When I was in a sixth-form English lesson with the teacher that I most respected, we were discussing what we were going to go as to a fancy dress party that evening. When asked what I was going dressed as, I replied that I would be going as a butterfly. She immediately burst out laughing; a deep, knowing laugh that was interspersed with giggles and which carried on shaking her shoulder-pads for a good minute. I sat there bemused.
It was the same laugh she used when we were reading Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia and we had come across an innuendo that was lost on us at first but that I was encouraged to find through the direction of her laugh. What was the hidden meaning here? Why was it so funny that I would be going as a butterfly? Was the wire, canvas and paint I had still to assemble into a pair of giant wings and antennae in some way a symbol of who I was? Do I have butterfly tendencies?
Tuesday 21 August 2007
Wednesday 15 August 2007
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