Roots n' all that

I went to hear the sensitive and eloquent Edmund de Waal talk tonight about The Hare with Amber Eyes.  I don't know him, but it seemed he was a very humane man.  I was hooked. What Jew would not be fascinated by a Christian who goes in search of his own Jewish heritage and doesn't sweep it away under the carpet?  Especially this Jew who has designs of her own about her heritage.  It was just right for me.

Afterwards in the signings queue, next to all the cheery ladies with intricate jewellery sourced from Hampstead boutiques, this is what I heard.   'Well of course he feels Jewish' and  'he was so moved by his heritage'.  I found it odd, but perhaps it was as if they were all putting their collective hands on his shoulders and ushering him in to Friday night living rooms saying 'you've felt the little heartstrings of kinship now' and even though you've been brought up with a christmas tree it doesn't matter.  You're one of us.  What Edmund de Waal would feel about being adoped, I'm not sure.  Nevertheless, adoped he is.

He said that his family never felt nostalgia.  They just moved on and got on with it.  I liked that.  It's probably why they ended up rich as kings.

Most of all what the evening (and the book) brought up for me was the feeling of grasping at what you come from. I grew up on stories of balls of goose fat cooked by stern grandmothers, 11 brothers and sisters in one great house together, and young lovers climbing a big blue mountain in a far off land.
How can we not reach out and shake hands with the women, the men, the children that loved, ran, raised chickens, danced in halls, absconded with bakers and sang their stories over arak again and again.
For me,  I hope it's the time to start getting together my story.  Perhaps it's because I have no one to hand it over to that it is more important.  I just know that the black and white faces squinting slightly in the sun by the tree in the yard in the photos, are stretching out their arms and beckoning to me, saying you're one of us.  It's about time you made us live again.