I was born a fantasist.
I had dolls, a wendy house, a girls world head, the usual
girl things. My favorite games were imaginary games, without the paraphernalia
of plastic toys. I played with another girl, we played schools. We played at
being teachers: both of us. We would meet in the staff room and write out “cheques”
for our lunch (these were paying in-slips taken from the Post Office) we would
walk into one-another’s “class rooms” armed with imaginary photocopies of the
sort of things teachers need to photocopy. I am a teacher. And as it turns out
so is she.
I conducted wedding ceremonies. I am not a registrar or a
priest. I married two teddies. I married Sindy to Action Man. I was always
going to get married. Many of us will I guess. My friend did. I used to drag
the net curtain over my face and look in the mirror imagining. Like the girls
on My Big Fat Gipsy Wedding I designed my dress again and again. I planned the
whole thing, long before I found someone to marry. I got married. My friends
asked “How does it feel to be a married woman?” and I said “The same.” Because it
did, for a bit and now I see how things changed.
I watch my son with lego and think he will be an
engineer. I inspect his drawings; he will be a civil engineer. He makes things
from toilet roll tubes and sellotape: he will be an inventor. I see him in
Minecraft with redstone he will be an electrical engineer. He got a teachers award
for his creative writing: he will be a writer.
I imagined I was a writer and thought writers thoughts, I
had ideas, and inspirations. I learned to touch type, to pace the room searching
for the right word, to carry note books, to write down dreams, to work at
poetry and to find my writers voice. I think I found it. It changes. It will
continue to change as things must now that I am an author.
