Month: February 2023

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Island Blog – Eyebrows, Grief, Cuckoo and a Butterfly

This morning I went for an eyebrow tint, always a risky business as the new ‘look’ is a startlement at first, a gasp, a good heavens because a part of me that sat quietly on my face, barely visible, suddenly becomes a loud statement. I practise eyebrow athletics in the mirror and laugh out loud. I can speak volumes without a single word jumping out my mouth. As the grey comes in, dammit, those ridiculous invading curlicues that appear without permission, without welcome, each one a cuckoo in the nest, I wince. As silently as they come, they stick out like, well, sticks. Husbands have them in spades and not just on their eyebrows but they don’t seem to mind at all. Close inspection is alarming. It’s like having breakfast with someone from another planet.

Whilst I was there I met other women there for nails or waxing or wotwot and, as always happens, we meet and greet before we seat and even after that if twinkle meets twinkle, we chat. I made a new connection with one beautiful woman, a bit younger than me who flies to the UK at the weekend on a month long visit to one of her daughters, the other one being today’s beautician. I watched the affection between mother and daughter and smiled. We will meet for lunch when she returns to Africa and I look forward to learning more about her. Tomorrow I meet with another twinkler, one I met over a delicious dinner with friends of my son and his wife in the wildlife estate. I am sociable, it seems, although I always knew that until the darkness fell around my shoulders and all I wanted to do was hide in the broom cupboard. The phone went unanswered and I even ducked under the kitchen table if someone came to the door. I didn’t know myself then, didn’t want to. If this is to continue, I said sternly to myself, I no longer want you as a friend.

Grieving is a wild thing, shapeless yet living and breathing and unlike cuckoo eyebrow hairs, won’t respond to tweezers and a magnifying mirror. It wakes when you wake, disallows restful sleep, hampers intelligent thinking and reduces a body to a mere stumble. It won’t be explained, nor justified. It refuses to present logically, there is no up nor down, nothing to understand, no map, no guide book, no list of steps that might encourage the griever to hope and to keep on keeping on. Amoebic, erratic and with no care of time, it floats around within, ever restless, ever demanding attention. What do you want of me?? I yelled, and often. You have turned me inside out and upside down and I don’t even feel sad. Who are you Grief? There is never an answer. Friends encourage, fix, suggest and invite. It’s all cold porridge. I didn’t want to do anything, go anywhere, see anyone. What do you want, they asked me and I Don’t Know was all I could muster.

Those days are gone now and I still cannot explain the ‘process’ I have survived. I no longer hide from door knockers, nor do I long for the broom cupboard. I am here, present, ready for adventure and curious about what comes next. The change from then to now feels like a birthing because I am new, not back. I am not the same woman I was and never will be again. I am that butterfly emerging with sopping wings from the black interior of a cocoon and the pain I lived through is the same as it is for that butterfly. The sunshine of new encounters dries my wings as I cling to a stalk, fearful at times but determined to be as beautiful and as dynamic as I can possibly be. I know not what is around the next corner, or at the door, but I will not hide any more. I have something to give this beautiful broken world and something to claim for myself and I won’t miss a moment of it, grey hairs notwithstanding and they are, notwithstanding any more thanks to a good beautician and a startling tint.

Do I thank the grieving process for those two or so years of broom cupboard-ness? Not really, although I accept it was necessary. Hardship hardens a ship, toughens sinews, brightens a brain if it doesn’t kill or maim. I am thankful in many other ways, for my mum’s get-on-with-it attitude, for my children’s gentle support and care, for friends who kept knocking and for my belief in hope even when hope was but a pinprick of distant light. Now, when I meet another who is thwack in the midst of grief, I know not to fix, not to encourage, not to tell of my experience inside the dark, but simply to listen, to walk beside them and to know, even if I would only ever say this with my eyebrows, that this will pass. One light bright day. This will pass.

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Island Blog – The Past, Reflections and a New Picture

I used to yearn for company, filling the yearn hours with distractions, music, audio stories, sweeping the floor, talking to the geraniums. The latter, allowing this for some time, like almost 3 years, have now, I notice, gone quiet. It is their winter, their rest time and my random chitchat irritates. We are resting, they say, turning their backs on me. We manage this alone and in silence. Try it, it is restful. Okay I say, their message clear. I will try, and I do and they are right. I move through my lovely home hearing only the rain, the rise of the gale, big waves of cloudwater on their crests, hear the deafening crashsplash against my windows. In the quiet times, I hear the sparrows ribbon in for seed, 50 or more of them and all at once, all easily startled. I hear geese honk their wobbly way between the fingers of the gale, wings tipping, holding place against the sudden blasts of 71mph strength. I hear the drip, drip of the leak into my leak bucket, the crackle of wood burning and feel the hug of warmth. I notice the click and thrum to life of a gas burner, the ping of a microwave, times up, the voices of brave walkers coming from where? Who knows in this capricious and shifting wind?

Silence is never silence. Everything is always in motion, even if I am not although there’s always the jingfangle of my mind and that rarely stills at all. Even in sleep I am painting pictures, fighting fears, et lala, just like everyone else. As sleep slides away, that’s when the picture becomes itself, an order to the jingfangle to settle in place. By the time I have descended the stairs, new thoughts of daylight and downstairsment take over because I am, in truth, moving from one world to another. The night may begin with the present but doesn’t the minx just flip back through a million pages as sleep velvets in, taking me back to the backside of life as much as to the seaside laughter days and why the hellikins isn’t there a filter process? It seems to me that inner work is required and I do have a guide to inner work me, not by supplying a filter for the night hooligans but more to help me reset my reset button. My inner talk requires a good hot wash cycle, I knew that, know that. How I define myself decides my beliefs. At least I think that’s right and I meet and talk with many folk who tell me they talk themselves down all the time, and, although this knowledge is mildly reassuring, in that I am no freakling, it also isn’t reassuring at all because how does anybody rise above their defining beliefs of the past, a past which is a gazillion miles away and of no relevance to this new day?

Nowadays I have much time for reflection, something in the past I had to do whilst having a pee, the only time free from the demands of others. This is normal, at least it is for mothers and partners. I have no idea about men and reflectioning, how they do it and if they ever do do it. As I sit here watching hefty African rain soak the parched garden and drip most musically from the thatched overhang, I am reflecting thus:-

I did not fail. I made more mistakes than most, perhaps, and certainly more than I am happy with, not that I can recall them all and there’s a thank goodness in that. On the other side of that announcement I pause. Had I not made those mistakes, had I been the perfect daughter, wife, mother, business partner etcetera, what would I have learned? My ability to adapt (from Mull to Africa, from cold to ferocious heat, for example) might not exist at all, or at least not as dynamically as it does. It takes me 4 minutes, tops, to be ready when someone offers an adventure. I can cook a delicious meal from almost nothing. I am a woman of variables, variety and curiosity. These I learned from that past of mine, from the unfairs, the boo-hoos, the disappointments, the mistakes made by myself, by others, the skinny trappings in cold times. What would I have learned had everything been just as I wanted, needed, and all of the time? Absolutely nothing beyond the holding on to that ease and that sounds like a disappearing person to me, one who cannot, will not adapt to change and who, eventually, gets left behind by Life herself.

I am not afraid. I am afraid of everything, but, on reflection, I wish to face my fear, to allow it, to question the relevance of it in the now, in the new me and that’s what I do as a woman alone for the first time ever. I notice my spine straighten in a soft defiance as I write these words and it smiles me. There is no need for nobody to change, only me, and softly softly. I have no-one to fight anymore, only myself and that sounds like a right waste of time and energy so I won’t.

I need to be the best. At what? Best over everyone else? The word is well over-used, best seller, best at this, best at that, best within a small catch of time until someone else bests you. Pshaw to that. But I do wish to be the best me I can be and that demands a set of boundaries and parameters and a hot inner wash. Who do I want myself to be if nobody is looking? What are my ethics and are they well exercised? How others see me is a care that belongs in the past, something my mum dinned into me because she cared a lot about appearance, a practise full of hypocrisy at times or so I believed. As I rub out my ever-faint pencil past, I thank all who taught me, who fought me, who sought me out. You all created a shape that worked back then but now I have a new pencil, sharp and pointy and I hold it with my letting go fingers, ready to create a new picture.

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Island Blog – A Warthog, Clouds, Shapes and Colour

I am quickly getting friendly with the heat. It bizarres me that I can go from 6 degrees to 36 and not only love both but able to adapt almost immediately. Walking off the last week plane (Orville from The Rescuers) into dazzling sunshine and a load of hot people, I felt my spirits lift. Of course there was relief in there, somewhere, after gruelling airport and plane-ness, but to feel the slam of heat in my favourite place is more than warming. There is air-con in this lovely thatched African home, cool tiled floors and plenty shade on the outside of In, not to mention a swimming pool from which I just rescued (hopefully) a huge centipede critter with a name like Chingaloolie, with a million legs and a body about 10 inches long, as thick as my dad’s middle finger. I paddled in, scooped it up in a sieve and laid it on the deck. I’m hopeful as I definitely saw its feelers wiggle. This life-saving thingy reminds me of swimming in a Corfusian sea past endless (it seemed) honey bees paddling like dingbats and with no hope of survival. I scooped them up on the back of one hand, holding it aloft as I turned for shore with a lopsided breast stroke. I managed about 8 one day and felt super delighted with myself as if I, alone, had saved all bees. Finding a rock I encouraged the enfeebled to move off my hand. No thanks, they all said with a little tail waggle. Lord knows what they were saying to each other as I became a little nervous of upsetting them into a stinging frenzy. They wouldn’t, I said, not after I saved them from Davy Jones’ locker, and they didn’t.

It is too hot to walk the dog except for early doors but not too early because Lady Leopard might not have managed her night kill and still be hungry, not that scraggy me would fill her belly. Even the big dog, although more her style, wouldn’t be enough. I’ve seen the size of her dinners half way up a tall tree, where she dragged it away from a hyena scavenge, impala legs sticking out like bicycle spokes, its glazed over eyes no longer with sight, whilst her Ladyship lounged on another branch, yawning. It’s too hot today to make foray over the decking which burns like fire under naked feets. The good news is that, once I got the hang of the mechanical options, the washing will dry in about 30 minutes, unlike back home where clouds (obviously watching for the chance of mischief) gather and merge to dump their load just after I’ve gone back indoors. I watch the dragonflies, rainbow coloured, dart and dive through the garden. Electric blues, vibrant reds, butter yellows, like the birds that sing and whoop, screech and chitter through the acacia. So much colour so much life. I read and watch, startle at a bark. Baboon? They come, you know, without any idea of boundaries, leaping and bouncing through gardens, over high walls or to swing down from trees in search of food. The abundant Grenadilla hangs heavy with fruit and they love it. But, no, it isn’t baboon, this time, but a neighbouring dog with a talent for impersonation. I relax back, for now. I remember the last time I was in Africa, inside a wildlife reserve and working on my laptop on the stoep. I heard the bark of the head male, a massive creature with big yellow teeth and scarpered inside just in time to hear the roof drumming with baboon. Mothers with babies a-clung, exuberant teenagers and himself, the patriarch. I ran to lock the windows and doors. They pull doors open. In no time they were gone leaving my ears ringing with their screeches and thumps, my heart beating so fast I had to hide in the loo to calm down. It took me some time to ginger back out.

Yesterday we did walk through the reserve and enjoyed a stand off with a mother warthog. Her piglets squealed around her and we were careful, very careful, not to get in between her and her young. Those tusks are big and she will charge in a flash. She wouldn’t budge off the track. We inched forward as everything in me screamed TURN AROUND! My African son held my hand tight and slowly we moved onwards. She watched us pass, through those piggy eyes, as if we were no big deal but for the rest of the walk I was on tenterhooks. I had always considered warthogs to be hideous creatures but this far-too-close- encounter. showed me how stunning they are with that red-dust colouring and those fine lines. Nonetheless I would rather see them ways off from now on. Driving into town I see a male giraffe, his head way higher than the trees, whilst overhead huge vultures wheel and loop through the blue. Nothing compares to such sightings, so close, so free to roam, so endangered. Much of what I will see, have seen, will be nothing more than a picture in a school book in the not too distant future, a sad thought indeed, albeit an inevitable one. At least I have seen, with my own eyes, the real deal, watched it lope, run, pounce, climb, swing, charge. I know the Go Away signs, the body language, what not to do in the event of trouble and these come with feelings and memories not many future generations will ever experience.

A scoot into town for a coffee and I am thrilled to be remembered. The welcome from Cosmos at the Rock Fig was warm and smiley and the coffee as I remember, hot, strong and delicious. Thence to the material shop because I plan to sew a story using soft linens, threads and wools. Sewing without a scooby as to what will reveal itself, just working on instinct and with colours and shapes already seen, the insects, birds, animals and people, is deliciously freeing, the result oftentimes a complete surprise. It thinks me. A life is painted this way, starting at the beginning, being curious, trusting instincts, with courageous application of every small step. Looking back on my own life I can see the patterns and shapes I never saw at the time, not believing that these apparently insignificant choices and decisions I made could ever become a whole painting, become just that. We need the bland hues, the times we thought nothing much was happening, would ever happen, for the vibrant lifts of rich colour to really show. Life is a lot about waiting for something to present itself, a new path, a new relationship, a new opportunity and those times demand and require a patience we find lumpish and pale, like yesterday’s porridge. But Life has her plans. All we need to do is to show up and to keep showing up; to fake courage and a can-do attitude no matter how grey our sky, how full of colluding clouds; to keep taking another step and, most of all, to be curious like Alice, however old we might be in years. It is easy to falter, to fall and we all do it but there will be someone nearby who is upstanding. Reach out a hand and hold on tight, eyes wide with the looking and something or someone will appear to colour up the bland, to inspire, to startle our canvas into electric life. A new way to work with the old things is like sunshine on a rainy day, an eyelet through which we can see for miles. They were always there, the miles. We just needed a wee rest for a while.

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Island Blog – Into Africa and Nothing Else Matters

Blimey what a journey! Car to ferry, ferry to the mainland, down to Glasgow airport, which was half empty with no snakeline to checkin and no false bejewelled tans heading for Ibiza or some such destination. Then down to Heathrow which is the size of a small planet and peopled with nobody who says anything to anyone, at least not in the concourse. Delay number one. Apparently the luggage carriage lift thingy had got stuck half way up and half way down and we could hear a load of hammering beneath our feet as we sat and sat and sat. At least there was conversation in the belly of the beast this time and it thinked me, that people all tense and fretting about hand luggage and security and whether or not He has packed his spare set of dentures, not to mention all that ironing of cloth, never ironed as a rule, pre departure plus the baby teething and how on earth did that girl get into that body stocking with sparkles and isn’t she bloody freezing relax once there’s no going back. There still remains, however, the panic over who gets onto the whatever the train thing is called, everyone belly-stuck to the sliding doors just in case the flight goes without them, which it won’t and never does. Eyes on the 2 minute, 1 minute warning and the tension is palpable. We all needed a beer and to calm the heck down, especially as the luggage subsequently got stuck and held us in stasis for over 40 minutes. All that rush for nothing, in the end.

We land in Glasgow and the slow snail of faffing people dawdle off the plane drive us crazy. Our fault for choosing seats at the back of course, although you would think someone in authority might have requested that all those heading for possibly already missed connecting flights should leave the plane first. Well that didn’t happen. Nonetheless we hurtled (I was impressed with our hurtling) passed the tortoises and even a few hares to finally arrive at our gate, about 17 miles away from the one at which we landed. We waited. And waited, noticing on the app (yes I have one) each delay registered. A few minutes here, a few there but as we know so well, minutes can become an hour just like that, we had a third connection to make and there is a whole 11 hours of night to get through, sitting glued to a stranger and bolt upright. Everyone but we (or is it us?) slept. It was no fun, despite walking up and down the aisle, stretching gently because any wide-arced limbal reach might end in an assault and battery charge and we didn’t want that. We had to be polite ballet dancers in a very narrow corridor, a big ask of my African son who is built like Atlas. The last 4 hours were tough and it made me rethink my future journeys to beloved Africa, for I hope there will be many more to come. I did travel once, first class or business class wherein there’s a bed to stretch out on and no chance of being glued to a stranger, no matter how delightful he or she might be. However, it is very expensive in terms of cash. This trip was very expensive in terms of my comfort (not). Which is less important than the other?

It is so ‘normal’ to be cautious about spending money on ‘myself’. Well, it is for me and is for many others. But the core belief needs investigating. Whereas I might happily spend money to help my family members, I might maintain that I am happy wearing ‘this old thing’ for 25 years, when I am absolutely not happy at all. I just cannot get my head around the indulgence of money for me, for a thing that doesn’t feed the brood, nor enable the electric to work but would simply make me feel rather wonderful. There’s a master’s degree subject for you.

So, I may or I mayn’t consider upgrading for the journey home at the end of March. For sure I will dither, self-question, flip like a ping pong ball between yes I can and No I Cannot a gazillion times between now and then. In the meantime, I will watch butterflies the size of birds, Chameleons the size of small dogs and scented flowers that outsmart all designer perfumiers. This is Africa. I am here. And nothing else matters, even that this blog might be a tumbleweed of slipshod tiddleypom.