One thing that the psychologists have always asked me was when I started having morbid thoughts. I must have been very young as I really cannot recall a defining moment in time. I know that I was still in primary school when I started getting into music like Led Zeppelin & started reading Stephen King novels. It was also in primary school that my love of poetry started & the earliest poem I can recall being "moved" by was Stevie Smith's "Not waving but drowning" - a poem about suicide.
I spent my early primary school years believing I was a celestial being that could heal people & this extended to the belief that I could channel the dead in later years. I still believe that something quite magical did happen when I was a young girl, something inexplicable. I would write using words I did not yet know the meaning of but they were perfectly suitable to the context. While other kids were into Duran Duran; I was into the Beatles & The Doors - while the kids at school were reading Enid Blyton I was reading Edgar Allan Poe.
I was very young when late at night became my favourite time of the day. I remember when my Aunt Lou died I'd sit & go through her things; I'd read old letters from lovers & wear her perfume & clothes. In my own quiet way conjuring up the past like a necromancer. I also remember when my dog was hit by a car & died. I was at school when my parents buried him. That night I waited till after dark & everyone was asleep; I grabbed a torch & dug him up just so I could hold him one last time & give him a proper burial. He rewarded me by visiting me one last time, jumping up on my bed & curling up behind my knees - just like he used to.
I spent my early primary school years believing I was a celestial being that could heal people & this extended to the belief that I could channel the dead in later years. I still believe that something quite magical did happen when I was a young girl, something inexplicable. I would write using words I did not yet know the meaning of but they were perfectly suitable to the context. While other kids were into Duran Duran; I was into the Beatles & The Doors - while the kids at school were reading Enid Blyton I was reading Edgar Allan Poe.
I was very young when late at night became my favourite time of the day. I remember when my Aunt Lou died I'd sit & go through her things; I'd read old letters from lovers & wear her perfume & clothes. In my own quiet way conjuring up the past like a necromancer. I also remember when my dog was hit by a car & died. I was at school when my parents buried him. That night I waited till after dark & everyone was asleep; I grabbed a torch & dug him up just so I could hold him one last time & give him a proper burial. He rewarded me by visiting me one last time, jumping up on my bed & curling up behind my knees - just like he used to.
I was 13 years old when I first read Wuthering Heights & I believed it to be the most romantic story I could ever imagine despite it's treachery & it's hauntings. So yes, the morbid thoughts - the melancholy, it's been there for a long time. I don't know where it comes from but it can be beautiful ... the most beautiful thing you've ever seen.
So just where is the line between being a 'fanciful' child & being a 'mentally ill' adult? Being a child can make you get away with so much.... it can even let you get away with madness.
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