Forty years since the conflict in 1974. Forty years since my mother’s family moved here. Nineteen years later I’m born on the day the border opens between the Turks and Greeks. Forty years later I’m on the phone. My uncle tells me about the blow to the wheel of his new car. He tells me he has loved kangaroos for forty years since coming here. He says in forty years he has loved kangaroos and never hit one on the road until today. I meet a man last week who tells me he’ll never change his five year old’s tongue. He’ll never correct her English. If she says karma like karrrrrma at school that’s because that is how it’s said. I am twenty-one, forty years after, when I learn how to spell my name, AYLİN not AYLIN, as I sign contracts to be a jewellery sales consultant. I want to be a poet and the Grand Bazaar of Melbourne, selling jewellery. I felt forty years behind on myself that day.