My grandmother lived to be 101 years old*. Bless her soul! She was a kind, warm and extremely funny (intelligent) person. At the end of her long life she told me and my little sister the most fantastic stories.
You can guess if we were surprised when she recanted** the following story. Experience defined, dignified and a mother of no less than four children (my very own mother included) sat at the kitchen table in the house where she had lived for some 60 odd years.
Keeping house, watching the World and feeding the birds; Blue tit and Old world flycatchers were among the favourites, but all living creatures need something to eat. Seed.
They have returned!
She would say every spring, when the sun returns.
– Did you know that I’m actually a car thief (as well)?
– No! What now?
– Well, I must have been seven or eight years old at the time. (We know for a fact that you were born in 1911, so it is either 1918 or 1919 and most likely a model T as in Ford Model T from 1918.)
There weren’t that many cars around at that time in my village by the train station. One day the owner left it running in the (one) street and I was curios and I had for a long time wanted to drive a car. It was huge and the step up into the cabin was really steep, I had to make an effort getting into the cabin.
Somehow, I released the hand-break (I must have seen the manoeuvre at some point or other). I was just a little girl so I could not actually reach the pedals, but I held on to the steering wheel and the car started moving down the (one) street.
When I eventually reached the one and only crossing I couldn’t steer properly so the car stopped by itself and then I got frightened. I jumped out of the car and ran home. But everyone already knew what I had done and my mother was really, really crossed and I got a scolding that I remember until this day.
– I haven’t told you this story before, have I?
– No, you have never told us this story before. Thank you! In all eventuality you haven’t told this story to any of your four children including our mother either. They’re upset.
– It is strange. I’m don’t necessarily remember what I did yesterday, but I’m starting to remember/think about events that I haven’t thought about in decades, things that I haven’t thought about in 80 years or more… it is peculiar, a strange sensation.
– Do you know… that I was in a police riot in Paris in the 1920’s, when I was an au-pair for the Hennessy family a long time ago…? That would be my mother’s mother, unbelievable.
Being a life-long student in the field of philosophy of the mind (consciousness); it was and still is a master class; unheard and unmatched till this day to me.
*
Jaha, det här var ju för märkligt, för nu verkar det som om jag tydligen inte får bestämma själv längre?
Trans. “Well, this is all very odd because now it seems like I apparently can not decide for myself no more?”
That is at +90 years of age and a lucidity unmatched and hard to explain. My father passed when he was 66 years old. I do know/knew my sordid future… time. My grandmother had an older sister. She surpassed her and everyone else.
– Look. This is the obituary, in the news paper, of my oldest friend. You have heard of her? I’m sure.
– Yes. We have.
– This means that now I am all alone.
– But, you have your children and your children’s children? Us?
– Of course but it can never be the same thing. You will never know me like my friends do. You can never know me like my friends did (i.e. you are defined by “others” – that would be your friends…). I love you all, but you are not my friends and you will never be. Context.
** Cantabundus = sjungande (singing). Cantamen = sång (song). Cantatator = sångare, spelman (singer, musician) according to my late grandmother’s Latin dictionary.
– I have lived a very good life and I’m grateful for that.
Grace and dignity comes from privilege and humbleness. And I’ve personally seen it, I’m a witness… superior. All women and men can become that. Trying hard enough. Because all mankind are created equal…
Ref. Vern Parker 1918 Model T touring car.
Corner or roundabout? Think There’s A Corner.