Kay Sera

June 23^rd #21

Tonight I wonder about what you will be. And how much you already are. How much influence we will have and which bits are set in stone, if any. I have no lessons for you today. Just questions and I guess these are the questions my parents asked and their parents and all of our ancestors way back until maybe the time we lived in caves. 

When I was younger and I was ill, if I ran a temperature, I would get delirious. It's a very hard thing to explain. Apparently my mum did it too. When it happened to her, my granddad said he was going to count back from five or ten and flick his fingers and tell her that she'd wake up. And she did.

Unfortunately I was told this before anyone tried it on me so it never worked. Maybe it wouldn't have worked anyway. The doctors said it was because I had an overactive imagination. I don't think they really knew or understood.

It felt a bit like being awake and asleep at the same time. It felt like perspective shifted. So I could see the ceiling and the walls but they weren't solid. They seemed to shoot back and there was nothing behind them. Not an emptiness, not a blackness, there was simply an absence, a gap behind where things should be. 

I used to ask my mum and dad to tuck me in tight. I don't think they ever really knew why. I didn't know how to explain it. I think it was because if the sheets were tight to me, the walls and ceiling couldn't disappear. Or wouldn't. But they did. Once I remember putting my hand on my dad's knee and just feeling bone. 

I had this wallpaper in my bedroom and it had a texture on it. If you stared at it long enough, the bits that stuck out went in and the bits that went in stuck out. It's something to do with how you focus your eyes. There was a big craze of 'magic eye' paintings when I was at university and it was a bit like doing that.

The most vivid episode I remember was being in two places at once. I was at home on the settee, sweating, and I was in a cave. And I was saying, “I want my other mum.” And to this day I don't know if was talking to the woman in the cave or your grandma. 

I'm not trying to scare you my little wonder (actually I wrote little one here, your mum disturbed me to remove a spider and when I can back it said wonder and I kind of like that so it's staying) It just makes me wonder, if when you're sick, you'll be like me and your grandma, Part of me hopes not. 

Me and your mum, we wonder if you'll be smart. If you'll be arty or mathematical. I'm hopeless at maths, numbers make no sense to me. Your mum's more mathematical than I am, as is your granddad. We wonder whether you will have hayfever or bad skin. Me and your mum both suffer with bad skin so you might be in trouble there. Sorry about that.

We wonder if you'll be friendly or shy and if we have any control over that. Whether you'll be confident. Whether you'll be right or left handed. Whether you'll be one of those people who skate through life or whether it'll be a puzzle for you. Whether you'll be a boy or a girl. We still don't know at the moment. That might be weird for you to read, because to you, you always were but right now, you could be either.

We wonder who you'll look like: me, your mum or the milkman? (That's a dad joke. Apparently I have to practice those). What kind of hair you'll have. What your completion will be. Really none of these things actually matter. It is a strange thing to think about though. 

I think most of all we just hope you'll be happy. And you'll feel warm and safe and loved. We'll do our best to give you that. The rest we suppose is up to you. And we hope you enjoy finding all these things out and telling us about them. (Maybe in a few less words than your mum, because when she wants to talk, she can go on a bit. But maybe that's just a woman thing.) 

You'll be seventeen weeks tomorrow. You're nearly half way to meeting us for real. Sleep tight my little one.