The pilgrimage

Thirty years have slid by on another train track, one that runs closely parallel to my life today, yet is a world away.

It's been a strange few days collating a series of photos from my weekend pilgrimage to childhood locations as part of a project.

This visit to one of the few places I have called 'home' (and meant it) released a myriad of feelings, emotions, and old-new memories.

Sweet, hot musical tea

A broken gold chain, sunglasses in the grove, hands under a sodium streetlight, the thick, heady fug of a blossom tree, a flowery notebook covered in blue-inked thoughts, a promise, the shushhhhh of a late train in the distance, bitten-down fingernails, sweet hot musical tea, and digestive biscuit crumbs on a metal tray, ghosts in the kitchen, an engaged phone line, late-night voices, and Polo mints.

At some point, when I was 17, I left this place, unknowingly, for what would be the last time.

My purpose for staying was strong, but my reasons faded as I found myself walking the path alone. At that moment, it was time to move on.

Once more, I picked up my life, packed it away, and started again 30 miles away. The ache of missing those people was constant until it became integrated… normal.

The pull to return home is strong

A second mum, my best friend, and connection with my real family were all left in my rear-view mirror. Even now, so far along this path, the pull to return home is strong.

It's different but the same, this place. Like after a party, as though everyone has only just left the room. An empty vessel.

A lyric will gather dust in your memory your whole life.

Then, one day, you'll hear the opening chords to that song unexpectedly and realise you know every key change and word as though you'd written it yourself.

It’s the same with place.

No matter how many years pass me by,
I can still walk those streets of yesteryear without missing a beat.

That's the beauty of memory.

It never really leaves you.

It’s said that revisiting a childhood house or place is hazardous and that these things are 'best discovered in ourselves.'

I understand this now, having made the short-lived pilgrimage. But to have the ability to relive forgotten moments from those days that were always (always) sunny — is true magic.