I woke up at 04.00hrs this morning after a disturbing dream, borderline nightmare; about my late mother. My mother and I were so different in so many ways, but there is no getting away from the fact that she left her genes on my face. The older I get, it becomes more evident and I’m constantly scaring myself when I look in the mirror first thing in the morning. A bit like Freaky Friday, or freakier, because I can never morph back into my younger self.
Back to my dream and my mother. I don’t think she read any of my literary contributions since I had poetry published, aged eleven and she had high hopes that I would become Gloucestershire’s answer to William Wordsworth. Oh, and helping my step-father piece together his aeronautical autobiography, of course.
It might be something to do with my decision to write under the pseudonym, Tessa Barrie, when I was nineteen because I didn’t want her to find out it was me writing the avant-garde contributions in the local rag. She would not have approved.
In my dream, my mother read some of my current work-in-progress and described my writing as having a basic organic charm. Something I can’t image my mother saying about anything but, you know what Mum… I take that.
