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melody@mmcreativemedia.co.uk

@melodys_pen

Tales of a Neurotic Traveller 3: The City of Souls

“I’ve done Asia.” The girl says to me.
“You’ve done it?”
“Yes” She said confidently
.“The whole continent?” I ask. Why do people talk like this when it comes to travelling?
 “Last year I done Australia, and this year I done Asia.”
“What do you mean you’ve done Asia- you screwed it?”

* *

To Go Travelling. A rite of passage, a destination rather than a verb; ‘Travelling’ -a place where you drink your drinks from buckets rather than glasses, where you take super hot yet spiritual instagram pictures.

What are we looking for out there? Are we changed on our return, or do the lessons fade with the tan?

Either way, hearing some else’s ‘travelling’ tales is never as interesting as they think it is when they’re recalling long, arduous stories about nights out you weren't on, of beaches you didn't see. The returned traveller sighs in a way that informs you of your inadequacy as an audience as they try and get you to picture the mountain/beach/rave/monkey sanctuary, and as they tell you about the elephants/native children/rainbows that are intrinsic to their new (and temporary) vegan ways, you feel one of the two; boredom or, your own internal compass beginning to twitch.

I’m not going to tell you ‘I done’ Paris, in fact there were no buckets of booze in sight in Madrid. I didn't ‘do’ Barcelona, I danced it.

* * *

After the glory of Paris, Barcelona, looked slightly battered in comparison, but I loved the Gothic walls and happily watched people salsa dance on the streets while roller-blades glided past them, that ecliptic mix of old and new, of Catalan, the Moorish, Gothic and modern, the mash of architecture leaving me dizzy.

Kabul Hostel.  22 euros a night for a bed, breakfast and dinner. I can afford better but I don’t want better. I want people.

I immediately make friends with Emily, or to be more accurate Emily makes friends with me. Emily is Canadian and the kind of beautiful that has you staring half a second too long when she enters a room, with never ending legs and never ending enthusiasm for whatever is thrown her way.  She so pretty and loud and wild, you want to poke her to check she real and not off the TV, but Emily is all real apart from her eyelashes, so long she could catch you a fish dinner with them if she went swimming in the ocean.

“Are you all by yourself?” she asks me.
In London the answer is always this question is always no. No I’m not by myself, no no, I  have a gazzilion people on their way so don’t try and mug me/ kill me/ speak to me.
“Yes,” I say.
“Me too! she squeaks and hugs me. I’m hugged by this crazy Canadian and a friendship is forged.

This is perhaps the most surprising thing I have discovered about travelling alone; you’re never really alone. These cities and hostels and trains are full of people looking for the same thing as you- life, and I spoke to more strangers in these few weeks than the sum total of people I have ever spoken to on the tube. Quiet moments here aren't solitude, rather they are reflection. I am a person who hates the silence of my own company, but somewhere on those streets I gave up the ghost. There on the sand, beer and book in hand I watched the sun soften and then disappear on the water, me and my cold can of San Miguel feeling a happiness so deep it rumbled in my stomach like a hunger. I wanted more.

More arrived in the form of Kelly Jo Charge, my oldest and most vital part of my university days. We hadn’t seen each other for over a year, but have the type of friendship that immediately resumes its intensity and giddiness on our reunion.

We drank cocktails on sun loungers and hit the streets as the sun went down, ending up in an Irish Bar which though was not quite the cultured direction we had intended to fall down, was perfectly suitable for a gin and tonic, making friends with a rather sun-burnt trio of graduates. These were the type of graduates that make you feel slightly inadequate as with their high-tech business venture they were about to hit the big time. They graduated 4 months ago. I graduated 4 years ago. I’m still waiting for the big time.

We awoke the next morning with fuzzy heads in a room with our eight other roommates, Kelly rolling over to staring at the boy in the bunk bed next to ours.
“Stephen?”
“Kelly?”
In all the countries, in all the hostels, in all the rooms, here were two people that knew each other, friends on Facebook no less. The world isn't small, it’s just working in rhythms to have the right people come across each other. This city of souls has its own workings, its own plan that sweeps you up.

Stephen is the supermodel kind of Irish with piercing blue eyes, milky smooth skin and jet black thick hair, helpfully paired with a delicious sense of style- and that’s before you get to the accent. We love Stephen.

With the addition of my brother Dom a few days later, our gang was complete. Dom is one of my favourite people in the world and though he’s seven years younger, entering our twenties I like to think the age gap has closed, although it leaves me on the wrong side of 25 and him on the right side.

As the days wandered past us, bonds were forged, our crew of travellers inseparable, recognising certain traits in each other that kindle a friendship that feels easy and long lasting. We rode bikes, talked life, politics and made up an imaginary friend called Rhonda that spoke in a drawling New York accent and travelled the world with her dog on her dead husbands money. (Seriously what the hell was that one about? We talked about Rhonda so much that her voice still rings in my head sometimes. I blame the mango daiquiris...)

A new destination can reveal something of yourself to you, cultivate qualities suppressed in your everyday routine. Perhaps this is what the young traveller searches for amongst the tourist traps and tours, the drunken nights and sandy days-you’re searching for a better version of yourself, one you hope you can bring home.

We all like ourselves better here- the falsities and tightly wound stresses of work seem flippant, far away. The Barcelona version of myself is loud, friendly and open-minded- I talk to strangers in the beds next to me, make friends easily, learn new words-

a ‘loosey’ [Loo-zee]
Noun:- a person who looses items / is careless
Example:  ‘you’re such a loosey’

I dance until 6am in clubs that open out onto the beach, our gang spilling out onto the sand in between songs, eating spam and cheese baguettes from street sellers (they haven’t quite understood the concept of a burger van it seems) the bass line pumping us with adrenaline as we sing (yell) Calvin Harris, Rhianna and other familiar friends into the flashing dark.


One by one as the departure lounge calls, they leave all saying the same thing to the city:

“Thanks for reminding me who I am.”

Returned to the self, this strange city has given something of ourselves back to us but the real trick, is to hold onto that revelation- live that discovery back in the tube stations, back at your office.

How many of us vow that something has changed, that we won’t fall back into the same hamster wheels as before. Yet after a while, it becomes just pretty pictures in frames, profile pictures change as the next event takes center stage.

Is holiday the illusion or the revelation?

I jump on the next train before I find out.. Heading to Madrid I’m about to fall in love and be broken hearted in the space of 5 days…

To Be Continued...

@melodys_pen

Tales of a Neurotic Traveller 2 The Kindness of a Stranger - Paris to Barcelona.

“I’m Clemente.”
I look at Clemente. Clemente is very hot, and very French.
“I’m Melody.”  We shake hands and smile, sizing each other up the way we people do.
I’m on a double-decker, high speed super train from Paris to Barcelona and I just hit the passenger seat jackpot.

I craved freedom and adventure, but my old demons often hung around my ankles making me doubt myself, reminding me of the fall. Through my early twenties I struggled with depression and anxiety, experiences that leave scars that though are invisible to others, have you treat life more cautiously, having felt the fragility of your own. 

As I recovered, the world seemed a more fearful place than before. I had seen a darkness in my own existence that ran so deep, I felt its echo wherever I went. How could anywhere be safe if my own mind wasn’t? I had lost all confidence in being in my own company, a place I then just filled with noise; the radio as I went to sleep, episodes of Friends playing in empty rooms, unsuitable boyfriends at the table. Fear is a funny thing- it can lead you places where you think you’re protecting yourself, when in fact you’re being boxed into smaller and smaller hiding places. 

Out in Paris I give the demons a good, firm kick. “Fuck off.” I say to them under my breath. “I’m getting on the damn train.”

                  

My walking, talking, French stranger-on-a-train-cliché buys me red wine and we talk for the entire 6 and half hour journey, covering art, philosophy, education and in hour number 3, his girlfriend (pah!) I forget to be scared, of the tunnels and mountains, of the 200mph, of being by myself when I get to my destination, I only see the beauty (no, not just of the French dude’s face) of the Pyrenees, of green luscious space that turns to a gorgeous burnt orange as we pass into Spain. “I’m back,” I whispered. “I’m back.”

The train boasts a comfort similar to that of a first class airplane, with superfluous amounts of legroom, plug sockets, a bar and TV, so we find ourselves watching a movie called The Spanish Apartment, about  a French student moving to Barcelona to study, living with a mix of European students all trying to make sense of themselves and their education, spending happy days and drunken nights sitting in a beautiful plaza surrounded by palms trees and fountains. Clemente has seen this film countless times and is his favourite as he is now the French guy moving to Barcelona to study. 

Our own experience of education, the working world and the unfriendly transition between the two seems to be a universal one. There is the tug of career, status and money, those measurable milestones that translate well to your parents and peers, versus the equal need to rebel against it to find something you actually want, though knowing what that is is a hurdle in itself. Your twenties seem to be driven by an unquenchable thirst for freedom while at the same time a desperation to be allowed onto the rat race, despite loathing the monotony of the daily grind that sees you getting off your face on a Friday by 7pm in an act of escape. What do you want? The most fundamental of questions, but often the most unanswerable.

His family are from a tiny island called Ille de Rey off La Rochelle, where each person has their role and their place on the farmland and in the household. His cousins know who they are, he tells me, because they know their purpose out on the land, everyone has their role in order for the unit to survive. He on the other hand, given the gift of freedom with scholarship education and opportunity to travel is the lost one. “Are we happier when our world is small then?” I ask him, looking out at the waters of Montpellier flying past, hurtling across countries and time borders. Neither of us say anything.

As the train pulls into Barcelona Clemente stares at me in the pause before we start gathering up the debris of our 6 hour adventure. “How strange we had so much to say to eachother.” He helps me with my backpack, laughing as we take our first breathe of Spanish air, the dry smell of dirt and heat letting me know I’m home. 

"I’m going this way," he says, "and you?"
I have no clue where I’m going but want to work it out by myself, I don’t want to rob myself of this moment by following a boy around town. He waves goodbye as he heads for the metro and I wave back, grateful for the kindness of a stranger.

I never see him again. We are always searching for meaning in our encounters with each other, but sometimes the fleeting glimpse into a possibility is just as satisfying. We’re not on our own in our fears about what the hell we’re doing in life- the stranger next to you also carries the weight of life’s expectations and hopes. There’s no such thing as a stranger at all.

This, as it turned out, was a great philosophy to learn, as I was about to share a room in a hostel with 10 people, which as a number is the most amount of people I have ever shared a sleeping space with. I was about to find some friends for life among the beds of Kabul Hostel, but first I had to find the place.

“The Beach is this way yes?”
The bus driver shakes his head frantically, eyes wide in fear for my sense of geography.
“Nooo No, es por alli.” He points on the exact opposite direction.

I’m the last person on the bus which should have been a clue, and have somehow ended up in the suburban mountains of Barcelona rather than down by the harbour. Me and my backpack which weighs roughly the same weight as me, get off the bus and walk to the opposite side of the road waiting for the number 9. I’m lost, and I don’t care. I’m in Barcelona.

The madness of Las Ramblas is waiting for me and I weave my way through the crowds and street sellers using google maps on my iphone (good help my phone bill) but when I get to the hostel I’m momentarily confused. I know this square- have I been here before? I look around at the fountain and the beautiful palm trees, the cobbled square with people taking a moment from the heat. Then it clicks. It’s the Plaza in the movie I’ve just watched with Clemente, the Plaza where the young and lost came to sit, and here I am. I don’t believe in coincidence. I believe in signs.

To Be Continued.....

@melodys_pen

Tales of a Neurotic Traveller 1. Green Men and Signs from God

“It’s fucking GREEN.” I shout at a Renault Clio opposite the Eiffel Tower. “VERT” I add for good measure (complete with French hand gestures), but the Renault Clio is unfazed, as are the two dozen Vespers that zoom around me as I hold onto my bladder, tiptoeing across the white lines of an apparently meaningless zebra crossing. The French really need to work out what they mean when it comes to green men.

“Am I missing something?” I ask my very French friend Juliette. Juliette is a PHD student in Paris. We did our Philosophy MA together in Kent. She’s very French.

 “Green means that you can go,” she explains, “but the cars coming round the corner can go too.”

Well that makes perfect sense.

* * * 

I quit my job. All the best adventures start this way, as do all the best stories, because if there’s no fear of an end you’ve just got sky and train tickets and with no job, neither of these things run out until you want them to.

Back on the coast of Kent I’ve carefully put together a life that’s beginning to resemble the picture I’ve long had in my head- I live on the beach next to an old fashioned ice- cream parlour, I own a bright red kayak that I take out on sunny days and own enough books to fill my whole apartment including the fireplace. I read and write and drink gin and tonics and nobody notices that I don’t go clubbing. Did I get old somewhere along these shores? I’m not sure if I mind too much, but comfort is not always the best thing for artistic integrity, and in the safety of my little life my pen has gone quiet. It’s not that I’m not moved to be creative, rather I just lose the need for it. My pen has saved my life a fair few times, but without a healthy dose of fear or suffering it seems the passion for the pages has become a hobby rather than a necessity. I miss that need. It’s the very foundation of me. It’s time to go.


Things I am afraid of: 

Trains
Tunnels
Lifts
Being on my own in places
Panic attacks

Things I am off to do:

Trains
Tunnels 
Lifts
Do it on my own
Have a friggin panic attack.


A good a list as any. As I plan these trains and tickets, various people that I like very much want to join in on different sections, so I end up with a balanced portion of being alone, travelling alone and being periodically saved across different borders by friends and family. Now it’s no trek across the Amazon, it’s no 3 month stint across Asia, (in fact it’s pretty much just France and Spain to be honest) but bravery is measured by the fear you feel before you jump on board - and I’m pooping my pants waiting for the Eurostar.


Paris. Mon Paris. How have I not been here before?? It’s quicker to get here than it is to get back to Essex for crying out loud. Big fat tunnel number one is a breeze due to the fact I booked a first class ticket and am drinking unlimited amounts of wine and something posh with salmon in it, and arrive in Paris with an air of confidence that sees me navigate the way to the hotel via bus. My fellow passengers on the number 38 appease my enthusiasm for the sights as they point out the Notre Dame and the hotel d’Ville as we fly past and I can’t stop myself- I’m gasping in delight and looking like a touristic nutter.

That’s the thing about Paris, the architecture is insane. Quite literally every time you turn there’s another ridiculously ornate monster of a building. You don’t feel you’re in the right century- a distinct lack of modernity in the centre leaves you with layers of fabulous finishes, of statues, gold, wealth, beauty, of sheer extravagance. London competes with itself constantly, to be the tallest, the newest, the shiniest, but Paris doesn’t bother, it’s all here in the stone and you feel you’ve been altered just wandering through it all.

My very French friend Juliette was the first friend I made at Kent as a post graduate, super clever and super clumsey, wild blonde hair and long limbs that tumble with every story told in her bright French accent. I quiz her about Paris – When was the French revolution? Did the Musee d’Orsay used to be a station? Why are there so many palaces? We talk about the French murdering the monarchy.

“All of our palaces are now museums for the people.” She tells me triumphantly.

“All of our museums are free.” I retort.

We watch the sun go down on the river Seine drinking warm cans of beer, willow trees dipping their leaves into the water as we bitch about how crazy Americans are with their gun laws and drinking laws, not noticing that the people tutting and huffing next to us are in fact U.S citizens. I decide to give myself a French get out of jail free card- namely, the French don’t give a shit.

The first leg of Le Grande Adventure includes a few girly days with my mother, eating shameless amounts of croissants and scoffing at the price of a cappuccino (5.50 Euros! What’s it made of? Magic beans?) and she helps me find a location that has been on my goal board for a long time.

Shakespeare and Co is a bookshop opposite the Notre Dame that has been a home and meeting place for writers and artists for decades, giving shelter and a place to stay for those looking for art and inspiration along the river. It was my plan B as a lost graduate: “I’ll just run away to Paris” I reasoned. And here I was. 

It’s all very on-trend and popular, with the obligatory Japanese tourists taking pictures out the front, but it’s the bones of the place that capture me. Wooden beans and layers of books, old typewriters and well-worn desks laid out upstairs for anyone to use, and I think of the cut-out picture of this place on my wall at home. Sometimes something you wait for can disappoint you. But sometimes it’s even more magic than you hoped.

As I drop Ma Miller off at the Eurostar the next day I turn to enjoy my European freedom. I’m immediately lost. The bus I took doesn’t go back in the same direction and though I know I want to get back to the river this doesn’t quite help- there aren’t exactly signs for ‘The Thames’ in London and funny enough it’s the same here, so as I have nowhere to be and no time to measure I simply wander south, guessing that eventually I’ll hit the water or some impressive building that I recognise.

“Um, God?” I ask silently as neither of the above occur over the next hour. “Would you mind sending me a sign that this isn’t actually a huge mistake and that I’m going to be ok on my own please?” My current status of ‘lost and alone in Europe’ almost rattles me when a familiar face appears, and I grin widely with the relief of recognition before I actually recognise who is smiling back at me. 
It’s Jason Segal, off of how I met your mother, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. He grins, I gawp, and we definitely have a moment there on the streets of Paris but I decide not to stop and tell him that he is a sign from God. I walk on by and find my hotel at the end of the street.


So far freedom tastes good, but I take a certain comfort in my geography- I’m not that far from home yet. Yet. A double -decker monster train awaits that will take me to Barcelona at 300km per hour. I am again pooping my pants. What I don’t know yet, is that there is a very handsome stranger coming to sit in the seat next to me…

    To be continued….

@melodys_pen

Ode To The Restaurant

Ode To The Restaurant

A restaurant is a funny thing,

The greatest show, a circus ring

A mixed up group of hardworking souls

Who work crazy hours to fill your bowls.

Wyatt and Jones is serious treat

Because their staff don’t take defeat

Even when bath water finds a way

When windows smash from outside affray

And scaffolding poles pop in for brunch,

And chef’s young bones take a serious crunch.

Because a restaurant is a funny thing-

Has a love / hate marmite kinda ring

Where you spend more time here than at home

And get used to hearing your own bones groan.

But you always come back for one more service

Coz’ without that buzz you just get nervous

And we all know that that first drink

Tastes better after a 16 hour stint.

This building here was my first home

On Thanet Island as it’s known

A stranded Essex girl indeed

Who had no place and was in need.

So here I found a different madness

And as I leave- a serious sadness

I love these walls, these old church chairs

The office up a millions stairs

The daily puzzle of vegetable crates

The KP-cutlery grand debate

And now I know what ‘wizard’ means

The only thing left is ORDER COFFEE BEANS

xx

Mental Health and the Young Person's Pressure Cooker.

At twenty-five years old, I, like the majority of my peers, find my i-phone to be a natural extension of my limbs. My whole life is channelled through this one portal, my alarm clock, my banking, Facebook and Twitter, my camera and hundreds of pictures, Amazon, my music collection, news source, calorie counter. An identity has been gathered and constructed and I hold it constantly in the palm of my hand to reaffirm the person I am, the cold sweat of dread when the damn thing goes missing a feeling we are all familiar with. The constant noise that we surround ourselves with becomes necessary and normal; I find myself suspicious of people that don't have Facebook (what are they hiding?) and people that don't have i-phones are just plain inconvenient (what do you mean you don't have i message or whatsapp? I have to pay to text you?)

Youngminds charity published the findings of their mental health survey recently, with the pressures of our  relentless and 'toxic culture' on young people hitting the headlines. Fear of failure, worrying about job prospects and negative self image were some of the many topics confronted in the poll of 2,000 young people between the age of 11-25. YoungMinds campaigns director Lucie Russell, said: "Every day we hear about the unprecedented toxic climate children and young people face in a 24/7 online culture where they can never switch off."

Technology and social media is an intrinsic part of our lives, the identity created on these platforms all adding to the addictive pressure cooker that we find ourselves in. What Youngminds is doing in their Youngminds VS campaign is bringing to our attention the critical picture; more and more young people are suffering from anxiety, depression and other issues than ever before, manipulated by media and influenced by culture, so it becomes important to better equip ourselves when it comes to talking about mental health and our lifestyles.

There are enormous pressures faced as a young person beginning to gather their lives into their  own hands; pressure to succeed, to get good marks, to 'go travelling' (a vague and unspecific destination that everyone seems to have visited.) There is a need to be accepted, be the right shape, to get a good job relating to your good degree, squeeze the value out of your education, save for a house deposit, to be in a relationship. The path is well-tread before us, the message clear; work out who you are, but make sure who you are looks good, earns good, and can get on the property ladder.

It is no surprise then that anxiety and depression is rising in this constant and 'toxic' environment. Stress and anxiety has you believing that you are holding the world up and one wrong move will have everything crashing down, depression knocking any light left out of you. Panic attacks and the fear of them can lock you tight in a never ending cycle of obsessive compulsive behaviour that then makes each minute of a normal day like a full-scale battleground. Facebook and Instagram meanwhile, is telling you that everyone else is having a good time, looking good, loving their graduate jobs, travelling to cool and trendy places, often alienating users when it's ethos is to connect people. Social media despite it's constant presence can often hold a lonely and hollow portrait of a person.

It is education that liberates a young person from the pressure cooker, giving an individual the tools to craft a life and a living from what they love to do, and a good education should inspire someone to do just that. A school should not be an exam factory, but a fertile land where we breed confidence in young minds; confidence to develop individual strengths and value them, measuring success by something other than the wage packet it returns to you. But that is not how the song sings, and an honest look at how we are teaching young people before we send them out into the world would answer a lot of questions when it comes the state of the mental health of 11-25 year olds.

It's not failure to suffer in this way- it's inevitable;  it's a difficult task, trying to find out who you are and what you want, at the same time as trying to fit in to what the society and your peers and your family expect you to be.

"The deepest problems of modern life flow from the attempt of the individual to maintain the independence and individuality of his existence against the sovereign powers of society, against the weight of the historical heritage and the external culture and technique of life."      

Georg Simmel, The Metropolis and Mental Life  (1903)

We enter into a world already created, and in our attempts to try and craft an identity, find ourselves against a backdrop that already exists. The world is already moving when we enter into it, it has rhythm and timings, society has seats ready for you to sit at, and the discomfort felt is this friction; you're trying to be yourself, but need the world and society to tell you who that is.

If you were born on to a blank canvas, that's what you would be, a creature with no language, a creature who didn't know whether you liked Chinese takeaway or not, whether 'How I met your Mother' was funny or not. You know what you like and what you dislike because it is pressed against you constantly. Your language, your mannerisms, your tastes and preferences, your ideas about right and wrong, about what you think you want, what you know- all this comes from somewhere external to you.

So if you take away the i-phone, who, actually, are you?

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