Evidence that Fran has in fact learned things as she's got older
Things I have realised about five ten twenty thirty years later than I should have.
1. That 'Frances can be verbose' wasn't a compliment. A Junior School teacher wrote it on my school report and until I was thirty-nine I thought it meant 'good with words'.*
2. That the secret of looking confident is usually just that. Looking it. And most people don't get past that stage, and still manage.
3. That other people don't always appreciate you singing along, so my Granny was right to clamp her hand over my mouth in 1972 when she took me to see 'The Sound of Music' and I was screeching 'Climb Every Mountain'.
4. That in the middle of the night, a classroom seating plan or a phone call to a difficult relative is a Massive Issue, but at nine in the morning, can be calmed with marmalade on toast.
5. That the friend's mother who said I had a 'silly little face' in the 1980s wasn't exactly an oil painting herself ...
6. That people who can't sew, demonstrated by having made a pair of flares at school in 1976 which turned out as jodhpurs because the legs were the wrong way up, should delegate their sewing to other people and just be cool with it.
7. That a creative oeuvre comprising hundreds of teenage angst-filled poems should not be stuffed in a bin at the age of eighteen in an attempt to prove oneself a grown-up.
8. That colours which match youthful skin tones can make an older skin look as though jaundice - or death - has taken hold.
9. That if you're under eighteen, all adults are forty-five or older.
10. That tears when you're upset or angry shouldn't be resisted, because otherwise they turn into big stones called Despair and Resentment in your upper chest which hang on in there, their arms folded, until allowed out.
* I know. I know. I see the irony, too. Bitter, bitter irony.
1. That 'Frances can be verbose' wasn't a compliment. A Junior School teacher wrote it on my school report and until I was thirty-nine I thought it meant 'good with words'.*
2. That the secret of looking confident is usually just that. Looking it. And most people don't get past that stage, and still manage.
3. That other people don't always appreciate you singing along, so my Granny was right to clamp her hand over my mouth in 1972 when she took me to see 'The Sound of Music' and I was screeching 'Climb Every Mountain'.
4. That in the middle of the night, a classroom seating plan or a phone call to a difficult relative is a Massive Issue, but at nine in the morning, can be calmed with marmalade on toast.
5. That the friend's mother who said I had a 'silly little face' in the 1980s wasn't exactly an oil painting herself ...
 |
| .... unless it was THIS oil painting. |
6. That people who can't sew, demonstrated by having made a pair of flares at school in 1976 which turned out as jodhpurs because the legs were the wrong way up, should delegate their sewing to other people and just be cool with it.
7. That a creative oeuvre comprising hundreds of teenage angst-filled poems should not be stuffed in a bin at the age of eighteen in an attempt to prove oneself a grown-up.
8. That colours which match youthful skin tones can make an older skin look as though jaundice - or death - has taken hold.
9. That if you're under eighteen, all adults are forty-five or older.
10. That tears when you're upset or angry shouldn't be resisted, because otherwise they turn into big stones called Despair and Resentment in your upper chest which hang on in there, their arms folded, until allowed out.
* I know. I know. I see the irony, too. Bitter, bitter irony.
If you're 45 or older, everyone younger than you looks 18. About 20 years is kaleidoscoped.
ReplyDeleteAh, yes. That too. That too.
DeleteOne of my biggest pet peeves is people who individually and unbidden sing along at concerts, especially if I paid a lot of money for the tickets to hear the PROFESSIONAL sing.
ReplyDeleteI will bear this in mind ....
DeleteThey especially don't appreciate it when you join in singing at an opera!!
DeleteI'd have loved to meet the 11 year-old you !
ReplyDeleteAnd, from the sound of it, my Junior School teacher would have been happy to release me from lessons so that we could meet ...
DeleteWise pickings here - especially the confidence thing. If you'd told me at, um, fifty plus I'd still be playing that game I wouldn't have believed you. Looking confident is a hugely underrated life skill. Great post Mrs H.
ReplyDeleteI think I've only learned this in the past year. It would have helped me a LOT if I'd known it during my short career as a stand-up comedian ...
Delete#2, I got away with that one for years.
ReplyDeleteMe too! And still doing it ....
DeleteThe friend's mother who MADE me eat up my liver & mashed potato ignoring my protest of, " I'll be sick " really should have listened to me..... I was sick ALL night & she had to deal with it !
ReplyDeleteI think you got justice there ...
Delete