Life is not a straight line I have discovered and keep on discovering even as I forget my initial discovery. I wake thinking that I have learned it all only to discover I have not. That’s a load of discovery for two short sentences. When I realise these things, I am usually in a situation wherein there is no proffer of conversation, even if it were ever possible. I could be the mouse, scurrying, or the reader translating or the shopper buying something to stop my eyeballs falling beyond their seams and thus causing immense and innapropriate dilemmas all around me. Or, I could be buying a cabbage. I even have conversation around that. I have so many words in my head, so much desire for conversation beyond the ordinary. I want to learn about constellations and the majesty of the sky, about the way flowers grow and why they die; about the way trees work to support each other, about the way they grieve and they surely must grieve.

Last night I was in bed by 7pm. I did think a bit about those just heading out to the pub, for dinner somewhere, for dancing, for fun. I did. In fact I heard the cars drive past. As I climbed the stairs, as I noticed my climb, my tiredness, I did smile. I do remember nights out, dressing up, quite the fizzywiggle, the music, voices, nonsense and unpromises of a summer’s evening. And I smile at the memory. I loved them all.

I remember what it was like to be young and fluid. I loathed myself, hated my awful body and felt like a lump of concrete and in the way of everyone. I throw light on this. I see her, oh she was pretty, young, freckled, lumpy, badly behaved, with too much imagination, and an imagineer, a liar, a girl we just don’t want here. She meant nothing to me. I remember my yellow rose wallpapered bedroom, well lit, mine-ish, and all the hours spent there. Half a teenagedom. Not because my parents didn’t love me. There’s no because.

As I move dynamically through my olding years, missing most of the cut of conversations in the Cafe, I see new light. The dance and the flimflam of chat in the kitchen and the servery are so uplifting and inspiring that I find conversations about stars and wild things and new understandings, about AI and subterranean influences and about all that is hidden from us above ground. And I feel a sense of landing.

However I am still a Fizzywiggle. Just saying.