SwissMissMeg

Autumn has brought my first visitors to the region. Nancy and Rich, friends from Boston, stopped through Lugano for a few nights last week. We enjoyed dinner at my favorite downtown tavern and they visited my classroom and home on the mountain.

On the weekend, we took in an art fair featuring the work of friends and traveled to Lake Como together for the weekend. It was a very special visit.

In Como, Nancy and I took the chance to set up our paints. As she was my middle school art teacher, creating side-by-side is what comes naturally to us. We were blessed with gorgeous weather in Como, if a bit unseasonably warm.

Como was still busy with tourists but headed towards shoulder season. The funicolare ride up to the town of Brunate was also a highlight. Lifting us above the fray of Como, we were enchanted by the winding backstreets, quiet on a Sunday morning.

In Brunate, we once again set up our paints on a quiet street. Our paintings attracted locals who greeted us while out for their morning stroll. A special spot, I searched for a poem to capture the essence.

In 1790, after a short period in France during the Revolution (where he was influenced by Rousseau’s ideas), William Wordsworth moved to Lake Como. He dedicated four pages of his Descriptive Sketches Taken during a Pedestrian Tour among the Alps (published in 1793) to the area. In Wordsworth’s view, the Earth itself is jealous of Lake Como, because she’s aware of its unique beauty.

And, Como! thou, a treasure whom the earth

Keeps to herself, confined as in a depth

Of Abyssinian privacy. I spake

Of thee, thy chestnut woods, and garden plots

Of Indian-corn tended by dark-eyed maids;

Thy lofty steeps, and pathways roofed with vines,

Winding from house to house, from town to town,

Sole link that binds them to each other ; walks,

League after league, and cloistral avenues,

Where silence dwells if music be not there:

While yet a youth undisciplined in verse,

Through fond ambition of that hour, I strove

To chant your praise ; nor can approach you now

Ungreeted by- a more melodious song,

Where tones of nature smoothed by learned art

May flow in lasting current. Like a breeze

Or sunbeam over your domain I passed

In motion without pause; but ye have left

Your beauty with me, a serene accord

Of forms and colors, passive, yet endowed

In their subinissivencss with power as sweet

And gracious, almost might I dare to say,

As virtue is, or goodness; sweet as love,

Or the remembrance of a generous deed,

Or mildest visitation of pure thought,

When God, the giver of all joy, is thanked

Religiously, in silent blessedness;

Sweet as this last herself, for such it is.

Our visit was brief but wonderful. Nancy and Rich are headed to Venice soon and I’m off to Basel with students this weekend to make some art and explore the wonderful museums on offer. Happy autumn, everyone!