Our Illusory Pasts

I have always felt the yawning gap of history behind me, and it has always seemed unnatural, like an artificial empty space in my memory. Places that I visit seem to be familiar upon my first visit, whether due to my overactive imagination, my love of the old and the beautiful, or to some spiritual connection, I don't know (perhaps all three?). Two of the strongest areas are one place that I have visited, France, and one place I have not, Hungary.

It seems odd to me that I should feel affinity to seemingly random places, and some times these irrational connections do fade after exposure or a change of heart or just simply time. I loved Italy in a boyish fashion until I traveled there; not to say I disliked it, because Italy is wonderful. The people, the landscape, the history, all of Italy was truly gorgeous and spectacular, and yet I did not feel the deep, unexplainable connection with Italy that I thought I would. Instead, France stepped out like a second sister that I had always heard so much about and didn't want to love but, like so many others, couldn't help myself.
I fell passionately in love with Japan for a while, moved to Hawaii to study it more, to learn the language and study its history, but found myself instead warming to the history of my own blood, to Europe, reconciling myself with what I slowly recognized as Western guilt. I had been seeking out all things anti-Western because I blamed the state of the modern world (which has always, and continues to, feel wrong and twisted) on the past evils of "The West," whatever that is. I looked to "foreign" religions and peoples for answers, and found many, some of them truly beautiful. But in Hawaii, while studying Zen Buddhism and learning how to make tea the ceremonial Japanese way in an authentic Japanese tea house, I suddenly came to terms with the West, with Christianity, and with my own self (to an extent). Perhaps my experiences in France were a part of that, a planting of a seed, if you will.

I love France, love it down to my bones, feel the warmth of the French sun and the gripping touch of French soil, and it really doesn't make sense. I am not French; some of my ancestors may be of Norman decent and moved to England after the Conquest of 1066, but I am fairly sure that six hundred years in England makes one English. My other ancestors seem to come from Scotland and Ireland, with intermingling between the two thanks to the policies of the English throne. So why France, why this irresistible connection with a country I have no obvious link to? There is no easy answer, no reasoned line of thought. The cynics among my friends (and there are many) surely think that it is my love of beauty and another of my flights of fancy, a silly and juvenile infatuation, like my conversion to Catholicism. Others think it is a past life, that I have lived in France before and am remembering it in some spiritual way. In some of my musings I wonder if it is the influence of the saints, if the work and prayers of St. Joan of Arc, who was so instrumental in my conversion, have endeared me forever to her homeland. There probably will be no easy answer in this lifetime, and I accept that.

Lately Hungary has been pushing its way into my mind. It is still warming, waxing and waning like a moon around the Earth that is my France, but it is there, an ancient land of proud and beautiful people that have no direct connection to me. I will write more on this later, but suffice to say it is my sudden pang for Hungary that made me write today, and if nothing else, I thank if for that, for anything that can rouse this dragon of words out of my dormant cave.

For now, that is all. Adieu.