In the summer of 1994, I was caught in a bureaucratic nightmare. I was in Hungary for a few weeks performing at International Bartók Festival. I was also waiting for a visa back into the U.S. as a new Assistant Professor at NYU. Of course, the paper never came and I found myself stranded in Europe. In desperation (I didn’t know a soul in Budapest) I called my friend and flutist Robert Dick in Luzern, saying “Hi Robert, hmmm, how are you? I’m in Europe.” Robert sounded a bit home-sick for New York city, and said, “Please come visit me, how long can you stay?”. I had to say, “Hmm...I don’t know, how long CAN I stay?” He kindly invited me to stay with him and his wife Regula for an “unlimited” duration. It was during this time that we not only enjoyed cooking and drinking together, but also put ourselves into good use; might as well make a CD! Robert arranged for us to record at the Musik Academie Stadt Basel (thanks to Thomas Kessler and Wolfgang Heinegger---who also happened to be my house mate while we were both visiting CCRMA in Stanford Univ. in 1991). Later we added more materials and editing, thanks to our friend Elliott Sharp. The CD was named Irrefragable Dreams, thanks to Robert’s linguistic ingenuity.
Well, about the above mentioned title “more to do with life” part.... While I was staying at Robert’s in Lucerne, I got a notice from the immigration that I was scheduled for an interview at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo in mid August. I was also scheduled to perform in Helsinki in late August, so I had to find a plane ticket between Europe and Japan quickly. It was very expensive to fly out of Switzerland in the middle of the summer, so they recommended I should fly from France or Italy. Here comes my creative thinking (?)... A few months before that in New York city, I happened to meet this young French man who was a friend of a friend. He was graduating PhD from Princeton, and going back to France to serve in the mandatory military service. Three of us had just one dinner together, but for some reason, I ended up making a big impression to myself about him, and turns out, vice-versa. When I was looking for this cheap ticket out of Europe at Robert’s, I just took a chance and called him up in Paris (he gave me his address, saying “If you are ever in Europe...” etc.). Of course, a little embarrassed, I said, “Hello, this is Mari. Remember me, we met once with our friend in New York..”. It turned out he had just returned the day before from a vacation in Madagascar with a lot of vanilla beans and bottles of very strong rum (he was in a very good mood). He not only found me a very cheap ticket out of Paris, but also said, “What are you doing in Lucerne...must be boring... Why don’t you come to Paris? I’ll show you around.” He invited me to stay at his parents’ apartment a few days before the flight.
You might guess, with Malagasy rum and Paris.... Hervé and I ended up getting married a few years later.