Notes for a Teenage Daughter
'NOTES..' started as a poem about 5 years ago. I wanted to pull this ballad off the page to share as a song about parenting a teenage daughter. Said daughter (to whom the song is lovingly dedicated) has since emerged from the chrysalis of teenhood and fluttered off to a zoology degree. Life has stumbled achingly over the past five years in Wales, but now with a roaring, unsettling and ironic silence since she left for uni. Returning to Hong Kong in the summer of ‘25 to visit my youngest and currently incumbent teenage daughter stirred many emotions around her resettlement, spiritual happiness and my place in her life. Yet, I’ve since spotted this pupa morphing under an elegant silk cast and had a glimpse of the beautiful creature she is becoming. Sitting on the dock of Mui Wo Bay while writing this (August 1st. 2025) I can just make out the lights in Ap Lei Chau. I’ve seen them before, like all distant lights they sometimes appear brighter and clearer, sometimes lost in a fog. I’ll be an inflated dinosaur on the ferry tomorrow and when I roar past I’ll take a closer look.