November
is one of the hardest months to deal with. Shadows get longer, the commute
becomes steamier, the night dominates. Trees are lovely and orange, but then
slowly their foliage disintegrates, and the roads are covered in moisture, so
you can’t wear Converse anymore. You need hoods and umbrellas;
waterproof coverings that help you have more extraneous belongings to leave
behind at bars and on train carriages. One frosty faff after another, with the added
runny nose.
A
colleague of mine suggested I try a store on Rivington Street, which sells bits
of fashionable wood to find a going-away gift for my flatmate. He is basically
a zine, so I trust his recommendations and it took the pressure off me having
to find the “right” shop. I walked in wearing my raspberry beret and mohair
coat. The doorman gazed past me through the glass pane at the street tinted
blue.
In
the store were mobiles hanging from the ceiling that looked like Alexander
Calder, and I thought, ‘When I own an apartment, I’d like to fill the void with
abstract art that twirls around on a wire.’ I sat in a smooth wooden chair made
for Eames enthusiasts, beneath bare low-wattage bulbs that flared above my
head. There were books and binders, aprons made from bark, terrarium, cacti,
succulents. Small vest for a dog.
The
run-up to Christmas is tiring with Santa schemes and end of year drinks,
industrial-sized fairy lights flashing on all over town. It’s easy to go along
with when it’s happening, but in November when you know that mountain of merry is
looming, I get tired. I get that premature feeling I’ve frittered away another
year when really, I haven’t, this is called life; where like walking, every day
follows another, like your left foot follows right.
Over
there on a shelf I spot something.
In
a flimsy, square, see-through casing – no it can’t be?
Few
objects are seared into your memory like they are from childhood. The avid
collectors and hobbyists we are at age ten. You remember your favourite yoyo
that lit up when you performed “walk the dog”, or your special eraser that
smelt of something sickly-sweet kept in your smudgy pencil case. There it was.
My plastic, carrot-scissors. (Tiny with a magnet on the underside – the blades hidden
in an orange sheath that looks like a carrot stick – the handles lurid green - moulded
into the shape of leaves - like a cavolo nero.) I loved this pair of carrot
scissors and I stuck them to my table-leg in Year Four. I can’t remember why I liked them, they may have been the perfect size for a ten year old’s
hands, or the cuteness of them was fun to contemplate, who knows.
One
day after sports, I came back to find that they were gone. I checked all the other
tables, disbelieving how they were gone. I looked on the whiteboard,
which was also magnetic in blind hope. I began to panic and asked the form
teacher what had happened to them? Did she know about my important scissors, or
did teachers try not to pry into the lives of little children, with all their
hideous collections of soft toys and stickers?
‘Don’t
worry.’ She said. I couldn’t convey to her the gravitas of the situation.
Quietly, I hoped. And she was a good teacher, so she wrote up on the board,
‘Has anyone seen a pair of carrot-shaped scissors? If you borrowed them, please
return them by the end of the day.’ Weeks went passed and I got used to it.
Someone stole my carrot scissors and they were going to get away with
it: what a world!
Now
I turn its flimsy packaging over in my hands. I can’t believe it. To
be re-united with these feelings after twenty years. What I would give, to be
able to go back in time, to present this to myself. And I wouldn’t have batted
an eyelid at whoever gave me the scissors (a la Back to the Future) because
they mattered so much to my formative sense of justice.
Thank
god the shop didn’t have any reindeer food or eco-friendly candy canes,
otherwise I might have been put off the whole idea. With Christmas coming
around the corner, why not? It’s the price of a pint and I could forget about
the whole thing, making the surprise even sweeter on Christmas Day. (I felt
silly, but I shouldn’t have because I owed it to myself.) The man in the
fisherman’s jumper behind the counter, folded down the edges of a brown paper
bag over my plastic purchase. I plopped it into my tote to forget about it,
then browsed the shelves for gifts. There was nothing here for her.
