![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Going back
Oct. 21st, 2003 05:35 pmYou can't go home again.
But you can try.
I tried. Firstly, I tried to get out of bed in the morning. It's always the most difficult part of the day, that. My room was full of bleeping. Alarm clocks that go off spontaneously since I broke them, my phone that goes off twenty minutes after I set it to, the actual phone with people wanting to know about other people, and then my phone again, beeping because![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shipperkitten decided to torture me by text and force me out of bed.
The morning was in fact a bit of a disaster. Firstly, I couldn't decide what to wear. This is a rare occurrence for me. Generally, I pick up what's on the radiator, or something sticking out of a drawer, and just put it on. I never put all that much thought into it. Therefore, when I can't decide what to wear, I really, really can't decide what to wear. That took me a while. And then I left on time, but kept forgetting things and having to run back for them. Dadi found this very amusing. But I didn't miss the train I was aiming at, having to sprint over the footbridge and land in a heap on it, but I caught it.
And I'm glad I did catch it, because I randomly met Becca, getting on at Blundellsands. She was going to Waterloo to get a new phone and was only there for one stop, but that was nice. I had someone to talk to for all of three minutes. Anyway, I don't think I really minded being on my own; I got into Liverpool with time to spare and went down into the city from Central. I went into Clayton Square, looked in Claire's for the skeleton earrings, and I went to Quiggins, but I didn't find them anywhere. It was aggravating, but there wasn't much I could do about it, so, predictably, I went to Subway, got a sandwich and went back into the station to wait. It was warmer in there.
The weather today was cold. As in biting cold, cold enough for today to be my first day this year wearing a scarf. Every time I threw mine over my shoulder, I hit Emily with it, and it has tassely bits which make it not so nice to hit people with. But all that comes later.
Clare, Emily and Hannah came to Birkenhead Park to pick me up - I texted them to say I'd cry if they didn't - and off we went.
The school, Birkenhead High School to be more precise than I have been being, has changed a lot in some ways and not at all in others. It's the senior school that is the most different - new buildings have sprung up all over the place, and they've been rearranged as well so the place where I used to have music lessons is now the sixth form bit. That was rather disconcerting; what was really really disconcerting was the people. People I used to know - Amy Daly, whom I really did like despite her being one of the most uncharacteristic friends I've ever made, and other people, like Hannah's friend Heather, whom I also used to like, and while some of them look as they did when they were ten and eleven, others really have changed beyond recognition. There was a girl I used to know called Francesca. To be perfectly honest I didn't like her much. But I saw her today, and she looks different, she sounds different, everything has changed and I don't really know what to think.
Hannah wanted to be dropped off at Classics, so dropped off she was, and Emily and Clare and I went over the bridge to the junior school. We got there just as they were being called in from lunch with that heavy brass handbell - I'm sure it was the same one - and they were standing in their lines, trooping back into classrooms, when the three of us slipped into the office. The main-woman-in-the-office (I was never sure of her job description) was at that moment engaged in shouting at the photocopier. "It's been taken over by aliens!"
And she turned round, I said, "Hello, Mrs Birley," and her face was a sight to behold. She remembered me. Oh, she remembered. She remembered Clare and Emily, who were at the school for much less time than I was, and she really hasn't changed. She wanted to know what form I'm in now, and what I want to be when I grow up, and everything, and she was lovely, telling us the codes to get into the buildings and take a look around.
The infants' building is the same-but-different - in my mind, the staircases were steep and the ceilings were high, but that's simply not the case. It's an old building and it's all slightly crooked, but it feels smaller, much smaller. My first stop was down the corridor, turning left. The name on the door read "Kindergarten A." There are now two Kindergartens - we only had one - and I'm sure you would expect the other one to be called "Kindergarten B", but it isn't. It's called Kindergarten Alpha, which says a lot about the school.
Anyway, I knocked once, then twice, then stuck my head round the door. Mrs Murphy and her class were making "books" today - colouring in pictures, and she looked up from them and looked up at me and shockingly, recognised me. I walked over and found the whole room so familiar, the alphabet posters, the smell of disinfectant, the creak of the boards, but so different. Mrs Murphy seemed genuinely pleased to see me. She also seemed a little taken aback when I told her I'm in Lower 6 - she said she made her feel old. And then she told her class, "You see this lady here? I taught her when she was your age!"
They all stared at me, and then at her, and it struck me suddenly that it's been nearly thirteen years since I was in the class. And it feels so close. She was my kindergarten teacher, you'd have expected her to have changed - but she hasn't. Not at all. She looked exactly as I remembered her.
That was the only infants' class we walked in on. We went to the junior school building next - the code turned out to be "1234" - and walked around slowly, taking it in. We looked in on a few classes, but the names on the doors were unfamiliar - new teachers, the old ones I knew having retired and moved on. But some were still the same. Clare wanted to see the junior school library, so we went up there, and we turned the corner, hands poised to go for the doorhandle - and it wasn't there. It was just wall. While we were standing there, confused, Clare noticed there was a classroom behind us where there never used to be one, and a Form 1 class in there. The teacher looked familiar, so I stuck my head around the door again.
I asked, "Mrs Hillock?"
She nodded, but stared blankly at me, and I had to ask, "Do you remember me?"
She gave me a look, and then: "Not Iona!"
She remembers. She does remember. She told her class, too - "I taught her when she was your age!" - and then asked me, "Are you still good at science?"
Her face when I told her I'm now doing A-level science was yet another sight to behold. She also wanted to know what I wanted to be, and when I said journalist, she looked round her class, sitting in a circle, and said, "Does anyone know what that means? It can be our word for the day."
The guesses were many and varied.
"Is it... is it a man who flies planes?"
"Is it someone who goes all over the world?" (getting warmer)
"Is it an air hostess?"
I had to tell them. "It's someone who writes for newspapers and goes all over the world, reporting the news, like wars and things."
So, I was the teacher's word for the day. And she hasn't changed, either. Her classroom has - it's been knocked through to encompass the old library, with light coming in from the skylights above - but she hasn't. I suppose the only real change is the way I see my old teachers - they aren't demons, and they never were. Neither was the school as terrible as I thought it was; and it's amazing how everything is clearer upon coming back. I had to go back, some day. It took me six years to get around to it, but I've done it.
We drifted back to the senior school after, over the bridge which I remembered as being large and imposing, but which I can now see over the sides of, and went to pick Hannah up from Classics. We went to the library as well, and I had a quick look for the Discworld Quest, but didn't find anything, and on our way out from there, we met people. One of them was Sara Syed, whom I used to know and my mother used to like for some reason, and I discovered that in the morning, Clare, Emily and Hannah had rung here to make sure I'd left. They got onto Dadi, and showing surprising logical thought, they gave the phone to Sara to try talking to her in Hindi, and it worked. I was rather impressed.
With Sara was Laura O'Sullivan, whom I remember as being a complete nutter, and hasn't changed much. She got very excited to see me and asked, "Can you still do the bendy thing?"
"Yes..." I said, guardedly, knowing what was coming next.
"Do it, please, do it!"
I yelled and protested, complaining that we were outside and it was freezing and anyone who saw me would think I was very, very weird, and it was generally not a good idea, but in the end I did it. To shut her up.
The 'bendy thing', dear readers, is my ability to bend over backwards so my toes touch my head. I did it. Laura got very excited. It was all very surreal. Surreal, but coming to an end. Hannah had to go to a rehearsal, so I bid her goodbye, and Emily went off in the other direction, so Clare and I walked into Birkenhead. I caught the train with seconds to spare, and did something similar at Moorfields, so I got home more easily than I thought I would.
I'm going back to see the play Hannah's rehearsing - it's called Salad Days, and is on the fourteenth of November which is Merchants' Prizegiving, so I'll have a half day anyway. I'm quite looking forward to seeing it.
And that is it.
But you can try.
I tried. Firstly, I tried to get out of bed in the morning. It's always the most difficult part of the day, that. My room was full of bleeping. Alarm clocks that go off spontaneously since I broke them, my phone that goes off twenty minutes after I set it to, the actual phone with people wanting to know about other people, and then my phone again, beeping because
shipperkitten decided to torture me by text and force me out of bed. The morning was in fact a bit of a disaster. Firstly, I couldn't decide what to wear. This is a rare occurrence for me. Generally, I pick up what's on the radiator, or something sticking out of a drawer, and just put it on. I never put all that much thought into it. Therefore, when I can't decide what to wear, I really, really can't decide what to wear. That took me a while. And then I left on time, but kept forgetting things and having to run back for them. Dadi found this very amusing. But I didn't miss the train I was aiming at, having to sprint over the footbridge and land in a heap on it, but I caught it.
And I'm glad I did catch it, because I randomly met Becca, getting on at Blundellsands. She was going to Waterloo to get a new phone and was only there for one stop, but that was nice. I had someone to talk to for all of three minutes. Anyway, I don't think I really minded being on my own; I got into Liverpool with time to spare and went down into the city from Central. I went into Clayton Square, looked in Claire's for the skeleton earrings, and I went to Quiggins, but I didn't find them anywhere. It was aggravating, but there wasn't much I could do about it, so, predictably, I went to Subway, got a sandwich and went back into the station to wait. It was warmer in there.
The weather today was cold. As in biting cold, cold enough for today to be my first day this year wearing a scarf. Every time I threw mine over my shoulder, I hit Emily with it, and it has tassely bits which make it not so nice to hit people with. But all that comes later.
Clare, Emily and Hannah came to Birkenhead Park to pick me up - I texted them to say I'd cry if they didn't - and off we went.
The school, Birkenhead High School to be more precise than I have been being, has changed a lot in some ways and not at all in others. It's the senior school that is the most different - new buildings have sprung up all over the place, and they've been rearranged as well so the place where I used to have music lessons is now the sixth form bit. That was rather disconcerting; what was really really disconcerting was the people. People I used to know - Amy Daly, whom I really did like despite her being one of the most uncharacteristic friends I've ever made, and other people, like Hannah's friend Heather, whom I also used to like, and while some of them look as they did when they were ten and eleven, others really have changed beyond recognition. There was a girl I used to know called Francesca. To be perfectly honest I didn't like her much. But I saw her today, and she looks different, she sounds different, everything has changed and I don't really know what to think.
Hannah wanted to be dropped off at Classics, so dropped off she was, and Emily and Clare and I went over the bridge to the junior school. We got there just as they were being called in from lunch with that heavy brass handbell - I'm sure it was the same one - and they were standing in their lines, trooping back into classrooms, when the three of us slipped into the office. The main-woman-in-the-office (I was never sure of her job description) was at that moment engaged in shouting at the photocopier. "It's been taken over by aliens!"
And she turned round, I said, "Hello, Mrs Birley," and her face was a sight to behold. She remembered me. Oh, she remembered. She remembered Clare and Emily, who were at the school for much less time than I was, and she really hasn't changed. She wanted to know what form I'm in now, and what I want to be when I grow up, and everything, and she was lovely, telling us the codes to get into the buildings and take a look around.
The infants' building is the same-but-different - in my mind, the staircases were steep and the ceilings were high, but that's simply not the case. It's an old building and it's all slightly crooked, but it feels smaller, much smaller. My first stop was down the corridor, turning left. The name on the door read "Kindergarten A." There are now two Kindergartens - we only had one - and I'm sure you would expect the other one to be called "Kindergarten B", but it isn't. It's called Kindergarten Alpha, which says a lot about the school.
Anyway, I knocked once, then twice, then stuck my head round the door. Mrs Murphy and her class were making "books" today - colouring in pictures, and she looked up from them and looked up at me and shockingly, recognised me. I walked over and found the whole room so familiar, the alphabet posters, the smell of disinfectant, the creak of the boards, but so different. Mrs Murphy seemed genuinely pleased to see me. She also seemed a little taken aback when I told her I'm in Lower 6 - she said she made her feel old. And then she told her class, "You see this lady here? I taught her when she was your age!"
They all stared at me, and then at her, and it struck me suddenly that it's been nearly thirteen years since I was in the class. And it feels so close. She was my kindergarten teacher, you'd have expected her to have changed - but she hasn't. Not at all. She looked exactly as I remembered her.
That was the only infants' class we walked in on. We went to the junior school building next - the code turned out to be "1234" - and walked around slowly, taking it in. We looked in on a few classes, but the names on the doors were unfamiliar - new teachers, the old ones I knew having retired and moved on. But some were still the same. Clare wanted to see the junior school library, so we went up there, and we turned the corner, hands poised to go for the doorhandle - and it wasn't there. It was just wall. While we were standing there, confused, Clare noticed there was a classroom behind us where there never used to be one, and a Form 1 class in there. The teacher looked familiar, so I stuck my head around the door again.
I asked, "Mrs Hillock?"
She nodded, but stared blankly at me, and I had to ask, "Do you remember me?"
She gave me a look, and then: "Not Iona!"
She remembers. She does remember. She told her class, too - "I taught her when she was your age!" - and then asked me, "Are you still good at science?"
Her face when I told her I'm now doing A-level science was yet another sight to behold. She also wanted to know what I wanted to be, and when I said journalist, she looked round her class, sitting in a circle, and said, "Does anyone know what that means? It can be our word for the day."
The guesses were many and varied.
"Is it... is it a man who flies planes?"
"Is it someone who goes all over the world?" (getting warmer)
"Is it an air hostess?"
I had to tell them. "It's someone who writes for newspapers and goes all over the world, reporting the news, like wars and things."
So, I was the teacher's word for the day. And she hasn't changed, either. Her classroom has - it's been knocked through to encompass the old library, with light coming in from the skylights above - but she hasn't. I suppose the only real change is the way I see my old teachers - they aren't demons, and they never were. Neither was the school as terrible as I thought it was; and it's amazing how everything is clearer upon coming back. I had to go back, some day. It took me six years to get around to it, but I've done it.
We drifted back to the senior school after, over the bridge which I remembered as being large and imposing, but which I can now see over the sides of, and went to pick Hannah up from Classics. We went to the library as well, and I had a quick look for the Discworld Quest, but didn't find anything, and on our way out from there, we met people. One of them was Sara Syed, whom I used to know and my mother used to like for some reason, and I discovered that in the morning, Clare, Emily and Hannah had rung here to make sure I'd left. They got onto Dadi, and showing surprising logical thought, they gave the phone to Sara to try talking to her in Hindi, and it worked. I was rather impressed.
With Sara was Laura O'Sullivan, whom I remember as being a complete nutter, and hasn't changed much. She got very excited to see me and asked, "Can you still do the bendy thing?"
"Yes..." I said, guardedly, knowing what was coming next.
"Do it, please, do it!"
I yelled and protested, complaining that we were outside and it was freezing and anyone who saw me would think I was very, very weird, and it was generally not a good idea, but in the end I did it. To shut her up.
The 'bendy thing', dear readers, is my ability to bend over backwards so my toes touch my head. I did it. Laura got very excited. It was all very surreal. Surreal, but coming to an end. Hannah had to go to a rehearsal, so I bid her goodbye, and Emily went off in the other direction, so Clare and I walked into Birkenhead. I caught the train with seconds to spare, and did something similar at Moorfields, so I got home more easily than I thought I would.
I'm going back to see the play Hannah's rehearsing - it's called Salad Days, and is on the fourteenth of November which is Merchants' Prizegiving, so I'll have a half day anyway. I'm quite looking forward to seeing it.
And that is it.
