Historical Musings
Stone stairs with backs swayed from centuries of feet look back at me from my memories, daring me to walk up. Every apartment I lived in over there was older than Canada.
There’s a saying there. They say that Europeans think that a hundred miles is a long distance while North Americans think that a hundred years is a long time. I think that’s true.
My Scottish friend’s faces would blanch when I told them that it was a twelve-hour bus ride from my hometown of Vancouver to the place where I grew up in Nelson and that it was no big deal to me, that it was something I did more than a few times a year.
And that after twelve hours on a bus, I was still in the same province and there are ten provinces and three territories.
When I first moved to Edinburgh, the sense of history was astounding. I took a tour of the Edinburgh castle and at some point they mentioned that the first recorded mention of a structure there was in 850 BC or something. As far back as anyone cares to look, there has always been a structure on this naturally occurring defendable position.
According to logic, there must have been a time when there was no castle there but according to recorded history, there has always been a castle of some description there. I like that contradiction a lot.
There have been more than a few castles built there before this last one as battles have raged and governments have changed hands but any record of a time when there was no castle has been lost in the mists of time.
There are a lot of places like that in the UK and Europe; things that, according to history, have always been there.
I was talking to an Italian friend over there and he was saying this it was a bit of a drag having every single crumbling building in Rome being protected. He said it’s like a museum. There are bathrooms in Rome that were around at the same time as Christ. He said that living in a place with so much history gives one the impression that everything has been done.
He was envious of my new country and our population’s belief that anyone could do anything if they put their mind to it. He liked that we still had a frontier mentality, a thrilling sense of personal control and ability that almost bordered on a sense of entitlement. He said that it was different from most of Europe’s steadfast belief that there is nothing new under sun.
It was an interesting viewpoint. I’m sure it’s not true of all people over there but the centuries and sometimes the millennia confronted me time and time again while I was over there. I really did get the feeling that anything I could think of or attempt would be unoriginal and that every single aspect of love, life and creativity was a cliché.
To me, that made any attempt to express creativity that much more important but it was an interesting feeling.
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There’s a saying there. They say that Europeans think that a hundred miles is a long distance while North Americans think that a hundred years is a long time. I think that’s true.
My Scottish friend’s faces would blanch when I told them that it was a twelve-hour bus ride from my hometown of Vancouver to the place where I grew up in Nelson and that it was no big deal to me, that it was something I did more than a few times a year.
And that after twelve hours on a bus, I was still in the same province and there are ten provinces and three territories.
When I first moved to Edinburgh, the sense of history was astounding. I took a tour of the Edinburgh castle and at some point they mentioned that the first recorded mention of a structure there was in 850 BC or something. As far back as anyone cares to look, there has always been a structure on this naturally occurring defendable position.
According to logic, there must have been a time when there was no castle there but according to recorded history, there has always been a castle of some description there. I like that contradiction a lot.
There have been more than a few castles built there before this last one as battles have raged and governments have changed hands but any record of a time when there was no castle has been lost in the mists of time.
There are a lot of places like that in the UK and Europe; things that, according to history, have always been there.
I was talking to an Italian friend over there and he was saying this it was a bit of a drag having every single crumbling building in Rome being protected. He said it’s like a museum. There are bathrooms in Rome that were around at the same time as Christ. He said that living in a place with so much history gives one the impression that everything has been done.
He was envious of my new country and our population’s belief that anyone could do anything if they put their mind to it. He liked that we still had a frontier mentality, a thrilling sense of personal control and ability that almost bordered on a sense of entitlement. He said that it was different from most of Europe’s steadfast belief that there is nothing new under sun.
It was an interesting viewpoint. I’m sure it’s not true of all people over there but the centuries and sometimes the millennia confronted me time and time again while I was over there. I really did get the feeling that anything I could think of or attempt would be unoriginal and that every single aspect of love, life and creativity was a cliché.
To me, that made any attempt to express creativity that much more important but it was an interesting feeling.
tags