"The Saga"
7:17 PM
I woke up the morning of March 29th on an air mattress in what was supposed to be the nursery of my pregnant sister's condo.
If I were to claim that my life wasn't panning out as I had expected-- I would've been making a joke.
My life was a fucking shambles.
In the three months leading up to this day, I had become estranged from my husband of almost four years (who I still had to see every day because we worked together), moved out of our studio apartment into my sister's home after one fateful night when I attempted to kill myself over who got to keep a Runaways record and found myself romantically entangled with an 18-year-old boy.
At 26, I was suffering a mid-life crisis.
Most mornings I woke up crying, but the morning of March 29th I was woken up by a text message.
It was a picture of Christopher's computer monitor. On it was a photo of Carl Barât beside the caption:
"Libertines to reunite for Leeds/Reading festivals."
As little as a year beforehand I had accredited The Libertines with saving my life-- creatively, at least.
For almost two years I'd been working on a book. It was a fictitious way of processing my brother's suicide and what I had considered to be my life's work. It was a love letter of sorts, the last thing that I would say to my brother if given the chance and at about 300 raw and unedited pages in, I found myself hopelessly stuck.
Stuck.
I had poured everything that I had in me into all of these lined notebooks and as if crippled by mental sickness-- I could no longer complete sentences.
I spent hours locked in the bathroom, curled into a ball in the empty tub forcing myself to think-- just think.
But nothing came.
I was thumbing through magazines in the book store the first time that I noticed The Libertines-- and it wasn't The Libertines, not really, but a review for the Anthony Thornton/Roger Sargent book, 'The Libertines: Bound Together'. I didn't read the review but I couldn't take my eyes away from the photo. I had seen this picture before, no less than a hundred times since the self-titled album had been released (I worked in record stores, these things got around), but something about seeing it this time kept me from averting my stare elsewhere.
It was haunting.
Friends like brothers.
I closed the magazine and frantically searched for the book; first at this bookstore then another but couldn't find it. Finally, I special ordered it through the record store I work at and when it arrived Kristin told me,
"You're lucky. That's probably the last order that we can do with that company."
I absorbed the book and then another ('Kids in the riot' by Pete Welsh) and then another ('The books of Albion' by Peter Doherty)-- not to mention the records, the EP, the singles, the leaked material, the side projects.
I was writing again. The book came back to me and characters that I didn't think needed adjustments were getting revisions. This was the story that I had wanted to tell and this external noise was how I felt in my stomach-- it led to more conscious thought. The screaming fit at the start of the track "Up the Bracket" was a kind of clearing of the air.
This band helped me to save my book, my book was my life-- this band saved my life. The more physical things that fell apart around me: an unhappy marriage, a record store that was shrinking in size and a growing infatuation with a teenager-- the more that I clung to this band and the idea of London.
Theirs was a tragic tale but in it I found hope.
The morning the reunion was announced, I raced to work to tell David about it and how I thought that I might like to go.
He advised me to purchase a ticket to Reading the moment they went on sale because they usually sold out. I checked the internet to see when the moment would be only to discover that I only had 45 minutes to make the decision.
There was no way that I could go. I had no passport, no credit card, no money and I owed rent on the apartment that I could no longer live in.
"Oh, go on. You can't wait on this," David urged.
In that second I didn't have to think. I knew what I had to do.
I managed to secure one Saturday ticket to the Reading Festival by spending part of the rent money. I later made up the difference by selling some of my records (something I promised myself I would never do).
Fuck it. The Libertines were getting back together. If they could do that much, then I could figure out the details.
I asked David how it was that he managed to talk me into doing things like this.
His answer came back:
"I want you to have a story to tell. You'd be surprised how many people don't."
2 comments
Beautifully tragic and hopeful! you are a woman of consistent and constant paradox! I am a little drunk and I love you terribly! London and the Libertines is just the start of many adventures lady!! your life will be saved and saved and saved a million times over by the things you love and the people who love you!
ReplyDeleteThe Ana, you already have so many awesome stories to tell. This is going to be the one that defines you. I'm glad you're getting to do what most never would have the "balls" to even try.
ReplyDelete