Have you ever had those mornings where you feel kind of off? It’s not a cold, at least not yet, but you suspect something might be on the way if you aren’t careful? I think today might be filled with those EmergenC fizzy drink packets and many cups of Lemon Ginger tea with honey. But for now, we will press on. Fifteen minutes on the timer pleas and into the prompt we go…
I think my brain tried to go two separate ways at once. The results came out a bit fuzzy. I do like Enid though.
Tuesday, February 6th: It was a strange family legacy.
It was a strange family legacy. To know that all around me belonged to my family. To know that those who lived on the land, worked it but didn’t own it. To know that in town the stores where they bought groceries, the tavern where they drank, the church where they worshiped were all owned by my family.
It was a strange legacy but it bound us more than it bound them. They could, if they chose, leave. There was tradition and history that kept them in place, but they were not serfs bound to the land as their ancestors might have been. In fact for many of the students who did well in school, which of course, we owned as well, the family provided scholarships.
It was Great Aunt Enid’s idea. She told the others it was an incentive to strive for better and billed it as ‘Family Good Works’ when speaking to her father. Her father thought of it as a way of increasing the skills of those who he considered his. Despite the world changing he always thought of himself as a Feudal lord and there was nothing anyone could say to change his mind. In his mind the people as well as the land belonged to him.
As I found from Enid’s diaries, she deliberately phrased it so that he would take it this wee. He viewed it as increasing the value of his people. She viewed it as a way to help them escape her father. From her journal she would have been happiest if they took the scholarships, used them for their own ends and never returned, or better yet found themselves a place good enough that they could then send for the rest of the family leaving the past behind them.
Reading Enid’s words it was clear that all she ever longed for was escape. If she could not have it for herself then she would have it for the others. It didn’t work. There were some who took the scholarships and never returned. Many somehow felt beholden and brought those skills back. They worked for themselves, and yet somehow also always managed to increase the family holdings.
I remembered Enid when I was younger. She was old when I was born and seemed ancient. She always told me that I should get out and find my own place in the world. I was the youngest, I was the only girl. There were others to inherit and care for the family spaces. I should not feel bound to it as she had been. She encouraged me to find my own place as she encouraged others.
I was told to ignore her, but even then I knew she was right. If I stayed the family would swallow me whole. This place this legacy was a beast that devoured any who could not escape. Everyone here worked their lives to preserve what had gone before and to build up for the future so the past could be protected. What any of them wanted or needed or dreamed only mattered if it was in service to the whole.
Enid saw that, as did I. I also saw that she was right, the were many caretakers and I was surplus. I kept my desire to be free to myself and began my own escape plan.
Ten til Midnight 