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Hi.
I am visiting my parents who are now distant from home and feel further away than ever as they age, but we are still close. As an opportunist and whilst they are out I do something that I haven't done for possibly thirty years, I look into my mother's wardobe.. Don't be alarmed, no Vera Batty moments (foreign users please excuse my regional references) because I was only on the hunt for one garment, that Sixties black dress that I first wore in the late seventies. I can remember the silk lining and its embroidered texture, it was quite a firm material, shaped and I recall the difficulties of doing up the rear zip and the effervescent tingling sensations running cursing through me as I was re-shaped, awoken and stimulated by the messages that it sent me. It was of course not there when I looked, but I suspect that it may still be stored away, in the attic in a musty box of memories. I think it was a special dress for my Mum, and I suspect that if she were aware that it were my first dress, then it would be even more important too.
I also drove to my old school today. It was a little tired and of course smaller than I remembered - in the manner that everything shrinks as you accumulate a lifetime of experience. Moments spent there have flickered through my head throughout the day. I was a popular and having 'finished' with a girlfriend in lower sixth momentarily became a prospective 'catch' just when sexual opportunities were first upon the horizon. Ignorant and perhaps slightly bemused by the messages my brain was sending my hormones - and in no way as well informed as a contemporary web educated teenager is, I recall being asked by a prospective suitor, 'Are you Gay?'. Sensitive, artistic male souls were in short supply in sports mad South Wales at this time so my detachment from the marauding scrum must have marked me out as being different. 'No, I'm not!' I responded, before failing to confirm my sentence with the statement, 'But I want to be a girl'.
Always there, never spoken..
Kids today are so fortunate to have the information that the twenty-first century makes available, because that means that their parents are also more informed too.
Ultimately she caught me of course, my Mum; lipstick and make-up in the bathroom. If I were to tell her all now I suspect that she'd be the one caught out, but if that black dress were in the attic I'm also certain that she'd let me have it.
Rachel x
