A Curious Girl: My inner child is keeping me awake

*sigh* I can't sleep, my head's full of memories. I meant to make this a deeply poetic entry but it'll probably come out as a string of garbled thoughts... Maybe I can make it both :)

When I was much much younger, I had a quilt cover that was rainbow patterned - blue sky, fluffy clouds, and rainbows all over it. Even when I think of that room now, I imagine sitting in it feeling utterly safe. The walls were light blue, sky blue on a sunny day, with a band around the middle with more rainbow patterns. The lightshade was spherical, blue with rainbows. And the curtains were 'Willo the Wisp' patterned. I loved Willo the Wisp. You have to love Evil Edna if no-one else.

(I just found a Willo the Wisp website. I can't believe how much Willo the Wisp looks like Kenneth Williams - who voiced it, of course. No wonder I like him in all the Carry On films so much.)

There was something wonderfully peaceful about the whole room. I remember one Saturday morning I lay awake running my finger over the rainbows on the quilt and singing 'I have seen the Golden Sunshine' (my favourite song at school, and I find it amusing that I actually agree with it now...). Not feeling like I had to get up. My cuddly toys used to sit at the end of my bed - I got some serious guilt pangs wondering where they are now. I don't mind about the Allders toys that were so obviously mass-produced, and given to you with a ready-made personality in tow, but I wonder where Cyril, a large-ish fluffy white bear, is now, and I'm glad I still have Eleanor (who looks old and battered and used to be my favourite bear of all because she was my Mum's)... Silly to be pining over them, but that's teddy bears for you :)

I think the perfect cuddly toy is one that comes to a child as a surprise present, or, like Eleanor, a bear that's always been and seems immortal. It has to be huggable, and it shouldn't be pretty. Maybe I was getting too old for it by that time, but I once received a gorgeous teddy bear called 'Mama Honeypot' or something, pristine with a pretty dress on. You're afraid to lug around a teddy like that. The teddy's got to stay loveable after its fur has been loved off it, like my cousin Tim who is five years old, and has a polar bear that is practically bald and had to be patched up - he still loves it. He must have had it several years now. Yes, it's sort of cute to have a cuddly with squeaky things and a name tag saying 'My name is Boris and I lived with my family of polar bears in the Arctic eating migrating penguins until I decided to become your friend' but the best sort of teddy is one that comes to you anonymous, so you don't get the feeling that it has lead a happy cheerful life without you already. I think kids would much rather have a teddy that looked worn and had a card saying, 'I'm lonely, will you be my friend?' Sure, I liked my posher toys but they were the first to go when I was clearing out.

Whenever I got a new toy, I would introduce it to all the other toys. Actually this got boring after a while, which is good because I don't know how I would have explained, 'Toys, this is Barbie and this is also Barbie.'

In the old house, my Grandma originally had the master bedroom, Mum the back bedroom, and me the front. I liked the front because you could look out and see people walking past, and I could even yell down to my friends if they were walking by. I liked to hide in my wardrobe sometimes, too, or under the bed. I once got a cat-shaped eraser and named it Waterpistol. (I once told this story to Christina, and it being the first time I'd ever told it in person, for some reason it cracked me up so hard I started to cry with laughter... Waterpistol was a superhero. He even had his own theme song. Once I took him to a restaurant with me and insisted on 'feeding' him bread. Mum told me off for being silly but later when I got a cuddly duck I was practically encouraged to feed it bits of bread and talk to it in a soppy voice. Adults are weird :) )

After Grandma moved out, Mum took the master bedroom and the back bedroom was empty. Sometimes I would go sleep in there, and I liked it because it was full of Autumn colours (yellows and browns) and because it felt like a guest room, and also because you could see the lilac tree in the garden, and hear trains go past. Eventually I made it my room... spoilt little brat I was :) I'm thinking 'Dudley Dursley'... And I totally filled it with junk. I'm talented like that. I'm just trying to remember where I put my clothes, because the drawers were full of toys.

I remember reading a lot. I remember reading the Children's Bible just because I found it interesting. Once I was meant to do my reading for school but I was reading the stories of Jesus instead, not because I was a cute little Christian child, but because I enjoyed them. My planned excuse was, 'I was reading God's book.' The worrying thing is, I think that if I told my teacher, 'I didn't do my reading, I was reading God's book', I would have got away with it. Even then I knew it was just a twee little excuse, which is embarrassingly amusing in light of the fact that I actually believe and cherish those stories now but would never use that kind of excuse. (Sorry I couldn't do my homework - I was at church.)

And I'm a little sad that I don't have all those things I remember any more. On the other hand, I think I have enough. I have my elephant bookends, which Mum says I inherited because they were originally Grandma's (I think...) but I'm allowed to keep them now. They're only wooden bookends shaped like elephants, but I love them so much. And I have Eleanor, and the first teddy Mum gave me which never got a name because I was too young to give it one. I have an ancient badge collection, and some postcards from all over, and ornaments that were originally in my rainbow bedroom.

And I still have my memories. I'm very lucky in that I only have a few memories of childhood that I consider truly unhappy, and they're not serious. One is from when I was five - it was Father's Day and for the first time in my life, I was aware that I didn't have one. Oddly enough, I can't remember how I felt when my Mum had a boyfriend to whom she was engaged, briefly, before he wrote and told her he didn't want to get married after all. It was just surreal. But the whole thing was surreal, I'd got really attached to him and even called him 'Daddy'. All of that was false. I don't remember feeling upset - cheated, maybe. And now she's married to Clive, who adopted me and although he's legally my father and has been since I was fifteen, it took me until last week to address him as 'Dad' (I didn't even think he noticed it until he mentioned the day after :) ). Even though I often refer to him as 'my dad', I usually call him Clive. Strange world, huh?

But the whole fathers issue is an annoyingly complicated one I don't want to discuss right now.

So... memories... it's still quite an effort to think of myself as an adult. I've been a child for most of my life and I've not even finished maturing yet. And whilst I'm excited about the future, I practically can't wait to get out there and be an adult, I want to remember the childlike joy in new things, what it feels like to paint pictures (I painted one a couple of days ago, actually - it was a picture of Frank :) Actually it wasn't just the crazed act of a suddenly obsessive horticulturalist, honestly, I just wanted to remember what my seed had produced... when I'd been afraid that it wouldn't grow or it would die. I want to find an inspiring Bible verse to put on it now.) I want to remember the kind of weird imagination I had that wasn't hampered by thoughts of what everyone else would like, that led me to write invitations for an Easter party to all my toys and the Easter bunny. Just for my own amusement. And it always amuses me that my twin cousins Jenny and Sam (six years old!) like to bounce on my lap to a song that someone once bounced me to.

I wouldn't like to be zapped back to a seven year old right now, really I wouldn't. But I like to visit Jenny, Sam and Tim, and borrow a bit of their childhood for a while. There's a bit of me that will always be a child - a mini Peter Pan, you might say :) And there are some things from childhood that you should never throw away.

Random word for today:

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