Author: judyfairbairns

by

Island Blog – Upright

Although I am loving these crisp cold days, the starry starry nights and that skinny moon, I find myself seeking for light, almost starved of it, and when there are many darkling weeks yet to come. I feast on the tiny upshoots of snowdrops, daffodils and tulips, down on my hunkers and peering like a mole. This morning I was almost upturned as I cautiously moved like a russian dancer, keeping my body solidly above my feets in the sure knowledge that, at my age and alone, I could crash to my arse and not be noticed for days.  I thinked about that. Tomorrow morning I would be softly iced, like a carrot cake, sparkles on my eyelashes and lips, my fingers gnarled white and probably sticking out rudely, knowing me. By the next day, there would be crows, oh that’s it, they’d find me then, but let’s not go there. This is not the right direction. I fed the birds, from my really upright position, schmoozing them so that the daft Jackbird hopped and peeped at me from afar, and his potential missus, brazen and capered with white (an anomaly) shouted at him and came close. She’s no fool that one, and if I can possible save her from Madam Sparrowhawk, I will, although my pounce has never been that accurate, that fast. A robin dunts and dips almost in touching distance, but I make no eye contact, just keep my voice low and musical, soft as a doughnut and as jammy, because I love this engagement of a slippery morning. 

Birds fed and feeding, I watch them twist and spin, the lift and dance of them all entrancing me, so fragile and light. I remember feeling this for myself, sans flight, obviously, feeling as if I could flip any flop and jump any boundary. Perhaps this is how it is when oldness takes over, but I never saw it coming, not ever. And, now, it is here, the wobble and ungait of gait, an unsureness of the space t’ween earth and heaven, and then how to fill it with my spirit as my body becomes my prison. What? No! Bollix to that load of shite, no, no way. What drivel, shrivel, bevel up you old twit and point these thoughts to the recycling bin which, to our villageing delight has finally been collected after weeks of yet another lorry breakdown.

Today I confess I was victim (loathe that word, will NOT be one) to vapid thinks. I resurrected myself, threw up a prayer or two and made ready for the wotwot that comes after I have dripped myself into a cone of tumbeltwist, someone, me, who absolutely WILL spiral out from less than queenly thinks and up, up, up, into the stratosphere, the thinkosphere, the absolute, the wild, the impossible. I’m ready, boots on, earth beneath their tread. Upright.

by

Island Blog – You Are the One

So here we are, again, in a new year, a new thing, a thing we might find weighty in our hands. Look at those hands, the ones that loved, protected, damaged, and controlled. They are your hands. They have immense power and can hold the weight, if lift is our thinking, and it has to be. Those hands need to shift their thinks.  The sink is all around us, the cruelty, the ignorance of so so many others. Recently, I was in the city, for cancer wotwot, and saw the pavement people, everyone walking by, sharp, fast, refusing. I realised that, since Covid, nobody has cash, but that is not ok. So not ok.

I have heard until, until I am fed up of hearing the voices of the ‘rich’, whispering that, if you give, your gift will be spent on drink or drugs. Do not listen. I don’t. And here’s the thing. Nobody on the street is warm, welcomed, fed, cosy. Not one. They didn’t come here from optimum choice, but from a place of loss, one way or another. Giving is what we must do if this broken world is ever to heal. 

Wherever you grow, bloom strong and petal wide, don’t hide, but spread your colour, blue, is it, red, or butter yellow, white? Be right with it, your colour, for it is yours alone. Hold your own. Your ground may be rocky, may be rich and soft, a mountainside, a beach path, garden, river bank. Give thanks for wherever you find yourself. Hold out your petals, let them fly. Reach and reach up to the light, breathe right. Your breath is life, in joy or strife, breathe on, breathe life. In shade or sun, you are the one. Make a difference. Have fun and look around you. Who grows beside or over there? Another soul with hopeful roots, just pushing through in fear, perhaps, a delicate heart, easily broken by careless feet or the lash of punishing rain, only to die. in silence. 

Cry out in anger, but stand your ground, for those who stand will remember those who fall. All of them. And share your light, your bright, your coloured heart, beating yet on the battlefield. Don’t yield, but glow with life, and, tender-fingered, lift a drooping head. Warm a faltering body, say I Am Here, and I will not leave you empty.  Share your mystery, your very soul. Hide nothing, let nothing cold you, hold you fixed in ice.

Notice every season, reason, but not too much. Touch another, lift, don’t drift, for Time moves on, fleeing like a thief in disbelief. Hold each blooming moment, roots in the earth, head in the sky. Let pain go by, toss it to the wind, the changeling wind with stories on her back. Remember this, don’t miss the chance to lead another to the dance. Share your light. Be curious, like Alice, and leave your smile among the trees for bees to honey up and sweeten. Reflect the sun, the rain, the moon, and do it soon, because winter always comes, and for some it never leaves. 

No matter your ground, make it better for your being there. Nourishing, flourishing, sharing, caring, thankfully placed. Just where you need to be. Let laughter fill your throat and let it fly out like birds or butterflies to lift a flagging soul up and out of sadness, to spin the bitter into glitter. A million rainbows lie within you, let them show, because you know that, no matter the chatter, you have the power to choose or lose out. Here. Today. Right this minute. Tick. Tick, Tock, they say, don’t look away, but stay, because this ground needs you and there are seedlings at your feet. 

In shade or sun, You Are the One.

by

Island Blog – Feral Contours

That’s an oxymoron, by the way you academic goonies, but you know I like to play with words and to challenge boundaries. In my contoured life, I was as feral as possible, and deliberately. However, I’m talking about snow just now, not the blanket covering thing that you may know as snow, but the white stuff that drives in on the back of a blustering wind, only to whisper itself into corners and crevices, and then, to melt. I watch the hillsides on the other side of the tidal loch, as the waters barrel in and out, capped today with ruffles of white water, like a line of choir girls in a hurry. Gulls float backwards, the wee birds twink and startle above the feeders and even Madam Sparrowhawk missed today, her skirts flipping about white, feathers in somewhat of a disarray as she sulked atop my berberis. Although I know she needs to eat, I won’t make it easy for her, not with all these miles and miles wide open to her, for she is a she, the fastest bird of prey and horribly accurate. I have watched her close her wings at 80mph to get through a wire fence, then to fill out once again, to flip and level and to grab Jock. Jock is the name of all male blackbirds. I notice that the girls are far quicker to juke away. Much like women.

Back to the snow. It came suddenly and making a hoor of a noise. Actually, it was the wind, the shout and slam of it, suddenly elated with a thousand snowflakes on its back, and laughing at the slamming thing it achieved against all windows and doors. I am sure we were collectively startled, even though a cloudreader would have known what was about to come, the whole flinging aboot of wheelie bins, the tattering of bird feathers, the resigned bend of the big ass pines on the shore below me. I watch the way the snow has stayed. Over the sealoch is the cold place, little sun for months and a frozen promise when, over here, we melt. It isn’t resignation, but just a good choice of position. I can do Dark, but I need light, particularly natural light. I have gone from my home, all wet and leaking and light, to a friend for coffee across the water, and crunched my inappropriate shoes over solid ice. T’is bizarre. 

I look over by, as they say here, and see the snow has painted a new picture. It was just a few hills yesterday, with empty land after felling. Larches still stand, now ghost trees, elevations, dips, wrinkles, brown and more brown plus boulders which sometimes catch a wink from the low sun and rise into a glister of beauty for just a moment. But now there is snowvelt. There is a new land over there, the ridges crisp and with a curious turn this way and that. The forestry lines are ruler straight, pulling up into the bumpy clouds, all shades of grey and quite unsure, it seems, of what to do next or where to go. I see faces in the light touch of the snow painter, here an old man puffing out his last breath, there a child running out to sea, chasing a ball. In one place the snowland is thicker. Why? It wonders me, until I see the stand of evergreens. I think of who might have planted them and why. Stories abound when we are curious and I am always thus. 

We all have to live within contours, some of us more than others, when our sky is grey and our light lightweight. We can think sink or we can rise like a surprise. We can speak out, even as we are hoping our bladder won’t let us down. We can. We are naturally feral. It isn’t any easier for a so called privileged person to find a voice, to speak the truth, to point out the cutaway contours, to definate the self, to see the old man dying, the child chasing a ball out to sea. 

A new year lies ahead. Sounds good at first until the old stuff kicks in. Don’t let it, if it isn’t what you want. Be brave enough to see, to acknowledge and to act. Create new contours, feral, of course.

by

Island Blog – Confoundle

A lovely Christmas, the build up ridonculous for all those who welcome and supply, who think of every moment when slack threatens mood into a twist; who provide and keep providing, always on their feet, with an astonishing wealth of pretty much everything. I was there, a guest, and I enjoyed it all. The winds rose, cirrus clouds capping the sky and I knew, I just knew, my home was further away. I remember the antsy feeling that morning, my son reassuring, as he always does, but nothing stopped my confoundle, my uncertainty, my maybe not getting back home. Ach, I knew I would one day, but they, my kids, had their kids arriving to fill beds the next day, and I had to go.  I am so busy making everyone else easy. It thinks me.

Home now, my own bed and space and. candles and tunes. Gales and stair-rod rains. Stair-rods, old thing, the brass rods that held the steps to the risers. I remember them, remember them being polished of a morning, although not by me. Again, the thinks. Old and new, like this time, this waiting for the bells, as it is on the islands. There will be a dance. I might walk down. We want so much, miss so much, grieve so much, plan so much, love so much.

A confoundle

.

by

Island Blog – Someone, a Smile, Enough

On the spur of the moment, and it felt like it, I made a dash across the water two days ago. Otherwise I would have been stuck, or something like stuck. Instead of being able to celebrate Christmas with a branch of the family tree, and his wife and family, I might have been home alone, and without Kevin to entertain me. I did prepare for the big-ass winds and the faulty ferry situation, I did. I bought a whisky/marmalade cold smoked salmon steak from Tobermory Fish, some wee potatoes from heaven knows where and a pack of frozen peas. I would have made it fun, with or without Kevin, I know I would.

But, thanks to Someone, in this case my sea captain son who knows all about winds and faulty ferries, I dashed early. My ticket, also faulty and dated for Christmas Eve, was accepted and I ran down the ramp in the rain and wind blast and prayed for arrival. I have, in the past felt this, only to have a heart sink as the ferry turned back because landing was not possible. I can remember other ghastlies in my life and that is right up there.

I’m here, warm and welcomed and surrounded with very small someones, each one full of their own angsts, needs, troubles and dreams. It reminds me, although I find myself a tad distant nowadays, not really understanding the language, the lifestyle. I am a granny now, older, but still a Someone. We have walked into the blast, through puddles and a bit of rain but not much, woolie bonnets on, boots afoot, conversation and song flying up into the sky. Mince pies, nourishing soup, a visit to the food shop, encounters in doorways, smiles and felicitations exchanged, trolleys bumped, the indie dash down the aisles for chocolates, treats, more bacon. So many Someones on the way, to bump against, smile at and notice, Every single one of these Someones are Someone. I never forget that. All those we might not notice, those who serve us day in, day out and over years. Do we even ask their names? They are all Someone.

I have learned, over longtime, to separate the Someones from the fog of controlled humanity. I lived through many culture changes, many wars, many geographical border swings and roundabouts. A swirl, a confoundment and not just for me, me, over here in the West with no apparent threat. I think of the Someones caught up in it all, lost, wondering and wandering and I just hope that Someone will see them as Someone. 

All it takes is a smile, eye contact, a tiny hesitation and a hand held out.  So much of enough.

by

Island Blog – Tree Talk

The Poppygon days lead me on. Although I know I decided right, I question. Oh holy shit, I’ve done this question-self thing for as long as I could pull up my own socks, and it tires me. I take the lead on this. 

This is nearly Christmas. I so love Christmas. I hate, big time, the falseness that brings wide-eyed and believing little people before a “Santa” with a ghoulish beard (obviously stuck on) and a wrong voice. They have no way to process that. Just saying.

I waked today beneath trees which squewed off a branch or two in the gales of late. I looked at the twist of the break, had a look and was thankful I missed the fall.

I was going to family on Sunday. The wind is up. I go tomorrow. We, I, have always lived in this uncomfortable dynamic. Merry Christmas to you all, with my love. xxx

by

Island Blog – The Present

There you are, on a train, a bus, a plane, heading to in-laws, friends, relations, and with so many thoughts in your head. The delay on the train, bus or plane. Do iI want to be doing this, going there, at all? The confuddle rising in your head. What will I find beyond what I found before? How will I be judged, accepted? Do I have the right gifts, or, horribly, the absolute wrong gifts, and how will I feel if I see that disappointment? Oh I remember all of this.

And then I grew up. Took me 50 odd years btw. Christmas is not about scoring, even if it still sings that song. I wonder if, with old age, I learn things I wish I had learned at 40,50. In the childhood of a parental life, in the scurvy of tradition within a family, we can become lost, feeling fat and inconsequential and almost invisible. I remember that, too.

Thankfully, I am now beyond all of this, but, and but, again, I still want to give the right thing. This year I cannot, like most of us. I do think of those young parents with wide-eyed children who hope for a new bike, an iPad, roller blades or whatever is the thing out there now, and I wince for you. You know about January and February bills, you know the cold, the trimester of the year, all ice-toothed and with no compassion.

But, and however, for now, we have Christmas and it’s all about lights and fun and Father Cristmas. The aftermath will be as it is. Let us dance in the Present. Salut. x

by

Island Blog – Alpha Zeta

I quote……’ What’s the greatest thing a woman should learn? That, since day one, she already had everything she needs within herself. It’s the world that convinced her she did not.’ Rupi Kaur

Trouble is, we, born with vaginas listen to worldspeke. We do, and it can confound and punish and confine us. I so wish I was 20 now and not 70, because I would have been a frickin menace. I had, I confess, hoped, that somewhat more of a freedom would have become a norm as my own daughter moved into the world of man control, and it has changed, but not enough. Perhaps, as our planet sucks her gasping breaths, the old structure might just collapse into a new alphabet. 

It oftentimes struggles me that the allowability to shout out truths only seems to come at the time when there is a load of ‘there,there’ in our ears. We can be ridiculous, inappropriate. How come it’s not ok when we are 15? The world says, ‘It was the Time’ as if that makes it alright. They turn away at that point, I have watched them do just that, as whoever ‘they’ are, or ‘is’ move or moves onto the next painting, choice of pudding. I have felt absent all my life, as if the norms within which I lived missed letters or numbers, as if the alphabet and the math would never find solution. I still do, but in the now of my now, because I have become an old frickin menace, with a vagina, I can say what I like. I have seen what I have seen over 70 years, and I am often pissed off with the whole alphabet. A is alpha. Z is Zeta. Are we saying that one is greater than the other? Are we even bothering with all the letters in between as if they have no significance? Think of the in-betweens in your life. Do it now. Those sitting on the pavement in the face of a night right there. Think of the waitress who is slow to serve you because she is on minimum wage, feeding kids and holding tight to her meagre home. Those, as you walk by on the way to a concert, theatre, a film, dinner, where you plan champagne, a proposal, those who unnerve you, swerve you. 

Shouting out is good, but that way of thinking can become a thing. What we need, and I hesitate to use that word (history), is inclusion, (too wordy), love. Might we forget the old alphabet and move, regardless of letters, word shapes and sentence approval? All good things are wild and free. (not my words) ‘The fire inside me can either warm or destroy. The choice is entirely my own.’ Thoreau. So much of life is about words, the way they are stroyed, the random way they stray, the weight of them as they land. Words. All constructed and constricted by the alphabet. 

I have learned this. I can go from A to Z without the rest of the alphabet knowing. Again, not my words. Writers, painters are nothing if they don’t pinch bigger ideas.

by

Island Blog – Lightmare and My Wee Sister

I feel absent from myself. Unnerving, at best, but this is where I am, finally alone here in the placeI love best, alone and just me and that’s that on the whole alone thing. I had family, a husband, dogs, distractions, a massive to-do list and now……..nothing. Well, not nothing, because I still have me, and my kids somewhere out there busy with their busy lives, but in the day to day living of this alone thing, t’is just me. I love it and don’t like it at all, in wavy curves, an anomaly, a conundrum, an apogee, something wordy, anyway. But, and there is always one of those, life lives herself on and through me and I am glad of it, for she still wakes me, aways before Dawn even gets her pyjamas off. Life, the liver, the giver, the one who (not that/grammer, people) shiggles me into life and out into the glory of herself, no matter the utter shit of whatever is going on. And that, is a gift, even if the me of me is absent and silent, lost and alone. The wotwot of this place presents, not as breakfast in the dark alone, again, but also as a rocket up my arse. I feel it. I invite it because without that rocket I could easily fall. I have always walked on the edge of things, felt the pull of madness, of the tipping that might take me over the edge, and I did look down, I did, and was tempted, but no, t’is not for me. I know this edge, my bare toes feeling their way along the ridge, the cusp, and there’s a thrill. This place. I can see others come here, chaotic and unthinking, and I can be the thinker. I can hold and hug and comfort and stable. I can question and settle with them on a rock and tell them no, not now. Let’s go for a coffee. I know a place.

All of that might sound weird to those who never go into the depths of themselves. I know it. But I do, and I know so many others do, even if I don’t know them. We appear as chaos, and we are chaos, but in the understanding of chaos, there is a resolution. Chaos cannot sustain longterm. It will always resolve, and into something beautiful. The waves of the ocean speak volumes, they flow and crash, pull out and into something much greater, the snatch of the wild, the moon, the winds, the everything we cannot, nor will ever explain.

I watch my gnarled fingers dance the qwerty keyboard. They look wizened and yet still dance. Words still flow down my arms, the dance begins and, again, I am absent from myself. I chuckle. I have always been this way, and, even without family, husband, and now, faithful dog, I am still me, like me or not. So, in this state I drive to the harbour town for this and that. As I swift down the curve and into the downfall of one of the two downfalls, I spot a lightmare. It is just after nine am, (I refuse to say ‘in the morning’) and these multi-coloured lights are abundant and flashing. I wonder if they did this all night. I wonder about the other residents in that big block of flats. I move on, and by. And, i am thankful that, in my absolute solitude, one that trips to cusp me and often, is my home with no lightmare.

Thank you, my wee sister.

by

Island Blog – Zeitgeist

It’s been five days. I miss and I don’t miss, the Miss. I miss her excitement at seeing me, even if I had just been away for a pop to the shop. I miss her huge brown eyes, looking, looking up at me, for reasurrance, guidance, love. I miss the kisses, cuddles and the way she spoke to me, opening her mouth to emit wild sounds, upward inflections, disappointment in me, curvaceous lifts and falls to communicate her needs. I miss the way she hurtled in crazy dashes around the rooms, up the stairs and down again with a bear in her mouth, and all of a sudden, as if the joy of living just got the better of her. I miss hearing her tappy feets on the floor, her skittering and slides, her absolute ability to live in the moment. Her zeitgeist.

I don’t miss the wakeful nights of late, as what heralded dementia began a heavy tread across the delicate tipperies of her brain. I don’t miss the tension in my gut every time I went somewhere for more than 2 hours. I don’t miss her barking, even at my voice as I questioned and answered myself, or opened a door that squeaks (they all squeak), or Alexa suddenly burst into life for no damn reason. I don’t miss the anxiety of walking in the fairy woods, wondering if I might meet another dog, another human attached, one that the Miss might rush up to, barking like a forest of trees in a state of war. She never volunteered attack, but it might have seemed that way.

However, now I walk without her. No more sticks to throw and to chase, no more of her fun and she always wanted fun, play, nonsense, games, sparkles. Even when the mud chased us, the stones wobbled us, the weather bashed us about, she, naked, me, trussed up like a polar star, we, we, we, had laughing fun, returning drenched and shivering and with mud up to our bellies. Still I walk. I drove to the most beautiful beach in the world alone and in fronds of rain, soft it was and gentle, the waves loud and I could see why. Out there, way out there, the crash of wild spontaneity, the sudden, created a dynamic random percussion, its voice travelling many miles. My wild, my ocean, my home. There was nobody else on that wide curve-mouth of a beach, one that once knew families that lived off whelks, seaweed, seabirds; one that held, momentarily, the ship that became a coffin for those ‘cleared’ from their ancient lands. I stand awhile in the soft wet, tip my face up to receive it, feel the cloud-cleansing. I recognise this place, this place of seeing what was, feeling it, and of moving on. A zeitgeist. To accept, or to absorb, accept and engage with the spirit of time. Zeit, means time. Geist means ghost or spirit. And, although the term, as we know it now, refers to an era, a culture, I claim it as mine.

The Miss is gone. I am here. My zeitgeist.