History, Repetition, Revision

As the spring and summer months appear on the horizon, my Renaissance Faire costume comes out of the eaves (see photo on my home site) and I start looking for occasions… and again wonder at my strong urge toward history. I’ve just finished writing a mystery set in Portland OR in Civil War times, I have been the family genealogist for years, I’ve made quilts, crewel and stump-work embroidery, candles and other ancestral crafts, and I would prefer a history museum to a mall any day. Some of this I come by naturally: as I recall, my first book aside from Dr. Seuss was Bruce Catton’s “Civil War”, one of my father’s special books that I paged through as a toddler and kindergartner… Even then, I loved photos of past times. I sometimes joke that it’s an overcompensation for mid-life memory loss… but it’s a fact that other times/other places have a fascination.

On one level, it’s an escape from the pressures and ordinary-ness of daily life (and no more “trivial” than sitting through hours of tv and movies, which I don’t do). There is just something fun about donning a costume, a persona, and strolling around in a leisurely tour of outdoor merchants sans animated billboards, boomboxes and traffic. Or even a stroll through a historical house is a way of lowering the blood pressure -- rarely do I see “controversial issues” in these places, though I often see something that puts our current pickle in perspective…. (( hmmm…. “Pickle in Perspective”… sounds like a good name for a Dave Barry rock band….)). But more than that, it connects me with the fact of generations of ancestors, of wave after wave of ebb/flow, bloom/fade that balances our myth of linear progression. As someone who moves relentless forward, I often need to be reminded that life is not like that; that one generation as often reveres what was reviled as visa versa; that we think ourselves so unique, but our history chides that ‘tis not so. Reading that the Portland City council in 1861 was concerned about “lewd establishments” in certain parts of town, I realize we have always had our “adult entertainment” dilemma. Reading that Florentine parents often put themselves in debt for lavish weddings reminds me parental devotion has been extravagant long before the “shrimp, steak and pure silk dress” issue. Although there are glaring differences, there is an amazing similarity in human nature over the years.

Another part of this for me is seeing patterns. My first major in college was philosophy/psychology -- I have always been fascinated by patterns, especially human patterns. Noting the differences and similarities in ideas, putting them in relative position with other cultures’ or times’ ideas… fascinating! Since I don’t generally do that for a living, it has become a hobby. I haven’t had much of an outlet for talking about it though… maybe this blog will become that for me… Currently, I’m noticing that the mental health field is doing one of its cyclical “return to community” trends; trying to build wrap around services for those in need. That happened in the 1850’s and ’60’s -- NYC’s “House of Industry” in Five Points, and since then it has gone back and forth several times: the orphanages closing and orphans shipped off to adoptive/foster families on huge “orphan trains”… then a return to larger institutions when it was clear that community alone did not have the resources, then a decrying of the “inhumane conditions” of the large central services and call for community-based services… even the United States, a relatively new country, has had this cycle many times… it’s fascinating and humbling to see how one tendency swings back to the other, with no easy “solution”… helps me not to become to inflexible about my point of view…

Anyway, history is on my mind today as I make a new coif for my outfit and review some new information on my Hedigan family tree branch.