I only wish it was that simple. It would be great to slap a “gone fishing” sign on my front door and hightail it to SFO. But preparing to live and write in Basel Switzerland for six weeks is like training to run a marathon. So much to do. My stress is stressing me out! Yet, I know how privileged I am. I have the amazing good fortune of traveling to spend time with people I love in a place I treasure.

I’m going to celebrate my 75^th birthday and relive my youth from the vantage point of the older, wiser, but still adventurous woman I’ve become. You see, I lived in Basel 55 years ago as a college student on my junior year abroad. Through sheer luck, I was assigned to live with the Metzger family who immediately made me feel welcome and included me in family activities.

I experienced a love and warmth I treasure more with each passing year. Over time, I became the American daughter of a Swiss family, deeply attached to Ingrid and Martin Metzger and their three children, who I consider my siblings.

I would return to Basel five times over the years to visit, exchange letters and cards, and when social media came on the scene, keep in touch with my Swiss sister Maja via Facebook. My Swiss sister Katrin, who lives in Israel, prefers What’s App. Lucas, my Swiss brother is an e-mail guy.

A view of the Basel cathedral from a cloister window

An Island of Serenity

I first arrived in Basel in September of 1968, escaping the tumult of the United States where Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy had just been assassinated, and where demonstrations against the war in Viet Nam were tearing the country apart. Switzerland was an island of calm and serenity by comparison. And the Metzger family provided a haven for me.

I turned 21 while I lived in Switzerland. Now, I’m going back to celebrate another milestone birthday. Reflecting on my younger self, I see how my eagerness for adventure, for travel, for new experiences would profoundly shape the rest of my life. Because of my adopted family’s openness to me, I was able to experience a foreign culture from a foundation of love and see firsthand what healthy family life could offer.

Ingrid and Martin Metzger circa 2019

By that time, my own family had fractured. My parents had a dreadful marriage and their unhappiness spilled over on to me, my sister, and my brother. I think it was Tolstoy who said that all happy families are alike, but each unhappy family is unique in their unhappiness. That was surely the case for us. A lifetime of therapy lay ahead.

Yet my parents had taken us to England when I was only twelve to live for a year. I learned from them how valuable the experience of living in a foreign culture could be. That early experience made me eager to travel again. And my parents instilled a love of art, reading, and learning – all things I value immensely.

A Finishing School for the Heart

Living with the Metzgers was like a finishing school for the heart. There, I found the love and connection I longed for. My sisters Maja and Katrin, and my brother Lucas, became my dearest friends.

On this visit, I’ll be staying with Lucas in a private cozy apartment in his home in Binningen, a suburb of Basel. I met Lucas when he was nine years old. We bonded over his dog Alif, our mutual love of dark chocolate, and our similar sense of mischief. My Swiss mom, Ingrid, took dozens of photos of Lucas and me involved in a variety of hijinks: teasing Alif by putting pieces of chocolate on the wings of Lucas’ airplane and making the poor dog follow the plane around the living room, or of Lucas pulling me up the street in his wagon, or sitting next to me on the sofa as I blew out the candles on my birthday cake.

Lucas was the only person in the family who did not speak English in 1968. Because of my desire to connect with him, I learned to speak the local Basel Deutsch by asking Lucas to tell me all the words for the implements in the kitchen. Today, when I look at a very successful man in his mid-60s, I still see the face of the nine-year-old boy, and memories flood back.

I have a million things to do to get ready. But my heart is already in Basel. I just have to get my suitcases and my body there too! It’s going to be a special, heartfelt reunion.