Today, a week after leaving hospital, I head for the island, not without apprehension, for any transition brings her followers. For this whole week I have had to think of nothing at all, nothing domestic, nothing practical, nothing beyond rest, the dive into yet another book, (four this week) wherein I become an observer of another’s story. The books I chose from my son-in-law’s vast library of excellent reads all take place beside, or on, bodies of water. Rivermen, Sailors, Explorers, and all told out in a state of transition, be it banishment to Australia or simply a change of river. From flooded quarries to garden ponds, from vast lakes to ice fields, from floods to severe drought, all of them awash with water, salt, brackish or fresh from a mountain spring. It wonders me and yet it does not. I am a pisces, I am a woman who must be close to water in order to breathe freely. I consider this, in my new state, my revival, no, my re-birth into life, as if I am a part of some yearly cycle, a young elver facing that huge journey back to the sea, a sea I need as the life blood in my veins, not that there is much of that left!!

I am nothing but thankful. For this week of non-thinking, the freedom as a child has. Dinner is ready; the fridge is stocked, the fruit bowl full. The dog is walked, the rubbish taken out to the bins, the kettle sings on the hob. I have rested as never before, not even after birthing, cherished and nurtured and safe. And now it is time to return home to my wee dog, my new support programme, my home a welcome as she always is. So, how do I feel on the edge of this transition? Apprehensive, yes, a little, although I will be driven all the way by my eldest son and into the arms of a dear friend, one who stepped in over 3 weeks ago to look after all that I suddenly had to leave behind. I know there are plans for me not to be alone for a while yet, me with my slightly cloudy eyes, my extra caution when rising from a seat or when descending the stairs, as if I was a toddler just learning to walk. The world, or the bit of it I can see, the one I inhabit, seems new and different. I am always curious about pretty much everything, the questions, what, where, how, why, always in my mind, tumbling into my mouth and oftentimes spilling out in a right jumble, but this time I am slightly at odds with myself. My body is one I know well, and yet I don’t know it at all. I am old and yet I am new. I look at my hands, the canula bruises fading now, my feet, taken for granted as my steadying and dependable stands, and I feel, not a disconnection but a re-connection with old friends. Everything still works as it did, but as in a cautionary tale, my new tale, my new story.

I walk the shoreline and into the fairy woods, all green with a dozen different mosses, the great old trees laden with leave cover, delicately fingering the breeze and blocking out the sky. Along the shore, Thrift and Scurvy appear like surprises between the basalt and granite, opportunists all. Seabirds cut the sky. My eyes follow them as they head inland, for what, and why? What is their plan? I have no answer and it matters not one jot. Seaweed humps cover the high tide mark, gold, copper, a luminous green, awaiting the next lift off. Where will you end up, I wonder, as I breathe in the salty tang? On someone’s potato patch, on another shore, another island, your story still for the telling? The sky is soft with cloud, this wide sky, this canopy of colours so delicate, so deep, so alive. Like me. The tide ebbs, the tide flows, an endless cycle. Life flows in, life flows out again, no matter what goes on in the world, and just to watch it, to marvel at the power of it, is enough. Ask me no questions, it says, just notice, observe and live in the moment, every moment, for you are part of me and I of you. We are life.

We are life.