September 30, 2023 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog – Rings

Today I called a nurse, took my kitchen compost up to the bin, felt the wind slap dunk me, the smell of other climes, other stories, blustery like Winnie the Pooh. He was pretty cool about winds, bees and troubles and he is my guide when I feel worried about pretty much anything. Calling the nurse was just about the jojo of jags for old people, covid, pneumonia (tough spell) and shingles. I said No to shingles. She said you’ve already had it twice, which makes you more susceptible. I had thought my trusty immune system had this. No Shingles Allowed. Not so. Anyway, I now have, it seems, to check with the cancer team about everything. Those jags, a simple visit to the dentist for a teeth clean. It rings me around.

Rings. I Love rings, oh I so love rings. Rings are the firsts in my looking as I press towards a jeweller’s window, the dynamics of a ring, the gold, the silver, the copper, the rose gold, the jewels, the dynamic twist and swirl of the modern artist. It all halts my breath and my feet. I think of the meaning, the intent, the power of all that ringing around. Then I remember control and I walk on. However, I have bought rings for myself, rings I try on, now and again, but rarely hold for more than a day. What is this ring thing? Capture? yes. Oh…..maybe I rest there.

This day, the ring thinks were loud in my mind. There is no reason for it. It just came. I laughed as I recalled a day on the island ferry, en traverse to the mainland, and himself angered me beyond my reaches. I was aloud and not allowed. I was at the end of my reasonable thinking. I was done. On the upper deck of the ferry, I turned like a wild animal, and took off my wedding ring, dramatically, and threw it into the sea. It was like taking off a whalebone corset, or, in my experience, removing a liberty bodice. Ghastly things, trust me, and inaptly named for sure.

Today I was moved to check my jewellery box. I kept one ring from my mother-in-law, an eternity ring, gold band, thin as wire, with, I think, battered dark sapphires as a surround. It made me look for my own, gold with five dark sapphires for five beautiful children, and I tried both on. My own will not fit me on my wedding finger, but my mother-in-law’s slim band fits nicely. It’s loose and easy. Maybe I can wear it, bear it. Nothing on that wedding finger has ever felt easy before. Rings contain, control, or they did it my life, even as I love them. I still love them, even though I cannot wear them for long due to my perception of ring control, as if it was a restraint, which it never was. My fingers have memories, it seems and one finger in particular. As I turn the ring around, I wonder what it meant to the old girl, and I make smile. It is a lovely thing, that ring, as is my own, which goes back in the box, too small, too tight.

Thoughts of my surgery rings me around, although I distract well and keep occupied. How can it not? I have a date now, not far off and welcome indeed, because this perceived restraint, the whale-bone corset of it, the ring control, is not for eternity. The surgeon is confident, thus am I. A short period of discomfort is just a short period of discomfort, and thereafter I will celebrate my freedom every single day, in this wild place. On the return ferry voyage, as we pass the lighthouse and carve our seaway home, I will stand on the deck (not burning) and throw the ring of cancer overboard. Not in fury, as I had when sending my own wedding band down to Davy Jones, but in joy and gratitude.Today I called a nurse, took my kitchen compost up to the bin, felt the wind slap dunk me, the smell of other climes, other stories, blustery like Winnie the Pooh. He was pretty cool about winds, bees and troubles and he is my guide when I feel worried about pretty much anything. Calling the nurse was just about the jojo of jags for old people, covid, pneumonia (tough spell) and shingles. I said No to shingles. She said you’ve already had it twice, which makes you more susceptible. I had thought my trusty immune system had this. No Shingles Allowed. Not so. Anyway, I now have, it seems, to check with the cancer team about everything. Those jags, a simple visit to the dentist for a teeth clean. It rings me around.

September 27, 2023 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog – Thinks on Waiting

I love this time of year. Yes, it does rain most days, but if I wait and watch, I can pick an in-between space within which to walk out with Little Boots, the wee dog. I am so not a waterproofs woman, to hell with that crackling stuff. I am frocks and bare legs and would go barefoot if the track wasn’t so sharp with stones and wotwot. The in-between times show me chiaroscuro in the wide open sky, like a light show no human could ever emulate successfully. I love the touch of cold grass beneath my naked feet each morning, the thrill of the cold, the smell of it, the fizz in my breath. I love the sound of raindrops (not on those hideous waterproofs), the soft plunk onto grass, the tinkle of it on the roof of my warm conservatory roof, like a tap dance of fingernails. I love the feel of wind in my face, the way the (cheeky sod) lifts the skirts of my frocks, all layered up now, and flaps them wet against my bare legs. I love the sound of the current nonsensically named wind as it divides the limbs of beech trees, oaks, sycamores, larch and pine. Each sound is unique to each tree.

As I move beneath the rain-laden canopy, ready to duck, a wind nudge lifts a limb out of my way. I smile and speak out my thank you. The floor of the wood is not soaked, latent fungi leaping out in oranges and reds and snowy white and danger. I don’t know my fungi, beyond the chanterelles, so I just admire, no touching. I navigate the muddy puddles, or ‘cuddles’ as my grandaughter calls them. They are too disturbed to reflect the sky and too muddy because there is traffic on this track, workers on the estate, families who live here, passing up and down just like I did, endlessly, when it was Tapselteerie and it was ours for a while.

As I head for home, the fire already merry, the afternoon beginning to lay down her weary body, to hand over to the evening, I consider all those waiting. I think of people, all people, not just those I know. Waiting for answers, waiting for buses, for appointments, for interviews, for a plate of food, for a future, for just someone to acknowledge the pains of a troubled past; for a child to be born, for someone to finally die. There’s a whole load of waiting going on in this world. The sealoch waits, I watched it do that waiting thing, as one wind puffed out and the other (Arlene???) headed towards it. I saw geese peaceful, unfluffed up. I saw a sea eagle perform in majesty so high above me as to let me know it was probably dodging ice, wings wide, slow, dip, cut the sky in half, level and return.

I waited all day yesterday to hear the results of my recent tests. I had a friend here and we both had notepads full of questions, ready, alert. Our alertness began to dive about 3pm. We couldn’t walk Little Boots together. We had to be beside the phone. No call came. So I made contact this morning and received an almost immediate return call. It’s good news. There is still a tumour, yes, we know that, but there is no second, just an extension of the original, like a tendril. All lymph biopsies are clear. Plan is to insert, under local anaesthetic (eek) a Savvy Scout, which will grab all the floaty bits, apparently. Then, a short while after that is done, surgery. I still don’t know what, as I still haven’t spoken with the surgeon, but I am not worried. I liked him, trust him, and his team. It looks like towards the end of October when all this will come about.

I know waiting is tough. For birds who want feeding, to those awaiting decisions on scary surgery. It is exhausting, and I am as tired as I was in the days of Tapselteerie. And I am also thankful. I know I have massive support and love from my family, from friends, from all of you and I cannot tell you how precious that is, in the times of worry or confusion or just plain shatter. And, this, too shall pass. Whatever comes next, I know the sensual joy of really living, of my connection to nature, of the sound of music, the lyrics of songs telling me I am not alone; of books and stories, of my own and the impact it had on hundreds of others; of this focussed and caring cancer team; of the ferry that still runs, of the rain, of the light in the sky and of the full moon, of clouds and light and the fact that I have plenty frocks all for the changing should I get caught in a deluge of cloudal tears.

‘She is one who can laugh at the things to come’. That’s a bible quote. I like it, very much. And I can wait, as long as it takes, with humour and sass, even if I have no idea of what for.

September 23, 2023 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog – Tumbletast

I’ve had many thinks about mental wellbeing, since forever, in truth, even when I was just considered ‘difficult’ and ‘strange’. And I was. The tumbletast of me scooried my brain into a storm. What was/is wrong with me, I wondered. Well, everything, pretty much. But see this. I was a girl and young woman of my time, a time when everyone would only whisper the word ‘mental’ as if the head bore no relativity to the body, as if a good person, aka, someone who obliged themselves into a nothing, a bland beige, almost invisible, was a female accepted. Now, in these times, we know better, but I do think about all the rest of those who spent their whole young life paddling backwards, bowing and scraping, apologising through gritted teeth, teeth that spent the long hours of a troubled night grinding together until they lost the ability to bite.

Now that I am old and gay (woman of my times), I chuckle at my flat top teeth and all that turmoil of youth because I now know that I, and others ‘of that time’ are strong fighters, and those who didn’t survive, well, I grieve their demise. I certainly do. What I met, or, rather, who (or is it whom?) along my journey of madness, were one, two, three, maybe four encouragers, older women and men who really saw me and, what’s more, liked and respected what they saw. It wasn’t family members, probably never is, but random meets, sudden lifters, a connection, and I could feel myself begin to flower. I no longer felt like a big clod in frilly frocks and hefty boots, but, instead, a young woman, a beautiful young woman, with a voice, one they wanted to listen to. In short, they believed in me. In me? It was an astonishing moment, one I barely trusted at first, awaiting a put down, a ‘go away you fool’, but it never came. My questions were considered, valued, and answered with an upwards inflection, inviting continuation. It was heady. It was random, It was only now and then in my tumbletast but I could feel my inner spin slow to a confident hum, even to a stop. I didn’t have to be who this person wanted me to be, expected me to be. I was allowed to be myself, not that I had a scooby who that self was with her mental bits totally off piste. I felt enchanting, intelligent, bright and lively. When I laughed too loud or said something that completely missed the point, nobody laughed, but only smiled and explained, without being patronising, or showing their own need to diminish another in order to elevate themselves.

I know I hide my madness well. I know, even in these times, that I am mad. I rather like the title. I see it not as a label, but as a recognition of myself. I am who I am. We all are. And what we need, like water, is for someone, now and then, to tell us, through eyes, smiles, connection, that we are just the one they want to talk to, to collide with, right now. It may be random, a bus shelter, a queue in a post office, a doorway to a hotel in the rain, and, you know what? That is exactly when it happens. Life is such that she proffers the random, and it behoves us to clock that, no matter the rush of the moment, the have to get through, have to watch for the bus, have to check my phone, have to this, have to that.

I recommend just looking around. I recommend saying hallo, and sharing a smile, and then asking Where are you going? or Hey, I love your smile, frock, boots, suitcase, handbag, whatever. We, of our times, who have got through Brexit, Covid and the ripples from the Russian attack on Ukraine, know in our hearts that connection with other humans is our survival. Only through that do we learn about them, about ourselves, and, as we pull apart and go our different ways, we will be holding each other in our thoughts. And this is so powerful.

My randoms changed my thinking about me. I had about four, in a 70 year life, but the power they lit up in my ‘mental’, has carried me all this way, and I thank them. I wish you all the same, with all my heart. I really, really do.

September 22, 2023 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog – Fire and the Kitchen Mama

Well, today was an experience and a half! I had, previously, attempted to light the Esse oil-fired range, the mama of the kitchen, the heartbeat of my home. She has been resting for many months, but, I need to know that, for my friend who will be staying here and looking after little boots (small dog), and who knows how long, that the warm kitchen mother will be a comfort and a welcome when the days snap your feet off and challenge your attitude. So I did. Light her up. She coughed and spluttered and pushed out fumes and a very small attempt at the whole Light Up thingy. I shut her down and called the calmest man on the island, who happens to be a friend, first, and second, my chimney sweep. He came. And, that may sound like a small thing but it isn’t, not here, maybe not anywhere. Those with trade skills are so in demand that they are probably old before their time and so in demand that they begin to question why on earth they didn’t try for the bar.

So, the kitchen mama cold and quiet, he came. Shall we light her, even though the last time I did it, dancing like a demented fairy, holding the oil soaked lighting whatsit and flicking the match and thinking that this may be my last moment on this earth because, although I have done this so many times before, she puffed like a dragon and made smoke and then gave me the cold shoulder and I was alone in the home. However, I am now the dancing fairy, alone and fearful and it is high time I pulled on my boots and racked up. I should probably have a question mark there. But I have lost it. So, he came, the calmest man on the island and we lit her up and oh my godness ,the flames came from everywhere and not one of them in the right place. He asked for water, as I stood like a fool, and I obliged. He delivered said water. I profered fire blanket, extinguisher, even offers to call 999. He said, it’s ok. For now. I watched the flames. Even extinguished, they lifted again. Down inside the belly of the mama, through the light hole thingy, out on the floor of my kitchen. Terrifying. But only I was terrified. He wasnt. We flapped out the flames, turned off the oil, shut everything down.

Now I have to find a heating engineer, who will be ‘too busy’, who won’t respond, who might not come. But, in my world, he just might be right there for me, before winter snaps his jaws.

September 21, 2023 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog. – Present, Alone and Safe

Oh how I love my home, the warm, cozy, safe happiness of these four stone walls surrounding me and my wee dog. Since himself upped and died, I have not felt safe here, concerned about loneliness and boredom and the fact that those who needed me, every single minute of every day, every month, every year, no longer do. It has taken all this time to be comfortable with that. At first, it felt like abandonment, I was abandoned, and I was, abandoned. I remember thinking, as each child left home, that gut twisting ouch, like a punch, that one of my beloveds had chosen to leave me. It sounds mawdling, arrogant, even, but what loving mother feels it any other way? I dont know if himself felt it too, but I do know that he still had me and that was enough for him, but he wasn’t enough for me, and that’s my raw truth. When they left, I longed to go with them, even as I knew I never could, nor would. A young life must learn through living it out, and a mother in tow was never going to be me. I knew one of those, my mother-in-law, and much as I respected and needed her, I didn’t admire her hold on himself, not once he had a wife and family. However, reflecting, this was a two way need. I get that.

It rained today. No big deal. T’is the norm in this glorious place, the wettest in the whole of the country, and that is saying something. To be the Best Wet……. goodness, demands a medal, or, maybe several medals distributed among all of we islanders, not that you would ever see them beneath the layering of wools and waterproofs. The rain can be slanty or stick straight. The clouds must be exhausted, or perhaps not. Perhaps this place is the only one offering regular employment, and clouds are fantastic creatures, lifting, shifting, colouring, turning Colgate white, spreading out their arms to each other, conjoining, merging, changing, always changing. Clouds can teach us a thing or two, at the mercy of Nigel or whatever daft and ordinary name the weather folk have decided to give a force of nature that begs no name at all. It is just a gale, I want to tell them, just a wild creature of magnificence and power, and you want to what……turn it into a small thing, a something you can label and tidy away once it has moved on? It ridiculouses me.

I finished a jigsaw, started another one. No, that’s a big fat lie. I laid out the 1000 pieces, covering most of my big oak dining table, tiny pieces, god so bloody tiny and dark, darker than the bright picture on the box. I left them overnight, studied them this morning, these pellets of impossibility, and snorted. There is no way I will, would, want to, enjoy putting you together. In fact, you are a big fat chore and I don’t want one of those. I gathered all the pieces up and returned them to the box without a moment of guilt. I shall take this one to the library. And it thinks me.

As I move beyond the loneliness and the boredom, and the pointlessness of me, I find a strength, a new confidence. Had I been the old, bored, lonely and pointless me of just a few months ago, I might well have battled with that horrible jigsaw, out of a sense of duty and because it might, just might, have filled in an hour or two. But not now. Now I can feel the amazon (not the company, but the woman) awakening. I can, and will, choose what I will do and what I will not do. 50 years of not having much choice about anything much is becoming my past. I will put myself together in a new way, even if the pieces confound me at first, and it will be I who choose the picture. And my head is full of colour and light and clouds and skies and fairies and walks in the woods. I can feel the Atlantic swell in my heart, and she calls me, the minx that she is, and I find myself yearning for that wildness, the not knowing and not understanding, the turbulence, the storms, the sudden calms, the snow geese flight overhead, the swans coming in, the autumn bluster. It all chuckles me. I am woman. I am strong and, I am rising up to laugh at the days to come for I am made of cloud, woods, ocean, light and dark, and I am here, present, alone and safe.

September 20, 2023 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog – Chiaroscuro

To be honest, all I think about is cancer, the lurk of it, the silent creep. At the back of my mind, of course. because the front is dead busy being marvellous and shiny and cheerful and wotwot. I still frock up, dye my old boots crazy colours, just because. I go here, go there, do this, do that, but the murmur of it is still there, murmuring. A conversation, in fact, and, I confess to no engagement at times. I want to say Go Away and be heard, and obeyed, as if I was the school marm in this classroom tangle. Which I am, obviously, not.

What are you doing, cancer, whilst I put together a jigsaw, drive to the shop, meet a friend for lunch, as I did today? I watch her face, her mouth as she speaks, the love in her eyes, and the murmur mumbles on. Another friend, all crazy and theatre and hugs, arrives and we share a few moments of chat. Her life is not a straight line. In fact it is so wonkychops right now that I want to be there for her, but this damn murmur holds me to my chair, a grounding, four legs, no, six, beneath me, support, I suppose, but I cannot move. I am bland. Words dont even stick in my throat. They don’t rise at all. The rain blatters the windows as soup arrives. A smiling deliverer explains the what of the soup, beautifully presented. I sit across from my old friend. She is not old and neither am I, but we have known each other for decades, so ‘old’ works. Hurricane Nigel is slam-dunking the island with his (her) stormy tantrum, punching muscled fist punches of wind that suddenly tips bins, (I cleared three wheelies off the road home), tree limbs, frail people. I love this time of year. Not because of the tipping thing but because of the thrill of it. The sky is as dark as the cancer growing within me and then, in a single moment, lifted into light, the chiaroscuro a perfect delight, is a gasp in my throat.

I notice the hold a retreating season has on it’s own, as the ‘invader’ nudges, or, in this case, bludgeons in fighting, gloves up, strong after a long rest. They’ve done this changeover thing for decades, for goodness sake, but still they hold on to their moment, their time of power, of confidence and, yes, control. I get it. If a life can be divided into seasons, birth, childhood, youth, parenthood, middle age, oldness, then I want oldness again, jaunty, a dancing old woman, upsetting nobody (mostly), happy to spend hours reading, battling 1000 piece jigsaws, god help me, wandering calmly through the woods, remembering fairies, little ones cavorting like loons, sudden capture moments, the light on raindrops, the dart of a butterfly, the hum of the bees, the wild of a storm, the ebony and ivory of my piano, the flicker light of my candles, the wave and warmth of my neighbours, my home, my dog, my view of tidal flow and my watch of migration, of arriving, of leaving, of it all. In truth, I want to hold on to the season when I thought I was well and free and well.

It lurks, the cancer. I see it as darkness inside the light of me. Chiaroscuro.

September 18, 2023 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog – Window Clown

I am home again after a weird but wonderful weekend. My eldest granddaughter turned 16, all excitement and hormones and friends over. I arrived on Thursday, driving Miss Pixty Forkov (feisty daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Palaver) who is throaty and fast around corners, holding the road like she owned every inch of it and refusing to let go. I am always anxious about journeys, for no good reason. I know the road, so does Pixty, and the drive is lovely as long as I can bumble along, not that my car does ‘bumble’ very happily, preferring, instead, to roar past everyone like an Arab filly. I hold her back.

On Friday I travelled by train to the hospital, grabbed a delicious pesto wrap for lunch and marched out to find a smiley taxi driver. No distance, and I was in and settled when my sister arrived, she who knows about breast cancer and has more than ‘survived’ it. We met June, a ward orderly who remembered my sister and hopes I am in Ward 6 when I go for the chop. I hope so too. We reminded her (and I think she remembered) years back, when I had asked her who cleaned the windows. They were filthy. She said, Not Me, and so I asked for a bucket and water and a cloth, climbing onto the wide sills and bringing in the light for all those brave women in rows, in beds, survivors, I hoped. On a high now, and literally, I moved along all the wards. Hallo, I am the Window Cleaner, I announced, all smiles and bucket, receiving welcome smiles from pale faces that still could lift one. As I consider my own possible time in that ward, I hope there will be a window clown for my stay.

Needles. Loads of them. Anaesthetics then biopsies, then two more markers as another dark patch, a possible cancer lump, and joined to the other one. Then a mammogram to photograph the markers. I am titanium woman now. There’s a song in there, somewhere. I await results next week, and, hopefully, a decision or, at least a suggestion as to surgery. The original lump has grown a tiny bit, and, in truth, the lump itself is barely visible to the naked eye, but because of the proximity to a nipple, and if a lumpectomy might leave me with the Ochil Hills, all ups and downs and a right frickin mess, I may choose, or they may recommend, a mastectomy. Ectomy. What does that mean?? Sometimes the fanciness of word endings makes me laugh. So much pomp and dictionary when most ordinary people just want plain language.

It is glorious to be home. To walk in the Fairy Woods, to watch the leaves fall, to notice foot tracks on the narrow track, human, male heavy, woman dance-foot, deer, dog, all of them leaving their marks on this wonderful Earth. Hazel nuts and acorns scatter the ground but no conkers, no conkers, no shiny balls of smash and clash for children. My husband, canny as you like, would soak conkers in vinegar overnight to make them hard as iron. He always won, or so he said, back in the days when there was no such thing as a ‘device’ to lure a child into a world he, or she, had no real understanding of.

The 16th party was wonderful, even as I was too tired to join in, watching through the window. The fire pit lit the night, as did the lights strung through trees. Snacks and dips were laid out as the 16s arrived, the boys and girls on the cusp of adulthood, beautiful, gangly, brazen and funny. I said hallo, then disappeared upstairs. I heard them singing together, playing rounders with a luminous ball, dashing off to hide and to seek in the big harvested field, returning for pizzas and fire poi, trying their hands at what is way more of a skill than they realised. At 11 they left, bar the girls, who slept over. Slept? No. No slepting at all. I reckon they chatted and laughed till 3 am and it reminded me of my own 16 when life was laid out like an endless and beautiful carpet, riddled with rips and tears but still laid out. I saw the ease with which my daughter and her husband talked and laughed with the 16s, having known them since toddlerhood. I remember that ease with my own kids.

Ah…… the memory of time passed is a beautiful thing. All those parties, all that confidence, all those rips and tears, all that colour, dance and light! A view from the window, now, but I will always be the clown, breasts or no breasts.

Trust me.

September 11, 2023 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog – A Fricker

I confess to feeling nervous. Not about the more tests thingy on Friday, not about the outcome thereof, not even that I will be alone for said tests and said outcome, but of the travel. From here, leaving home, my safe and happy place, to my daughter’s house and then, the following day on a train to Edinburgh, to the hospital. I’ve travelled alone before. It isn’t a new thing, nor a big deal, because I’ve done it many times, the drive bit and, as for the train, well, I just catch it and sit do I not? I wonder why we ‘catch’ a mode of public transport, as if it might run right by us like a headlong horse, one we have to leap aboard, arms stretching, holding tight, legs fighting to swing on, to cling on, the wind punching us backwards, as the beast gallops on, careless of our existence. It’s like that in India, or so I hear, but not in Bridge of Allan. Not that I’ve ever witnessed.

It thinks me enough to talk about it to my counsellor, she who has more powers of reassurance than she has teeth. She manages to reassemble my thoughts and my unthought thoughts, settling my imaginary fears into a neat and orderly line. I look at them, standing there, arms by their sides, a slide of naughty schoolkids, chastened into silence. They are all small, pint sized, half my height, strength, experience. It helps to see them this way, in balance, in perspective. Even the strong feel fear, I tell myself and this is as it is. Fears come to everyone, after all. It is what we do with each one of them that matters. If I allow a fear to grow, it will kick the legs out from under me and that is not happening. So, the happening is all down to me. Again.

Each time I leave the safe place, I feel this anxiety. I feel it when leaving family or when family leave me. I feel it when my wee dog is sick or when a tyre on my car looks a bit low. I feel it when my woodpile looks a bit depleted, or when a gale slam dunks the island, making a hoor of a racket just to frighten us all, when the dark is complete and unforgiving. I feel fear often in the small of my back. Fear is real but small, I tell myself. Fear is only a big thing if I let it grow. However, I am not stupid about such feelings. I know they will not stay buried just by my turning away from them. I must allow them to come in, to sit for a while with me, and then to ask them, politely, to leave. You are not helpful to me right now. You are not real.

So what is real? I have my ticket for the ferry. I know the road of old. It’s a pretty drive and I will take it at my own speed which is gentle. I will sit behind a lorry if needs be. I will allow others to overtake and make it easy by slowing down for them. I will notice the autumnal changes and the ebulliance of heather and the wild expanse of land left to itself, the arc of an uncluttered sky and I will love it. I will sit on the ferry admiring dogs and saying hallo to everyone I meet. And, on the day I ‘catch’ the train to the hospital, I will watch people, smile and acknowledge them. I will smile in the Breast Waiting Room, all those women anxious, eyes searching the room for something, anything to take their minds off their fate. I will laugh with the nurses as I unbutton and bare myself, as I am squashed and poked; as the needles go in. And, then, somewhat beaten up, I will smile at and laugh with the nurse who is my companion through all of this, and I will try to understand and to take in whatever she tells me. And, if I don’t quite understand, I will ask for a repeat.

And, then, I will catch the headlong horse back to that tiny wee station with its flower baskets and a backing of solid hills, and I will arrive to a smiling collection, a load of questions I probably won’t be able to answer and to the celebration of my eldest granddaughter’s 16th birthday. I held her on the day she was born and now just look at her, tall, athletic, full of dreams and plans to travel the world. And, as I write this, remind myself of this, I smile, this time, for myself. Although I may feel a recurrence of anxiety, of fear, I know that what is fricking about with my mind is just that. A Fricker.

Small, pint sized, and absolutely no match for me.

September 8, 2023 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog – The Joy of It

I swam today, not, as I would like, in the Atlantic, but after a long and sunshine drive to the pool, I clock in. This pool is affixed to ground control mid island, as is right, accessible to all of us who live sprachled over hillsides, down tiny access roads, and with posties confused for miles and many many miles apart. Like last time, after two lengths I loathed the whole thing, my neck aching with all that looking up required from a breastroke. Two other women were there, early doors, pre lessons and wotwot, the pool calm and the sunlight fluttering against the walls, in our eyes, a sunshine mosaic, fractal, beautiful. I pushed on. Last week I managed 20 lengths, this week 25 and helped big time by the chat in the shallow end. I learned of other women who live here, have done so for frickin ages, just like me.

I didn’t lock my mini. It was a choice. I thought this think. This is an island. People are good. I abandon my control panic la-di-da and I lift, like Bouddicca from this sprightly mini and into my swimwear and onward. Always onward, to hec with, well, pretty much everything. I watched a coach welcome folk from the hotel, off on a voyage somewhere on this beautiful rise of rock, and I waved a smile.

Home again and you’d think I’d been gone for a century for all the welcome I got. The dog was watching through the fence rail, waiting, waiting, but trusting. I always tell her to stay and that I won’t be long, and, knowing that she has no idea of time, I won’t be. But she waits, and she watches. I am it for her, and she is the it for me. We walk, slowly, and, thankfully, into the shade. I clocked 26 degrees pre leaving, but, once into the fairy woods and then to the shore, it will cool. I notice there are no conkers on the horse chestnuts. I wonder why. I have no answer, nor do I need one. The turning of the world over millennia has shown loss, failure, rise and ebullience, over and over and over again.

We walk to the shore, me and the wee dog. She always wants to go there. When I am tired, I divert her. Home, I say, feeling guilty. I always regret it, that slope to the shore, where grand girls dived in wetsuits, lofted onto dinghies, crab fished, scrambled the ancient rocks with bare feet, light and easy. Today we went there. She was a scoot on the green download of the earth, all the way to the crunch of sundried kelp, still there, wild flowers, holding on, some canoes, kayaks, tied tied to hazels. The blue moon tides have been, well, luscious. Over the top. Well over. Boats need to be secured. I walk by them, remembering their launches, remembering my family, not here anymore. And it thinks me.

I sit on a wonky rock. My arse slideyways, my feet ditto. I hear an irritation of herons across the sealoch, watch diver birds dive, rise with a splash that laughs me, then dive again, I see an otter flip a fish, the rainbow flash an indent in my mind. As we wander home, as the crunch of new life supports my feet, as everything I have never known begins to unfold in the now, I smile for the joy of it.

September 7, 2023 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog – Blue Tit and Game On

I drive the wee dog to Heather, for a groom. I encourage her to remain on her soft mat in the passenger footwell, the dog, not Heather, a new thing for her since the old man died. He had her on his knee, on the back shelf or jumping from front to back and all before we’d got through the village. Sent me crazy. I didn’t know, half the time, if I was changing gear on the car or the dog. But no amount of words altered his mind. His way was THE way and if I had a problem with it, well, tough shit. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but you can and I did. She trusts me and sits quite joco on the mat, trembling like a leaf for a few hundred yards and then lying down for the journey. Heather is wonderful with her, patient and professional in her dog grooming anti-hair pinafore. I leave to visit a dear friend for coffee and a catchup. She will ask about my situation, the whole hoo-ha since June 27th, a hoo-ha that tried to get me, and failed. We talk about life, about the island, about our visitors, about adventures, about addictions and choices and being alone without ever being asked if we’re okay with the whole ‘alone’ thing. She, like me, is a widow. I think ‘weeds’. What are widow’s weeds anyway? Her man fell off a mountain, too young, too sudden. Mine took years to dwindle away, but we have the aloneness in common. She is feisty and fun, bright and lively, intelligent and wise. Perhaps I am too.

All too soon it is time for me to collect my manicured dog. Cathy and I agree to meet again, for lunch somewhere, for longer. We never naturally get to the end of our flyabout conversations, those that dart from people to places, through memories and learnings, into new understandings and a new acceptance, the acceptance of being alone and then, from that point, of finding the feet to walk it into a new sassy light. The weather is balmy, unusual for this time of year on the island. The wind is from the Serengeti, I swear it, and a stout walk feels like a bad idea, but a walk is needed. I watch bout 20 snow geese fly up the sea-loch, and marvel at their beauty. Soon the Tundra, or Trumpeter, or Bewick swans will fly in from the arctic on their way south in search of food. I hope I am watching when they come by, to hear the melody of their wingflight, to hear their soft murmurings of encouragement to each other. In the starry starry nights, in the absolute darkness of the island darkness, their sound wakes me, no matter its softness. Flying way up into the ice skyfields , I cannot see them, but I can hear and I can wish them safe passage. I am connected to the creatures of flight, know their sounds, hear them like music, like a call to find my own wings, my own feathers.

Flight. Feathers. Connection. It thinks me, and it may sound daft, for I am utterly as glued to the ground as you are, but I have an integral belief in connection, to others and to otherness. Laughed at as a child for this ‘knowing’, I am freed of that now, mostly because, my dear, I don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks of me and my connection to otherness. In this time of waiting, for a decision on surgery, for the next tests next week, for the wotwot to come, I think of flight. All my many tattoos show flight. Dragonflies, musical notes, a feather, a butterfly, pegasus. Then, thanks to my son, I consider breast art after cancer. The pictures I google are many. It is, it seems, an art, and I like that. To lose a breast, or even to be altered by a lumpectomy can be a shocking shock. I will know one day for myself. To look the same as before, tempting, essential, perhaps for some, but not for me. I have had two breasts for 70 years, albeit the pair of them a tad wonkychops, one bigger than the other, but I had them and I am not a young woman any more. Had this happened when I was 30 or 40, well, I might have felt differently. I may still retain these breasts, but they may be even more wonkychops than before. For now, this is a mystery. However, and there is always one of those, I am planning a tattoo.

Robin Redbreast? I suggest to my African son. He nods, waggles his head. Better, he says, Blue Tit.

Game on.