A Swiss Village Summer in the early 2000s

You wouldn’t guess it at first glance, but I’m a country girl through and through, used to falling asleep to the soothing rhythm of cowbells and waking up to the unmistakable smell of horses.

My cousins and I bonded over stacking hay, pulling weeds, setting up beanstalks, and racing go-karts down the quiet road by our house, back when hardly any cars passed through. It wasn’t exactly how most of the kids I went to school with spent their time.

I remember the shock of seeing one of my brother’s school friends step into the stable for the first time. He barely made it past the door before wrinkling his nose and blurting out, “Ew, it stinks in here,” then turning straight back around. The look of pure disgust on his face as he rushed out was all the proof I needed that city kids weren’t built for our kind of life.

Looking back, it almost feels like it never really existed. Most of the land has been sold, and where my grandfather’s sawmill once stood so proudly, there’s now an entire new neighbourhood. The horses are still there, at least that hasn’t changed.

On weekend mornings, when the sawmill was quiet and the village still, I’d sneak outside, grab my water gun, and head off on imaginary missions. I remember one time I was so lost in my own world that I didn’t even notice where I was stepping and fell straight backwards into the baby pool.

Growing up beside the village stream offered its own kind of adventures. One day it became the Amazon, the next the open ocean. Tiny fish became piranhas and sharks. It was a childhood without screens, raw and unfiltered.