Past is Prologue
Gorgeous day for a walk, thinking about what to write in this newsletter. It was definitely going to involve the past, because I’ve returned to writing the story of my family and my part in it. It’s fascinating how often I was at the center of everything that happened when I was a child. (haha)
Anyway, the saying “Past is prologue” popped into my mind. I thought about how true that is in my personal life. I’m vaguely embarrassed that I had no idea where the phrase came from. I turned to Google.
Clearly, I should have known its origin. I attribute my ignorance to dropping out of high school and never studying the classics. That’s an explanation, not an excuse.
I absolutely love that the first source that came up after Wikipedia was the Society of Women Engineers. Their headline reads, “What’s Past Is Prologue: The Future Is Ours to Write” and helpfully explains the quote this way:
“Whereof what’s past is prologue,” the treacherous Antonio declares in Act 2, Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, “what to come, in yours and my discharge.”
Uttered with fatalism and murderous intent when the play was first published in 1611, in more recent decades the phrase has been embraced by the archival community to emphasize the importance of studying history.
It had to be Shakespeare. Of course. The murderous part almost makes me want to read up on the play, just as soon as I finish organizing the vestiges of our family history.
Unstaged, unedited view of our office. I accept full responsibility for the mess. Not that there was any question.
I may not get to it right away.
Today I came across certification that Dad had mastered the fundamentals of typing as measured by The US Army Air Corps in 1949. His address was listed as a mapping unit, which verifies family lore that while he was stationed in The Philippines he was assigned to fly around and draw some of the seven thousand islands that make up my mother’s home country.
He had just turned twenty years old, about as far from home as a West Virginia boy could be. And by now he’d met Mom. What an adventure!
I’ve been blessed with a number of adventures in my life, and have been reliving a few as I write about my life and memories. One of my favorites: When I was twenty, I rode The Marrakech Express.
Being on that train was just like being inside an old movie, swaying and holding on to the sides while walking along narrow hallways, uniformed conductors, wooden doors sliding open to cabins with benches facing each other, shelves overhead to stash belongings. The train chopped up miles like a chef cutting onions, steady and sharp and sure.
There was one other woman in my cabin, which was crowded with six or eight passengers. She wore a veil, and like everyone else, was dressed in a djellaba, the traditional Moroccan robe. They all seemed to know each other. The woman rearranged the seating so that I sat between her and the wall.
I had written down a few phrases in Arabic like hello, thank you, and how much? Where is (fill in the blank)? I’d been told a lot of people spoke French in Morocco, so I had the words written out in French, too. I tried every one of them out on her. I butchered, annihilated, the pronunciations beyond any possibility of accurately conveying a thought. I’d never been able to use accents or imitate sounds well. We did not understand a word the other was saying but we had a great time trying to communicate. She had beautiful warm dark eyes. I could tell she was laughing behind her veil.
She clearly did not understand what this American stranger was doing in her country, and honestly, even if we could have communicated easily I don’t think I could have explained.
Going back briefly to the Society of Women Engineers—who I bet have fantastic stories to tell—they reiterate the importance of studying history.
So true, at so many levels, including at my very personal level. I love being able to touch actual typewritten documents. That’s a privilege being lost as everything goes digital. Studying my family’s and my personal history, peeling away a few layers of the onion, trying to understand how and why our lives transpired as they did, has been a slow-motion series of revelations. What an interesting bunch I come from!
I wish my family had saved more ‘stuff.’
Did yours? If you’d like to share, I’d love to know what kind of family documents you have. Here are some of mine.
In the meantime, summertime is beautiful in the Pacific Northwest. Hope it is wherever you are.
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