When I was seven I tried to run away to the fair.
I didn’t get very far.
I was out with my Grandma and my brother. We were walking along the promenade of Brighton sea front. I wanted to go on the rides, hear the voices of other children and spend some time soaking in ‘normal’... I wanted to have FUN!
‘No. It’s time to go home.’
‘I’ve got pocket money.’ I pleaded
‘No. I’ll leave you here, come on.’
‘Go home without me then!’ I stomped my foot and stood my ground.
A battle of wills ensued.
My Grandma took my brother by the hand and walked away, along the boardwalk to the stairs that went down towards the way home.
I waited.
I wanted to call her bluff. I knew this game. They weren’t really going to leave me here. I waited as long as I could bear (I was seven, it couldn’t have been more than five minutes). I ran towards the next set of stairs, thinking they would only have gotten that far. I gathered pace and whizzed down to the bottom, scanning around for them as best I could while still moving and not tripping.
They had gone.
In that split second I felt two things:
1. Contraction/Fear: They left me - I am alone in the big dangerous world!!!!!!
2. Expansion/Autonomy: I’m FREEEEEEE and I can go to the fair!!
I looked around for them again, and I couldn’t see them. I felt sure that the world was conspiring to allow me to go to the pier and go on the rides. WOOHOO! My little entrepreneurial brain kicked in, creatively solving the problem. I walked along the roadside where the cars were parked and found the parking payment machine.
Maybe someone dropped some change and then I can go on the rides!
The first one had nothing. I carried on carefully walking along the roadside by the parked cars. I reached the next pay station. I reached up into the change slot and wiggled my little fingers around. Still nothing.
Nee Naw, Nee Naw...
Startled by the siren pulling up right next to me I jumped.
My memory of what happened next is awash with shame as my joy turned to guilt watching my grandma crying and my brother distraught.
The policeman shouted. His attempt to frighten me into not running away again, or to see the severity of the situation, was lost on me, I just felt BAD.
I felt misunderstood. I didn’t mean to upset anyone. I wasn’t hurting anyone. I just wanted to have some fun!
‘You are so irresponsible. Look how upset you’ve made your grandmother.’
I felt horrible.
The things our brain picks out to remember and give meaning to are weird and random. Last year I was at T. Harv Eker’s MMI7 in London and Marcus DeMaria led us through a visualisation process to uncover an early emotional incident involving money that had impacted our money blueprint, and this story is the little gem that appeared in my mind. As I relived the memory consciously for the first time in years I realised that my brain had hung on to an emotional memory and given it meaning: ‘Look how upset you’ve made your grandma and brother – you are irresponsible and money is not for having fun. You don’t deserve to have fun with money!’ or something like that.8
When I was nine I tried to run away again. My brother and I packed some rice cakes and tools into the largest of my dad’s handkerchiefs we could find, and after tying it to a stick, Dick Whittington-style, we attempted to run away on a skateboard. We walked to the top of the hill by our house and with him at the front and me at the back, one arm holding him and the other our supplies, we attempted to abscond on his large white deck with its eighties neon wheels. We didn’t get very far. We veered off the pavement into a parked car and I hurt my arm so we went home.
Outside of my family life there was school. At this point I was at Brighton Steiner School. The class I was in was made up of ten boys and ten girls. We were all pretty weird and I liked that. It normalised things. It was like having a whole class of siblings. I got picked on but I didn’t mind it all that much; it felt like the kind of thing brothers and sisters say to each other so I let it go. I saw the name calling as affectionate. I figured that it was harmless fun. I liked school for a while. I really enjoyed learning in such a narrative way.
When my teacher picked on me it felt different, it didn’t feel like a nickname or like kids playing, it felt personal. One day I came into school with a piece of indigo dyed silk tied into my hair and bright turquoise dangly dolphin earrings on. I had just had dyed the silk with my mum and was so proud of what we had done. The earrings were new, my newly pierced ears had just healed, and I felt like a ‘lady.’ I almost skipped into class. I felt beautiful. I was happy to share who I was with the world. As I entered the room my teacher stopped me.
‘Ebonie Allard, this is not a fashion parade, take that ridiculous garb off now.’
I could hear everyone laughing.
I was so embarrassed.
I felt ashamed. After that I retreated, believing somewhere that it was shameful to be expressive and free and beautiful.
A new girl joined our class. She had a birthday party. She was allowed to invite 10 boys and 10 girls to her party. She invited everyone but me.
On Monday at school everyone else was laughing and joking together.
I remember feeling like I didn’t belong there anymore. I wasn’t part of anything.
I had felt OK at school but now I didn’t fit in anywhere. I started to spend a lot of time alone. I liked being alone, but I also hated it. I wanted to fit in and I wanted to belong. I felt more and more like a misfit and less and less like I belonged anywhere. And that was before my parents separated, and the hormones of adolescence kicked in.
1. You might think that no one ‘exclaims’ but my grandma did, she often exclaimed with all her might and vigorous gesticulation.
2. Steiner (Waldorf) education is a humanistic approach based on the educational philosophy of the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner. Steiner distinguished three broad stages in child development. His early years education focuses on providing practical, hands-on activities and environments that encourage creative play. The emphasis in junior school is on developing pupils’ artistic expression and social capacities, fostering both creative and analytical modes of understanding. The secondary education focuses on developing both critical and empathetic understandings of the world through the study of mathematics, arts, sciences, humanities and world languages. Throughout, the approach stresses the role of the imagination in learning and places a strong value on integrating intellectual, practical, and artistic activities across the curriculum rather than learning each academic discipline as a separate concern. The educational
