Long ago my friend who exaggerated everything called me an "Anglophile" simply because I had asked her to read a short fiction piece from a woman's magazine - maybe a Cosmopolitan - that I really liked - in which there was a romance in Britain. (If I remember it was something to do with a bog man?) So, to clarify, I have never considered myself an Anglophile.
It's easy, comparatively, to know of Great Britain, the Royal Family, and Queen Elizabeth II, because they are all over the news. This has something to do with that we speak some version of English and that the United States and Great Britain have been allies. Language defines us as members of the same heritage as does American History. My personal heritage has nothing to do with Great Britain or British History, or Colonial, Expansionist empires. Still, I watched the funeral of the Queen, just as I had with an associate who grew up in India, Princess Diana's funeral.
To also clarify, I'm not much into pomp, parades, military. I've never been a member of a marching band or such. Still, I found the whole thing fascinating.
Here is my take:
1) I did not know a single song or hymn sung or played and I did not understand a single word sung. s I thought the choir voices were beautiful but I no more understood the lyrics than my parents did the lyrics in rock and roll. I thought maybe these are PROTESTANT hymns and that is why.
2) I wondered how all those members of the Royal Family LEARNED how to lock-step and remembered which way to go. It appeared they ALL had a lot of practice. I wondered if anyone's somber expression had to do with counting steps so as to know when to go left or right or up or down stairs.
It is an image of cooperation, but also conformity.
I also thought what amazing endurance and fortitude the family and others who are not in the military must have. Maybe it's genetic. If I had to do all the walking they did behind a coffin, I would have been exhausted. I might have even been one of those who fainted.
3) I've long thought Charles II should be King and Camilla, the Queen (er Queen Consort), and considered most of the speculative "news" over the decades, such as that the Queen would skip over Charles to appoint Prince William instead, to be "filler."
4) Though the thousands of spectators had a different view and were not in hearing range of the same dirge played over and over again, as someone who was streaming video I surely wished that there were more variety. I grew impatient watching because of that same ominous marching music.
5) Lovely touch, all the Queen's horses, and her Corgi's too!
6) Very Lovely touch, spreading the flowers that had been left at Windsor Castle all over the grassy areas along the The Long Walk, which is more than 2 1/2 miles in length.
7) Were I in London at the time, I would NOT have waited for hours - days - in order to get into Westminster Cathedral for a glance of the Queen's coffin. However, I did one time stand in a line to vote early for at least 8 hours which was insanity, but for meeting a fascinating person and speaking with her for a while before someone came out to announce that people with drop-in ballots did not have to wait in line.
8) I don't like funerals. I think the funeral industry is marketing the lie that funerals are for the living and somehow help people get "closure." Don't spend money on a funeral. Go on a cruise, send the kids to college, provide someone a down payment on a house instead.
In fact the whole idea of "closure" is a lie too. Closure, getting over grief, is supposed to be the healthy goal, and now there is a NEW kind of mental illness defined as not getting over grief - going on too long. (More ills and pills?) The Queen said something like "Grief is the price of love." If you do love someone, you will grieve them for as long as it takes, maybe even forever. That said, funerals as they are played out, are usually horrible. Better to not force people to look at embalmed made-up dead bodies laying in caskets with ghoulish webby synthetic lining. Rather let the dead be in privacy and peace and hold a memorial service some other time.
C 2022 Christine Trzyna
