My grandmother was the first to tell me not to ask a woman’s age when I was much younger, in the plastered leather back seats of a moving car. I remember the moment with such vividity it could have happened a week or two ago. When I hear anyone ask that same question, no matter how antiquated the ideologies, it will always be synonymous to me of that moment, synonymous with her. 

 

When I was thirteen a friend of mine taught me never to walk over three drains, much like my mother had recounted the warning to never to open an umbrella indoors. I followed their advice. While others could never care for the superstitions which I adopted to avoid an unlucky seven years. 

 

I buy from recommendations, listen, watch and read other’s favourites which they enthuse about. I ask for vanilla in my coffee after my friend who’s tastes I took preference to. Because the sweetness it gave meant I didn’t have to pour sugar sachets in. 

 

I am a mosaic of everyone who has ever entered my life. Of anyone whose presence has ever mattered. The mosaic is everlasting, each piece delicately adjusted by others and the culture I embrace. Ever adjusting, fragmenting, changing. It exists inside me and inside of you too which leaves only the question - 

 

What pieces of you exist in another’s mosaic.