Sunday March 7

Mark:

On Tuesday February 23 we decided we were going to start to try writing songs together. Since then we’ve written something everyday in one of the notebooks – that’s the three I bought at the beginning, and an extra A4 book. That something could be a few verses, or both of us writing whole sets of lyrics each, sometimes spanning up to four or five pages at a time. Translating the written word into a song is a whole other thing, but getting something out of a blank page is also progress, so the ideas are there. And what we’re telling is the story of us. Nonsensical conversations turned into fantasy lyrics, or just simply tell it as it happened lyrics, or say how you feel lines. All put together for a whole concept of what we see as just feelgood writing which we hope to turn into feelgood songs complete with singalong choruses. In short, we’re attempting to musically bottle up what we are and somehow, we have no idea how just yet, take it out to people.

Maja:

I love writing these little lyrics. Just me and Mark, with a notebook and dreams and laughter. Cute little happy rhymes, mixed with dark stories about what we’ve been through. There’s a lot of artistic freedom of course, I’m not saying that everything is based on reality, but it feels really good to put pen to paper and try to express feelings in rhymes. Wonderful really. I’ve never really done this, and thoughts just keep on flowing out of my head down on paper in little bucket loads at a time.

Mark:

With that, we get started for the first time today as Maja sets up a studio in this little room and we tackle the first issue of percussion, which I do by improvising different percussion sounds on the acoustic guitar we borrowed from Sarah. I manage to come up with something that sounds like a kick drum and a snare, and we record a kick track, then a snare track. And now we have drums. Or something like them. After this it’s down to experimentation as we try different chord progressions and break out some of our lyrics to see what kinds of vocals we can come up with. It’s all part of the process and I’m not expecting whole chunks of already written lyrics to end up fully formed in a song, but it’s great to have something to start with, and as I thought, once a line emerges, we really get hold of it and develop it to come up with something different. We both have a go at singing lines as they come, to see where they can be taken, but we don’t get a massive way into this as, not long after we’ve got it set up, we have to leave to go to Sarah’s. But that’s fine. We’ve finally started actually trying to do something with the lyrics we’ve been writing, and that is a really big deal.

Maja:

My room is impossibly small, but since we can’t hang out in Mark’s room because Jenn lives there, we spend all our time in my room. My bed is too small to sleep two people in, so Mark still gets to sleep downstairs. Being as it is, small, crowded, there’s no way that you could possibly even fit a desk in here. But we have the cake trolley that Mark found, so I could use that to set up a makeshift desk. Maybe. I search around in the room for anything usable, and behind the bed I find a couple of broken slits for the bed. Perfect. I take the slits, tape them with some gaffer tape and put them between the handles of the trolley. Voila, a table! The computer goes on the slits, the interface beneath and then we can connect the microphone to that. Perfect. Mark starts to do a lot of different things and all I can think is wooah. I have no idea what to do here, how to help. It’s amazing and a bit daunting at the same time. Especially when he starts to play the guitar and totally goes all out in his singing. How does he even do that? I just don’t know. How am I going to do that? I understand that even less. It’s a bit scary. And I get all nervous and flustered, not wanting to make a fool out of myself perversely managing to make an even a bigger fool out of myself.

Mark:

No you don’t. This creative thing is hard. Pulling songs and ideas out of thin air. The key is to not be afraid to be terrible. Everyone does stuff that’s terrible. You just do your best to not let anyone outside the room see your terrible stuff. But of course, sometimes things do slip through the quality test and make it onto the stage. But even then, when you think you’ve done good stuff, you’ve just kinda got to hope other people agree. Or even then you could be deluding yourself and making a mess 

strutting terrible stuff all over the stage.

Maja:

Looks like you have a lot of experience of making a fool out of yourself. That’s great.

Mark:

The very definition of an experienced person is someone who’s made a lot of mistakes. 

We get to Sarah’s and she’s all over Maja. Geisha Rising is the name of Sarah’s new pet project that aims to promote all kinds of different artists and she’s blown away that into her life has walked a girl who embodies quite a few qualities of the Geisha; not only is Maja adept with a sword, being a proficient practitioner of Aikido, she also speaks fluent Japanese. Add that to the possibility that she bears more than a passing resemblance to the logo that Sarah has had commissioned for her project, and Sarah, a deep spiritual believer, really feels a significant alignment of the stars. Not least where it comes to myself and Maja. ‘You two are the real deal,’ she says with absolute conviction. Me and Maja coyly look at each other and laugh. ‘Well,’ says Maja, ‘We have some news.’ Sarah takes a seat and looks at us. We look at each other again, each daring the other to say it. But before either of us has a chance to say anything, Sarah bursts out with what sounds like a one word sentence, ‘You’regettingmarried.’ We don’t even answer. We just laugh hysterically and Sarah launches herself from the chair to envelope us in a huge group hug. ‘I knew it, I knew it, I just knew it,’ she says in between what are almost sobs. 

Then, all of a sudden she gets serious. ‘How’s it going over at the house?’ she asks. My silence says it all, while Maja replies, after some hesitation, ‘Not good. Really not good at all.’ This part hasn’t been written about so much, more kinda being a between the lines thing. But I should break cover here and say that Maja and Jenn don’t talk. Not, aren’t talking. They don’t talk to each other. At all. They’re never even in the same room. As far as I’m aware, on the first night, they said hi to each other and the word count has remained the same ever since. As for me, well, Jenn hasn’t said a whole lot to me lately either and I’m now even knocking on the bedroom door before I go in. A room I’ve lived in for over five years. Which I’m paying half the rent for. But strangely, it does feel right to do that. To just walk in would feel like an invasion. Of my own room. But it really is different for Maja. I’ve been in this house for six years and known Jenn for 12. Maja is brand new in the house and didn’t arrive in the best emotional shape as it was, so the potential for her feeling awkward and generally unwelcome is off the chart. As well as not having written too much of that in here, it really isn’t something we’ve spoken about a great deal either.

‘OK,’ says Sarah, nodding sagely, wheels clearly really turning. She stares at us for a second, as if taking us in, then says, ‘How would you guys feel about coming and living here? Rent free.’ What now? Me and Maja don’t even bother to consult. An instant, breathless yes is all that comes out of both of us. I might even just make a sound that sounds like it could be positive. We rush to her and there are more exuberant group hugs. But Sarah isn’t finished. ‘That’s really great,’ she says once we’ve all broken away. There’s more. ‘I’ve been wanting to go away quite a lot for a while but I’ve not had anyone to watch the cats and I’ve wanted someone for a while to just be living here and there’s not really been anyone I know I would be completely comfortable with asking. But I look at you two, so much in love, and having a bit of a hard time of it with a difficult living situation and, well, Mark I know, but Maja, I feel such a great energy off you and the two of you together, well…

‘The thing is, it’s not just helping look after the cats while I’m away now and then. I’ve been thinking for a while of just getting away from London altogether. I mean, to live. I’ve always seen this as just a temporary base for myself and I’m getting restless to go back out into the world again. Where, I have no idea, but within a month or two, and it will be for a long time. It would mean so much to me to know that my home  and my cats were safe and that there was someone living here that I could really trust. And I just know that’s you guys. All I’d ask is that you looked after the bills. Everything else is taken care of. Would you be up for all that?’ We are now nodding frantically and totally disbelievingly, totally unable to take in what was being said as it was being said. It’s just unreal. This does not happen. Yes yes, yes and yes is all we can say. ‘My babies, that’s just wonderful,’ she says, grabbing us both in yet another huge hug. ‘I just know this is going to be amazing. You guys are perfect for me and for this place. Before I go off on my travels, we can also work together, play music together, anything. Whatever you want. And this place will be yours, so treat it as your home. Whatever improvements or anything you want to do, just go for it.’ She then says that she has to go out and meet someone now, so will we be OK if she leaves us on our own for a little while? And we can also take some time to think about it. Yes we will definitely be fine here, and no need to think about anything at all. With that, another hug and Sarah is out the door. As soon as it closes, me and Maja look at each other in complete, total incredulity. What was that? Did you hear what I heard? We have place to move into now? And in a short while it’s going to be just us? It’s going to be our place? In practically central London? For free? This is just too much. This just doesn’t happen. Really? Has this just happened? It has, but we really are having a hard time taking it in. So much that we’re convinced we must have misheard or misunderstood something. But we can’t figure out what any of that could possibly be, so we conclude that we did indeed hear and understand the same things. Wow. OK. Time to check out the place. Our new place. That we’ll be moving into in a couple of days. Only a few days ago, Maja said out loud, ‘I wonder what our place will look like.’ I pretty much shut the conversation down as didn’t seem to be something possible so I didn’t see it as being really worth thinking about. ‘I was only thinking about it, it’s fun,’ she said. So I played along and we thought and talked about this impossible, mythical London apartment we were going to move into. All the time I was thinking, ‘I’m on furlough, and will have to keep up rent here as well for at least some kind of respectable period. No. Impossible. Not going to happen, but hey, let’s play pretend. Well…

Sarah’s said the place is a bit of a mess and there’s a lot of work to be done, but that’s fine. We’re up for it all. And I know what our room will be. It has to be. Sarah of course has the main big double room with its view overlooking central London. Alright, let’s not get carried away here. It’s not the classic skyline and bright lights, but over and through the houses of north London you can see through Kings Cross to one of the prominent buildings of the city. You can see a tall building, you can see central London. That’s good enough. The place also has what we’ve come to know as the main room, which is where all general hanging out and rehearsing takes place. This is in the middle of the apartment, with the small kitchen off that to the left, and the bathroom off it to the right. From the main room we have a corridor leading to the front door with a toilet at the immediate right. Continue on and you have the door on the right to Sarah’s room. At the end on the left you have the front door. To the right of that is the door of mystery, which I happen to know is basically used as a storage room for things belonging to Sarah’s friends. Then to the right of that is what I suppose would otherwise be the front room, which overlooks the street. It’s a beautiful room and really quite big. This has to be what will become our bedroom. We go and stand in there for a few moments trying to take all this in, spinning round, arms outstretched, in what will become ours. This, then later on, the whole thing. And between now and then, we will be living with the wonderful, hugely talented singing Sarah in what will be just the most amazing three person house share. Me and Sarah already have our connection, personally and musically. And the way she’s been drawn to Maja is just huge and instant.

For so long, in my head I’ve still been solving the impossible list by not thinking about it, just living day by day in the delusion that solutions will just pop up out of the road as we come to them. Now, here we are with a few huge delusions realised in one hit. We’ve found an apartment in lockdown London which, despite all our optimistic noises to each other, seemed totally insurmountable. But now with this, we’ve also solved the financial/work situation of how the hell I would pay my part of it, and sorted out how I can keep paying my share of the room with Jenn. Just like that, the impossible is all taken care of; I can continue to pay my share of the rent I’ve been paying all along with the furlough I’m still getting and, er, that’s it. Job done, impossible ticked off the list. All it took was for someone to offer us our own central London apartment for free. Pretty obvious when you think about it.

Maja:

Eeeeeeh. Wait what just happened? I don’t think I quite follow. 

London, Day 17

Monday March 8

Maja:

Today we have nothing planned, which is perfect and it means that we can just walk around and talk about everything that just happened. Which I still just can’t believe. Nothing really makes sense to me anymore. We need time to realise what just happened, and how better to do that then to take a wonderful walk around the neighbourhood. To Camden Market maybe? We find ourselves a wonderful little coffee shop in a charming little record store where I’m finally able to satisfy my coffee cravings with a wonderfully made flat white with amazing coffee art in a takeaway cup. After wandering around and taking in Camden Market, we start to make our way home again. ‘Hey, Mark. I don’t want to go home just yet. Can’t we continue?’ And so we do, ending up in Waterlow Park where we see the ducks swimming harmoniously in the pond. Then we go and find a bench where we sit and enjoy the view of our London. We’ve been out for way over three hours, and return home excited about whatever is going to happen next.