Drink Me
Whenever I think of Alice in Wonderland, I think of my mother. Nothing else can live up to the high standards she set at bedtimes, long, long ago.
I could tell you she read me bedtime stories but though she did it’s not the entire truth, not by a long way. No one – not even Alan Rickman’s delightfully mellifluous tones of the caterpillar in the film – no soul living or dead could come close to my mother’s rendition of the words, “Who are you?”
When she read the story, I could smell the smoke of a hookah (though I’d never smelled one – not being quite the done thing in South London at the time). And I could see the caterpillar peering down at me, though a caterpillar has never, ever peered down at me.
And when she read out “Drink me” it was a command that no one, not even the best Alice in the most wondrous Wonderland, would dare to deny.
Eat me. Drink me. Who are you?
These were some of the mundane words that made magic in my life – they shaped my love of literature, of books and reading, and of telling stories.
Thank you Anita, thank you Alice for the wonderland you introduced to me.
And thank you Chris for the delicious reminder of those bedtime stories from long, long ago.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, Debra Broughton and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
