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Text of the page (random words):
i did not want the phone lines engaged because some voices were so important to me he called me and played music for me for seven whole years every monday every friday every sunday if the parents were out and about the song was the same too the actual words are hazy now but it was a song about life changing forever because of love at a first glance it made me feel good on some days the song it made me feel beautiful and loved and desired on the days when high school maths and bad hair days and perceived affairs of the hearts had reduced me to tears i went from high school to university i got a degree i packed my bags and left he called and played the song whenever i went home for a few days i moved overseas and my mother gave me snippets about him over the years he graduated from college he took over his father s business he built a new house he got married somewhere along the way the calls stopped i still went home once a year i still saw him around the place but he didn t call not anymore that thing about growing up spares none of us we went to his new place for a house warming party when i visited my parents last year my daughter sat next to his children his wife and i discussed the weather his brothers spoke to me his mother insisted that i eat some more he was in the room all along i saw him and he saw me as we mingled but there had been too many phone calls and silent hours to let words ruin anything now my mother disappeared into the crowds with miss a in tow after lunch so did his family after twenty odd years of the silent communication there we were two grown ups finally face to face without a telephone in between your mother he said looking at me did she eat did she like the food that was all he said his eyes did not leave my face not once twenty years of looking away now bundled into one gaze i had never once acknowledged his feelings he had never once said anything he was young and so was i and yet here we were and now there was no music and there were no songs and so much of life and living had happened since yes i said that was all i said he smiled i think i smiled back then we finally ran out of things to say and it ended that day the little one sided love story that began many summers ago words man they end everything when we were young 08 feb 2013 4 comments by scarlettletters in life s little lessons miss a moments in time i was convinced i would grow stronger and invincible as an adult i believed the little things would not hurt me so much not any more i thought i would learn to separate the big battles from the small ones and the small battles from the not battles i thought fear would fade like a sketchy nightmare strong and unpleasant and then grey and wispy and then just a memory and yet when miss a announced her intentions to run for house captain at school i was a child again eager and trusting and full of impudent hope oscillating between those wretched twins of victory and failure not knowing and at once knowing sure and unsure proud and scared i helped her with the speech i got a teeny bit carried away when i asked her to stress on some of the words i talked strategies like how the year 3s were too little and probably would not understand nor care about her plans for house meetings how the year 5s would vote honestly how all good speeches needed humour and i talked dreams with her her the little child that once said tupsember instead of september when she said in her speech that everyone had something to contribute i nodded when she said that a house needed athletic people and painters and singers and maths wizards and good friends and great listeners i cheered i was captain of the blue house too i said to her a million times over another country and another time but it felt like i was passing the baton on that like recipes and family stories this was yet another thing we could share and then at night a sleepy face turned to me and said mum i have butterflies in my tummy and i may not even win you will i said and that all knowing adult inside of me said umm actually there is a chance she won t what if no one votes for me she asked they will i said and the adult laughed and whispered that children can be cruel and children can be whimsical and that children do not follow norms when it comes to choices what if i don t get even a single vote she asked again of course you will i said glad for the dark in the room because adults become children too when there is no light around and that voice inside me cold and clever reminded me that children fail oh yes they do because everyone does that is how life works that is how we grow and fall and walk and stumble and eventually get somewhere if you lose i said the words bitter and sharp in my mouth you just congratulate the people who do and get on with the hurt because nothing hurts forever and you will win so many other things sometimes it is okay to just try because only ridiculously brave people try even when they know there is failure involved i believed myself then i really did you have to be a grown up to understand some things i wouldn t have said these words as a child because i knew words like forever then now i know how transient everything is and it makes things easier as sad as that is you will dream a million dreams i told her after she had fallen asleep and so many of them will come true and so many of them won t but it won t matter miss a because you will dream a million dreams i did the dishes then and i went through her speech again and this song came on and my bubble burst and i sobbed for the little person who had a speech ready and a house chant and who did not think to ask anyone to vote for her because that would be like forcing them mum you do not see your children growing you miss the way their limbs grow and their faces change the way their baby lisp disappears overnight you get to see their horizons change though you see the scraped knees and the broken hearts and their stash of hopes and you know that they will open the door soon and go chasing things in the clouds that growing up and adulthood is here and that there are lessons around the corner i kissed her and told her that she was wonderful and brave and awesome the next day when we arrived at school i told her she would do so well oh so well and that i was so so proud of her and then i tried not to tear up as i waited in the car while she walked to her classroom her speech cue cards in her hand i had butterflies in my stomach when i went to pick her up at 4 00 pm i only looked at the clock a few thousand times throughout the day i practiced my well done i bet you were great and i love you and it does not matter in a daisy chain all the way in the car and then when she shrieked and said i got it mum i won i forgot to hold my breath and i started to breathe again i did not cry this time though there was a knot in my throat i wiped my eyes when she said she had walked over to the others and given them hugs and said they had done a great job too and later that night still in the dark just before falling asleep she said i was not afraid mum i saw the big girls with their head of the school speeches and i realised that this was just one milestone out of many i knew that if i lost today i could win other things that is when my voice gave away there was no use pretending anymore her childhood and mine were both getting wispy there was so much to do and so many bends in the road and so many horizons ahead you don t cry because your child is growing up you cry on days like this because you realise that once your child grows up the last links to your own childhood become obsolete too you cry because you realise time does rush by that it changes all of it life and age and everything you knew and there is not a damned thing you can do and yet there is much wonder in the years ahead so many milestones some which we will meet some which we will miss a million dreams missed and not missed but most importantly a million dreams the things time cannot steal from us not permanent 31 jan 2013 5 comments by scarlettletters in childhood memories homes and nations places uncategorized my parents have repainted the house that i grew up in the walls are so pristine now they do not flaunt the staunch tattoos of another time pen scribbles and cello tape marks scuffs and chips from things that moved around in another time the furniture is mostly new too my old desk was handed down to my cousin the old dining table is with an uncle there are things that were there when i was around of course there are the kitchen table has marks from when i left a burning candle without a holder the dressing table in my room still has the old box with cards and gifts from those i once used to speak to every single day a bit of the old and the new in every room like my parents and miss a who i once was who i am now bits and pieces cobbled together to make a person the garden it is overgrown in some parts and bare in others there was a swing here i tell miss a and a garden bed here and roses over there i spent years playing hopscotch around the pathways and i used to chat into the evening with the best friend she is gone too now but i did get to meet her we sat on the same step after all those calendar pages we talked of the same things we did when we were younger and when the world was this strange place down the highway she went home after that and as i waved goodbye i knew i was not staying either homes are not permanent only the times spent there are that is the way it is for most things in life but why would childhood teach you such a harsh lesson my parents still talk about the day in the early hours of dawn outside the sky is black but a bit of pink is creeping in from underneath the doors a bit of light is pushing against the curtains they talk about the day that is yet to be and the day that has since been about the hibiscus in the gardens and the coconuts that need to be stored in the spare crates about how the old water tank will need a new pump set soon the winter outside their window and how two quilts aren t enough because the weather forecast was wrong yet again they complain of how the new teapots these a days have bent handles and how they need to stock up on some kind of light bulbs about the squirrels raising a ruckus in the garden and the back tiles that need scrubbing it is a soft muffle their voices laced with sleep in the early hours of an incorrectly forecast winter morning then they switch topics and talk of politics and cricket and mull over election results in some far flung north eastern state the tea boils over in the meanwhile in the teapot with the bent handle and the cups go clink a clink there is a scraping sound as the biscuit tin is opened and the door to my darkened childhood room opens just a little bit do you want tea they whisper it is cold outside it is 5 am i grumble and disappear under the blankets i could get you tea here my mother says you could go back to bed after you drink it i am in bed i say and i don t want the tea this has not changed this bit we have had this dialogue for years she walks away closing the door behind her and suddenly i want the tea but then sleep blessed and warm beckons and it remains unsaid and discarded this morning wish tomorrow i tell myself tomorrow is when i shall say yes to the tea like so many childhood things like so many grand plans that never make it to the cusp of the day that tomorrow slips away too some things are meant to be done later some things come postmarked with a future date the garden is sleepy and agreeable in the afternoon the air is woody and has a tang it it smells of the cold in the way only my hometown does it is heavy with the memories of a thousand past afternoons the winter sun is at once plump and meagre a marvellous contradiction of sunlight i fall asleep on the swing this time and the road it stays quiet like it did when i was a child here a bird chirps a tap drips a door bangs three houses down i fall into a dreamless sleep because when you are home and safe you do not need any other visions somewhere in the middle of the nap i wake up to find myself covered with a blanket dregs of sleep in my eyes the street still a quiet child waiting to be given the go ahead to talk again do you want tea my mother asks she has i suspect been staring at me all along waiting for me to wake up yes i say and her face lights up she brings me a cup almost immediately and we drink tea on the porch me on the swing still under the blanket she on the side chair occasionally the swing bumps into her chair there is nothing else to do on afternoons like this and so we say little and yet there is such a crowding of memories a week later i pack my bags and miss a s and we cry a little bit on that same swing there is so much to say when you part for a while there are so many incomplete stories that beg to be finished when you open the gate to leave instead i joke about the garden and i fuss over the luggage i try to pretend i am not leaving the house behind it knows though it has seen my pattern over the years so i crane my neck and try to gather in the walls the jasmine creepers the errant hibiscus the mango trees the faithful swing the neighbours with wet eyes and wrinkled palms they all wave back they do not break eye contact with me it knows like i said the house it knows that i will go past the bend in the road and not be back just yet my heart sags my throat hurts and i do not dare speak if they had told me that goodbye was an essential word in the vocabulary of grown ups i would have asked the house to hide me in one of its many forgiving nooks i would have created a tree house in the old branches i would have parked inside a tent under the beds but i am gone now and the house has stayed behind and one day i shall see it again but that day is not today there were so many days in my childhood when i wanted to grow up and do things big people things adult things things that extended beyond the fence and the rusty gate someone opened the gate and it cannot be shut again i think my childhood escaped when i was growing up and i did not even notice and now i have a key and i can go where i want to but that damned damned key i cannot lose it even if i want to homes not permanent time permanent the twitch in my heart eternal hope 29 dec 2012 1 comment by scarlettletters in homes and nations moments in time tags crime hope indian rape victim i didn t know her neither did most of us and now we never will she could have been my friend or yours she could have been your neighbour or your aunt s neighbour the girl you saw on the bus one busy morning she could have been the friend of the bride at a wedding next year she could have been the person behind you in the queue at the markets the person who ordered ice cream at the restaurant while you placed your order she could have been so many things she could have been alive every mundane choice th...