As with most people, awareness of the world was limited until maybe the age of 18 months (friends tell me that I was unusual in this and they don’t have any memories before age 3). Already I was showing signs of adventurousness and ambition. An early target for this was a teapot left on the stove as a ‘rolling’ pot of tea. Having seen how the oven door worked, I apparently used it as a prop to reach up so I could be like the adults and drink tea. In doing so, the pot of boiling tea was knocked off the stove and all over mydelf.
The incident not actually remembered but spoken of by my parents, involved a stay of several weeks or months in hospital. Layers of skin had peeled away from the face and top of my head as a result of the adventure and one of the earliest memories is that of being tied to the edge of the bed or cot so that I could not scratch the wounds and be left with permanent scarring.
Was this an early imprint that suggested that taking a risk might not always result in the desired reward? The first evidence of succeeding at failing?
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