Birthday Gift

Carolyn in Zurich

I was born in Zurich, Switzerland a few years after the end of World War II.  My parents and I lived in Switzerland for a year, then moved to Rome, returning to the US when I turned two.  Even though I remember nothing from that time of my life, I have always felt a bit odd, a mixture of pride and weirdness.  No one else whom I knew in school had been born outside of the United States.  As an adult, I have surprised many with my non-US birth.  My early life existed as a multitude of photos in my parents' albums,  not personal memories.  It was as if I had imagined my infancy and I would someday find that I had been born in Santa Monica, like my younger sister.

This past weekend Smitty and I drove to Zurich to celebrate my birthday, my aspiration for two years.  I wanted to walk the streets my parents walked, visit some of the places they talked about, and I wanted to find the home which was my first.

Moving from Zurich to Rome,
in front of the house in Zollikon

We drove into bustling Zurich old town about 11am on Saturday, found our hotel, and parked our car in an underground garage via a car elevator!  Leaving our bags in the car, we headed for the Tourist Information center, got some maps and a Zurich Card, then had lunch at Starbucks.  After lunch we boarded a train headed for Zollikon, a suburb of Zurich and the place where my life began.  Exiting the train, we took a bus up the hill and my excitement mounted.  We had a map, a photo, and an address, but would we find a house or a fantasy?

The bus delivered us just a block from the street-Rotfluhstrasse.  Eagerly we searched for the number-39.  And then we saw it, the house in the picture, the address that identified it.  I stood looking across to a house which confirmed that my infancy was not some dream, but a reality.

A new owner, some remodeling,
and one happy lady

As we took pictures and discussed the differences in the house since the 1991 photo, the owner emerged.  He had recently purchased the house, is remodeling, and was interested in hearing how long ago I had lived there.  We took some pictures, enjoyed the view of the lake and walked away.  But I walked away with a sense of having found a piece of me right there in Zollikon.

Grossmunster and the Alps 

The rest of the afternoon we did a walking tour of Zurich, stopping often to drink in the sights, enjoy the architecture , and just relish the fact that we were, in fact, in the place where I was born.  My infancy was not a fantasy.  A little bit of me was formed by living in this beautiful, old city.  As we stood on the wall of the fortress overlooking the Limmat River, Lake Zurich and beyond, we breathed in the glistening beauty of the Alps, covered in snow and bathed in late afternoon sun.  This had been the best birthday gift I could have received.