Tekstit
We visited the museum of archeology and history in the old port of Montreal last Sunday. I was very interested to see how they had built up an exhibit about the "Queen of crimes" with the eye on her passion for archeology. I had never been to the Pointe à Callière museum before but the name always made me think of Agatha Christie's dear old Hercule Poirot, for some reason. My mind links the weirdest things together in peculiar ways. http://www.pacmusee.qc.ca/en/home
We were not disappointed in the exhibition celebrating the 125th anniversary of Agatha Christies birth. In fact we realized we would have to go back with better time as we had completely miscalculated how long it would take us.
I absolutely admire her work as an author and I'm hopelessly fascinated by the life she had. If I get the question; "who would you swop lives with for a week if you could?", my answer has always been and will always be; hers.
As we rushed through the exhibit, getting only a glimpse of the beautiful, wonderful and productive life she lead, a pretty little quote of hers caught my eye.
"One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is to have a happy childhood. I had a very happy childhood"
I completely agree with her and so had I. I got a nice reminder of it just the week before, when walking around in the woods close to my childhood home in Finland, explaining to my sweetie my favorite trees to climb and about trolls I would believe that lived under the stones and about other real and imaginary friends.
I'm one of these fortunate people who still have parents alive and in good health living together in the same house where I was brought up. I realize that in these days that is both rare and worth gold. I have very few disappointing memories from my childhood and the one I do have is some what questionable. I remember waking up on a Saturday morning, feeling a little empty and sad inside because there was nobody's birthday to be celebrated that day. I lived in a neighborhood with a lot of kids of all ages. So there was an endless amount of games, plays and apparently birthdays to attend to.
Agatha Christie is the most translated author of all times. I have so far read her books in 4 languages, most of them several times. The wonderful thing about these detective stories is that if you just let a few years pass by, you have forgotten the plot and it is as interesting to read or watch as a movie, as it was the first time. To my happy childhood memories belongs evenings in front of the TV with the entire family around me and fire in the fire place. It was either Mr Hercule Poirot or Ms Marple who had gathered us there.
This family tradition is still alive and living strong with new members in it. A new generation has come to share our passion. I was happy to recruit a new member myself as my sweetie repeatedly asked to go downstairs and watch a Poirot movie to fill up our jet lag hours of the trip.
If you start your life with a happy childhood, later in life no matter how rough the times might be, you can escape to your happy childhood world that you once were given and that you might have spiced up with your own imagination. I don't know if this was how Agatha Christie saw it but this is how I see it.
