culture

I want nothing more out of life than to get to know people, to understand them on a personal and psychological level. I want to see what their life has been like, know their values, traditions, and beliefs. I’ve been delving into cultures so different from mine for many years and to this point, am amateur at best. It is in the east asian cultures where my true interest lies. I intend to learn as much as I can from school, media, and travel. I’ve often told people that I am ashamed of what “my” people have done throughout history. (I am of anglo-saxon descent.) and that living in Canada where “white” culture is shared by all and being so many minority groups of which I am not part of, almost everyone seems to have their own unique culture as well, except me.

As I am growing older, talking to other “white folks” and perhaps, from reading more, I’m beginning to see that I do have my own culture not shared by others that is unique to my family and roots. I have not explored it but in the passing of my maternal grandmother and paternal grandfather, I have decided to do so.

I was sitting on my bed, reading Fifth Business by Robertson Davies and, because I can’t do anything in pure silence for long periods of time and having to read the entire book by, hopefully, 4 or 5 o’clock today, now being 2, I was listening to music from the cable-satellite channels. If I listen to music while reading, it has to fit the genre of the reading material so as not to jar me out of concentration. Obviously for this novel, I could not be listening to zen meditation or to top 40 crap. I tried to spa channel which is just soft music but nothing good was on. The nature channel had some sort of African chanting going on so I finally rested on “Swinging Standards”. It seemed appropriate. It consists of music from WWII era. Although the novel takes place in WWI era, I don’t see too much difference in the music of those times. I was listening and reading when “Dancing in the Dark” came on. Immediately into my head popped a vision of my granny and grandpa’s old living room with their archaic transistor of chrome with many dials and gauges. It was what I call a friendly room. Friendly rooms are generally characterized by the feeling they evoke in me almost always directly linked to the quality of light. My grandparents had a very large picture window in the living room and big, oversized furniture and lots of little tidbits and tchotchkes for a small girl to stare at for hours. It occurred to me within the last few bars of the song that I knew it. Maybe from my dad’s big band cds and perhaps even from my granfather’s old radio.

I always preach to people the importance of getting to know your family and history. I realize that, although I thought I did, I don’t really know my grandparents. I’d like to get to know them before it’s too late because once they are all gone, a part of me will be lost. I just don’t know how to go about doing it.