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The Blitz

shadowsofmypast said:
It's been rollcoaster ride me as well
Especially yesterday.


It's sad that both us Tang, took our lives


so soon. :(
Be strong. You'll feel better after a while.
 
shadowsofmypast said:
This one was Huell Howser years ago. There's something about it. I have connection
with I wish they show episode again.
Here is the story on the Sutro baths. I'll see what else I can find. This was a huge indoor swimming pool. The ocean there is too cold and dangerous with rip tides so you have to swim indoors.


And

is a short documentary on the Sutro Baths.
 
Indoor swimming pools were sometimes called "natatoriums", more properly, "natatoria". They still exist in various places in California. I visited one a few years ago in San Diego, of all places. It is said to have the best climate on earth! My hometown had an indoor swimming complex of this type, but not speaking Latin, we called it "The Plunge"!
 
Many small towns built "Plunges" in the 1920's and 30's. Before air conditioning that was the only way to cool off in the summer. Where I live someone built an indoor natatorium in the 1920's. But it was a flop because the summers here are hot like Phoenix, AZ. Not a good place to have indoor pools! After a few years they built a hardwood floor over the drained pool and converted it to a ballroom and is still in business today.
 
argonne1918 said:
Here is the story on the Sutro baths. I'll see what else I can find. This was a huge indoor swimming pool. The ocean there is too cold and dangerous with rip tides so you have to swim indoors.
And

Thank for the link. I am pretty sure I was there during


it's operation .
 
My husband and I went to the Sutros Restaurant at the Cliff House, last Dec. for his birthday. Yes, Sutros name is now attached to a restaurant. Its also true that if you walk a bit north you can see the remains of the bath house.
 
I remembered something else last night - or something in more detail anyway. I have been hearing the song, 'A Nightingale sang in Berkeley Square' in my head for the past week and I started singing it in the shower and learning the words, which is what sparked it I think. I was just sitting on the couch, thinking what is it about this song?





I'd said earlier that I thought X and I had danced to this song and I could feel the roughness of his uniform on my cheek (he was much taller than me then - another wish come true this life is that I'm quite tall, almost as tall as X).


So, I turned off the radio and everything and just sat comfortably on the couch and closed my eyes and there we were, dancing 'cheek to chest'. I didn't remember past lives back then, but I had a premonition while we were dancing. I was so happy! I knew something had to go wrong. I just knew it! He was going to go and fly another 'mission' -bombing raid - the next day and I had a very bad feeling about it.


I tried to convince him not to go (not while we were dancing, this was probably later that evening). He was saying 'Now, you're being silly. I'll be perfectly fine. I've done this dozens of times. I know what I'm doing. Nothing will go wrong. I'll be back before you know it, you'll see....'


He still had this notion that we were going to get married and run away together somewhere where class and all that didn't matter (Australia?). But I don't think he'd told his parents yet. This would be typical of X! He simply doesn't recognise that anyone has any authority over him at all and despises any kind of 'scene', so telling his parents about his rather shocking plan is exactly the sort of thing he would put off or not even do at all. He may even have made some sort of joke about how he'd send them a post card when we got there. [Edward and Wallis Simpson were all very much in the popular 'fashionable' mindset at the time (to put things in context) and X has always been very much in tune with the 'fashion' of the time he was in, usually way ahead of me... I'm old fashioned, often have been] anyway...


I was almost starting to think that maybe he was serious though and maybe it was really something that might actually happen. I seem to recall thinking what I would pack and what I would give away and what I would leave behind and the like.


That night he stayed with me in my little flat above the bar. I get the feeling we hadn't ever done anything more than hold hands and 'spoon' they used to call it - kissing and cuddling. I recall him saying there would be plenty of time for that after we were married and he didn't want to spoil it. I'm sure he had begun to realise how I'd made my living all these years, but he didn't care. He obviously didn't want me to 'work' any more and someone had been paying my bills these past few months, possibly him.


I remembered thinking this was the like the 'childhood sweetheart' relationship I'd never had that life. I'd missed out an all that, running away to Paris as I did with that man when I was 17 or 18 or something and getting involved in 'the life'. [X always smells to me like a newborn baby to me and he did then too].


I remember lying in each other's arms all night and the moonlight coming in the window. I found it hard to sleep. I still had that bad feeling. I saw his face in the moonlight, peacefully, almost childishly asleep. Such a very, very bitter sweet memory.
 
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It very sombering what happened to you in the 20's


My girlfriend would not listen either.


I think we are remembering more& more because we are


Talking about our past lives in the 20's.


It was terrible night for me so many images and flash's


Starting see myself at the glass bath house


Seeing myself also on stage singing.cover face
 
Yes, it's all been very much on my mind this week that's for sure, which is why these little flashes keep coming up I guess.
 
shadowsofmypast said:
I...It was terrible night for me so many images and flash's
Starting see myself at the glass bath house


Seeing myself also on stage singing.cover face
...and then what happened?
 
Tell us more when you're ready shadows.


Meanwhile, back in London, I remember when the guys came into the bar a little while (some weeks?) later without X. They didn't have to tell me. I could tell by the looks on their faces what had happened, and the fact that he wasn't with them of course. I ran up to my room and cried and cried.


One of his friends, Roger his name was - an army man, not airforce - very, very (very) rich took over 'paying my bills' shall we say. He was not nearly as nice as X. It takes more than money to make a man a gentleman. I didn't care any more. We fell out before long. Anyway, the rest of that story has been recounted above.
 
They weren't called the "Roaring Twenties" for nothing. My grandparents got married at the beginning of the twenties. We have a 1921 photo of my mother's mother and some girl friends sitting on the hood of the Model T Ford.
 
Yesterday I rode past the house where my friend 'who led me astray' once upon a time used to live. It got me thinking about him. In this life he sometimes used to call me 'buggerlugs' as an affectionate pet name. It's an Australian slang term that means 'to have funny ears'. I have perfectly shaped ears, so it had nothing to do with that. It's just a cute funny word I guess. Anyway, it occurred to me that I often refer to X as 'buggerlugs' when speaking to others about him, in a kind of affectionate teasing way, as in 'How's buggerlugs going? Is buggerlugs coming to the party?' etc although he also has perfectly normal looking ears.


But last night I suddenly recalled that was what his airforce buddies used to call him, because he did have rather sticking out ears in those days (as I've mentioned above). His real name was Freddie. I wondered if the 'leading astray' man might have known him? Maybe we kept in touch after I went back to England? I will ponder on it further.
 
Americans call that "Elephant ears". I have known guys like that. I have even known young boys who let their hair grow long to cover the ears. If you can afford the expense a plastic surgeon can remedy the situation. President Obama has large ears that stick out. Political cartoonists exaggerate it.
 
Clark Gable had surgery to correct that condition, but I doubt many people had the drive toward physical perfection in the 40's that bedevils us now. "Buggerlugs" is a much nicer name for the condition. I hope the name is affectionate - it sets my teeth on edge for someone to be teased about their appearance.
 
BriarRose said:
Clark Gable had surgery to correct that condition
That reminds me that there was a cartoon made in the 30's (Looney Tunes?) that featured a Hollywood party and they had caricatures of all the current movie stars. It had Clark Gable with very large ears. I'll see if it's on YouTube.

is the link.
 
BriarRose said:
Clark Gable had surgery to correct that condition, but I doubt many people had the drive toward physical perfection in the 40's that bedevils us now. "Buggerlugs" is a much nicer name for the condition. I hope the name is affectionate - it sets my teeth on edge for someone to be teased about their appearance.
No, it's used very affectionately in Australia, and I certainly have affectionate associations with it personally, so it's meant in a nice way. In this life X has perfectly nice ears that don't stick out at all.
 
tanguerra said:
I remember lying in each other's arms all night and the moonlight coming in the window. I found it hard to sleep. I still had that bad feeling. I saw his face in the moonlight, peacefully, almost childishly asleep. Such a very, very bitter sweet memory.
I am haunted by this memory, but in a good way. I would not exchange it for anything. Memories are more valuable than any amount of gold or silver.
 
Some months ago now, but I didn't get round to writing about it before, X was telling me about when he was a little kid (this life) and was obsessed with airplanes. He used to draw them in his exercise books, make little models, collect Biggles stories, have pictures on his bedroom wall etc.


I was not the least bit surprised (but I still thought it was very cute).
 
I went to a party with X the other day. He showed me a little piece he is writing about our 'village' and how it is changing and lamenting the 'gentrification' of our once oh-so-bohemian enclave...being invaded by suburbanites in suits and mothers pushing '$1000 prams' ...


I said I'd take a look at it and maybe help him out by giving it an edit (it needs it!) but this bit struck me in particular and I thought very poignant.. (I've never told him about any of this Blitz stuff)....

... [new apartment buildings look down on]...a remnant of what was once something akin to Paris in the 1920s. A crazy, wonderful world never fully documented. A world no one who ever lived within it thought would fade...
 
I went out last night to hear one of my friends' band playing in a very cool little bar in the city. I've been there and done that before, but for some reason the whole evening was giving me deja vu. The whole thing just reminded me so much of this life - particularly my Paris sojourn.


The band tends to play jazzy sort of tunes, and dress up in funny suits and wear fezes. I danced a great deal with a variety of gentlemen. They were all buying me drinks and we were all having a jolly good time. After the gig a bunch of us went upstairs to hang out with the bar owner in his private apartment (yes really, lucky me). My friend and I were singing duets on the couch, [old jazz tunes - which we both knew all the words to, he was playing guitar, I was harmonizing - one is not a bad singer after all...]. People were talking politics all at once over the top of each other. The walls are covered in 'art'. It was all terribly, terribly 'bohemian'.


The bar owner is a terrific host and great fun although rather 'sweary'. Suddenly it occurred to me that he reminded me a lot of a bar owner I once knew in Paris, who also swore a great deal, but obviously in French. Lately he's grown a little pencil moustache too, which is a very 1930s look, so perhaps that's why it suddenly struck me that it might even be him, but I can't be sure.
 
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Last night I had an experience related to this life. I'm not sure how to name it. Was it a dream? A wish fulfillment fantasy? A past life flashback? A ghostly visitation? A little bit of all those things most likely.

My oldest and dearest, present life friend, D has died after a brief illness. We had the funeral and the wake on the weekend. Everyone is very sad about it and he is much missed in our tight knit 'village'. X is grieving too. They were thick as thieves those two. :(

So I'm in mourning, but I'm working through it as you do. I keep thinking of little things that D would do, the fun times we shared. Memories of the glint in his eye when he was amused by something and how it was a different glint to the one when he was contemplating getting into some kind of mischief... Many of the same traits he had when we was my big brother in Scotland.

On going to bed at night I like to think about him and let the thoughts wash over me so I can grieve gently and quietly, as he would wish me to if grieve I must. :(

I have tried to reach out to him, Heathcliff-style, and wish for him to appear to me, which he has stubbornly refused to do (typically of him :) ). But ... last night I put my ipod on to help me sleep as I felt a bit teary. I like to put it on 'random' and let the universe select a song for me. The first song to come on was A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, which I have talked about above.

Immediately I flashed back to London in the Blitz, dancing with X, his uniform against my cheek.... It's a very bitter-sweet memory. The song changed and (perfectly) it was another romantic 1930s big band song, one of my great favourites, The Nearness of you.


In my dream/flashback/wish fulfillment fantasy, 'Boffin', who was one of X's airforce buddies, from this Blitz life (who was also D I believe), asked if he could cut in. Then Boffin and I danced to the song. Was this a past life memory? Did Boffin really cut in? He may have. It was the night before the boys were going off on a very dangerous mission. That part could well be a past life flashback.


But on top of that, I had the very distinct feeling that this was D finally turning up 'in my dreams', according to my earlier longings, but inimitably in his own good time, when it suited him and in his usual rather dashing fashion.


D always used to tease me when I would talk to him about reincarnation as I did now and again whether he liked it or not. He said it was all just my imagination and there's no such thing as the afterlife. We could never agree about it, even though we discussed it now and again. I got the feeling that he wanted me to know that he now believed me, because he could see what I could see about our connections throughout these lives. I like to think so anyway.


Then he shared something that I didn't know, but now think seems so obvious, that he had a crush on me then, just as he did this life. But both times there was X in the mixture, and they were friends, so that's just not cricket. There is also the Scottish brother connection that he was not aware of in either the Boffin life or the present one, so in a way things went 'click' for him too, if that makes sense.


In any case it was a lovely experience just to feel his arms around me and his 'nearness' as we danced in our little dream/vision/postcard from the other side (or whatever it was). I feel much better today. So that's good.
 
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I read your entire thread Tanguerra and it's very touching. I'm sorry to hear about the loss of your friend. I lost a good friend recently too who I also served with in WWI in our past lives. I know not a lot can make it better, just time. You think you have almost forgotten about it and then suddenly you remember that they are not in your life anymore and you get that little sinking feeling in your chest. I think the memory of dancing with your friend is definitely his sign to you that he is still out there watching over you and that you were right all along.


How does that life affect you now still? Do you regret suicide? It sounds like the same people are coming up in your lives over and over in different roles.


Speaking of the Sutro Baths, I saw the ruins recently when I was in that area of San Francisco. There's a nice hiking trail above the cliffs that overlook the area. My dad came to visit and was talking about when he was young and living in San Francisco how he saw them burn down and everyone in the city came out to watch. Interesting that you mention the indoor pools. I think I went to that one you mentioned in San Diego when I was a kid and we have a "Plunge" in my hometown too.


You are obviously still very drawn to the time in music and style. Boardwalk Empire is a favorite of mine too and I think they really get the atmosphere down well. That old time music from the 20s and 30s is also very special. I remember when I was a young teenager being very drawn to the sounds of Frank Sinatra and Glenn Miller as well as old black and white movies. I felt more at home in that time period for sure. Did you have a similar experience?

"I have tried to reach out to him, Heathcliff-style, and wish for him to appear to me, which he has stubbornly refused to do"
Is this a Wuthering Heights reference? Haha.
 
So sorry to hear about D. I was rather fond of him, through you.


And ZeonChar, you have my condolences too.
 
ZeonChar said:
You are obviously still very drawn to the time in music and style. Boardwalk Empire is a favorite of mine too and I think they really get the atmosphere down well. That old time music from the 20s and 30s is also very special. I remember when I was a young teenager being very drawn to the sounds of Frank Sinatra and Glenn Miller as well as old black and white movies. I felt more at home in that time period for sure. Did you have a similar experience?
Oh yes. I used to wag school if a [1930s musical was on TV. I was deeply obsessed, even as a young child]

 
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Wuthering Heights is my favorite book. I love the prose and I identify with Heathcliff for obvious reasons. I thought you were referring to the scene where Cathy is at the window looking out over the moors and longing for Heathcliff to come to her, but he never appears.
 
Indeed. Wuthering Heights has always been one of my favourites. It's obvious that those two are soul mates, isn't it? Even though I'm sure Emily Bronte would probably not have thought of it that way.

...I obeyed, so far as to quit the chamber; when, ignorant where the narrow lobbies led, I stood still, and was witness, involuntarily, to a piece of superstition on the part of my landlord which belied, oddly, his apparent sense.

He got on to the bed, and wrenched open the lattice, bursting, as he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion of tears. ‘Come in! come in!’ he sobbed. ‘Cathy, do come. Oh, do—once more! Oh! my heart’s darling! hear me this time, Catherine, at last!’ The spectre showed a spectre’s ordinary caprice: it gave no sign of being; but the snow and wind whirled wildly through, even reaching my station, and blowing out the light.

There was such anguish in the gush of grief that accompanied this raving, that my compassion made me overlook its folly, and I drew off, half angry to have listened at all, and vexed at having related my ridiculous nightmare, since it produced that agony; though why was beyond my comprehension...

I will just indulge in one more little story. It relates to the above experience in a way, and in any case, I think it's very sweet, well, bitter-sweet. One evening, not so long ago, before D got sick, we were at a party in a cute little record shop belonging to one of his friends (as you do). It's quite small, with a central island of records in the middle of the shop. D's friend was spinning discs on the turntable as we requested them. A nice little song came on and I wanted to dance.


I said: 'Come on D, let's have a spin'.
Another girl who was there said: 'D never dances'.
D said: 'Oh don't I? [with a familiar mischevious twinkle]. But there's no room to dance... '
I said: 'Oh isn't there? Come on.. ' and off we went, very carefully dancing around in this little aisle between the records.

D actually could dance relatively well, being brought up in the country. It's just a thing all country boys used to learn to do in Australia, at least a bit of your basic 'ballroom' - a waltz and a two step at least. I am a very good dancer, and have had lots of lessons, so between us we put on quite a good show which flabbergasted everyone there who'd never seen D blow his cool in such a fashion before.

Me, I put my cheek on his shoulder as we went round and round the record store and felt the roughness on his jacket and it gave me de ja vu to the above incident I've described with X in London. I am much taller than last life, but D was exceptionally tall, so the height ratio was not unlike between me and X in the Blitz. I felt a funny little chill as though remembering the premonition I'd had about X back then. I told myself not to be silly and brushed it off. Little did I know that would be the last time D and I would ever dance together (this life, in the flesh), just as it was with X and I then.
 
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Blueheart said:
So sorry to hear about D. I was rather fond of him, through you.
Thanks Blueheart. He was a lovely man. Very gentle and quiet. Terribly clever, but very modest about it. I can see why they would have nicknamed him 'Boffin' during the war. It must have suited him. I'm sure he was always cool in a crisis.


At his funeral his brother spoke about how sometimes when they would walk along the street together people would toot their horns and call out to him. He would just wave back amiably. His brother asked him about it. He said 'Some people say I look like Bob Geldof and others say I look like Brian Ferry. Sometimes people think I'm one of them. I don't mind. I don't like to disappoint them, so I just wave back.'


He really did look a lot like Brian Ferry, especially when he was younger.


tzh5xdx2w3uzxdwh.jpg



But he had the rock star dress sense, shambling walk and shaggy hair of Bob Geldof too, especially as he got older. Didn't hurt that he was often carrying a guitar....


newPic_6760_jpg_1707460c.jpg
 
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