Expresso Cafes

As a teenager growing up in the 1960s in a small town where everyone seemed to know me and when I was out and about on a Saturday night people would tell my parents all about it until I got to drive and hang out in the big city - Birmingham. I used to hang out in cafes in y home town on Saturday mornings with Chunky and Ziggy. These were safe places and usually had expresso coffee, juke boxes and pin ball machines. Imagine me hearing Pete Townsend of The Who singing My Generation – ‘Why don’t you all f-f-f-f fade away?’ Of course it was obvious he wanted to sing ‘Why don’t you all f*ck off?’ I needed this safe space to be in and to be with who I was. That has not changed for me. I still use cafes this way, alone or with safe friends. You know who you are. This was because I did not really feel that I belonged in my birth family. Not that unusual a feeling. I thought I might have been adopted but my mum told too many stories about me as a baby. I also did not like some aspects of what young men were supposed to be and still don’t. I wanted to be free to be me but without a fight just to sit with the realization. What is clear to me now is that I can choose how I present myself – and that can be real fun – but I can not choose who I am. It’s an ongoing process of discovery and coming to terms with being human and not an angel