January 31, 2014 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 123 Freedom is all in the mind

My favourite word is Freedom, and I have no doubt written about it before now in my blogs. I have also changed my thinking about it over the years, of all it encompasses, of where and how it is grounded, where it finds settlement, sinks its big old flag and stakes its claim.

It has zip to do with place or time, with Mr or Mrs Right, with money or lack of it, new sofas, kitchens, bathrooms, or even the four stone walls that surround me, and everything to do with that airy fairy head of mine, and yours, although I won’t presume to know the percentage of airy, or fair,y in your head. We are taught, or do we just learn……..that the acquisition of a good education, of a good grounding in common sense or many worldy belongings should be our main aim as we walk through our life; that, if we haven’t succeeded in surrounding ourselves with all those things expected of us, that we ourselves expect of us, by a certain age, we are idlers, bad planners, twits. The odd thing, though, is that not one single one of us finds fulfillment or deep happiness in any Things and yet, still we seek them out, stack them up, protect them with a ferocious zeal, and then plan our next move to gather more in and more. In doing so, we imagine this Freedom thingy will come too, eventually. The more we own, the free-er we will become.

In a word, this is pants, because Freedom, real Freedom is all in the mind, all of it and it always was and ever will be till the sand runs out. I have read many tales on this, tales told by people who own nothing, who are locked up and enslaved, and they speak of Freedom. And yet, how can they? Just look at their lives lived, the restraints and fences that locked them behind another’s barricade! They were never free, were they?

Oh yes, they were. And all because they refused to allow the fences or the bars define their state of mind. They chose, in the face of extraordinary and unbelievable constraints, dished up daily for years, for a whole life, perhaps, not to see the mud, but to see the stars. Most of us, so I am told, live lives of quiet desperation, trapped in some way, or many ways, and we have no real tangible understanding of these lives lived in circumstances only ever described to us on the news or in newspapers. We ordinary folk, living however we live, may not imagine that Freedom is in our grasp. After all, aren’t we tied in to our work, doing a job that demands most of our allotted daylight hours, and don’t we have partners, children, homes, all of which require our devotion to varying degrees? By the time all those calls on our so called Freedom have been met to a good standard, what is left for us?

Well it all is, because Freedom is not limited unless we limit it. I know that it is considered selfish to take for ourselves when we ought to be giving everything to others, but I don’t agree with that concept, if, indeed, it ever was a real concept in the first place. We learn to love our neighbour as ourself. This meant nothing to me for many years, as I most definitely did not love anything about myself. So what does it mean? It means I must give to myself all that I give so readily to another, and that means an equal share of Freedom, not freedom from whatever my life requires of me, but Freedom to myself. Freedom to think, to love, to create, to consider my actions and their consequences. I may live inside another’s boundaries, but that person cannot control my thoughts, my times of reflection, my understanding, the passions that keep my heart beating, my hopes, my dreams…..in short, my self. No-one else can control these, and these together make me, and I am unique. I don’t need to step on anyone else to do this, nor put another soul down, for life is not a race, but a journey. Although we may sail alongside each other, we all sail alone.

So, when I feel controlled or constrained or forced or entrapped by another, let me understand this. I have chosen this domination and therefore I can bring to bear the same power to change it. And I don’t need to say one word out loud. All that squealing and whining, all those ‘how could you’s’ just tell me that it is now I who try to dominate, to change another’s way of being, to make them more like me, and this is merely a power struggle, one nobody ever wins.

If I want to be free, I just decide I am (and read good books on the subject) and get on with my day, my life. If I find chores dull and demanding, I can either sigh and moan or sing and laugh. There is fun, even in washing dishes and I can work up a great percussive concerto all by myself, my arms sud deep, my mind entirely my own. And my first step is to understand, and then decide, to believe that there is enough Freedom going, ad infinitum, to free every living soul.

Who out there can tell me I am wrong?

Freedom. It’s a way of being.

January 22, 2014 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 122 Follow your heart

I have done this all my life, wherever and whenever possible, and it isn’t always either. In situations where boundaries and expectations are set by a higher authority, I may not be able to go with my heart on every point, although there is room enough in each situation for me to choose my attitude. Attitude, however, shows itself in my outer behaviour, whereas my heart is deeply interior, and sometimes they argue. It’s an internal dialogue that can be unsettling, especially if I show a good attitude and plan murder.

So, if a disagreement betwen heart and attitude causes me indigestion, then I must work on what?…….not my attitude, for that may be learned behaviour, or just me being an ostrich, and is not good for my health. I can ‘copy’ my idea of a good attitude and bring it into the mix easily, if my acting skills are well honed, but it won’t do me any good and, after all, it is only me with whom I am primarily concerned. So what must I work on then? Of course, my heart. According to old wisdoms, to be found in the good book and all other good books, what is in my heart will ‘out’, whether I allow such an outing, or not, at a conscious level. We always know when someone is not being congruent, in sync with the essence of themselves. It is as clear as day and as silent as snow.

In life decisions there is often a third player in this game. It’s a three horse race and the third horse is called money. I once had a fascinating conversation with a wise man (not a member of the Magi, but wise, nonetheless) who asked me what decision I would make if money was removed from the dilemma. Oh goodness! I said, immediately knowing the right direction to take. A few seconds ago, I had been caught in a web of possibles, fixed and trapped by their sticky tendrils, sure there was no way out, and, in a flash, I could see my way ahead. I have employed this process ever since and it is surprising how often I need it, for money has many guises. For example, I might employ someone whose influence in my business is destructive to some degree. I might, for a long time, have been either avoiding this issue, or pretending it would go away without having to lose them, which I don’t really want to do as they are good at their job, very good, and if I lose them, I may lose……..money! I may even have explained my dilemma to others, which of course is what I will do in order to hear affirmation of the clever way I talk about the situation, without really mentioning the real problem, perhaps unsure of bringing anything as airy fairy as my heart into the conversation. All I have to do is hear from someone how brilliant this person is and how the business thrives thanks to his or her skills and work ethic. But I know more than that someone does, and if I speak it out, I will have to pull my own head out of the sand and face the music, which I absolutely don’t want to do. But, it niggles at me, night and day and I know I am being evasive and weak. And then another busy day comes along and I can forget it for a while, until I remember it all over again in the middle of the night, or whilst waiting for the kettle to boil, and there it is again nipping at the edges of my mind, and it will go on doing so until I take action.

These life lessons are a wondrous thing. It seems to me that there is a force always pushing us towards our best, towards inner peace, because the only way to find and keep that inner peace is to listen to what our hearts tell us. And hearts don’t need money, or cashflow, or a succesful business. Nor does it need to be better than another heart, nor top dog, nor cushioned against a stock market crash. It doesn’t ask for savings accounts or good investments, unless of course, the investment is of the kind you cannot see or limit or define.

So, full circle I have come. If I want to feel at peace with whatever life throws my way, the good and the bad, I must always seek cousel from my own heart. What is it I really feel about this dilemma? What is it I really want to do, or say to change it? If I have worked on opening up the highway to my heart, and kept that highway open and flowing, then my heart will speak clearly to me in a language I understand and then I can turn that decision into action. However well-versed I am in the world of literature or science, business or art, I am still just me, one person, one soul wanting to do and to be my very best.

I must begin with my heart. Begin, continue and end with it. After all, it is the only thing that keeps me alive.

January 19, 2014 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 121 Listen to your ears

When I hear something, I hear it. I may respond distractedly, or with intense concentration. I may not quite hear it for a few seconds, when a word or phrase yanks me back into the room, back beside the person who spoke and then I will ask them to say it all again. In domestic situations, taking into account familial or relational baggage, I may find myself in the blast of a dismissive retort.

You never listen to me! I’m not going to talk to you until you put down that mobile, laptop, dog,book, whatever! Then follows a doggy-type following around, an apology (if you’re lucky), a plead to say it again, an ‘I AM listening, honest’…….sort of drama, which, if I am very lucky, ends well, although by this time, having pattered about whimpering and wagging my tail, I am so not interested anymore, even supposing whatever I didn’t listen to, on first delivery, could get me to the ball after all.

I have read much on the difference between hearing and listening, and, to be honest, am none the wiser, confusing the two whenever I deliver said difference in an astonishing phrase of pure wisdom. Nobody has ever corrected me, confirming my suspicions that nobody else gets the difference either. But I do know how critical it is to listen to what our children say and really hear it. Really not hearing it is the root beginning of an immense baggage collection, guaranteed foreign holidays for psychiatrists, counsellors and mediums, and establishing once and for all that 90% of our troubles, self-doubts and hangups stem solely from our mother.

But what about those things I hear without actively listening? Those words far off, lifted at random from another conversation, over there somewhere, that can float all by themselves into my head to settle on a comfy sofa, feet up, just waiting for the chance to rise into my concious mind. I can read something in a book, or in the poetry of a hymn in church and, without consciously choosing to remember any of it, I find myself looking at it as I wake in the early morning, hearing it anew, and marvelling at the brilliance of my aging brain. Because our senses are all linked by millions of little byroads, I might watch the movement of the clouds across a darkling sky and find words in my mouth and I don’t mean ‘Wow, look at THAT!’ It might be a line in a letter (does anyone remember the last letter that came through the post, with a stamp, licked by the writer and handed over by Amy the Post?) or it might be a phrase from the book I’m reading, or something someone said, but I don’t remember the time or the context. Somehow, it fits in with the clouds and the darkling sky and again I am astonished at the incredible majesty of the human brain, even though we only ever tap into about a third of its potential. Just think what we could do and who we could be, if we only knew how to build a mental motorway or, even just how we might repair the byroads already in place. But we don’t, despite all that irritating knowledge that highlights our human lack. Why do we have this immense brain in the first place?

As we grow older we begin, everso gradually, to lose the byroads we do have. One by one, they give way to sprawling grasses, weeds and foliage that turns a shortcut into a wilderness. Ok, we know this. We might not like it much, losing our glasses ten times a day, forgetting an appointment made some time before, leaving the margarine out of the cake, and so on, but it a fact of life and we may as well find the dance in it.

My old granny, long dead but unforgettable, never lost her dance. When it could no longer be found in her strong and shapely legs, or her long elegant feet, it was there in her eyes for all to see. In a shop, at a bus stop, in her own little flat, she brought that dance forward at every encounter with every person from the Red Cross collector, shaking her bucket outside the door, to the doctor or the minister, although she was highly suspicious of the minister, to be honest. Even in hospital, dying, she lifted her smile to every nurse, every orderly without exception, and she was no goody-goody I can tell you, being overly full of mischief and with a keen eye for the caricature. It was for herself, she danced, not to be seen to be dancing, for she had little care for such vanities.

Listening to my ears is not really possible. It makes little sense, suggesting that my ears have ears and, with a few large-eared exceptions, this seems an unlikelyhood. But when my little grandson said it to me this morning as we walked through a lovely wild place, I realised I had heard what he said twice. First, effortlessly, in the normal way, and then, again, as if I was hearing myself hearing. It made me realise, as I considered this new phenomenon, that not only is there wisdom, beyond their understanding, falling from the mouths of babes, but that, if I really think it through, this is the only way to live. If I do practise listening to my ears, I distance myself from an instant response, one that might cause an injury to another’s heart. Words spoken in haste, fuelled by baggage, can wound and wound deep. Words written in anger can live for a lifetime and beyond. But if I can learn to close my trap (oh hallo mother) and to keep my ears (all of them) open, I not only allow words to settle in the sofas of my mind, gently; not only allow the moment to move beyond my clutches, however much my fingers itch to capture and internalise it, but, in those precious moments of mouth closed, ears open, I can hear, albeit distantly, the grace notes floating across the divide and find that my feet take up the dance.

January 14, 2014 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 120 On Leadership

It’s a funny old chestnut, Leadership. It sounds so grand and important. In fact, as a youngster I wanted it for myself. Those, it appeared to me, who were given such a badge of honour, positively glowed with the warmest of light. They were lifted above us earthly girls, fixed to the ground with our lack of leadership skills, our heavy lace-up brogues and our triple-layered (for safety) regulation greys, and they never came back down again. I met them in corners with members of staff, or prefects, or team leaders, discussing something important in hushed tones, corners I rounded in an un-leaderly, and often late dash to the next fixture in my school diary. They would both stand in a conspiratorial silence, one that positively burgeoned with importance, as I hurtled by, knowing two things for sure – that I would meet some disgrace for running in passageways, and that my bottom jumped around way too much inside those earthly greys.

When they said to me that they were sorry I was leaving the school because, did I realise that they were going to ask me to be Music Prefect next school year……I knew what they were up to, asking me AFTER I had announced with barely concealed joy, that I had now collected my 7 O Levels and was abandoning my brogues for ever. If I had said……Oh, ok then, I will stay, they would all have fainted clean away and I would have finally become a leader, one they may well have regretted inviting into a corner.

A few minutes later, as a newly engaged farmer’s wife-to-be, I pondered leadership once more. This farmer with whom I was about to spend the rest of my life, needed some serious leadership. For a start, he didn’t want to be led at all and most certainly not by me. Well, ok, I can be patient. After all, look at how he does what his mummy says, albeit now and then, but ‘now and then’ looked promising to an over-zealous young woman (child, really) with a fat sapphire on her forever finger and plans already laid out in the loft of her mind. He argued with every plan I brought forward for discussion. He made all the ‘big’ decisions with automonic confidence. He dropped his clothes on the floor, the ones he deemed ready for washing, which was usually two weeks later than my deeming. He wore white crimpolene flares. There was a lot of work to be done.

Leadership isn’t nagging. Ok, ok, so what is leadership then and why can’t I lead him?

Answer……he doesn’t want it and, listen girlie, he is as determined as you on this matter.

Once this sank in, was resisted vehemently, caused endless rows and overly slammed doors, removal of priveleges and absolutely no cake for tea never mind the honey, I remember falling into a black depression. My mother, who also tried to lead my dad, who also had no intention of being led, had the advantage. Dad was away all week so that she could lead all five of us, the neighbours, the butcher, the baker and the candlestick-maker to her heart’s delight. Then, when Dad came home at weekends, she could probably just about manage to shelve her leaderly urges for two days until she popped him once more on a plane to Dubai or Italy or Africa or wherever his veterinary consultant skills were currently in demand. But my husband was always at home rejecting leadership, so I had to think sideways.

43 years later I have a crick in my neck and still no husband running along behind. I ask myself, is that what I want? And the answer (quick learner, me) is absolutely not. What I want is actually just to lead myself, not to lead, and not to be led, although that bit is very much according to my current mood swing. There are times, many times, when I do want him to lead me, and love the feeling of safety and protection his leadership brings. When it goes wrong are those times I feel controlled, which is, of course, the same for him. My tutting over dropped clothes, or whatever, serves only to make him feel controlled, and therefore to resist.

Aha…….now we are getting somewhere!

So, if I can’t control him and don’t want him to control me, and he feels the same, why does this need to lead still raise it’s discordant cry? Because dear sweet daft woman, it is yourself you need to lead.

Well how can I lead me? I am me and me is me and that’s three of us already.

Yes, and you can lead all of them, all the mees, as much as you like, to your hearts desire, knock yourself out!

Thinking, reflecting on this bonkers truth, opens many doors to me, to all mees present. If, in an argument, I only consider my own voice and the content of my retorts, my behaviour, I am in control. I am leading. I don’t need to lead the other (the one who is so obviously wrong) in this situation. I only have to lead myself.

Yes, but, will you listen to what he is saying! It’s complete tripe and EVERYONE would ALWAYS agree that he NEVER gets it.

Hmmm……so many absolutes. But life and love isn’t about who is wrong or right, always or never. It isn’t about what happened in the past and the past is only a minute behind me. It is about leadership of myself, and if I can get that right, after a few, or many clumsy crashings through the thorn and thicket of life, then I just may find, to my eye-wide surprise that someone is following on behind.

January 7, 2014 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 119 Do less and achieve more

Oh ho ho ho and isn’t that just the easiest thing to tell someone else?

I am reading Mindfulness for Busy People by Dr Michael Sinclair and Josie Seydel and learning much goodly-grounded advice on how to fly. Although Life throws us curveballs just when we think we are on a home straight (probably mixed up two sportsfields there….) it is really possible to live in the moment as long as somebody can show us how, and not just tell us.

As a writer I know the art of ‘show not tell’ and even the most lightweight reader (no offence intended) will yawn wide if an author reads like a schoolmarm. We are adults now and have spent way too much time being told what to do and how to do it. Adulthood begins when a child decides, not when we with saggy skin and a certain way of doing pretty much everything tell them they may now be privy to certain conversations, once whispered, or, worse, spelled out, in shady corners of the house.

So, back to reading………….well, this writer knows how essential it is to read avidly. For me, it is a pleasure, a need, a drive because in reading other’s words I form my own, not as a copyist, although it has been known. I have decided that, should I find an angry ‘other’ at my door, spear raised, I will tell them they might think my pinching to be a huge compliment, and not a robbery. I take on other’s wisdoms so that my own reflections on what they have to say might shape into a new form, one that works for me. There are as many ways to think as there are thinkers, more, and we all must find that which will comfortably settle within our own lives, among our own circumstances – circumstances that will always change, sometimes drastically, sometimes in a more kindly way, but we can still learn how to ‘be’ inside each moment, each day, whatever the challenges may be.

Yesterday, or last week, or last month, life was in ‘this’ shape. Overnight, let us say, it flips and now looks upsidedown and most precarious, leaning (just) against the props that seemed tall as the cedars of Lebanon, and now look like my old washing line poles after a force ten gale. Let’s look at them – let’s just stand here and look at them and do nothing. Just look.

I can joke about it, to get a laugh, but the truth is, it is the only way, and not just for me. Whatever comes, whatever goes, it all passes. It cannot help but pass, because life moves on, with or without us.

As a young wife and busy mother, I knew I could not hold onto control and to a great degree, I let go. Perhaps I was lucky in that. Perhaps feeling out of control all the time, taught me to live by my inventive wits and to consider control a disadvantage. But, for all of us, this is possible, no matter how valuable our props might appear. In the event of extreme disaster, like your house slipping over a cliff, this way of observing and moving on is essential. I am not saying don’t grieve, or ululate for that which is lost, but there is a time for grief and a time to get past it, and not by force. Accepting some new truth, any new truth on our road is like letting in a new light. It is not something anyone can memorise by rote and commit to memory. That is for O Level maths (in my case) and it is impossible to retain that learning for long as I discovered on exam day. No, we must ‘allow’ the understanding to lightly settle in our bones and there is no other way to do that than to simply ‘accept’ the curveballs, do what we can, if possible, to make good from disaster, and then walk peaceably onwards.

If you are intrigued, I cannot recommend this book enough. Try it. There is absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain. If you say you are too busy to read, you fool yourself. When you are gone, what will you be remembered for? Being too busy?

I hope not.

December 30, 2013 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 118 Children I have loved

Now that Christmas is back there somewhere, and the hoover is choked with small and completely useless cracker gifts, bits of tinsel, fallen food morsels (where ARE you Sula??) and trinkets various, there is about five minutes of coffee and calm before it all begins again on Hogmanay and a New Year.

When we first moved to the island, I thought Christmas was IT, meaning, that, once the fairyland of it was done, we might just bask in its echoing warmth for a while, watch the twinkly winkly lights for a few more days and justify a wee whisky mac after a chilly walk along the 6 miles of Atlantic coastline, even if it was nowhere near 6pm. I always reckoned time was an illusion, and used to say so, on more than one occasion, sometimes missing the start of the school term altogether. But, once the tree was down, the lights and dingle dangles boxed and returned to the silent dark of the cupboard under the stairs, ready for the mice to re-format into comfy, albeit prickly, bedding for their Spring hatch, even I heard my voice sounding slightly desperate as I suggested a warming nip in the middle of an ordinary day. Because days do that. Become ordinary and far too quickly for my liking, perhaps for everyone’s liking. So how do I keep the magic going? Not with a ‘wee half’ at midday that’s for certain. Heading into work at the local school as a stand-in (not clown, but classroom assistant……ok, same thing….)and smelling of whisky, even if it is the liquor of the gods, would lose me street cred in a nanosecond.

When the children were little, which, for us meant about 25 years, I worked out a way of keeping magic. The secret lay in beginning again, but not with a big list of impossible resolutions, none of which ever made it into February. It was simply a daily decision to be a big kid, to look out at the world through the eyes of a child, and this resolution is sustainable, or it is at least for me and the island husband. It is absolutely nothing to do with cash in the bank, or a new sofa. It has nothing to do with dinners out and fancy wines or two holidays abroad every year. I can have not one of these ‘things’ around me, or even in far sight, because it has little to do with ‘things’. Oh, I’m not saying things aren’t fun or even necessary as basics, but we tend to look for the right things in the wrong places. We give our ‘love’ to the wrong things and it isn’t the fault of the tv adverts, or technology. The fault lies deep inside each one of us and the good news is, so does the solution.

If, on waking, on that pi**y day when I have to find my car keys, or bus money, in the dark, grab my pack lunch and take my place on the tube, in the car, on the bus, to re-enter those office doors and re-locate my desk in stiff backed shoes that pinch, and a skirt that sparks everytime I move (ah, that’s why it was so cheap), I say to myself….’I shall look at all of this, as a child would,’ then I have begun to change. Nothing has changed and yet everything has changed. A child doesn’t fret about what lies ahead, unless we show him how to, by fretting ourselves. A child, my children, bounced into days like monkeys or terrorists or pirates, or clowns, and the only thing that fussed them into a right panic, was probably me. Me and that old illusionist, Time. The only person who got cross with potholes was me. Everyone else imagined a trip over the rockies with Jeremy Clarkson at the wheel. The only person who imagined that if this child didn’t eat SOMETHING today, they were going to get rickets or anorexia, was me. The only one who couldn’t laugh as one child inflated a rubber glove into a a huge balloon and then pulled it over his head, was me, because I was too serious about what could have been fun, what was fun, through a child’s eyes. Running into a snowy afternoon without a well-zipped-up polar jacket was a given, and yet I would scream and fret about what………hypothermia? Jings woman, it’s just an afternoon!!!!!

Worry is the killer and another is fear and yet another, the almostworstone, is ‘what will others think of me?’

Let’s say that you go into work with a smile and a chuckle at the ready. Worst thing that can happen is that someone suggests you don’t take things seriously enough. Well, good for you, say I. The only things we need to take seriously are the serious things and, trust me, you will know your own list well enough. Then, another someone might suggest you have an easy life. And so you might, but then again, you might not, but whose business is that might I ask and what does it have to do with anything?

Some of the most cheerful adults I have ever met have the biggest pills to swallow. They wear a smile, and more than that, they look for the fun in everything. They are interested in you, in life, in the magic of what might happen next, for, although you and I may have a routine, a dull daily routine, there are opportunities in every minute, just waiting to be bounced like balls, or thrown like frisbees across a room. What we allow, and this is an individual choice, is for someone gloomy to bring us down, to feed our guilt. This is not their fault, but our own, and, as I said before, the solution lies within.

I remember such encounters with les miserables in my long life, and what I found, after some reflection, was that they were really reaching out for friendship and not a caustic comment. If I asked them about their life, their likes, their Christmas, I could always find their smile. Now, it wasn’t up to me to keep it on that gloomy face, but I could show them something that touched their heart and that was friendship. When my kids found themselves stuck with such a person, in school, in college, or in the workplace, I always suggested that they try swimming upstream, towards the crowd and not with it: to see another as a whole human being, not a miserable old g*t. Each one of them has been glad of that advice and have their own stories to tell after they extended the hand of friendship and found the smile within. They met extreme lonliness, social ineptitude, fears and self-doubts. They met inadequacy and rejection, and in that darkness, they met their own.

Children grow and are children no more, so they tell me, although we must be well behind the times, the island husband and I, because we can still have a pillow fight, make fun out of all the leaks in our home, the smoking chimney in a big wind, and it has absolutely nothing to do with life being easy. Life isn’t easy, but living it to the full, is simple indeed, as a child will tell you.

If you ask.

December 19, 2013 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 117 Animals I have known

It’s cold here today. I’m looking out across the sealoch through a hail of white bullets. A huge white-tailed eagle has just flown past the window, pinching all the light. The trees are quite stripped of any whisper of autumn, thanks to the endless storm force winds that plunder the nights. Last night the roof tiles danced as if there was a load of Gene Kellys up there, singing in the rain. Sleep gave up on me around 4am and I woke to a lime green glow casting weird shadowy shapes around the room as the curtains fought to stay connected with their moorings. Oh hallo moon, I said. Full she was and quite chuffed with herself sitting there all alone in the sky, quite the big cheese. I checked my clock, though what for I can’t tell you. There was nothing to be learned whatever it said, with it’s luminous hands morse-coding the passage of time. I suppose if it had read 7 o’clock, it would have meant I could get up and make tea. But 4am is not the right time for anything other than going back to sleep, which I didn’t manage.

On summer mornings, when I wake early, I can bounce (quietly of course, although I bounce a bit more noisily these days) down the stairs, make tea and feel warm and excited about the day ahead, as I write. In the sleety wind-battered winter, the very thought of pushing back the duvet and stepping into the chilly room is enough to remain me beneath the goose down. So, I lie there thinking about things like sealing wax and kings and sundry other daft forays into the world of my imagination. One such journey showed me a mouse, made of velvet and the colour of chocolate which is very swish for a mouse by the way, and I bet you’ve never seen one.

Animals often appear in dreams and play large parts in whatever drama unfolds before my eyes. It has always been the way of things and not least, I imagine, because of all the hundreds of animals I have shared my life with. I remember the working horses in the flatlands, those gentle chestnut giants with slow gait and kindly eyes, with broad backs and feet like meat plates. I remember watching them pull a plough, bracing their wide chests against the harness and leaving, in their wake, deep straight lines across a field that reached to the horizon. After their work was done, we unclipped them and turned the huge collars around on their thick necks to give them some relief. The children, just toddlers, always wanted to ride them home to the stables and a welcome bucket of nuts. They looked like coloured dots, perched high above the rest of us, and clinging on tightly to the wiry manes, laughing with glee as they rocked and rolled their way down the track. We never had to lead the horses, for they were weary and only looking for food, water and rest. I remember someone making a hoo-ha about the danger we put our children in and it made us laugh out loud. They never fell off, couldn’t fall off, not with that width of back beneath their little bottoms, a back that could have hosted a small tea party quite safely.

Then we had collies, labradors, hens and cats, one, named Cosmic Creepers, whom we found with a rabbit snare embedded in it’s neck. It was wild and had a set of extremely sharp teeth that it enjoyed sinking into arms and fingers. Mum and I spent ages snipping the wire, bathing the wounds and minding our fingers. Cosmic Creepers became part of the family, as did Isobel the hen as you will know if you’ve read Island Wife. Isobel was also wild, but, thankfully, quite without sharp teeth. We had pet calves and lambs who always got daft names. Mint Sauce, for example, and Bovril, and Lamb Chop. Once we had a crow called Jim who lived in a cage in the barn and smelled dreadful. His wing was hurt, and after he was set free, he hopped around the garden as if he couldn’t quite remember what to do next.

Living with animals is never dull. They teach me. If I only think as a human I miss something, an extra dimension, for animals are quite honest and rather definite about their needs. They don’t fanny about wondering if it’s convenient for me to serve up dinner, they just whinny or moo or march into the kitchen, which is okay-ish if we are talking Hen. A working horse might have caused a bit of a stooshie, had she got indoors, but I caught her in time. She just followed me back from the stable and……well…..kept coming. I fed her a carrot and turned her smartly around. She did wander back, but not immediately, deciding to visit the farm veg shop on the way for a big mouthful of winter greens. I could see them hanging out of her mouth as she sashayed up the track, and wee Polly, who worked in the shop had to go home for a lie-down.

I always thought of myself as a wild horse. I said so, to the island husband one day. He snorted, which was a bit rude. No, he said, not a wild horse, oh no definitely not!

Okay……….thanks for that……….what then, if not a wild horse?

A hen, he said and thought it was terribly funny, for quite some time.

December 17, 2013 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 116 To See Darkly

I saw this large white thing on the sealoch, pushing the water into a triangle with the rocky shore as the third median. I peered for a bit through the paint-spattered windows as the cover of the night slid back to reveal a new morning. I always do this ‘peering’ thing first, actually not just first, but second and sometimes third, in a vain attempt to kid on that, overnight, my eyeballs have grown young again. Ah, halcyon days….. when I could see so much more, often too much, and sometimes that which would have been better not seen at all, and certainly not by me!

Anyway, I waffle away from the large white thing.

Before it disappears completely, travelling at a fast lick through the frothy tide line, I grab the hefty set of Zeiss binoculars, or ‘bins’ as I gather they are fondly known, and nearly fall into my coffee with the weight of the things. I don’t believe any bird watcher ever held these up to their eyes for long. I would need to consider the employment of a personal trainer for at least a year just to manage a period of time longer than 35 seconds. However, being a woman, I can achieve a great deal in 35 seconds, so I stick them onto my face and focus quickly, to the usual no avail, because why? Because, as well as giving me instant arm ache and the beginnings of a shake in my ulna, well, both ulnas to be honest, the flaming glass bit mists up as my hot eyeball challenges the cold lens. Vital seconds pass, as does the large white thing, into the trees that overhang the near shore. Hmmm.

I call it a Snow Goose. It was too big for an eider duck and too small for a swan or a flamingo. Snow Goose it is. There! I feel dead chuffed and highly priveleged and can live this fantasy for days. I saw a Snow Goose today! That’s what I say in the shop to a resounding chorus of envying OOhs and Aahs.

It makes me think. Of how we can see things that aren’t there, and not see things that are there. How an un-misted glass lens can show us something we think we can explain, and how a misted one can talk complete pants to our human brains. When we ‘see’ something through our eyeballs, we bring a process into being. First, we see, then we fix this vision into a place, and then, without any conscious decision, we pad it out with all manner of daftness, imaginings, past baggage, phobias, indoctrinated beliefs and hopes. When I see a beggar on any street, I see someone calling for help, and I will always give something. I follow my own heart in this matter. When another sees the same sad sight, they may feel angry, begin to judge, or see laziness, bad choices, weakness – in other words, they might look down on the beggar as less than human. It’s called ‘perception’ and it is in every one of us, however much inner work we might embark on to learn humility and compassion. We can’t help it. It is part of who we all are.

When I decide, which I sadly do, now and again, that someone else is heading in the wrong direction, I say so. And then I learn a new fact or two about them, and regret, deeply, my hasty judgement. I work on, to soften my perceptions, or, rather, to shut them up, but they can rise unbidden, un-called for, and always at times when I am not mindfully in control of that sneaky little set of wires that run from my brain to my mouth.

One area of perception, that never fails to cause a stooshie, is that of Boundaries. Whether it is between black and white, the Ukraine and England, England and Scotland, or the African States, there is this thing about boundaries that could curdle milk in a nanosecond, one that everyone has an opinion on, based on personal perception. Oftentimes, I hear folk talking heatedly on a ‘boundary’ subject. It can wire up a whole shopping queue once it gains momentum, but what saddens me is that I so often hear not what any individual really thinks, but what someone else has said on tv or written in a newspaper. When you actually consider the other human beings involved in these situations, with only theories posturing as reality, how can anyone opinionate?

My world may be laughably fantasmic to some, even to many, but if we all (and I believe we all do) want a life of peace and neighbourly-ness, then our arms must be open, our hearts too and, one day, our countries. Voltaire said, ‘It is sad that, if we are to be a patriot, we first have to make an enemy of the rest of mankind.’

I think a different way to you, and you, to me. I feel differently about the whys and the hows and the whens of things, but this can either be a glorious Snow Goose pushing through the saltwater of a new tide on a new morning – or, it can be ignored as something I couldn’t quite see, through my glass, and darkly.

December 13, 2013 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 115 Primary Three

Thirty Three years ago this morning, a child was born. A boy. The Third Boy – 3 being the first prime number, the lucky prime, the only prime triangular, the triad, the noblest of all digits, and the only one of five to be born on the island; the only one to spend his first night on this earth in matron’s bottom drawer.

Let me paint the picture……….It was a wild and stormy night (which it was) and I was determined to miss the last ferry. I knew a-plenty about birthing by then, had already had 3 labours (one being the Only Girl) and did not want to be inside a hospital. The first two had been home births and the process is straightforward enough anyway – I mean, there’s only one direction to go down, and all I have to do is swear a lot, push when told to and trust in the doctor and nurse, both of whom I knew well. So, in the middle of this gale, and in the darkness and in the crankitty old landrover with its binder twine door hinges and sheep food in the back, we rattled to the old folks home and Mrs MacFlorrie’s bed. Not that she was sharing with me, you understand, but was, instead, shunted down the corridor to bunk up, temporarily, with another ‘old folk’. That is how it was in the olden days, for we had no island hospital back then.

He was small and stayed that way for a while. They suggested a growth hormone, but we said..

‘Leave him be. When you have this many children, it’s handy to have one you can just pop in your pocket. Whilst other boys are growing and talking about how big they are, Rhua squeezes through the gaps. he is as wiry and as fast as Spiderman, and just as fond of heights. Look at me! he shouts, aged two and half, from half-way up a cliff face, or from the top of the massive old oak tree, and we all do look, just to keep him quiet, and we keep looking, although I must have looked away at least once, as there is another baby on the way.’ (Island Wife Chap 17)

When he came home to Tapselteerie, he spent any sleep times, never longer than 20 minutes, day or night, in the tea towel drawer, whilst I worked in the kitchen. Because the house was so huge, I could never have left him upstairs, just below cloud level, for goodness knows what he might have got up to. He was the one who tipped all liquids and powders from all bedrooms into the loo and mixed up a cauldron of seething bubbles and curious smells. He is the one who left home aged six in the dark of a wild night, with only his toys as luggage. He is the ‘chef’ who signed up for trial of a deep fat fryer, one that arrived in the back of a big lorry. The delivery man did not believe me when I tried to send him away, saying it was a mistake. He would not countenance that he had driven all the way from the depot in Glasgow to this isolated place, with moon rocks and pitfalls and nothing but sheep and heather for days. I had to show him the 6 year old chef, before he would even consider returning to base camp.

It was this third boy who rose from his short sleeps with a head full of ideas, and a deep sense of purpose. I found him once frying bacon on the aga, start naked, aged 2. For our breakfast, he said. He had already laid the table, with brandy, bread, salad cream and red sauce, tonic water and chocolate. It was hard to be cross. How he managed to lift the heavy aga lid, without nipping his manhood in the bud, still amazes me.

I took to sleeping outside his bedroom door, lying across the narrow landing on the servants floor (no servants to be seen) in order to save us all from this boy’s nocturnal ideas and sense of purpose.

When he finally grew into a young man, he hit the world with a force it might not have been ready for. Wherever he went, wherever he worked, he was enthusiastically bonkers, and very successful. And now, as a father and husband, and broker in the flatlands, he still is, but it is not the outward success that matters, but the man he has become. A man I respect, admire and adore. One who makes me laugh, whose heart is huge and strong, who can blag and wind up, who can reach too far, fall down, and get up again in a nanosecond. Although he is born of me, he is himself as are all my kids, and each one of them delights and surprises me.

I remember the illnesses, and the times of trouble. I remember the nights of worry, the fears and hopes, the dreams dying, the prayers a-plenty, but when I look at them, at any of them, I am so very proud. All we ever wanted for our children, was that they find their own way into a fulfilled life. I know this is not a thing that comes gift-wrapped – indeed no,t for it is a process, and a long one, but to see young people on what appears to be the right track, is indeed a blessing for any mother, or father. We couldn’t give them life on a plate, or expensive tuition or finishing school in Switzerland, but we gave them Tapselteerie and we gave them adventures and memories.

‘From the mound of dogs and kit, they(the children) marvel at everything, and, in their marvelling, I can taste the freshness of seeing things for the first time, the elation and sparkle in that seeing, like having lemonade in your veins and butterflies in your head. There are no seat belts in the back of the Landrover, and no law to put them there, so the children bounce and whoop and flip like monkeys, free as air, as the car rocks like a boat in a storm.
Suddenly, my head is bursting. Enough! I roar, causing everyone to freeze mid-flip, and Alex to swerve. He is not pleased.
Why are you shouting? he asks with a frown across his face, deep as the Limpopo River.
I don’t bother to respond, enjoying the sudden silence. Instead, I turn to fluff up a very flat collie and to settle my sons the right way up.
What are you going to spend your money on? I beam at them.
Jake is buying a Lego set, one of those big ones with enough pieces to block the vacuum every week.
Rhua wants an Action man. Well, that figures.
And Solly? Well, Solly wants a gun and chorus.
A gun and chorus?
Yeah! Gun and chorus, like Duncan’s at crayboop.
He is getting upset, as he always does when we have no idea what language he speaks.
Okay, okay Sol, that’s grand. We’ll find one.
Cassie, seeing my predicament, pulls her finger from her mouth.
It’s a dinosaur with flashing eyes. Duncan’s got one and he brought it to playgroups. It’s called a Gunnacaurus.
She says all this in a monotone, staring straight ahead, like a code breaker in a spy movie. I wonder what we would all do without her translation skills.
I bend my head down to hers. Where do we get one? I ask.
She looks at me in puzzlement. A dinosaur shop, she says.
Of course! Silly me. (Island Wife Chap 21)

So, to the First Odd Prime Number I say…….Happy Birthday!

December 10, 2013 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 114 Two Shadows

Well well well – here I sit to tell you that I have done all my Christmas shopping, wrapped it and posted or stored it under the skirts of my easy chairs. When Sula was alive, that would have been impossible for she would have joined them, cooried in to the crackly nest and torn the cheap skinny wrappings into a gorgeous cosy nest. I would have heard her, of course, but probably not in time. I would have grabbed her waggy tail and hauled her out, whence she, astonished and alarmed would have embedded her sharp claws into the soft winciette pajama bottoms or the fine weavings of an expensive cardy, exacerbating the situation skywards and threatening me with spontaneous combustion, for which, at this time of day, there is only one cure. The Chilean syrah.

I am mindful, as I wander into houses where most of the inmates wear very small pants, that their days were mine, once. The only large-panted members of the Tapselteerie clan, numbering one, (that’s me) were far too sensibly grown-up for such fun, hence the elevated size of pant. We, or, rather, I, would never have bothered tiptoeing around by torchlight to rustle, as quietly as possible, under any skirts in search of a label with my name written upon’t. Certainly not. I was the one, with the megaphone and steel toe-caps, who stalked the dark reaches of the baronial mansion house, in search of rustlers. Even the island husband could be caught snooping, although, to be honest, he could, quite easily, and did, lose a chainsaw under a sheet of A4, so he was never the leader in this shenanigan. It seemed to me that everyone worked in secret, as if they didn’t want to be caught by anyone, let alone Miss Trunchbull. I would find them, red-faced and jabbering with guilt, often in gumboots and hand-me-down jama bottoms, pretending to me, their Trunchbull of a mother, that they were looking for a book to read. Like I was going to believe THAT!

And yet, a wistful part of me longed to be them. Being sensible is deathly dull on a good day. As my pant size changed, it seemed I had to become my clothing. As a child, pulling on just something to get me down to my cornflakes was all I cared about. How I looked meant absolutely nothing. I didn’t consider what would happen if I was cold or if my shoes didn’t go with my outfit. I didn’t consider my outfit at all. I just yanked off my nightie and pulled on something a little more robust for my descent into the day. I don’t recall wondering what I might feel like if the milkman caught me without a good 2″ of slap across my face, or if my jumper might be too warm for the time of year. I just got dressed.

Admittedly, there were times, many of them, as my pants got bigger, when my mother might smirk at my bonkers assemblage of gold sequinned jumper over hotpants, but it was only her smirk that upset me, not the clothes upon my back. At Tapselteerie I fussed like a hen over my children’s casual attitude to clothing. Wear a warm jumper out there, I would say, trying to thaw out the collie dog currently frozen to the ground by her girly bits. She only sat down for a minute. But they ran out, wild and skimpily clad into the day, into every day, and there were times I hated my job. My Miss Trunchbull job. At the shore, they swam in the freezing sea any time of the year, emerging sapphire blue and making wonderful percussion with their teeth. I couldn’t even catch their jumping knees to rub them dry. There, I said, now NEXT TIME……….. but next time was just the same as the last and still they laughed at me. I think they probably still do, because I still do it. If they had listened to my fears, they would be locked up by now, terrified by the voices in their heads, portenting doom if they so much as open the fridge.

Now, at my big pant age, I think back and I wonder. What if I had just shut the hell up? Well, I will never know what the answer to that, and I cannot change the past, but I can make a new future for myself. I watch them with their own children, letting them fall, letting them burn a finger or two, warning quietly, then letting go. I watch other people, other nations, like today at Madiba’s memorial service in Jo’burg and I see the wild musical African women, bopping and singing and ululating, and all in very much bigger pants than mine, and I see a new freedom. I also see the stiff backed British sitting with stiff backs and not letting go at all. Well, it isn’t British, is it?

There are times, many times, as I find myself in a train station of grownups, or a shop or just walking down a street, when I have the intense desire to spin around, to begin a song and to sing it right through. Not for an audience to boo or applaud, but just for me. The other day I went out at dusk in Glasgow, to collect something from a shop. As I walked back among other grownups, intent on their mission, their Iphone, their deadline, I had this feeling and just spun around, my arms wide. There was a fingernail moon in a clear cold sky, and, as I walked back feeling very delighted withe myself, and smiling like a loon, I saw two shadows on the pavement.

They were both mine.