Knife

This is the actual knife from 1984. I saw it in a drawer this morning, and used it as an object for a writing exercise today: I started a memoir writing course on Teams tonight. 


Please excuse the crass insensitivity of my twenty-year-old self. 


Knife 


I found it in the Rastro, Madrid's Sunday morning flea market. I thought I was hard, well hard. I travelled around Spain on my own, clad only in red shorts and a teeshirt. I lived off bread, cheese and tomatoes. I walked the streets of Madrid at night to get to the phone box. I seemed to get a lot of attention.Only later did I realize that I'd been frequenting the Puerta del.Sol, the red light district. 

Everywhere I went, people asked me, 'Does your mother know you're here? What does your boyfriend think about your travelling alone?'
I had no answers. I was twenty, I was liberated. My country had never been run by a fascist dictator. I saw no need to sing sad songs during the siesta. My grandfather had not been killed by Communists.

I was young, I was privileged, I was pretty, and I didn't know it.