#9 - The first session
Context. March, a Monday evening. The church, which doesn't look like a church but rather like a clandestine village hall, is empty, except for a small group of women aged between forty and sixty. There's a light on near the altar, and these people, standing in a semicircle around the director, who holds a guitar around his neck.
Considering that I don't speak a word of their language¹, I wonder if, after all, it was a good idea to come and sing in a strange place when I don't know anyone. But it's too late, he saw me and signalled to join them. Even though he does me the favour of speaking Spanish, most of his words are lost in his moustache, so I don't know what the first exercise consists of. Everyone is talking, and they're trying to get me to talk too.
I was wrong, then. Making me believe I was ready to come back to life was a mistake. The first one. From the outside, I may have looked like I was functioning normally — walking, sleeping, talking — but inside, there was only a white screen with the words ‘no signal’ written in tiny letters. Even my lips had gotten used to responding on their own.
But there had been a concert in a church a month earlier, and music like I had never heard before. Lots of joy, offbeats, finger snaps. It made you want to stand up. To do what, I wasn't quite sure yet, but for a moment, it reminded me of who I was. So I grabbed a choir member as I was leaving the church and asked her how I could sign up.
‘It's a Gospel choir. It's easy: next Monday, same place. Come at 8 pm and you'll see for yourself.’
But a Monday later, I was there, surrounded by these savages who grabbed me by the shoulders and smiled, and tried to make me dance like a cowboy. I imitated jungle animals, lip-synched to Catalan anthems and triumphed as an Egyptian in a song dedicated to Moses. Yes, that was my first session and I survived it thanks to my firm intention never to return. That was my second mistake.
Summer passed, with all the passion, drama and adventure that entails. There had been trips, projects, progress and happy sleepless nights, until a break-up threw everything into question and brought me, mercilessly, back to square one. Along the way, I greeted Depression like an old friend. Welcome home, she said. So I started wandering the streets again, aimlessly; since I had no job, I took my time. I leafed through books on benches, talked to elderly people without grandchildren, revisited flower markets and lost myself among fruit stalls.
A few months later, walking up the long avenue that leads to my house, I got lost deep in thought. It was a windy day, I watched the trees dancing. The traffic light turned red, so I waited. To my right, stuck to a post, a homemade paper ad. ‘Do you want to sing Gospel?’ it said. I laughed, looking right and left, as if someone had played a joke on me and was watching. I was sure I knew which choir it was about.
Pulling on one of the little papers, I turned around. I needed to sit down for a moment.
A whole decade, then. Ten years of battling relapses, anxiety, depression; intensive therapy, a move, a career change, to find myself here, two thousand kilometres later, free, in the sunshine, on a sticky bench eating strawberries.
“Oh, happy day…” ² I began to hum.
I think something bad happened to me in life, I thought. But that’s over now.
It was so beautiful that, with tears in my eyes, I almost laughed. I dialled the number. ‘Monday, 8 p.m., at … church’ I was told, and I smiled. I already knew what to expect. —
¹: Catalan, a Romance language spoken mainly in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, the Valencian Community, the French Pyrénées-Orientales region and Andorra, where it’s the official language.
²: Oh Happy Day, The Edward Hawkins Singers, 1968.
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