Same Ol’, Same Ol’

* A (belated) Happy New Year to readers *

To update or not to update. When the days bleed one into the other, that is the question. Still, I couldn’t let the whole of January pass without a fresh post.

The New Year melancholy doesn’t wait for 2021 to rear its miserable head. With the exception of some much appreciated NYE fellowship and prayers, my post-Christmas day holidays are characterised by a mild, nagging gloom. 

Belgium has been under some form of continuous lockdown since the Autumn. For commercial reasons, several ‘non-essential’ businesses are allowed to remain open beyond Christmas for the winter sales (later extended for two weeks). All other restrictions stay in place, including stringent limits on personal interactions. Numbers of COVID infections have been falling incrementally. Yet with new strains on the rise and folk returning from their overseas festive breaks, the Belgian authorities are taking no chances.

By the time they announce (a few days earlier than scheduled) that these constraints will continue until at least early March, it’s not a surprise. The week before, on the phone to my hairdresser, she informs me that’s the word on the grapevine. At least, salons and similar businesses will not open again before spring. There’s word of stylists soliciting illicit trade online. Government officials hop up and down with indignation. Yet as Melissa, the lady who cleans my flat has cannily observed, these same officials look pretty slick in public themselves. Moreover, as of mid-January, out-of-business hairdressers still haven’t received the latest financial support from the State.

I take the closure of salons as a bellwether for everything else. The rumours are confirmed days later. A well-needed ban on loosely-defined ‘non-essential travel’ is also instated.

The lockdown extension is not a shock but nevertheless a disappointment. My mental well-being is in a delicate state. This sort of development doesn’t help.

There is some potential good news for salons when the government considers authorising limited services in mid-February. However, I don't envisage an easing of the rules on socialising.

I resign to the thought that come March, the Belgian government will find some pretext to prolong restrictions once more. That time, they'll cite concerns about the possibility of citizens' over-excitement during the Easter holidays, knowing all the while that that’s been the plan for months.

Whether or not this 85-90% lockdown is eased by early or late spring, it would have been several months since its enforcement. The authorities don’t appear to give a toss about the psychological effect of all these restrictions. They use infantilising language to blame the ‘naughty public’, instead of owning up to their own failures at the beginning of the global health crisis. Much like other parts of Western Europe whose response has also been a shambles.

I’m the first of my team to return to work in early January. I make the most of the fact that many colleagues and organisational partners are still on leave. I won’t be overwhelmed with emails. With teleworking still the default, there’s not much to distinguish the days. When I rage against the latest measures, my colleague Demetria suggests ways I can keep occupied. I appreciate her efforts but I want sympathy, not suggestions.  In any case, I’m already doing whatever is feasible to improve my lot.

Demetria can only relate to a degree. My other colleagues are either married, have family links or other long established ties to Brussels. I haven’t seen any of my family or close UK-based friends since 2019.  

I note how those who’ve resided in Belgium for years are still fussy about going out in bad weather. I don’t have the luxury. It’s either I brave the wet, the wind or even the snow or I go stir crazy at home. 

I begin to notice certain patterns regarding my morale. Early in the week tends to be especially difficult. Sometimes it spreads to other days. I do my best to take a day at a time and make lemonade. But some moments have less juice to squeeze than others. The isolation smothers. Its weight sometimes unbearable. Routine visits by officials or other professionals take on a new significance. I’m grateful for the fleeting company, even if they are only paid to be there. And yet, that doesn’t even always qualm the malaise.

An abundance of online spiritual content in January proves to be indispensable lifelines. It’s traditionally a month of prayer for many churches. There’s no shortage of virtual meetings and services. It helps with perspective to take my mind off my own situation and pray for the needs of others and the world at large. 

Still. There’s only so much one can ignore a lengthy absence of meaningful offline interaction.

My European phone becomes an unexpected source of torment. It’s as if all the alienation I feel living in Brussels is embodied in this basic Nokia device. Days can go by without a peep. A few of my most neurotic episodes are triggered by this radio silence. I take to leaving it off for as long as possible, only to have a stubborn and surreptitious hope dashed when I switch it back on.

I grow tired of making more or less unilateral effort with some of the embryonic connections I started to make on arrival. Several have dropped off the radar for reasons I can only guess. Erstwhile suitors tend to vanish when things don’t go their way. (One such recent chancer - after a phone call that feels more like a job interview and confirms how little we have in common - begs off with a toothache that apparently never heals). 

Rob the Nuisance, of course, is the exception. Who else? He still scrambles out of the woodwork from time to time, to provoke another heated online discussion. If need be, he’ll throw in the odd flippant remark about my faith to get a rise. Begrudgingly, to his credit, he does send me content with which he'd know I'd engage and agree, even if he doesn't. He also appears to have worked slightly on his poor manners.  We now have a (to my mind anyway) comedy routine where he invites me round to eat and I refuse. He’s persistent, I’ll give him that. He even offers to have a third party in the room. I still pass. Knowing him and his hedonistic tendencies, that could be his way of proposing a ménage-à-trois. In any case, even if innocent, his footloose jet-setting and apparent disregard for quarantine measures don’t leave me confident that this would be a COVID-secure arrangement.

Marie-José in Ixelles

On one hand, there’s a perverse pleasure in him taking the initiative to remain in touch. Yet, it’s also perturbing that my most consistent contact in Belgium is someone about whom I’m ambivalent. At best, his motives are mixed.

With few options at my disposal, I make my own. I sign up for a ton of city-wide activities organised by my Belgian church, Fresh Wine Ministries (FWM). I up my daily walks to two where I can. They make the world of difference. Not to mention my knowledge of the City is increasing manifold.

The few times I do receive genuine invitations for a stroll’n’chat, I snap at the chance. There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes. So says Yvonne, who works for a partner organisation of TTUO and is a distant relative of my supervisor, Ama. One Saturday she shows me around her old stomping ground in Ixelles. I am introduced to a very pretty side of Brussels with which I was not familiar. Yvonne regales me with colourful tales of her life as a global citizen. She picked up the aforementioned adage living in Scandinavia.

Brenda, a new acquaintance from FWM, gets in touch on her return from visiting family in Austria. She also wants to schedule a walk and talk in the brisk weather. Now more than ever, these small acts of kindness go a long way.

Soundtrack: My Best of...2020 mix- Part 1 & 2. Be the Change by Jarrod Lawson.

Here We Go...Again?

Life and its ironies. My last blog was an account of the social ties I’ve been steadily establishing in Brussels. I called it Girl About Town. I was entertaining a follow up about charming evenings spent in the company of a thoughtful, bright, handsome and slightly effete South American. But then COVID.

As I write, the Belgian government is deciding whether to go the way of its French neighbour and instate a full lockdown.
I really shouldn’t be bewildered by the mayhem wreaked by this virus. If this year should have taught us (or rather reminded us of) anything, it’s to hold all plans loosely and expect the unexpected. Heck, my own life should have taught me that control is an illusion. And yet…

Maybe it’s the innate optimist in me. It’s not as if the signs weren’t already there. Perhaps I was too busy burying my head in the sand as news circulated that Belgium was regaining its disgraceful position of having one of the worst infection and death rates per capita. The piecemeal government has been tightening restrictions ; an illogical ban on bars and cafés whilst restaurants were still allowed to remain open. Nevertheless, I was genuinely blindsided by the month-long blanket closures of eating establishments (save for take-away) issued mid-October. Teleworking is all but compulsory, which means no breaking up of my week with occasional days in the office. 

Priorities. I understand that this is a deadly disease that has claimed the lives of well over a million people globally. Drastic times, drastic measures. But my already high concern for the psychological toll of quarantine-style orders only increases. Then there's the shadow pandemic of domestic violence that has seen a frightening surge over the past months.

Like many, I feel the heaviness of 2020’s fear, uncertainty and, maybe worst of all, isolation all the more as the year draws to an end.

Yes, the public might have become a little too eager to socialise after the lockdown but widespread government mismanagement and inconsistent instructions don’t help.  Belgian's notorious linguistic divide affects policy. There's also the significant -not to mention farcical- issue of having nine, yes nine, health ministers. Too many cooks...

Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo, claims the situation is worse than six months ago. That now even those in semi or full isolation are catching the disease. Tu m’etonnes. Six or seven months ago the kids weren’t at school. That’s the major difference. Not to diminish the very difficult balancing act between children’s social and educational development and the general well-being of everyone else, we shouldn’t be astonished to see a spike in cases after schools have re-opened.

The weekend after the new measures are announced, I’m in a state. I can’t think or speak about it without crying. I look back on the past month’s or so activities; from the aforementioned socials to charitable endeavours. I weep for the promising connections I was beginning to form; still too fragile to be able to count on.

A friend from the UK calls just as I’m about to step out to the shops. I appreciate the gesture; touched that I came to mind. However, his Christian fatalism ticks me off. I wish I have the presence of mind to properly challenge it.

What a difference a day makes. Just the evening before, shortly before the announcements, I am out with my Caribbean auntie Carol at an even more disappointing DJ set (clue: no DJ) at Plein Publiek. The company is a mixed bag. Along for the ride is a St Lucian friend; a contrarian, who likes the sound of his voice. What he says is mostly horse manure. He asks if I ‘chat Caribbean’.

No. I’m African.

So you don’t chat Caribbean?

He brings along a younger Tunisian friend who appears to be drunk on arrival. He hits on me constantly. Perhaps partly out of vanity, I entertain it somewhat, to my regret. He keeps interrupting my conversations to make non-sequiturs such as ‘You look American. Doesn’t she look American?’ or to get angry with me for not paying him the requisite attention. At some point he offers to draw a cartoon animal version of me.

Mr Tunisia and Mr St Lucia don’t really have a language in common but somehow manage to communicate.

Thank goodness, Carol’s other acquaintance is far more agreeable. Originally from North-West England, Simon has lived in Belgium more than half his life. He’s very candid about various health issues and an unhappy domestic set-up. His first lockdown lasted longer than most, having had to shield because of a pre-existing condition. 

You can take away bars and cafés, he reasons, but please don’t take away all the places I can eat and talk with good company.

An hour or so later, after Simon has dropped Carol and I off at our respective homes, we learn of the tighter anti-COVID measures. I send him a supportive message.

By the following week, the Belgian government stops just short of a much-discussed second lockdown. All cultural venues and sports centres are to close from Monday. A 10pm-6am curfew is ordered. I go to the cinema twice that weekend, whilst I still can.

On top of the latest constraints, it’s another hectic week at work. Ama, already not exactly sunny by nature, is in an especially foul mood. Her sinuses are giving her grief. She’s overworked, fed up with all that 2020 has thrown at us and who-knows-what-else is going on. I get caught on the sharp end once or twice. I’m not the only one. I can never take it personally with her. It’s just how she is. 

I’m grateful for every kind word and thought elsewhere. For a good conversation with a friend whom I thought had dropped off the radar. For the surprise texts from acquaintances whom I haven’t heard from in a while. For another enchanting afternoon spent with the South American. For the sound life advice that one occasionally finds on YouTube. I greatly appreciate the reinvigorating fellowship of an (unintentionally) all female online church cell group I gatecrash.

All these are well-needed fortification for the weeks to come. I’m trying not to think further ahead.