I laid hands on the Roundhouse

 Updated the profile pic here following a somewhat surreal bus ride through a gritty section of Liverpool.

I was with the people I love most on planet Earth and would recommend a similar strategy when you do something big, something a little daunting. In fact, do it as often as possible, big and small. But particularly when deciding to try and understand yourself a little better.

I was excited, which surprised me a little. Not nervous. No dread. I had zero expectations, which definitely helped.

I only learned of my mother’s birth in this section of Liverpool from an old passport of hers I now have. She died when I was 22, and years before that lost the ability to wow with that incredible singing voice, or weep joyful tears with hilarious tales. There’s been no one left for far too long to elaborate, answer questions, tells stories. Her sisters are gone. My dad gone. Only my cousins who have a handful of answers, lore more accurately, and many, many questions.

Plan was to just find The Wavertree Roundhouse, “THE LOCK-UP” as The Wavertree Society has marked it. Lovely front desk woman at the downtown Liverpool hotel helped with directions using a nearby landmark that we Googled, and said with a bright smile, “I’ve never been asked for directions to this before.”

When I learned that roundhouses were what we’d today call “drunk tanks” in America and the one in my mother’s Liverpool birthplace was one of a few left standing I adopted it as this blog’s name. There’s not much else notable about this village, and I don’t even know how long she lived there.

Our time in England at Christmas was preciously short, and I had no intention of dragging anyone on a wild goose chase to try and scrape up any additional scant details. Already spent more than an hour earlier in the week traipsing around a massive, chilly Leicester cemetery not finding a tombstone or any marker for my grandparents. Found three other unrelated Duggans though. Felt closer to Mum once Cousin Andy and I got warm, a pint, and great fish and chips.

The days in between were a magical mystery tour of the past, present, and future. Concrete and abstract clues to Mum and my family’s story came freely and filled my heart. My only brother’s ashes found the Thames, the Mersey, and a few other spots that make sense only to me. My wife and kids lived life in London, like really lived. And the Engaged planned more chapters of the fairy tale.

That bus ride on our last full day was mundane but mysterious. How often did Mum walk or ride in a stroller as a little girl down busy Smithdown Road? Neighborhood is not “posh” as they say, not close. Was it more so back in 1936? Less? When did she move out? Andy’s mum was born in Wales, which tracks with the evacuations around 1940. When did Mum move back?

My kids saw what I saw and surely things I didn’t. We haven’t shared a lot about that yet, but we will. We did share a great laugh realizing how foolish we must have looked taking “holiday snapshots” by the Roundhouse. It’s right at a busy intersection and we literally saw a driver’s jaw drop as they looked out the window at the crazy Americans posing in front of a pile of bricks. Mum would have loved that scene.