Cursed Winter, Strange Summer
I
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to reshape expectations and dreams.
t is hard not to look at the passing winter with a tinge of regret (if regret is even the right word – perhaps loss would be better). For a person who does not travel as often as I would like (mostly because it is too expensive for me to even dream about the places I want to see) I was especially looking forward to May, June and July this year. For once, I intended not to spend the majority of Namibia’s cold winter in the country. But for the state of world affairs right now I would have been experiencing a European summer in the best way I could imagine: on various literary excursions – not holidaying or lounging on rivieras, but hopping from literary city to arts hub, university campus to famous bookstore in Germany, Switzerland and Britain.
When the dominoes started tumbling – starting with the increasing number of COVID cases and the strain on various healthcare systems around the world, the closing of international and then regional borders, and the restriction of personal movement – I was quite disappointed, to put it mildly. I felt and used an arsenal of words and metaphors not suitable for print in this reputable publication. The only comfort, really, as strange as it sounds, was that I was not alone. More people than I can ever know had plans for 2020 that have not materialised and will not materialise soon. My disappointment finds reflection and resonance in millions of people around the world.
Germany would have been a return trip for me: I looked This cold and cursed winter I have endured is universal. forward to seeing Berlin again. The first time around was Everyone has been affected, and everyone has suffered. But much too quick; there are so many arts centres some have suffered more than others. I always and hubs I did not get to visit then. The other have to remind myself of that reality: this two countries – experienced through London pandemic is not affecting everyone equally. and Zurich respectively – would have been new I find comfort territory. But, given that they are big places To this moment, no one dares to even hazard in the literary world (and in the writing and in the strangest a guess about where it will be in the coming reading imagination), I was sure I would be months, weeks, or days. It could be better. And places: I am able to find something familiar about them. as we have seen, it could also be worse. So much worse. not alone in I was so excited about all the opportunities the looking to trips heralded. For an emerging writer, travelling Yet again, I find comfort in the strangest is one of those things that greatly amplifies places: I am not alone in looking to the the upcoming one’s work and multiplies one’s networks. There summer season with mild and summer season upcoming is something special about physically being in a reserved optimism. With everything up in the specific place at a particular time, at this café air, only hope keeps us tethered to today. with mild and bookstore or that library at the opportune and reserved moment that cannot be explained. Any writer What could the summer bring? No one knows. optimism. who has made connections from such things All that is guaranteed is that after this winter it and times knows the feeling. And anyone who will be another season of strangeness. has had the luxury of travelling will know the sensation: when you are far from home, far The strangest one yet? Not really. There is from everything you know, there is a buzz, a mystery feeling nothing new under the sun. There are merely different days, of encounter, and unknown opportunity. and different ways of seeing, doing, and being. I was so excited about being abroad for a while because I did not know whether the opportunity would materialise soon – it did, after all, take this long for such a moment to appear on my horizon. Also, for a brief and vain instant, I would be a jet-setter, that greatly sought after moniker from my youth. Back in January, when I was applying for visas and proudly blocking out my calendar, preparing writing schedules to accommodate my travels, and reading books in preparation for all the panels I would be on I could not have known where the world would be in a couple of months – under lockdown, with severely restricted movement, with books, music, and television being the only connection to the wider world. The only comfort, I guess, is that I was not alone in my blithe preparation for the future. Everyone did the same thing (even those who should have known better).
And that is a somewhat exciting possibility: that things will be different in some way. They must be, as a bare minimum. That, ultimately, is what I am taking out of this cursed, pandemic winter. Rémy Ngamije is a Rwandan-born Namibian writer and photographer. His debut novel The Eternal Audience Of One is available from Blackbird Books (South Africa) and is forthcoming from Scout Press (S&S). He is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Doek!, Namibia’s first literary magazine. His work has appeared in Litro Magazine, AFREADA, The Johannesburg Review of Books, Brainwavez, The Amistad, The Kalahari Review, American Chordata, Doek!, Azure, Sultan’s Seal, Santa Ana River Review, Columbia Journal, New Contrast, Necessary Fiction, Silver Pinion, and Lolwe. He is currently shortlisted for the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing in 2020.
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