30 April 2018

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One of the things I miss most about Clermont-Ferrand is the gentle voice of a man whom I met only once.

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I spent a month in the French city last June through one of the University of Oklahoma’s many study abroad programs. I had decided to join the group of 19 students and two professors on a whim in February. Earlier that month, my high school sweetheart had broken up with me through a phone call from halfway across the country. I was dreading the thought of returning to my hometown in the summer, with the fear of running into him constantly hanging over my head. 

 

Like many teenage girls who grew up watching romantic comedies and Cinderella stories, I had always dreamed of one day visiting France. I’d especially hoped to see Paris, famed city of light and love. I’d been taking French classes since the sixth grade, and the possibility of eating a croissant or a macaron (or, on a lucky day, some Brie cheese and raspberries on a baguette) had never failed to excite me. With the end of March came the purchase of my round-trip plane tickets to Paris, and my long-held dream became my impending reality. 

 

While I was in France, however, I never saw anything in Paris other than the inside of its Charles de Gaulle airport. And I never met a handsome Frenchman who would serenade me in his beautiful language and whisk me away into the sunset, either. Instead, I met Alyson, a college student who, like me, was in France to study abroad.

 

We met in the elevator lobby of our dormitory building while I was with a few other girls from my program group. When Alyson heard us all speaking English to one another, he hurried over to us and made a small request: that we would each record a message in English on his phone. He further explained in his own hesitant English that he was from Senegal, and his siblings and friends back home were in school learning English. As he spoke, he came out of his shell and became noticeably more excited, smiling and chuckling at our surprise — none of the other students in the dorms had spoken to us since our arrival in Clermont-Ferrand. He repeated his request that we would record our voices in English for a minute or two to encourage his loved ones in their studies. 

 

After we had each recorded a message and Alyson had left, we turned to one another and expressed our shock at his enthusiasm for our English. The stereotypical reaction of the French when they hear American English in their country is either complete indifference (an ordinary, expected reaction that we encountered 99 percent of the time) or thinly veiled disgust (which we had unfortunately experienced ourselves on several occasions — not that I could blame them very much in a time where being American meant representing a country that had voted for Donald Trump). But Alyson had made the decision to approach us, and this had been not in spite of our English but because of it. 

 

That night, I kept my window open as usual in a desperate attempt to bring some breezy relief to my tiny, non-air-conditioned dorm room — 90-degree temperatures and high humidity had plagued the city from my first day there. 

 

It was then that I came to recognize the soft voice I’d been hearing through my open window nearly every night. It was Alyson’s voice, identifiable not only in his words but in his laughter.

 

He spoke in a mix of French and a language I did not recognize. I guessed the latter was a native dialect of Senegal, and after some Google searching, I confirmed it was most likely Wolof. From the French parts of his speech, I could tell he was calling home, and I noticed the way his tone changed when he said good night and, after a beat, asked how school was going and how so-and-so was doing. I presumed an older relative, perhaps his mother, had passed the phone to a younger sibling of his. 

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Alyson made those calls almost every night of my stay in Clermont-Ferrand. Though I met him only once in person, the sound of his gentle, melodic voice carrying through my open window and lulling me to sleep is one of my fondest memories. 

 

But when I returned home last July and gushed about my time abroad to my closest friends and family, I never mentioned Alyson first, if at all. I suppose my rather ordinary account of hearing someone else’s voice through an open window was overpowered in the immediate moment by my stories that screamed “France” and “adventure” most loudly — to name a few, stopping by the local bakery every day to pick up a few pastries, drinking wine and eating savory dinner crepes, visiting a Saint-Nectaire cheese farm, climbing a dormant volcano, and swimming in a crater lake surrounded by trees on a mountaintop. 

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Now it is April, nearly a full year after I went to Clermont-Ferrand. The life I lead currently consists of working 40 hours a week, staying up late every night finishing schoolwork, and waking up every morning looking forward to my next sleep. I don’t have much room to breathe, let alone take the time to reminisce and remind myself how wonderful life can be. 

 

But a few weeks ago, my subconscious took the time to do so, with no regard for my busy schedule. I was sitting in the OU Daily’s newsroom, rushing to finish my French homework before class. The French words floating around in my mind gave way to my memory of Alyson’s nightly lullaby in a way so viscerally affecting that I, struck by an overwhelming sense of nostalgia, put down my pen and sat back in my chair. 

 

What I wouldn’t give to be back in that moment right now, I thought.

 

Unable to stay focused on my homework for the time being, I turned to one of my coworkers and told her the story of meeting Alyson in France and hearing his voice every night as I drifted off into a deep and peaceful slumber. 

 

I would’ve liked to tell my coworker that my experience with Alyson helped me to realize some profound truth about life and my place in this world, but at the time I saw only the reality of the situation: I missed Clermont-Ferrand, and I missed summer, and I missed having free time and not feeling stressed constantly. My memory of Alyson had grown to become synonymous with the things I missed most. However, I wasn’t sure how much those nights in Clermont-Ferrand actually meant to me on their own.

 

Yet with the passing of time and with further reflection, I have come to recognize that seemingly inconsequential moments like those nights I spent listening to Alyson have combined to make my life what it is. It's not about our greatest triumphs and tragedies.

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So the familiar voice of an almost-stranger has taught me a profound truth after all — the most important stories may not always be the most apparent or the most memorable. They may simply be the small, extraordinarily beautiful slices of an otherwise ordinary life.