the little yellow book

The written chronicles of my life start with a small, yellow notebook.

It has a picture of a budgie on the cover. It is yellow because that was my favourite colour when I was six years, eleven months and fifteen days old - and still is, in some ways. My sister, then a teenager, bought it and wrote little diary entries in it for my benefit. The first one begins: "Today you went ice-skating with Fritz."

I was apparantly a six-year-old who ate sweets only on Saturdays, loved my trainers because they looked almost the same as my sister's and was too shy to hand over the fare to the bus driver when we went to town. I wanted to sit by the window in the bus. I always sit by the window everywhere.

When I was sick, I got to lie in my parents' bed all day and draw pictures. Summer days were spent playing on the beach with my poodle, on winter evenings I redecorated the dollhouse my grandfather had made. I sang in a children's choir, took piano lessons and attended Sunday school. Sometimes my sister took me pony riding, the most exciting thing I knew.

When I was nine, I found my first BFF and spent most of my free time walking dogs - real and imaginary. I had entire worlds of imaginary adventures, fuelled by explorations of the neighbourhood and all the books I borrowed at the library.

I was shy and sometimes lonely, prayed to God and soared in my endless imagination all the way to distant galaxies. I think I was happy.