Close Your Eyes and Jump — Swiss Family Rodden, Son!

The last movie I went to see in the theater back in Texas was Mission: Impossible-Fallout. Which is how many now? Mission Impossible 11…maybe? Anyway, It was pretty darn good. I’m blown away when each new one comes out at the fact that Tom Cruise does most of his own outrageous stunts in each movie.

I stumbled across a clip on YouTube of Cruise on The Late Late Show with James Corden talking about doing his own stunts, which leads to him challenging James Corden to go skydiving with him. Check it out; there’s some funny stuff in there.

In case you’re in a hurry, there’s a point at about 4:12 where Cruise and Corden go over some hand signals they can share while in the air. There’s thumbs up, so so, and then James comes up with one he can use when things go to sh…when things get messy. The signal is two closed hands (imagine knocking on a door twice), followed by a open-hand splat.

Up in the air, after they jump, they share thumbs up, and then James remembers and/or needs to use the messy situation signal. Knock knock splat.

It’s been 47 days since we shuffled our feet to the edge of the open door, tried to pry our toes away from clinging to the edge, and jumped from Texas out towards Switzerland. And just between us, there have been more than a few times when if you would of looked at me with inquiring eyes, a big grin, and a thumbs up, I would have shot you back a cold squinty stare while offering that newly created signal, or my eyebrows would have jumped up above my hairline in terror as I signaled back knock knock splat.

Take the first couple days as we got here. In the grips of a Swiss heat wave—hovering between 85 and 90 with no a/c because, come on, it doesn’t get that hot— we went to Fust, a Swiss Best Buy, to get a fan…only to find they were of course sold out. Please try next week. Oh, you mean after the sauna-like conditions have moved on? You bet. All four of us were fighting a losing battle with jet lag, sweaty and cramped in the smallest space I’ve lived in since my freshman year in the dorms, we were up all night because the boys couldn’t get to sleep. Lisa had noticed that Nash’s bed was a little weak and creaky on her shift, but too tired to relay the message, she came in and crashed as she tagged me to console him. I plopped down next to him after a day of worrying about being too loud for our downstairs neighbors and we both crashed to the floor as the bed exploded beneath us at 3:30 in the morning. I bet the neighbors below slept right through the crash. I bet they were only jarred awake a few seconds later by my unrepeatable howls of frustration and Nash’s wails after the momentary shock wore off.

But it got better over time, right? Sure. I love laundry over here. Everybody in the apartment building shares a washing machine in the basement and a room with a heater for a dryer. When you’re the new family in the building, other people have signed up for the best shifts for the next 5 months. So you get bound to a Wednesday morning changing out mounds of laundry (did I mention the landlady was on vacation for two weeks when we arrived and we couldn’t add money to our laundry card?) that piles up in the hot room because the clothes never really quite dry. And you’ve got to be respectful and a good neighbor and be done by the end of your allotted time, but don’t cut the washing cycle short or the clothes are wringing wet and you have to dry them for two days on your balcony. Love laundry over here.

Knock.

Splat.

And the boys adjust well, but they do take some time to adjust, which leads to pastry addictions (don’t send your broom on the longer sea shipment in the land of pastries and croissants, by the way), fights in the foreign grocery store that end with yogurt plopping on Nash’s head, skirmishes over water bottles that progress into a tangle of two boys tumbling down the stairs on the bus as the Swiss gape and giggle (don’t even mention who gets to push the button for our stops every ride, every day), and a steady stream of new favorite phrases like, “I’m so bored!” and “It’s taking so long!”

Knock knock two heads together, splat.

Throw in Cooper zooming on his scooter into a crosswalk in front of an oncoming bus, followed by the bus driver making me and the boys get on the bus, apologize to all the people who fell as he slammed on the brakes, ride a few stops on a bus we didn’t want to take, and then provide our information for the police in case anyone sues (Cooper respects him some crosswalks now, though),

Lisa needing a root canal less than a month after moving to a country that has no dental insurance,

staying on hold for over an hour and a half for a customer service call in French in a place known for their warmth and consideration,

the bland, bland expensive expensive food. I knew I’d miss complimentary chips and salsa and some good authentic Tex-Mex. I didn’t know I was actually saying good bye to spices and depths of flavor when I left,

and our attempts to use a Honda Jazz we rent as a long bed truck, moving Ikea furniture and big televisions that cause the boys to duck and us all to suck in within that spacious yacht of a car.

Oh, and the mini Alp that is the hill that leads up to our apartment that’s often traversed with exhausted kids, a stroller, two scooters hanging over our shoulders and bags of groceries too.

Who knew a hand signal would be so fitting and would wear out it’s welcome at the same time?

Psst…Can you believe he’s complained that long about moving to Switzerland? Who feels sorry for this dude?

So now he tries to put a bow on it ;)

You know what though…I’ve heard that it’s in those messy situations requiring a made up signal that we find an opportunity to learn and grow. Adam Hamilton says that we all know where the greenest grass grows…where there’s manure. So together, we endure and survive. We get stronger and try to pass survival on our way to thrival…or thriving. These boys are independent and tough and are picking up street smarts every day (they’re just like their mom). We laugh and lean into the adventure…and we lean on each other.

And even though we closed our eyes at first when we jumped, when we open them, we see things from a different perspective. There’s beauty all around us. The view’s incredible from way up here.

We’ve met some great people. We can’t be comfortable in what we used to have or who we used to be anymore, and that’s not such a bad thing. It’s usually cooler up here in these heights. People are more often than not remarkably helpful, patient, and understanding. Grace is so often extended, and man that leads to a lot of gratitude that drowns out the muttering and cursing under your breath. And it creates a hunger to do what we can to offer grace when we get a chance. It’s not all bad being strangers in a strange land—if we let it form who we’re becoming.

…Seriously, though, tomorrow is laundry day again, and our landlady won’t let us refill the card with anything less than 30 francs even though we’re moving out of our temporary apartment in less than two weeks. Guess who gets to ask a neighbor if we can use his or her laundry card tomorrow if we pay them back for the washes we use in the morning …