Frippery and Foolishness

Unlike the ladies of Wilde and Murakami, I clutch and covet my early memories, which seem a little sparse up until my fifth year.

My earliest memory involves an aborted attempt at escapism that I remember clearly; alone in my cot at night, watching the moon through bars that rapidly evolved from protective warden to hated gaoler. I remember reaching out towards the moon, and the dark shadow of my hand encircled by its silver glow; and I remember how the bar along the side of the cot hurt my belly as I leaned over the edge, clinging to it.

And then I remember falling out, heels over head, breaking my ankle.

In retrospect, I suspect this may have had something to do with having watched Disney’s ‘All Dogs Go To Heaven’, but I’m not quite sure; the release date seems to coincide. When I look back I see a pattern emerge; I can see the vast majority of the more memorable mishaps of my life are inexplicably linked to the works of Walt Disney. After watching ‘Cinderella’, I tried to catch a mouse in the cupboard under the stairs and was bitten; which resulted in a panicky trip to the doctors for various jabs of all descriptions. In the same week I won for myself a concussion trying to roll down the staircase on a piece of cut-off carpet, after watching ‘Hook’. Not long after, I fell out of a tree trying to mimic Mowgli from the ‘Jungle Book’; the Universal rating just wasn’t designed to safeguard children with no idea of What’s Safe To Do.

Yet I personally consider some of these things fortunate events, an opinion shared by few others and certainly not my mother. As a result, I’ve never been afraid of mice- a lucky trait growing up in an old house filled with mice and frequent visits from a hilariously phobic Grandmother. I’m also still capable of climbing a tree- another lucky trait in a house filled with marauding cats.

Cut to a few years later, when I was, even by my own slightly special standards, more than old enough to know better. I broke my ankle once again, along with my left wrist when I fell off the garage roof- I’d planned to jump off but I lost my nerve at the last moment, having never had much of a head for heights. Why was I on the roof? To see if I could fly. But of course! Hesitating on the edge of the roof I fell; much to vexation and distress of my careworn babysitter. It’s rare that a Disney film- ‘Peter Pan’, in this instance- doesn’t lead to a somewhat foolish action on my part.

Age eight; my playground boyfriend split my lip open as we tried for a ‘Lady and the Tramp’ moment one day at lunch. Neither of us being willing to relinquish the last inch of spaghetti, he bit my lip and once again I was scolded and carted off to A & E. I still have a teeny tiny scar from this, yet without it I suspect he’d attempt to disguise his former lack of suavity, through the time-honoured medium of straight-faced denial.

And he's something of an expert now.

Last year, the same boy accompanied me to the cinema, where we watched the latest Disney release, ‘Lilo and Stitch’. I cried, he cried. “Too much to hope for,” I thought; no one has ever passed the does-he-cry-at-the-same-time-as-me-during-a-movie test before. Thrilled, I left the movie theatre practically skipping for joy; when the left heel of my new shoes broke and I ended up in A & E yet again with a broken wrist.

I haven’t seen the new Disney film yet, but I hear it’s great.

I can’t wait.