Nostalgia- A Guest Post by My Mother

My mother is back on the blog people!

The Bilge Master

The alarm goes off, I reach out and dash the clock onto the floor. Cushioned by the carpet the wretched thing still goes on ringing incessantly. I take my pillow to cover my ears but I can still hear it. Mind and body, so tired, the warmth of the blankets so dear that one just cannot leave it . I wonder why I bought an alarm clock at all with such a piercing, ear splitting ring. Then comes the knock on the door- your parents open it and both come in. For heaven's sake, I am 16 plus but there is no privacy, no respect at all!  I wonder why I didn't lock my door at night. By night I mean three am. They are both smiling. One wonders at them, forgetting that I had voluntarily given them the key to hide and be sure to wake me up despite the alarm (which by the way is still wailing away with gusto).

Mama has a hot cup of tea in her hand. Too inviting! I sit up and suck in the brew gratefully while Papa picks up the clock and very kindly switches it off and places it gently back on the bedside table. Mama next comes in with a basin of warm water and a small hand towel. I finish the tea and hold out my hand to sponge my face, while Papa starts packing my schoolbag. I think caring parents are basically something that should never be allowed at times of crisis, by which time my dressing gown is handed to me and I go towards the bathroom , when I go I mean stumble. Mama calls after me to be sure to put on my hair cap for not risking getting it wet in this London winter. I hate my hair. It's thick, it's long, quietly forgetting of my insistence of letting it grow and how proud I'd always been of it. Shower indeed! She'd be lucky if I even brushed my teeth.

Have you ever noticed how terrible toothpaste tastes like? I rinse my mouth out and come out to find my school uniform washed and ironed waiting for me in my room. Mechanically I dress, pick up my hairbrush and my purse and completely ignoring a well cooked, sustaining breakfast, go downstairs and let myself out without a word spoken.

I'm late.

I have to catch the 7:30 bus and I somehow manage to do so. As usual,  my hair gets caught in the sliding doors of the bus and as usual the bus jerks to a stop while the conductor gently helps me in with hair intact. I return his kindness with a look of loathing and grudgingly hand over my three pence and make for the stairs to go up. The conductor cheerfully calls out - "Saved your favorite seat love." I slide into it and sit there like a zombie and mechanically brushing out the tangles and find a rubber band to tie my hair up.

I've always needed two hair bands, but as usual I have come out with one. So I leave it alone. 

Too soon, I find myself at the crossing of Wood Lane and climb down and somehow walk to the school. 

All my friends are late and all crowded around the notice board where the time table of the exams is displayed. Just three more days till the first one. We look at each other and see shadow blackened, puffy eyes, with despair on all their faces. I know the timetable by heart. We all do. But what we don't know is anything about the subjects printed out. Three months of revision and blank minds! We all troop up to the library reference section and take out the necessary books and nothing in them registers.

I passed my exams with flying colours and now, forty years later I face my students and tell them about alarm clocks and the rest of it. 

The turbulence of life, of raising a kid, managing the house and teaching 8 hours every day makes me smile. I wish I was sixteen again and the only care I had was of 8-10 hours of studying every day. My hair isn't long anymore, it's cut short and my son is facing his first board exams and the weight of the world is crushing him. 

Will he feel like this when he is fifty eight or will he long as I do for these days to come back?