So it's just turned eleven o clock but today feels like one of the longest days I've had, ever.
This morning my dad offered to drive me to the bus stop, because I was going shopping with a friend, but as we were in the car Madi texted to say she couldn't go and I didn't really have the heart to ask him to turn around, and I still wanted to go and buy another John Green book (I haven't told you about "Paper Towns" yet? I will!). So I went on the bus to Chester. I went to Waterstones, I bought "The Abundence of Katherines" and... well, after an hour or so, I started thinking about how much time I've spent in Chester recently. And for some stupid reason it made me want to be further away, so I got on another bus to Liverpool because the last time I went there with my friends we were sort of interrupted (that's another story) and considering the amount of time I spend at home, it's big and far away to me.
A few awkward things happened - they always seem to when I end up on public transport alone. I nearly missed the bus home, my parents wanted me to go to their friends birthday party, and closely skimmed a pigeon as I ran through Liverpool One which was... well, terrifying. There was a boy on the bus who, now I think back, might've been flirting with me, but at the time after an encounter I'd seen he'd had at the station with his friend I thought he was trying to sell me weed. Things like that.
And it's weird, but being alone is nice sometimes. At about four o clock, I walked around the Albert Dock and, either because I'm desparately in search of something or just a pretentious annoying hipster, I went to the Tate Gallery, which is an art gallery beside the Beatles Museaum and Bugworld and other galleries, gift shops and cafes around the edge of the Albert Dock. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon, the streets were busy and it was cool inside, plus it's free and I had about £2 left in my purse.
It was the third time I'd been in there, and I vaguely remember once, with my mother when I was about eleven, there being this room in one of the sculpture sections where there was some kind of giant glass ball throwing light across the room in different spaces... I can't remember how it looked at all, I think it's gone now, but I remember being intregued by it.
Today, I discovered they have a section now called The Sculpture of Language, curated by Carol Ann Duffy. In one room, there's this huge magnetic wall and three satchels full of giant words on magnets - like "love" and "light" and "champagne" and "giving", it's almost like a refridgerator door, and people come up and arrange them into their own poems.
There's also a desk, with a big fat notebook and a pen on it, entitled "poetry". Leafing through it, it's full of poems and messages from tourists and guests, but it isn't like a conventional visitor book in a museaum. I think that the idea of it was originally to copy down the poems on the magnet wall, but it's full of all sorts of messages - I remember a poem written by a child about a teddy bear, accompanied with drawings, a plea from a stranger about the meaning of life and someone else's reply, and a very simple "I love you, Hayley".
I don't really know what I was doing but I found myself a page and I used the pen in my bag, because there's had run out, and I started writing a letter to someone. And it was words I'd tried arranging out before, ones that had come out in fifteen sides or just a sentence, and I must've looked a mess to anyone around as I was frantically scribbling away, covering up my work a little with my hand.
It probably didn't come out very clearly, or like I would've liked. I don't know if I regret it or not. I know it's something I've tried before. But the thought that although it probably won't find its recepitant, someone will turn through the pages of that book and they'll know, and maybe they'll laugh at me but I don't care because it's out there, miles away.
If you're anywhere close, go see this exhibition some time. Go to the book, if they still have it, and find yourself a page and write something - a love letter, a hate letter, a question or an answer. Write a story. Take some crayons and draw a picture of a unicorn. I can't tell you how magical it feels to loosely connect with complete strangers like that. There is definitely a bit of a weight off of my shoulders.
And if you're somewhere else in the world that isn't England and you visit here, make sure you go to Liverpool some time. I remember it being called something like Capital of Culture one year, and it's sort of true because I don't know any other city which celebrates the Beatles and is full of painted statues of lambs and has pianos in the street that anyone is welcome to play.
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