Memories

 Hilton Garden Inn, Oakville

Some memories popped onto my Facebook feed today, making me look back at the world tour that ended late last year. What an incredible time - 35 shows, from November 2023, in Japan, finishing up in Esher, the next November. In between, we visited the USA three times, went to Canada, Australia, played all over the UK... it was possibly the most fun I've had, as a member of the band. It wasn't without its challenges, don't get me wrong: at certain points, the sheer weight of responsibility almost overwhelmed me. I certainly felt that my mental health took a sharp turn for the worse, at a number of times. Learning to balance my life, between times of intense activity, and those periods of rest in between, was hugely difficult. 

But I wouldn't have changed it for the world. I sat and pored over the photos, this evening, and selected just this one, to represent what it was all like, for me. A hotel room, in Toronto. My base for about three days. What felt like an oasis of sanity between some hugely complicated travel days. there's my suitcase, by the door. My laptop bag, on top. the two bags that followed me all over the globe - through airports, in vans, into venues. Pushing that case into hotel rooms, lugging it onto the bed, opening the zip. Letting my life, in packing cubes, bags of dirty laundry and washbags, tumble onto the bedding. There's the generic hotel bathroom, repository for the same old toothbrush, the cologne, and the shaving cream. There's a TV on the wall, but it's never switched on. I've not watched a TV, in a Hotel room, for over a decade: it's my sanctuary, my place of rest - television would be an unwelcome guest. 

I stayed in dozens of rooms like this, for the tour. Different views, from the windows, but much the same sorts of places. All of them welcoming, to me, for a short time: but equally, they would all let me go. 

Life on the road is transitory - in that sense, it's like all of our lives. But the transitory nature of road life has its own magic: a glory in the tiny monotonies that make it all tick.

I love being out on the road - and can't wait to do it all over again.