Vincent Square Chapter 5: Locked

“Hi,” I bellowed with overly perky cheer extending a shaking hand, “Willow”.  He steadied his gaze with mine.  Locked.  He had a mild look of amusement in his piercing painfully beautiful blue eyes.  “You’re American too!  Brilliant!  I’m Josiah.”  I feigned my best smile.  My stomach was pounding in nervous recognition having just grazed hands with my past.  I looked to his left and acknowledge his friend with round spectacles, long blonde hair and a quiet and calming demeanor.  “Hi ya! I’m Noah.” I liked him instantly.  He was much less intimidating and was content to let Josiah command the attention.  I looked down and noticed I was still clinging on to Josiah’s hand.  His amusement continued.  I quickly released it and motioned to the bartender for a pint and placed a cigarette to my lips, without hesitation, he had a lighter to the tip continuing to keep steady with my gaze.  I was completely exhausted already.

They played a few acoustic sets which gave me time to center myself and try to understand what was happening.  Since they were the focus of the pub I could stare unabashedly.  Josiah had a strong voice.  Earthy.  He was dominant on the stage however not in skill, just in presence.  Noah had a much more angelic, softer voice that was a steady compliment.  They fit together well in their reversely striped shirts.  Quite simply put, they were symbolic.  Darkness and light.  

In between sets they would sit with Dave and me and ask us hundreds of questions about America - a land in which they were completely fascinated by.  “No, the streets aren’t paved with gold…” and “No, money doesn’t really grow on trees...” I would respond. Most of their questions were humorous iterations of urban legends that they didn’t actually believe but needed solid confirmation on just in case.  All the while during these breaks and their performance, the gaze remained steady.  I couldn’t figure out what he was looking at, or for.  If this was how he broke women into submission - if it was supposed to render me completely helpless, it was working.  

They had grown up together in Derry – Northern Ireland.  Josiah came to London to find his fame in music, and Noah had come to London for University.  They were incredibly intelligent.  Both from large, loving families I found myself immediately immersed in wanting to know everything about their history.  They spoke openly about their affection and adoration of their parents and siblings.  I could see them get lost in being somewhere else and missing comforts that we all missed but for whatever they missed, they found comfort in one another and perhaps I would now find my comfort in them.  

When they were done playing the pub was closing.  My heart instantly ached at the thought of leaving until they let me know that we could close up the curtains to the pub and stay drinking with Jim – the pub manager who had taken a shining to me.  I made no effort to hide my excitement.  With everyone else gone, including Dave who we had to carry out and into a cab, the energy shifted.  Pleasantries gone, an air coveted the room of familiar energy.  Something of a time before and souls who had long since known one another.  

The conversation shifted to greater depth - to the things of youth that you try to discover.  To what moved our souls, what we would be, what broke us, what inspired us, to family, to history, to the now.  We lit cigarette after cigarette, drank pint after pint.  We raised our voices with passion and artistry.  With every word between us, every gaze and knowing nod everything of my before disappeared.  

When Jim finally waved us out of the pub, we were all stumbling and arm in arm we found our way to Josiah’s apartment in Vincent Square and continued our discovery.  We sat on the floor of his one room apartment and talked until the sun came up.  Hours and hours of catching up, telling stories and asking each other question after question.  For however lost I had felt for so many years of my life, in that moment, in that room, I had found home again.  A home that I traveled across an ocean to find.  I had found a soul mate, perhaps even two. 
  

When the tubes opened again the boys walked me to Victoria Station.  I was in love.  Josiah would wreck me, I knew that already.  Perhaps he had before as well but I could do nothing more than love him again.  Noah had captured my soul and we would be family from here on in.  I had silently decided this. Together Josiah would wreck each of us and together we would save one another from him.  Our beautiful wrecking ball.

“What a fucking brilliant night, eh?” Josiah exclaimed as he wrapped his arms around each of us.  “Epic” I responded.  “Epic,” Noah repeated.  “Well then, let’s get some sleep and do it again soon.” I turned to look at Josiah clinging to “soon”.  Was he going to call?  He had asked for my number.  I tried to steady myself.  Breathe Willow….Breathe. Maybe this one of those nights and this is all that there is and maybe that is ok.  Breathe.  Reading my mind, Josiah leaned over and whispered, “I’ll ring you later.”  Every molecule in my body tingled.  I hugged both of them and ran quickly down the stairs hoping that they couldn’t see the tears streaming down my cheek.  “We’ll see you after, eh…” I heard Noah yell down the stairs after me.  I flung my arm up in a backward wave and disappeared into the tunnel.

By the time I had reached 35 Sutherland I had dissected every minute of the past 12 hours of my life.  Every line on his face, every sound from his lips.  Every look and every song.  I thought of the broken glass at my feet and the words I had muttered.  I felt drunk and full and overwhelmed – more so, terrified that I would never again feel the way that I had felt in that moment.  I thought about the two of them, how different they were but how connected they seemed to be.  I thought about the often empathetic smile Noah would knowingly shoot my way, as if he knew something I didn’t.  

I tip toed in the house and peaked into Tegan’s room.  He was asleep with books scattered all around him.  I wanted to wake him up and tell him everything but there would be time later and I felt too stifled with emotion to speak so I floated to my tiny room on the third floor.  Peeling off my clothes I melted into an unconscious sleep.  A sleep I hadn’t slept in years.   Hours later in a day that had turned into night I was wakened by Tegan nudging my shoulder. 

“Hey, sleeping beauty…you have a phone call.”

Vincent Square Chapter 2: Sutherland Place

By the time we had landed in London we had already formed our own click and established our roommates.  There were 6 of us that had bonded over cigarettes, weed, beers and fear of the unknown.  Tegan was the lanky, tall, shy guy with a hint of internal angst hippie from the middle of nowhere, Jason was the sweet and stalky outdoorsy intellect from Maine and Joel was the snarky, grumpy Jew from NYC.  The other new female addition besides Maris and I was Liz, the unique, crass spirit from Colorado that twirled her hair and sucked her thumb.  I equated her behavior to an intense phallic tendency and left it at that.  

And so there we had it.  Our own little ‘Real World’ – 6 strangers set to live in a house, on a street, in London. 

Despite the odds of what we were told we found a place fairly quickly.  Of course it was over budget, two blocks away from the University and smack dab in the middle of Kensington but we didn’t care.  We even had an old crotchety landlord named Mr. Darcy which we considered to be an obvious sign that the house had to be ours.  It was a 3 story brownstone; it fit us all perfectly so we settled in.  35 Sutherland Place off of Westbourne Grove.  A street lined with brownstones, a church and pubs nearby.  Perfect.  

The first night in our new home we sat in our enormous living room with windows taller than each of us.  We had scored some hash at the local pub and told stories of our lives as we smoked and poured back pints.  For what was so new and strange we all seemed to comfortably mold into our new reality.  We talked about ‘rules’, and having family dinners every Sunday and of all of the places that we would travel while on our breaks.  Every moment was an oyster to be opened to find some new and beautiful possible path.  

From the get go it was pretty clear what roles we would all play.  Maris was the social butterfly and had more friends and plans in the first 48 hours than many of us had for our entire tenure there however she made it easy for us to just tag along when we felt like it.  Liz was oddly reclusive and spent a lot of time having phone sex with her boyfriend back in Colorado.  Joel always seemed to be networking.  Jason spent a lot of time exploring the city and mapping out all that he wanted to see and experience.  Tegan and I spent a lot of time scraping the bowl of my bong trying to get high.  We were the poorest of the group so our options were always more limited.  We had an affinity towards each other given our financial predicament and often talked about books, poetry and shared our love of music.  I was fortunate enough to have my own bedroom on the third floor and the view from my window was roof and chimney tops.  It was a peaceful hideaway for us to unlock the mysteries of the world. We were good friends.  He was like a little brother.

When I wasn’t in school I was meandering around Kensington Park, or sitting in the Pub writing in my journal, writing letters, bantering with new found friends or calling home and filling Delilah in on every detail of my not so interesting life.  I was melding and molding in.  Trying to avoid seeming like a tourist.  

My first three weeks in London I never saw the sun.  Not once.  Not the sun or the moon.  It was cloudy in the day and cloudy in the night and for all appearances was exactly how I had anticipated London to be.  But I missed my moon and I felt far away from everyone that I loved.  Regardless of how at home I had felt instantly upon arriving.  I was in transition.

But perhaps that’s what I need to explain.  London.

 

The moment my feet hit the ground in London I knew I was home.  I knew that I had spent lifetimes there before and that whatever and wherever this city would bring me, I would be home.  I was home.  Everything made sense without any effort at all.  However I was waiting for the soul bit.  As an intuitive I was driven to London to find something, to understand something that perhaps I had been transitioning lifetimes through to grasp and here was my chance and I was missing it hiding in my chimney top bedroom taking hits from a bong seeking out the meaning of life as opposed to the meaning of my reason for being there.  None of which I really knew.  I just knew at the time there was nowhere else that I was supposed to be.

We do these things…we follow senses and sources.  We wind up in countries and places with people and faces because we know not where else to be.  Some are just steps; some are columns….all of which is determined along the way.  And so I was.  There.  With a lesson and no teacher.  Floating in comfortable ambivalence with a love of a city, an air, energy and not understanding why it was I chose to be thousands of miles across from my life to find my life.  The irony was exhausting.  Something was supposed to be but it wasn’t - yet.

And then I met Dave.

30,000

Feet in the air.  Tired.  Want a shower.  Want my bed.  Want a hug.  Annoyed by people reading my computer screen and not minding their P's & Q's (yah, dude next to me that means you...). Feeling like my ass is flat as a pancake from sitting on it in endless days of meetings, planes, cars...more planes...Mildly crabby and just want to get home to my big empty house with an overflowing mailbox to greet me.


I want to be laying on the ground, breathing cold fresh air with this as my view....giggling....Sigh.

Thanks for listening to my whiny rant.