Travel + Metamorphosis

We had chosen Blackpool as a pit stop en route to London from Glasgow because a reputed online encyclopedia had dubbed it a beautiful resort town. Apparently we should have scrolled down further: Yes, Blackpool held that title, but it was one that dated back to the early-19th century. We were just, oh, say 150 years late.

After driving through the breathtaking Lowlands of Scotland, speckled with the expected white tufts of sheep set against ivy hills, we drove into a gritty metropolis, à la a Guy Ritchie film. Lambent red signs in windows and billboards of people holding phallic food items advertising that dens of pleasure were open for "breakfast and a show" alluded to just what kind of town Blackpool was. In our Alpha Romeo rental, the bunting that had seemed quaint when strewn across tiny Scottish hamlets now looked like a rundown circus had been driven out of town. The carnivelesque music, playing to a ferris wheel circulating atop the deserted fair built on the North Pier didn't help matters. Neither did the intoxicated man wandering aimlessly along the water who commented to the sole male in our group: "You may be tall, but you can't have all three." Though the carnies were beckoning us to come and spend our tourist dollars on their games; the rundown, vacant setting of the fair alluded too much to a vacation-gone-wrong horror movie for us to oblige.

Just as we decided to safely lock ourselves away for the night after quickly scrounging something up for dinner (hopefully with no show), we rounded the edge of the carnival and Blackpool had been redeemed in one weighted gaze.

The seaside view from Blackpool's pier that opened up before us was just as stunning as any Scottish pastoral. The clouds were gauzy and stretched across a blue sky that quietly faded into a pale pink sunset. Calm waves that barely crested rolled onto the flat beach. After some time of silently looking out on the water, we begrudgingly pulled ourselves away, and, surprisingly enough, with the setting sun casting a pale glow on the town, the city had likewise transformed. Behind the glaring billboards, there was beauty in the stone architecture that we had earlier overlooked. The Grand Theatre, with its oxidized dome poking out into the clouds, spoke of a flourishing history. The eerie quiet became a placid atmosphere free of bustling tourists rolling into the city with the waves.

Blackpool metamorphosed, and all we had to do to see it truly was to look in a new light.