Bring the Happy - Memory 2628

It was our first date.  My partner and I went to see Stacey Kent at Stockton Arc.  She's a jazz singer whose voice is sublime, and we both adored the sound of her flawless tones.  I'd booked the very top balcony, the one with only one row that feels as though you're sat at a bar.  No one else had booked the balcony, and so we sat hand in hand, snuggled up together, losing ourselves to the beautiful music.

When I heard about Bring the Happy back in August it was through the Arc's website.  I instantly fell for their idea; to set up camp in a town or city, to collect happy memories and to make a show from some of the memories they hear and read.  I needed to know no more about who they were, why they were doing it or how, I only knew that I had to leave a memory and see the show.  So I booked my ticket and waited.

As the songs washed over us one after the other I gradually became more and more nervous. I can vividly remember the butterflies inside me as the evening drew on, and the later it became the more I wanted to ask him to dance with me. I was never a confident person, always rather shy (though better at hiding it these days), but I knew I had to ask. Eventually, when the final song was announced, I somehow found the courage to ask. I knew that if I didn't, we would never have this moment again; not here, not with this stunning music and our new, exciting love. And so, with butterflies dancing in my tummy and goosebumps from head to toe, I took his hand in mine, which by now was shaking, and I asked him to dance. And for those few minutes What a Wonderful World it truly was.

I sometimes feel like a bit of a fraud, you know.  I joined Stockton Town Choir having never lived there (although I did work in Stockton on and off over a few years).  I so badly wanted to leave a memory for Bring the Happy despite not being a resident.  Having been part of the choir for ten months and performed in various Stockton settings for so many wonderful reasons, even just to make people #smile, I was having a tough time picking a memory.  I have so many that make me smile that I could have spent all day in the Bring the Happy shop.

I didn't leave a choir memory in the end.  I couldn't.  I just kept returning to the same memory of My Flying Dutchman and me.  It wouldn't leave me alone, not since the moment it happened, and so I really had no choice.

To this day I don't know whether Stacey Kent and the band noticed us up there on the balcony dancing to their dreamy, romantic music. I do know that the song finished much too early and it was suddenly time to leave. We walked arm in arm, as we always did, to the high street to get a taxi home. I'd like to think it was our obvious romantic aura, but I knew deep down it was probably the same thing he said to every couple who entered his cab, but he welcomed us, "Mr & Mrs Perfect". As he drove us back to Middlesbrough he asked whether we had any children.
No, no children, and we're not married.
Oh, well then, no you should be married before you have children, and they will be beautiful children for Mr & Mrs Perfect of course!
And so went our conversation, and all the while we laughed and snuggled in closer together in the back seat of the taxi.

I didn't go to the Bring the Happy shop.  I was lucky in that the lovely people of Invisible Flock came to choir one Wednesday a couple of weeks ago, and so I left my memory that night instead.  I hurriedly typed it into an iPad because I knew I should already be in the Georgian Theatre getting ready to sing!  So I gave the briefest of accounts, while hopefully still getting the feelings across.  I didn't want to tell my story in front of others who knew me; it was private.  At the same time it was so important to me that it couldn't go untold.

It was our last ever date, though neither of us knew it. We'd been together for a few years; a weekend here and there when our diaries happily synced and flights between The Netherlands and here were available. Stolen moments, it seemed, and so few of them that it was always painful waiting for the next. But it was our last ever date, and there we sat in Stockton Arc again. We watched a comedian, but to this day I'm certain My Flying Dutchman only understood half of the jokes. And as though no time had passed, we sat side by side, arm in arm, always so very much together.

Finally last night, 01 November 2013, the first of the three shows in Stockton Arc arrived.  Armed with the memory still vivid in my mind, the knowledge that I was so very close to that spot on the balcony, and with a lovely friend at my side, I sat down full of excitement and anticipation.  I knew the show would be wonderful, but I had no clue what was to come.

We walked arm in arm, as we always did, to the high street to get a taxi home.  As we entered his cab he welcomed us, the very same taxi driver we had on our first date.  He beamed as though he recognised us, and he called us Mr & Mrs Perfect all over again.  He didn't ask the same questions; he really did seem to remember us, but of course he couldn't.  It was all just the same things he says to every couple, surely.  As before, all the while we laughed and snuggled in closer together in the back seat of the taxi.

It was our last ever date, though neither of us knew it.

To explain what happens in performances of Bring the Happy would be to spoil it for those who have yet to experience it, and I won't do that.  I will say that I laughed, smiled, cried, laughed, sang (quietly!), danced, laughed, cried some more and smiled and laughed again.  Bring the Happy is an experience, not a show.  It's something truly special that I do believe makes our world just that little bit brighter.  Their whole presence, their chats with people about their memories, they all add to the Happy.  The performances that culminate from the few weeks collecting memories is just the icing on the cake.

My Flying Dutchman and I still talk.  We're still friends.  We still have a great amount of love for each other.  We both know, however, that this is how it will remain.  No more occasional weekends or 'stolen moments'; not for two years (almost to the day).  A friendship that will never disappear has replaced a relationship that was never meant to be, and that's okay.  It was always going to be this way, and we always knew that.

Then last night happened.  Bring the Happy was everything I hoped for and more, and at the end when the applause had died down, and with emotions still raw from the rollercoaster, I picked up my phone and checked my messages.  What I saw was an email sent just moments after the performance began.

Sent: 19:03
From: My Flying Dutchman
The message simply read: For some reason... I had to think of you :) X

All I could do was cry.  They were happy tears, tinged with sadness too of course, but happy nonetheless.  My friend knew something had pulled at my heartstrings, but there was no way she could know what or how deeply it affected me.  I'd told her my memory before the show started, and now I showed her the email.  She hugged me and I cried some more.  I had complete strangers looking over wondering what was wrong.  Some of them asked if I was okay.  I wasn't... but at the same time I was...

I pulled myself together and knew I had to tell the performers what had happened.  I almost felt obligated!

I recounted my little tale to Ben.  I briefly told him the memory I'd left, that every now and again during the evening my mind had wandered back up to the balcony above me, and I showed him the email.  And as I spoke it was all I could do not to cry again.  But I held it together, and a goosebumpy Ben gave me a hug, and as I was about to go back to my friend he told me that the next day he'd use my memory and he'd tell people what happened that night.  He didn't know I'd already decided to come back the next night, and I knew that now I absolutely had no option but to book the tickets!  I returned to my table and my friend, sat down, and breathed ever so deeply.  Lots.

As I laid in bed trying to get my overactive brain to settle, I decided when I returned for the next performance that I would take something along to say thank you to everyone involved in Bring the Happy... Ben, Rich, Victoria and Hope & Social, the fantastic band who played and sang all evening.  Only they themselves know their reasons for touring with the show, but I know the effect it can have on one person.  When I think about how many people they must have talked with over three weeks in an empty shop on Stockton High Street, I realise how many lives they must have touched and smiles they returned to otherwise sad, frustrated or even just bored faces.

Invisible Flock... the trio behind Bring the Happy... seem to me to be extraordinary people.  They carry with them not only a need to put on a wonderful interactive performance, but also a desire to make the world a nicer place, and I can absolutely relate to that.  I know that the things I do for people are tiny in comparison; giving away cakes, putting extra money in a parking meter for the next person, leaving a little note for a colleague to show they're appreciated, they're all small things, not huge gestures designed to change the world or how people think.  They're all just things to make people smile and feel valued even if they don't know who's done it or why.

So tonight when I returned to Stockton Arc for a second helping of Bring the Happy, I was prepared.  I was armed with cakes and extra tissues, and a huge appreciation for their hard work and the ethos that drives them forward.

Tonight, 02 November 2013, there I sat with some more friends.  This time I was familiar with the songs, I knew what was coming and yes, my mind still wandered up to that balcony.  Then in the middle of one of the songs was my memory.  It was paraphrased, but to me it was perfect.  The memory, some little details I'd never mentioned in the original typed version from two weeks previous, and the email from the night before; it was all there.  As I sat and listened I cried again, as I'm doing now, for the butterflies I felt, for the taxi driver I may never see again, but mostly for the friendship I have despite the relationship I lost.  And I felt privileged that he believed our little story should be told.  I felt special.  I felt significant in a town full of epic, splendid stories and it made me smile through my tears.

At the end of the evening I found Ben and I handed him the thank you cakes, and such an unexpectedly grateful face I have never seen before.  After a short chat I returned to my table to simply enjoy the company of my friends for a few minutes before heading home.

Invisible Flock, Hope & Social and a few little cakes

A few minutes had passed, perhaps more than I'd intended, and I looked up to see Ben approach the table.  He presented me with one of their CDs as a thank you for the cakes I'd given that were a thank you for... well... everything!  I think perhaps this time it was he who was looking on a face that was unexpectedly grateful!

It's at times like that I realise kindness and generosity of spirit really are infectious; it's passed on like a virus.  I know I've said it before, regularly, that if you're kind even just to one person that it makes a difference.  It doesn't only make a difference to that one person in that one moment.  No, they're likely to pass the kindness on to someone else, and then the next and the next, and before you know it you've begun a chain of nice events, however small, that brighten people's days.  These acts of kindness spread so quickly that before you realise what's happening you're playing a CD in the car on the way home from a show, when all you really wanted from the evening was to hear your story being told and to say thank you to the people doing the telling.

I'm not saying we should be nice so that others are nice in return, because that's just not how it works.  Genuine kindness breeds genuine kindness.  It doesn't matter whether we know people, whether they're family and friends or whether they're complete strangers.  They might just be people you met in a theatre in Stockton when you were meant to be singing.

And not to forget our memories.  They're what the whole performance is based on, after all; the memories of everyday people doing everyday jobs, with everyday worries on their minds.  Our actions and the memories that spring from them help to shape who we are right here, right now.  Whether it's the day I met my first boyfriend, the day I left my husband, the day I hugged my dad in the hospital corridor after racing to see mum when we got 'the call', or whether it's having the courage to swallow my shyness and hand over a box of cakes to people I don't know just to say thank you.  All of these things and countless others made me into the person I am right now, the one typing these words into her laptop with a pounding headache and a big mug of coffee because she stayed up until 2 am writing most of this blog post.

Bring the Happy is astounding if you open yourself up to its message.  I will never forget the last two evenings in Stockton Arc.  They've been added to my collection of happy memories in permanent marker.  In triplicate, just in case.

If you can't bring the happy into your own life, I hope you have someone close-by who can help.  If you don't, I hope you can find a way to ask someone.  If you feel so inclined, bring it to someone else and do it without agenda.  You'll be thankful that you did, and your smile will be so big and deep inside you that it'll become addictive.  This is one addiction with which I'm glad to be afflicted!

We all deserve to smile, even if it's through our tears.

Me with My Flying Dutchman - 2010
Stacey Kent - What a Wonderful World

Invisible Flock
Hope & Social
Bring the Happy