In a Prior Life, Maybe I

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Driving mom to her senior activity center, I pull up some Yorkshire ballads on Spotify. Yorkshire is in The North of England, the region in which my mom was born and raised, and the ballads that come out of her land are sagas of woe, delight, and advice unspooled over numerous verses.

Today, it was “On Ilkley Moor Bar t’At” which is a song mom taught me when I was quite little, and I’ve passed on to my own two American kids. (In standard English, it means “On IIkley Moor Without a Hat” and it goes on to talk about a friend out on a moor without a hat, courting a woman, dying from the cold, getting buried, getting eaten by worms, which are eaten by ducks, which are eaten by the very people singing the song, who are effectively eating their friend. The moral: Fool, wear a hat.)

I’m driving a route I always go, singing harmonies I know, so my mind has room to wander. It goes to a darkened pub with a low roof, crowded with people, dotted with warm flickering light, thick with the savory scent of ale, fire, and camaraderie. I see myself at the bar, wiping it down, pouring a drink, and engaging in the intellectual agility of argument or flirtation, who can tell. I can see my half smirk and the twinkle in my eye as another person walks in and brushes off the cold and sidles over toward me. The place is packed with promise. We’re all here together in this tiny chosen place and as long as we have this and each other, we will be fine.

And then just like that I’m back on El Camino Real in Palo Alto.

I’ve never lived in England, and I’ve never been a bartender, but half my ancestors are from that strong resilient place. The type of living that unfolds through their music stokes a memory I can rub like a bone. Like I was there. Or my people were there. Or is it premonition that I will one day feel that rare and true belonging you can only get in that kind of place. Or is it just a wistful ache and hope to be elsewhere instead of here this morning.

xo

🤗 Here’s a hug for anyone feeling the tug and pull of ancestry as an antidote to the anonymous hustle of the modern era.

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