June 19, Fairfax, Virginia
When I woke up on Monday morning, the Facebook U2 groups showed me that the GA line was forming near FedEx Field. I was excited that Beth and I would be able to get close without spending so much time and energy in a parking lot near the stadium. This was to be my first experience in the Red Zone, and although I may have been in the grips of an addicted U2er's madness when I charged the tickets to my Visa card many moons ago, I was very glad to have them on this penultimate day of my pilgrimage.
I spent the day running around Northern Virginia, pulling a few last-minute things together, including materials to make a sign of my own to hang from the Red Zone rail, and another bouquet of three irises to take with me.
That evening, while Beth and her teenage kids kindly entertained my little one for me, I was downstairs constructing a sign, the words having been given to me by an Irish U2er I knew from Facebook. In a chat a week prior to the DC area show, Ciaran had shared with me a perfectly magical and moving idea for my summer solstice sign. At the end of many hours of mad colouring and glittering, this was the finished product:
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| General translation of the Gaelic phrase: There's no place like home Followed by this fan sentiment: I feel at home with U2. |
June 20 morning, Fairfax to FedEx Field
Beth and I packed everything up in the clear stadium safe bag and left the house to catch the Metro to the venue at about 11am. Though we didn't have to stand in the GA line, I did have a long-awaited appointment with David Barry at 12:30pm. I was very excited to sit down with him and share some of my U2 fan life story.
I got a bit of a head start on the storytelling on the way to the stadium. Beth asked me about the day in September 1998, when I had waited for the band outside Hanover Quay studios. That evening, I had a letter I had written to Bono on the back of a collection of essays detailing my experience at four Popmart shows in 1997. My dear Irish friend Astrid had joined me there as moral support, and she stood by me in the rain for hours waiting for the band to emerge from their studio. In the end they all came out one by one. Astrid captured a picture of me grinning next to The Edge, who had been so very kind and patient with me.
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| Hanover Quay, September 1998 |
The visit with Bono that night had ended, incredibly, with him graciously driving us in from the Dublin Dockland studio site to the City Centre.
I practiced telling the twenty year old story in detail to my sister on the way to the venue that day, anticipating that David Barry might like to hear it for the film as well.
When we finally exited the Metro in Landover, Maryland, we stopped to apply sunscreen as we took in the beautiful, hot summer day. I knew the way from the Metro to the stadium, having walked it alone for U2360 in 2009. Today, the path home to the show beckoned, as abundant joy filled my heart, and my whole being, releasing and rising off me, into this longest, loveliest day.
