Beatley Moments | Page 48 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

So I didn't mention this before because I had to talk to my mom about if I could post something personal. Here is something I wrote in school about WHEN I SAW PAUL AND GOT HIS AUTOGRAPH!!!!!!!!

In My Life , I’ve Loved Them All.

    Something in the way it calls me with its familiar, beautiful sound, makes me roll up and enter the Magical Mystery Tour . Everyday I see those four faces, the faces that have always, and always will be, Here, There And Everywhere . Those 4 voices, everyday, are in my ears and in my eyes, and I soar Free As A Bird , in such a thrilling and otherworldly way that I did not even believe was possible.

    People think its weird that I only listen to The Beatles, with their solo work an exception. Non-Beatles fans think it's weird that you can’t look at anywhere in my room without seeing The Beatles staring back at you, that I study The Beatles: their history, their music, their life, everything, that I think about them almost every moment of the day (not every moment: I'm not insane), that I listen to them from the morning until night. I don’t mind, I think they’re crazy…

    Paul McCartney is my favorite Beatle. I almost feel guilty saying this, and I send my apologies to John Lennon , George Harrison , and Ringo Starr . But I can’t help but loving Paul’s voice, skill, and personality the best, while also admiring his vegetarianism and participation in animal rights. I had always wanted to be a vegetarian, but because of him I consider it more seriously. I am currently not eating any meat.

    So when my mom informed me that Paul had written the music score for a ballet called Ocean’s Kingdom, I beamed with pride. Paul can do anything, I told myself.

    “You know, Paul might come to the ballet.” My mom’s face shone as she stared at her computer screen. I froze, still beaming. A thousand images flashed through my head: me shaking Paul’s hand, Paul signing one of my vinyl Beatle records, or my vinyl Paul McCartney album, Paul smiling at me. But no… Things like that just don’t happen. 

    “Paul might come,” my mom repeated, studying my face. “It's the premiere. And his daughter Stella designed the costumes.” My mom flashed me a grin. 

    “Get tickets!” I fought to keep the hysteria out of my voice, but my mom was one step ahead of me. A list of ticket prices blinked onto the screen. It was only a few seconds after the tickets had gone on sale.

    “Only a few tickets left,” Her jaw hung in awe, and she quickly got 2 tickets, the best ones of the few remaining: the ones on the top balcony, in the very back row.

    “What do you expect, it's Paul McCartney !” I said in a annoyed tone, but it quickly faded away into nothing as realization settled in, leaving room for only exhilaration and a leaping, overpowering joy. I was going to Paul’s ballet. And I was going to be in the same room as him. Being on the same planet alone was a thought that seemed to good to be true, but this. This was stunning. I had wanted to stand on the exact same spot The Beatles had stood on 47 years ago in Washington D.C, based on a picture in my Beatle Bible (what I call a book I own), so I can touch the floor they stood on and lick my finger.

    He’s coming. The voice in my head held enough bliss for all the sorrowful people in the world to to share it and for me to still have plenty. He’s going to be in New York soon. And then… and then… 

    It was only after a full day of a great day that I stopped. My mom said the dreaded word:might. What if he doesn’t go…? I’d feel like The Fool On The Hill , I’d have been excited For No One . And that's when I assured myself. I’m seeing a ballet Paul wrote. But he’s not going. I felt disappointed already, and I felt long droplets of despair dripping of my hair and swirling at my feet, enclosing my whole body in a box.

    Hope and excitement is Real Love , and it's wonderful. But hope is such a delicate thing, and I’d hate to break it. If I hope Paul would go, and he doesn’t, my hopes would be thrown aside and would be stomped on by the man in the crowd with the multi-colored mirrors on his hobnail boots. And then that's it.

    September 22nd, 2011: otherwise known as the best day of my life. Rushing home from school, I couldn’t hide the wide grin that somehow made its way onto my face. Paul McCartney . Ballet. He might g- No. No, he won’t. I wished I could let go and dream, like I always did when meeting him or Ringo seemed so impossible. But now that the possibility was real, I didn't want to dream. Because maybe It was just a dream anyway.

    I held my Beatles bag. I put on my “Paul McCartney Is My Hero” and a “Magical Mystery Tour ” pin. Slipping into my Beatles haven, I quietly slipped one of my Beatle books off from its shelf. Paul McCartney : A Life, it declared. I put a pen in the bag, too, just in case. I did it subconsciously, and did it in such a sneaky way that I wondered if I was trying to trick myself. My hamster wrapped her little paws around the bars of her cage and looked at me quizzically.

    I listened to The Beatles before I left. The last thing I heard before I stepped out the door was Paul’s voice.

    I was alone I took a ride I didn’t know what I would find there,

    another road where maybe I could see another kind of mind there…

    Got To Get You Into My Life .

    Stepping out of the Subway, sunlight streaming into my eyes, excitement sparked off the air. I could taste it with every taste bud on my tongue, felt it with every fiber in my body, felt it pulsing through me every time my heart thumped with a raw energy.

    A crowd of people stood and chatted, many holding phones and cameras. Some held Beatle records and pens. There was some unspoken statement in the air, and everybody knew it. It's the feeling that something big is going to happen, and you could practically hear the hearts pounding and the minds racing. We approached the crowd, me with shaking legs, wide eyes, a straight, thin gash that was my mouth across my face that was trying to swallow the wave of nausea, and a racing mind. These people think Paul is coming. And now… now I couldn’t resist but hope.

    Some kind of a glorious golden lighting bolt came down from the sky and zapped me between the eyes, and then everything became so much more beautiful and I felt appreciative of every single thing I saw. The bolt was so quick, and I fizzed with the energy It left me, two words clear and sharp in my head with other words buzzing around it like a flock of delighted bees. Those two words became my mantra, and I chanted it.

    “Paul’s coming!” The words felt so strange and unreal on my tongue, but no two words had ever felt better. It was something directly out of a fairytale. My eyes swept the streets. A car can come any minute. A very particular car, with a very particular legend, no, more than that, inside it… It seemed only so short a time ago that I was at home. Suddenly, I was at a place that Paul would come, and I might see him. 

    Heart suddenly zooming ahead of me so that I could hardly keep up, I shot an elderly woman clutching a Help ! vinyl a jealous look. She could have been from the 60s. The lucky woman.

    Feeling like I could run around the earth ten times and still not get tired- no, I felt like Iwas the Earth- I waited at the sides of the long fuzzy red carpet. I hope the carpet feels good under Paul’s shoes. My protectiveness for The Beatles kicked in. And why aren’t there more policemen? Only a fence was placed to keep people back, with a few policemen wandering about. A bunch of ifs popped to the surface of my mind. I thought of the most ridiculous things, my little brain not being able to handle the future.

    I took out my Paul McCartney book and pen, telling myself this is real, and something to get hung about. On the front page of the book, I wrote “I Heart Paul” in small print on the top. I really want him to know that. 

    I felt so animated I thought I might burst. I felt like I had a headache, as I wasn’t used to information like this. Paul McCartney might come. I felt sick.

    “Zoe, this is for people who don’t have tickets,” My mom said, texting my dad. Peering over her shoulder, I saw she wrote “Zoe is just standing there waiting. She’s not moving: she looks so happy!” I didn’t know how long I had stood there. My brain had never worked so hard, and I had never felt so dumb. Open your eyes, why can’t you take it in. Understand this: I Want To Tell You . Paul McCartney is coming, so get ready. Don’t act too excited, because then you’ll scare him, but don’t frown, because that doesn’t look good. And… I was mentally screaming at myself, and it got to the point that I wondered why people weren’t staring at me and wondering what all the noise was about.

    I didn’t want to leave. I felt rooted to the spot, and I noticed that I have been shivering the whole time: I was attracting funny looks after all. I scanned the streets with orb-like eyes. None of the cars glowed with a breath-taking aura, as I knew the car Paul would be in would. I wanted to see Paul step out of his car, to walk down the carpet and walk into the theater. I wanted to follow him in and keep on following him forever. But my mom convinced me that he would have a better chance of seeing us if we went inside. I took small steps to go inside, my head looking over my shoulder at the streets while my feet wobbled inside my shoes.

    We walked inside, me still shivering as if there were huge ice glaciers around us, not people dressed in fancy dresses and a magnificent coral display in the back. We climbed up the staircase and waited on the top, my mother absolutely convinced this is where Paul would come. If Paul comes, I thought, and by that smallest, wonder-fullest, astonishing chance that he’s right in front of me, I’d tell him thank you for everything and I’ll tell him how much he means to me. If I'm able to talk. Even to myself it was stupid, for that wasn’t even 0.00001% of it. 

    I felt sick. The kind of sick that you get when you're so excited it's hard to comprehend. I was also scared that he'd see my mom, who has long black hair (she's Japanese), and think she was Yoko and turn and walk away. I focused on the door, pressing my lips tightly together to reduce the risk of puking all over the dress of the woman in front of me.

    I love that door. I later went back and held the doorknob and stared at it with awe.

    Because then I heard screaming. There was a silent wave of whispers, a soft gentle wind that gained momentum like an orchestra, with the drama building up. There was cheering and people gasping but I didn’t care.

    Because at that moment, nothing else mattered. Nothing. I didn’t care about the people who were also staring at the entrance, I didn’t care that my face had on a huge freaky smile and that my heart was at a rate that was probably at the point where I had a very high chance of having a heart attack. Please Don't Let Me Down now. I need to be here.

    There was the man who was born in a private ward at Walton Hospital because his mom was a nurse, and his father cried because he had looked like a lump of red meat.

    There was the man who had met John Lennon and George Harrison and started doing gigs and trying to get to the “topper-most of the popper-most”.

    There was the man on The Ed Sullivan Show, watching all the fans scream for The Beatles in a deranged way.

    There was the man singing and writing songs that mean so much to me that theres no way I can describe the feeling.

    There was the man on the top of the Apple Corps. rooftop, singing as The Beatles fell to pieces.

    That was the man I saw in concert two times, me on the bleachers thrilled and completely baffled that he was on the stage making music.

    There was the man who was so full of inspiration and was such a big part of my life.

    There was the man who…

    That was Paul McCartney .

    I always imagined that if I saw him, I would freak out and get literally sick and maybe get that “Bealtemaniac fangirl from the 60s” look on my face. But the fact that he was there was so impossible, overwhelming and so hard to process that I just stood there, grinning widely, feeling like I would throw up.

    He was in a suit and tie, hand in hand with Nancy. He looked like Paul McCartney . He smiled like Paul McCartney . I bet he smelled like Paul McCartney . But that couldn’t be him. It just couldn’t.

    He could barely walk. It was smile, shuffle shuffle, pose, shuffle shuffle, hello nice to meet you here let me shake your hand, shuffle shuffle, pose for the camera, shuffle shuffle. 

    And then he was on the stairs. He was slowly coming up, weaving through the crowd that ogled at him. Reaching the top, he smiled as a camera bulb flashed in his face. 

    I felt so sick now I felt like I couldn’t breath. I was underwater, watching everything through a thick veil that was messing with my brain and making me think that Paul was near me. Maybe I was insane after all. I imagine my face was blank, as it often does when I’m confused, in deep thought, or so-happy-I-think-I-might-puke. He was only about three feet away from me to my left.

    He continued to shuffle forward, seeming at ease despite the flashing of cameras and so many people’s eyes trained on him. By now he was right in front of me. It all happened so fast. I’m dreaming right now. I must be dreaming. But I didn’t pinch myself because I didn’t want to wake up. Paul didn’t even look real. He was a god in a human form, but I had expected him to be giant, so above us inside and out. But he was only about a foot taller than me.

    Paul waved one more time, opening his mouth in a very familiar smile as somebody took his picture. And then he turned his head and looked at me as I melted.

    I was just a little girl feeling lost in a place that held him, who’s heart was pounding so hard people could probably hear it despite the loud noise, who in her mind was still at home. Of all people, he chose to Look At Me . He looked at me. He knows what I look like, he knows that I exist. All I had ever wanted was for him to know that I existed and to know that I love him: Now And Then , nothing had ever seemed so important. I felt so honored, astounded, and overwhelmed. I had never known the true meanings of those words until that moment.

    A very small part of me expected him to greet me like an old friend, since I knew him so well. But that would be absurd… yet great, if you could raise the meaning of the word by infinity.

    I felt sick enough to go into a hospital ward for over-excited people and never come out again.

    My eyes saw everything, my ears heard everything, but in such a dreamlike way that I probably didn’t notice half the things I normally would have. My mom said Nancy looked at me as well, and that Paul tilted his head in an almost bemused way, eyes pointed in my direction. I watched as he lifted his hand and motioned for me to come with his fingers. 

    My feet were comfortable where they were, but I wasn’t. Every fiber in my body screamed at them to pull themselves together and go to Paul McCartney . It only took a split second, but I felt like that was too long. Who am I to keep him waiting? I felt my mom's hand on my back as she pushed me forward, though she later denied this. Nauseous and getting to the point where I was mentally psychotic, I dashed directly in front of him and he took my book and pen. I don’t even remember handing it to him for all I saw was rainbows and fluffy clouds and him with wings and surrounded by gold. I wanted to poke him so badly but I stopped myself, knowing that was rude and I’d kick myself for the rest of my life if I did something mean to him. I watched through this gleeful veil as the pen scrawled across the page. I don’t know if he saw the “I Heart Paul” message. It was to quick. My mouth moved as I tried to say “thank you”, but since I couldn’t hear it myself I said it again, and it came out like a soft squeal, so I said it a third time. Nobody heard me, though my mom later said she heard me say “You’re my hero.” 

    He dropped the pen inside the book and handed it to me, then turned toward Nancy and they walked up the next flight of stairs.

    Don’t go.

    I clutched the book, knowing it is my most treasured possession, feeling his aura on it and the pen as well, and watched him walk away. At home I touched the pen and licked my finger. Paul’s cells are in my mouth, I shouted to myself. 

    Quickly I followed him, but not quick enough because I stood dumbfounded for a while, going up the stairs and straining my neck so I wouldn’t lose sight of him. That was Paul’s head. Right there. I tried not to think about what just happened because then they’d have to drag me to the happy people ward.

    Paul waited in a small room as Nancy went to the bathroom, people crowding around him, me amongst him. I tried but failed to get close, since I am a weak person to start with and I became more weak at that moment (or for a week). Of all people, he chose me. Paul McCartney looked at me. I’m in the same room as him, I was in front of him. I felt dizzy. I should’ve elbowed my way in.

    A woman clutched a banister.

    “Oh god, that's Paul, that's Paul McCartney . I think I might faint.” She said, and for some reason she walked away from Paul, still hugging the railings. I noticed I wasn’t breathing and I filled my lungs.

    I saw Nancy walk out of the bathroom, led by a security guard. I forgot to breath again. She walked past me, only about a foot away, looking worried.

    “Where’s Paul?” She said anxiously, and I felt like I was let in on some kind of secret information. I heard Nancy speak. I heard her speak about Paul. My thoughts staggered and tripped over themselves.

    I couldn’t see his head anymore, but I still stayed, standing on my toes and craning my neck. Most people left now, and now I could truly see that he had gone. Stubbornly, I refused to get in the elevator. 

    “Paul stood right there,” I squeaked to my mother, bouncing on the balls of my feet and feeling like I was about to break down and dance. Eventually she shoved me, struggling, into an elevator, saying they won’t let us in the theater if we’re late.

    Watching the ballet, I couldn’t focus, obviously. 

    Yeah since I Saw Her Standing There . 

    At the end Paul came onto the stage and bowed, and my busy heart nearly died as I clapped my hands until they were raw and my arms were about to fall out of their sockets. I was the last one to still be clapping. I felt so moved, and I felt this tugging feeling, and then more then ever I understood what Paul had said.

    Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly, all your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise… 

    All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to be free.

    Outside, we waited on the line for a after show party, only because of the chance that Paul might be there. We knew we didn’t have tickets, but we wanted to crash the party. We got kicked out and had to be led outside by men in official looking uniforms.

    My mom called me a stalker and I tried to live up by that name as I suggested we wait outside and camp out for the night so we could watch Paul leave. We stayed for a while, but eventually I had to be (literally) dragged back home. Showing my dad the book, he said I had on the biggest smile of my life.

    Hope is such a delicate thing. But things break all the time. So if they do break, I could just pick up the broken wings of hope and make them fly again. And flying is such a beautiful feeling, and if you want to, you can just stay up and never go down again, even if your feet are planted firmly to the ground. 

    Paul has helped me do so much, to feel and to be so much, and now he has taught me how to fly.

    That man can do anything.

    Some are dead and some are living,

    In my life, 

    I’ve loved them all… 

Thank you! I'm very sure it won't fade away