Month: September 2023

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Island Blog – My Fabulous Friend

I fly round the switchbacks on my way to the harbour town. I do. Fly. Oneson suggested, only the once mind, that I might consider a more ‘sedate’ model of automobile. Only once. I snorted but it made me reconsider my nomorethan40 thing when traversing the skinny island roads, what with their potholes and that falling off edge, depth at least 7 inches at certain points, enough to take the belly out of a sassy mini cooper. I know how to drive. I taught my kids to DRIVE round corners, none of this hesitating and going into dipfh lock, or whatever it’s called. It’s just a hill, after all. You may see only sky for a few yards but there’s a beauty in that. Sun in your face? Enjoy it. Your biggest problem will be with the visitors who won’t let you pass, no matter the light flashing and the hooting and the almost landing inside their boot. I digress.

I used to think those 10 miles a real travail. A dull and necessary pain in the arse, but not now. Not now that I am free to go wherever I like, and whenever. I am meeting a dear friend for lunch, a strong woman, a fighter, with guts of steel and the light of a rainbow in her every move. We have history, naughty times, fun memories, shared pains and joys. We meet at the top of town, where, to which, I have flown, and take our seats in a huge conservatory overlooking the harbour. There are new owners now and the place has had a facelift and a half. Jazz and blues play from the speakers and the sun shines in like a beacon. This beautiful hoist of granite was a naval lookout base in the war years, when I very much doubt it looked as good as this. We immediately connect, my friend and I and are laughing within minutes. We are 25 again, the world our oyster, none of the ensuing troubles in our minds, none of the pain or sickness, none of the losses, no guilt, no olding fears. She became the voice for the island’s young people, the lost and abused. She did more for this island than can be imagined. We talked on this. I said ‘I could never have done what you did, what you do, don’t have the head for it.’ After 2 wonderful hours, we said farewell for now. We will meet up again, been too long, covid and dementia and death and la la la tiddleypom. All that olding shite. Her eyes are bright, her face as beautiful as it always was, her spirit strong and feisty.

Home again, I walk the fluffy dog who (or is it which?) will be a baldicoot tomorrow after a wash, cut and blow dry with Heather, and a load cooler and with that dark stripe down her spine as if she was a tiger, once. I wander beneath the louring trees, heavy now in a way I see as tired. We are tired of this heavy leaf cover summer thing. Look at the bracken all flopping and brown and can we go that way please? But, much as I am loving the surprise, the sun, the strange late weather, it is holding them in stasis, requiring more leafness and more standing up and wotwot. I remember, in Tapselteerie days, feeling just like that. I am so, so tired of holding up my leaves, husband, children, guests, visitors and even though I smelled autumn on the morning breeze, it’s as if summer is refusing to ungrip her grip. I tell the trees this, and they remember. I will have said the same thing to them all those years ago, and, bless them, they absorbed it and probably waved at me in recognition. We feel the same, they said.

Much like my fabulous olding friend today.

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Island Blog – Just Like a Granny

The wind is warm. It gentles the skin on my face as I turn into it on my way to the fairy woods. Soft, it is and soothing, reminding me of Granny’s cashmere cardigan, my face buried in the warmth of it, of her. At times when life outside of Granny’s cashmere cardigan felt raw and dangerous, there she was, so much of her, a tall woman, broad shouldered, tough, kind, broken and yet determined to sparkle. She saw, as grandmother, what she may well not have seen as mother, busy then, her own life important, her commitments to husband, to friends, to a world that judged and marginalised. How you look, what you say, whom you associate with, all created cliques and if you stepped, or fell, over a line (or one of your family did), the consequences were devastating. I see a different world to hers, nowadays and we, who remember Granny’s world, have the chance to re-educate ourselves. I am glad of that.

I hang out the washing early, fixing the cloudy sky with a threatening glare. According to my app, I say out loud, there will be no rain this day. A passing seagull squawks at me. I harrumph and keep pegging. One pair of cropped leggings, two frocks, 2 underpants, one soft bra, one bath towel, an oven glove, a jumper and a kitchen cloth. All those years I wished for such a light load and now I have it. Wash day was every day back then, and twice, or even thrice, the machine choking to death just after the yearly warranty silently expired, saying nothing about this expiring thing, not even to me. All those mother years, running, rushing through every job, and, now, here’s a thing. I still do the rushing. I must do this now, that then, the other before the this and the that because if I don’t the whole world will fall into space and it will be my fault and, worse, everyone will know it’s my fault and I will be explaining myself for the rest of my days. But I don’t need to rush now and must needs halt myself, or conjugate (intentional) my own inner policeman, policewoman, policeperson, and go with the verb.

I work on muscle tone. Sounds grand, i know, but it’s just me with dumbbells (pink of course) in the kitchen, counting whilst I watch the sky stay grand and quiet and the clouds just skid marks. Then I walk the wee dog, taking her, afterwards, down to the shore. She, who on the home strait, slows and puffs and tells me how frickin old she is and wotwot, suddenly erupts into a party, all swing and sass and her tail feathers catching the sunlight as she clocks that we are going to the shore. The shore, where she still remembers the grand girls, their crab fishing, their squeals of fun, their love of becoming mermaids in the in-between of tides, when the waters are brackish, but warmish, and the fun of family around, including Granny Me, seeing and clapping and Watch Me Grannying my head off.

Today I find a bit of wood, plank it between basalt rocks, rest my butt, and look out, just me and the wee dog. A diver dives, breaking the slack water wide open, catching my eye and creating a sunlit flash. Then gone. Geese fly in, honking the length of the sea-loch, already lowering, tired from their trip. Diamonds sparkle on the surface, calm now, awaiting the next pull from the moon. In. Out. Endless demand. I remember it in my own human life, and I smile. You have it too, I say to the water, new water, never the same water. What I dip my toe in today was, chances are, in Alaska or Newfoundland or South Africa a short while ago. Perhaps I am like that too, never the same as I was. As time moves us on, are any of us the same as we were? Life, at best, hones us. Life, at worst, breaks us. That is how it is. On my way home to unpeg my washing, to feed my dog, to watch the fabulous west coast light, clouds or no, I think on the broken, the marginalised still, and I know that I know nothing, beyond this. Be a friend. Say nothing.

Just like a granny.

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Island Blog – A Wonderful Thing

I’ve decided. I may have breast cancer and wotwot, but the knowledge has kicked my wobbly butt. I used to think that bereavement and loneliness was a fricking big deal not so long ago. Then I was Nearly Dead for a couple of weeks and now cancer is my new companion, offering a new perspective. It thinks me. How Life twist and tapselteeries us, what a tumbler, a flipdoodle, and once a simple human using a minute percentage of her huge brain has come to some sort of agreement with all this twisting, tumbling, flipdoodling thingy, there remains a think or two. So much of it all is way beyond my control, but there are snippets of life or self, over which I have complete control. So that is the country in which I have landed. It is new territory, for sure. I have sat on said wobbly butt for almost 3 years now and you can tell. I refuse to run anywhere for fear of setting off a landslide. Looking out at Life through windows is no way to live, even if the looker cannot see any side of Life to which he or she belongs any more. Once, she was this busy, rushing, active, caring woman and now, well now, she is a blob, a pointless one. It isn’t that she misses the man to whom she was married, because she doesn’t. He was wonderful and infuriating. He was everything to her and he drove her to distraction. He reached his Sell By date most timely. She was done with caring for him. And yet, and yet, his presence was something she thought she could live without and with ease and, in that, she was delusional. His company, his very self had merged with her own, dammit. She knows that now. It took that horsefly bite, that collapse into Nearly Deadness and the subsequent cancer Hallo, to sharpen her wits, to tell her that she is now her own purpose and that knowledge requires action.

So, I call the local swimming pool. Local! ha! It is 23 winding miles away, a real shlep and I do not like swimming pools, no thank you. However, my wobbly butt tells me it needs attention and not the unwanted sort. I, through 3 years of sitting on it, writing, sewing, hiding, reading, are done. I had to go for a chest Xray this morning and that takes me very close, dangerously so, to the damn swimming pool. So, I clear my throat and call. I speak to Nadia, delightful, and she tells me there are no lessons on a Friday. I explain, overly so, that I must build up muscle tone having lost it all somewhere, although I couldn’t tell her where. X ray complete, no metal, no, hold this, rest your chin, done, thanks Helen. The sun is warm, ditto the wind. Glorious. Well no excuse now. Damnit again. I arrive, book in, swim, hating the first two lengths and then, and then, I get into my stride. Instead of jerking and splashing and hating it, I begin to flow. Well, sort of. After I spend a while chatting with the girls at reception and we laugh and connect and now I have to go again next week because I said I would.

I swing my sassy mini out of the car park and drive home. My energy level is up. It hasn’t been anywhere near the Up thing for 3 years. I grab a mushroom omelet for lunch and decide to take the barky terrier (bored) to Calgary beach, ignoring the usual flaps about No Parking Spaces, or Meeting The Bus on That Tiny Road (especially on corners) and we are off! I feel wild again, my favourite feeling. No jumper required. Only a poo bag and a my phone for photos. The sky is as blue as my hair, the tide way out (Blue Moon) and it is lunchtime so the sands are almost empty. The bay is huge and we walk it, in and out of the warm saltwater. Geese fly overhead and I almost fall over watching them. Life. Life. Life abounds, and in me too.

Home again but still fizzing with NRG, I decide to wander to the shore to gather sloes for gin, even as I have no gin, yet. I balance cautiously, on the rickety rocks of the shore, and gather the beautiful blue berries. I hear seabirds, the rush of a changing tide, the laughter of children somewhere across the sealoch. I wander home as leaves fall around me. The faithful old trees are heading for a long sleep, and Autumn is in full and fine fettle holding up blue skies and clouds, stars, Lady Moon and Father Sun. The circle of Life circles on, as I move gently through memories and hurts and joys and promises of more to come. I don’t know what, of course, but just the knowing is a wonderful thing.