"Have you ever visited a place and experienced déjà vu or seen or heard something you couldn't explain?"
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Many years ago as a kid on a school trip, we got taken to Cotehele House in Cornwall, I have a vague idea it was either a half day there and half at Morwelham Quay or a half in Plymouth sort of day out.
ReplyDeleteWhat struck me most was how familiar it was to me, I knew what room was next and where the doors went. Being young teens a small group of us got lost from the main group, but I knew where we were and took us to the exit and back to our group. I knew what the pathways looked like and how to find my way out of the house.
I kept expecting someone to tell me off for being in the family areas, to ask me why I wasn't working or what I thought I was up to. The whole feeling left me feeling very uncomfortable and many years later I chose not to go again.
I often feel places and their past, I adore places like the standing stones of Brodgar and Maeshowe, and strange places on the moors, I do like old houses, but with one exception, I have never forgotten how odd I felt in Cotehele House and have never been back, even when taking my kids to all these places I remembered.
Earlier this year, last year now, I wrote a scene in my current work in progress. At the time it was to be the final scene in the book. A character is sitting on a beach - he looks up and sees the new moon.
ReplyDeleteA few months later I had worked out where the beach was. Yes, I know that's the wrong way round, but that's how these things happen. The beach was at Burnham on Sea in Somerset. It's an interesting area and we decided to visit for a few days. On the first evening we went for a walk along the promenade. It was starting to get dark and I looked up at the sky. There was a new moon and it was in exactly the position I had written about.
Seeing the new moon is supposed to bring good luck. I hope it will mean good luck for my book.
My deja vu was about me rather than something which I saw.
ReplyDeleteMy parents were not entirely happy to realise they they had, inadvertently given my elder sister 2 of the most common names for girls for the year she was born in, so they picked a less common name for me.
When I was about 10, my great aunt gave a set of silver christening spoons, engraved with my initials and birthday ... except that the year was wrong.
It turned out that I had another great aunt, who died in infancy.
She not only has my first and middle name (or perhaps more accurately, I have hers) but we also share a birthday.
My parents had no idea at all. They picked my names because they liked them.
My surviving great aunt didn't say anything until I was about 10, and, she felt, out of danger. (no one else in the family was aware of it either)
Given how unusual my name is for someone of my age I have always found it a little spooky. Particularly as, so far as we know given limited information, it's likely that, like me, she was asthmatic and vulnerable to chest infections, but unlike me, was born to soon for adrenaline injections and antibiotics.