Island Blog

by

Island Blog – Can you see me, hear me?

I repot the Money Tree. I’ve had it for decades and in the same pot, the escaping roots lifting it all wonkychops. I cannot think how long that feisty wee bonsai darling has allowed the wonky. It thinks me, about wonky, I mean. I had heard it ask for a repot, for a long time, but, as happens to us all, I was just too busy with the what now of pretty much everything so that its asking floated into the air until I couldn’t hear it above the insistent demands of each day. Until I did, hear it ask again. It now stands in a slightly bigger pot, roots tended and loosened, wonky no more.

I think about re-potting, about asking and about not being heard. Today I had no work and I was very tired, all bog-eyes and rising from a very restless sleep, if sleep came at all. The dynamic in work is a great place to learn, about others, about the space, about the levels, about wonky. My mind scoots back to the times I have listened to the angst in a workplace, the strife of it all spilling from another’s lips, the obvious wonky. Having lived this long, I know that it is natural to look for a solution outside of oneself; the wrong dynamic, the wrong allocation of duties, the member of staff who is so in your face that you just can’t find a way to work with them. The ones who avoid duties leaving them to you. The getting away with it just because they are who they are, damn good at their job but not able to work with emotional intelligence within a team. I’ve heard it all. It’s wonky.

I have also learned that love, compassion, a listening ear and recognition of another is key to solution. It takes humility, yes. It asks for a choice to make something work, together. There are many people, all awkward with their things, who cannot communicate as perhaps I or you can. They just cannot. Nonetheless they are asking to be seen, heard, loved, kept safe, and, if that is determinedly acknowledged, the wonky can find a level. Not their wonky, but the one of the whole. Imbalance is a sea thing. God, don’t I know it, out there where each wave blocked out the whole sky. I know it in a bumpy marriage, a tricky parentage, an uncomfortable time with my own children. There is wonky everywhere. But here’s the thing. It isn’t about being perfect, or, maybe it is, because not one of us can aspire to that, but being the one who allows, who befriends, supports, nourishes, even if another is a complete alien in our perception, that one can actively prevent a serious wonk, one which just might tip the whole thing over into disaster. If we all stopped thinking so much about ourselves and our own wants and needs ALL of the time, we might hear the little voice asking.

Can you see me, hear me?

by

Island Blog – The Romance

I remember it, so well. Those moments of spin and wild, the light in another’s eyes, the thrill which began in my toes and was the only thing that, or is it which, moved up my legs to the beyond. The belly thrill, the lightening of my heart, the overspill in my face, lips curving up until they almost made a circle, I remember it so very well. I’m not sure I see it around me anymore. Oh, I see couples, a lot, in the cafe, and there is ‘game on’ fun with some, but there seems to be an awful lot of functionality. A kind of this is how we are now, after all this time.

I know I am a real romantic. I am. I want a man to take me dancing, to swing me. However, this is not on offer. Is romance dying? I hope not. In my very early teenage years, there seemed to be plenty of it, it was the way of the day. No girl would accept less than a door being opened for her, a protective arm around her in an awkward situation, a coat offered in the cold, a lift home, and respect for her girlhood. I honestly believe that still lives on, but what may not is the man in this mix, the boy who wants to be a protector, a respecter, because he is unsure about the who of him in this culture of Big Man, all muscles and the filling in of the doorway.

omance,alive,My point is this. Romance is not old, not dead, but in us all. We just let it fizzle out as the demands of earning, fear of loss, parental pressure and more, overkill the light maker in us. And the demands do it well, they always have and over many many years. There is a fight ahead, and if any of us seriously believe that life from now is not a fight, then the any will fall away. We are up against a lot more than we understand. Romance is ours, so lovely, so light, so glorious, so thrilling,

My sister and her husband began with romance. They still dance, they still romance after decades. It’s possible, and for all of us. The functional sensible in you just needs oiling.

by

Island Blog – Skinny Dip and Washeroo

Work in the best beach cafe ever was dynamic, busy and fun today. I notice the invitation from faces, the longing for recognition and connection. I remember noticing the same whilst welcoming Colonel and Mrs Tiddleypom after their very bumpy traverse along the Tapselteerie drive. That look. It is universal, on any, no, every face. Seen it in Africa, in Glasgow, in the Edinburgh queue for opera, in airport security, in the aloneness of a bus shelter, in the face of a beggar, the face of a starlet, the face of a terribly important high-flying-big earning business man. (There never were women in those so-called elevated roles in my back-in-the-day.) There is a longing for connection, skinny as hec, yes, but the eyes win, every time, no matter the flicking away, nor the make-up. I can dip into that, you who are right in front of me, as I am in front of you.

There’s a lot of dipping around in the wee space where deliciousness is delivered. We dance well, the skinny we of the serving team. We pull back to allow a big tray of quiches, soups, cakes, coffees, teas heading for a big table and zip sideways, which makes sense. Another, incoming tray of clearings, equally requiring the zip thing, and we pull back or lead, doing it for hours. My role, one it seems I have taken over (which might not be right) is the Washeroo. Is this my mother thing, the historical one who believes she is the only one who can wash up properly? Hmmmm

In the Washeroo, I am listening, peeking out to see if there’s a human on the other side of the counter who wants, yes, to order soup, quiche, cake, but more, someone who, regardless of their worldly elevation or wish for it, or feelings of loss, despair, failure, whatever, just wants a “hallo, what can I get you? Yes of course your dog is welcome, please sit anywhere. And they do. I have noticed that folk stay long beyond their food, talking, laughing, feeling happy, welcome. A lot.

The pecan brownies are delicious, the quiche, oh yes, it comes with a fresh salad, the chocolate cake, I’m sorry it’s gone, but there are flapjacks, cinnamon buns, rhubarb crumble slice, lemon polenta, blueberry muffins, and I have to tell you, this baker knows about air in her baking because EVERYTHING is light.

So, the skinny dip in and out of our work to serve the lovely people who come, just them as themselves, and the work within this skinny dip team, is such a privilege. I honestly don’t know that I have ever been in this dynamic before. I haven’t. We are making a new thing.

by

Island Blog – We Just Are

Thing is, if I don’t write, I begin to feel uncomfortable, as if my knickers are back to front. It’s been a few days, not the knickers though. Enough on knickers.

My thinks are nonstop, even when thinks should be fast asleep in their beds. Some of us are like that, born as ‘troublesome’ souls, too many thinks. I, and many like me, have been, and. still are, accused of overthinking. Accused? My point, precisely. I’m not going to say the us of we ever asked for all this tiddleypom in our brilliant brains which, inevitably result in a brouhaha the world finds ‘troublesome’ because it breaks the silence of complicity. And can be messy. I, for example, can see a wardrobe anywhere, in a shop, a garage, an anywhere and immediately think Narnia, my mind heading into another world, way beyond the rigid limitations of living in this one. If I see a track lifting up and away in a wild place, and disappearing around a corner, I want to follow. There be opportunities out there, although maybe not dragons, unfortunately, and my thinks lead me on.

However, life is here, and my imaginatory thinks, the possibilities out there, need to be turned into a module (that’s me) acceptable to the where of my life. So I walk among trees. I stand beneath their astonishing height and strength, think how brave they are. And I thank them, talk to them, tell them, every one, how wonderful they are. They found their way within a chaotic dynamic, seeds earthing, sprouting, lifting into a density of an already canopy. Light is a fight for them, for us too. I stand awhile, although my ‘awhile’ is about fifteen seconds and that’s because of the thinks. I have watched people stand for ages, yoga, mediation, all those things I can’t do because I am my thinks. I must be moving, shaping, changing, learning. I am a seeker and knowing that is oftentimes a pain in the ass. I have tried, am still trying to corral my thinks, but they are wild and free and the goodling about them is that I get to see what many do not. In a wild sea, I can see the depth, feel the anger, sense the history; In the woods I can hear the trees groan; in ground that was once free and is now a clickfit home, I can hear the rumble of all that is now trapped. None of it is loud, but I sense it as I walk by, even as I like the friendly people waving from their new home.

Hallo to anyone else out there who knows what I’m talking about. We are. That’s it. We just are.

by

Island Blog – Ordered Chaos, Fire and Fun

I shove another full tray of pots, cups, teapots, plates, cutlery into the maw of the crazy fast wishdosher, lift up the done one to dry the constituents whilst they’re still hot. Glasses, cutlery, everything does better with a quick dry. I turn to see the wotwot of the dynamic in the kitchen. Is there space for me to bring clean thingies in, or not? It is definitely a dance out there. I get to the butter pots shelf. I can see there’s a shove-in. I hesitate. I can’t see the back of this shelf. In theory, all the butter, jam, chutney pots, etc are cautioned into regularity. In theory. Actually, to be honest, in a busy fast-moving cafe, there is always a shove-in going on. We work with balance, all of the time, every minute. Someone out there in the thick of orders needs more mugs, cups, espresso minis, than are available in their parking places. I have them, I have them, they are super boiling hot from this crazy fast washing unit, but I have tea towels and I’ll be right there. Same with cake plates, glasses for anything Frappe, soft drinks, just island water. Orders come like bullets. Me, i enjoy the slow, not sure I should, but I do. That’s me hiding in the Washeroo, noisy with pots and busyness. And then comes that lull, the fizz and scoot of the coffee machine making latte, mocha, small, large, americano with hot milk, with oat milk, with nothing, and I do peek out. I do. I am armpit high with suds and soup pans and soap suds, but the immediate is incoming, and right there, just the other side of our flimsy protective walls. I wipe off suds, find my way through steamed up glasses and my unsurety around the paying equipment and smile a welcome. Not just me. I’m just talking about the Sudster in this dynamic. We all smile a welcome. Hi folks, how can I help?

It thinks me, about life.

Today wasn’t a day in the best beach cafe ever. I slowed my feet. I watched the birds on my feeders, felt the heat the humidity in the air, saw the cloud cover, the hunker down of grey and white, the pressure, humid, a standing still. I noticed the effect in the someones I met in the shop, the touristic faces denying access to anyone, a lot of looking anywhere but at another, the sweat beading. It was, ‘a bugger’, as we say up here, not being mincy with wordage. Hot, loomy, a holding, as if in the arms of a big woman you really didn’t want to be held by. And so rare. It’s cleared now, I can feel it, hear it in the music of the dove wings as they ping like regentlessists, up and away and over and back again around the bird seed.

We live, all of us, within our attempts to order chaos. We do. Chaos comes in like a wind from nowhere. A teenager turns fury. A mother or father departs. A sibling comes out. A storm barrels in. We lose credit, funding. A dream dies. Taking it way down into the ordinary….. A bus party comes in for cake, no, quiche, no, cold drinks, no, actually, 4 lattes, two with oatmilk, and, oh, look at that raspberry bakeweIl or that strawberry sponge…..or soup, shall we have soup? Eventually, resolution, an order to Initial Chaos and the chance to learn to work with it. Eventually, to have the wisdom to prepare for the next blast. An eloquence of freedom. It’s every day, after all. For all of us.

I know it is easy, my analogy in the butter pot shelf of the cafe, but it still speaks. We can’t make everything perfect, nobody can. All units, all shelves, all plans, all dreams will fall into chaos. But, and this I have found, in the multiple chaos of my life, that it is possible to find new storage for the ‘butter pots’. The bigger stuff, the beyond of any sky, the way forward in a fireball dynamic? No answer. We just have to live it and to bring hope and fire and. fun to the dance.

Just believe it. And, keep going. Chaos gets tired too, in the face of someone who recognises an incoming unfriendly.

by

Island Blog – The Dance in the Delight

So much to say, so many observations and thinks. Let us begin with the bump on my pointy finger. It isn’t painful, just there and it and I I do need the odd conversation. It’s possibly an olding thing. Anyways, this bump. I filed it down to a nothing much. Then I went to my laptop to sign in with finger recognition and was refused. I’ve been refused for days until the bump came back.

It thinks me.

Today at the Best Beach Cafe Ever, it was fun, as always, the bosses so flipping great with customers, an immediate welcome, even when we are 10 orders behind them, the chat dynamic and chuckly. Did I just make that word up…? We do all the dietary requirements here with spectacular cakes, quiches, scones and more. I love the twist and the dance of this cafe. I don’t think I have met it before. There is never a ‘No’ but instead a suggestion for a something else. I honestly think anyone who comes here feels immediately welcome, as if we were just waiting for them.

They come, the cyclists, the couples, the young families with wee ones, the folks with dogs, with troubles, with the exceedingly important need to escape to the glorious wild of this island. I met two really fun couples today. Now, here, I am clumsy with myself because I don’t know (old) the naming, labelling of pretty much anything nor anyone, nor do I care. Both couples were married men. I don’t give a bejabers about labels. I just loved interacting with them, their dog, their story. All beautiful people. We laughed in the sunshine. I watched their faces, saw their connection with each other, the familiar, and that is a beautiful thing. It lasts me.

I brought strawberries home, for ‘jammin’. My lovely bosses, who know about weighing and stuff, asked me to weigh (and stuff). I did, I did try, but got lost at 2934 kilograms. Not sure what that all means. The jam will be good, I know that. I have cooked for 40 years without weighing a damn thing. However I was nonsense at costing anything and there’s a story there. This new leadership is young and building and right on the whole lot of it all. I admire that.

It was a day of sunshine and random requests……americano, short with oat milk on the side, triple espresso, with mascarpone and lemon topped carrot cake; salted hot chocolate with a pecan brownie, a slice of lemon polenta, oh, and a fruit scone, warmed, yes, with jam and butter. An herbal tea, yes in a pot, is there lemon, can I have two plates, two forks to share that gorgeous coffee cake?

Yes, every time.

I love working with such authentic people. There’s definitely a dance in such a delight. And, a going on with what is there, just right there, without any botherment.

by

Island Blog – Herstory

I have two new geraniums. I have lived with, and looked after, for decades, the salmon pink geraniums beloved and nurtured by my mother-in-law, for almost fifty years. Who knew a plant could survive that long! Anyway, I inherited them, loads of them in pots, and all healthy as fitballs. My word. I didn’t, I promise, try, not never, to let them die, even though their presence overwhelmed me at times, many times. They just grew strong and green, producing flowers the whole damn summer and beyond. Even after her death, my mother-in-law I mean, in 2002, I still had five, no six, no seven, in her conservatory. Back then this conservatory (such a clumsy word) had no warmth in the winter months, so she brought them in and cared for them somewhere in this little stone-built home, still caring, still checking they would survive. I admire that. Her story with her geraniums, her green fingers. She knew everything about plants and gardens. This, btw, is not about her, even if it might look that way. I just went off on the geranium/mother-in-law thing. Moving on.

The two new ones. They are not salmon pink. To be honest, I am very tired of salmon pink. I want red. The ladies arrived, a bit discombobulated with all that dark travel, the shucking of delivery people who don’t know what’s in there. I let them sit in my open-mouthed garage for a day or two before replanting. From the width and strength of the stalks I clocked no newbie, no flop. These girls know themselves. I may have got them wrong. I put them in bigger pots, brought them in because out there on this island of bonkers weather, ‘in’ is safe. They rebelled. Their older leaves grew spots and stayed spotty, talking to other newer leaves, so that they spotted up too. I watch them.

Today they asked me for more space. Ah! I get it. I had placed one beside a well-established orange tree, and the other perhaps too close to an equally established ficus tree. Domination. I missed that. I moved them, as they asked me to. No plants want to be close to another. I see it often on my walks through Tapselteerie. The fight for light, for space, the ultimate diminish of one. And I say, I do, out loud, I see you. Do what you can, do your very best. You are beautiful even where you are.

by

1sland Blog – Breath

I hold it, my breath, at times, sudden times. Perhaps at a moment that confounds me, as if a rock has tripped me. It might be a word-spout from another’s mouth, of judgement, finite, challenging, and there’s a momentary confusion, like the after blast from an explosion, even though I have no idea what that feels like. The silence at first, then the thunder and roiling in my ears, the deafening to all else around me. We’ve all been there, and when I have, I always wished I had said something, stood up for someone, answered with confidence, not that the finite ever begs a question. I still wished. I also, to my womanly and well-trained second fiddler position shame, deferred to the height of the voice, the learned-ness, the confidence of delivery, the surety that no-one in this (now self-assumed as piddling and inferior) gathering would dream of cutting down this particular invasive species, of which he is a member. No matter his derisive comments, his freedom to dominate, take advantage, to touch, to control. Ok, that’s my stuff, my history, the deferment to men. I have no issues with men in general. I love men, in general. Let’s move on.

I hold my breath when a bird slams against my window. I hear the slam, the ouch of it and it sharps my lungs. They stop, as if they have seen and heard what I did. We go out into the garden, my lungs and I, to check. Mostly these birds slam wing first. They sit a bit, we talk a bit, I crouch on the steps. Little heads turn to me and away, always watching for the hawks, the predators. Not while I’m here with you, I soothe. Sometimes I can pick them up, the wing-slammers, and they clutch onto my fingers, settle in my palm. I can feel their heartbeat through my fingers, daring to, longing to live on. I can run a soft finger down their spine, from head to tail, encouraging blood flow, offering peace, renewal. They take their time, enjoying the connection perhaps, and then fly off. The head-butters don’t rise again, and again there’s a breath stop when I find them crashed on the concrete. Such beauty, so many colours, a pitch for life downed.

Music can hold my breath. I don’t know why. Who does? A superb lift of harmony, melody, a spectacular change of key, from major to minor and back again, the words clear to me in the agony, the joy, the wild, the wild of music. Could be classical, could be the music and lyrics I listened to through angsty teen years, could be songs of longing, of loss, of fury, of celebration panning decades. Something will suddenly touch me, even if I am caught up in a recipe or a to-do list and my breath will stop, just for a catch, just for a moment.

Could be something someone says, a compliment, a line of words that tell me a person has actually seen me, got me. Now that’s a rare breath catch, and no mistake.

by

Island Blog – Proud I am

Back from work, a busy day in the best cafe ever, above white sands, above history, the place from where many families were cleared, uplifted, circa 1870’s, homes burned, and then wheeched across oceans , without a change of knickers and with no sanwiches, because, and get this, the landownders thought sheep would be more profitable (and less of a pain in the baxxy). than humans. Folk are drawn here. Yes, there are excellent coffees, soups, bakes, welcomes, but there is a ‘more than’ thing going on here. I can see it in their eyes. They have clocked something, but have no clue what it is. Bus tours arrive, all a-flutter, all unsure about whether to go for banana loaf or lemon polenta cake, or maybe a cheese scone with extra Mull cheese and Mull Seaweed Chutney, or soft sponge with strawberry jam or carrot cake with philly icing, or flapjacks, brownies, focaccia bread…… and there is so much more to invite you in and to make happy you as our guests.

When I move out from the hidey-hole, it is, it is my hidey-hole. I confess, I admit. It is where the non-stop washing up-ness goes on, and my safe place. However I hear voices. There’s a nudge in me. I clock two other servers, but I can tell I need to let go of my comfortable scrubber persona. We are a team, we are few but we are each important, and of value. My listening tells me that a whole tribe has arrived. I pull out from the hiding of this work, and I see a big few, a big queue. I hear ‘Can I help you?’ and a backdrop chatter from those not first in the queue. There is a lifting ahead, a wild scamper, a dynamic. The wee team rises into, not a clearing of humans, but, yes, a clearing of humans. Quick fire, one order, two, three, four, five. We have run out of hooks for the paper choices. No matter. We talk, murmur. This, needs this, that needs that, is there extra cheese, cream, jam? I watch us flow through the small space, moving like dancers, pulling back, moving forward, asking for help, two trays for table 8, is the quiche ready, is there more salad….all of that. Two soups with focaccia, two different soups; two quiches; one warmed cheese scone with extra cheese, two fruit scones with local jam and cream, one elderberry tea, two flat whites, one with oatmeal milk, one salted hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream, one with none of those. We work to make sure that they are served on loads of trays, everything hot, everything timed to work with the dynamic of their group. We fill the water bowl for their dogs. We ask about their little ones, engage with Granny, make sure we make sure that every guest feels like the One.

I am proud to work with the young and intuitive owners, and with the funny, beautiful, crazy, sometimes weary, girls with whom I work. I am granny to them. They lift me, remind me of the feisty woman I am, was, am.

by

Island Blog – After a Squinny

A sticky nob, on a cupboard (just for clarification) and suddenly I see. Actually, no, none of it was there before, it just appeared like measles do on a body. There was one, maybe two, and all you have to do is turn away for a moment and that body looks like a field of poppies in full bloom. This is what happened to, not just all the other nobs, but the whole cupboard, all the cupboards, 10 of them plus 6 drawers. After a bespectacled squinny, I gasped. I did. I had heretofore imagined a quick wipe over the damn nob and then had planned to move onto considerably more interesting pastimes, such as a dab or two of oils on my painting, around that shoreline, I thought, or to just wander out, barefoot to fill up the bird feeders which seem to empty within minutes, but no. Suddenly I could see that my entire kitchen unitry would cause apoplexy should an Health and Safety inspector appear on a spot check. Unlikely, yes, what with the ferries in confusive disarray and it’s after 4 pm anyway which, as we all know, is when any officials employed by any government or council drop everything. Well, not everything, but you know what I mean.

Back to the knobs. They were all sticky, brownish and scuddy. Disgusting, I snorted, looking at my fingers. Then I saw the runs of coffee, the splashes of bolognaise, the sunshine drip of egg yolk, the blobs of god knows what. How could I not have seen this before? The answer I have worked out. We see A) what we want to see; B) what we expect to see and C) what we absolutely know, because we are clean and tidy and mindful in our homes, isn’t there at all. What a collision! Needless to say I had to squirt a lot and rub a lot and gasp a lot as my smart eco bright turqouise cloth greyed up and my squirty stuff lowered its meniscus by quite a few centimetres. My white cupboards and white drawers and white nobs are now sparkling like newly fallen snow. But, oh, there’s a cobweb, up there, look at it. It? There is a halloween party going on above my head in this kitchen. I determinedly refuse, despite the massive temptation, to check other rooms. After all, I did well today. I changed and washed bedding; went to Library and came back with not one book; sorted out the roofers, walked, chatted with various others in all of those situations and shovelled up a huge dump of sheet poo from right in front of the church gate. I even prepped supper.

Thing is, as all this thinks me, is the importance of laughter, even alone among sticky nobs, cobwebs, etc. Also, if the so called negative of a situation can be shifted into an ok thing, ok with me that is, then I won’t cart about any uneccesary shame nor blame. And then, as the thinks think on, what about how we judge someone else for their ‘cover’? I know people who won’t ask friends to their place because they are embarrassed about their ‘cover’, their ‘lack’. How sad. When I visit someone’s home, I couldn’t care less about the surroundings, the spills, the stains, the anything. I visit to look into the eyes of a friend, a human with a heart, doing their best.