It’s September. My mornings are met with clear skies, mist snaking along the curve of the river, dew on the grass and finally, the air a touch cool enough to warrant wearing a long sleeve top when my morning alarm rings out. Contrails crisscross the clear skies as the sun slowly emerges. The morning sky is a promise of companionship, the trees and hedges around us stand like dark soldiers in the quietness of dawn.
The evenings have been tempered with golden sunsets. The month of September has brought unseasonable dry weather in fact; we’ve had such little rain that the grassy areas of the city are olive coloured, and the tiredness of a city in the aftermath of a sizzling summer is visible everywhere. But the setting sun has remained typically golden, albeit at a moment inconvenient for magnificent gin-hour walks. We’re typically eating dinner around 7 in the evening. Somehow – somewhere along the path this year, we hardly noticed the shortening of days.
And so the days have scarpered past us. September 2026 has been noticeably different. For the first time in 13 years, it was the start of the school calendar for only 1 child.
It was Beth who lined up for a Back To School photo on September 1st in a carefully curated outfit for her second to last year at high school. Her class schedule is tough this year, with 4 days where she finishes class at 6pm, plus sport class on Saturday. She’s dedicated to her school work and I do hope her efforts get her where she wants to be.
Alex, having graduated high school in July with a placement to study medicine here in Strasbourg has deferred the year so that she can take a Gap. She wanted to work and save money to travel a little, as well as just take the time to breathe after 3 very tough high school years. Having enjoyed her Butterfly Summer (Read here), she ended her holidays with a rather unexpected interview to work at a bilingual crèche in the city. It really is a case of who you know, not what you know. (Thanks to the lovely H for putting in a good word.) Her working days certainly puts a different spin on our day-to-day. (It’s weird being able to ask her to sort out the laundry or do the recycling, among other tasks I’ve tried to avoid since the girls class schedule is so heavy).
As for me, a snippet of reflections after a Friday evening at my new job is evocative of my current situation. Here’s a link to a substack rundown of the job. As for musing, take a read through the words I scribbled after working Friday night during a French football match:
Finally, this evening I can wipe a cloth across the last surface, squeegee the soap suds to the floor drain, pack away the clean plates and remove the dirty bins. I change out of my stinking uniform, grab my bag and car keys, key up a different playlist to the podcasts that are usually queued and climb into my little red car.
My body is still warm from the kitchen so I lower the windows and just as if I was twenty three all over again, I crank the music up. For 8 minutes I wait at various red traffic lights but finally the traffic gods take note of my desire to drive, and my way home is lit with green. An old confidence has settled upon me, and with the cool night air chilling my arms, the sounds of Die Heuwels Fantasties sounding from my speakers, I’m transported away from this current body. My foot pushes onto the accelerator, easing off the clutch with an old comfortable nostalgia, my hand gliding across the steering wheel with elegance.
So seldom do I get to feel free like this: there’s a certain level of escape that comes in this moment. All day, every day; the rigidness of formulaic life confines my old youthful self through actions and repetitions.
It’s been a month at the new workplace. I’ve changed jobs this autumn, something that fell at my feet after my previous employer sold his restaurant.
The new position has me back in a pub environment, flipping burgers, frying chips and cooking tarte flambés. Once again, I’ve managed to arrange a weekday, lunch time hours job which I have grown accustomed to (even though I do miss a quiet morning alone to do chores, read, write and run. Can’t have it all I guess). The ‘brasserie’ opened on September 1st after its previous owner went into liquidation last autumn. The new owners, (2 brothers -in-law) and a sister and myself are the 4 staff setting up the place from scratch. In the 4 weeks I’ve been there, my emotions have run riot. It’s ranged from a place of low self esteem to arrogance, joy at success, sadness at failure, and then the realisation that I am actually good at what I do. While I don’t have a proper say on the menu on offer, I’ve been able to set up procedures that they had not considered. I’ve been annoyed at times at the Godfather behaviour of one owner. I’ve felt shame when his sister is pulling all manner of working hours and days while I maintain an easy work/life balance.
But nothing else made me reflect more on life last Thursday- September 24th- when I observed the cultural space of a community meal where I felt separate from, on a day when South Africans embrace their heritage and identity.
The owners – while born in Strasbourg- hail from Turkey. It’s really interesting being on the peripheries and observing this community. I guess, in many ways, it’s the same as us South Africans who flock to various parts of the world while trying to hold on to our cultural identity.
In life, we form communities. We latch on to tangible solutions to retain a connection. We speak, we think like, we eat like we used to. Or we try to, if we can. And I hadn’t realised just how much we do it until I’ve seen it from a different community.
And that is all said, I felt deeply insecure last Thursday when the lunch time meal offer (a fresh hot meal that changes daily and is inexpensive) was something out of my control. My space was filled with ‘foreign’ elements: in the midst of the space I’ve built came processes set upon me by a comrade- and not my comrade, but a friend from their community. My serving station was moved around. My personal hygiene practises were not adhered to. And I felt (also) that the voice I’d been trying so hard to have heard was merely cast aside.
Granted: these were all very Me problems. My self esteem. My arrogance. My sense of security. My annihilation. The truth is, I wasn’t being forced aside. It was one day and every aspect to it was in the interest of increasing foot traffic to our newly opened doors. (Except I do like to think I’m pretty capable of bringing traffic in by serving the food I like to serve, if they can just find a way to advertise properly).
It came as – or still comes as- a revelation that I’m good at what I do.
And so, while being caught up in my self indulgent misery, Friday turned out to just be another day, and we continued as normal. It was reflective though, in general, of how easy it is to feel set aside, and how we do it to other people that we don’t usually align with.
Of course, given my resolution earlier this year that saw me making a point to host great occasions at my home, Heritage Day did not pass without being acknowledged.
Like we- Anton and I- have done on the past, Alex, Beth and I hosted a small gathering of our friends to a braai this year. We skipped last year, but brought back the event for 2026 with some new acquaintances. Having a braai is harder than it used to be. It’s up to me to prep everything and host, serving drinks and welcoming people.
As my garden gate clanged shut, my doorbell rang simultaneously and two of my dearest sets of friends both arrived. They brought with them beautiful hearts, generosity of spirit, and 2 willing sets of hands to build fires and Braai the million pieces of meat that followed. My biggest sadness is that I’m often too distracted to just be present for them, but I know there will be more occasions to catch up.
It’s important that I take stock of something intrinsically notable here. This community of people that have become family wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for Anton.
In the days that followed our Heritage Day braai, the day that I should have celebrated my 20th wedding anniversary dawned, and Antons absence felt close. Not a day goes by when I’m not reminded of him, but sometimes I do wake up confused as to why he’s not here. How is it that a brain tumour ripped away part of my life?
September was, by and large, most emotional for me. I’ve done a fair bit of celebrating but I’ve also indulged in an equal amount of overthinking. Notably to my detriment. Always. I can barely string a coherent essay together to be honest 😉 (I haven’t even begun to write about the gender based violence in South Africa, the rapists who got away with being punished in the US by writing an essay, nor the current protest action that French schools are enduring.).
Perhaps I should just return to short style prose on the gram?
On that note, I bid you adieu. Finally now that September is done (it’s already October) we’ve had the skies cloud over and hopefully we’ll get some rain for a few days. Somehow, somewhere I’ll have to get onto my garden: if it’s damp, it will be better. Perhaps. 🤔 (I’ve given up on tulips from Amsterdam and now have converted my kitchen window boxes to chrysanthemums. They will be perfect for the upcoming Saints Day, a beautiful reminder to the people we’ve lost in life.
Take care my lovelies. I hope to bring something more cohesive next month.
Xx
