My relationship with Laura Marling might be best described as being “one-sided”, in that only one of us considers there to be a relationship, or indeed even knows of the others existence. I’m content for it to remain that way, though, because as it is there is also only one of us who knows that there is no chance of any romance blossoming between us.
I almost missed my date with Laura Marling last night. In fact, there’s a part of me that wonders if I maybe did miss it and the rest of the evening took place in some fanciful dream. I fell asleep almost as soon as I checked into my hotel room around 6.45; I had only intended on sitting down for ten minutes but the next thing I knew it was 8.57 and I had no idea how that was possible, aside from the obvious explanation that the minute hand kept ticking around the clock as normal.
I’ve been sleeping so strange at night of late, almost as though I have forgotten how to sleep. Or at least how to stay asleep, because I keep being returned from slumber at various points through the night as the gerbil running the wheel in my mind refuses to take a comfort break.
It’s frustrating, because how to sleep is one of those things that nobody ever taught us to do, we learned it for ourselves. Like crying and sneezing and procrastinating. It just happened, and I’m not sure how to begin teaching myself to sleep properly again. I went into a branch of Waterstones in Glasgow this morning hoping to find a book in the self-help section which might offer some guidance, but I couldn’t find anything on the subject and I felt unsure as to whether I could ask the shop assistant for help finding a book in the self-help section, so I left.
After a brief moment of startled panic and frustration at having missed the Laura Marling gig, I realised that my hotel was but a stone’s throw away from the ABC and that I could still make it if I wanted to. I stumbled out of my room in a daze, nothing felt real. I withdrew some cash from a nearby ATM, only to open my wallet and realise that I must have done this earlier. As I climbed the stairs into the venue I could hear the unmistakable sound of live music and I assumed that I had maybe missed the first song or two of Laura’s set. Fifty minutes later the show was finished and it transpired that it was Friday night and the ABC becomes a club at 11pm, so rather than missing two songs I had actually missed forty minutes.
The entire experience felt like a dream, a discombobulated product of my weary unconscious. On stage Laura Marling was dressed in a heavenly white gown, the microphone stands were adorned with flowers and shrubbery and she had a band. I have never seen Laura Marling play with a band; it was surreal.
I could tell from the way that she wasn’t looking at me that our romance wasn’t going to progress on this occasion, but her beautiful voice made up for that disappointment. It is difficult to be sad when there are musicians like her around. If this was a dream it’s the nicest one I’ve had in some time.
Diaries of a single man 