This PBS series has been on for a short while, three seasons, which I presume is a measure of some success. So, having recently, discovered that series, and having missed the previous seasons one and two, we went about getting the DVDs for those first two seasons. After watching the entire first season, went to bed and I dreamt of being an English bloke in some farcical situation, as dreams go. The next night we watched part of the second season and for the second evening in a row, I dreamed of being around and in conversation with these similar English blokes. An apparent aberration in a separate dream of the same night, I was getting a coffee and a sandwich at a certain mall lunch spot, and dropped my messy sandwich on the floor and with others watching am on my hands and knees trying to put my sandwich together.

Then later on, during the discussion in the morning, was the realization that in the second season and in the kitchen at Downton Abby, Daisy dropped a platter of game hens [ they were as large as whole fryers] right when the house staff had to serve the dinner. I know that there are many who take stock in deciphering dreams. I am not one of those, but I do believe one’s mind does attempt to dump trash in dreams, much like a computer, and on other occasions attempts to solve problems. Two things on this, which are away from my main point here, are about two different persons I remember who mentioned dreams.  One was a co-worker with whom I had gone to grade school with, said that he had never and does not have dreams. I found that strange. Second person was a painter I met once. She painted large canvases, had a show at “The Met” in our town, told me that she got her subject from dreams. I found her work a waste of paint, no aesthetic value at all and she was Trained at Chicago Art  Institute which was even more astounding. She was quite a sweet person and she had other smaller sized works that I admired.

With Downton Abbey, I found myself becoming involved with the characters, more than usual for me, and even, yes, being moved by their problems. These persons being depicted are my grandparent’s and their parent’s era, which is historically interesting, but has no connection to our American ways living, even if it were about American “blue-blood” “old money” families in New England. My folks on all sides were farmers in the south and California. I will say I had one grandfather in the “Great War” in an Tennessee artillery unit in 30th Division of the American Expeditionary Force. 

So, yes, there is some connection, the production of the visual scenes, whether the estate’s green fields and grounds, attire of the staff, colors, or the earthy English village scenes, what I truly give credit to is the writing. I am reminded of a quote, from whom I do not agree with his politics, but is an answer to much of the above, and for which I am striving in my own writing and art. This from Ezra Pound and I believe it should be the last and most important words of this post. “Move or be moved.” Ezra Pound