I light my candles. I light them every evening, no, before evening because the light dims long before the time when someone might say ‘Good Evening’ and doff their cap. Light dims early here. The sun does a collapso thing behind the hills on the other side of the. sea-loch about half three. I know, I know, that my islander friends who live t’other side of that hill are still out there sorting chickens or digging flowerbeds or bouncing children and footballs. But my life is here and not there, and my time clock knows it. I get dawn early, ridonculously so. It thinks me. I am boiling an egg here, all dressed, showered and sharp as a new pin here, when those beyond the hill are still in the dark of sleep. I wonder what the birds think.

I spend a lot of time working my wondering muscle, always curious, always Alice. She has been my guiding light since I was knee high, although that was mostly looking up tweed skirts and hairy noses which only took me into the vast expanse of almost-white containerpants, or, almost worse, into an olfactory forest with drips. I was glad when I grew a bit, learned a lot, and determined I would only wear the skinniest of knickers, never wear tweed skirts, nor hug small people who looked up. I knew I had words even then, even though they gambolled about in my mind, refusing control. Just like me, I thought, which was in no way an okay thing. No resolution, no aha, just words, the love of words, the passion for learning new ones and with nowhere for them to go. I couldn’t just speak out a word, such as ‘evanescence’ without the warm blanket of a sentence enwrapped about it, never mind context, never mind it’s irrelevance in the tsunami of nail work comparisons.

New words got lost in committee. I can remember too much in my mouth, clenching my teeth. Sometimes words would bite out like sharks and all I got was trouble because, in my day, nice girls just didn’t. There was a whole load of ‘didn’t’ and ‘don’t. But here’s a thing. I can speak out now because I can sentence up. I can admit to being vulnerable. I can admit to mistakes and agree to any redress or accusation. I own my past. All those times I got it wrong; all. those times I wish I hadn’t and the ones when I wish i had. All of them me, all of them mine. In my olding years, still ‘with it’ I am proud of all that I have achieved, all I have overcome, taken in, all I have learned and adapted to, all the times I changed tack in a nanosecond for the greater good, all those nights wandering with troubled babies, all those plasters and icepacks I applied, all those cold nights of lonely vigil, all those times I cheered, supported, admired, drove here and there, all those meals extended for drop-ins, all those hugs and cups of tea, those hunkers by the fire at latelate as candles guttered and died.

And still words come. they drop like stars. I write them down. Revolvulence.