Trafika Europe 9/10 - UK in Europe

JayMerill

rebellious words, just that you have to say them or go under. Until you became what other people wanted you to be and never found your very own self. Well, at some point I began questioning all the stuff that was being fed into me, that’s all I can say. And I started fighting against that me they wanted me to be – a cute new little version of themselves. No, I said loud and clear and this shocked them. My parents I suppose I mean. They said, ‘That is naughty’, or ‘That is wrong’, and they punished me. Locked me up in a room, say, until I was a better boy. Or, slapped my leg, if I shouted No in a public place and they felt disgraced and needed to show the world they weren’t going to let me get

away with this violation of the parent-child rules of the game. Later, there’d be kind and gooey kisses, like I was their little pet. To remind me what I would be losing by holding onto my own No’s and going against them. And it was in those early days, when I was five or six years old, that I took to the secret dancing. What it is to dance eh. Such an enjoyable thing; a brilliant thing. And I’m particularly proud of saying I found it entirely on my own. I would never do it when there was music going on, at a children’s party for example, which was just about the one and only time I was supposed to dance. Because this hidden rule was attached it was an extra big No for me. I sat on the edge of the

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