Writer's Journal (exercise): That's Me

I look at the photo and smile fondly. Was I ever that 4-year-old with the wide-eyed look of wonder? A serious face. A pretty face too, though I never thought of myself as pretty. My Mum had done me up for this portrait, my ringlets carefully combed, my best dress on. It was blue, though the photo is black and white. I inherited this blow-up in the gold frame when Mum died; she kept it always. I decided to put it up in the new home, when we were hanging the sketch my artist friend Jennifer did of me in my artist’s modelling days. Being my friend, she was much more interested in my face and expression than in the body. I came across the photo and thought they made a nice pair — the sketch is contemplative and serious too. Actually I was mentally writing a poem that session, I remember well. It was boring lying there, I had to think of something. The poem was called Mosaic and I was and am quite pleased with it. Did I ever publish that one? I think I did. So many poems, so many publications, hard now to remember them all, and now that I’m so prolific in my old age, harder still. Doesn’t matter anyway — expression matters, communication matters, keeping score doesn’t.

That’s me, waxing philosophical at the best of times. Not my brother’s brand of philosophy*, more like taking a philosophical attitude, which means something more like making the best of things, cracking hardy, and so forth (I think). I tried the academic kind of philosophy, even majored in it, but I get fed up with it now.

* My brother is a university lecturer in Philosophy