‘A shadowed pool in one of the hollows was hardly to be distinguished from the dark earth, except that it was covered with white crowfoot flowers as with five minutesâ snow…over all, the ancient beeches stood up with hard sculptured holes supporting storey after storey of branch and shade which were traversed at the top and at the fringes by fair fresh leaves.’
Edward Thomas, The Heart of England (1909), Chapter VIII, Garland Day
A changing of the guard
Consequences are a curious thing, can’t we say? For how do we know where they shall take us?1 Only early this afternoon I left a voice message to a French friend now in Grenoble, seconded to a university there. ‘I don’t quite know where that is but do recall passing through Strasbourg on the train once, is it near there?’ I asked uncertain of what his answer would be. Bored stiff soon after, I scrambled to look it up and not just that, loaded that long forgotten journey I took on to the ever gracious google maps. Something so incidental in Salzburg, Austria tells twice of that encountered en passant en route to Paris; one which revealed what had already passed, one which reveals what lay on the tracks ahead.
To preface matters, the season I stopped playing chess competitively was 96-97, when academia came to the fore: the season done, the semester halted, summer months abound; by plane, by train, and by car around central Europe, I sauntered with mates found on the Erasmus Exchange Programme in Finland previously that academic year, linking up with one in Gdansk, Poland and those scattered across Austria. For the finale, I took a train from Saltzburg to Paris in mid-August 97, the encore the Eurostar home.
Two things occured on that train to Paris, which upon reflection, help me grasp aspects of the past better. The first that whilst on the train, I passed through Baden-Baden, Germany unwontedly. First proof of chess being a thing of the past at that time it was. I did not know the route well nor where I was, having been on the train for many hours and slept through Munich already. The train did not stop, chess was not timetabled in, the morning light that fell upon that spa town where many great figures once played, I took a look at yes but it had little interest in -it being merely something of a surprise. In fact: I do not recall the last time I thought about this upon reflection, as it never did seem important -further proof.2 It’s not about the facts but the interpretation of them, which you roll with, those in postmodernism, and its neighbouring discourses, will gladly tell you: today, Baden-Baden was no more than a brief moment in time, representing that which had already passed; and now stands upright only, supporting a strongly held, well justified belief.
Something else occurred on that train, also unexpected, but more telling. I shared the carriage with a girl who was studying Philosophy and we spent time talking about it and my spirits rose. She seemed somewhat impressed that I had visited Wittgenstein’s house in Vienna, her English excellent I noticed. She was tanned, wore glasses, had medium length dark hair, wore a blue shirt and cardigan, and had a sharp intellect. I don’t remember exactly what I said but something splurted out and put a smile on her face, whatever it was. I also can’t say what I was reading on the train too but I did have something in the green army rucksack I carried, she was also reading, but what I can’t remember as well. I would not have been reading chess, something from continental philosophy, probably Nieztsche. Was it that which started the conversation off? I thinketh not -that was most likely the trip to Wittgenstein’s house! We chatted like strangers on a train do, but she pulled me up on two things rather harshly; the first when I asked her if she was French since we were heading to Paris and her accent was very slight (she was in fact Austrian), the second was related to JÃŧrgen Habermas and probably about his nationality, and me thinking he was Austrian and not German.3 When we disembarked in Paris, she even assisted me in my time there, even though telling her I wanted to go and see the Eiffel Tower gained a very dismissive look, as she was rather cultured it must be said. But help she did, goodbye was said, then the Eiffel Tower I photographed before I kipped on a bit of grass in the burning hot sun near some palace somewhere in the city… .4 I don’t know if I did ask for her details or not, probably I was too shy to, but I quite liked her anyway. Though incidental, that meeting on the train reveals what lay ahead on the tracks.
I suppose the obvious answer is repression but how did I not couple that captured en passant in Europe to that in America the year next? Most unusual! So female Philosophy graduates were in and female chess players were out -not that I was ever interested in any of those.5 My interests had changed and were more life-affirming, as Wittgenstein cropped up in conversation again with another found female Philosophy graduate and much travel together, and to be together, followed soon enough. Perhaps this was not something I could rationalize at the time, it was something I could only encounter. I was more interested in academia and travel by then and not chess…I suppose I must have been young and free or something like that…. .6
‘Historians too can turn the same landscape into their discourse. Field patterns today could be compared to those pre-enclosure; population now to that of 1831, 1871; land ownership examine how a bit of the view edges into a national park, of when and why the railway and canal ceased functioning and so on. Now, given that there is nothing intrinsic in the view that shouts geography, sociology, history, etc., then we can see clearly that whilst historians and the rest of them do not invent the view (all that stuff seems to be there all right) they do invent all its descriptive categories and any meanings it can be said to have.’
Jenkins, Re-thinking History, pg. 10-11 (Routledge 1991)
M J M
This pic was taken by Rachel just a few days before so (or was it after?). Do I look like the sort of person interested in chess here? Or do I look like someone much more into exercise (note the adidas cycling shorts), travel (pic taken in NYC) and adventure (I requested we go to Coney Island)?
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