Tradition

Rick and I agree on most things and disagree on enough to keep our married life and our conversational debates interesting. 

Prince Philip's funeral was one of those. My husband sees little use for the royals. I've been fascinated by them since I was a little kid.

I love the pageantry and the tradition. 

This goes beyond the UK. Somethings that go back hundreds or thousands of years are worth preserving. Granted there needs to be some updating on traditions or we'd all be running around in furs and fig leaves. 

In a way it is like a successful marriage where memories, both good and bad, bind people together -- common knowledge that is shared.

I will admit to being a history buff whose heart beats faster when I stand on a historic spot: the tombs of William the Conqueror, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard the Lionhearted. The battlefields in Concord and of Bull Run, where James Joyce wrote (as long as I don't have to read Ulysses). 

 I can get excited when I see people in Argelès in historic dress singing and dancing to songs from the ages. Even Morris Dancers can bring tears to my eyes. 

I also can get shivers when I'm an Argelès beach and realize that in 1939 100,000 Spanish refugees were huddled there.

Maybe it is because I don't consider myself just a 1942 edition of a human. I'm my ancestors: John Sargent who fought in the American Revolution or Michel Boudreau who left La Rochelle, France for Nova Scotia in 1640. A part of me is Medora Young my great grandmother and everyone between on both sides of my family.

Although no pomp, there are family and New England traditions such as Boston baked beans that are as part of me as the pageantry is of the Windsors, just more understated.

We had our DNA done and I turned out to be 1% Norwegian. Ever since then I picture some Viking either raping an English maid or seeing a lovely maiden and staying.

I am more than me.