You know that feeling you get when you re-emerge into the world after you’ve been reading for hours and you kind of feel disconnected and dazed and not quite sure in which reality you are? (If you don’t you should try it… it’s weird but wonderful).
Well I’m in this ‘in-between’ at the moment. Yesterday I spent hours (seriously, hours) digging into Mr M’s family history … his grandparents were living in India when it was part of the Empire and that also forced me to look into some history I don’t know anything about at all… still don’t really.
I’ve met tradesmen, soldiers, surgeons, teachers, engineers, government employees, East India company employees… his ancestors were Huguenots, they were Indians from the Portuguese Colonies, English, Scottish and even Prussian!
Today I’m forcing myself to take a little break, it’s for my brain… and for my children safety too, they’ll probably need feeding at some point, and ferrying around the various engagements. Mr M is away on business and flying solo is tricky even without ghosts from the past crowding your mind.
The magnolias are in bloom. Such wonderful trees aren’t they? I’m trying to make an effort and walk the dog a little further and, more than that, to explore all the little street around my town. I love to find pretty corners and interesting plaques on the walls.
I guess history is really on my mind. I feel like I want to know more… about everything.
What is the connection between Mr M’s grandmother and Belgium?
Who lives behind the colourful doors?
We’re all connected somehow. The great circle of life and all that… Looking back at the past really makes you realise that. It’s not just us, we’re part of a process, part of a cycle, who we are is also who all those people were.
And it’s the five degrees of separation that connects me to Bruce Springsteen (in my dreams, but still the theory holds), it’s the Armenian soldier of fortune who fought in India for a rich Lord, it’s the taylor in Scotland, it’s the post master in Italy, the coal miner in England.
We’re all connected.
Maybe even the person who painted this graffiti…
while you're ahead... 