August 29, 2015 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog Time to Listen

In Barcelona church bells ring throughout the day. I counted five or six churches near my flat, two more some distance away, each one marking each quarter until only three were left to sing out the hour. I didn’t need a watch at all. To find out whether it was quarter past or quarter to, on the hour or the half hour was simply a matter of waiting a few minutes.

The big church went first. One echoing bong for quarter past the hour, two for the half hour, three for the quarter to. Draw one breath in, and out, and here goes the next bell, followed by the next, and so on until all six were done. On the hour, four chimes precede the announcing of the hour. Only the big church gets that gig. It then chimes the hour and two other distant churches follow suit. The hour chimes are different, another bell, sonorous, ponderous, full of gravitas like a much respected mayor making a big announcement to the city.

The point that made me smile was that each bell was given enough time to bong, echo and fade before another took up the chant and yet, surely this means that some folk are just a bit late for an appointment, because by the time church number 6 had finished, it had to be at least 3 minutes off. I wondered if that mattered. I decided it did not, for in Spain, time is not as it is here, something to frantically rush for, something that gets lost, something that decides our chances of success. Time is just time.

I considered the space each church bell gave the others, thus honouring all the different bongs, the different notes and spacing, giving each the chance to shine, and that led me neatly to another source of music in our lives – that of conversation. Each voice with its own timbre, spacing, timing, phrasing and language. Voices are melodies, conversations create harmonies, if we pause long enough to listen. Sometimes, no, be honest, often, when I am the other half of an animated conversation, I will leap around like a mountain goat, interrupting, jumping to the wrong conclusion, leading us both way off track. When my counterpart stops me, with an assertive ‘Let me finish’, I feel miffed and not a little irritated, and yet was it not I who bounced in without really listening to the bong, echo and fade? Was I, in truth, listening at all, or was I beside myself with whatever I planned to say next, thus losing the whole thread and hearing nothing?

It isn’t easy to wait. Time is short, after all, and I have this bus to catch, this shopping to buy, this presentation to make, so hurry up and say what you have to say whilst I mentally sift through my to-do list, a polite and distance smile on my face. I’d love to stay and chat but……………..

How many times have we hurried away, checking our watch, swallowing gaviscon tablets, only to find we later think on that encounter, and wish it had been different? We learned absolutely nothing about the other person and, what’s more, we still have indigestion and the same old thing is going to happen tomorrow.

Is life more mellow in Spain because of the sun? I don’t think so, although sun does make all the difference to the song in someone’s heart. Over here, in this green and pleasant wetland, we seem to need a wake-up call. Time is just time. Everyone has the same amount each day. No job decides behaviour, no boss owns his or her employees unless they want it that way. Not one of us is a victim and we can all choose. Nothing changes if nothing changes, so…. change. If we can begin to listen to the melody line of another person all the way to the echo, picking up the song, but not before the end of the bar………. adding harmony, rhythm, discord, counterpoint, joining in the shared music of laughter as the phrasing brings us, as one, to a mellifluous finale…….well, we might find life is rather fun and our own little world expanding.

Oh, and the bells are not annoying at all. Quite the opposite. Not only do they upstartle loads of multi-coloured pidgeons to entertain the sky, but they soften the air somehow, the roar of traffic steps back a note and the tourists down in the street pause, look up, and smile.

July 31, 2015 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 162 Blue Moon

‘A blue moon traditionally marks a time of change and possibility in the astrological world. The blue moon is the first since August 31, 2012, and won’t be seen again until January 31, 2018.’

It won’t be blue, however. The Blue bit refers to the fact that there will be two full moons this month, this lunar month; a phenomenon, and we like those. For the star-friendly among us, it denotes a time of change, of possibility. We say that something happens ‘once, in a blue moon,’ as we refer to the rarity of an event. We, on the island, might struggle to see any moon at all through a closed and soggy sky, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t going on beyond our vision.

Although I usually avoid anything political or strug-mental (my word) inside my blogs, there is a time for every season, one of which is to be counted, to stand tall for something I believe in. Okay, I’m not so tall, not so important that my little stand can change circumstances, but perhaps, by becoming one of a crowd of ‘standers’ I can make a difference.

On the island, no business, no charity can survive without extra oomph. That old ferry boat divides us from access to all the instant supports you mainlanders take for granted. Every one of us has to work that bit harder, that bit longer, our wits and ideas our lifelines. Tourists come in the Summer months, in the main, although a friendly Autumn or Spring can bring stout-footed walkers and hikers, lycra-clad cyclists to pump their calves into balloons as they rise and descend our endless hills and valleys, eagle-nest watchers and so on.

So, the work we think about all winter long is distilled into a powerful action once the snowdrops begin to show and what should pass for Spring (but forgot this year) lifts the sun a centimetre or two higher in our skies, to illuminate the snow patches, many of which have only just thawed.

One of these worthy and high-profile attractions is our theatre and arts centre, Comar. I remember, and many of you will too, watching excellent theatre in the barn in this village, where the idea was birthed and delivered to the world. The Smallest Theatre In The World. It attracted thousands of thespians and the excellence of this theatre spread far and wide.

Nowadays, it is bigger business, grown from that tiny seed and tended and loved and fed and watered by those whose passion for theatre, music, dance and art led them to invest themselves completely in its development. Today, amongst its ranks, chaos reigns. It seems that some now consider it not an island thing anymore and, in their eagerness to make money, have removed the control of it from the very hands, the talented and caring hands of two men whose life revolved around little else, such is their passion. Being made redundant is not fun for anyone, but on an island it is tough indeed. Jobs are few and there are many more months without visitors than with.

I am not able, nor willing to state accurate facts about this situation, but the press is doing a good job thus far. You can read it for yourselves.

http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heraldscotland.com%2Fnews%2F13521125.Equity_calls_for_board_of_Mull_arts_company_to_resign_en_masse%2F%3Fref%3Dtwtrec&h=DAQExViOo&s=1

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-33728339

What I can do is stand beside these island folk, and I am and I will. Too often we overthink ourselves into stillness, watching precious moments pass us by because we feel the fear of challenging the bully and we logic ourselves back home where life is safe enough, where we can pretend everything is okay.

Theatre and art and music and dance are quite without logic, and all about emotion, about passion, about the red blood of who we are. The island is like no other place.

Once, in a Blue Moon, we must stand and be counted.

July 11, 2015 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 161 In Pursuit of Excellence

Unlike the pursuit of happiness, which is always the end goal of any human being and never the right one, the pursuit of Excellence is one that must be embarked upon to elevate our own sense of self. Happiness is a secondary part of this pursuit, for, in each success, therein happiness lies.

The old-fashioned encouragement of our elders and leaders, in the form of teachers, parents, guides, will tell us to strive on, to do better, to make something ordinary into something extraordinary, In order to be the best, but this teaching needs further explanation. We do not pursue excellence in order to beat someone else. We pursue excellence in order to beat ourselves, that negative monkey-mind that keeps us always just below our own par. In truth, it is ourself we make extraordinary and not the thing we do. Although each success results inevitably in a ‘thing’ such as a published book on a shelf, a painting sold, a medal awarded, our name on walls in hallowed halls, the real happiness lies in the knowledge that we worked on, through difficult times, through darkness and doubt, cold comments and hot criticism, to achieve what now glows with light in the eyes of the world. Despite all the difficulties we may have encountered, we continued with our work, perhaps in a lonely silence, until suddenly everyone wants to shake our hand, or bake us a cake, even those who disbelieved and doubted as we faithfully marched on down our chosen path.

It doesn’t matter to me if this work is in the public eye or not. Most good work is done alone. It is easy, so easy, to be seduced into thinking that successes come with the genes, but we can be astonishingly good at many things, do little to develop them, giving up, saying ‘It’s not working for me’ and ultimately waste a gift, flush it down the loo, walk away from it. Each one of us is placed just where we should be, and it is our job in this one life to locate it and build. Not one single soul is without a gift. Perhaps it is for caring, perhaps handywork or bending metal into shapes. It might be to uplift others, to paint, write or make music. It could be staying calm and strong at times when others panic. It might be with animals, with parenthood, with teaching or entertaining, cooking, translating, sports or marketing. The list is endless.

The problem is nowadays that everyone seeks glamour and judges themselves on that basis, especially the young, although it doesn’t stop in youth. People consider their lives ruined when life drops a boulder into it, but this is not the truth, for just like that any one of us can lose a job, our looks, a lifestyle, a loved one and yet life is not done with us yet, for somewhere in there, after the grief and the mourning is past, there is something still at which we can excel. We may not feel like it, but who does want to start again? And yet, I have seen it too many times, the indomitable human spirit doing just that.

Pursuing Excellence is a way of being, not something for those born with a silver spoon. Someone washing dishes can wash them consistently with excellence, if they have that burn inside them, that need to do everything to its highest level. I meet so many people who seem to be waiting for something to happen. I want to tell them it already is.

Consider this…… it isn’t the great thinkers and do-ers of the past who will make history now, but each one of us. I don’t mean ‘out there’ in the world, I don’t mean an OBE or a spot on Britain’s Got Talent, but inside our own families and friends, and, more importantly inside our own hearts. No recognition is worth a fig once the hype has died away. What lasts for ever is the knowledge that we worked and studied and focussed and never never never gave up. We alone made this happen. This is what will carry on, will carry us on, will be told down through the generations, will make others think, consider, re-evaluate their own priorities and make a change. This is what really tells us we can do it, wherever we are placed, despite our limitations, our commitments, our troubles and strife. One person, one gift, one chance to excel.

As one door closes, another opens. You’ve all heard that one. At times I scoffed at it, seeing nothing but closed doors, and considering that open door to exist only in the Secret Garden and other winsome tales, but that was simply because I had my blinkers on. Thinking we are too old, too tired, too sick is to die whilst still alive. Someone said to me, at that difficult time, ‘It is my opinion that the only way out of any gloom is to turn the light on someone else.’ I thought, Cheeky So-and-So, but it did think me over the next while. And, he was right. Initially, when gloomed-up, we need to begin to forget ourselves, because the habitual thinking is poisonous to our minds. Once we have shone the light on loads of others, seen their lives, heard of their troubles, we gradually realise how much we have at home. Much that seemed so little not days ago. Then, once restored, once our mouths are full again of laughter (most of it at our own self) we can ferret about inside our own life with fresh eyes for that ‘something we can do.’ Then, we baby step it out of the attic, dust it off and, without anyone else having a scooby about it, we begin to fashion a new thing, a thing that will challenge us, for we have never done this before, upset and confound us, meet with difficulties and comments, doubts and fears that we are being complete charlies, until one day we discover that we believe in it; we believe in us believing in it.

And then, my friends, we are off, because we are now in Pursuit of Excellence.

July 6, 2015 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 160 Heads and Tails

This morning I walk out into sunshine. The greylags are crossing the sea-loch, their babes in tow, paddling like the good little muckers they need to be. Collared doves float between the telephone wire and the bird table and a little mouse just shot along the windowsill (on the outside). When I empty the compost bucket into the worm-tastic bin, I stand for a moment watching the new mini-hive with just a handful of workers tending a new queen cell, buzzing in and out, always doing the right thing. Baby birds line the fence, their beaks open, their wings fluttering, their voices pleading, and, sure enough, there is a parent to make everything okay. The little blackbird we found in the garage, once lifted into the back garden, yelled its head off until mum and dad appeared, making encouraging noises and darting back and forth between the branches.

‘Yes, yes…..they say, we know you haven’t grown a tail yet dear, get over it……. but if you don’t remember those wings can lift you off the ground, then you never will!’

It thinks me about the way they live, those that have a purpose and know it and never forget it. Okay they are creatures, not humans, but I am game to learn from anything and anyone. Learning to fly, sans tail, is something we can all do if we choose.

And, unlike animals, we can think and we can reason.

Perhaps that is our problem, because we might forget at times to be thankful for what we have.

Example…….I look out at the garden and I think….oh flip just look at those weeds! I look around my house and see the dust. I have a shopping list and I don’t feel like shopping. But these are just my work, my everyday, my purpose. Within each of these tasks I find it, if I focus on the task itself, and if I consider it a thanks to life. Yes, I have weeds that grow faster than I can yank them out, but, at least I have a garden; yes, there is dust, daily arrivals of it and yes, it shows up in the sunshine, as do the filthy windows, but, at least I have a furnished house with windows; yes, I have a shopping list but at least I have money to buy what I need, a shop down the road, a car to take me there…….and so on.

With these and so many more of my gifts, comes responsibility, my responsibility to each of them, to honour each one, with respect and good humour, for what is this life, if not a gift? Whatever hardships I may encounter, they will never be as hard as they are for others. I tell myself that, often, at times when I forget I have wings.

These times are valuable times. Pushing them away, pretending they’re not there is never the answer. Feelings about life come and go; times are good and times are not good; the way we see something one day is not necessarily the way we will see it the next. We all want to be happy all of the time, and, yet this is an ideal, an impossible dream, perfection. In order to become the best we can, we need a lost tail day or two here and there, because, although it may be uncomfortable, it helps us to remember that we do have wings.

Oh, and good news for those with lost tails…….

They grow again.

June 24, 2015 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 159 On Marriage

It all starts with a Wedding, that’s what I say. When I get an invitation to someone’s ‘Marriage’ I have this strong urge to call them up to correct their grammer, or is it grammar……….. because the wedding is the bit when you make impossible vows and completely believe in them, and the marriage is the rest of your life together. So not the same thing.

These vows are written in stone, or so you think at the time. They also ask of you more than will ever be asked of you in any other part of your life. What seemed like an uphill struggle before, when you were free and single, evanesce as you face the stark and solid truth that the old mother-in-law has the upper hand and, what’s more, always will. Now that I am one myself, I feel very unsure of myself at times, and rightly so. The old type of mother in law was comfortably certain of her place on the family throne, whereas we unsure ones watched them from the servants gallery and vowed we would never be like them. Well, mostly we are achieving just that, and, in doing so, in approaching with more tact we are making new mistakes. It is the way of things.

I don’t remember if I promised to obey or not, but what laughs me a lot, is that it matters one way or the other. The animated discussions I have overheard concerning which words are left out and which put in to a wedding ceremony adds a value that most certainly dilutes in time. I suppose in the olden days, if someone didn’t obey or honour or cherish and it was brought to the Judgement Mound and proclaimed before the Wise Men, and if it was found to be true, due punishment would have been administered, its legacy, shame. Nowadays, the Judgement Mounds are covered with heather and bluebells, their ancient role all but forgotten.

After the fluffery wuffery of the wedding, and the first halcyon days of playing house, the serious business of life clicks in. We put away the wedding dress and don the apron. It’s not a bad, but a good thing, because scrubbing a floor in a wedding dress is asking for trouble. So, we move on into our new days, we two people who have made the biggest decision of our lives. No maps are handed out. We will now sail into uncharted waters, learning from each other and working day by day to weave a new cloth from the colours each one brought to the mix, very different colours, different histories, different understanding of light and dark, texture and balance, give and take, up and down. Who will lead and who will follow? Who will let go and who will hold on. Who thinks of solutions and who chews over the disaster? None of this has really been revealed as yet for neither of us have stood the test, not yet. Falling in love is a momentary thing. Staying there, when things begin to annoy and upset, letting them take their place in the weaving of the cloth when all you want to see are the vibrant colours of joy and happiness, is quite another. The trick is to let that happen without feeling a sense of loss. The trick is not to imagine this woman is trying to mother me, when she shouts at me for sock-dropping, or that this man is trying to control and contain me, when he challenges the cut of my dress The trick is, the trick is………

The goodly thing about Goodly Life is that it keeps waking us up each morning with birdsong or Chris Evans or the dooby doo of an alarm clock, or a baby’s wail, or that eerie silence that tells you it snowed overnight. We keep waking, we keep feeling hungry, needing a walk, a cup of tea, a chat with a friend. Our brains must plan school mornings, bus time-tables, train schedules and packed lunch boxes. This is it, this is life and this, shared, keeps us moving through our daily rounds, bumping into each other, working out the best way to do this or not do that, until gradually we weave ourselves into one cloth.

If any of us knew what lay ahead, we might never begin. How we learn to deal with whatever comes along, is all in the strength of that cloth, the warp and weft of it, the necessary tension, the edging. When storms prevail and loud black clouds hang overhead all packed with lightning flash and cold wet rain, we can use this cloth for shelter and warmth, but it will only give back what we have woven into it. The history we make together is not solely of our own pasts, but it is a new thing. We bring in children, carving their histories out for them, at least, in the very beginning. Each of us is a new creature, with unique quirks and gifts, thoughts and concerns. Each one of us sees a thing differently, even if we mostly agree on the image it creates in our minds. However, there is one thing I have found to be almost universal, and that is the instant and unconditional love a parent feels for their child. I know life can sour a relationship, but after the angry words are spoken and the protection in place, I still believe this love surpasses all other loves, and it never fails to astonish on first encounter. I remember it each time a babe was born from me, that however scared I may have been of dangers unknown, I knew I would protect this child’s life with my own, and I still would.

At this end of a verrrrrry long marriage, there is a very colourful cloth around us, five colourful children and their families. Nobody could say we quietly got on with our lives together, obeying the rules, but, instead, raved against the wrongs, laughed and lived wildly, generously, and mostly in complete chaos. On this day, we look at each other and we both marvel. How on earth we managed, against all the odds, to be celebrating 43 years together, even all ‘vowed up’, is a mystery, and not just to us.

What larks!

June 17, 2015 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 158 A Missing Mountain

Yesterday the top of the mountain was missing. Cloud cover was low, thick as my mother’s whipped egg whites. I sat watching it, missing, for quite some time; a whole mug of coffee, to be precise and it thinked me of how my eye is drawn to something that was there, always there, and now, is not. Sometimes, as I scan the morning, spreading out in fingers of light across the grass and down to the sealoch, I know something has changed but, for a while, I can’t say what. Perhaps the greylags are grazing, blending perfectly into the willow scrub and the stands of wiry old grass, and, then, one of them moves. All I am aware of is change. Walking along the Tapselteerie tracks, my attention is drawn uphill, to where the tall pines wave their arms at the sky, their bodies a shining deep red, wet still from the rain last night. I look and look but they are all there……ah. no. One is missing a rib.

As I walk on, move on into the day, I consider how easy it would have been for me to miss this change or that. All I have to be is slave to my to-do list, my plan for the day, the caterwaulings of my mind, the pressures I feel I am under to achieve. My alert button is on mute. Knowing, deep within that I want to stop and notice missing mountains, I keep going. The mountain will either return or it won’t, isn’t that right? What is it to me either way when there is shopping to be shopped for, admin to complete, emails to respond to, rooms to be cleaned, washing to be washed?

Well, I’ll tell you what it is to me. It is something mysterious, something beyond myself and my piddling little life, and it begs consideration. When life teeters off balance, which it always does just when I think I have it all levelled up nicely, I need the acceptance of mystery to carry me onwards, because that acceptance brings in new game players, hope and faith. If my life is all about lists and control then I am set up for a fall. There are books and essays, wisdoms, poems, short stories, plays, documentaries, novels and memoirs all addressing the bizarre human failing to celebrate the unknown, the unfathomable, the unexplainable. Even if I know there are geese grazing, or tops of mountains lost in cloud, and I study those subjects in intricate detail so that I beome an expert, something will take them a step further without me, for everything is changing all of the time, with or without our involvement. And yet, and yet, we fight, daily, to control all of life, not just our own. We justify and explain as much as we possibly can, and those things we just can’t, we dismiss – even if we agree that there has always been ‘imbalance’ in nature, chaos in nature. We call it the natural world, and behave around it as if it were completely unnatural to us.

And still we long for it. There is inside every one of us a deep connection to the wild places, to the mysteries of life, to the impossible, the unbelievable. People sigh with green envy just hearing me speak of the view from my window, the wild all around me, but you don’t need to live in the wild to know that it is all around you. I believe that, although we fight to be in charge, the desire not to be in control of everything is strong. Besides, if we are really in control of it all, then what a mess we have made, together, or alone, for nobody is really smug about getting everything right. You can think you love your children without judgement but they will still feel judged at some point. You can think you are the perfect boss, until someone hands in their notice because you expect too much. You can think all sorts of things for years and be oh so horribly wrong.

Most of us are taught to find our best way to walk through our own lives, to know our enemy, to keep our house in order, and yet overnight, however strong the walls, however well-kempt, that house can be whipped away from us, metaphorically and literally speaking. We can have money in the bank and lose it all. We can think we are well and find, in one moment, we are far from that. When we root ourselves in what we can control, can organise into a perfect order, we are looking at the wrong things. I hear people tell me they have no choice about their lives, and I always challenge that, for it is not the truth. We all have the choice, nobody controls that but our own selves.

My question is what have we done to ensure personal inner strength, in order to cope with disaster? Have we read good books, watched mountains re-appear, paid attention to what our loved ones don’t say? Have we watched a whole sunset, or just taken a quick look and said ‘Oh Wow’ and gone back to the email telling Mr Whatnot just what we’d like to do with him? I am not saying we should loaf about waiting for mountains to disappear or for suns to set, but I am saying that we don’t give the mystery and wonder of these sights the time they deserve. What happens when really watching, really engaging with nature working her magic, is that it changes my thinking. It lifts my thoughts beyond my piddling little lists and into a greater mindfulness. If I spend time each day watching, noticing, stopping the car, walking down a country lane, I will begin to feel differently about the balance of important/not important inside my life. If I really stop to really watch a pair of cherry-breasted bullfinches in scatterwood, or really listen to the sound of the wind making music in the branches of an old beech tree, or stop to chat with an old man on a bench, then trust me, I will be a much gentler person on my return to my ordinary, explainable, controllable day.

I think we need to pay serious attention, and right now, because balance, as the hapless world teaches it, is not balance at all.

June 7, 2015 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 157 Light on Dark

We rarely draw the curtains against the night. Even in the winter, when the dark creeps out from the woods so much earlier to dim our eyes and send us running for the long life light bulb switch – even then I hesitate to make that final call, so entrancing is the ‘out there’.

Out there a massive power shift is already playing out. The creatures of the night are waking, alert and ready. Their eyes are not ‘accustomed’ to the dark, they are made for it right from the very beginning; it is their light. The rest of us whose vision is, at best, impaired in darkness, must draw in, draw our curtains, hide from danger, sleep. There is a strong pull of the wild in me as dark descends, a longing to be a part of it, and without a torch. Turning back from the window, having reluctantly closed off the night, I face warmth and safety, some polite crime on television, or a read beside the fire, supper, and I wonder what I’m missing.

Rabbits know fine what they’re missing, ditto hens and rodents. Although the latter do pop out at night, they must needs scurry beneath the dense shelter of undergrowth for the screech owl is about. Even scurryings won’t save them from the neighbouring cats. So, it isn’t darkness we, or they are afraid of, but the creatures who inhabit it. In our case, imagined ones too, demons and lurkers and no-gooders with an eye for weakness. And we are weak in darkness, compromised and slow to focus.

And so, we turn in, pushing the darkness back into the woods and back across the sea, flooding our night with light, and more light, neon and flashing, computer screens, television, digital clocks, standby lights on printers, sound systems, streetlights lighting our hurried steps until we find our own doorway, unlock it and step into our nests, leaving the stars behind. We cook, argue about homework, phone mother, answer emails, bathe and sleep until the light begins to rise again, a slow green at first, then lifting white or blue or pinkly clouded into the full light of day. But maybe we miss something. Maybe that’s what I feel so strongly. The way we divide our days and nights into themselves, stored neatly, controllable, separate, and, yet, they are one.

To stand out inside the darkness, to feel it’s soft mantle about our shoulders, and to stand long enough to see is a wonder. Even without visible stars, even on the blackest of nights, there is still light. We make it. It emanates from our ancient human spirit, this light, and all I have to do is wait until I am fully present. Dashing out with the recycling is not the same. I need to stand, to let the inside worries slip away, to move, without moving, into the wholeness of the dark, to let it become one with me. I become aware of movement, of sounds, of the depth and texture of the dark. My ears hear, my eyes see, my mind empties of everything that lies behind the front door. It is, as if it is another world, one of bustle and of chaos and the quack of televised nonsense, of clatter and youtube, of the ping of an arriving email, of the whirr of a fridge, the hum of a computer, the ticking of a clock. There is no time out here, no hum, no white noise, only the immediate and raw darkness, broken by the rustle of mouse deep in the dry stone wall, a triumphant hoot, a warning cry, the rush of spring water over rocks, the wind through the pines.

No currency exchanges hands out here; no bartering or negotiating required. No clothing, fashion, menus or public transport. No strife over friendships or loyalties, no business sense, no degrees, no difficult mother in laws.

I stand for a while, a part of the darkness. I feel vulnerable and alone and I thrill to those feelings, for this is real life, real dark, real and raw and sharp and edgy. This is Order.

Then I turn back to what the world calls order, with a twinkle in my eye.

May 27, 2015 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 156 Another Way Back Home

I realised, whilst getting myself lost in the streets of Barcelona, that although most of us have two eyes, two ears, one nose and one mouth, no two of us look exactly the same. Similar, yes, almost identical in twins, but never exactly the same. Even the identical twins I know, numbering one brace of birds, are not exactly the same; eyes slightly further apart on one, mouth a bit wider on the other, one quiet and pensive, the other gregarious and full of chat.

People throng through these streets. I stop in a patch of sunshine as they flow by me. They seem to know where they’re going, these hundreds of different faces, just in this one square with 10 narrow cobbled streets running out from it like sunbeams in a child’s painting. Not only am I seeing different nationalities and colours, but within those very numbers there are more differences, and more. Perhaps, I wonder to myself, as I puff for the enth time back into Government Square, they are all thinking it’s Groundhog Day and I am the one keeping it going, popping into view again and again as if I can’t get enough of Government HQ. Although they are a moving mass of human souls, I’m sure I recognise a few of them and they do stare a bit as I grow more and more de-hydrated and anxious. How on earth I manage to keep returning to the same flipping square, when I choose a new street every time is a marvel, even to me, although in my defence, I would like to point out that every single one of them is lined with the same shops. One Desigual, one Barcelona Football Shop, one Flower Shop and one Pharmacy. I might be needing that one if I don’t find my way out of the maze. I also have no money, no idea of the address I’m staying at, nor do I have my mobile phone.

I bet not another soul in this flipping Government Square (oh here it is again!) is as vulnerable on this deceptively calm sunny afternoon. I decide to stop panicking and lean against a wall looking as nonchalant as I can manage. Even though my mouth is dry as sandpaper and my heart about to take off, I manage to calm my breathing, refusing to pay attention to any thoughts of being lost in Spain for months and dying of thirst. Nobody knows where I am, other than somewhere in Barcelona and, as it took us 30 minutes to reach the outskirts yesterday in a speedy motor, it’s a pretty big city. It’s beautiful too, and filled with stunning architecture, churches with bells that toll every quarter and on the hour, quirky alleyways (!), window boxes ablaze with colour, bustling cafes and wine bars. Gaudi is everywhere, or his influence is. The Gran Familia is spectacular from the outside with swoops and swirls of stonework, angels and trumpets, holy words and what looked liked bowls of fruit at the very top. The queue was long and it was raining that day so we didn’t go inside but sat, instead under a cafe umbrella drinking strong black coffee and sharing our opinions on the charge of 25 euros per person to walk through a sacred space, squashed, as you would be, in a seethe of people, and unable to see very much at all.

We are not only different on the outside, but on the inside too. It’s a strange part of our DNA, this difference thingy, because, to be honest, if a little more consideration had gone into our wiring, we might all be great pals, and life would be a doddle. And dreadfully dull, or so I imagine. If we knew just what to do next around each other, we wouldn’t have to ask, research, enquire. We wouldn’t have to dig deep inside ourselves for those folk we find ‘difficult’. We would never need to change. It sounds like Pleasantville to me.

However there are times when I get thoroughly fed up with all this inner changing. It’s all very well writing, and reading, books on the subject of inner betterment, but putting any of it into practice is hard work. Sometimes minute by minute hard work and for years and years. What I have learned is that, if I want to succeed in life I must put everyone else first. I must be compassionate even when I feel like murder – especially then – and I must learn not to talk about myself as often as possible.

I could fold my mental arms and stay exactly as I am, but the damnable thing is that if I put into practice all of the above, learn to breathe more slowly and to count to ten instead of ripping someone’s head off, it is I who feel better about me! I have achieved something, because I have overcome myself. I have found a new way. I don’t welcome change, not in the areas I don’t feel need it, but it is needed for there to be any peace. Biting my tongue is painful, but so much better in the long run. Those unspoken words can leave my mouth in one slow outbreath. Simples.

I was certain I was right in my choice of direction out of the square and yet I was insistently walking the same way over and over, hoping for a different outcome. Once I stopped marching forth with all the conviction of a zealot, my mind set in concrete, and I slowed down, breathed away the panic and allowed in, if not welcomed, the possibility that I might be wrong in my choice of direction, I noticed a wooden walkway between two buildings that had been there all along. It was the one I had walked beneath and admired some hours before. This was my way back home.

I can do the same around a routine, or the way I like something done. It can be a no-big-deal sort of thing and yet it escalates into exactly that when I hold on too tight. After all, I’ve done it this way for years. Why should I change it?

But…. if I let go,(just saying it lowers my shoulders and unclaws my fingers) I allow in the possibility that there might be another way.

Another way back home.

May 10, 2015 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 155 Should or Must

I read an online paper called Brainpickings. I recommend it highly. Someone miles away spends all her time researching and presenting thoughts on pretty much everything. What I most like is her choice of material and the way she delves deep into the inner workings of her subject, supporting it with other writers’ observations, scientific fact and personal comment. Her funding for all this work comes solely from voluntary contributions. She obviously feels she ‘must’ do this for her life to be as fulfilled as she wants it to be. I doubt there’s a ‘should’ in sight.

How many times a day do we say, or hear another say, ‘Oh I should be doing such and such….’ or I ‘ought to get back and get this job done’? In our very words we are saying how terribly much we would rather not do those jobs at all. Any sentence with an ‘ought’ or a ‘should’ inside it needs challenging. It means we are not doing what feels right to us and yet we fail so often to question our own sense of integrity at this point, mindlessly performing tasks like circus animals, for the benefit of others.

I am not saying that we do only that which we want to do. How riddickerluss would that be? A great number of us would spend all day in bed, or on a beach, or watching Friends Series 256 from start to finish. No dinners would ever be prepared and the housework would go to pot. Dogs wouldn’t be walked, nor windows cleaned, nor gardens gardened, if on that particular day we didn’t want to do any of it. Nobody would commute to work and the world of commerce would die on its feet.

I am also not saying that we should swing the full 90 away from ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts’ because daily work is good, regular ordinary tasks essential to our lives, our businesses, our jobs. The key is to walk away from the should, just a little and check out the view. If I didn’t do this thing, this mindless thing that I hate doing, and no longer want to do to please this person or that, what would I do instead? It wouldn’t be nothing, no, it would be something, so what something feels right to me? What, in fact Must I do, for my own sense of what is right? Now that, my dears, is the right question. Must is when the task ahead, not necessarily an exciting one, becomes exactly the right thing to be done, in order to move on; to reach the goal, the fulfillment, the sense of achievement. I must do this and so I will.

Simples.

In my experience, inner questioning is essential. It’s the beginning of Mindfulness.

Did you know that 99% of all the work that leads to winning the Nobel Peace Prize, the Man Booker Prize, the painting that sells for millions, or the grown child who says Thank you Mum for teaching me all the right things in life, is done alone and unnoticed? The glory world we live in now, the glamour of it, the annorexia of its body and spirit, the fast-track dash to ultimate success, is one of illusions. Watch less tv, read no newspapers for a month and then see how you feel about life around you. It is a remarkable fact that what we do/watch/listen to/surround ourselves with, on a daily basis, can turn us from ourselves, can tell us ‘this is what the world says, so it must be true’ and can corrupt our glorious human nature.

I say read more Brainpickings, read more books that lift our spirits, either novels or non-fiction. Read ‘Feral’, read ‘The Road Less Travelled’, read anything, but read. We writers have some good things to pass on.

This now from Eleanor Roosevelt, one of my heroines, a woman way ahead of her time, independent, strong, beautiful and wise.” When you adopt the standards and values of someone else….you surrender your own integrity……(and) become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being.”

Following her is Elle Luna from her book The Crossroads of Should and Must. Read them both, and then walk off into silence and reflect. And then, question every move you make.

“When we choose Should, we’re choosing to live our life for someone or something other than ourselves. The journey to Should can be smooth, the rewards can seem clear, and the options are often plentiful.

Must is different. Must is who we are, what we believe, and what we do when we are alone with our truest, most authentic self. It’s that which calls to us most deeply. It’s our convictions, our passions, our deepest held urges and desires – unavoidable, undeniable, and inexplicable. Unlike Should, Must doesn’t accept compromises.

Must is when we stop conforming to other people’s ideals and start connecting to our own – and this allows us to cultivate our full potential as individuals. To choose Must is to say yes to hard work and constant effort, to say yes to a journey without a road map or guarantees, and in so doing, to say yes to what Joseph Campbell called “the experience of being alive”

‘Must’ be the difference between being alive……

and merely living.

May 6, 2015 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 154 Reality Check

As I sit here tapping on the keys of a laptop, waiting for my friends to wake up to another glorious morning in Argyll, I consider our conversation last night over dinner, on Perception and Reality. We had spent the afternoon developing depth and texture on one of my songs. Again, they said, sing that again, only, this time, shorten the vowel sound and give it more breath. Slowly but surely, a single line of melody took on colour and light. There were six of me in the end, in as perfect a repeat as made no difference. It’s interesting how difficult it is to sing exactly the same over an original melody line, not so much the rise and fall of the notes in sequence, but more the length of beats in a single word, such as ‘gold’ or ‘right’. If the consonants don’t land at precisely the same point (and a nanosecond matters) then it can sound like a shower of bullets. T-t-t……etc. I considered bringing the importance of such perfect repetition into ordinary life, hence the conversation. I may walk through exactly the same situation as you, but our perception of it can be chalk versus cheese.
Why is that, and is it okay, good, even, to have different slants, sometimes as many as there are people involved? Of course, it can make for war, and often has, and will continue to do so as long as people walk the earth; one that seems to be managing to extinguish rather a lot of its inhabitants. On a goodly sunshine day, and in a warm, easy, light-hearted situation, such as a merry meet in the bakery or on the street, our differences in perception and ‘reality’ matter little. We can walk away, wave, think what we like once the meet is done, but life isn’t about merry meets all the time.
Sometimes we butt up against an opinion we do not share, but however skilled we are at marketing our own, however loud we talk, however clever our words, we can never change the perception of another soul. We do not live their life, share their dreams and longings, feel their pain, know their joy, understand their song. And we have never looked through their eyes. We may try to do just that and call it empathy. We learn to listen, some of us, and then to mindfully consider that our own perception of reality, the one we are absolutely convinced is the blue print, just might be a blur to another.
At the moment we are all facing a Perception/Reality check, as the country moves towards election day. Some of us will shrug it off, not bother to vote, asking What’s the Point when Nothing Changes? We are bombarded with arguments, one party shouting its promises, another berating those promises as so much rubbish. Accusations of past failure, one-upmanship, clever quips and outright slander is all around us. Who is right to lead us and do we believe in the depth and texture, the perfect unity of their song, or do we feel bullet-battered and uncertain of the melody line?
One thing is for certain. If we bother to vote, at least we make it clear that our own reality matters to us, however we perceive it.