Today’s Prompt: Write about a loss: something (or someone) that was part of your life, and isn’t any more.

A few years ago I wrote a song called “Take Me Away”. The lyrics reflected my weariness at being in a city where I felt deprived of the space to breathe.

I was dissatisfied with my job, tired of the bureaucracy of being a small cog in a very large corporate machine, and grimy from the constant dust thrown up by improvements to the centre of Liverpool, as it was prepared for being the City Of Culture in 2008. I was ready for a change.

One day I observed someone pushing their way past everyone so they could to get to the ticket barrier first. They were not alone, and one bad days, I joined that race. On this occasion, they almost knocked down the blind guy who I often saw on the way into Liverpool. Something in my mind said, “they show you no pity”, and soon after, the song was born.

Sad sad song coming up from the pavement,
every day just the same such frustration,
look of sheer desperation and dismay.
Sad sad face looking out from the window,
saying “where did my yesterdays go?” 
Hanging on for tomorrow, night and day.

So take me away from the sad lonely face of the city,
Take me away from the grey and the black and the blue.
I don’t want to stay in a place where they show you no pity.
So sorry babe, I got to say,
Take me away.

Lyrically, I was yearning for open countryside. Move forward two years and I made my escape. For the last few years I have been working in a rurally based company with an agricultural focus. Yes, there’s still bureaucracy – I suspect that I will always experience this in my line of work – but I am a larger cog in a smaller machine, and there is so much fresh air just outside the door.

Where I took my lunchtime walk on Wednesday

Ironically, the thing I miss the most about not working in Liverpool is the train journey. Logistically I am forced to drive to and from work every day, which affords me the privacy that public transport cannot, but I am not able to read, or close my eyes and drift away, and write a song or two.

 MinG