I Am an Englishman
I’m reading Thomas Merton’s Seven Story Mountain (I know, I know, you’re thinking that a guy that reads like I do should have read it twenty years ago---have told myself that already) but in my defense, the book is well over an inch thick with tiny little print. I figured it would be majorly theological.. It is far from it. I’m enjoying the read. Around middle Tennessee, lots of folks read Merton and have been to Gethsemani up in Kentucky, the Trappist monastery where he spent most of his life. He wrote Seven Story Mountain in his early thirties, which makes it even more striking.
Although born in France, Merton is in and out, mostly in England and talks regularly of the grey skies and the gloom of the mist and fog. The constant reminders of the climate got me to thinking that the climate where any of us reside has something to do with our state of mind (HELLO my seasonal affective disorder). The weather in England reminds me of the food---or maybe the other way around, rather boring. Compared to the food in Italy, Spain, Jamaica or Mexico, it’s lacking. Then I consider the stereotypes I have of the English. They seem emotionally constipated. I rework in my mind what I think of as ‘cultured’ or ‘refined’, you know the people upstairs in Downton Abby. On the positive side, I rather like their subtle, tongue in cheek humor and I very much enjoy their mysteries (Sherlock) and dramas.
Until last year, I’d always assumed that with a good ole Irish name Molloy (the original spelling), that I was died in the wool (lots of sheep over there) IRISH. It came as quite a shock when Ancestry.com informed me that I am very much, 81% Brit. Talk about a reformation! For years, I had no interest in seeing England. I’d read the history of how the English treated the Emerald Isle. They were nasty during the years of what was called the potato famine. It was really a form of genocide. So, I’d been to Ireland more than once, never England. The Irish are the friendliest people I’ve ever been around although the Kiwis we’ve met on some of our trips are a close second. Then again, lots of Irish immigrated to New Zealand in the past century or so..
Anyway, I’ve had some apologies to make in my own head. I guess you could call it my own refinement. I would have likely been downstairs at Downton, yet England is now home base. I know we are all mongrels, a confounding mixing pot that makes up who we are as Americans. We’re not alone. While on tours we’ve learned of the Kings and queens of Europe, they too are of multiple heritage. Marriages were rarely for love, but alliances of power and control of/with neighboring countries.
So, on these gloomy, damp days of February I am feeling more at home, owning my own historical, ancestral culture a tad more, bully for me! My taste for British drama and mysteries remain. My edge about their history with the Irish has dulled some----they were barbarous though (yet I’ll refrain from getting into American history) Even amidst ‘refinement’, you can be an evil jerk.
I will keep my relish for the Irish pub and the good times we’ve experienced in those fine establishments while in Ireland. The comradely and entertainment of the pubs was likely their way of dealing with the lives they’d been dealt. Jolly good to my Irish ancestors! (We just watched a new movie on Netflix, Wild Mountain Thyme which has got my cravings going for another trip to Ireland).
“BEEN THERE STILL THERE” my bumper sticker reads.
Am grateful for the memories of Ireland, England too…the memories of our travels and the ‘memories’ in my DNA from generations ago.
Makes me an islander either way off the western shores of Europe.
Edited 2/2021