When I was a child, I used to lay on my back in the summer playground and stare at the heavy clouds. I would imagine one of them was an alien spacecraft, hovering ponderously, come to take me home.
It would explain, wouldn’t it, how I didn’t feel like I belonged here on Earth, and why everyone else slipped and slid through life while I tore at imaginary barbs and tangling vines.
After all, 8 year old me thought, I am an alien.
Most likely a common thread of ‘otherness’ that weaves through many a nascent psyche, but I found the thought of collection reassuring. A return to a known-good world and life where everything just – ahhh! – made sense after all.
40 years later, I wonder if I was right all along.