UP

Have been watching a brilliant documentary the past few days called the U;p Series. (I'd give you a link to it, but I don't know how to put that in yet. If you want more info...just write me an email.) I had seen portions of it on the BBC when I lived in the UK, but I have now, in the space of a few days, watched all five DVD's worth. In 1964, a documentary filmmaker decided to follow a group of 15 children from the ages of 7 to 42, visiting them every 7 years for an update. The premise of making the film was the famous quote, "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man."

Has anyone else seen this? I know a few of you must have. How did it strike you? I was fascinated watching these kids, then adults, as they made choices about school, spouses, family, career, and lifestyle. I guess I find it of particular interest at the moment as my life feels all scattered about like a bowl of bits and bobs dumped out on a carpet, and I am evaluating decisions, choices, roads I've travelled. I could get all very broody about it, but I am trying not to. Analysis is good, to a point. In fact, I am trying to re-learn The Way of the Gut (a celebrated yogi teaching from the 7thC). That is, a way of knowing that bypasses the Analyst and goes straight south: How does it feel -- in my soul, in my ME, in my gut? I think God speaks to me far more clearly there than He does to my head. My head is a giant blender and garbles the message so often, I don't think it can act as a reliable relay anymore. I wonder if this means I am currently experiencing/having a brain bypass compliments of the Holy Surgeon?

Reflecting on the quote above, I try and recollect what or who I was at seven, and what I wanted from life, how I would have answered the same questions put to those kids. Can I remember what it was like to be seven, my seven? One very amusing memory that has come to me in all this and one that actually has something to do with decisions I have just made recently is this: I got sent to pre-school at about age 4/5, and I hated it. I, in fact, hated it almost immediately. I didn't like being fenced in in the playground area or having limits on where I could go. I didn't like being called, "Honey" by some woman that didn't even know me or maybe even my name. I figured out very quickly (first day at pre-school) my way of escape. I threw a ball over the fence and told the nice lady who was calling me honey that I was going to get the ball. Well, once the gate latch was open, I never looked back. I found my way home and was not discovered until my mother came home from work and found me alone in our family room, feet propped up, watching television, eating a peanut butter sandwich. Aha, I don't like institutions. I knew it at 5, and I am just now remembering it at 37. I could have saved myself a lot of hassle if I had passed on that knowledge from my kid self to my adult one!

So, watching this series has been enlightening, simply because it has stirred me and my memory and has reminded me that all that stuff I thought was important at 7, my books about the Wright Brothers, my love of sport and movement, the bright colours of tempera paint, my desire to be and feel connected with others, is just that: important.