Island Blog

by

Island Blog – To be a Mother and Saying Farewell

An eclectic role for sure, if such is possible and if say it is then it is. Although I’m about to lose a lot in the translation of such a word, let me play. When a woman becomes a mother she is about as lost as a goldfish in the ocean, barely able to breathe, exhausted and completely lost. She finds no others of her species, everyone else being salt-friendly and busy. However, with this new little one, she knows that it is she who must be eclectically “IT’ for……for….where did he go? Oh, there he is over there, chuffing away to a sea snail who is not all that interested, and if he was it would take him at least three days to turn around for a look. She hasn’t got three days to spare. She is on demand every moment of every day plus seconds of panic, of despair, of constant checking. She is wild now, thinking wide, way beyond her understanding of normal thinks, and nobody, not even dad, gets anywhere near even if he or they might have an awfully good suggestion. She is all Bugger Off and tail swipes. She is deadly. She is Mother.

When she considered this Mother thingy, she might be forgiven for thinking Disney. However, Disney was obviously never a mother. The sweet glory of an instant co-ordination between mother and child is, I am sorry to tell you, a load of tripe. This baby is everywhere but where he should be. This baby shrieks loud enough to call in the Whales and upset the Navy in their sonar missions. What is this? Naval Officer Jenkins might ask, his eyebrows lost in his fringe, quizzical and holding out the ear plug thing for his upline to hear. The whales, happily traversing 35 continents via the swirl and twist of oceans, stop and founder. Let me tell you, a founder among traversing whales can cause a tsunami 10,000 miles away, upsetting fisher boats and slopping Lady Merriweather’s gin all over the Captain of a luxury cruise ship, thus informing him that she is a secret drunk and that his trousers are in an embarrassing state. The butterfly effect, sort of.

This day my firstborn, taller than me by about half a mile, left again for his next shift as ship’s Captain and no matter his age and height, I am that goldfish mama again. When he is here, everything is wild again, everything is fun, anything is possible. His attitude to life is upbeat and can-do. I wonder who taught him that. Does he remember upsetting the Navy, the fishing boats and the whales with his baby screams, or me with his curiosity? I doubt it. But I remember. And now, when he is gone I go back there, back into that ocean, back to where it all began. Tomorrow another son departs and I swirl inside the loss of them even as I know I gain more just because I am their mother; because I am the only one they will ever have; because I have the memories of this shared time and those memories are enough, have to be enough.

It isn’t that I want to be ‘IT’ anymore. I don’t, but don’ting doesn’t stop the feelings, doesn’t weaken the bond. I never knew it would be like this. I doubt any mother does. But here it is and for us all. Confounded still, up and down with the whole gamut of role changing at every level all day and well into the darkling nights, still learning, still thinking eclectically, I am at the heart, a mother and one who will never not be. Not never. And, for all the sadness at saying farewell, it is enough. It has to be.

by

Island Blog – Sid, Mary and Just One Tree

I am reading my favourite sort of book, a novel about human life with the natural world as a backdrop. I don’t mean the story of Sid and Mary who have a big garden and chickens, although they could indeed be the humans, providing one of them has a spiritual connection with nature in ways yet to be learned, understood and accepted. This story spans great swathes of time, from 1700 to 2000 and they connect through nature. The trees he (maybe Sid) planted as a young man, he now visits as an ancient wood, alive with stories, bursting into memories each time the trees throw out leaves of laughter for the sun to nourish. Many many suns, many springs, autumns and winters; many land battles never won by the land. Trees felled for no good reason, for Sid and Mary, perhaps, for their big garden, for their chicken run. Inside such a story, I am Alice. I move effortlessly from 1700 to 2000 along with those who make the storyline into a long rope, a connector. The writer makes it easy for me and I get it, so clever a scribe is she. To many this story would invoke a scoff. I don’t do fantasy, he or she might say and it is beyond my ken and my level of patience to attempt an explanation, the one that is so clear to me. It is no fantasy, merely an indication of our undoing. We have forgotten how to listen to the trees, lost the ears for stone stories, turned away from the rhythm of the sea, the cries of the winds, the percussive tap of the rains. But, for those who still want to believe that nature is not ‘out there’ but deep inside every soul, let me tell you this connection is only parked in some dark tunnel, and not lost at all. Nobody knows quite how to reconnect but all anyone has to do is to refuse the worldly chortlemongers and to whisper, I believe. Show me, talk to me, let me know you again.

I am no guru, no wind whisperer, nothing ‘weird’ at all, but simply a child of spirit who cannot and will not accept that nature is just there for us to manipulate and manage, to control and defy, to desecrate and deny. Nature is not about big gardens, nor chicken runs. Nature is a magnificent mother and we all know to our cost that to defy a mother is always dangerous in the long run. It thinks me. Although we humanoids are required to live in our worldly world, we can lose ourselves in the plastic. We can be too busy to study the extraordinariness of a beech tree growing out of a rock. I watched one this afternoon and for some time. I saw how the tiny beech shoot must have pushed into the light and been momentarily blinded, puzzled too, as it came out sideways. The sky should be above me, the ground beneath. That’s what I know, and yet I am slid out like a sardine from a tin and nothing makes sense. Hmmm. Ah, well, I know this too; my branches, once I manage to grow some, will need the light and so somehow I need to turn a corner, employing full belly strength in order to lift upwards. Might take some time, like years, but I am here now and there is no stopping me, even if I don’t make it. (Good attitude, beech).

When I study the belly of this twisted but upright fighter for light, I see the girth. It’s fat and strong but stopped short, telling me that beech baby made a decision once the turn upwards showed more struggle ahead. There are big pines on the bluff above her, already snatching light, ditto another massive beech; Mum, perhaps. So she wisely gave up on trunk height in favour of a three way split, for maximum photosynthesis and at the earliest possible moment. I stepped back a pace or two and smiled and bowed in respect. Survivor! I said out loud because you can say pretty much anything out loud around here and only the trees, stones and birds will hear you. I went on….thank you for calling out to me today. I walk past you every single day, in all weathers and for decades and only now have I heard your voice. Respect.

My two big strong sons leave in a couple of days. I will miss them both and for a long time. I will miss their strength, the way I feel small and safe inside their arms, the way they love me, the way they laugh at my daftness, my fears, my doubts and the way they show me I am stronger than I ever believed and someone they look up to. Well, no not that any more. Either I am shrinking which is probably true, or they grow taller as they fight their intelligent way through the shrieking, demanding, worldly world. But you know what I mean with the looking up to thingy.

We are here for such a short time and for the time we are here, we have a duty to not just our families but to our world, all of it. We can rant and do nothing, fret and wring our hands about the state of it, saying it’s too much. What can I do when there is so much corruption and destruction? I cannot save the rain forests, nor the whales, nor the starving, nor the abuse. And this is true. One person cannot. However one person can speak to someone homeless on the street. One person can recycle, stop buying plastic, pick up rubbish. And, as my African son says, one person can plant one tree.

by

Island Blog – First Day and Ready

First day of a new year. It comes all by itself and with colours and hopes and something a bit desperate. Could, can this new year bring us something better than the last one? I get it but I am not a believer in the dissing of the past because the past makes us stronger, more resilient and, hopefully more open, more vulnerable and less defensive. In my long and observant life I have learned that fighting anything is not always a show of strength beyond the moment. Things happen to us and sometimes awful things. Defence is key inside the moments but wait a minute. Once we have defended, what then? Will we treasure the grudge like a Precious? When just one someone who has had the very worst of all experiences refuses to do that, and I hear about it, I am on my knees in awe and respect. This is how I want to live out my life, catching the light from their refusal to grudge. Not that I have a clue about their pain, their loss. No experience, no clue. However, their spirit leads me even if I have no idea who they are, have no details, no context. It doesn’t matter. This is how we learn from each other, from the whole team, all those others out there who live their lives as best they can. If, that is, we are outside of ourselves and looking.

The trees are loud this day and so is the tidal rip. Both are roaring, no, not both because I forgot the 3. 3 is the wind, that capricious jester just passing through much like my granddaughters this afternoon who managed to change the whole dynamics of the house layout with their hobby horses. Last night the jester laughed all night, whicking things, noising branches, louding the peace of my home and had me shaking my head in almost time, although it is a real artist who can know the percussive phrasing of a gusting wind. As I walked inside the hug of the woods, I heard the groans and the squeaks, the clicks and the moans. I heard the song in the pine needles, so high above me as to flip my eyeballs and the rest of me backwards as I used to be able to do about 100 years ago, right down the ground.

I notice puddles, a passing horse, a big foot print. I watch cones fall, hear them hit the wood floor, wonder what impact that has. Does that tiny sound echo through the ground? Do these massive 100 year old trees hear and does it begin a conversation? I see the stand water ripple up like it has its day, only this day and only when the jester barrels through. Where is he going, I ask? They shrug, the stand water, the puddles, the trees. We don’t know, they tell me. But it is so much fun when he comes.

May we live this way. Open, ready even if we have no frickin clue what we are ready for.

by

Island Blog – Winter Eyes, Letting Go, Acceptance

This day another of my beloveds arrived with his family. There is no better looking than into the eyes of someone you love more than you love yourself, more than life herself; someone you would give your own life for without a second thought, without hesitation. The voice I hear on the phone is familiar, yes, its timbre, tone and inflection, but seeing is believing, because a voice can hide the truth. Eyes cannot. I check. He is feeling fine and so is she. Both are working through any pain together and that happies me. I can feel my gut quieting, my heart turning over in bed for a catchup snooze. I may not know what either deal with, but I can feel a confidence in their collective strength.

Now for play. And we do. There are about 50 cousins and two siblings with wives up the track all bursting with excitement at the thought of this connection for just 24 hours. They will make the most of it, for sure. I know my feral family. Every second is precious and play is ‘it’ and always has been. And I am able to join in or to observe, whatever I choose. They know me. They know my heart. They know that I only ever want them to be happy inside each and every moment and when unhappiness hits, I have mama arms and a silent voice because they are more than adult now, more than able to sort their own stuff out. They will have their tidal flow, their own seasons, their own cold, their own warm. When they all left the nest it took me about 15 years to remember this, to let go. I am mama. I am the one who soothed, warmed, held and encouraged after all. But now my needness is a different thing altogether. It is there, always there, but I am not the one to turn it on. My role is to keep my frocks on, my boots at the door, my torch charged, my heart full of fire and my sense of fun at the ready.

It is all in the looking. All in what I choose to see and how I value what I see in the moment. Walking today whilst they all cavorted with little ones, I moved into the trees. Hallo my friends. How much you teach me, even bare and sung out, even with cold bark and mossed up roots. You are in your winter dress, much like me and you are beautiful in such apparent scarcity. But you don’t feel scarce at all, no, for I can see how you still honour yourselves, bowing to the seasonal flow yet standing tall and strong. I crane my neck to see how high you grow, how the symbiosis of the wood works. Pines tallest, Larch next, Beech, the mother tree, ah, the mother tree. I see you hazels growing in impossible places, your roots like an afro hair style over than ancient rock and on down for water and strength. I see the Birches, a guddle of them, holding together and doing the purple winter thing. Are you all watching me as I watch you? I ask this out loud and I see them smile back. I am glad I have learned Winter eyes. Longing for Spring means we miss out on months of beauty, even in faces, rosy cheeks, cold lines beneath colourful hats, smiles that might crack lips, all beautiful, all Winter. There is loss, there is pain, there is death but there is also life. One day, I hope, we humans will learn to accept endings along with beginnings, cold along with warmth, death along with life for it is the very best way to live out our time on this goodly earth. Accepting that our roles change, accepting that transition, however painful, is essential for growth and will be our freedom.

Like the woods, we will be able to accept the seasons without this crazy need for life to be warmly perfect. Life is sharp. Life is tough. But we are born to both. And we are strong, sharp, tough and together, are we not?

by

Island Blog – The Trees Speak me Friendship

Yesterday lifted into today about five hours earlier than I might have chosen. Sleeping is obviously not my strongpoint. I should know this by now, accept the truth of it but I am a natural believer in a good ending, not because the aforesaid happens to me, but that I happen to it. If my attitude is positive, my diet good, my daily walks beneath the giant trees accomplished, mindfully, then I will sleep and sometimes I do, but on those ‘do’ days I wake in astonishment and rarely expect a replay. Perhaps that’s my mistake.

I dress, pull on my attitude, go through my decisions for the day, squirt perfume, turn to the dark window and look out. I know it is fully dark here by comparison. No streetlights, no headlights, no light pollution at all. I keep looking. There is no such thing as full dark. My eyes adjust. T’is a survival thingy. I can see a bit more, a bit star, a bit moonslice tipping out from behind a cloud for a moment, just a moment. Ah, I say. I remember a time, no, times, walking home from a ceilidh in the village into the pitch black of night in all the wrong kit. I remember the first frill of fear, the fingers of it touching me, shivering me. I remember stopping still on the Tapselteerie track. A mile of this to go, more and a lot of winding and pothole avoiding. Stop. Look. Listen. The trees know where you are. Find them and listen. Alone out there and with the fear sliding off my back, I felt myself come back to me. Bringing all senses into an intelligent one, we moved forward in a new light. I could hear the wind coming from the west, or the east or the south or the north just by the lick of it against my skin and the trees bent accordingly. It thinked me, this bending with a powerful element. I chuckled as I move forward. Of course they, the trees, must learn to move with the wind changes, with whatever each one brings. Otherwise, well, think firewood. Could I, this small and only ‘I’ learn from the trees? Could I be as majestic and strong as they are in spite of wind changes?

I did and I still do. This day after the clouds dumped about 27 rivers on our heads, the sky cleared a bit and that lovely blue appeared, swirled with clouds. Actually, I can feel a bit sorry for clouds. They are at the mercy of all four winds, all four temperamental powers, shredded, clumped together, fluffed up until they get complacent and then pulled apart like rotten cotton and thrown into space. So, the blue came and I walked through the Tapselteerie woods, every single step a memory and yet each step completely new. I stop to watch the beech trees, all sung out and bare, silver trunked and light rooted. Hold tight, I say as I move beneath 100 year old limbs like gifting arms. I hear the squeak of birch branches, the tic tic of brush Hazel, the groan of the giant pines and the song of their needles. Looking up is fine but don’t step forward when you are doing the looking up thing. There are potholes and puddles and things that bring you right back down to earth just when you thought you were Alice or Dorothy.

I think of land ownership. Not that I believe in it. We are just tenants for a while and thus responsible for the land we think we own. I know now that trees care for each other, that a beech tree roots light, that pines go deep, as do oaks, but, as they do their roots find weakness in another species, say a birch or an alder and that root will lift like a strong finger until it holds the weakness, securing it to the ground. Now that is friendship.

And the trees are friends to me.

by

Island Blog – Reflections, Imperfections,The Wild

Such a strange time of year. The build up to Christmas is so frenetic, so full tilt and then cometh the lull, the pause before Hogmanay. I remember it well, that time at Tapselteerie when crumpets were toasted on devil forks at the open fire, when rules were ruled out and when parents left routines out of all equations. I remember walks into the days with skips and crazy games. I remember the cold and not caring about it at all. I didn’t force my feral kids into jackets nor woolly hats. We just laughed and ran for the Atlantic, her call wild and face-biting. Inside my downy coverings, I pushed my lovely silver flask, a gift from himself and the best I ever received. Whisky and green ginger wine, for the cold, you understand, and to gift a parental kindly pause from the children as they whooped and swooped like birds on steroids over hummocks and across bogs, rocks and slippery kelp to find the end of things; where the land stops, where we stopped, and where forever begins.

Looking out there today, this in-between day, I have an outfall of memories. They spill from my mind and scatter across a land I know as I know myself. They tinkle and sing, they lift into the air and cause me to follow them into the cold bright air. I see them when I look out to the little isles, so clear, so close and yet, as I know, a long boat journey away. I can hear the childish laughter from way back then, from when these, my children were tiny, bouncing over these rocks. I can hear the call of seabirds, see the inlets we landed on, find my slippy way across the basalt and granite and up, up to the sunlight. Now, their own children are tiny and I look into eyes and watch the gymnastics of a face hoping to find myself, himself, the ancients. No longer do I need to be The One in such times. No longer am I expected to present, prepare, plan. It is both a loss and a release.

This in-between morning, I took a saw to a couple of big bushes which, in my opinion, needed culling years back. I cut and wheeched and was pricked and somewhat compromised at times but determined. This may well be the wrong time to prune whatever they were but if they survive and grow again, then good. If they don’t, then good. I am done with the rulebook at this ruled out time of year. I look up to the hillback, the new and open view and I wish them well. You can do this, I tell them, as I have told myself for decades and I did; do this. When ‘this’ changed, as this always does, I know I learned new dance steps, new ways of seeing, new perceptions. That thinking has served me well. When I see an imperfection, according to my perception, I jig my head. Hmm, I say to myself. I want (not need) to look at this with new eyes. Oh, still my own eyes, of course, but slanty or pullback, lifting wider, higher. What this thinking did for me, it still does. From girl to fiancé, from wife to mother, from domestic non-stopper, to feral child releaser, from carer to widow, I am proud of me. I know I strained at the harness, broke it, ran wild, came back (with the wildness) and am still, even now able to stand strong for my beloved ferals and their own little crazies who believe life is every single moment, lived at top volume.

May the wild live on. There are too many people out there who have buried their wild. Wild isn’t a danger, but you might be. To it.

by

Island Blog – Mud, Shrimps, Fireflies and Reach

It is a funny old time of the year, unique in itself. Something about the twist of one year into the new confounds our thinking. We swivel like kids in a cartwheel from land to space and back to a land we cannot see, but trust is there. We land further on and that further on is unknown to us, in completeness, until our feet meet it, allowing us to rise into a new space. Maybe this space is known to our forebears, to our ancients, to astonished bugs and butterflies that reckoned they had safe passage until our legs thwacked into their gentle lift. We think we know our ground but the turn and twist of a new year confounds us every time. We make resolutions based on shrimps and fireflies. We know who we are. We know what we can do. What we don’t know, our longing longing is what we can achieve based on our inner shrimp. We forget the firefly.

Now, I know, as well as you do, that a firefly can be taken out by oh so many predators. But our concept of fire, of flight, of light is a very uplifting thing. We can fly if we so choose. There are many of us grounded until we feel like we are stuck, not rooting like the tree we so admire in the forest. Just. Stuck. Well let me tell you a thing from the rounded end of a long life, one lived inside more adventures than is good for anybody. If you feel stuck, unstick. I know, I know, the world, the mud, is strong. It has a voice and it has depth and thixotropy. In other words, it won’t allow any breakdown. But you are stronger. And the key is to approach everything with curiosity and as an adventure.

I’m going to do the mud thing. I/we watched a beloved heavy horse sink into a bog inside a snowstorm and on an Atlantic rock crop with no shelter. She had reached, and walked for the first shoots of green after one of our very long island winters, and foundered. The sinkmud took her. But we are not horses. We have two legs and huge brains and can swerve and swift anyway we choose, and there’s the rap (whatever that means).

We have a new year. It is coming. We can plan the impossible or stick with the possible. In other words we can plan without authority. We can sigh and throw our hands up because we feel mudstuck inside our lives. Or, and there is always an “or”, we can firefly. We can stop. We can say, No More. Even if it means things will be tough for a while. Even if we cannot have the luxuries we have heretofore enjoyed. Even then. Together we can do this change from mud to firefly. And that already sounds cheesy.

What I am saying to any soul who longs for something impossible, is this.

Reach.

by

Island Blog – Family, Christmas, Moments

Suddenly I am surrounded by family, with a large number of little girls all fizzing like champagne, or maybe it just feels like a large number of little girls because they are in constant motion from dawn to the point of parental collapse. Thank goodness for long walks and puddles. And today, on Christmas Eve, we walked them well. The littlest one set off in pale pink and was returned looking like we had dipped her in milk chocolate. Happy, filthy, rosy cheeked and with two new nonsense songs in their music banks.

For this combination of family, celebrations last 3 days, 3 nights. Today is Swedish Christmas. Tomorrow is Christmas Christmas and the day after is one granddaughter’s birthday. By the 27th we will all need a big sleep for sure. I remember the last time we had this three day feast and fun, when four of my five kids came to the island, Africa not permitting. I wonder, even now, at my foresight in arranging this. Did I know somehow it was to be the last for himself? Perhaps. By then he was faltering, unable to tolerate the noisy little girls for long, struggling to eat much or to swallow. But, he joined in when he could and for short periods, preferring to sit at home alone in his own chair listening to radio 4 or watching something on his laptop. This will be the second Christmas without him and it is a relief he is gone, if I am honest. He was a poor thing by the end and it was kind of Death to gather him into such gentle arms.

I wish you all a wonderful, happy Christmas. Don’t miss a moment with every family member you are lucky enough to have nearby. Nothing else matters. Nothing at all.

by

Island Blog – Dance Life

I have listened to Christmas songs, tunes, melodies for a few days now. I can catch the Christmas spirit effortlessly, ready always to dance, to tinsel up and to twinkle along with the lights. I have the celebration gene, thanks Mum and Dad. At times, this spirit kaboom can be an awkward thing as I look into blank faces when I rapture on about birthdays, first days, anniversaries. I read those faces. What is it, that look that tells me those people need a hug, not that I can give them one just now, because they have agreed to give up on living the Dance of Life? Honestly folks, if we cannot dance till we die, are we dying to dance? Yes, I believe so. Just look at the followers of Strictly Come Dancing. There is something magical about the fleet flight of dance, especially with a partner who can lead, who can follow. I remember ballroom dance classes when I was at school and although it was all about the boys for me, the feeling of being inside strong arms, guided, swirled and lifted, was indeed heady. I also recall being at my daughter-in-law’s 40th birthday and of dancing alone, a lot, as himself was no longer able to join me and then, out of nowhere, came this young man who really knew how to lead a woman. We spun into flight and I will never forget that dance. Never. I had no idea of the steps, but that is the thing about a good partner because he does.

So, in short, I am still a child, that little girl who grew into an adult body but brought the Alice with her. It isn’t luck, nor a gene because we all have them and many genes can be ignored, or denied, or changed. No, it is a decision, a stronghold on what I believe makes life a dance, a joy and joy is deep rooted. It starts as a seed, no matter the troubles, the noise pollution, the location. We are all able to overcome. all of us. I have witnessed an old woman, determined to go search for whales, with legs that might as well not have been attached to the rest of her. I have heard her voice. Just lift me, just get me on board. The tide was low, the pier high, the hesitation evident in the faltering of her companions. Come ON! she admonished. Think dance! I was a young woman at the time and she was compromised but she showed the spirit and in doing so she taught me. I remember walking away as the boat left the pier, watching her on the disappearing bows of the whale boat and thinking this. I want to be like her. I will be like her.

That decision has stuck with me throughout the years. Oh, hell yes, I have moaned and grumbled. I have miserabled my trudge through the tough times. I have wailed and thwacked walls. Once I took a broom and thwacked out 3 huge kitchen windows. I have felt low and lower but I did sow the seed and the seed remembered being sown and, in grace, pushed up green and that is the miracle of a decision to dance life. Life becomes my partner, the one who appears from nowhere when I am dancing alone, a lot, and takes me in his arms and off we go.

In the build of Christmas, the most magical mystery of all, remember dance. But there’s more. Grab the spirit, the dance of it and just refuse to let go. Live it, no matter what.

by

Island Blog – The Luckiness

Oh we are so very busy, so fraught, so flapdoodle about Christmas. I remember being all of the above back in the last century when my five feral kidlings wreaked havoc in as many ways as they knew, and they knew many ways. Their excitement was loud and fraucous, high pitched and very fast. What happens to legs, I ask myself, as I cautiously descend the stairs and never jump anything over 12 inches high, remembering the blur of Child as it tore through a room causing even the wine glasses to fall over in the afterwrath of such a cosmic blast? When I was ‘busy’ and responsible for everything Christmas, the presents, the wrapping, the dressing up of the 20 foot tree with its point pointing to the floor because the ceiling just wouldn’t lift to accommodate, the star hanging down land twinkling like the drip from an ancient and cold nose, my legs were right beneath me and as fast as any cosmic child. I was lucky to have legs at all and so was my family. Had I been legless, the whole lot of them would have effortlessly escaped the rule book; probably burned it along with the logs that were more like tree trunks. At least my fully functioning and agile body could prevent disasters, catch the ferals to spin from room to room averting disasters such as the 20 foot tree falling on the sleeping dogs, cats and pet lambs and who let them in btw? Don’t give me ‘Aw, they’re cold’ or I’ll just cook them.

Now in my pensioner days, I rush not, nor am I busy. That chaotic life is in my past and thank the holy crunch for that. No more must I panic about stocking gifts, other gifts, in-law gifts, writing a zillion cards to a zillion people and the annual freak out about serving up a Griswold turkey; the making sure that the in-laws, who invariably arrived in an argocat with a bumper laundry basket filled with well wrapped gifts settled into chairs aligned just right, candles at the ready, lambs definitely out and who brought that crow in? Atop the tree, well, not actually at the top because we all know where the top is, but in the tree nonetheless and shrieking worse than any child. I had to blow out all candles at that point. The thought of feathers alight gave me indigestion in my imagination and that is not a comfortable feeling. Ah, such a past. So many adventures. Such a lucky woman. My life, our life, would kick the Griswolds into second touch, for certain.

When I write that I am not busy, let me explain. My days are always engaging and active. I stack wood, I walk, I clean, I write, I sing and I dance, but the have to, that pushy crow-shout in my ears is quiet now. I can do what I like when I like. Sometimes I don’t like either of those but I can still perform the tasks and there’s another word I like. Perform. Thinks me of my non-existent stage life. Did I tell you I was offered theatre work and turned it down to marry himself? Well, I did, and I regret it not. In fact, my agility and ability, both physical and mental as a stage performer, storyteller and activist (a good one) has supported my life as wife, mother and now grandmother. Lucky me. When I take a wee wander back through time there is a lot I forget until out of nowhere a memory lifts like a swan from the water and I watch it fly up, up into the vast blue sky and I smile. I was there. I was her, that woman, that wife, that mother, those times are mine to treasure. I also recall the stomps and stamps and slammed doors, one of which fell off its hinges with the force of me. I am proud of that even though, at the time, it was of great inconvenience.

This morning I tootled into the harbour town for fuel and fish. I really don’t know why anyone ever bothers with going off island as everything anyone could ever need for feed is grown right here. As I lifted into the mist, the mist flashed with sunlight, the frost sparkling on the grass and on my little mini, along the empty switchback road, I passed the grave, the new headstone. I stopped the car and watched it for a few moments. There it is. There you are, facing the rising sun and with a view you always loved. T’is right and rightful. T’is your landing place and it will be mine too, one day. There’s a new grave. I knew that man, that quiet, gentle man. He is gone too. I wonder if you and he have encountered each other yet. I like to think so.

The town was quiet. The shops alight, their windows dressed in baubles and gifts and mostly empty; the town lights all a’twinkle, few cars parked and only a few islanders on the street. Not like the old days, in the last century when the pavements would be buckling beneath the feet of those with gift lists, stocking lists, in-law lists; those collecting food and fish and turkeys and chocolates, when ‘on’ and ‘line’ were two words that never went together. Well, now they do and we are lucky to have that option at this time. Now let’s go otherworldly. Beyond our fuss and fret, beyond our rush and our busy, what is the voice of Christmas? Is it love, is it giving, is it peace, is it sharing what we have? When the packaging is burned, the toys broken, the meal devoured, even a Griswold meal, what are we left with, the something that will succour us through the Big Cold Months yet to come?

The moments. The pictures, we remember, the affection and the warmth, the rebirth, even if I raise the busy and the frantic. I remember it and them. They had their place in my remembering and they are so much a part of it all. However, they are just part of the structure of just one day, and just one day can create ripples. We know this. What we need to learn is the wholeness of everything, including Christmas Day. There will be ups and there will be downs, and in that intricacy, there is a landscape. Rest in the whole. Look at the bumps and the awkwards, the imperfections and the exploding turkey and smile. We are who we are and we are just perfect just as we are. Just as we are. Lucky us.