“Daddy” says my daughter, coming up behind the sofa and leaning over towards me. “Can I have a piece of paper please?”
I give her a sheet and she goes away to her room.
A little later she re-appears and hands the paper back saying “Look, I’ve done this for my friend.”
I take it and find in amazement that it is filled with writing. Something strange has happened recently: my daughter now reads to me the books I used to read to her. She trips through the words using the same intonations I used to. And then there’s the writing. Some of the words are familiar, others not. But it’s undeniably writing.
It says:
I’ve got 46 stickers I countid them on Tuesday 2009 17th the 17.03.09 March. Yor my best frend. I hoap you have a sooper holoday and Il tri and get my mummy to have a play date
Love from Xxxxx
I congratulate her on her efforts. She smiles broadly back, but suddenly I don’t see the straight-backed girl with fraying pigtails and biscuity mouth in front of me. Instead I see the baby I fed with milk from a tiny bottle and rocked to sleep in an attic bedroom five years earlier. I can’t remember any of the countless tiny moments in between and I can’t begin to understand how the change has happened.
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
Reality TV #2
It’s dark outside; inside the windows are laced with moisture and the radiators are groaning with the effort of heating the space around them. I am sitting on the sofa with my computer on my lap. Although I no longer go to an office I still have to get up early to work. Sometimes when I tiptoe downstairs a floorboard creaks and my daughter squeaks and half-awakes from dreams of princesses and monsters.
Between key-taps I watch a man and a woman in the glow of the television. Like me, they are sitting on a sofa. They repeat smiling interviews with uncomfortable guests over the course of the morning. The talk is of strikes, economic crisis, financial bail-outs. Then there is a feature about shoppers, then a weather forecaster standing in a snowy garden.
My daughter comes downstairs and heads over to where I’m sitting. I say hello and she sits down against the arm of the sofa with her thumb in her mouth. I switch over to a children’s channel and bright cartoon figures jump from the screen.
I am poring over my computer, tapping and flicking my eyeline up towards the screen every so often to see what I’ve written. I change a spelling here and there, red lines underscore words the computer doesn’t understand. My daughter narrates the plot of the programme she is watching but I am only half-paying attention, grumpily grunting as I scour the financial world for interest. The figures at the bottom of my screen tell me my deadline is fast approaching. Suddenly my daughter’s voice drops and I look up.
“Daddy… you’re not even listening to me.” She reproaches me tearfully.
I look at her, my fingers poised over the keyboard, images of financial ruin on the computer screen. And I realise, suddenly, that it’s not important. The world my daughter lives in: the cartoons, the good-natured babble – that’s the important one.
I lean over, give her a kiss and put my arm around her.
“Ok” I say, looking at the television “Tell me what’s happening”.
Between key-taps I watch a man and a woman in the glow of the television. Like me, they are sitting on a sofa. They repeat smiling interviews with uncomfortable guests over the course of the morning. The talk is of strikes, economic crisis, financial bail-outs. Then there is a feature about shoppers, then a weather forecaster standing in a snowy garden.
My daughter comes downstairs and heads over to where I’m sitting. I say hello and she sits down against the arm of the sofa with her thumb in her mouth. I switch over to a children’s channel and bright cartoon figures jump from the screen.
I am poring over my computer, tapping and flicking my eyeline up towards the screen every so often to see what I’ve written. I change a spelling here and there, red lines underscore words the computer doesn’t understand. My daughter narrates the plot of the programme she is watching but I am only half-paying attention, grumpily grunting as I scour the financial world for interest. The figures at the bottom of my screen tell me my deadline is fast approaching. Suddenly my daughter’s voice drops and I look up.
“Daddy… you’re not even listening to me.” She reproaches me tearfully.
I look at her, my fingers poised over the keyboard, images of financial ruin on the computer screen. And I realise, suddenly, that it’s not important. The world my daughter lives in: the cartoons, the good-natured babble – that’s the important one.
I lean over, give her a kiss and put my arm around her.
“Ok” I say, looking at the television “Tell me what’s happening”.
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