80 MILLION POUNDS?!?
For the two weeks after I heard this figure I have wanted to write about the excess, the world economy, severe weather and hungry children. What's come to mind and memory today is a far different story.
In the very early 1980s I was what you'd call today a tween. While my younger brother, my cousin and her friends were outside on a gorgeous June day playing street soccer and other childhood games, I was curled up in a comfortable arm chair with a wonderful book (likely Little Women or one of the Anne series) watching the first royal wedding.
The pageantry, the visual beauty and the dreams of a romantic 12 year old combined in a force that kept me glued to that chair and my aunt's TV. I had the luxury of little distraction and no competition for the dial (yes, it's true. No remote). My aunt worried about me and asked me a few time if I wouldn't rather be outside but bless her, mostly let me be. The truth is I never did miss out on any "fun." I've never been fond of sports. I could tell you I have miserably bad eyesight (I do), but truthfully I was the timid kid who was always picked last, the one who was teased "She's afraid of the ball!" Indeed.
While I've never been an excessive frills, dripping lace Jane Austen or bodice-ripper romance kind of girl, and at 12 this was long past my dresses-only phase, my memories of this day were of being perfectly content, the little Anglo-phile in me also satisfied (this too has passed although my favorite subjects remain English and history). I spent the day without siblings, chores or homework. I watched history and happiness unfold (sorry, Charles and Diana).
Today I chose not to watch. Not in protest of the financial excess, more because the event really doesn't matter much to me this time around, although I later found out my cousin was in Hyde Park. I wouldn't have seen her, but it would have been fun to look. I did turn the TV on for 5 minutes prior to getting ready for work. Lo and behold, there was a tear in my eye. I think it was for the ebullient happiness of this generation's princess. It was also for, although the fairy tale on TV didn't end happily for the princess of 1981, once upon a time there was a content little girl. Ahh, nostalgia.
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