Arlon - ” Childhood and the birth of passions”
June 24, 2002
Review and assessment | Index | Listing
♨️ Monday, June 24, 2002
◄ ARLON - ” CHILDHOOD AND THE BIRTH OF PASSIONS “ ►
« The essential, perhaps, is timeless.» - Albert Jacquard
As an introduction to what follows, here are the lyrics of a song that sums up almost everything that this essential period of my life inspires in me. I rediscovered it in South Africa, Durban (KwaZulu-Natal) by listening to the entire repertoire of Jacques Brel, long after leaving Belgium for Reunion Island. All these Brel songs that I listened to for four years allowed me to understand many things about life…
Of course, jazz and blues also punctuated my days outside of classes and work. I even had the opportunity to meet some unlikely people, like one of Dave Brubeck’s sons (Darius Brubeck, who directed the Center for Jazz and Popular Music at the University of Natal, in Durban, South Africa) in this environment that I particularly love, and to get back into the piano (thanks to my old engineer and musician friend Alain with whom I worked at the Innovation Center at this university). But that’s another story, I’ll come back to it later, for sure.
During this same period, this childish soul almost disappeared forever. Victim of a violent knife attack, the seasoned young man that I had become felt paradoxically completely abandoned. He was now an uprooted stranger. Yet it was precisely at that moment that I found myself! A painful separation, family estrangement, facing oneself and taking control of one’s destiny, all of this contributed to preparing me for challenges, not the least of which years later!
In Durban (KwaZulu-Natal), far from my father’s “flat country” (but not so flat in the Ardennes, having crisscrossed the roads by bike) and from my mother’s “blood-red volcanic island”, precisely, from the now rusty coal and steel basins, to the countless sugar cane fields that have become a subsidiary of the economy of today’s Réunion, I was constantly looking at the ocean!The page was turned on my native Belgium, I often missed Reunion but the prospects for the future were elsewhere… The space was immense between these two worlds that saw me grow up. Perhaps, as Victor Hugo wrote:
” Space is an ocean; universes are islands. But communications are necessary between these islands. These communications take place through souls.”
Today, I share with you a bit of this soul, more precisely, this part that has led me to love and practice photography and music all my life.
Writer: Jacques Brel - Song recorded on May 24, 1973, for the film Le Far West directed by Jacques Brel.
L′enfance
L′enfance | Qui peut nous dire quand ça finit | Qui peut nous dire quand ça commence | C’est rien avec de l′imprudence | C’est tout ce qui n’est pas écrit
L′enfance | Qui nous empêche de la vivre | De la revivre infiniment | De vivre à remonter le temps | De déchirer la fin du livre
L′enfance | Qui se dépose sur nos rides | Pour faire de nous de vieux enfants | Nous revoilà jeunes amants | Le cœur est plein la tête est vide
L’enfance, l′enfance
L’enfance | C′est encore le droit de rêver | Et le droit de rêver encore | Mon père était un chercheur d’or | L′ennui c’est qu’il en a trouvé
L′enfance | Il est midi tous les quarts d′heure | Il est jeudi tous les matins | Les adultes sont déserteurs | Tous les bourgeois sont des Indiens
L’enfance, l′enfance
So, It is June 24, 2002, I am passing through my hometown Arlon, capital of the Belgian province of Luxembourg, after a moving reunion with my brother in Picardy Wallonia, in the province of Hainaut, 240 km from here. I’m in the ”Rue des Capucins”, so many memories come back to me just now of taking a photo of the facade of ”La Tanière”, our HQ when I was a Cub Scout (Albert Schweitzer Troupe-Arlon Unit) in this city that saw me grow up. Upstairs, a young girl looks at the street below, 18 years earlier, it was me in the same place… The Cub Scout motto is : “Our best!” According to Baden-Powell’s wishes, the cub does his best, in everything he does. If he succeeds, he can “Always be ready”, like his elders.
The Arlon scout unit, created in 1914, has a long history with tumultuous beginnings. Indeed, in 1965, the scout movement, following a growing number of registrants and an excessively large age difference within the section (12 – 18 years), decided to separate into 2 troops. The valiant Albert Schweitzer Troupe is born. But not only her. Its sister, the Troupe Charles de Foucauld, was also born at this time. It was also decided to readjust the ages: 12 – 14 year olds will be part of the scouts, while 15 – 17 year olds will be in the pioneer section. Jacques Lamury was then CT of our Troop. Ace Troop debuts with 14 scouts, divided into 3 patrols.
In 1967, following numerous difficulties, they returned to the old system with still 2 separate troops, but with a modified age range: 12 – 16 years old. It is André Balon who is CT at this time. The Troop then follows its course, carrying out camps each year (source: Albert Schweitzer Troop - Arlon unit).
It’s been 14 years since I last set foot on Belgian soil! Since then, the revision of the Constitution of May 5, 1993 gave birth to a federal state, the same year, I went to South Africa to study, precisely where another provisional constitution was born: the fundamental law of South Africa from the first non-discriminatory elections of April 27, 1994 until it was replaced by the current Constitution of February 4, 1997 when I left the country. But back to Belgium, with the Schengen agreements signed in 1985, the historic border crossings closed in 1993, many of them disappearing under the blows of demolition equipment…
At the crossroads of Germany, Belgium, France and Luxembourg, Arlon is part of the Greater Region: an area where mobility has continued to increase with a significant flow of cross-border workers of which my father was a part for many years. This cross-border area was the heart of the European Union. For a long time it was mainly industrial, cities have today become employment centers in areas where services are developing.
At the heart of this Greater Region, Arlon is more modest in size, but its relative isolation from the Walloon command centers located to the north gives it a more important place in terms of attracting flows. Furthermore, it has another advantage, it benefits from the status of a tourist town ! But in June 2002, much remains to be done, I will return 20 years later to the Gallo-Roman town, the change will be major (see the relevant article in 2022)!
I only have very little time, just opposite, I hurry to climb the 134 steps of “The Royal Way of the Cross”, a stepped ramp built on the Knippchen (the ‘little hill’). It was built in the 17th century, linking Place Camille Cerf to the square in front of the Saint-Donat church, at the highest point in the historic center of the city of Arlon. The climb is classified as a Walloon heritage site (To find out more: See here) !
So, I arrived at the top of the ”Knippchen” and in front of me stands the St. Donnat church and its belvedere, where I was baptized and then followed the path of all the sacraments. It made sense to me that as a cub scout could put this teaching into practice. However, my father had the wisdom to also enroll me in civics courses. Both have been very useful to me throughout my life!
At this precise moment, I see again the dawn masses of many Sunday mornings and my fellow cubs asleep, what has become of them? Do they remember our adventures? Have they managed to keep a little of their childlike soul over the years?
Everything is so far away, After fourteen years of absence, I only managed to find three close friends, one of whom was very important to me. She was an excellent pianist (we had the same teacher) and who entered the conservatory very young. We were very close, of the same sign and already having in common an atypical life path. All the others were mainly friends of my parents. After all, it’s even better like that: I always chose my friends rather than the other way around and time has proven to me that I was not wrong!
Here is already the porch of the Saint-Donat church, I can’t wait to enter and my heart is beating a little fast… I am now dying to see the altarpiece again, the one I contemplated at length during the masses, desperately trying to elevate my soul far from the betrayals, profiteers, liars and other kinds of parasites who sometimes circled around my family like vultures waiting for the opportune moment to come to the table… Indeed, the last few years spent in Belgium were trying for our family, no one was spared and unsurprisingly, there could only be one outcome: to leave!
Oh but of course, I was lucky to have a fulfilling start to my childhood, the love of my parents in the heart of a close-knit family, holidays in Europe or in Reunion, friends at school, at home then girlfriends from here and from very far away elsewhere, but also beautiful books and music which accompanied my solitary evenings, definitely the piano without which I could not move forward emotionally, then photography of course and the bicycle which allowed me to physically escape from a present which was sometimes too heavy…
Perhaps having been able to experience all this happiness, the fall was all the more brutal afterwards, but fortunately, it is precisely these happy memories that have forged my incorrigible optimism and my will to overcome what may seem insurmountable…
In this, the man I have become is and will always be infinitely humble and grateful, I know perfectly well that others (even sometimes very close ones) have not necessarily had this chance! Even more, this happy childhood suddenly mistreated gave birth to my two passions, the piano and photography, all in this hometown forever frozen in my soul and my heart.
Here I am in the heart of the church. Now, everything comes back to me: the four seasons and their essences, the uncontrollable laughter in class, the successes and failures (two masked liars who make you grow), the murderous false truths and the lies that hide the worst, the dreams for which we sacrifice everything, and those that we will spend our whole lives trying to achieve…
Looking at the church organ, I remember my classical music teacher and composer, Mr. Antoine TOULEMONDE in Virton (capital of Gaume) entering high school! After an audition at the organ in the chapel of the Collège Notre-Dame du Bonlieu (formerly Collège St-Joseph or St. Jef !), I was chosen to be one of his piano students. So I was admitted and enrolled in the boarding school for a year of secondary studies where I learned Latin, the discovery of the ancient world and general disciplines but especially the piano: morning, noon and even evening! A few months later, he recorded us (two singer friends and me at the piano) for a radio show. It was my very first composition (a song and a piano score of a nursery rhyme); It told the story of an old wise man and an imaginary place where everyone lived in peace: vestiges of the soul of the growing child.
This extraordinary composer of liturgical music forever influenced my piano learning and my passion for music! You can find some of these works on the website bayard-nizet.be and at the Collective Catalogue of Belgian Libraries (UniCat).
When he learned that I was going to have to leave the school for good, he came to get me during class to dissuade me. My father had made up his mind, there was nothing he could do… Today, in this article from the Belgian newspaper Le Soir, I learn that the same year I returned to Belgium in 2002, a CD of his works was released, the profits from which were donated to the Regional Centre of The Belgian Federation Against Cancer…
To go further, I invite you to discover the history of this college, significant during the World War II but especially in the development of education thanks to Canon E. CROUSSE who founded the Collège Saint-Joseph in 1885 and will be at the origin much later of the birth of the École d’Arts et Métiers de Pierrard.
The silence of churches allows me to connect with the divine, but it offers me much more today: the unbreakable bond with the child that I was and that remains there, hidden deep inside me! Thus: the antics of my friend the pretty little South Korean pianist, the fake cigarettes to pretend to be like grown-ups, the mulled wine we abused at the end of the evening while camping in the winter forests, the little lies to camouflage the big absurdities, all of this happened.
And then one day, it was the very first love! I met her at the house of a colleague with whom my father worked at the European Communities in Luxembourg and where my parents had dropped me off (with a cardboard suitcase…) after my brother’s terrible car accident. She was my first “nice”! Cristina had just arrived from Italy and had completely turned my still innocent heart upside down while we were listening together to a record by Nazaré Pereira (”Le jeu de la marelle”, the title of the B-side was precisely her first name), covered many years later by ”Birds On A Wire” (Rosemary Standley and Dom La Nena) whom I had the pleasure of seeing in Reunion Island in concert! Yes… All that! But so much more in reality. It would seem that ”childhood is everything that is not written“…
Barely recovered from my emotions, I am already below the fortifications. I suddenly stop in front of this statue called ”Den Hellechtsmann” from Fernand Tomasi, about which I don’t really know anything. This sculpture symbolizes for me the essential values in my life: family unity, the protection it provides, the responsibility it implies.
In fact, I learned its meaning 20 years later: translated “the matchmaker” or “the go-between”, in Arlon dialect! What I also didn’t know is that Fernand Tomasi taught in Zaire (formerly the Belgian Congo) , precisely where my charming art history student who is accompanying me on this trip grew up: she also lived in Bukavu before the tragedy…. He taught there after graduating as a literary regent at ISMA in 1958, at the same school I joined 17 years later and where I studied for six years (elementary and middle school) after 3 years at INDA (Preschool).
It was in these two schools where childhood was played out… If I have very few memories of the first three years, the following six still resonate today. My lifelong friend, David, with whom I rode bikes, swam, and model-making (electric trains) later gave way to my first conquests but he was never far away. He also owned a film SLR and this was the beginning of my passion for photography, having broken my piggy bank to buy my own: the YASHICA FR! In the following years, I was able to learn how to develop black and white in a private lab thanks to a family friend and former neighbor. At that moment, my passion for photography was definitively established just as it was for music, having inherited of my late grandmother’s piano, a professional pianist…
Now, I’m thinking of my three-year-old son in the south of France, whom I see all too rarely, more than 10,000 km from Réunion, due to a tragic fate, let’s say! I already know that it will take me years to ward off fate, that I am not just the consequence of a succession of more or less unfavorable events… No, none of that of course, but it will take a lot of courage to change the course of things and precisely, this little detour through childhood gives me back the will and the desire to believe in it again, to believe in it for ever!
This year 2002, I will be 30 years old, so many things have happened in 14 years since I left Belgium: the definitive separation of my parents and the family cocoon exploding, my departure to South Africa followed by my first truly painful and bitter romantic separation, a return to Reunion Island despite myself after four years in my South African “beloved country” where I would have liked to continue my journey, the complete entry into working life this time and another meeting which gave rise to the birth of my first son to find myself once again far from him and his mother, the encounters that took me from Guadeloupe to Morocco and here to Belgium,… I now see the path traveled, but also the path I still have to travel!
And precisely, this “return ticket” was actually a road trip for two! It was while looking for my brother who had remained in Belgium, with whom I had lost contact for all these years, that I met Leïla (which I was talking about a little earlier), a Belgian-Moroccan art history student who spent her childhood in Bukavu between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire at the time and until 1997). She was my travel companion for a few years between Reunion Island, Belgium, Morocco and the south of France… We shared the same love for Africa. It is therefore thanks to her that I was able to reconnect with my brother and, even more, accept having to go through with my efforts to find my son and live the family life I dreamed of even if it wasn’t with her that I was going to spend the next 14 years raising 4 children with my first life partner at over 1600m altitude in our house that I bought 2 years after this trip to the South of Reunion Island, a stone’s throw from the volcano. It was a childhood dream that I was finally going to realize: live in the mountains close to nature and the forest and start a large family there !
But for now, I’m sitting here at this café terrace in front of my favorite church, far from suspecting the turn my life is about to take. I look at my travel companion, my “starry night”, she wants to take my picture and for once, I’m in front of the camera and therefore not very comfortable… How long will we last with all this back and forth between Belgium and Reunion Island, and all those trips we want to take? We’ll have to make a choice but everything is still unclear and I have to get back to my young son one way or another!
Fate sometimes winks at us! I learned 20 years later that this café had become the office of a youth support organization. Precisely, I have been fortunate to receive a lot of help in my life, and often in completely unexpected ways. For this reason, I couldn’t give up in the face of adversity, not even cancer in 2022. One way or another, we may all one day have the opportunity to do the same for those who desperately need it. You have to be ready; it’s not so complicated!
So, it’s time to leave the old Saint-Donat neighborhood and head further north of the city, where it all ended 14 years ago… I walk the streets and alleys one last time, leaving these first memories behind me as I go. We get back in the car and head straight for Rue Michel Hamélius. Surprisingly, I could still walk around my hometown with my eyes closed. As a certain person once said, “We don’t forget anything from anything, we just get used to it, that’s all!”
On n’oublie rien de rien, On s’habitue, c’est tout !
Ni ces départs, ni ces navires | Ni ces voyages qui nous chavirent
De paysages en paysages | Et de visages en visages
Jacques Brel & Gérard Jouannest) Album “Marieke” - 1961.
Arriving near the street where I grew up, we pass in front of the very first synagogue built in Belgium between 1863 and 1865. A community of about 150 Jews lived in Arlon at that time, between 1939 and 1945 during the German occupation, the synagogue was transformed into a fodder depot. It was not until 2014 that it was closed to allow for major renovation work, which will be completed in 2019.
What is interesting and unusual is that the Muslim community came financially to lend a helping hand so that the synagogue restoration project could be completed, while the climate was frankly not favorable at the time… Another great example of “living together”?
In any case, I walked past this synagogue every day on my way home from the last school I attended in Belgium: ITELA or the Etienne Lenoir Technical Institute (the name of the man who invented the internal combustion engine in 1858: Etienne Lenoir). This establishment provided quality courses, particularly in mathematics and applied sciences, and ultimately prepared industrial engineers. After a year of adaptation, I had the opportunity to fully exploit the potential of this establishment and reach a more than respectable level. I made very good friends there, including a very close friend whom I saw again 20 years after this trip, and another (Italian) who was a true mentor for me, an example of adaptation and perseverance, a pretty Cameroonian friend whom I often passed on foot on my way home from classes… They were the last friendly faces.
Unfortunately, the final decision fell like a guillotine, we were leaving Belgium for good, my father gave me the choice: stay alone here or go with them to Reunion Island… I was barely 16 years old, so I also left with this song in my head as consolation (”Envie de partir” - Jacques Bastello), the promise of a fresh start, of “putting one foot in front of the other and starting all over again”. Less than a year later, a physics teacher from Réunion Island tried to persuade my father to enroll me in a specialized high school in France, noting certain aptitudes.
I finally finished my secondary studies on Reunion Island after many adventures, from the most tragic to the most tender. I successfully passed countless competitive exams, enrolled in the first year of medicine in Lyon, France. I finally left the island to study in South Africa following a phone call, leaving on a whim or a passion, shall we say, but once again, that’s another story!
The short tour of my hometown is coming to an end. We’re taking a detour via Rue Sonnety, a return to the roots of my childhood, and it’s far from a simple metaphor! Indeed, in 1972 (the year i was born), the sources of the Semois were inaugurated. They were built on the site of two basins dating from the 17th and 18th centuries. These structures were part of tanneries established nearby.
It was a place where I loved to spend time in the summer and most certainly, the place of my most beautiful childhood memories. On foot or by bike, I was there almost every evening at dusk. On the other side of the street, there was a magnificent red convertible racing car left abandoned in which I won the grand prizes of the craziest races and just behind, a field of wheat in which I ran until I lost my breath with my arms outstretched horizontally ready to fly, brushing the soft ears of corn with my fingertips… For me, it is still today what best represents the feeling of being free! So this is definitely one of my top ten memories of my life so far!
But what remains of us when we are gone forever? The house seems asleep, frozen in time. Fourteen long years have passed, it seems to have never been maintained since we left… A somewhat sad and suspicious lady noticed my presence with my camera. She comes out and asks me what I am doing there in the middle of the street photographing “her house”. Without even looking at her, totally submerged by a mountain of memories that suddenly come back to me, I explain to her that it was our last family home in Belgium, and much more: the last bastion of my childhood…
Unfortunately, five years of photos and films (the Ardennes forest, the old town of Arlon but also the picturesque coastal towns of the North Sea, the dunes, and a few portraits) that I had carefully listed and packed before leaving for a future shipment to Reunion Island never arrived at their destination… I traveled throughout the region beyond the Luxembourg and French borders without being able to find anyone who might still have these youthful treasures…
I still have these melodies that always bring me back to what I loved the most in recent years before leaving everything such as Erik Satie - Gymnopédies (Khatia Buniatishvili , she is one of my favorite pianistsone of my favortites pianists with “Gymnopédie No.1” by Erik Satie from her album “Labyrinth”). They are anchored in me as I am anchored in the Ardennes forest that I used to wander through for long hours, with my camera for only company, whatever the season! In the “labyrinth” of my memories, it is an essential landmark!
But it’s time to leave, the young woman who is with me is getting a little impatient and I still have a good hundred km to go to reach Metz and attend a rock concert (before leaving again for Luxembourg) with many artists on the bill including ”Indochine” and their legendary title: “The Adventurer” (Bob Morane)! Ah, comics! Another childhood passion! So I leave with the conviction that I will come back sooner or later and that I will take all the time necessary this time to rediscover the city where I was born and grew up.
ℹ️ Latest news:
I didn’t think I’d be so right in June 2002 when I mentioned a more immersive return. Exactly 20 years later, I did indeed return to Arlon. I was lucky enough to see our family friend Jean-Marie for a longer time, a history buff who worked tirelessly to restore local heritage, including the Saint-Donat belvedere. This generous and learned man was quite kind to give us a detailed tour of the Saint-Donat district through its history. During this same stay in 2022, I was also able to reconnect with another childhood friend, Lucien, whom I used to see at ITELA: true friendship doesn’t care about time or distance! This second return to Arlon in 2022 will be the subject of a future article to discover…
