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Island Blog – Wild and Herself

I sit on the aft deck listening to the snap of the ensign in a corrugated wind. Today we engaged with the Atlantic close up, feeling every wave, the lift and push, cross tides beneath and around us as we rounded the lighthouse at Ardnamurchan, always an adventure and a half. Then on to the Isle of Muck, the seas sideways and upside down and very teenage. It wasn’t rough. I know rough. I know massive waves breaking over the bow and this wasn’t like that but I have sea legs and my old legs remembered themselves even though it is years since I bowed through anything remotely rough. Other guests do not have my experience and I noticed how they quietened and hunkered as I rolled with each twist and screwball feeling immense thrill and excitement. I remember this. This is my whole life with seafarers.

We moored and walked for a couple of hours over many stories and a million years, through wildflowers and wild birds and the few people who inhabit this remote island. Then back to the boat for another dance with the Atlantic roil until finally the best of skippers brings us safely into our resting place below Rum for the night. What has uplifted me today is the way I feel. I was so very tired when I boarded. And yet today, the first day, I feel alive and wild again, feral and free and so happy. Is this my happy place? Not just the island magic I already know so well, the wide and truthful sky, the endless weather changes, the wildlife and the island people but the direct contact with the ocean. I thought I was afraid of rough, any rough. I remember saying I would not go on a boat again unless the sea was dead flat, dead, flat, humourless, a whisper of herself, submissive, polite, like so many women I know, as I was once. Today she showed me wild, almost in a tantrum, her truth and I felt as one with her.

I am always learning.

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Island Blog – Transition, the Familiar to Adventure

Moving from one state to another, one location to another, equals transition. Prior to one usually feels me anxious as if I have stepped off a familiar path and into the scrub. I need my navigational skills, skills I always doubt I have. Do I have the right boots? Are my eyes sure of sight, of their looking power, their clarity? Is my case too heavy or too light? Do I pack a sandwich? Stupid nonsense like that, and then some. I have always wanted to be the sort of feral woman who just gets up and goes, who doesn’t care about the right boots nor the damn sandwich and who is so childlike as to simply adventure on, scrub or rocks or cliff edge or bog notwithstanding. I never was, and yet, and yet, since I turned 70 a while ago, I am learning. This in evidence as I unpack my lightweight suitcase on board the Lucy Mary. I have four pairs of knickers for 6 days. Never was good at arithmetic. Actually I had packed 5, (still a lack, I agree) but one pair fell apart on removal. I sit on the bunk in my cabin and look at them, see quite clearly that they must be a decade old. Oh dear. The other guests look so well assembled although I confess I have no clue as to their knicker situation. My clothes, the few I had brought with me, are a touch threadbare, my usual island kit, but it’s as if I am seeing them for the first time in stark realistic reality. I also forgot mascara, essential for the other end of me. All this thinks me.

When I meet with strangers I couldn’t give a monkeys as to their outward appearance. I notice it, of course I do, the well-heeled, the tatty bedraggled, the somewhere in between, but how someone presents rarely has much truth in itself. It doesn’t tell me who you are, what you are really like, your innermost innerment. Thus, I tell myself firmly, it doesn’t matter what I look like either, and I gently slide myself into another transition, one that leads me back to myself, the real inner me, the truth of me, open, vulnerable and ready for adventure. Over the next few days I will learn from the other guests. In this sea-blown cloudscape, among these ancient rocks and twists of history, we will join in a mutual interest, risking ourselves enough to open up in ways we never do when walking through the familiar.

Right now we are heading into a mildly lumpy sea and I am thus in danger of missing my keyboard one letter at a time, so I will stop now and lift myself into the adventure.

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Island Blog – Shift

I smell Autumn. It happens around this time of year, every year. The thing about living so close to nature is that senses align in ways they never could in Urbia. The tensual connection with the light, the way the wind flexes, shifting from this to that direction , even momentarily, the tap of cold on bare ankles, the way the distant hills turn grey sooner than before. It would have been survival back in the day. The grasses, left long and now all seeded out, bend like dancers but take longer to straighten up. Seeds and down fly everywhere to the last resort. It doesn’t upset me at all, although I do pull a warmer jersey from the mix today after work.

Thing about Summer is that she is a spirit, short-lived and a cavel, supremely wonderful, providing ridonculous temperatures for a while and then, after giving out all she has, gets weary. Autumn, a very different strength, also female but much older, rises like a grandmother with the promise of a gentle and long-term handover. That’s what I have observed over almost 50 years here in the cup of nature. I felt her nudge today as I got out of my mini, arriving home from working in the Best Cafe Ever, and even though my fed is thoroughly up about my olding limitations, sore thumbs, hips, I still love my membership in the dynamic team. As I arrived home, felt the shift, saw it in the ‘might need lights’ thing (not yet) and I smiled. I love the seasons, the way they don’t give a thought to what we daft humans plan. They are the power and our power, and if we want to connect, the way to do this is to engage. Autumn isn’t July? It is here, and, if you read books and stories and actually want to get how it really is beyond the falsehood of Urbia, this change will not upset at all.

I remember my mum packing up our summer kit in a huge ottoman. Teeshirts, frocks, shorts, all of that. The winter kit came out. Jumpers, warm breeks, thicker socks, long-sleeved underpinnings. It was (and I am guessing) around October. Not now. The survivors will just go with it. My suggestion, if it is possible for you, is to check the stars, to feel the slicker breeze, to see what can only be seen in Autumn light. Clarity. To shift away from how it was because the was of that is long gone.

I smelled Autumn today. I smelled her as I opened my car door, arriving home. I felt it in my house. lit my fire, noticed deer on the far side of the sea-loch, sensed a crisping of air beneath a dense camp of clouds.

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Island Blog – Visitors

There are buzzing things down by the sea-loch. A lot of them. We thought, initially, that it might be a swarm of bees, departing an overheated colony under the leadership of an overheated young queen. I always feel sorry for the old girl, the gazillions of potential young she has spawned, the way she just got bigger than the rest and was fed on soporific royal jelly until she had completed her task, laying down the promise of a new generation. But the sound wasn’t quite right. If I stepped two feet to the right, there was silence. Ditto two feet to the left. Now, I know the sound of a swarm, found one once hanging in the rhododendrons just below my home. I could see the ball, rugby sized, and calm as still water bar the buzzing. Around the shape of what was probably a thousand honey bees, workers, (females) flew like security guards, protectors. We couldn’t collect the swarm. The ditch was too deep, the bramble interference too invasive and grabby. In the time it took us to locate assistance, the young queen had communicated a ‘Let’s go’ and they were gone.

I know that at this time of year there are many buzzing things. Flying creatures fat or skinny, creatures that look like wasps but aren’t, things that look like very small bees, things that ding about like eejits against the inside windows of my conservatory until I scoop them out and wish them well. Visitors. As I walked slowly back up the hill from the shore, tilting my head for location of the sound, I decided they were Bog Flies, or Seaweed Flies. To be honest I don’t care what they are called. I am just happy that they are still buzzing and together. And that leads me to ground level.

You know when you have a sibling to stay for a few days and it is so easy, so much fun? Ok, perhaps not everyone knows this, but I have a few sibs and I am fortunate enough to say this about all of them. This one is my brother,the only male in a sea of females. He came with his other half and every minute has been fun, inventive, easy and filled with chunter and banter and laughter. To think I was alarmed about sharing my bathroom, my space before they came. And there’s another thing. Anxiety about something that only exists in my imagination has, many times before, rendered me legless and out of breath. At no time did any of what I imagined manifest. Never, not once. There is a learning there. We have driven around cliffs with spectacular views, met friends, shared stories and, with my brother, shared memories, not one of which we agree on. We have walked, paddled through a rising tide, collected stones, talked of West Coast History, of the shameful clearances, of the migration of cultures, influences and languages, of families, losses, learnings and gains, of changes and mind shifts, of moving on and of staying stuck. He is currently up a ladder checking out one of my leaks whilst I write. The sun is merry in his sky, the moon fulling herself into a blaze as the tide goes in and falls out. We have watched salmon jump in the narrows, watched indigenous wildflowers sway happy in the warm breeze. In short, we have used every minute of this short visit and what we three have created are many miles of buzzing memories.

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Island Blog – Windswept, Wildfires and Hope

Life is often a surprise, what happens, when it does, how it does. The thing I have learned over many decades is that we only learn from mistakes or happenings outside of ourselves. In times when we make no mistakes or don’t encounter outside happenings, we learn absolutely nothing because the human ‘cosy’ inside us just keeps moving on without thought nor question and most definitely without learning a thing. And that learning is not outside of us, no. The important learning is within, and if it is a mistake, we evaluate, feel the shame and guilt and make a change. If it is a ‘happening’ outside of ourselves then we learn from our response to it. Did we fall silent, slide away, or did we grab a tool and run to help? Did we show up or were we a ‘cosy’ human, all fear and ‘what can I do…..I am just little me, cold and heading for the safety and the denial of home?

These questions flutter around me like butterflies at times, at others like ravens (I love ravens) or vultures. I skinny through all the gaps in between, alert and watchful because, and this is simple enough, I want to be a part of whatever is happening around me and well beyond me. If I don’t understand something, or when I mistake myself into a pit of regret, I want to learn because I can always research, can learn, can step up to say ‘I made a mistake’. I am sad that so many have been subsumed into the isolation, the refusal to admit that they just might have been wrong. However, I am not about sorting anyone else out. It’s a full time job sorting myself out, or in.

As our world shifts uncomfortably within the strains of the corset we have strapped around her pregnant belly, she is talking to us, she is telling us, she is shouting, she is showing not what we can save because she knows we cannot, not now, not with powerful leaders still greedy for control of lands and seas, still killing, still ok with it all. But, and there is always one of those, we can do something. We can learn new skills, we can research, we can stop believing all the toxic nonsense on social media, the platforms which only exist on the surface of real life and yet which control immense depth and wide geography. At home, one home, we can teach our children. And they are our future, their future. They need not fear but must be taught emotional and practical intelligence.

In the cafe one day, families came in. One family inspired me. A young couple with one boy, about 8. We are used to a chaos of crumbs and spills from a kiddy controlled table and as long as they enjoy their experience, we are happy to sort things out. However, this family lifted me like a butterfly. I was leaving after my shift and met them in the carpark. They recognised me. Thank you, said the dad, holding the hand of his boy. I didn’t see mama. As I pulled out I called, ‘you are so welcome’ through my window and at that moment, the wee lad turned to me and called out ‘Thank you!’

Ah, there is hope.

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Island Blog – Fiddleplay and Deep Time

A beautiful day, all sunshine and squawks from gulls mobbing eagles over the tidal loch. Everything clear, sky wide and still, garden flowers heads up to the light giver, safe from wilderley gales. Still. I wasn’t and that’s me all over. I say I am not a busy flicktwit, fussing about dust nor to-do lists, but I am, I confess, a woman who was a mother at 20 and birthed 5 children and who outlived a husband and who now has no idea who she is. I was somebody once, I remember that, the buzz of it, the exhaustive demands, the have-to go here or there, the suddenness of immediacy. A boat in trouble, a guest overboard, another 4 for dinner, a crying mother from a cottage because it had rained all week and everything and everyone was cold and wet. I warmed her obviously, tumbled dried her towels and clothes and Himself went up there, into the hills and sorted the dodgy fire. All fires were dodgy on Tapselteerie. I have no idea how we got away with that, but I do remember many fine folk, mostly women (no surprise there) who knocked on my kitchen door with faces. I can see those faces now. And here’s my thought. They came, they asked, they were brave and they were pulled in to the warm and fed and watered.

One of them said she played the fiddle. She was beautiful, Irish, four kids. I asked her, bring your fiddle, and she did, and we danced a story from her past, one I recognised. The fiddle captured me in that moment because it is the voice of stories, of history, of deep time. And that thinks me. In my olding, many memories scoot back, slowered, rainbowed, probably nonsense, but I get glimpses of someone bringing in wild salmon, the fish caught on it’s way up to spawning, full fat and strong. I remember receiving this huge fish, welcoming in the fishermen, whisky poured, the laugh around us in that kitchen, the fiddleplay. Even in times when no fiddle played, the fiddle played. Deep time. Those fishers long gone. The wild salmon too. They were then and this is now.

I’m not so sure about now, but, then, I am guessing that in deep time, not many felt sure about their now. Olding is not fun. I should qualify that. It still isn’t fun but there are options and choices. Things hurt, bones mostly, but could be more. Thoughts slow, take time to land. Hearing might grow cloudy. Concentration striates, shifting all over the place, like a seconda on a harley with no map. I meet many of us, all bright and brittle all can do and all doing this olding thing, feeling sore and tired and bloody determined.

One young woman, younger than my youngest, said to me yesterday this…..You inspire me. You are so ……

That was just what I needed to hear. On i go, fiddleplay lead on.

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Island Blog – Spirit and a Thumbs Up

I’m back from work, a busy one, many lunch and tea/coffee customers, all served well. With my new eyeball I can see which table needs clearing and out I go with a scoosh thing and a cloth and a wide tray. I talk to folks along the way, notice the ones who don’t do ‘talk’ and those who bend in like willows, easy, open, smiling. All cafes have all sorts.

I meet people. People with ready smiles, drivers in cars who swerve and reverse, who acknowledge me in my car. I meet others who don’t. There is ridgity everywhere. I understand it, I do. A holiday, too hot, wrong accommodation, just doing this holiday thing to save something. Been there. I think many have. I have no wisdom here, only experience. And here comes another thing.

I met a beautiful chef and his husband. I see how life can be now in the now of now and it skitters my heart. I work with him, laugh with him, wash his pots and pans and bowls and spoons (too many spoons) serve his food, honour him. I think that my own spirit, my inner rebel just loves and thrives on this and other such connections. I have seen so many faces on the other side of the counter, asking for lunch, for bespoke teas, for incredible cakes and pastries, for soup and salads, for hot chocolates, all from here or nearabouts, and then there comes a sparkle one, dynamic, curious, fun. Could look like anything, or anyone. No code, just that sparkle. Hallo you.

Spirit is strong. It rises my own, confronts my wrinkle thinking and reminds me how I am still very much here. They laugh at me, the young, but they laugh and I will absolutely take that as a personal thumbs up.

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Island Blog – My Face, I Think.

Jeez but it gets harder to click onto my own writing page. I have to caterpillar my way through botstops and signposts facing backwards at best, nowhere at worst. However, it is as it is and this automaton fantasia will not leave me behind. I can feel my face lifting and falling, twisting and flexing as I write this. I have such a face. To be honest, it seems that my face works as a singular whereas one might suppose I was, at least partly in control. When I hear something someone says or reveals, my face is right there, showing off, definitely that, long before my considered response, with appropriate facial confirmation ,has a flipping chance to catch up. It’s like holding back a wild colt on a fraying rope, and that might just be a good piece of imagery.

It isn’t that I can’t control my face because I can….ish. It takes longer now with all the wrinkles, each with their own opinions, their sense of place. They are not just ruffles of skin, no collective. They are independent runnels, valleys of ponderance, elevations of realisation. It’s exhausting managing them. And it is my face by the way, not that they give a toss about that. So, when someone says something that rises a response in me, one which I absolutely know how to hold, to control, to banish into complete annihilation, my face takes over. It shows. And, if my face is busy considering, faltering perhaps, the eyes have it. Darn. I can spend many awkward seconds flicking away, looking for something giving me time, me, not the rebel face, not the eyes, not the truth.

Ah! The truth.

We live so much in lies – a word which creates immense trouble but it isn’t a long one, so easily tackled. Over ‘polite’ time it has become a white dissolution, barely there at all, a wisp, a nothing. But we all notice, we all see because this……our innate connection to ourselves is strong. We know what we know. Don’t need affirmation. Don’t need acceptance. If we are ‘outsiders’, considered disconnected, awkward, different, weird, hold to that. It is a gift.

I have a word for you. Aspectabund. It is long dead in dictionnary world but I like it. It means he/she/they who wear emotion on their face/s. It was understood then that emotion carried import and a certain control over logic of the day. I rest there, as does my face, I think.

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Island Blog – Authenticity, Honesty and Fun

Early this morning, as the sun warmed like a surprise, I was out cutting some sweet peas, cornflowers, pink things, yellow things and some green leaves from a Somebush, when two men wandered by. I know them. They are islander friends. Because it wasn’t raining, we talked awhile. One of them commented on the piece I had written in the local paper, said how brave I was to be so open about the truth of me. Me, behind a huge climb of sweet peas, still clipping, smiled and said, Well, I am an open book, nothing to hide and honest about tough times, because we all have them. Two thinks after they had merried their way along were, one, what the hell did I write, and two, why isn’t everyone honest about the tough times? I have spent the day ruminating like the sheep in the field below my home, pondering these two. Of course, the answer to the first is easy to answer because I dashed inside, found the page and read my words. Okay, I thought, no big deal, I just was authentically honest about how I felt at that time. The second question dithered me a lot. It is a big question and also a little one. I see the little one like a skinny thing on a cold street, running barefoot whilst the big question is in the minds of those who don’t have a clue about that experience, even though they do because everyone knows the skinny street runner within, hungry for something or someone, cold and lonely. Everyone.

Pretence, however, is what we are so good at. The fact that the answer to How Are You, requires ‘Fine’, is evidence enough. That it is immediately accepted is unfortunate, to say the least, but the secondary fact that we morph into the Fine responder so easily, is scary. It becomes a thing, denying truth, denying authentication, dissolving honesty. Oh, I realise that nobody wants to hear the troubles of another, not randomly. In this crazy and blinkered (my opinion) race for ‘success’ we are too busy and too forward thinking, aka on our own trajectory, to bother with whimpers. Words there to think about. Troubles, Another, Blinkered,Success, Busy.

Back to me. I listen to many songwriters, read many poets, listen to many innovative speakers, hear the honesty and the involute complexity of the way they work words into a beautiful tangle of authenticity. There is no fixing, words and passions, truths told, honest reveals, truthful presentations. I am he, I am she. I have failed and failed. I have walked the wrong path, fallen many times, been lifted up, lifted myself up. I have followed the wrong leaders, sunk in endless bogs, felt fear and cold and shame and guilt. But I have learned this. The world brings in a synapse of wild complication. There is this way, there is that way. An inquisitor will try them all out. That’s me. I know the cold fear of valleys and the elation of mountain tops, but I find the pretence that valleys don’t exist hard to allow. Nonetheless this is not a challenge I would bring to a falsehood I clock in nanoseconds on meeting anyone. I just wish it wasn’t there, wish that the great British stiff upper lip nonsense had melted away into history, that people could just be honest about their lives, themselves, to be truly and bravely authentic, and then to take action, to have fun. Fun. Remember that?

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Island Blog – Connections and Fairytales

I notice, as a blogger in these new days that if I don’t blog for a while, I am forgotten. It is up to me at such a time to relocate myself and to get through all the other Judys, a definite and determined swim from the depths. At first I felt annoyance, then a sense of dismissal, of loneliness. I wasn’t important, noticed, valued anymore. Frome where I am right now, I laugh at this. Of course we are forgotten, of course connections move on and up and over and return, although the return bit is always down to human connection. Everything is fluid and nothing is a given and this swirltide is how it is. Personas are shaped and twisted, photos of real people are synced and redesigned according to the accord of the finger or the brain working with the outblast of inter-intelligence. Hush, now. A lot of all of this is really good. Many more trifocal revelations and understandings. Many more bots and trolls. But this isn’t new, people. They were always there.

For centuries good folk have lived with such an alternative dynamic, worked with it. They connected. They met, together, laughing drinking in island crofts, isolated places in the outer wilds and also deep within cityal streets with pubs welcoming and shops selling veg and material for your curtains and cheese and eggs and kindness. I met many of them. I met their determination to keep on keeping on. I was a furious middle-class 16 year old and pounding the streets. I came to the market and we talked. I will not forget those marketeers, for they wound me web stories, talked of families, of hope of fun, of fun, of fun, of fairies, of stories.

Even in these forgetting times, I still believe we need connections.