The strangeness of London.

I have been away from the city in which I spent much of my youth, rather too long. A couple of days ago, I was giving a talk and I decided by way of introduction, to write up on the board, where I had come from, before arriving in Asia.

I wrote the word: “London.”

It looked very strange on the board, that word. In fact, I had to wonder whether it was a real word at all. It was a very dislocating feeling. The city of my youth seemed to be fictional, in that moment...not real at all, as if it had never existed and I had somehow dreamt it.

I realized, then, that I had been away from Europe too long. My whole European life had acquired the semblance of fiction. The very name of the city of my youth, now seemed not like a real name at all. I thought of “Londoninium”. It might as well have been a Roman city for all the temporal proximity it had to me, in that moment.

I had paused a little long to reflect on the strangeness of the word, “London” and so I turned back to my audience to continue my presentation. Yet, the feeling remained that behind me, on the board, I had written of a town that was not quite real, to me, anymore.

Perhaps, this feeling comes to all who leave the place of their birth and youth and travel far afield. As one travels, and learns of new places, these memories overlay the ones acquired before emigration, until, eventually the original life seems distant, unreachable and, eventually, as has begun to happen in my case, no longer substantial.

There is another aspect to it, of course. “London”, is a very English word. Every day, for the last twelve years, or thereabouts, I have been surrounded by foreign names, in foreign tongues. So, the familiar names of my youth, now seem exotic to me. An inversion has taken place: the places of my youth, once so familiar, now seem to be the strange ones. My experience of many years, has displaced the earlier sense of familiarity and created a new sense of familiarity: now, Malay names and places are the familiar ones to me. English place names have come to seem strange, unreal and not a little fictional.

All this leads me to understand that, perhaps, I should visit London, and Europe, again, before too many more years pass. I need to reacquaint myself with what was once so familiar, before it becomes utterly “foreign” to me, which would be a curious circumstance, indeed.

Then again, perhaps I should write “London” again, a few more times, so that it might come to seem less strange, through the reacquaintance of usage (if such a word exists...my spellchecker thinks not...however I think it should, so I will use it).

This situation could be summarized in a single thought:

I left London, but now London has left me. It is time to find it once more.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

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Evoking memories of Ireland.

Today, the most unaccountable thing happened: I stepped out of my house, in Kuala Lumpur, into the depths of the Ireland, of my childhood. It was the most uncanny feeling. It is also one I shall explain.

When I left home, today, the light was subdued, the sky being heavily overcast, so that the customarily so-bright-you-have-to-squint light, had been muted, to a dull, comfortable grey. Not only that, but there was a light drizzle falling, teasing with the unkept threat of rain to come. Opposite my house, there is a verdant field, of a plush green. This simultaneous conjunction of green, drizzle and greyness, suddenly convinced some deeper part of myself, that I was in Ireland. It was so like my childhood memories of the place: the incessant drizzle, the overcast sky, and its dullness of light, surrounded by endless green, that tumbles on, as far as the eye can see. It felt, in that moment, so Irish, so characteristic of my childhood days – now very distant – in that green and moist land. It was the oddest thing I can recall feeling in many years. My body, at its core, was convinced it was in Ireland: all the cues were there, all the signs of that unforgotten land. If only I had not known, for a fact, that I was not there, I could have believed it with all of myself.

I was with Ainan, at the time – and I tried to explain to him what I felt and why I felt it. I tried to make him see what Ireland was like. He listened quietly, having no experience of the place. I realized, though, in trying to explain my sense of Ireland to him, that I needed to go there and show my children what it was like. I cannot let their childhoods pass without giving them some experience of the land that played such a part in my own upbringing.

Ireland was not long in Kuala Lumpur. An hour or two later, when I emerged from my University, the moment had passed: the sky was no longer so grey or dull, the light had brightened to its customary discomfort, the rain had stopped and the green was elsewhere. Yet, the reminder remained within me, echoing on. The message for me, is clear. I cannot forever remain in Asia, but must, some day return to Europe, even if only for awhile. Today, I had not gone to Ireland, but Ireland had come to me. There is meaning in that, it seems to me. Perhaps it is time, I returned and visited, once more – but this time, with a new family in tow. I wonder what they will make of it? I know this, however: should they visit, it will give them a sense memory, such as the one that today evoked for me. It will give them a memory that they, too, might one day recall, many years from today, when their father is old and their children are young. I have to give them that. It will give them a bridge not only to their own past, but to mine, too. Such a bridge is worth building: it is what ties us to whence we came.

Perhaps, when I am old, my children will speak of the time (s) they were in Ireland (and the UK). I will know, then, that they share some part of the world I grew up in. There is a beauty in that, a symmetry which those who reflect on life, can only find rewarding.

If I am still writing, then, I will tell of that day. To do so, will be to have come full circle, in a satisfying way. Until then, then…

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

The wistfulness of an expat.

Sometimes shopping is not just shopping, sometimes it is reminiscence.

Last week I bought something for a very strange reason. I didn't buy it because I wanted the contents of the container, per se - I wanted it because of what it said on the container: "Waitrose".

Now, "Waitrose" may not mean much to you, but to me it means: childhood, adolescence and youth.

I should explain. The supermarket nearest my longest term home, in my formative years, was a Waitrose. It is a chain of supermarkets in the UK. It is by no means the biggest chain of supermarkets - but it is the one that I visited most often, it being on our doorstep.

So perhaps you can now understand my reaction when I saw that familiar brand staring back at me from a pot of jam in Cold Storage in Singapore. "Waitrose", it said...so I found my hand reaching out reflexively to this otherwise unremarkable pot of jam, reaching out to recapture a part of my earlier life.

It felt odd to see a name from my youth, in the UK, on a pot of jam, in Singapore. It felt as if, for a moment, I had stepped back in time, to that earlier home, and that I was no longer in Singapore, with my own family, and my own home. I picked it up, not because I felt like eating jam - for I am not a regular eater of jam, and had only eaten it once or twice in the past several years - but because it was a way of reconnecting myself to my younger days.

The following morning, I had Waitrose jam on toast for breakfast. It tasted rather good - but for reasons unconnected to its flavour - it was all the associations it had, that made it meaningful.

Singapore is a very alien country, compared to the UK, given its origin as a British colony. It is much less like the UK than one would have thought, given that history. A Chinese way of thinking pervades the way things are done here - and the result is altogether different from what one might expect.

Thus, I don't expect to see fragments of the UK appearing in Singapore - and when I do, they are welcome, for they remind me that once I had another life, with other thoughts and understandings. Once I lived in the UK and could never have guessed that, one day, I would live in Singapore.

Life is strange like that.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

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Tiarnan reminisces about his baby times

Tiarnan is now thirteen months old. This event happened when he was twelve months old.

He had been walking for several months, including up and down stairs and was quite comfortable on his feet. This day, however, he looked at the floor and got down on his knees and started crawling - something he had not done for months. As he did so, there was a big smile on his face and a slight look of amusement that he should ever have had to move in that way.

Clearly, Tiarnan was reminiscing about his crawling days - and doing so from a vantage of amusement that he should ever have been a crawler.

This is not the only evidence I have seen in Tiarnan of nostalgia, of some kind: I think he is a baby who reflects on himself and his growth and sees his own personal change. He is watching himself grow up. It is interesting that he is self-aware in this way and tracks his own change. I find that rather mature - and not at all like a baby is expected to be. Interesting.