So THAT's Why - PART II

Croft, ENGLAND
Dec.24-27, 2014

Does History Matter?
People I Know

Tuesday evening, I did not sit in congested traffic breathing in exhaust fumes, nor did I eat at almost 10pm after leaving work too late, nor did I fall into bed exhausted from the day's endless to-do list and demands and deadlines, unable to sleep because of the 400 thoughts per minute flying through my head, too tired even to have a non-conversation on the phone with Colin.

Instead, Tuesday evening we drove North out of London on the M1, with Colin's brother in his older-school Range Rover, heading to the tiny village of Croft in Leicester (ie. middle England) where their parents live, and where the Christmas turkey was getting dressed for the holidays.

If you want to try and understand humans and civilization, a museum is the place to go.  If you want to try and understand the people you know, spend time with them in the company of their family.

On the agenda for the visit of Colin-the-prodigal-son was sorting through and disposing of boxes of old photos, slides, school notebooks and university papers his parents had been storing since he left home.

(I had recently done the same with my old school and university notes.  They stack of binders and papers had moved with me from Edmonton to Calgary to Cranbrook to Golden back to Calgary, re-stacked at each place and not once cracked open.  At the beginning of November, all but the binders was ceremoniously burned with Colin's help and a bottle of wine, at a stone fire pit just outside of Banff.  It was both heartbreaking (it felt like I was burning a big piece of my brain) and liberating (of stuff)).

My education going up in flames - near Banff, AB

Paging through Colin's primary school drawings of elephants and lizards (Colin drew these!?), his mid-school science experiments (looking at some of the big words, I think he was perhaps like me, writing down the correct conclusions, sometimes not having a clue what the heck it actually meant), his A-Level assignments (he actually liked chemistry), and school pictures, this person - who has only a four-year history in my life plus a few pre-four-year anecdotes - became a human being!  He actually was a kid once, his teachers told him he had bad writing, he has cousins and pictures of family get-togethers, he went on climbing trips with friends...

I also saw the schools Colin went to, the farms his father managed, the country roads on which he rode his bike, then on which he drove, then on which he crashed in friends' cars.  At a young age, he was given farm responsibilities and tractors to drive - in my urban upbringing, we kids (female and male) were given household chores such as dishes, vacuuming, dusting and general tidying.

Colin and his dad on one of two hills that has not been eaten yet by the quarry

Now, back in the present, when it doesn't occur to Colin that a house doesn't clean itself, I will remember that that wasn't part of his repertoire while growing up and that as far as a young boy could see, the house was always just naturally clean (thanks mom).

Colin and the cactus he started from seed
in primary school

Each of Colin's family members is very different in terms of interests and what makes them tick.  Conversations at the dinner table revolve around those individual interests, layered and overlapping, occurring all at the same time, sometimes colliding at a common intersection before diverging again, one way with the person on your left and another with the person on your right.  As the youngest in his family, I can only imagine where Colin's voice fit in those growing-up years.

Now, back in the present, when Colin talks over me yet again, I will not jump up and down on my chair in muted exasperation.  If he goes on at great length about something that interests or excites him, I will not endure with thoughts of how I might cure his A.D.D.  Instead, I will be patient, and I will picture that little boy in one of those pictures, or think of the young man running off to pursue his own interests, and remember what it was like at the dinner table.

Michelle and Colin in the Peak District