Going Home
Although I spent the first twenty years of my life in Britain, I have been away from that home so long that it has long ceased to be 'home' to me. Colorado has been my home for fifty years. I have fond memories, sometimes sliding into nostalgia, of that original home, but most of us occasionally succumb to such sentiments for the days of our long-lost youth. Once in a while, though, something propels me instantly, unexpectedly, through time and space, and there I am as surely as if I had clicked my little red heels.
A few weeks ago I watched, on DVD, a Brit police drama entitled Hinterland. A strange choice of title, you'd think they would have chosen from an endless array of lyrical Welsh words. It is set in the wet wilds of Wales, and is all a bit dark and dour. I don't think the main character, the investigating cop, Matthias, smiles once in the entire series. Actually I'm not sure anyone smiles once in the entire series. But the police are headquartered in Aberystwyth, a small seaside town; a place very close to my heart.
I've bored you endlessly about when I was a little kid and gas was still rationed and the British economy shot to hell, so few people had cars, and no-one took unnecessary trips. But by the early nineteen-fifties things were finally looking up. My dad bought a small, very used, car, and we fell into the habit, on rare summer sunny Sundays, of spending the day in Aberystwyth. It was only about an hour's drive, and a breathtakingly beautiful one; up and over the rugged Welsh mountains and down to the jagged rocks greeting the crashing waves of the Irish Sea. These were always special days. Just Mum and Dad and me, carefree and silly.
Back on the DVD, the camera, seeing the world through the Matthias's eyes, rolls down an Aberystwyth street, between solid Victorian buildings of local Welsh stone, towards the pebbly beach. I had walked down that very street, exactly there, many times. And suddenly I was there. I was there! Walking down that street. I was no longer watching. No longer seeing through other eyes; nor through the camera lens. I feel and hear the crunch of my feet on the sandy, gritty, pavement. Mum and I have our arms linked and are half walking half skipping like little kids.
My dad, who of course will have no part of skipping, is striding beside us, swinging my hand up and back in big arcs. I am too old for real hand-holding, probably ten or eleven, but swinging seems OK.
Dad looks down at me and winks.
"By 'eck, i'n't this grrrand!"
He rolls his r's. He is Welsh and being in Wales makes him more so.
We are at the end of the street, where we have to turn either left or right to follow the waterfront.
Dad releases my hand. I am suddenly in a dark, smoky, room. Matthias is growling something.
No. I am not there. I am no longer there. I am, once more, the watcher.
I am in my house in Colorado.
It's 2015.
I turn off the TV.
This incident bothered me so much that I did not return to that DVD for a few days. I felt all discombobulated. What had happened? I tried to shrug it off. Nothing so surreal, in fact. Just a very vivid memory, as some childhood memories seem to be. But why that one? Why that street? It wasn't as if it ended in some terrible trauma, causing it to be burned into my memory. And to be honest, it wasn't really a memory. Not like memories are, usually, where you are outside them, just looking in. Just remembering. It was more like a dream. A very vivid dream. I was there. I was there.
No, don't panic. I'm not about to deliver a diatribe on the space/time continuum. Even if I wanted to I couldn't. I just recognize how grateful I am that I was blessed with such an all-encompassing flash back, and hope for more to come. Living away from home is fine, but it was great to go back and visit.
© 3 August 2015
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