My Thesaurus is tired. I can feel it as I lift it from the table, the pages all autumn now and threatening a fall from the Binding tree. Undoubtedly there will be a new and upgraded version by now, because words are being daily introduced into the world of etymology. I don’t know when I bought it, yonks ago. Being a wordographer, a lexicographer since I was about five and very full of myself and my ability to show-off my newest words, ones that never got past my dad, but flew completely over the head of everyone else, including my ma, home life was a bumpy road. Just imagine that, being that mother with this upstart of a child. Must have been difficult. My voice was too pure, my confidence too out there. Being encouraged, as I was, by good teachers left me in a lonely world because at home I was just too out there, too sure, too much of a show-off. I get it now, but it still leaves the stain of spilled childhood on the garments of my adulthood, and, of course, as a result, I grew less confident, more absorbed in self-doubt, the inner questioning about whether or not (probably not) I would ever ‘fit in’ and it all grew loud enough to confound. I had clear memories. No, ‘they’ said, just remembles, the false memories of something. In came the mubblefuddles, the anticipation of something, everything, going wrong. I remember the falter, the doubts, the strong feeling that, no matter how well I showed off, I was, actually, invisible. Teenage years were ghastly, although I do know there were times of fun and inclusion and I can hear, if I really listen, myself laughing, really laughing without having to look around a group for any judgement.

So much tacenda, so many things to be passed over in silence; as if in acceptance, which it wasn’t in the main. I remember embarrassment, humiliation, rejection, judgement. And, bless me for this, those voices still ring. This is learning, I tell myself. I am not my past, I tell myself. I am not the girl/woman they saw, no. She is mine. I see her. I like her, love her with all her wordingness, her need to be seen, loving her chance to ‘show off’ but never to put another down, never that. Just me being me. I don’t need to hold the floor over others, don’t need to be better than another, don’t need to win at games, to be the best. It just isn’t in me. I just want, always did, to be the weirdo wordo that I am and to be allowed.

Many years ago, whilst living in Glasgow, when I wasn’t just me, we went to a well-known fish restaurant in Leith. On the river and well-established, this place was always booked up. We sat for a pre-dinner drink at the bar. The waiting staff were young and beautiful and very professional. the lights twinkled inside and out there, shining up the river in twinkles as the dark came down. An older woman walked in, my age now, but not then. I watched her, sassy at 70 and colourful, not hiding her wrinkles, not trying to be anything but herself. ‘Usual table?’ one delicious young waiter asked, smiling wide and proffering his arm. She dipped her head, yes thank you. He waltzed her to a small round and elevated table still in the bar and with a lovely view of the twinkly river and all who wandered by. She was so collected, so herself. I noticed, on her olding finger, a golden wedding ring, loose but there. She ordered a large glass of red and some water. Her clothes were cloth and colour, long and swirling. She seemed to have no problem being alone, but I did pick up a something lonely. Couldn’t explain it at the time, know it now. We were called through to the restaurant after that and I didn’t see her again, nor ask about her, but I do remember thinking this. If I ever get to that place of aloneness, I want to be like her, with welcomes and flirtatiously beautiful waiting staff who recognise and welcome, with a small table to yourself and with a view of others walking by and with the twinkles of uplit water just over there.