Voor de kerk

After a short exchange with my family, unusual this early in the morning, I deflect my cat and try to snooze the schooltime noise from the street below. It's nearly 8:30 and I can't fob it off any longer. My bedroom looks out to the school, and the school looks back at me with a statue of the Virgin. Bakfiesten surround the stoep like an army belgrade. They go inside, and I head to work. Another message from my aunt. We think it'll be today or tomorrow. It's been a month at the agency. It's in the former chapel of the former Mariastichting, a Catholic hospital run by Franciscan sisters. Familiar objects, familiar images. I sit near Saint Barbara, the architect. She sits next to Saint Helena, the designer. A patron saint of iconography if there ever was one. Are we rich or poor? Does it matter anymore. Heatwave.... We have lunch on the ground floor. Flowers floating in a font of no longer holy water. I ask my colleagues about the building; the conversation detours to the ruins of a Friesian church, where you can spend the night under stars. Over my dead body would I sleep in a church. Lunch ends, and I start on a new project; a bit of bug fixing for a search function. Satisfying work. I go home to eat. Put on Nina Simone. One of my aunt's old records. Why this one? I'm not sure. To Love Somebody, released the year she moved here, in 1969. It's a series of covers: Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen (a Montrealer, like my aunt), the Bee Gees. I start with the Byrds. Turn, Turn, Turn. Pete Seeger really wrote that one. Actually, he stole it from King Solomon. To everything turn, turn, turn. The album art has arches like portals, or an apse, or the agency's stained glass windows. I put on the Actus Tragicus, wondering what they'll play at the services. "Er is geen thema, we horen slechts zich herhalende motieven."