quarry trespassin.
we snuck in after running the shirley creek trail nearby in orange county, IN (the REAL OC, BITCH). oh, southern indy…
things i will get sentimental over when i return to the states:
gas stations
parking lots
suburbs
my very own bike
turning right in traffic
driving
can openers
unlimited cellular data
large showers
trees and grass
I needed a day to heal, so I enjoyed all my favorite parts of London.
I took the plunge and hired a Barclay’s Bike, rode it around Regent’s Park and the canal (I NAILED THE TRAFFIC FLOW IT WAS SO FUN. I CAN TURN LEFT IN LONDON—BOOM).
I studied for my final tomorrow.
I went back to Camden and bought some presents and then sat in my favorite cafe and read F. Scott Fitzgerald.
I feel less like a robot now. Summer has finally come to London just as the Olympics are ramping up. I can’t wait to dodge that, but I don’t want to leave the city—while at the same time so ready to go home. It’s so weird, but I’ve been feeling so much “both/and” emotions lately. I’ve aged a thousand years. Oh, London.
Scenes from Paris
TOO MUCH TO SEE IN TOO LITTLE TIME.
Sacre Couer, Moulin Rouge, Kerouac’s old apartment, Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees, Notre Dame, Jardin de Luxembourg, the Pantheon…
not pictured: Montmarte at sunset and its neighborhood boutiques and cafes, carousel rides at champ de mars, centre Pompidou, place de clemenceau, quai montebello, latin quarter, hanging near the tour de france…
There was just too much. The culture was also crazy different. Coming back to London was so wonderful and jarring: I got culture shock from returning to English and polite people and THE SUN IN THE CITY (SO TRANSFORMING I LOVE IT), although it could have just been shock-shock from the overwhelming nature of the trip. OH man.
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Tonight, I went to the Quaker Centre to hear a talk sponsored by Peace News featuring Geroge Lakey, a well-known peace activist since the 60’s civil rights movement and co-founder of Movement for a New Society in Philadelphia. He was really amiable and cool and led the group through a series of exercises he has used in to train various nonviolent activist movements around the world: coal miners, therapists, homeless people, prisoners, Russian lesbians and gays, Sri Lankan monks, Burmese guerrilla soldiers, striking steel workers, South African activists, and the like. He talked about how the diversity of experience, personality and capability that brings people together for a cause contributes to its strength, its ability to overcome obstacles and its success in effectuating constructive, positive and meaningful change in the world. We represent many points in a wheel of ideas, and in coming together, balance and drive the fight to end global injustice.
I also liked how he talked about his love of stories, which informed his desire to create a database of global justice movements in still in progress and completed (which you have to check out—so cool). He talked about how the old love to tell their battle stories to the young. That got me thinking about Brue Springsteen’s quiet explanation of We Are Alive in Hyde Park last night: the dead tell stories to the living, and history is in constant conversation with itself as new people take on the task of shaping the lives we live around us.
My experience this summer has taught me a lot about the sense of discontent with and desire to improve the world around us. We have the power to own the lives we live and the impressions they leave on the people and places around us.
Sometimes I feel so obligated to speak, to tell stories and make something form out of the life I live. The joy of storytelling is also a burden. And when I think about the impossible hugeness of what comes beyond these last few weeks—school, work, LIFE—I get so scared and anxious. There is too much more to know. I’m just a dumb kid with vague ideas and a mediocre ability to articulate them. What if someone catches me lying about my passion, my competence? What if I’m not good enough? Not to mention the fact that I still battle personal ills in addition to worldly ones. What if I just fall apart?
I’ve talked to a lot of people who, with the proper patience, strength and courage, have fought to make revolution happen. They have taken life one step at a time. In the words of George Lakey, they have moved with each obstacle and taken it down. Does that make them unstoppable? Could I maybe stand with them?
I feel like I could go on forever attempting to sound poignant and reflective and significant, but I’m tired and running out of words. I’m about to pass out, wake up for my run around the canal—one of a dwindling number left in these final 11 days—and take one day at a time.
“We are alive/ and though we lie alone here in the dark /our souls will rise /to carry the fire and light the spark /to fight shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart.”
These are the days of miracles and wonder
Even though the rain abated and the sun shone, I think that the atmosphere on Sunday in Hyde Park was much more subdued after the energy and chaos of Bruce and Paul. Anyways, here was also too much country and Christina Perri music for my taste, haha. But I did get to see the Punch Brothers, this really good bluegrass group.
There was just one girl slouched over the railing separating me from the stage as Paul Simon came out, playing the 35th anniversary of Graceland with the full original tour band, including Ladysmith Black Mambazo, which was wonderful. The trumpeter Hugh Masekela also made an appearance and sang a lot of songs celebrating the freedom movement in South Africa and the past birthday of Nelson Mandela. So all that was really cool.
And when Paul SImon came back and did an encore rendition of the sound of silence under a single stage light to an 80,000-strong crowd in the twilight of London, I got chills again.
All in all, a good last weekend in London…that is so depressing to think about, though.
I AM NOT ASHAMED TO ADMIT THAT I CRIED LAST NIGHT.
Hard Rock Calling, Day 2: Bruce Springsteen and special guests. It was gray and rainy all day except for a few shining moments, BUT THAT DID NOT DAMPEN MY SPIRITS.
Some band called Hey Monea! played first and they were just noise. Then Lady Antebellum came on, and I don’t believe the British had a taste for them. Or I don’t, anyways. I was also remembering the time that Lady Antebellum came to the Indy State Fair and the stage collapsed and I was freaking out about that a little.
THEN SHIT GOT REALLY GOOD.
TOM FREAKING MORELLO (rage against the machine?) CAME ON. Which I did not expect at all, because I really hadn’t checked the lineup past Brucey, so it was a nice surprise. Tom Morello is now doing this project called the Nightwatchman, which is SUPER COOL. It’s just a lot of good old fashioned acoustic-protest-rock-rap-folk-punk. Ha. No really, his enthusiasm for social movements and global change as embodied in his support of the Occupy Movement was really awesome. He even brought on this group of striking fire brigade union workers and commemorated Woody Guthrie’s 100th birthday. He got me jumping.
THEN JOHN FREAKING FOGERTY CAME ON. And he played Who’ll Stop the Rain and the rain miraculously stopped. He played pretty much all the songs I knew so I got to enthusiastically scream along. AND THEN BURCEY CAME OUT and played rocking all around the world. IT WAS AWESOME. Like, Bruce hadn’t even officially some on yet and I was losing my voice.
When Bruce opened, he played Thunder Road—the first song he played when he stepped off the plane in London town back in 1975. It was so quiet. I got chills. I’m still getting chills as I listen to it now. Then he got into it with Badlands. We were going crazy.
Then he played My City of Ruins and it was so soulful I CRIED. Like, tears streaming. OH WELL.
He played a bunch of new stuff off Wrecking Ball that I hadn’t heard yet, but obviously I just bought the album so now I’m enjoying it all over again, especially the song he brought Tom Morello out on again—Death to My Hometown. IT WAS JUST SO ROCK AND ROLL. UGH I LOVE IT.
Fogerty came back out too, but I forget the song.
The Boss also commemorated Woody Guthrie’s birthday by playing Ghost of Tom Joad. The night had fallen and the rain had picked up at this point, so it was spooky. I was also getting a little tired and REALLY HUNGRY. Then the Rising came on and I was rejuvenated. The nice people next to me also gave me a shot of beet juice. HIPPIES.
Also at one point Bruce came down on the floor and I WAS WITHIN 6 FEET OF HIM, BUT I AM TOO SMALL AND THE CROWD WAS TOO CRAZY SO I DIDN’T TOUCH HIM. BUT I WAS FREAKING CLOSE. He had a lot of energy for how long he’s been doing this: jumping on and off stage, pulling fans up with him (girls and kids, really), running, allowing the crowd to tear at him, shaking his booty, etc. etc. WHAT A HOOT.
So then the show was winding down, except it wasn’t.
Bruce played We Are Alive and I cried again. The whole stage was dark except for one spotlight on him and just. OH MY GOD.
OK, then he played in such a quick succession that I thought I was going to have a seizure and die: BORN IN THE USA, BORN TO RUN, GLORY DAYS, DANCING IN THE DARK. I was BORN TO RUN. AND I WAS DANCING IN THE DARK IN HYDE PARK WITH BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN. I COULD NOT EXPRESS WHAT THAT MEANT.
There was no way it could have been better. EXCEPT THAT PAUL MUFFIN MCCARTNEY CAME ONSTAGE AND I WAS SOBBING AND LAUGHING AND CRYING AND YELLING. They played I Saw Her Standing There and I felt like I was in the 60’s on the Ed Sullivan Show because I was a bawling teenage girl in front of a Beatle. It was unbelievable.
Twist and Shout came on and it was AMAZING AND WENT ON FOREVER.
And now here’s where London gets really freaking lame: THEY SHUT OFF PAUL MCCARTNEY AND BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN’S MIKES. There’s some kind of ‘noise curfew’ in Hyde Park at 10:30? It was so LAME and the complete opposite spirit of hard rock. Like, come on.
Whatever, the Boss indeed blew my mind. Every time I think about it I get a little choked up and excited. And Paul Simon is up tonight. This is the craziest thing I’ve ever been lucky enough to enjoy.
