new beginnings: spring in rome, moving city & jasmine.
smell, nostalgia & changes
When I first started writing this, I had caught the first whiffs of jasmine, one of the first signs of spring for me. It is one of my favourite smells, and I feel like everyone who puts it along the street-facing hedges and walls of their gardens in Rome, is doing some kind of public service. It’s like both honey and vanilla, while also somehow fresher than that. For me it is synonymous with beautiful, happy summer evenings. I have since learned that the variety that flowers earlier, in spring, is actually called ‘False Jasmine’, or Variegated Star Jasmine. The one that flowers in the summer is called White Jasmine or, rather obviously, Summer Jasmine.
Now it’s a few months later, and those ‘False Jasmine’ smells seem very far away.
Apologies for being a bit absent. You probably neither noticed, nor cared, but there you go.
There have been big changes here.
I have just moved back to Brussels, after almost 5 years in Italy (apart from a 3 month stint in Slovenia). It’s very strange.
This is for work reasons, which I won’t go into too much here, other than to say that the job market is tough right now.
So back to Brussels. Firstly, just in case you weren’t aware, there is a HUGE Italian community in Brussels. I hear Italian spoken every morning around 3 times before even getting into the office. So in many ways I can still feel connected to Italy, and there are a lot of places that serve authentic Italian food too, albeit at twice the price.
Things have changed since I was last here, but also not thaaaat much. You can pay for the metro by tapping your credit card in and out now (those pink paper tickets are no more). Rent has gone up. Some shops have changed, others closed, others stayed the same. It’s strange once you leave a place, you forget the small everyday details. Like the names of the metro stops or directions, the particular shops and supermarket chains that exist, the sound of the metro jingle, how to interact with a cashier in basic French, the items of food that they just don’t have here. And then the items that do (I forgot about the peanuts covered in a kind of crispy paprika flavoured shell, the Dutch ‘old cheese’, the chocolate croissants in the supermarket bakery section with the little almost-square chocolate flakes/chips on top). I noticed how clean things are in my neighbourhood. How functional the public transport is. How aggressive the automated transparent doors to enter/exit the metro are - like a vertical guillotine. How people choose to dress slightly differently. How much more open it is in many ways (it was Pride the other weekend, and I really felt the difference in openness here). How many languages I’ve heard already. How present French and Flemish are (obviously), in a way that my memories of Brussels didn’t emphasise at all.
Speaking to a friend recently (you know who you are! :) ), we discussed the strange way that memory works. The way that it compartmentalises periods of your experience, the way that you remember certain very specific details and not others, block parts out, and also somehow ‘rewrite’ or ‘consolidate’ the memory in the way you recount it to yourself and others. I have spent a lot of time reflecting on where I was when COVID started, some aspects of what I did at work, what pre-COVID life was like. I started to look at it with rose-tinted glasses. But I also forgot other things or remembered them differently. Coming back has reminded me of things so deep in my brain that I never even thought to think about. Or has started to rewrite things, or remind me that I had remembered things incorrectly or incompletely. And in doing so it brought up weird feelings too.
This has been confronting in a way I never thought it would be. Being faced with the same place I was living in at age 26/27, again at almost 33, it has showed me perhaps not just how much Brussels has changed, but also how much I have changed. In both the good and the bad ways.
I noticed I am far more clean-conscious now at home, and realised that the very Italian (?) habit of always using a tablecloth when eating, has become automatic for me. That I will refer to someone as ‘blonde’ when they have anything other than very dark hair - including sort of mousey brown hair. I remember Italians and Spanish friends referring to people as ‘blonde’ in the past, and I would think: hmm that’s not really blonde. And now I find myself doing exactly this. I noticed I am more attentive and precise in terms of how I dress, and am far more conscious about what is ‘appropriate’ for work or whatever the social scenario is, which is definitely something I became more conscious of in Italy. Sometimes how you look and dress in Italy is perceived as being almost a moral achievement or failure, a reflection of how good / valuable / trustworthy you are as a person. (I am not agreeing with this, it’s just a very generalised observation, and like all generalised observations, of course won’t apply to everyone). I am extremely alert in crowded places and public transport (in a way that isn’t necessary for the area I now take the metro in), as I had become accustomed to very advanced levels of pickpocketing in Rome. I am also far more security conscious generally - I was unsure about leaving my work laptop in the office on my first day (I was told not to worry, it’s very secure), and am very careful with locking my bedroom door - but this is also because of my experience of break-ins in Rome. I feel far more observant of my surroundings. In work I feel I have toughened up (a little bit). I pay more attention to pensions and health insurance. I noticed too that I had lost the sense of my entitlement to set working hours and lunch breaks (an attitude I did have before from my upbringing in the UK, where I believe there is generally a more boundaried approach to working hours, depending on your sector). However my working experiences in Italy (often in quite ‘American’ work environments) have had an impact. Oftentimes it was ‘not acceptable’ to just stop working when you think it’s the end of the day, you must prove yourself, work overtime, and do whatever is needed (even if you think it’s beneath your job role). Work-from-home in my experience was used as a reward or a favour. Sometimes I was even denied leave days to go home for Christmas until I did a particular piece of work/overtime. Again, this is very unhealthy, but coming back to Brussels, I could see that I had internalised much of this from my last experiences, and this is difficult to unlearn. I see socially I still have the tendency to go into my shell, but now I am much more likely to go out and force myself to be sociable (which always does make me feel better), than I was towards the end of my time in Brussels the last time.
But I feel I made bigger sacrifices this time.
When I moved to Brussels in 2019, I had just been unemployed, generally not that happy, and didn’t feel I had much of a community or social life. Everything my new job in Brussels gave me was exciting and new.
I remember imagining my walk to work before I moved, feeling so excited about what that would look like. What I would wear. I think nowadays people would call it manifesting.
I had never had a really proper big office job before that (I needed to actually go out and buy office-suitable shoes and a coat at the time). When I arrived, I had an automatic set of new friends from all over Europe (and beyond), my own space in my flat, independence, fun party nights, I was given responsibility at work, it was an exciting time politically with the elections and dealing with the consequences of Brexit. I felt good about myself, I felt I was in an environment that suited me. It was super. And yet I was so critical of it quite quickly.
I felt angry at how white the institutions were then, how backwards they were in some ways. The hypocrisy at times. I still had that thing, that I notice those younger than me doing: where I would hold people/organisations/institutions to very high (impossible?) standards, insist on how they should be working. Not necessarily a bad thing. But maybe not always realistic either.
And anyway, I had a sort of sense that I would go on to something ‘bigger’ anyway. Whatever that meant.
Brussels is a strange city. It’s a mixture of so many things that I don’t think it is really sure of what its essence is. It doesn’t really have a ‘centre’ of town in the way you might imagine. I remember feeling quite unsafe in some areas near the train station and other parts near Grand Place. A girl I met recently said it so well: “living in the centre is not a flex in Brussels”. And I was generally shocked at the extent of homelessness, often right beside these big institutional buildings that are all about ‘working for the people’. I have since, unfortunately, seen similar scenes in Italy too. But at the time, in my previous Brussels life, I was a little more naive - I was just discovering the huge amounts that officials and senior staff members earned (I never went to work at the European Parliament for the money - it was always more about values for me, I didn’t even know people could be paid so much), and at the same time I was seeing some quite extreme homelessness cases.
Anyway, Brussels will always be an important place for me. It gave me a lot. I took much of what it gave me career-wise for granted at the time.
It was only once I had been in Italy for maybe a year or two, maybe less, that I started to realise just what I good deal I had had in Belgium work-wise. In Italy, it is well known that work can be difficult to come by, and tricky once you get it. People stay ‘junior’ for much longer. But what I got out of my time Italy was much more than just work.
At least in my working experience of Brussels, it was influenced both by a very French workers-rights attitude (long lunches, frowning on those who tried to work too late) and what I see as very egalitarian Dutch vibes: if a young person has a good idea and came up with it, they can present it and get the credit. This also would depend on your particular department, your boss, other factors, I know. It was of course still competitive. But generally I found senior staff to mostly be supportive, not ‘threatened’ by younger colleagues, and I believe this is because their jobs were very secure, at the time. (But this was also pre-COVID, I know the atmosphere has changed in many ways now.) They had their very predictable and safe contracts, and actually, work wasn’t their whole life. The working hours, benefits and pay allowed them to live a healthy life outside of work. On the contrary, the UN system is, in my opinion, very influenced by an American style of working (HQ is New York, and also: historical reasons). Which is much more faster, tougher. This is where I was working for most of my time in Italy. And copy-paste this more intense work culture into Italy - a place where permanent jobs are gold dust - and it makes for a weird dynamic.
In Brussels there is a sort of unspoken knowledge that it probably wouldn’t be the first choice location for most people working there, who aren’t from Brussels/Belgium, but that they are there for the (hopefully interesting/rewarding, at least alright pay) job. It suits some people, others less.
So here I am.
This time, it’s different.
I’m different.
It feels like I am living a sort of parallel reality, or fallen through some time portal/warp. Like a song I know well but the words have changed, or going down a familiar staircase but there’s a step is missing (Haha, I’m sorry - I am aware these are massive cliches but it’s all I could come up with for now. You get the gist).
Currently it is late on a Saturday and I am cosy in my room after what was a warm, humid, mostly grey day. There is a loud party next door. I am fairly sure I can hear Italian, but there are several other languages too. Classic American ‘80s anthems are being blasted from their garden, and the fact that they have been choosing to sing “oooo” along to the songs, instead of singing the very well-known lyrics, makes me think English isn’t the first language of most of the group. Plus they sang “Happy Birthday” (in English) at 11pm, and not at midnight (as is custom in Italy), which makes me think this is definitely not a party run by Italians. It’s so nice to hear though. Makes me feel both lonely and also comforted. This is Brussels: multilingual, multicultural, quirky, a little retro, with people doing the absolute most to bring the fun where they can, in what is - at least to me - a rather strange and boring city.
But in order not to be too negative, as I am sure I sound spoiled and ridiculous complaining here (although please be aware I have restrained myself and not gone into all the issues), here is my list of
10 good things about this move:
I live in a calm, pretty, safe, and clean area. There is a gorgeous independent flowershop exactly half way between my house and the metro station, which is only a few minutes walk, but in those minutes I get a huge dose of delicious floral smells hitting me, which never fails to cheer me up. I am also genuinely thankful every single day that I live in a peaceful country, that I have access to food and have a roof over my head. I think about this a lot.
I am lucky to have a job in these mad times.
My housemates are lovely.
The vintage shops in Brussels are great.
This is going to be an experience that helps me grow.
Spring in Brussels means kiosks with coffee and cold cider popping up in the middle of gorgeous parks, with ducklings waddling around the ponds.
There are specialised food shops for almost any food culture you can think of, due to how international the city is. (Statistics seem to vary, but apparently it is the most ‘cosmopolitan’ city in Europe, and second in the whole world after Dubai. Apparently 40% of Brussels residents are foreign nationals, there are 184 nationalities present, and 104 languages spoken. I have no idea how they track of this, or define this, but there you go.)
There are so many people I know here from different times in my life, and other people who pass through for conferences and events.
There are pockets of the town that feel I can almost kid myself it’s a cute small French town.
Nothing is forever.
In the meantime, I’ll be thinking about jasmine, listening to French, but still, often, Italian.
Going to keep recommendations short this week as I wrote such an essay above.
Will have more recommendations next time.
Podcasts
How did lockdown impact children? - BBC
This one was actually recommended to me by my parents. I think since it’s 5 years since COVID started (and not to bang on about it, I know it’s annoying), I think it is important for us to take stock of what happened and what the real impact was. We’ve got to confront it culturally somehow, I think. Anyway, this is a really well-produced podcast.
Articles
The New Rasputins - Anne Applebaum - The Atlantic
There are many articles from The Atlantic I want to recommend at the moment, and now this one is less relevant now that Musk seems to have left his role in Trump’s administration, but still. It’s so well observed and written this one, and still an important read. Applebaum always has something important to say.
Books
The Third Gilmore Girl - Kelly Bishop
A gift sent to me from a dear friend that cheered me up. This is something lighter than the other recommendations this week - a really good escapism into showbiz in New York and Vegas in the 70s and 80s.
Until next time