Being Me

1. Your earworm is the tune from the Hovis advert. 2. When you yawn, the skin on your face takes an hour to regroup.  3. You know how to write a letter.  4. When you bend to tie a shoelace, you clean a skirting board while you're there. 5. You'd be upset if a Christmas hamper didn't contain tinned ham and brandy snaps.  6. Your diary is made from paper.  7. You take someone under 30 with you to buy a mobile phone.  8. You have curry powder on your nose after reading its ingredients. 9. Your pyjama bottoms are not shorts. 10. Telephones in your dreams have dials.  11. You have fourteen spectacles cases in the house. 12. When you spot yourself in a shop window, you think you're being followed. 13. You still think shit is a swearword.  14. You remember curries with sultanas in them.  15. You pile things on the bottom stair 'ready to go up' because you're not.  16. You still call it 'the world wide web'.  17. Your definition of high heels ...

I wrote this poem, which was published in MsLexia magazine, after seeing a news clip about an 88 year old lady. She had recently learned to read and had therefore discovered a whole new world of stories. You can see the news report by clicking on the link under the poem.  Once upon a time Once upon a time, all she could do was drift her hands along each silent spine or turn hieroglyph pages like a visitor lost in the streets of a foreign land, her forehead a frown of lines – a message of bewilderment she hoped others could not read.   Then, like whispers, or baby footsteps, or leaves dropping like scraps of tissue kissed by an infinitesimal breeze, shapes on pages birthed sounds on her lips - each day a new one, a tiny gift – and in her mind, dragons, heroines, castles, pirates, the sighs of reunited lovers.  Watch the news clip - have a tissue handy