Author: judyfairbairns

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Island Blog – Amen to that

I walk out, barefoot, onto the morning grass, feel the cool bite of it, the ice chill thrill up my legs. It’s early morning and the birds already line the staves, making what sounds like the beginning of a piece of music. I’m coming, I tell them, armed as I am with seed, with hemispheres of nourishing fat. I watch the sun lift from his eastern bed, the clouds turning fringe-pink, the blue mountain defined as if by a black marker. I see late bats scoot through the dawn, a pair of early ravens cawk overhead, a five of Brent geese loop around to land with a scoosh of bright white spume into the sea-loch. An ordinary morning, for me at least.

As the sun lifts higher and the cumulus resolves into cotton wool, I see the beech trees yellow into gold. The sky is stratus with high wind, but down here we are calm. It isn’t often like this. Mornings like these just beg to engage with us, beg us not to waste a single moment at the controlling end of a hoover because the birds are waiting for an audience, the puddles slack and dull and just longing for a jumping foot to cause exciting chaos. Do we ever think of that? Do we understand our own importance in the jungle of nature, that a path wants to be walked along, a sky craves our attention, a bird wants to be heard and not just by another bird?

I hear the stags roar across the hillsides, not visible to me but their voices are, that fight for dominance, for life itself. I hear the rally cars out there, the roar of them, the lights, the speed as they take the island roads by storm. I hear voices in the village shop, the words flying up from somewhere in between fresh veg and chilled goods, the lilt of a conversation, the murmur of loneliness from a single shopper reading his list out loud. Are you lonely? Are you alone? Two very different questions. I wish a rally driver the very best of luck tonight and he smiles as wide as a whole country. Thank you! he says. What number is your car? I ask, having heard it roar past my door, all throaty as an old whisky drinking rock singer, a few times over the past few days. It’s bright blue and covered in stickers and he, the driver, is young and full of spiritful life. I know nothing of him but I do know his smile and his response and that what I suddenly said meant something to him. We all need to be heard.

Before each rain shower, and there are always those, I watch the fall streaks, the virga , and I marvel. As they dance across the sea-loch like ethereal ghost dancers, I wonder how many people missed seeing them; on the way to work, dealing with recalcitrant children, caught up in the gazillion immediates of an ordinary life. It thinks me. If any didactic had ‘encouraged’ me to take time out, as a young mum, to really see, no, to REALLY see, the wonders of the great Out There, I would have whacked them in the chops. I would have screamed ‘ Can’t you see how impossible my life is right now!’ And that scream never deserved a question mark.

So, there is something about being older, about having the time and the head space to connect with something greater than myself. Another thing about being older is this, and I quote from Oscar Wilde, even though he says it with more drama than I might :-

‘The tragedy of growing old is not that one is old, but that one is young.’

And I say Amen to that.

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Island Blog – The I and the We of it

I listen to how people talk, their use or misuse of grammar (thanks Dad) and how confusulating the whole thing is these years. I suspect the rebellion against the structure that began in my childhood, now a very distant memory, those days when syntax, sentence construction and punctuation moved like a rainbow over the settled earth of academia, causing a grandiose upset. It was needed, even if I am oftentimes huffing like Hogwarts train over the rickety bridges now connecting the old acceptable to the new ‘anything gose, or is it goes’? Mostly I love it, even though I find my old fingers snatching for words that nobody ever uses anymore. The rhythm and beat of new language is, if we choose to engage with such a ‘new’, both exciting and inevitable. At least, I tell myself in my huffing days, at least I knew the beauty of fine language, well placed commas and how to spell Chiaroscurist.

However it has always been the pronouns that bothered me. In my young recalcitrant days of frustrated rebellion, listening to the Beatles singing about the Sun and Here it Comes, I was reliably informed that to say, ‘I’, was arrogant, challenging, selfish. ‘We’ is how it’s done. It was perfectly fine to say They, We, Them, (although here I confuse pronouns) Us (ditto) and You. Don’t even go there with that one. It is often considered aggressive. There was, and still is, a warm hot milk thing about hiding behind backstage pronouns. Employing them allows our deodorant to remain effective. Moving on.

I hear couples use the We. A lot. We go here, we go there. I get that. But when I hear that We like this and don’t like that, my ears get indigestion. I can hear the gurgle of rebellion and the acid of warning. As long as the strong ‘I’ is lost in the ‘We’ a trumpet should sound in the soul, loud and acid, because one day the ‘I’ will struggle for breath.

Keep your ‘I’. No matter parental teaching, no matter the warm, honeyed, seduction of the ‘We’. I know it well, loved it, was warmed and honeyed by it and I am not saying it did me wrong. (sorry Dad) But, had I known, had I been taught, that the ‘I’ is powerful, beautiful, important, back in my youth, I believe the rebellion might have been better informed, better educated in a kindly and more gentle way. I hope our children learn how to see the one as a valuable person, no agenda no gender judge, just who they are. My prayer. Don’t wake thinking ‘we’. Think ‘I’ and then study and learn and listen.

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Island Blog – The Dance Ahead.

That’s the Lonely banished. It took a while. I had to wrestle this demon to the ground and, although my spirit is willing, my teeth and claws still in situ, my body is a bit wonky-chops at times. I managed it, nonetheless, holding down the limbs of it, all flailing whack and kick, its big mouth wide open and full of unhelpful words such as Fail, Stuck, The End, Best You Can Hope For, etcetera. Phooey, said I, blasting breath into its face, because I plan to have fun from now on, no matter my age or situation, circumstances be damned! The Lonely finally gave in, I felt it soften in defeat, lifting myself off its grabby little body to watch it slink, yes slink, out of the door, last seen heading towards the village. I did give it the bus fare to Faraway, however. I’m not a mean woman, after all.

Since its departure I have dived into a whole lot of exciting things, such as hoovering my floors in a dance of feet and nozzle, made hummus, walked miles and sat myself sitting on a stone bridge that affords me sight of the old days. This inlet of water led out to years of exciting sea-ventures in search of whales, puffins, shags, guillemots, kittiwakes, porpoise, dolphin and gannets, to name but a few. This inlet kept our boats safe from the mighty, and bullying, blast of Atlantic fury. I remember the boats bucking like broncos on their tethering, my hair, when I had any, flying in the wind, my ears ringing from the cold. I remember the trees bending in obrigation, root strong, the hazels as bow-backed old women, saving everything that grew inside their motherly protection from a spectacular crash-bang. No greater love……….

As I walk with my memories, the good ones finally rise to the surface, delighting me. I had forgot them, I confess, but I so wished for them to return. All I could see were the dementia years and the decline before that, for I know it is true that what began as wild love and unstoppable hope morphed from exciting plans such as ‘where shall we eat tonight?’ to ‘Did you put the bins out and if not WHY NOT?’ Or, ‘It’s YOUR turn to collect the kids, bath them, read the story, wash up, cook (arf), walk the dog, do the weekly shop.’ It comes to us all. Surviving such a disappointing change and remaining together is a sign of strength; learning how to dance it in a different way, to make it fun, to laugh together about the whole daft parabola of a shared life is genius. I like that word most of all when it applies to a shared and connected forward motion. It is a life changer for everyone involved, kids, outer-space family members, each other. Did we manage that, I wonder, just as a lone stag bursts from the trees. I was so caught up in my parabola/genius thingy that I gasped and stopped dead. We eyed each other, this young 6-pointer and I with no points at all. Those brown velvet eyes, the stand of its powerful fleet legs, the proud of its neck. It was only moments, but we shared those moments. Then it was gone, like the wind, becoming the wind.

Back home to hoovered and well-danced floors, I checked in all the rooms for the Lonely. No sign but a thought flitted about me like a butterfly, beautiful and fleeting. T’is this. What brings in the Lonely? It isn’t that I hate living alone, my life full of choices sans explanation, justification, apologies. I am loving all of that. And then it came to me, the answer. I am addicted to love and not in absentia, but in persona. In order for me to thrive and love life I need to love. Then a second thought breezed in. If there isn’t a person right beside me, that doesn’t mean I am deprived of the opportunity to find and to feel love. I just have to learn a new way to feel love. I can love the moments, noticing everything around me. I can love my children and their children actively through texts and calls. I can love a morning, a slow afternoon, the catch of light and the soft fall of the dark. I can love myself and that’s always the hardest thing. I can love the chance that I will encounter something wonderful just by believing that it is out there somewhere so that all I need to do is to build on that belief whilst keeping myself in trim for the dance ahead. And when the Lonely comes back, I will be ready.

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Island Blog – The Lonely and a Rose

It hits just like that. It doesn’t matter that I have enjoyed two wonderful holidays with my beloved children. Those times appear to count for nothing against the weight of Lonely, who comes unbidden, unsought and quite devoid of explanation. She, Lonely, requires no justification it seems. She just barrels in as I awaken into a lemony dawn. What is wrong with me, I ask? Yesterday’s dawn woke me warm and smiling, ready for another day irrespective of its ordinariness, its widow’s weeds, the ones I dig up each morning to see once again clear ground. I was in sync with it, my keep on keeping on thing strong in my mind and body. What is different this morning?

Everything. I feel like a rope has been cut and not by me, the hold that holds me to life, to hope. I fly out, flailing, fearful and with no idea where I may land, and, worse, no care of landing or landing at all. I dress, down the stairs, make coffee, everything as usual. The lemony light lifts into morning. I hear thunder, see lightning, watch birds fly backwards, catching their tiny claws on feeders, swinging like One, Two, Three and Off! Just like yesterday. I consider my tasks for the day, see the floors need sweeping, know the wood needs chopping. I make and eat breakfast, select an audio book to entertain, feed the dog, let her out, all the usual but today I am pushing against a huge weight. I turn to look at it, at her. Who are you? I shout, because I can shout now and whenever I feel like it. There is no answer. I continue. You are well over two years old, no, you are well over fifty years old. Why are you still here and where do you hide during the times I really believe I am moving beyond your control? Still, no answer.

I begin to whine. I can hear it in my voice and I do not do whining out of choice. But here I am whining. I tell her I am doing all I am taught to do. Connection. Making decisions. Making journeys alone. Reading endless books on How to Make Sense of Loneliness. I practice daily, no, hourly, gratitude. I notice every leaf, every change on my walks. I celebrate the life I have, the life I had and I work hard on understanding and releasing my past. And still you come. Why?

Wrong question. I know it before it ever leaves my mouth. I turn away from my questions, my whining and my fight against Lonely. I sit and watch the sky, the cloud shift, the travel of light. Although it doesn’t feel like enough, I decide it is enough. It isn’t, but it helps to just give in to it. If I logic my feelings, I will always be responding like a fool. Feelings are feelings and logic is logic. But I do realise something in my sitting-ness. I don’t ask for help at times like this. So, why don’t I? This ‘why’ question deserves an answer and I have one. Aside from the fact that I have dealt with loneliness, trauma, doubt, despair, loss, anger, resentment and blame for decades, I have always found when reaching out for help, a fixer and I don’t need fixing. I need a friend to smile kindly, to know they don’t know what I know and to stick beside me as I falter, fall, fail and flail; when I have nowhere to land and don’t care; when my day is as long as a year and when all my fears surround me like a gossip’s whispers, menacing, fleeting and invisible. I just need a hand held out, no agenda, no words from another’s mouth. Perhaps that is why I am so resistant to asking for help. I don’t want a book club, a retreat, a walking group or any suggestion of a moving forward that works for that person, the one who is not me, has not lived my chaotic life, who has not survived a deal of trouble.

Last night, a dream.

I watched his shadow in the garden of my mind. He picked a rose and held it out to me. I moved to take it, even though we both knew that Life cannot meet Death, even for a rose. In the morning light I found it on the grass, dappled with dew.

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Island Blog – Playing with Autumn

Yesterday, in the strong sunshine, I decided to clean my windows. Actually it was they who decided because I realised the whole world could have ended and I, within my four stone walls and filthy windows, remained oblivious. I scurried to the high shelf of eco cleaning thingummies, grabbed the window one and set to. This task is almost at the top of my Most Boring Job list so it is always essential to strike without too much thought when such an impulse impulses me. I worked on the big picture window, relieved to note that the world was and is still in situ. Moving on to the conservatory, another 8 big windows, I sprayed and scrubbed and wiped with eco cloths in an eco dance of considerable arm rotation accompanied to a timpani of snorts and puffs complete with staccato swearwords. Now it is done. Well, the downstairs is done. Upstairs can wait now that I am assured all is still standing out there.

Then comes this morning, blown in early by a massive hooligan punching well above his grade. This is Autumn! I yelled through the back door as I wheeched out the unwilling dog, as if Autumn gave a monkeys when she drenched me with a blast of heavy rain. This heavy rain thing went on all morning. My wheelies danced off down the track and the bird feeders swung pendulums, throwing birds, nuts and seed into the wild and volatile air. I lit the fire, made breakfast and then, as the dawn light dawned, looked up at my windows. I could see less than yesterday, much less. Each pane was a swirl of greasy mist. I confess I swore at the ineffectiveness of Eco products wishing and wishing that I still lived in the fluffy world of decliningplanet ignorance, when products I will no longer buy, nor name allowed minimum arm action, less cloths and marvellous results. I spent the day inside this harrumph, distracting myself with an audio book, my sewing project, locating a gather of buckets for the leaks and performing a merry sweeping out of water from the flood in my garage to the fullvolumeup strains of Del Amitri. Then I put my specs on. I should have done that yesterday. The Eco product I used to clean my windows is not for windows. Not even at a pinch, for windows. Not even “I’ve nothing else, this will do’ for windows. Never for windows. I look at my faithful windows who, in the main, keep out all blattering hooligans, and I feel, I honestly do, an apology rushing into my mouth and not just for the windows but for all the Eco products that sit on my high shelf. I said so. I will need to deal, re-deal with the swirling mist of my own making, at some point but not today. Today I laugh at me and my spec-lack mentality and it thinks me of the olding years. The way I refuse to concede to any sort of perceived decline, the way I forge on against hooligans and the reading of small print in my ‘show’ to myself that I am NOT DONE YET. It chuckles my children, this mindful flailing against what seems to be receding and I honestly believe they admire it. I am not alone in this and that chortles me, uplifts me, tells me there are so very many who are happy to make fools of themselves in the autumn of our lives when hooligans blatter, when leaks appear, when spec-lack alters the truth of something. In short, it makes life fun in a way we never knew before. We had observed it for sure but now it is ours to own and to play with.

I’m playing.

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Island Blog – Nothing Else Matters

Well hallo! I have, as you may realise, been awol for a time on two very different holidays, both set in place with purpose in mind. I had become reclusive, my confidence shot and with a strong need to hide at home. I understood the feelings, owned them as an integral part of grieving. I gave myself two years which felt like a big chunk of life at the outset, an empty swathe of minutes, hours, days and uncomfortable months during which I determined to heal. Gradually I progressed from distractive actions, sweeping the floor being my only achievement for one long and empty day, into the dance I now live as a completely new woman. Now I can sweep all the floors before breakfast or not at all if the very thought sets my eyes a-rolling. I have choices now and I like choices whereas they scared me not so long ago.

So, off I pop, over on the ferry and onto the bus for Glasgow airport. Prior to boarding said bus I met a smiley woman in the waiting zone (used to be called a bus shelter) who proffered a cheery ‘Ola’. Ola, I smiled back. Espagnol? Si, she said and then walloped into at least 3 paragraphs of Spanish chat. I indicated that I spoke almost no Spanish as she spoke almost no English. Nonetheless we managed a lively exchange of words, employing much theatre. I discovered she was moving home to Madrid and she discovered I was heading for Mallorca to visit one of my sons. She asked, in Spanish, how many ‘Ninos’ I had. I proudly announced that I had ‘cinquecento’. Her eyes grew wide along with her smile and she punched the air. I was obviously quite remarkable, not least because ‘cinquecento’ means 500. As we boarded the bus, she indicated that I had left my suitcase, mobile phone and purse on the pavement. I had done the same outside the island booking office and on the ferry which might have wobbled me had I not an innate sense of fun plus an excellent and random support team to keep me connected to my luggage. I realise these helpful folk were watching me and probably clocking that I was, at best, bonkers, at worst mildly dangerous. I made a note to keep a close eye on both myself and my luggage thereafter.

The journey was easy and pleasant and the welcome delightful. A week in the sunshine with family, in and out of the sea, up and down on school runs, garden games and a lot of happy chatter has left me with the warmest of memories. Sun hot on my back, the blue sky, warm sea and skittering children, the taste of salt on my skin, all so uplifting. Home again, complete with luggage, and I had two days to turn around before the next adventure, a 6 night cruise from Oban to Inverness through the Caledonian Canal with another son as captain. Very different frock assemblages required plus socks and a beanie and boots and leggings for the crispy autumn chill which I would obviously feel more sharply after the 32 degree heat of late. It was a wonderful time. http://www.hebridescruises.co.uk provide an exceptional standard of comfort and luxury. The crew are tight knit, full of fun and chuckles whilst working very hard to make sure every detail is attended to. Needless to say I became the clown on board. It is my gift to give, my love of people and my greatest pleasure is to make everyone smile and laugh. We were a happy team, adventuring on shore for guided walks, sharing the hot tub late in the afternoon with a glass of Prosecco, dining on exquisite meals, sharing stories and experiences and little glimpses into our ordinary lives.

And now I am home again, refuelled, renewed, ready for anything, even the irritating things, the sad times, the moments of deflation, the days of rain, the season turning into a taste of winter. Funny how stepping out, getting away and hearing other stories of other and very different lives can change perception, even a whole outlook on life. I know now that I can travel solo and return solo. I know that my home will still be here, my little dog happy and loved, my opportunities for adventure just waiting to be noticed and brought into the light of a new life. I am changed by change, by the experiences, the people, their voices, smiles, eye light and stories. I will remember it all, them all, catching a single moment in my mind, something said, something gifted, perhaps something sad or sore, and I will know that each time I step out and away, no matter where or when, I will return with my luggage, yes, hopefully, but with much more and none of the latter weighs a damn thing, yet it is more precious than anything I ever bought or owned. These encounters are free. These encounters are with people and people are the only ones who can touch a heart. In fact, had I succeeded in leaving my luggage on some random pavement, I would have laughed, probably out loud, because the adventure would still have lifted me high above myself, my worries and frustrations, my grieving boo-hoos, returning me home lighter and brighter and all because of people.

In short, nothing else matters.

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Island Blog – Curious Anticipation

Just back from Mallorca with a tan. Of course, the tan means little as it will fade in days, but, like everything transitory in life, there’s a So What in my mouth. Anything on the outside of me is transitory, the way my wrinkles wrinkle, the clothes I wear, the shoes on my feet, the food I buy, the pictures on my wall and so on and so forth and fifth and sixth. What matters, what I bring home with me on the plane, the bus, the taxi, the train and the ferry is all held warm and precious within, and within is never transitory unless I choose to let it go. It thinks me.

With my son, his wife, their girls, their lifestyle from dawn to bedtime, I learned how they live. I watched the dynamics, the flymanics, the rise and lift of a life I will never live and never did. I am a generation away from such a life. My own knew zip of mobile phones, television, video games, pink duplo princess blocks, Ubers and datelines. It was simpler, yes, such a life, but also intensely frustrating as if we, still catching buses and fumbling for pennies knew somehow that the light would come someday. And it did. As I watched my grandgirls know their way around all of this, effortlessly, I happily sat back to watch. It was a bit like a movie, however I am content to watch it all unfurl. I don’t know the language of this new generation, this new country, but, to be honest, I really don’t mind because it gives me the chance to ask them questions and questions always teach the questioner, if that person is really listening. I never ever thought of myself as a paid up member of a previous generation but here I am as if blown in on the twist of a windshift. Just like that. I smile at the thought because now I have a choice. I can recede into curlers and pacamacs or I can pull out all my stops, thus allowing the starts to, well, start.

I set off with a bullish bravado, one I had to pump up every few minutes as if it was always threatening to deflate. It did take me a couple of days to reset myself, to pull my confidence up like Peter Pan’s shadow until it fit me like a second skin. I was happy to play safe whilst the girls were at school, their parents working, to stay home with the dog, the cats and the terrapin. But the urge is there like a slowburn in me, to rise to rise from who I was as a goodly wife to just me, even if that thought is terrifying; was terrifying. Once I ‘did it’ as my youngest grand girl would say, I had no way out of the didding it thingy. I am so not going to fail myself now, nor them. Apparently I have a future, something I never considered over the last two years. In fact I could see nothing but mist, curlers and bed by 7pm. My visit to Mallorca changed that. Not only did I ‘did it’, I also returned home with an inner smile because having stepped out of the sensible clogs of wifedom, I realise there are high heels out there. I doubt I will ever wear them but the sass they show me lifts my woman heart and I see now that it doesn’t matter how old I am, I can still show my outside with a new confidence and, better, the outside is teaching the inside of me. I may not understand this generation, nor its language, but I can enjoy it, laugh at my mistakes, watch them laugh at me and within that lovely picture frame, I can be present.

And this is so very good. My mental heels are on and I am walking tall with a thank you to my past, a smiling engagement to my present and (for the first time) a curious anticipation for my future.

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Island Blog – Fin Whale and a Change in Thinking

Fin Whale. All 75ft of itself, not that I saw it and even my translation from metres to feets may be dodge. Never trust me on math nor on absolute truth as I am wont to make things more magical than they are according to those who do know math and don’t know magic. Humpback too, big sassy tail holding, holding, almost waving before slipping into oceanic depths. Because my sons have learned cetacean ethics from their dad, they are utterly respectful around anything wild. Stay back, cut the engines, settle, wait and hope. No push, no ‘we only have fifteen minutes’ thinking; either you choose to come and visit, or you don’t; after all, you have your own agenda and yours is all about survival, about food source, procreation, intelligent selection whereas we up here aboard this delicious and luxurious boat complete with skipper, professional chef and guide are as nothing in the above of your life, the minute by minute tensions of such. What do we know? Nothing. So we wait, we invite with respect and no expectations.

This huge whale did come in, was curious, eyed those high above on the superly polished teak deck, slid beside the boat (dwarfing it) and changed the lives of everyone aboard. I have seen this before, way back in the days of Tapselteerie, on Alpha Beta, RIP, when nervous visitors stepped aboard in the morning and almost flew off board on their return, breathless, sun-caught, eyes wide as planets, unable to process an encounter with a whale. Is it that we so infrequently, if ever, have such an opportunity? I guess, yes. But once seen, everything changes because once seen cannot be unseen. It can be forgot, eventually, if refusal to challenge the mundane and ‘so in need of the road less travelled’ opportunity, but I reckon that over the years when the old sea-dog ran whale-watching trips, bringing in students from universities studying geology, marine science, photography, ecology, biology and all the other ‘ologies’, he raised the bar.

Our sons continued his work, respectful ethics at the core, finding wildlife out there and ‘out there’ encompasses hundreds, more, nautical miles in all weathers. Sons go offski into other things but there is one still working the Hebridean seas, continuing the line of respect and strong with it. No matter how much pressure from longing visitors, he will not invade wild space. This son, now a captain for http://www.hebridescruises.co.uk works in the way of the way. I say it like this because it means respect for all ways. It wonders me, a lot, that we cannot seem to respect all ways on the land, those with cultures we don’t understand, skin that isn’t the same colour as our own, beliefs that don’t conform with ‘what we know and believe’. Shame. If we could just be curious and respectful instead of fearful and defensive, we might find a gentle synergy. However, as long as the overland fight continues, I cannot see respect for all ever being taught beyond primary school.

Out there may be just a holiday and a life changing one at that. I have been there many times but never far enough out to see fin or humpback. No matter because a minke whale was more than enough for the seeing and especially when an intelligent skipper cut the engines and told everyone on board not to move, not to speak. Every vibration is felt by the whale. Be open. Mindfully send out your invitation. Wait, watch, breathe. The gift of an encounter, chosen by the wild creature, is a mind blow. Suddenly you feel very small indeed and so very the receiver of a gift, one no parent, no Santa could ever bring into your life for this is a gift like a dart to your heart and that particular dart leaves a wound, one that can only heal by a change of thinking, of direction.

And, no matter how perfect a life (if such exists), a change in thinking and direction is always a good thing.

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Island Blog – Shadow, Biting Ants and Shoulds

The sun is lower in the sky. I know this from the dapples cast along the track. This is the time of year when shadows become more evident. I don’t want to step on them. I stop and stand to watch the way they shimmy in the light breeze, shifting shapes like a moving work of art. As I move on, butterflies flit across my walking, fritillaries, peacock, black harlequins, painted lady and even a red admiral. They flow through the sunlight alighting on scabious, moon something, meadowsweet, supping the last drink of nectar before the season snatches the bar away, pulling the flowers back down to rest for another year. Skitterbugs buzz and hum, scoot and lift around me. I don’t know their names, there are so many. Some hover, some whine, but all come close to check me out. I don’t swat. I say hallo you. Everything and everyone wants to be acknowledged after all.

Down to the shore of memories. I hear the memoric voices raised in excitement, a whale watching adventure ahead. I think I might have to push through the gorse but someone has scarped a space enough for a human to pass through without a single scratch. I see the water appearing long before I reach it. Low tide, new moon, a good time for the oyster farmers to be out on the shore, tending their cages. They have worked here for days, I heard the rumble of tractors, the lift of male voices on the breeze for a few days now and they are here again. The gorse pods pop as I walk through a canopy that once was an irritation to my feet. How quickly pass the years. I stand to watch a pod explode, sending seeds up into the air and watch them land. More gorse next year. The coconut smell is heavenly and I breathe it in, then move on down to the shore. There will be no otter to watch this day. The tide is wrong, the water somewhat poppled on a land breeze. Otters, I have observed, choose a calm incoming tide for their hunting.

A heron explodes from the bow-backed hazel crowd. These benty trees, known, somewhat disrespectfully as ‘scrub’ were tots in the days of my memory, the granite boulders trojans, all biceps and resistance. It seems even they can be compromised. The heron explosion startles me. So much squawk and crashbang, and that’s just taking off. It reminds me of those I knew who never went anywhere quietly, needing to announce themselves. Across the low tide I notice a cormorant standing on the sand. I watch the first tractor coming and watch it sit some more. When it eventually lifts into the sky there is no sound. Gulls wheel and squeal around like gossips, keeping close eye on the action. A fish jumps. The salmon are running, that instinctive push to recreate, even though death calls just as loudly. When the tidal flow begins, as it will soon, the waters will thrapple with jumping fish, the otter beneath and threatening an early demise, like being fired just before retiring.

Home, and I question that. I know this is home for me. I know it. So why do I want to run and run when everything sacred to me is right here? There is no logic to these biting ants that rise in me. It thinks me. I am not the only one feeling this. I believe we all do, we all feel the desire to run and run and run. But from what? I will not swat the feeling away because it is a teacher, a guide. Perhaps none of us really understand what it is to be human. Current culture teaches endless ‘perfect’ remedies for ‘sorting us out’. Once and for all. But, and I am a questing and curious student of life, I know there is no ‘once and for all’. There is no remedy for human-ness. We all know moments of completion and days or months or years of wanting to run. This is not weird, but we pretend it is and label the so called ‘lost’ as if they had leprosy and we might catch it. But this is not Truth. I have a million times of completion and a thousand times that million of biting ants. It is only possible to accept and to love being human if we can allow this in ourselves, in others instead of expecting everyone to ‘get over themselves’ in the spreadsheet timeline we write upon ourself.

I meet other grievers. I hear the same from them all. ‘Well-meaning friends and family ‘tell’ me I ‘should’……….. I just wrysmile at that.

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Island Blog – Go Widdershins

Today I walk widdershins. I decide this last minute at the place where two tracks meet. Normally I veer left but not this day. It thinks me, this differential, this random and spontaneous refusal to stick to the ‘norm’, this comfortable, this mindless unthinking. Since when did I get stuck in the bog of ‘norm’? For a while, obviously because my whole body argues with my decision and my brain is in uproar as if I had turned up to a Monday evening meet of the WRI stark naked, toting a half full bottle of merlot and waving a poster that reads FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION FOR WOMEN! It thinks me, a lot, this differentia thingy. Accordion to mathematics, the word differential ‘relates to the infinitesimal differences or derivatives of functions’. Hmmm. So when I decide to walk widdershins just to experience, at a physical and mental level, the chaos that ensues when I abandon the norm, what I am actually doing is to challenge the derivatives of functions. Well Yip and Pee to that!

I know, I know, all I actually did, despite my rocket scoot into fantasy, was to walk the other way around the Tapselteerie track, but this is not the point. The point is that this day a differentia stopped my unthinking. Something outside of me posed a challenge, threw down the gauntlet of years and sent a dart into my mindlessness. I recall the moment. Go the other way around, Differentia said.

But I normally go this way. (whine).

Eye roll from D.

Ok, I will. (whatever)

Now I am not saying that I met a family of giraffes or anything like that but going widdershins is something I would highly recommend because, and I realise this in my own life, we can get horribly caught up in what we ‘normally’ do, eat, the places we meet, the timing for Sunday dinner, the food we eat at Christmas, the people we have over, the iron fold of pillow cases, the day I phone Mother. A million things we ‘normally’ do.

Quit ‘normally’. I say that with confidence because this adherence to such limited parameters confine us in creeping-up ways that create resistance to change and, as we know, the only thing that never changes is change itself. It is entirely human to fall into the comfortable prisonal run of dull predictability until the day or the moment we realise where we are. A hamster on a wheel. This is also entirely human, we all do it. It isn’t that she or he over there was just born brave. We all are, but life can tamp us down too often and over toolong time that we doubt we have the wherewithal to go widdershins to what is expected of us, our ‘duty’, the glass ceiling and more and we lose confidence in pretty much everything about ourselves. I get that. But the beginning of a lift into a new relationship with self begins with just going widdershins on one singular thing. Could be ‘nothing much’ to anyone else but it may well be a significant stepping stone on the path to finding who you are, really, the core you, the runbone you, the person you fear most because, well, you’ve heard too much criticism over toolong. Step out my friend. You won’t regret it, I promise you.

But, best not go to the Monday meet of the WRI stark naked, toting a half empty bottle of merlot and waving a banner. I doubt it would end well.