It’s Tuesday afternoon as I begin to write. Normally, I start soon after breakfast but today we went for an impromptu drive which I shall no doubt relate after I’ve had a chance to look at the photographs.
It has become my practice to write my posts the day before I publish them. I got into the habit when I knew once that I would be too busy to write for a few days, so put together some posts ahead of time and found that I quite liked the feeling of being prepared.
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It is surprising I hadn’t done this sooner, as it has always been my nature to organise. If a chore needs doing, now is the time, as you never know what may happen in the next five minutes.
It is a sensible policy but it can become obsessive.
“What causes obsessiveness?” I asked AI:
AI Overview
Obsessions, often associated with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), stem from a complex mix of genetic predispositions, brain chemistry imbalances (specifically serotonin), structural brain differences in areas like the orbitofrontal cortex, and environmental factors such as stress or trauma. They often involve a heightened need for certainty and responsibility.
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Neither of my parents was obsessive and I don’t think it’s my brain chemistry that makes me a compulsive organiser. I think it has everything to do with the fact that my childhood was anything but – organised!
When a child’s life is chaotic, the reaction is to apply control wherever it can , even if it’s only lining up the stuffed animals in a particular way.
Lots of kids bounce around with parents whose occupations require them to travel and I never had a problem adjusting to new environments. It was my schooling that caused unease.
Three years older, my brother remained at boarding school in England when we went to Cambodia. Mum got him to think it was his choice. She asked if he wanted to come with us, knowing full well that when he was told there was no cricket to be had out there, that he would say no thanks.
Peter stayed behind, attending Woolverstone Hall School in Ipswich where – to my parents dismay – he soon picked up a cockney accent. Oh, the horror!
On the other hand, I was sent to an American school and soon began to drawl. When next the two of us met, we made faces at each other: “I don’t like your accent!”
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As I was severely asthmatic, Mum would not consider leaving me in England, for which I am very grateful because I treasure the years I spent in Asia, but in many ways it would have been better if I too had stayed behind.
Unlike me, my parents were not good planners. Even when it was something like a holiday, the idea of pre-booking hotels seemed not to occur, often with inconvenient results.
When it was a matter of arranging schooling for a child he did not want, my father made no effort whatever. I doubt he even thought about it. Willis (Mum was known by her maiden name) would sort it out when we arrived 6 months later. Willis sorted everything out, including packing up the flat in Earls Court and bundling Peter off to boarding school.
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There was a perfectly adequate school I could have attended in Phnom Penh, but I did not speak French. Young children are sponges for language which they absorb very quickly, especially when motivated as I could later attest.
But somehow my parents learned that the Americans had a school for the children of their personnel. Mum inquired and in due course a woman came to meet and evaluate me. It got me off to a very bad start, as she posed me an arithmetic question which involved calculating a sum in dollars which I had never heard of. Pounds, shillings and pence, which were infinitely more complicated, I had down pat, but because I struggled with an unknown currency, I was deemed slow and placed in a class with children a year younger.
At the time, I was 8 and quite old enough to be deeply offended, though Mum did not protest. For the next few months I sat in class every day with children who seemed so different to me. They introduced me to root beer and chocolate milk which I loved and peanut butter that I despised. I thought they wore funny clothes and no doubt they thought the same of me.
One girl in particular befriended me and soon I found myself kidnapped. I was collected from school with this girl and taken to her parents house where I remained for several days. I had not been told to expect this and had no means of contacting my parents, which for a child that age is disturbing. Strangely, in all the years that followed, I never asked my mother about it, so I don’t know the reason, though it is possible it was at the time we relocated from the flat overlooking the river to a house across town. Maybe it was deemed better for me to be out of the way. I shall never know.
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Afterwards, however, I escaped from the American school and spent the best part of a year with an Australian friend I had met in the meantime. We became street urchins, touring town in cyclo-pousses, searching for treasure, or clues to unknown criminal activities that we planned to solve, befriending stray animals…
And getting into not very serious trouble.
It was fabulous.
But then the parents panicked, – I assume. My friend was supposed to be taking correspondence classes, whereas I was just enjoying my freedom. I suppose in the end my parents were afraid I would grow up an ignoramus, so they did what they ought to have done in the first place and sent me to the Ecole Norodom.
Which is when I learned to speak French, PDQ.
The teachers seemed to think placing me in class with 5 year olds would be helpful. If I’d felt insulted by the Americans, it was nothing to what I felt at the Ecole Norodom! Can you picture a 9-year-old child sitting in a class with kids 4 years younger? How ridiculous I looked? My marks were automatically reduced because I was so much larger.
The ultimate horror, as far as I was concerned, was at recess, when my classmates decided they ought to look up my skirt! Did they think I was somehow different?
Oh yes, – motivation, for sure. I soaked up the language. By the time we moved to Saigon 6 months later, I was fluent in French and at Les Oiseaux, which was my next school, I found myself at last with girls the same age.
For 18 months, life was almost normal, whatever that is. Before the next move.
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Being fluent in French is very useful, but having to sit with small kids when you are 9 must have been awful. I grew up to be an organised person in many ways. I won’t go to a restaurant unless I have booked a table in advance. I won’t go on a long drive without filling up the petrol tank before leaving. I don’t like to trust a Satnav so look up where I am going on a map beforehand. And I also like routine. Like going to the supermarket on the same day every week, and setting the table at least one hour before dinner. But having been married (to my second wife) to someone with full-on behavioural OCD, I really do know the difference.
Best wishes, Pete.
Although I was in the hostel, it was not from a young age – I doubt I would have adapted as easily as you. And isn’t it amazing how quickly you learned to speak French. English was almost a foreign language for us who came from the countryside, and I remember how scared I was when people spoke to me in English … let alone French!
Thank you, Carolyn, for the fascinating memories of your childhood, learning French and being organised. As so many French words and sayings are in the English language, speaking fluent French is beneficial. I had to be organised to combine everything successfully, and as I hate chaos, it kept me happy. Thank you for the photos! I speak French, but prefer English.
Joanna
My mother used to say “He’s a Sagittarius. What else do you need to know?” I was a small for the job but effective football quarterback who called my own plays. It made made me vigilant, and obsessive about proper execution, but a lousy planner. The moment tells me what’s next and my need is to nail it on the first take, because most of the time in our generation do-overs weren’t an option. Great stuff today!