{"id":1233,"date":"2022-06-20T06:44:21","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T06:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1233"},"modified":"2022-06-20T06:44:27","modified_gmt":"2022-06-20T06:44:27","slug":"the-hall-of-ancestors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/the-hall-of-ancestors\/1233\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hall of Ancestors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"646\" src=\"http:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/the-hall-of-ancestors-1024x646.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1234\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/the-hall-of-ancestors.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/the-hall-of-ancestors.png 300w, https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/the-hall-of-ancestors.png 768w, https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/the-hall-of-ancestors.png 1104w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Memories of the past ebb and flow around me like a fast-running stream. Here and there, I pick out snatches of melody, laughter or tears, heartache or guilt. Occasionally, small groups clump together in eddies, circling round, threatening to drag me into the whirlpool of emotion of a particular moment; a birth, a death, singing with joy until my voice is hoarse. I linger at each of these, but the need for closure presses me onward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is my personal Hall of Ancestors and, as I walk its length, portraits on the wall show each reincarnation; the twenty-first century social media star, the patent office clerk, the eighteenth-century Swiss craftsman. Here, a rural Italian mother garnishes a steaming pasta dish, and there a mediaeval herbalist offers a concoction of their own devising that claims to be a panacea for any illness from a sore throat to parasitic infections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tick.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A grandfather clock stands in the passage. I have done this many times before, and the method of marking my last seconds changes, but there is always an air of finality. I remember the sun shedding its last rays of orange and burnished gold over a forest, the individual grains of sand in an upended glass timer. The slow beep of a heart monitor in a hospital. The trapdoor opening beneath the hangman&#8217;s noose. Each instance is like wading through molasses, slow, cloying. Necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tick.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I do not have long here; I must order my thoughts and recollections before they fade to nothing. I cannot remember what has led me to this place this time, but it does not matter. I wish this iteration to be cast as a happy one; not as full of achievements as the others perhaps, but still fulfilling in its own way. I carefully set down beach holidays as a youngster, the birth of my children, and the relaxation into my dotage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tick.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That leads to unwelcome thoughts. The slow stripping of my cognitive functions by a disease I cannot name, even though I have been repeatedly told it. The fear that I don&#8217;t know what has happened to those I love. The isolation. The gradual degradation. I scold myself; I must not dwell on these if I am to complete my task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tick.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is done. I gaze up at the frame; it is neither stylised nor animated as some of the others are, merely quiet, reflective, and gently glowing. I am at the end of my journey, a doorway full of light ahead of me. I gather my courage, take a breath and step through. As one life ends, another will surely begin. I can already feel myself coughing up fluid from tiny lungs, and strong, soft hands reaching for me, to welcome this new life into the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tick<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Something\u2019s wrong. I cannot breathe. I gasp for air as the clock sounds, one last time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tock.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Memories of the past ebb and flow around me like a fast-running stream. Here and there, I pick out snatches of melody, laughter or tears, heartache or guilt. Occasionally, small groups clump together in eddies, circling round, threatening to drag me into the whirlpool of emotion of a particular moment; a birth, a death, singing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[597,633],"tags":[114,13,12],"class_list":["post-1233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-597","category-june-2022-time","tag-but","tag-me","tag-my"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-jT","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1235,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions\/1235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}