inferior convict stock
a depression child
i was a little girl, you know, i was five years old once. the world was very big and scary to my small brown eyes, terribly big and frightening. even when i was five years old i had a sense of my vulnerability. i had an oft-recurring dream in which i was in an immense room, so immense that i could not see the walls or ceiling, and everything in it was immense: everyday things, like beach balls, and tables and chairs, and toys, and even books. i was not scared of books in real life, but these books were terrifying - they were as large as a skyscraper, and the letters, typed in 'times new roman', were multiple times larger than i. only now do i know this dream was a reflection of my own insecurity. but how can a child of five feel such insecurity? i worried so often that i was not pleasing my parents, my sister, my friends, my extended family; i worried about my own mortality and had nightmares about the never-ending expanse of time after life - i could not imagine the universe going on without me in it, and the thought of that nothingness after life would fill my body with freezing shivers and i would often cry; i worried about the mortality of my family - i did not want to entertain the thought that one day my nanna peg and nanna and pa and mum and dad and sister would not be alive, but the thoughts entered my head at least once a day and i cried; i was only a little five year old and i never told a soul, not even now, how i was feeling because i didn't think anyone would listen, and if they did they would think it was silly and they would tell me i was just being silly and not to think about it, but how can i not think about it when it has been on my mind for twenty years?
i was not a loud child, i kept quiet, i read a lot of books by enid blyton and paul jennings and roald dahl and ann m. martin and lots of other different authors - i preferred to read over anything else. when i was reading i didn't have to talk to people, to think of good things to say, to worry that people would think i was silly or stupid or not funny or dumb or that i didn't have anything worth saying. 'the faraway tree' was the subject of my favourite stories - i had beautiful big picture book versions that i still have. enid blyton was my favourite author, though at that time i only read the faraway tree, wishing chair, the willow farm stories and the second st clare's story, but i read them over and over and over until i knew them off by heart. they had children in them, and they did ordinary things, like go to school, and walk in the park, and help their mothers, but these extra-ordinary things kept happening to them, and i always wished something like that would happen to me too. i would spend non-reading time in a world of my own, pretending i was in a beautiful fantasy land and just around the corner was a fairy-ring, or a nice wild man with an animal to show me, or a man with a round face waiting to take me up the tree so i could have a go on his slippery-dip. sleeping over at nanna peg's house, i would pretend i was in st clare's school, putting my belongings on the broad window-sill in the good room as if i was "sharing part of a shelf, putting her things there, and keeping them tidy, like her cake-tins and biscuit-tins, her sewing and knitting and the library book she's reading". nanna peg taught me how to cross-stitch and knit, and mum gave me a knitting wallet to keep my sewing in, and i felt very proud to put it on the shelf like a st clare's girl. i took that wallet everywhere with me, and would get my sewing out every time i could. i would also slip a book in there, just in case. still i take a book everywhere i go, just in case.
i was a little girl, you know, i was five years old once. the world was very big and scary to my small brown eyes, terribly big and frightening. even when i was five years old i had a sense of my vulnerability. i had an oft-recurring dream in which i was in an immense room, so immense that i could not see the walls or ceiling, and everything in it was immense: everyday things, like beach balls, and tables and chairs, and toys, and even books. i was not scared of books in real life, but these books were terrifying - they were as large as a skyscraper, and the letters, typed in 'times new roman', were multiple times larger than i. only now do i know this dream was a reflection of my own insecurity. but how can a child of five feel such insecurity? i worried so often that i was not pleasing my parents, my sister, my friends, my extended family; i worried about my own mortality and had nightmares about the never-ending expanse of time after life - i could not imagine the universe going on without me in it, and the thought of that nothingness after life would fill my body with freezing shivers and i would often cry; i worried about the mortality of my family - i did not want to entertain the thought that one day my nanna peg and nanna and pa and mum and dad and sister would not be alive, but the thoughts entered my head at least once a day and i cried; i was only a little five year old and i never told a soul, not even now, how i was feeling because i didn't think anyone would listen, and if they did they would think it was silly and they would tell me i was just being silly and not to think about it, but how can i not think about it when it has been on my mind for twenty years?
i was not a loud child, i kept quiet, i read a lot of books by enid blyton and paul jennings and roald dahl and ann m. martin and lots of other different authors - i preferred to read over anything else. when i was reading i didn't have to talk to people, to think of good things to say, to worry that people would think i was silly or stupid or not funny or dumb or that i didn't have anything worth saying. 'the faraway tree' was the subject of my favourite stories - i had beautiful big picture book versions that i still have. enid blyton was my favourite author, though at that time i only read the faraway tree, wishing chair, the willow farm stories and the second st clare's story, but i read them over and over and over until i knew them off by heart. they had children in them, and they did ordinary things, like go to school, and walk in the park, and help their mothers, but these extra-ordinary things kept happening to them, and i always wished something like that would happen to me too. i would spend non-reading time in a world of my own, pretending i was in a beautiful fantasy land and just around the corner was a fairy-ring, or a nice wild man with an animal to show me, or a man with a round face waiting to take me up the tree so i could have a go on his slippery-dip. sleeping over at nanna peg's house, i would pretend i was in st clare's school, putting my belongings on the broad window-sill in the good room as if i was "sharing part of a shelf, putting her things there, and keeping them tidy, like her cake-tins and biscuit-tins, her sewing and knitting and the library book she's reading". nanna peg taught me how to cross-stitch and knit, and mum gave me a knitting wallet to keep my sewing in, and i felt very proud to put it on the shelf like a st clare's girl. i took that wallet everywhere with me, and would get my sewing out every time i could. i would also slip a book in there, just in case. still i take a book everywhere i go, just in case.