The Changing of the Seasons

One Sunday morning, mid-Spring I wake up sounding like Red from Us. Making myself understood at church is…fun. Try speaking a foreign language whilst sounding like a demoniac. My sis, bless her, tolerates a couple of hours of this vocal freak show via Skype before admonishing me to rest my voice.

Just the day before, I was singing sans problème Gospel standards in French and English with gusto on the streets of central Strasbourg, alongside the youth group from my church. Not to mention whiling a good couple of hours away with an acquaintance at my haunt Oh My Goodness!

 My voice starts to give way by that evening. Croaking down the phone to my mum, she asks 

What happened?

Beats me. I’ve been blasting my body with my trusty vitamin C supplement, which usually does the trick. I have however felt the sensations of an itchy cough and the onset of a sore throat.  I don’t doubt I’ve avoided the worst of it. Colleagues and friends have succumbed to sickness left, right and centre. I have been spared, thank God but there’s only so much my body can fight off.

I blame the drastic change in temperature. Spring is always a mixed-bag but it’s been particularly chilly of late. To think a couple of months ago, much of Northern Europe flirted with the idea of retiring their heavy coats until autumn. We had early summer in February and now winter in April. Climate change is messing with our mind and bodies like a fickle love interest. 

You’re too busy. Times like this you should rest. Mum mildly rebukes.

Homebody? Me? Never. Not when there are stimulating conferences to attend on the role of faith and religion in contemporary Europe; or my choir is preparing to go into the studio for a recording session that has already been put back months at a time. In my defence, I’m also preparing for her Easter visit. Bearing in mind that very little, if anything, opens during public holidays, I can’t rely on last minute shopping come Good Friday. Easter Saturday will be mayhem.

Despite my hoarseness, I refuse to cancel my promised meet up with new chum Gael for his belated birthday drink. His special day was late March. We’ve already postponed for a couple of weeks owing to schedule clashes.  

He’s a great listener and source of genuine mirth. Not bad for a native Strasbourgeois.

That’s not entirely fair. I’ve made some lovely acquaintances here of which he is one of the latest.  A particularly cultured one at that. He knows his way around Strasbourg's bars, restaurants and museums. He wants to take me out dancing. In his own words he's a "slut on the dancefloor". That, I have to see. As it turns out I got the wrong end of the stick during our conversation about “Cultural Appropriation”. He wasn’t doing a Kanye after all when he told me about the Congolese-culture loving ‘girlfriend’ whom he considers a true Afropean. The French word Copine is open to (mis)interpretation. She’s just a mate. Not that it should matter, but still…

I tell him about the latest drama at work, as I have spent the whole weekend talking about to anyone who is kind enough to listen. We don’t even get round to the details of his recent Iberian holiday.  That’s partly down to me monopolising the conversation- to my shame -as well as Gael’s enthusiasm for Jordan Peele’s aforementioned new feature.  What was to me a slick and entertaining if unremarkable horror parody is, according to Gael, laden with subtext that I missed the first time. I won’t divulge the alternative theories discussed for fear of unleashing a ‘spoiler’ backlash for those yet to see it. Let’s just say, to paraphrase KRS-1, ours is an edu-taining discussion.

Back in the real world, it’s not just the season that has taken a surprise turn. By mid-April protests in Algeria have forced ex-President Bouteflika to step-down from his tenaciously-held office. Omar al-Bashir has been toppled by the army in Sudan also following a popular uprising and Turkey’s strongman Erdogan isn’t sitting as comfortably as he once was.

Closer to home Boss Man announces his intention to move on to greener pastures (not that I'm making any comparison to long time dictators, you understand).

20 years in the same team, he shakes his head. It’s too long.

(courtesy of http://www.scphysiciangroup.com)

Elsewhere, THRO has formally announced it will be scrapping hundreds of jobs; a disproportionate amount of them in our department. Boss Man is amongst the privileged old guard who started at The Organisation during the halcyon days when permanent contracts were handed out to any who set foot in the building. Oui, j’abuse but you get the point. Long gone are the days they were easier to come by. The fortunate CDI so-and-sos are sheltered from the worst of the cull.  For the rest of us mortals with fixed term (CDD) or temporary contracts, even those working on well-funded projects aren’t necessarily safe. I’m brought to tears by stories of expat colleagues whose contracts are only renewed the evening of their expiry. 

To add to the sense of unease, there are of course my aforementioned issues with personnel.

Of all the many existential crises I’ve had thus far since moving to Alsace, this one might require more immediate pragmatism than the rest.

Another bell goes off when speaking to my errant guardian angel, Gordon, on the way home one evening. We've barely seen or spoken to each other this side of the New Year. After taunting him for abandoning his earthly mission (snowed-under with work over at The Chateau, he apologises in his good-natured fashion), he makes a passing comment that only serves to confirm my presentiment of a sea change.

The following day,  my voice having returned to some normality, I share such thoughts during elevenses with Safiyah, a kindly colleague. She's spent most of her 35 years in France working at The Organisation. She has a multifaceted artistic streak. I believe she is capable of better than what she’s doing now career-wise. She’s inclined to agree. It's not the first time she's done some serious soul-searching since she started working at THRO. She describes the comfort and stability as a Golden Cage.

She’s at an age where she feels liberated from the opinions of others but wary of starting afresh.

We speak about our differing views on faith and the spiritual. She’s asking herself the important ontological questions. It’s a good start, I say. 

Both of us sense it’s a season of great transition. The wind is blowing in a new direction although the details are still unclear.   For Safiyah, even the recent devastation of the Notre Dame signifies change, albeit tinted with sadness. A centuries old structure that has survived revolutions and wars will never be the same.

Both Safiyah and I are experiencing a shift in dynamic in our respective friendships; deciding what to hold on to and when to let go. Doing a life inventory, I call it.

In conversation with friends I detect similar restlessness and upheaval. It's necessary; even auspicious, if unsettling.

Soundtrack: Ziminino by Ziminino + The Back In Brazil Compilation by Gilles Peterson.