I Would Never Have a Home, Part 3

If I told you I was unhappy, it would be a gross understatement. I was miserable. Life in England was hard for me. I was in a foreign country for sure. P. was in the program that went from early morning madrigal singing through an entire day and evening of lectures and activities. I was in a semi-detached house with fleas, an upstairs neighbor who was one of the only people in my life whom I have really despised. We had a coal burning fireplace that I couldn't get lighted (I had the wrong kind of coal) and a bathroom in the basement that had stone walls seeping with dripping freezing water. The tiny electric bar that was meant to heat the bathroom was cleverly positioned on the ceiling. Moan, groan, agony, pain. Shopping for food took all day. Everybody was telling me how to raise my kid..even twenty year old Germans who had no kids.

There were game rules that I didn't know and didn't understand. I tried to blend. I went to 'jumble sales' in the village. I didn't laugh out loud when Americans spoke as if English was their second language. "I am from, aaaaah, how do you say it....California.... you see." What? I took several drastic measures. I found a baby sitter and enrolled in the program. I discovered London! where people were actually living in modern times. I walked and walked through the countryside through the turn styles, in field after field. I whined enough that we were moved to rooms in Pixton Manor.

It was on one of my walks with Ariel that we ran across a deserted gypsy caravan at the edge of a field. It was about the size of a covered wagon from our prairie times. When I saw it I started to cry. I felt, saw, remembered, being part of the gypsy life. I saw inner pictures of the people who had moved through England and Europe occupying fields and trails, camping year after year.

When I was a kid, I spent almost a month making a  gypsy costume for Halloween. My mother helped me. I knew what it had to look like. We sewed yards and yards of ribbon around the very full, very long green skirt. The sash at the waist had to be maroon satin. The jewelry had to be exactly what I remembered. Even Mom got the impression that I was doing the costume from memory, only she thought the memory was from a picture in a book. It wasn't.

The crying I did at the caravan was connected with another very strong memory. When I was a child, even before I could read, I had dreams of being a gypsy girl, about nine years old, in  wooden barracks where everybody was unhappy and unhealthy. I was hiding behind a building watching as my mother was pulled out of the building. I was terrified and alone. Then everything went dark.  This was a dream that recurred for years. I think I was a gypsy child in a concentration camp who died very young under Herr Hitler.

The people at Emerson had great theories about re-incarnation. With rules. Too quick a turn around, they pontificated. I didn't need theories or rules. I was having a past life memory. When I had my dreams as a child I knew nothing about what was going on in Europe when I was born. (1944) This gypsy caravan in the field did make me cry. It also started a process of opening up that was outside of the strange cultish culture that we had dropped into at Emerson.