I can't ever recall ever believing Santa was real as a child. Consequently, it always comes as a slight shock when people state that they actually did. When people ask, "How old were you when you found out Father Christmas wasn't real?", I can't quite believe they're asking me it.
I've had this conversation as an adult and as a child. Recently, a friend matter-of-factly told me he remembers when he first found out and the sense of disappointment he had at the time. I can likewise remember being nine/ten years old and having the same conversation. They'd say something like, "When did you find out? I was six," and I'd be like, "What?"
And these were usually kids that were much more streetwise than me, and from rougher homes. It seemed so odd that they actually believed in Santa.
I'd always just assumed that everyone knew it was a fun little thing that we all paid lip service to. Like, yes, I'll say I believe if that's the hoop I need to jump through to get the presents. That's the game, you don't need to tell me twice.
Surely this is what every other kid did too? I didn't think people actually believed there was an actual Santa Claus.
Am I Mis-Reminiscing ?
Anyway, thinking about that got me wondering if perhaps I was misremembering things. Maybe there was a point when I genuinely believed, but it was simply prior to how far back my recall goes. I can definitely remember being very small - circa nursery age - and being a bit incredulous that my mam was trying to reason me into believing it. We had one of those old gas fire fronts with a grill, so no one was coming down the chimney. "If he can't come down the chimney he can get in other ways," she said.
"So he has a key? Why bother coming down chimneys at all when he can just go through the door?"
It seemed so silly to me even back then. Again though, maybe before that I believed in the silliness and I just can't remember doing so.
The Little Red Bull
That then got me trying to think what my earliest memories were. It's a real struggle to remember anything before nursery age. I have barely any memories (if any) of being a baby, or even a half-walking toddler.
The earliest that comes to mind is of me being sung a nursery rhyme about a little red bull. However, I must have been old enough to speak, as I can recall asking my mam to sing it again, and I can also recall questioning what it was about. Something about it disturbed me a little. It felt old, like it carried some ancient pagan message or wisdom. I also recollect my mam not wanting to sing it at one point, like it was something she sang to me when I was an actual baby, but that she felt more embarrassed about singing as I became an older toddler.
Anyhow, out of curiosity, I looked it up and it turned out to be the song, Little White Bull, by the 50s singer/actor Tommy Steele, lol. At first I wondered why I'd misremembered it as red, but my mam used to sing red instead of white because I had red hair. So I guess that's why I also felt it carried some sort of message - as it did. The song's about a white bull standing out amongst the other black bulls. For me it was changed to a red-haired one amidst the black-haired. Of course, I wasn't really too aware of my hair colour back then, so I guess I had this curious feeling of, "What are you getting at with this, mam? What does this mean?"
I'm also a Taurus by star sign, so there was a double meaning implied. That was always something that didn't sit well with me either. I've never felt any sort of kinship with the bull. A fox, yes. A rabbit or cat maybe, a dragon - it's possible, but I just don't see myself as a bull, and never did. So it always felt unapt.
There's a language of the animals. The bull is strong (and vigorous), the fox, cunning. The tortoise slow, the hare, fast. The sneaky snake and the innocent lamb. The brave lion, the greedy pig, the graceful swan.
There's a weird truth to all these associations. However, the bull is a strange one. As it's the embodiment of strength and fertility, yet it's also captive. So it's both powerful and disempowered. Strong and fecund, but fenced in - and there to be sacrificed whenever man chooses. (Incidentally, there's also the sacrificial red heifer too, though a heifer is a female). Either way, as a child I somehow managed to spin a 1950's children's pop song into something akin to an ancient Minoan rite.
And perhaps with me feeling trapped within man's fences - albeit of school and society - the bull was more apt a totem than I realised.
No comments:
Post a Comment