Playgrounds of Kingdom Come

After several frustrating weeks of not being able to get online - an experience that no one should undergo after working in digital advertising for 5 years - I'm here! At an internet cafe with my beloved Apple! My friends think are probably dead amidst the Himalaya. But yes, we are alive and well and kickin' it at 11,500 feet. Now I have The Next American Novel to post after traveling through Germany, France and Switzerland, then Delhi and finally Ladakh. So what's been happening:
Inevitably there will be a period in Aamir’s life when he will shudder when I pick him up from ice hockey practice for merely existing as his mother; already at two he takes his small hand and slaps me on the cheek with a firm “NO” when I lean over to threaten his autonomy with a bushel of kisses. In 16 years, I see him gunning his motorcycle and race off onto the road in bitter rebellion for having his computer social networking privileges taken away. I will unfold these photos from our trip, and with a faint tear quivering in my eye, say…”Dear. When you were a wee one, just over two years old, your faithful mum and pop took you TO THE BEST KICKASS PLAYGROUNDS IN THE MOST AMAZING MOUNTAIN RANGES IN THE WORLD.” What child gets to frolic on a swing in the frickin’ Swiss Alps and Himalayas by 27 months? Yes, you did Aamir, I will say. So hand over the keys and pay humble respect to those who created you.

Here's Aamir playing in the Himalaya in Ladakh's one and only official playground. Albeit it’s a bit dry and the slide would be a target for American lawsuits, but the setting is pretty sweet. (Apparently the entire playground concept is kind of a strange one in Ladakh. But I guess when you have stones and huge mountains and rivers it's not really necessary).

When we were in Switzerland, our lovely Swiss friends took us to another playground for Aamir in the woods near Cham. It’s the same woods that all those European painters inspire to capture when you walk the halls of stately museums and gaze at those 7 feet by 4 feet oil paintings. Disgustingly, it’s how our Swiss friends Caroline and Klaus celebrate the first day of the New Year. They take the clean, efficient tram up into the hills, and embrace the sky and hope for openness and happiness. Usually for my New Year’s, I do anything possible to prevent labeling myself a loser before my parents succumb to sleep by 10:30pm and I’m left cursing the people in Times Square on television for having lives.

We broke cheese and drank bubbly Swiss water in petite plastic cups and enjoyed the fresh air. (This Swiss cheese is the type the natives eat in moderation. I eat the stuff in big chunks like bonbons and get a cold sore or zits the next day from the salt and fat.) In this photo, which I wanted to deem “Merry Christmas from our family 2010”, my camera lens was fogged up and makes me look like I have a cloud sitting right over my face. So my holiday photo idea got canned:




We walked up the road and rounded the corner to be greeted by a golden field of mountain spring flowers. Abbass and Aamir took the occasion to sit amidst the splendor. Interestingly enough, there is a similar childhood portrait of Abbass about the same age as Aamir sitting amidst a huge field of golden barley with his late mother in Ladakh.


Then we hiked towards The Best Playground on Earth that Aamir will never remember. As a mom, the best you can hope for, among the 3am calls to comfort, the diaper rash cream, the bum wipes, is that somehow, somewhere, 19 years down the line, the total sum of all these small yet significant actions that your child will never remember will provide some semblance of excellent social adjustment and happiness. So somehow I hope that having Aamir play in the Swiss Alps will do just that. If there was a Bentley of children’s playgrounds, this would be it. Aamir spent the rest of the afternoon running up and down the log kingdom and screaming gibberish back to his new friends when they spoke Swiss German to him. There was a cluster of about 4 boys who became immediate friends. The playground was made of sturdy Swiss tree logs and was nestled between a flowering field and the edge of the forest. They had a clean public bathroom on the grounds which, for being in the middle of the woods, still had a motion-sensor for the tap and the dryer. I have never failed to find myself impressed by those Swiss.


The playground also consisted of a set of ropes that I usually see at company bonding retreats for conquering your worse fear and getting along with coworkers you hate. Apparently the Swiss get their kids started on mountain rope exercises as early as 18 months. We sat and ate wedges of Swiss chocolate set in a square biscuit. Meaning I ate about twelve and happily got happiness zits the next day.