ve! 
LoveUbecause …. you are mystery!
If there is one thing in life that we can always count on, it would be that there will always be mystery. It may be the mystery of why people behave the way they do, for the good or the bad, towards each other. It may be the questioning by a child of “why the sky is blue”, “why the stars twinkle” or “is there really a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow” - wait a minute I know a lot of adults who don’t really know the answers to those questions! But if you really think about it, no matter what our circumstance - rich, poor, old, young, happy or sad – with each day that dawns, we really have no clue as to what is going to happen. So like it not, be you a secure or insecure person, we are presented with mystery each and every day and so we better learn to deal with it as best we can.
I think mystery - though when you think about it, with each passing second is actually omnipresent, - is something that as human beings we tend to ignore, or maybe accept with a certain amount of resignation – especially as we get older.
As children we constantly question, test boundaries and push life’s buttons to see what will happen, but as years pass, many of us tend to fall into life patterns and routines and start to ignore, or perhaps just forget what made life so exciting as children – that omnipresent mystery!
Besides the general wonderment of childhood, I clearly remember my first feeling of the sense of mystery. I don’t know my exact age when I became cognizant of it, but I am thinking it was probably around the time that I was old enough to walk and I, or perhaps my older sisters where tall enough, by hook or by crook, to reach a door handle.
Back in the 1950’s and 60’s my Grandparents lived in a very old town in England, actually one that claims to hold the title of Britain’s oldest, and the place that I happened to be born . Their home, one of several attached to an imposing complex of stone buildings, which still occupy a picturesque spot on the River Thames, provides many of my first memories. It wouldn’t be until much later in life that I learned some of the true mysteries of this place.
I am not quite sure the purpose of my Grandparent’s actual house, but the huge building it was attached to was originally built at the beginning of the 19th century, reportedly by French prisoners from the Napoleonic War. It was originally erected as the County Gaol (jail) and functioned as such for about 60 or 70 years, before a large portion was converted to a granary and subsequently, a grain and feed business, where my Grandmother was employed for several years. A smaller portion became the County Police Station, which I still clearly remember for the blue light that hung on the wall outside. But as a child I knew little of that, or the gruesome history of the hangings that took place at the jail and later reports of the hauntings by the ghosts of the condemned, who apparently dwell in the large portion of the building that was converted to a recreation centre many years later. Other than the puzzle of why iron bars obstructed the windows of some of the buildings that adjoined my Grandparent’s house, I thought and knew little of the mysterious complex. Their home was a happy place where we visited often on a Saturday, or Sunday for lunch and sometimes stayed for weekends, when we visited after moving to another town when I was about five.
Memories – lunch - we were to be prompt, or my Grandfather would be sitting at the dining room table sipping his soup, if we arrived any time after one o’clock. Television – my Grandparents had one - we would lie curled up in front of the fireplace with Peter, the one-eyed, black lab watching a program about an English “bobbie” called “Dixon of Dock Green”, “Dr Who”, or from what I recollect, some of the first episodes of “Coronation Street”. The new green divan – from the back of which many a “hi ho Silver” was yelled, to the worry of my Grandmother, partly because the couch was new and mostly because she was anxious we would rap our heads off the floor, as we straddled the back and than tumbled to the ground, dramatically getting “shot” off our “horses” in re-enactments of portions of episodes of “The Lone Ranger”. There was the damp smell of a small, walled outside area, off the kitchen where my Grandfather kept his motor scooter, which mingled with the whiff of gas from the pilot light from the old gas stove in the kitchen, when the back door was opened and produced a strange odour, that I am sure I would recognize still today, should it waft by my nose. Not so happy, and attested to by the faint scar I still bear, was my third birthday, when I ventured to pat a dog that lay tempting in the sun, just a door down from my Grandparent’s. He lured me in with his pleasant face and seemingly demure demeanour and then promptly sunk his teeth into my hand, as I reached out to pat him. Happier, and so memorable, was the tending and comfort I received from my Grandfather. He was for the most part a man of few words, but he sprung into action to tend to my wound, as I so clearly recall, with an unopened field dressing and tube of bright yellow, sulphur cream, that he still had squirrelled away from his days in the army in World War Two.
But getting back to that mystery – it was what was known as “the forbidden room”, that tempted me and my inquisitive sisters for several years. Entry, supervised or not, was not allowed – at least not until we eventually became “old enough”. The room occupied a quadrant of the upper story of the house, just to the right at the top of the stairs. I don’t recall ever actually being told what was in the room, or even if it had a key, but in those days locked or not, if you had been told not to enter, than you didn’t enter – it was as simple as that – it was forbidden!
Perhaps what heightened the fascination was our reading of the book “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe”. My sisters used to read portions of it to me and I would routinely check the back of my Grandmother’s wardrobe, just to see if there perhaps was an entrance to Narnia there. Well there wasn’t, but there was “the forbidden room” and the notion of what magical place lay behind that door stimulated my imagination for hours. Was it the entrance to some other unworldly place where talking lions did indeed roam? The “dust fairies”, as I thought of them, suspended in the light that would beam from the top of a small window that occupied the space above the door to “the forbidden room”, only heighten my expectation. It must be a magical world!
But as a mystery, it was eventually solved. It would seem by the state of my father’s garage and mine, as his son, that we are genetically predisposed to hoarding “stuff”, just as apparently his father before him was. Things are perpetually kept for “a rainy day”, when indeed they will have a revived use of some sort. Odd car parts and miscellaneous pieces of wood and metal, that always have a use the day after you throw them away, inhabit our garages - collectively a testament to days when we did something we enjoyed, rather than tidying up. And so it was – we eventually came to know that “the forbidden room” was my Grandfather’s version of a garage, where he housed an unimaginable amount of old television sets, parts to old clocks and even great portions of a motor cycle that had once belonged to my father. Though there were no wayward lions escaped from the zoo, magical fantasy lands, or the gnomes or goblins I had imagined inhabiting “the forbidden room”, I must admit not being disappointed the day I was escorted in for a visit. The vast array of intriguing objects, bits of radios, clocks and mechanics that were strewn about, on and under the tables and benches more than satisfied my expectation. It was probably a much smaller room than I remember, but then I was a much smaller person, and the mystery of what all these things were, and the question of if I might one day be able to have one, or two select pieces as a memento, was large in my mind.
I was lucky enough to return to England with my son a number of years ago and show him the house where I was born and some of the places where I grew up. The old Goal was still functioning as a recreation centre at the time, so we were able to actually go into some of the buildings - other mysterious places never ventured to as a child. The house my Grandparents once inhabited had been divided into offices, but I nonetheless rang the doorbell and asked if we could come in. Much of the house had been renovated and many of the offices were closed for the day, so unfortunately we were unable to visit where the bedrooms, kitchen, living room and dining rooms had once been - but at the top of the stairs, the opaque window above the door to “the forbidden room” still emitted a beam of bright light, where the dust fairies danced and once again, just for a brief moment, my imagination was stimulated as to what mysteries lay behind.
Sharing a little mystery …
“A” the “O” in L
VE!
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Tags: Britain, childhood, England, life, love, memories, mystery, philosophy
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