Liverpool and Other Small Things in my Life (Never Get Comfortable)

Misc.

Here I am, 3:30am, after a night of not writing a paper and seeing yet another show, I'm reflecting on how in a few days this won't be my room anymore.
I was talking to Kerry on instant message tonight and she asked If I was still the same. I said no, I mean, no way. I don't feel the same at all.
She said, "how so?"
I said, "I feel like I've figured out how to introduce myself to a group of strangers and be honest".
Confused she asked what I meant, I told her I didn't really know but I think I leveled out.
I think I'm happy.
I think I like being called Andy.

She said, "Well we all can't wait to get drunk and listen to your stories from England in a circle."
I thought to myself yeah and I can't wait to tell them, I do like the sound of my own voice, don't I?
But I am Virgo, can't be helped, it's in the stars.

When I think about how I'm on the brink of going home I am overcome with three emotions.

1. I am filled with girlish excitement, like I even caught myself smiling a few times when I thought about passing the Old Bridge water tower on Route 9, knowing any minute I'll be screaming with my friends, hangin, saying "20" and being called a girl every five seconds again. . It's the warmest feeling I can conjure in my stomach. I can't wait. I can't wait to "scoop" you again.

". 2. I feel like wait, freeze frame, I'm not ready. I can't leave Europe. I can't go back to the states, I can't go back. I still need more time. I still have more work to do, more to write about. I can't go back to the world of barbecues and television. I can't. I told Kelly the other night that what will bother me the most when I go home is, that when I thought about Old Bridge, I thought about how my dirt road is happening right now, like the trees are swaying behind my house, and no one is there, and the night is calm, and I know it goes on without me. When I'm home, I'll know London will go on without me.

Loring hall will be loud at 3am, the 453 to Marlebone will run through the night, people will go to the Hobgoblin on Wednesday nights, and O' Neills on Thursdays, someone will stare at the Globe from under the millennium bridge, and I won't be there. I feel like it's a carnival that should be torn down when I leave. Did this place actually exist because I saw it, will it be gone after I leave? Everything we love just becomes another hopeless memory a few seconds later. Will I ever fall in love with something permanent?

But I guess if there's permanence then there is comfort, with comfort comes being content, with being content comes death inside a warm bed. You always have to get up, go out into the cold and walk through it, it's the only way to be happy. Never get warm. Never be comfortable. Never accept anything as everlasting. It's temporary moments in our temporary lives that leave us permanently remembering the good times and searching for the next one.


The third emotion is a rejection of that.... To ask for any more time would be selfish, no one else gets to do this, I am lucky, blessed, whatever you want to call it, I am lucky/blessed. It's time to go home. I did nothing to deserve this, I came here to find something and I did and now I have to go, Old Bridge served my purpose, Franklin Street served its purpose, London served its purpose, onto the next one. Always onto the next one. Never get comfortable.


Next week I'm going to take down my Obama poster, all my pictures of friends, my London shirt, pack my shit guitar, fill a bag with souvenirs, place my drawings in a notebook, and lay in a white space that will look the same as the night I moved in.

I will always remember laying in my bed in EA1, I will always remember the way it looked in the morning when I woke up and thought I was in Old Bridge, and then looked around and remembered I flew thousands of miles away. I will always remember how slowly but surely, it became my room, not my dorm. I will always remember believing in something inside of it sometimes, somewhere, somenight.

Oh come now, now I'm just being over-dramatic.

Liverpool.

So we went to Liverpool. I think the people I traveled with had some idea of what this meant to me, whether they thought it was silly or didn't quite understand, or did understand, or really enjoyed it, it didn't matter. I was in my own head. To understand the impact the Beatles had on my life, I can't describe, and since I detailed that heartily in my Abbey Road blog, I won't back track. But this was something I had ALWAYS dreamed about, thought about, it was my final goodbye to every teenage dream I've ever had. Time to make new ones as a 21 year old man, it was a cleansing, a pilgrimage, and I'm alright with that. I finally dumped out the last of everything I had ever dreamed of, I finally purged.
Onto the next one.

We met up at 3:30am. I was actually able to sleep that night. It was raining. We almost didn't make the train,

We ran and shuffled, we got on buses and we ran again.

On the first train to Stafford, everyone slept and I listened to Beatles songs in my head.
The second train to Liverpool I thought about everything.

Once we arrived, Kate and I got pasties, and I felt good. Daria and Emily and Kate and I walked the streets of Liverpool. First impression. Exactly what I expected. There was the hollowed out church I'd seen Paul McCartney standing in front of in so many photographs. Bleak. It's the kind of place seagulls just belong in.
Some guy covered in blood walked up to us and said "birds".
I dunno.
We checked into our Hostel and all thought it was the best. Although we later discovered the sheets were covered in blood and urine, it was still the nicest hostel we stayed in recently, and they gave us free toast. Also, it was filled with people our own age.
We sat in the room and traded disgusting stories for a while, while we waited for the fab four taxi tour.
We payed a guy named Danny to drive us around in a black cab for 3 hours and take us to every Beatles site.

I don't have to much to write about this stuff. This, like a lot of other stuff, feels safer in my head. I saw the hospital John Lennon was born in. I stood by the house he grew up in, I stood by the house Paul lived in where they wrote 100s of Beatles songs, we went to Ringos houses, John's Art School, I threw my first guitar pick from the age of thirteen on the doorstep of George Harrison's house. I stood at Strawberry Fields, I walked down Penny lane, saw the Bankers and the barber shop. I stood in the graveyard where Paul McCartney met John Lennon and years and years later changed my little life and led me to pick up a guitar and study abroad in England
.
The entire time, I stopped talking because I was fighting back serious tears. Everywhere we went I couldn't stop trying not to cry. I was overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with pride, guilt, happiness, gratitude. I couldn't believe I got to do this. The Beatles were at one point, my religion. This was literally my Mecca, my dome of the rock.
As soon as I had a second alone I thought how me and John Lennon shared a sidewalk in Liverpool, and have eyed down the same streets and houses, drank a beer in the same bar, and I cried. I really cried for the first time in a long time.

I purged.

Later we went to the cavern club where the Beatles got their start, it stands sort of unimpressive now and we watched a garbage band play hits from the 70s. That night we took a nap, discussed the misdoings of the do-do bandit, and Kate realized every sheet in the hostel appeared to be covered with blood or urine.

We went out that night, this wouldn't be my blog if I didn't tell you we got wasted. Liverpool has an awesome night life. It was kind of like Dublin/Amsterdam. We drank in a place called "Lennon's Bar", and had a blast dancing to music. We ended the night wasted at the Cavern Club. We took a cab home.

The next day we walked around in the Liverpool rain and rode a Ferris Wheel. We went to Albert Dock and it was the first time I'd gotten to stare out into water for a while. Really famous water, that I'd only dreamed about seeing....fighting back tears again.

It was the end of my trip to England, my next trip should have been home. I can ask for nothing more from this place.

I wrote "Cheers to Living on Borrowed time" on the wall of Strawberry Field. That is all I'm doing, one of my favorite Lennon quotes, and I knew if Keith ever heard about it, he'd appreciate it. We both went through the Beatles years together.

I wrote "3" on the wall of the Cavern Club. Nobody knows what this means except for one person who will never read this blog and I will never tell you.

Cheers
Andrew