Clapton_ The Autobiography - Eric Clapton [153]
It was summertime down under, and I was getting brown and healthy, while back in Ohio I knew they were in deep winter and getting snowed in. We had made a plan to meet in Hawaii, where Melia was born, for our next break, but had abandoned it because the traveling involved would be so convoluted that by the time we all got there and recovered from our respective jet lags, it would be time to leave again. So I was going back to Columbus for ten days. For the next twenty-four hours, I flew from eighty-five degrees of perfect weather to five below zero and blizzards. In fact, it was a skin-of-the-teeth ride getting into Columbus at all because the weather was so bad. While we were taxiing in, I saw them de-icing the wings of another plane that was getting ready to take off and said a silent prayer under my breath. I also made another vow, to stop all this wandering around.
I got instantly sick during this break—the climate change was pretty drastic, and it was the first time I had experienced an Ohio winter. I couldn’t believe how severe it was. That, coupled with the fact that I have a phobia about electric heating, far preferring radiators, left me feeling pretty low and physically vulnerable. All that aside, though, it was great to spend some time with the girls again, even though we were pent up inside the house most of the time because of the cold. They were excited to see me, too, and they fought a lot over who would sit next to me at mealtimes. I loved it, and needed it, too. Being out on the road for months at a time without any direct affection from another human being was having a pretty detrimental effect on my psyche, causing me to isolate myself in my room. The contrast between the empty hotel room and the roaring crowd in the auditorium can cause a lot of emotional confusion, too, but for the moment, that world could wait; I was safe with my loved ones again.
Picking up the thread again in Dallas, I was excited to think that this was the last stretch—only one more month and the tour would be over. Not that it had been a misery; in fact, it had been a tremendous success on every level. I had thoroughly enjoyed the music and the companionship, but the traveling itself had taxed me far more than I had ever imagined. When Peter Jackson and I had planned this venture, back in 2005, it seemed fairly straightforward, and I was more than a little blasé about it, but after only two months in Europe I began to realize what I had let myself in for.
From Texas we went on to California, and commuted to a lot of shows around the West Coast from LA. I had been looking forward to this part of the tour because I planned on flying the girls in for a few days of much-needed sunshine, plus I would be able to look up a couple of old friends. Nigel Carroll still works for me, and he has two sons, who are fully grown now. They are both extremely artistic kids with a lot of flair, who’ve grown into fine young men, and I know he’s very proud of them. I had also asked Nigel to trace Stephen Bishop, who had been a close friend during the seventies and whom I regard as one of the great singer-songwriters. I felt compelled to look him up again, because as I have grown older, I think a lot about the friends I no longer see, and it worries me that we have all drifted so far apart. In Stephen’s case,