Golden Castle Town (Or, finding your way back).

Sunday 10 September 2017

The sun was setting over Washington DC. I was heat tired and could almost feel the freckles on my face, a reminder once the stickiness had dried that the sun had been kissing my skin all Summer. It was August. I’d been carrying a bag almost the size of me for two months, and as I put it in to the boot of the final taxi and climbed in to the back seat, I felt a weight lift, which was surprising because after two months of being untied from anything; free in the purest sense, I didn’t know I was even holding on to it. We pulled the doors closed. The driver asked where to, and one of us said the airport.

We’d gone from East to West and back. We’d fallen in love with cities and states (different ones, all of us). We’d seen Texas at 2am from a Denny’s after laughing harder than I ever had in my life, and Chicago from the bank of the lake, and LA and Salt Lake City and small town Ohio. We had a perfect night out without even entering a bar in New Orleans, and I learned that I could sleep on a train, or a sofa in a hotel lobby, or one night (early morning) in a station waiting room that we’d phoned the Sheriff to come and open for us. (That's the kind of thing you do, when you're 20 and far from home and fearless; you call the sheriff in the middle of the night). I was full to the brim with experience and contentment and an itching to put all this happiness in to practice back in London, back in reality.

We pulled the door closed. I leaned back in the seat. 15 more hours, give or take, suddenly seemed too long to wait. 

I want to go home, I thought, and damn, if it wasn't the greatest feeling.

*

The idea that you have to leave a place to be able to return is not an original one. When I was 19 I read The Alchemist because a boy with the dreamiest accent I’d ever heard told me it would change my life. It didn’t come close, and around the same time I realised that he never would either, but the sentiment that what you’re looking for may appear through a shift of perspective gained only by a temporary shift in location stuck quietly with me. I hated that book. 

I had left London to remember why I loved it, although eight years after the fact I’m not sure if that was a retrospective realisation or if I knew all along, but it’s something I’ve returned to often since, although never on the same scale. 

Jobs. Friendships, sometimes. Corners of the city, favourite haunts. Writing, in so many forms. When you’re so immersed in anything, it’s easy to forget why you started. To return to the simplicity of the beginning can be almost impossible from somewhere further along the line, where habits have been formed, comfort found in ways that aren’t entirely healthy. I am terrible at letting go, until I... let go. And then comes clarity. 


*

One of the reasons I love music theatre (which is a different thing to musical theatre, I think, although I sometimes wish it wasn’t) is the ways in which, even after all this time, it can still surprise me. Rarely, but sometimes, I’ll still see something, or hear something, that makes me think Woah. I didn’t know musicals could be that. 

There’s a piece called The Lion by a writer/performer called Benjamin Scheuer that did exactly that. It’s ostensibly his life story set to folksy, gentle music, and the whole piece is a thing of real beauty. My favourite song, though, is called Golden Castle Town. It tells the story (and this is the wonder of The Lion. Every song is a fully formed story) of taking some time away (“in a quiet place where time and I slow down, to a cottage in a Golden Castle Town”), to uncurl, rediscover, connect again to the things that make him… him. He swims, and drinks white wine, and tans. Starts to write again. And that’s the thing that let’s him know he’s ok, now. He’s ready to go home.

He leaves the island (in my head it’s an island but nobody ever says that). He flies back to New York. As the plane touches down he smiles, ‘cause y’know what? That was the Golden Castle Town all along. 


*

I can’t remember when I started blogging, the first time. At this point, almost ten years later, there have been a few incarnations. I wrote about musicals, before I worked in musicals. I wrote about living and loving in the London theatre scene. I wrote quite extensively about the things I’ve learned from Gossip Girl, and The West Wing, and Hamilton. I wrote about what it means to be a fan of something. But every time before, I’ve stopped. Through a combination of having nothing new to say, or feeling like nobody was listening, or life getting too crazy, or life not being crazy enough. I’ve been too sad to write, and too happy to find time, and honestly I spent a long time resenting giving away my words for free. Blogging isn’t easy, and feeling like you’re shouting in to a void where there isn’t a place for you loses any appeal pretty quickly. I don’t take artsy photos of my outfits. My instagram grid has no theme to speak of. I barely care what my everyday makeup routine is, so don’t expect anyone else to. 

I write essays. They are long, and verbose, and sometimes messy. I take photos on my iPhone, sometimes. Sometimes I don’t include a photo at all. For me, blogging is about the writing of it all. And for the first time in a long time, I feel like there might be a place for that, and for the first time in even longer, I don’t really mind if there isn’t.

I’m going to do it anyway.

*

Things that happened because I took that trip (the one from the first paragraph, sunset over Washington, cities and states after leaving):

I came back and re-connected with a person I’d desperately needed space from. We had fought, and screamed at each other, before. We were too close, and we didn’t realise it had stopped working until we’d both gone far too far. We walked along the river, once I was home. I can’t remember the month, but in my mind it was Autumn because I associate that with beginnings. We wrote a musical together, after that. It played in New York. Last month I met a stranger who had seen it, recognised me from just my name. 

I came back and  started working in theatre. I wrote a blog about a show, and the producer saw it and we started talking. It’s been seven years. We never stopped. You know those people you somehow always return to? Because I left and came back, and because I fell in love with a show, and because I started writing, I found one of my closest friends, and my favourite collaborator. 

I came back and learned that you can always leave. The risk comes from not knowing if it will ever feel the same, once you return. The risk comes from not knowing if you can return. The joy comes from trusting that sharp niggling feeling that says Oh my god, girl. Do it anyway. 

Things that happened because I took that trip:

I could come back.

*

The thing about home is that it’s transient and permanent all at once. It changes, and it changes back, and sometimes it’s the place that does the shifting, but usually it’s the person.

So a new version of me has come back to likealullaby.com. I am older and more assured and less assured and wiser and less wise. A lot of things have happened that I don’t want to talk about, but the best bit is that a lot of things have happened that I do.


So this is that. 


2 comments

  1. oh I just LOVED this, all about the wordy posts. (I'm also slightly creeped out because when I was 18 and in Paris for the first time a boy also told me The Alchemist would change my life, and I was similarly underwhelmed haha.)

    Millie - http://www.millie-ryan.com

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    Replies
    1. What is it with basic boys and that book?! Thank you! It's good to be back! x

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