LIVING
LIVING
NOVEMBER 2010
WHAT HAVE I JUST WRITTEN?
I am obviously getting older;
my children constantly remind me and they are NEVER economical
with the truth. “Your hair is too white at the front.” “My
friends think dad is my granddad.” “The boy at the supermarket
told me that my grandma shopped today.”
“OK! Enough is enough!” I
retort. “So my hair is white at the front; it isn’t white
anywhere else and I actually think it looks blonde…and don’t
forget that we actually lived in middle class north London when
all three of you were conceived; an area where the average age
of the first-time mother is about 32 years, compared to Aegina
where, judging by the look of most mothers, the average age of
first-time mothers is about twenty. So yes, I am friendly with
your friends’ grandmothers!”
That aside though, what does
bother me is the amnesia which creeps up like a malignant weed.
Take for example my older son’s passport. He needed it to travel
to England. I saw it one day in the office, tucked inside a
yellow folder with the word PASSPORT written on the front. Hell,
that will get lost; I thought if it isn’t put back in the index
box where it normally lives. I saw it again, this time in a
plastic wallet, the ones which have holes down one side. I think
I might have picked it up and brought it home with the intention
of placing it in the index box...but I didn’t! Perhaps I dreamt
that I slipped it inside a book or maybe I was just hoping too
much that I had hidden it inside a game...and we all spent a
whole week looking for it! It is possibly re-cycled with the
paper rubbish or perhaps one day, in years to come, someone will
be sorting through a cupboard or will have thrown out a pile of
games and jigsaw puzzles, only to come across a passport and
that person will think, hell, that’s a funny place to put a
passport!
The same son left a pair of
expensive sunglasses in our friend’s London home which he
conveniently remembered when we were on the M6. I recovered them
when I returned to London and I successfully brought them to
Aegina where I slipped them in a soft green glasses case for
safe keeping. Can I find them? No way!!! So I have resorted to
screaming at my younger two that ONE of them has taken those
glasses and lost them. “YOU have probably lost them. You are
getting old and you lose everything.” they say, as tactlessly as
possible. Perhaps they have a point. My favourite necklace, an
antique 1920s silver deco chain from which hangs a huge sphere
of the richest golden amber, genuine amber, full of insects and
plant parts which glows like a flame, even in the dullest light…..last
seen in my hand. I was chatting to someone whilst simultaneously
thinking, I must put this in my jewellery box or I’ll lose it. I
CAN’T FIND IT!!!
It doesn’t matter where we
live, whether it is in affluent north London, a congenial market
town or a Greek island, something like age cannot be avoided. We
can learn a new language and culture and even re-invent
ourselves but that weed of amnesia can affect the sharpest of
minds. Now, where did I put my handbag?
Alison Lorentzos
copyright 2010
