I See You

What are you going to write about today?

What everyone wants.

Which is what?

To be seen.

Do you mean like on the stage at Wembley? Gripping the mic stand and sloshing a pint while you hit the high notes and like, 60,000 people are right there with you?

No, just by one person.

More of a beam than a floodlight, then. Like a mother?

Yes. Most people spend a lifetime trying to recreate the attention they got from their mother when they were a child.

A baby or a child, sure. But by the time you’re a teenager, you’re off. In search of party times. Looking to be seen by others.

Being a teen isn’t all about the japes, though. Boy were there some difficult times! Was there anything more humiliating than risking your heart on some boy only to be told I don’t see you in that way? Wammo. Right in the atrium.

Actually, I can think of something more humiliating. Which was to be told: I’m flattered.

That moment you discovered you’d given someone a present without knowing it. Without your consent!

Exactly. And to rub salt in the wound: you’d given it to someone who no longer deserved it.

You said that to someone once, didn’t you? That you’re flattered but….

I did actually. But only because I’d heard it on a film.

You never risked your heart though?

Never had to.

What? Did you have a booth or something, where people queued up to express their undying love for you?

No. That would have been weird.

You are so lucky you never got your heart broken.

Don’t give me that! Don’t speak as if you were nothing but a love-confession machine crying endless tears. You’re forgetting the hearts you broke. You do remember that rotund boy who gave you a rose on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence? You called him two weeks later and asked him to drive you to Oxford to see the boy you actually fancied because you couldn’t handle the M40.

Ouch. That was cold.

Yes.

I got that from my grandmother. She threw a glass of cold gin and tonic in my grandfather’s eye the first time they met.

It ended well though? I mean, after the blinding?

It did. You could say that moment is why I’m here. I loved hearing that story as a child. I thought: there’s a woman who likes to mark a moment. Really book-mark it in a person’s mind.

Yeah. The way you tell it I’m guessing it played out on a train platform in black and white with smoke curling from someone’s cigarette and steam from a nearby train drawing in from Folkestone.

I guess it did.

And so why are you telling me this glamorous tale about pre-war London?

A bit of Pablo Picasso

Because it’s a hard slog to get to a magical moment like that. You’ve got to be that teenager. And, aside from giving your heart to the wrong people, being a teenager is hard for so many other reasons. They get seen for all the wrong things.

Like what?

Failing Geography, Physics and Maths tests. Turning up late to school. Tie hanging at the wrong angle. Shit hair. Bad shoes. Wonky teeth. Brains. No Brains. Too tall. Too short. The list is endless.

I see what you mean

When you’re a teenager, what you really need to be seen for is your ability to handle life’s modules.

Life’s modules?

Yes! Like how you handle a break up. How you mend a broken heart. How you don’t say I’m flattered, but when someone offers you their heart. How you apologise. How you manage things when they don’t go well. How you catch a train and a bus, and read a ferry timetable so you don’t get caught on a haunted island.

Fair.

Most teens must think: I’m not at all seen for who I actually am! All the hard work I put into life’s modules and no one’s doling out grades 1-9. At best, they’re just threatening to take away my X-Box.

To be fair they’re probably not dwelling too much because they’re also out having a laugh with their friends. Making inexplicable decisions about transport and generally displaying an immense lack of common sense which is partly what makes the world such a fun park.

It’s wild. They’re almost moving too fast to be seen.

I remember the moment when one particular boy, who was only a few years past being a teenager himself, saw me in a different way: which was when I dyed my hair dark brown.

You mean back to its original shade? Understandable. Bleach blonde didn’t suit you. Washed you out. Made you look unwell.

It did, yes.

If he’s the one I’m thinking of, it’s amazing really, that he was still talking to you, given you’d thrown gin in his eye just a few months before. Exactly like your grandmother before you.

It was water, actually. But sure, I was following her principle: to mark an important moment, which was that I saw something in him. And then he saw something in me.

Once he’d wiped the water out of his eyes.

The writing was on the wall.

Exactly. You married him

I did.

Lovely really, to find someone who can see you when you can’t see yourself.

A blessing.

That’s what they say about children.

The children that then become teenagers. You can’t not see them once they turn up. They run through my blood, they’re in my dreams. You know, I woke to the storm last night -

It was a big one.

Lightning through the house. Crashes and booms like the bricks were going to come loose. And all I could think was: my boy is camping out in that storm for his Duke of Edinburgh. Nothing I can do about the rivers rising or the branches crashing down or the forecast for extreme heat the next day. Because that’s the thing with children. You never stop checking the weather on their behalf.

Well this is it. This is what happens when you throw a drink in a boy’s face, marry him and have his babies.

But I was also comforted. Because he was out with friends.

That’s nice. Friends are also a blessing.

They really are. You know I went to a friend’s birthday party the other day and gave a speech about her with another friend? Everyone was laughing away.

It went well, then.

I’d say. The guests were all beaming and looking in her direction as we talked about all the things she’d done over the years that make her special and loveable. I looked at her and thought: no one could feel more seen than in a moment like that. Not beyond a relationship.

I see you.

I know you do. Thanks. I can’t see you. But I can hear you. And that’s probably enough?

It is. Night then.

Night then. See you in the morning.