion rings, for free. We were anti-establishment and anti-commercialism in general and on principle. And this in the heart of Europe, Zuerich, the center of banking and commerce, and high standard of style and living.

Likely because of it, we sought community and altered states, some with and some without the help of drugs. We took delight in spontaneous humming and chanting or silences. Some of us took part in Dwuno's "Under-intellectual Gatherings." Fritze had his own essential oil line even then. I remember how this big man, with his big heart, and his big nose, which afforded him an exquisite sense of smell, introduced me to the scent of Vetivier. This happened decades before essential oils would go main stream.

Dear Fritze, then 24 years old, was also the guy that introduced us to solar power as he showed us a simple water container painted black. From him I learned, in the very early seventies, of glaciers about to melt and communities, such as San Francisco, about to drown (timing may not have been his forte.) Global Warming is not a new concept. It has been on the horizon for many decades already. Al Gore has shown us how coastal communities will likely be threatened by the warming atmosphere that melts our glaciers and gives rise to higher sea levels. (One of the saddest and most shocking things I heard was recently from a light (not exactly white) pigmented South African photographer who considers Global Warming a myth perpetuated to keep the up and coming nations down so as not to permit them the same opportunities the western world already exploited!)

Fritze played an important role in Speak Out, an organization by youth for youth in trouble, with the law or drugs. Speak Out had it's outreach center in old town among the whores that then still were able to work the streets day and night. Some of those at risk youths got a chance at intervention in a therapeutic community setting in the country. It was the early seventies, a time for experimentation, for shedding social roles and 'jumping the system' (as we would say in Hakomi Therapy terminology.) 

Every New Year, for some unknown reason, we watched Easy Rider (of course I never ever dreamed that I would make my home near Taos where good parts of this movie were shot.) We read Carlos Castaneda's first book in it's boot legged print in German. Books on Massage and Bioenergetics followed. Carlos from South America showed up and with him we had our own  Bioenergetics Thearpist (young and sexy) that helped us breath right through our own personal blockades. We even took a workshop with an Esalen Massage Therapist given at our 5 bedroom apartment. Paulo Knill, Director then of the Theater Department at the liberal arts Lesley College in Boston would inspire us with his weekly Thursday morning classes, where I first learned the basics of Contact Improvisation, of trusting the ground we stood and rolled on. We learned to engage our core muscles and go with the flow while we were free to feel our feelings. Paulo had embraced the principles of Primal Therapy. Primal scream boxes popped up in attics and cellars all over. We were intent on liberating the inner hurt child by feeling our feelings and working through our primal pains. By embodiment of our  injuries we hoped to transform ourselves from victims in to empowered, creative, artistic, fully alive human beings.  Those were powerful and transformative and today I would say also strangely addictive processes.

We listened to Leonhard Cohen, Cat Stevens, The Moody Blues, Pink Floyd and later John and Yoko, to name only a few, but most often engaged with spontaneous acoustic music wherever it erupted, often played on a guitar, with a sitar thrown in for good measure, sometimes accompanied by a flute that would soar up high and not to forget Bongos of all sizes to be pounded upon. Yeah, even I would wander those ancient streets of old town after midnight. I would softly play my little wooden recorder and felt an alienation that strangely suited me, that seemed to set me apart from main stream. 

We shopped, when we could afford it, at Mister Natural, our first alternative health food store. Dwuno would severely reprimand us when we brought conventional commercial brown rice to our tea room. In the early mornings I would walk down the hill with an aluminum (I am afraid those were the kinds used then) kettle of fresh whole milk in hand for our Chai of the day or rather night. I have fond memories of those very early and very late peaceful times on ancient, cobble stoned, narrow, rivulet-like streets.  I had been liberated only recently from an ordinary, somewhat stultifying Swiss childhood. Times seemed sweet and and full of promise. 

In search of further altered, exalted states I departed from Zuerich and later Amsterdam to eventually arrive in New York, the United States exactly 32 years ago to this day.

Continued with Part Two