JustJess
When we are young and naive, I mean us girls, we dream about happy endings. About meeting the right man, getting the dream job and having no great trouble for the rest of our lives. And while I still love to dream about this kind of “happy ending” from time to time, it recently came to me that my life consists mostly of “happy starts” and “great continuations”. It is an ongoing story and I love every second of it.
One happy start like that happened to me recently and it once again made me think of how lucky I am in my life. Let me tell you all about it. But first, in case you don’t know me yet, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Jess, I am a 30 years old woman from the Czech Republic, the heart of Europe. In mid 2020, covid-19 times, I somehow lost all that was important to me back home and decided to leave the country. At the time, the only job that was available abroad was an Au-pair. A job I never thought I would do. But in a few weeks I found myself being one, a companion to three wonderful children in south western Switzerland.
A lot has happened since that faithfull summer. I met wonderful people, saw breathtaking places, and fulfilled some dreams. I decided to prolong my stay and then once more. So look, here I am, two years later, still at the same place, the same host family, starting my third and my last year in Switzerland.
People always ask me, why don’t I stay in this paradise forever. The reason is simple: there are many more beautiful places to see around the world and I hope to move to another paradise when this school year is over. But that is all in the future. Let’s focus on the present.
It is the middle of summer school break now in Switzerland and two of my three host kids are at English camps in England and Ireland. Which left me alone with only my youngest girl for a few days. Miss M. (or the little monkey, as I called her in the older editions of the diary) somehow became the star I spin around. I got so used to her mischief and her spirit that I found myself missing her every day during my holidays. Now that we are back together, I am enjoying my time with her immensely. We went to 4D cinema (for me it was the first time), spent a few hours at the swimming pool (together with her friend) and slept on the balcony of the house (in the end she slept in her room, because she was too afraid). But even though most of the time I am just a passive observer of her active life, it is a great pleasure to see this young person growing up, getting wiser and no less herself. Oh, how I wish the society would never break her spirit.
The most important event of this week, which I decided to note to myself as “the beginning of my third year”, was a music festival. My boss had tickets for one of the biggest music festivals in Switzerland, which happens to take place only 60 Km from us and only 3 Km from where the family’s grandmother lives. He bought the tickets mainly because of miss M. There was to be a performance of her favorite singer. And because my host family is mostly generous with me, they bought a ticket for me as well. That’s how I found myself at the Paléo festival.
I didn’t know much about what to expect, because normally, I wouldn’t buy a ticket at an event like that without having a really really favorite interpreter there. From the headliners that were performing that day I was actively listening to… no one, so I was just hanging around miss M. and her dad and followed to the concerts they wanted to see.
I have to say right away that the Paléo festival is huge. With several stages, camping sites and lots, lots, lots of stalls. I am not much used to going to festivals like that, but I was quickly caught up by the atmosphere. I think everyone missed a big event like this during the two years of covid-19. People were ecstatic. I haven’t really realized how much I missed live events in my life, until the first performance we visited.
We went to see Flèche Love, a composer and interpreter who my boss saw some time ago at Cully Jazz festival. Her mysteriously colored voice together with prominent dance moves and hard face expressions stunned me. I found myself following her personna on stage like she was a supernatural being. Even though I didn’t understand the words of all her songs (most of the songs were in Spanish or Arabic), she always took time to explain what the lyrics were about. I must admit that she hit on the topics that I am dealing with inside of myself for more than once. At one point I was on the verge of tears thinking: “She is so strong, so original, so herself and people adore her for it. I wish I could be like that.” Oh well… easier said than done.
During this concert, the words started flowing through my head. After a long long time I felt like writing a song. Which used to be the most natural state of my mind some years ago. Then I started wandering around, head full of words and heart full of feelings and I started writing down my thoughts, surprisingly in French. I took pauses to search in the dictionary for the right expressions and also took in another concert that was happening at the main stage: Francis Cabrel.
The name may be familiar to many people, but I actually didn’t know who it was, until I heard the first notes of “Je l’aime à mourir”. Which is one of the songs I actually listen to while driving and I have quite a history with this song. When I was 17 years old, it was one of the first songs I learned when taking singing lessons. But back then, I learned to sing it in Czech, following the interpretation of Lenka Filipová and I had no idea the original was actually a French singer. I only realized it a few months ago, when I accidentally rediscovered the song. So when my boss told me we are going to see Francis Cabrel I was like: “Okay, the name sounds familiar.” Then I heard the first notes of the song and my eyes went teary. Because this was never the song, I expected to hear it live. I already had it connected with my stay in Switzerland at that point, but that moment selled it and sent it deep into my memory. All the people singing every word of the song and me with them.
Unfortunately it was the only song I knew from Cabrel. Don’t be surprised, I grew up outside of the francophone world. So I was just listening on, taking in the atmosphere and still writing down all the lyrics that were popping out in my head. I sincerely don’t remember being this emotional for a long long time. The music, the people, the ambience of the place, woke up the sleeping artist in me. I have to visit events like this more often.
Before I knew it, it was the late evening and we moved to wait for the main concert of the evening: Angèle. The singer my 9 years old miss M. loves. We were there an hour before the start and took quite a nice place, around 20 meters away from the stage, but at the very center. Soon, the neighbors with children joined us and we faced a problem: how to make sure that the three young girls would see the stage, in the jungle of tall adults? In the end, my boss took miss M. on his shoulders and me and the neighbors were taking turns having the other two girls on our backs. No need to say that they were quite heavy. But I must say it was worth the back pain, because they were smiling pretty wide. 😉 😀
I myself don’t know many songs from Angèle. I only heard a few that my girl is listening to and I find them likable. Not really my genre but I can see why her music speaks to so many people. She’s not afraid to go to controversial topics, she is a good singer and a strong stage performer. She was the main event of the evening and the place was overcrowded. I’ll be happy to pay more attention to her in the future and her song “Ta reine” ended up on my playlist after this concert.
So this is what I was talking about, when writing about “happy starts”. Moments like this, which fill your whole being with joy and need to express yourself. A need to share your happiness. “Happy endings” can kiss my ass. They sound too definitive. I just experienced my third “happy start” in Switzerland. With music and lot’s of artistic inspiration. If I really end up finishing the songs I started writing while at the Paleo festival, I have to thank my boss for taking me with them. For giving me the chance to remember my artistic me.
PS: My little miss M. taught me a joke. I will try to translate it from French to English. But I won’t be sorry if you won’t get it.
“Quelle ville va la plus vite?” / “Which town goes the fastest?”
The answer is:
“Nyyyyoooon”
