Flying The Coop

In every family, there are eras and times no one really speaks of. Sometimes actions are taken for damage control purposes and life continues as if it never happened.

In my life that would be the period before all the drama occurred. My biological father was a man of great foresight and he knew that there was going to be drama coming down the pike. At the time he was busy honing his military career as well as his civilian career, but he always wanted more for himself and our family.

It was then he made the decision to further pursue his studies at Oxford University in England. His brother was already living there, so he felt it would have been a good choice and that he would still be able to interact with family from time to time.

However, while he was planning to relocate temporarily, things became a bit gnarly in our household and that is when he made the decision to send me away to England. I was sent to reside with my Auntie Cornelia a long time family friend.

I think I must have been a year and a half old when I went to Cornelia’s house. It was a bit of a culture shock for me because she was quite the proper Irish lassie. Looking back, she reminded me of Juliet Mills from the  TV Show “The Nanny and The Professor.”

Auntie Cornelia was always proper and she lived in a picturesque part of England near Cotswold. In some ways, it reminded me of the country parts of Jamaica because there were lots of livestock roaming and many beautiful trees and gardens.

The houses were very quaint and everyone knew each other in the village where she went to conduct most of her shopping. Cornelia was a strange bird in some ways. She was always very austere and you never saw her let her hair down for one moment.

Her family were horse breeders from Wiltshire where they had owned tons of stables. In her younger days, she had absconded to India to study Horticulture. Upon her return to England, she went to work for the Horticulture Society in Wiltshire.

When I arrived in her life it was an overwhelming surprise but she handled it like a pro. At first, she was a  hard task mistress teaching me all sorts of English vocabulary and customs. Her morning rituals and other bizarre adventures wore me down a bit but after a while, I got used to it.

There were many occasions when I wanted to say, “Lady, lighten up I am only a toddler, but I thought I dare not because Cornelia was not a person you could randomly jest with.”

Cornelia would wake me up in the wee hours of the night to go stargazing or moon following. When dawn came she would make the most scrumptious scones with Darjeeling tea and we would sit in her parlor. She would talk about virtually anything that cropped up in her mind.

Once I had adjusted she tried to enroll me into the nursery school division of  The Royal High School, since I was quite precocious for my age. But, they could not take me until I was three years old. It was a boarding school and it wasn’t very far from where she lived. I was homesick for my parents but Cornelia would reassure me that I would see my father once he came to Oxford to finish his studies.

Many months passed and there was never any further talk about my father coming to England, and then suddenly one day the phone rang with histrionics on the other end. In a matter of a few days, I was picked up by my father and taken back to Jamaica.

Over the years that followed Auntie Cornelia made it her business for me to get my daily dose of all things British. Even though, I never saw Cornelia again because she became stricken with kidney disease a few years later and passed away.

I suspect over the years my parents kept in touch with her from time to time because they continued the English customs that she had tried to cultivate in me. It was a strange but magical period of my life that I rarely talk about because it was one of those times when my parents felt it necessary to shield me from shenanigans that were going on.

Eventually, my father did go off to Oxford University, but that was some time after my biological mother had her meltdown. It is funny how a brief period in your life can sometimes shape the person you become.

All throughout my life, I am constantly being told there is a victorian quality to my nature. It is not something I purposefully put on or am aware of. However, other people have commented on it, and I can only attribute it to the time I spent with Cornelia O’Shaugnessy.