Island Blog

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Island Blog – Someday Blues

It amazeballs me how anyone so practical and unsentimental can swing from joyous to dark subterranea overnight. But it sure happens to me. Perhaps, and this will bring on an eye roll from those in the know, it is a lot to do with bereavement and grieving. Grieving……an interesting word and not one I thought I related to, for I am not grieving, or I thought I wisnae. The thing is that words are semantical. They mean different things to different folk. Grieving, to me, feels like endless tears and slippers on all day long; it means I don’t eat or wash or bother with anything much or anyone much at all, and all of that is not me. I bother a lot about caring for myself. It is all a matter of pride and performance to me, whether or not I meet another soul for a whole week. I am not awash with tears. In fact, I have barely managed a baker’s dozen since he died. It isn’t that I am a cold fish, not at all, but after being right beside him for over 10 years as he slowly fell to ruin, I suspect I have gone through most of the stages of grief whilst he yet lived.

Today I awoke with it. Subterranea. I knew it the minute I attempted to open my eyes, knew they were slits in my pale face and that they would barely widen no matter what the day held for me. I lay back and considered the fact that I was not really in charge of myself at all; that something else was playing out its own drama on my inner stage, something I could not name but did not like one bit, as I did not like one bit certain girls at school, and for no obvious reason. Certainly not something I could explain nor would it be a discourse I might enter into, should someone ask me what or why. So what is this flip and doodle of days? Why, when I believe, or tell myself, that my craft is finally harbouring safely in a dock of my own choosing, does my ship ready about and head back to sea where chaos reigns and the weather is lord of all?

I sigh. I have no answer to any of it. This is why I walk out in the fairy woods, wander (slip and skid) across the rocks on the shore and spend hours watching the sky change, change and change again. It seems to me that all I can do for now until this painful rollercoaster finally runs out of juice, until the music stops and the fairground moves on to somewhere else, is to move like an observer and not a player. In the morass of legal requirements and paperwork, of photocopies and of rifling through filing cabinets in the (vain) hope that himself kept at least some semblance of a paper trail, I will eventually find completion; not of me, but of his dissembled estate. Some order from his chaos. I hope so, and, if I don’t, then this will meander on for years and incur great costs, enough for lawyers to choose a 3 month winter holiday with wide smiles and a loud wahoo.

I am lucky, nonetheless. Our children are right beside me. They understand legalise as I do not. They gently guide and sort and support through this process of ‘enveloping’ up a life, a long life of decisions made; of carelessness and devil-may-care; of the wildness of just living and blow the consequences, consequences that now fall to me, to our children. A part of me gets it. A part of me remembers that man, the man I chose and the man who spent the next 42 years infuriating me as I grew up as he decided not to. In a long life shared, and with hindsight, it is easy to look back and to be wise, but I cannot. I remember not paying attention to things that required exactly that. I remember enjoying the crazy. And here is where I find contradiction. Had I been more engaged, braver, more determined to be the grown-up I purported to be, would the memories have changed? Would I have been able and willing to join in the wildness of his life, if I had been the schoolmarm in the relationship? Probably not.

So, as the days flip and doodle, I must keep on searching for a paper trail; keep on searching for the answers the probate lawyer seeks; keep on calling on our children for their support. I must, also keep walking in the wilds, watching the sky light change and change and change again, until the time comes when this is done, as tidy as it can be whilst accepting that I was concomitant to his way of living, and then to celebrate the chaos of those shared years.

I must engage with the sunshine and with the someday blues, both.

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Island Blog – Feeling the Bones

As I walk beneath the coppering beech trees, the bare bones of ancient larch, the garnets of gold on this tree and that, like halos, I become suddenly aware of my body. Paying attention to this I can feel each muscle ripple and stretch, contract and stretch again as my legs take me down the track. In my mind’s eye I see my bones, my skeleton and it makes me laugh out loud. I think, What if someone saw me like this? All flowing frock and skinny bones. I hear the creak and grind of ball and socket, the constant movement deep inside my skin, my protecting armour. I think of all that movement, that silent and secret life of very important organs and other bits of gloopy squidge that mean the bones can keep me going. I stretch my bare toes inside my furry boots, consider each one and its unique purpose. I feel the stones beneath my rubber soles and notice how that foot, those toes, work together without me doing anything conscious at all. One toe less and I would be wonky chops for as long as it took my brain to catch up, to readjust, to set me level once more. I flex my fingers, the only part of me not moving, as they hang limp inside my warm fingerless mittens. They curl in repose and are colder than any other part of me. I lift one hand to my face and study those gnarled old digits which have worked hard and for many many years at all sorts of different things. These bumpy looking sticky-out appendages can play soft and soothing piano. They have held newborns and adults in times of joy and times of grief. They have obediently frocked me up of a morning and then deconstructed me at bedtime. They have made tea, dinners and beds. This finger has pointed. Often. In anger, at an astonishing sight, at the openly merry mouth of a welcoming cafe in a rainstorm. This thumb has pressed, eased and held down string for knotting. So many important actions I simply took for granted.

Moving on through the canopy of beech and alder, hazel scrub and ancient pines I notice a newly dead pine, tall as a building and now naked as a skeleton. A peppering of holes tells me of woodpeckers and unfortunate bugs. The spine is almost white, all sung out now and suggesting firewood. The tide flows noisily out followed by a shriek and cackle of gulls, snow-white against the smoky grey of a raincloud. Earlier I had watched 3 otters fishing in the sea-loch, when the tide had stopped to draw breath before turning back to Mother Atlantic. Flat water. Otters like flat water, I have noticed. I suspect it is a more peaceable hunt for them.

Still aware of my body moving, still feeling and noticing, I realise I haven’t done this before, not quite like this. I didn’t set out to notice. The ‘notice’ just came as if something had changed outside of me drawing my attention. Staying with the moment and allowing it to take control I consider what this body, this mind, this vital combination has achieved through life and what it is achieving now. Perhaps as we age we grow more aware of such things, whereas in youth we just expect everything to work without question. Perhaps. Does it matter? No, it does not. What matters is simply that I respond to the gentle nudge of awareness and that I engage with it.

I am happy to report that the walkers I did meet on the track were not horrified by a skeleton in a frock and furry boots and I am glad of it. This special and powerful invitation for an inner dance was for me. Just me.

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Island Blog – Alone with Poppy

Me and Poppy watch the sky, she, in Popz’s marvellous chair that electrically lifts a human to standing point, and I in mine, that doesn’t. Mine is an ancient Orkney chair, all oak seat and rush backed, sturdy as a woman in a storm. I am fond of this chair. it wisnae mine, not really. My mother-in-law sat in it, her rightful place, although it dwarfed her, the wee round midget that she was with enough authority to clear a car park of hoodlums in seconds. I am not she, but I did learn from her and, from her, inherited my current seating.

Like her, I am now alone in this 1830 stone built home. Like her, although she never said, I feel the expanse of walls around me. I see the fields of carpet, the stretch of old floorboards. Like her I hear the hum of ancient plumbing in the night, random, unexpected, like burps. Like her, I study my old gnarled fingers and feel the tweaks as I try to sew and, like her, I say damn you old age! I will not give in easily.

We watch, me and Poppy, the cormorants on the rocks, their curved necks so telling. They preen and prink, black silhouettes from where we stand. Further along the track we find long tailed tits. I hear them and stop. When I stop, Poppy does too, alert. But she looks ahead, along the track whereas my eyes scan the trees. They are here, somewhere. And then I find them, picking off the new shoots from the birch and hazel. Of course they are. No tit could tackle a hazel nut. It would have to be this, the young shoots, the ones that bravely come out even knowing the next frost will kill them dead. The birds are on such an error of choice. They flit, dance, and are gone.

Last night we heard the darkling migration of swans. It woke us both, Poppy barking, me shushing her. Although we could not see a thing, we both moved to the window. She jumped up on the sill and my eyes scanned the black dark, knowing it was a fruitless attempt. We stopped. We looked. We heard them pass. Who knows how many but it took some minutes.

Well, I said, shall I make tea? Her huge eyes watched my face. Neither of us was going to settle immediately. In silence we descended the stairs. I know I am alone, but I am not lonely. I also know that this dog, this Poppy, is a helpmeet even if she has no clue what I am looking at, nor why. She just responds because she is tuned to me as I am to her. And, for all the time I have her, I am thankful.

Being lonely and being alone are not the same thing. I have been more lonely in a crowd, in a gathering, in a family, in my marriage than I ever am now. And, yet, it is new ground. This is it. This is for real.

I am glad I have Poppy.

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Island Blog – Me, the Swan and the Marvellousness of Life

Walking this morning over tree-fall of burnished gold – larch pins, beech and rhododendron leaves, wet and flat on the peaty floor, I see change all around. It seems to be happening daily. Water, still, in stands, rain-heavy. I remembered tadpoles, watched them clutch and fiddle about, only yesterday it seems, when the sun was high and warmth promised. Now, greasy and black, it looks subdued, tempered, level with the sky, reflecting nothing. My eyes cast upwards, as they always do beneath the magnificence of ancient trees. Beyond the skinned branches there are clouds. There is sky, a sky that looks so much further away than it did in the summer. Back then, it felt close enough to reach, to pull down some blue for myself, but if I shouted now, there would be no echo. My voice would be lost in space. The sky has retreated.

There are no fruits left on the rowan nor the blackthorn. The blackbirds have seen to that. No mistle thrush this year, no redwings swinging like ribbons through the woods. Only big black crows, buzzards, owls and seagulls. I feel a missing. Just once I heard the long-tailed tits working the nuts and fruits but caught no sighting. I remember times they danced with me along the track, unafraid. So close, those little survivors with tiny bodies and great long tails and with voices so easily recognised. Hallo, I whispered, so as not to startle them (I have no idea about Tit hearing tolerance) and they skittered about above my head as if I wasn’t there at all.

Coarse dead grasses flop drunkenly after last weekend’s gale #hooligan that screamed and crashed and threatened roof tiles and my peace of mind for two long days and nights. The first of many. The first I have got through alone in this solid wee stone-built home. During the worst of it, in the pitch black of an island night, I thought of sailors, of the animals out in this slashing hail and rain that fell like steel rods onto a goodly and patient earth. When I walk through the woods I can feel the ground move beneath my feet, as if I walked on elastic. This is how this land survives. It moves and bends with the winter’s boots. You will not break me, it says. You can change me but I will not break.

Returning down the track I see a single white bird right in the middle of the sea-loch at full tide. Too big for a gull and not a goose. Geese are never single and nor are gulls. I peer and watch and move forward. It is a swan, a Hooper, a visitor on its way to warmer climes in the south and already travelled all the way from Iceland or even further north. Now, wait a minute. Swans mate for life. Swans travel together. Why is this lone proud creature sitting mid loch? I hear its voice, haunting, echoing across the water, but it doesn’t move. Closer, I see it is looking out to sea, its neck stretched, yearning. I stop and wait. It calls on, gentle, soft, persistent. I look seawards and see nothing. What? I whisper. What are you doing here at all, all alone and with winter about to grasp us in her icy mitt? Suddenly it flaps itself into a run, lifting on great white wings into the air, heading west and out to sea.

And, then, I hear them. Miles and miles up in the faraway sky comes a huge skein of Hooper Swans, their voices responding to this left-behind loner. I watch in awe as they move overhead, as the left-behind rises and rises in pursuit. They move fast and they are high, so much higher than this single swan but in him or her I can sense determination and the adrenaline of pursuit, the drive for survival, for familial connection. This swan has lost its mate. That’s for sure. You don’t see a single swan. But it knew others would come. It knew that this was the route south. All it had to do was to stand out, white against black water and to be patient. And there stood I, clueless and wondering.

As I watched it fly, rising and rising and rising again, the skein disappearing so quickly, I whispered Go on, Go on, Go on, my brave friend! And, turning for home with a last look at the empty sea-loch, I saw the marvellousness of life.

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Island Blog – Taking the Biscuit

My album is out. Who would have thought it? Edge of the Wild is a compilation of my own songs, worked into magic by my musician/music producer friends at Wild Biscuit (www.wildbiscuit.com) who came up with the idea and then gentled me through the process. I was scared, lacking in confidence and quite certain I had no song left in me. They knew I was wrong and they were right.

It took 3 years to bring it all together. The demands of dementia care meant I could only work with them in fits and starts, short stays and intense effort on all our parts. Staying with them in a delightful farmhouse in Argyll was the perfect place, not least because I met the piano to outsmart all pianos. I could not believe the beauty of this big grand and it seemed to me that all I had to do was to come up with melody and lyrics and the keyboard did the rest. My fingers, creaky after years of no dance with ebony and ivory, were set free. They seemed to float across the keys all by themselves and I hardly had to look or think at all. It was a taste of magic, and heady. For periods of 2/3 days with many days in between, we focussed and recorded. I know the talent Wild Biscuit brought to the process as I was guided firmly but gently up and up and up till my Achilles heel was suitably stretched and my tiptoes elevated me higher than I had ever been before. It was exhausting and exciting, rising me early each morning with more stories to sing, more ideas to explore. The dynamic between Wild Biscuit and me was electric.

Now it is done. Now my album Edge of the Wild is out in the world, on Amazon as a CD or download, on iTunes and on Spotify. (https://open.spotify.com/artist/69ZRY6E6uKAcUmD8G5cF4Y?si=_rlES-ADR8OGIg5s8s7-Cw) I am proud. I am a singing granny and I wonder how many others can say this? Had Wild Biscuit not approached me all those years ago, saying ‘You have a voice, woman. The world needs to hear it.” I might have died with my songs still in me. Thanks to them, this is not the truth.

I invite you to listen. Each song is birthed from an experience, a memory. I recall each of them, remembering how I felt at the time, how the outside of me belied the inside of me. I hope this comes across. Many may relate to each songstory, and to you I say Hallo. We walk our own paths through this extraordinary and complicated life but there are meeting points all along the way where we can share, laugh, cry and find the ‘brave’ to move on.

We all, if we are honest, live on the Edge of Wild. Our dreams and hopes may dash against the rocks but I have seen enough boats pull themselves back to safety, enough courageous people turn their backs on those rocks, to know that it is never too late to make a songstory. I don’t mean everyone needs to make a singer/songwriter album, but I do mean that for a life to mean anything at all, those songs need to be sung and that will take introspection and jack boots.

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Island Blog – Beyond the Pale

Although this phrase has come to mean something dodgy, like bad behaviour or offensive language, it is not what it meant at first. The pale comes from the latin word, palus, meaning stake, as in fence or boundary. I like this meaning better and it isn’t because I was good at latin, which I was, by the way. I just loved words and their origins and, it seemed to me as a miserable schoolgirl that words were my power so it behoved me to learn a lot about a lot of them. Every day now I find new words, great long things that nobody ever says anymore and I employ them just for the hell of it. They thrill me, like numbers do other people. Sometimes, and you probably already know this, I like to make new words because the actual word is dull and unmusical. It has no timbre, no reverb, no harmonies. So I invent one that has.

This daft way of being thinks me. What is it that makes me go beyond the pale of literary correctitude? I know the answer. T’is the imp in me. that imp has served me both well and not well throughout my life. To be able to see the immediate nonsense in something weighty with sense has elevated me and, on many occasions, those around me. At times of inner gloom when the old drudge woman within sinks fatly on to her bottom, refusing to rise for anything or anyone, the imp tickles my fancy. Go away! I might growl, but she is persistent. She wants me to get beyond myself, again. Out there, she cries, look out there! See how majestical, how glorious is this day, this life, this moment! Well, I see no glory at all, I might grumble. It is just a day, just a life, just a moment, after all. Yes, yes, (she is now yelling at me) but it is all yours! Think on that, old drudge woman, think on that.

So this business of staying inside the pale is not an indulgence I am afforded for long. She won’t let me, the imp. She says, look not at the wound, but at the healing; she says, look forward, not back; she says, look around, look out, look NOW! And, she adds as my eyes roll heavenward, be thankful for it all, for the shadows, for the dark, for the doubts and the fears because they are always there for everyone. Just don’t study them, that’s all I’m saying. Acknowledge them and move beyond, beyond the pale, beyond the fence that, btw, you erected all by yourself. And she is right. What I did was to study a shadow, let it grow and develop until it did what they always do; it blocked out my sun.

So, when someone asks me “how are you doing?’ I reply thus. “I’m doing great!” even if it’s a socking great lie, because, in saying it, speaking it out from my own mouth, I hear it. My ears take in the response and shoot it quick quick to my old brain giving it a right kick up the bahookie. Oh, says my brain, what??? I had better reprogram myself. Brains can do that. Immediately it makes an inner change. There is no apology of course and no guarantee that it will remember the next time a shadow blocks my sun because it is I who need to develop a new programme for it to adhere to. The trouble with brains is that they are emotionless and, well, rather staid to be honest. They, brains, give out what we put in, thus perpetuating old thought patterns and giving them gravitas. We think we hear the truth, but unless we keep updating that truth, our brains will give out old information. We must work daily to update. We must notice our thoughts, our patterns and revise constantly if we are to move beyond the pale.

‘It sounded like the truth when first I heard it speak. But it’s not the truth today.’ Leonard Cohen

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Island Blog – The Widow’s Might

Having admitted to the existence of this ghost, named it to you all, I now need to reel it in. Not literally, of course, for who can say he or she has ever reeled in something so insubstantial and yet so powerful? Grief can bring it in, guilt too, fear, of course, and with regret not far behind. But acknowledgement of such an invisible source of anxiety must surely be the springboard from which I may dive into the water. I hated high diving as a girl, all that empty space between me and my arrival into elemental change. But this is the only way. I know it. So many of us wander into the evening of our lives carrying the weight of ghost denial. I want clarity of vision. I want to know where my feet are taking me. I want a clear mind and as healthy a body as possible. But the deconstruction of this anxious state must begin with the admission that it is there in the first place. I may look like I am always cheerful, impish, strong and in control but that is my walking lie. And it isn’t just me who lies. We all do.

Facing down my innermost fears is not to deny they exist and nor is it to spew them out to anyone who would stand long enough to listen. It is an intensely private palaver, one that requires consistent and focussed attention, practice and the daily revival of faith in what can be, what will be as the work progresses. Pretending is out the window, as is denial and hoodwink.

I am alone now. A deal of that is very good. I have freedom to do what I please. I have only myself to think about on a moment by moment basis. I have time to think things through without being on constant duty. There is no more caring to be done. My children are grown. They live their own lives their own way. We are all still grieving, although for different men. Some have lost a father; some a grandfather; me a husband. All the same man and yet not the same at all even if we did share a big chunk of history. Our responses to this loss manifest in a million ways and the time it takes for healing will be different for each one of us. Nonetheless we are joined on this path and thus able to support each other even if we don’t necessarily relate to each other’s process. What we do share in common is the legacy the ‘lost’ man has bequeathed us. There is genuine sadness that he is here no more; there is anger at unfinished business; there is frustration at the imperfections of our relationship with him whilst he lived; there is confusion at the void into which we all now walk, and there is fear as we stare into the open maw of it.

So, what’s to do? Well, we can do nowt about the way ahead, for it is simply that and there is no other choice. There is no map for this journey, no chance to stop and recalibrate the satnav. We are less one in our family, one who controlled us, decided for us, and who genuinely believed his way was the right way. This could have been a conversation but it never was. A man of his time indeed. In his certainty he knew a woman’s place was inferior to that of a man. He knew that children needed strong discipline. He knew that he was the man of the house and that his word was IT, and that strength of mind kept us safely contained for all of his life and a deal of our own.

The ghost flits through me. Being free is both exhilarating and scary. The well-built structure of life is crumbling. It needs to come down now for it is compromised and the rain is getting in, the render cracking and the beams rotting. All of this is just as it should be for there is a new structure to be designed and built for each one of us. What we all need is the courage to move towards it, to step into the maw, to dive off the high board; to keep faith close by and to work with the ghost on our lacks and fears. And this widow is stronger than she thinks. She will relocate herself, the one she left behind 49 years ago, and she will look back on this time with pride and a smile, the widow’s might in her hands.

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Island Blog – I and the Ghost

There is one in my system. A ghost. I know it is there, can feel it, smell it. Sometimes it is a catch of earthen mulch, autumny, wet and visual, sharp with the glint of long buried crystals, and stories. Other times it is lavender or lemon pressed close to my nose and causing me to pull back from the attack to my senses. It is never rose or bergamot or patchouli. Never. Visual. yes. But fleeting, so fleeting. I wonder if I am now too slow to turn my head, that, if I were still a young woman, I might turn faster and snap! Catch it. I wonder, too, if I my snap-catch might arrest it, for it and I seem to be strangely connected by an invisible line. It might pause for no reason other than this. But I cannot and it does not. It slips like mist through me, serving only to stop me for a second and to fill me with a sense of discomfort and perplexity.

I am curious. I am intrigued. Who or what is this ghost? Then I wonder more. Does this ghost have purpose? Does this ghost know who it is, if, indeed, it is a ‘who’ at all and not merely a what without purpose or function, identification or mission like a sudden rabbit bursting into my space as I wander along a track in the wild lands? What if it has blundered into me, by mistake and is now trapped somehow?

All these questions beseech answers I cannot give, but here is something I do believe. As a human, being the top predator, the top of the pecking order etcetera etcetera, and thus, that all things weird happen to me, this may not necessarily be the truth. Now this is, at first, confounding, ungrounding. It baffles me and I must explain it, for if I cannot then I am all at sea, so to speak. But what if it is just where I need to be? At sea, I mean. I have sailed enough dodgy oceans in ever dodgier seas to know that, at such times, when the balance of power shifts to an unfathomably powerful force, I find my place. I find my lack. I find my feet, my hands and my brain.

And here I am with the ghost, at a worldly human level, limited by what I was taught, what I learned, whom I trusted and who let me down; on my sibling dynamic, my understanding of how it should be and of how it should not; through religious curfews and constraints, through expectations and demands; through loss, anger and frustration. But the ghost will not explain itself, nor do I have the snap-catch to arrest it long enough for such a demand. I am the ‘I’ of the beholder and much good it does me. ‘I’ stands taller than a lower case ghost and yet has no supremacy over it. This fleeting misty invader holds it all with its ability to arrest and confound, to take a free flow morning into chaos, albeit momentarily, for the human ‘I’ will immediately rise into armour plating with his, or her, lance at the ready. But we are fools. The ghost can move through walls, through empires and lives and through history without a second thought or any thought at all.

So what is it? I decide to acknowledge what I already know and so what I say is this. The ghost that apprehends my normality (whatever that is) and challenges it, is a friend and, like a friend, it challenges me. Like a friend it leans in closer than anyone else. It is easy in my company. I need no armour plating. It tells me there is something as yet undone, unfinished, even unexplored and it will not leave, this laughing wraith, until I have addressed the issue. I might ask, what issue? But it will just laugh and wisp away, only to come again and again and again, because it knows that ‘I’ know exactly what needs to be addressed. My weak humanity is avoiding it and we both know it.

I am glad of the ghost in my system. It is my helpmeet at every turn, even if there is a great longing in me for no more turns. It stops me folding in, giving up, turning weak and feeble. It makes me strong and fiery, all punch and growl, all fight and roar. It also makes me impish and jocus, wild and circus with belief. It friends me in ways I would not, could not fathom; would never ever have invited in. Am I privileged in this ghost invasion? I doubt it.

I think we all know this ghost.

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Island Blog – Lift

Some days awaken me dark. I never know why nor when. All mornings are dark on the other side of window but on the inside there can always be light. It doesn’t seem to be up to me. My days are ordinary and samey. I do my chores, eat, sew, write, clean and wash. There is almost nothing in the diary beyond reminders to call someone or to write a thank you letter to all those who sent condolences to me and the kids.

On mornings when the dark permeates through my skin tissue to bury itself deep in my interior being, I just know that, day long, I will need to work hard; not at tasks but on myself. In fact, tasks can take a running jump on mornings such as these. I had one yesterday, closed down the phone, hid from passers by, and barely managed a stitch or a word. I didn’t speak out loud and my walk was a trudge.

What I know is that these days are random and could be lethal if I believed in them, if I thought, for just one minute, that this is IT. It isn’t. All I need to do is to open my eyes to the outside world, to see, to feel the enormity of eternity, of nature, of circles, of life living herself on, no matter what my piddling day is like. It isn’t easy, not for any of us. But, if I engage with the dark, I spend all day blind and I refuse to go that way. Just because I am a sexagenarian and counting, just because I am disillusioned, doubting, noticing aches and pains, feeling old and stupid and hasbeen does not mean it is all over. I may have found my way through a long and complex marital relationship with a less than uxorious husband; I may feel anger at thoughtless words and unkind acts of dominance, but I survived it did I not? Better, I am still dancing, albeit slowly nowadays. Inside my heart I am Winnie the Pooh, Piglet and Tigger, Owl and Kanga with a touch of Eeyore and Rabbit on dark days. And it is ok. It is all ok.

This morning woke me at 5 am, as usual, and I felt light and bright and ready for anything. This is how life is, at least for me. I sat with a strong black coffee and watched a tawny owl on the telegraph pole. I heard it mew and then shriek and fluff its magnificent feathers before silently flying away to rest. I considered the day before and the other such days. If I didn’t ever experience them, might I believe that life is always easy to live? I might. Thus, these dark days are of immense value because they teach me resilience, patience, humility and more. I know that my core strength grows with me and 67 years of core strength sounds pretty good. Instead of weakening, that power is still mine to wield and wield it I will. If all it does for me as I grind my way through the uncomfortable process of bereavement is to show me that, although I am a small ordinary woman, I have power, tremendous power, power I choose to use for the good of all of us. If I can lift from the bog of eternal stench with a chirrup and a good measure of Tigga then I can, perhaps, lift others up too. I can reassure, show the way out and up. I can tell them it is ok to feel dark. It will pass. It is, obviously, better to feel light and bright but that will pass too, and it is a mistake to expect the world or other people to keep that light shining for us. The key is to accept we can feel dreadful without dumping it on anyone else; without blaming someone else for it, as I have definitely been guilty of; without giving it any power at all.

And on dark days, I recommend looking out. If the dark is not getting our attention, it gets bored pretty damn quick.

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Island Blog – Disparity, Contradiction and a Heart

How strange it is to be the meeting point for two opposing thoughts. My head feels like a boardroom just before two factions arrive to wrestle a great big problem into acceptability. One side thinks A and the other, B. How will this ever resolve, wonders the mediator? How could it when both sides are absolutely certain they have the answer? A contra-diction in the making.

And so it is when a fear walks in first, into my mind. Go away! I shout threateningly, pointlessly. It doesn’t move a muscle, this fear, just stands there, shoulders squared, feet planted and growing bigger. It’s irrational of course. My fears always are. They aren’t ever real, but imagined and yet they burn holes. They really hurt. But I used to think I knew enough not to ask them questions like ‘Oh do tell me how you plan to pan out?’ because, if I did that, they might be only too ready to paint me a vivid picture of destruction and disaster, all so very believable, all so very terrifying. This was my old thinking.

This time I just indicate their allotted seat and pour them a glass of water. I do this because I know that they will not be shoo-ed away. I cannot forbid them entry. They are, in that moment, too strong, too righteous. Ignoring them doesn’t work either. It doesn’t disappear them. I have learned this over longtime.

When the other faction appears through the doorway, we sit down together. The difficulty in finding any sort of resolution lies in the fact that this meet is between the feeling of fear, and logic. In other words, neither side comes with the same level of bargaining power as the other. Let us say that the fear is of possible sickness, possible disaster, possible loss and that those on the side of logic just cannot get it. Why on this goodly earth would you allow to apocalypse something that hasn’t even happened and probably never will? It is tempting to go with that sensible, logical kind of thinking, but in the end a mistake. The thing about an illogical fear is that, when it is dismissed or suppressed in one guise, it will just evolve into another one, to return another time. It is like Covid, silently attacking at random, no rule of thumb, no logic.

What I do is this. I welcome both sides to the meeting. Hallo, I say. I see you. Let’s talk this through. I am the mediator after all. My varying fears are not silly. They are very real. Look at them, sitting smug on one side of this table, watching me. I decide to let them start. Even though it scares me, knowing how they can spin their spin. I take a deep breath. Courage mon brave! Describe yourselves, I say, and wait. They do. I follow them, watch them grow and develop themselves into monumental cataclysms.

We all do. The logic faction snorts derisively, but doesn’t interrupt. It’s not their turn yet. When it is, they deconstruct each possible cataclysmic development, turning it to dust. I feel rather sorry for my fears now. They just got annihilated by clever talk straight out of a textbook, and, yet, they are still here, albeit now looking a bit sheepish. They did embellish things somewhat, t’is true, and they probably wish they hadn’t gone as far as they did; the end of the world, death, destruction, mass murder, tsunamis etc etc. But when I consider each deliverance coolly, I can see a use for both factions. I can appreciate the need for fears as warnings, just as I can appreciate the need for logic. I can see that feelings are just feelings, and that thoughts are just thoughts. As I look around the table I notice they are all just children, the result of childhoods good and childhoods bad. We are not really opposing factions at all, but just vulnerable kids trapped in adult bodies. None of us are right and none of us are wrong. We are just different, have learned different ways to survive, different ways to cope, different ways to live.

I thank them all for coming. I employ sensibility and compassion, both coming straight from my heart and not my head. I acknowledge both fears and those on the side of logic. I tell them all they are valued and appreciated, in balance. I suggest they talk to each other without prejudice, open, interested, listening to what the other says instead of listening for an opportunity to contest. I feel the air soften around us and in my head. I tell them I am stepping out of the room for a bit, distancing myself. By the time I return with coffee they are chatting like old friends.

Although I know the fears will rise again, as they do for us all, that meeting of so-called opposing factions teaches me that we humans have enough heart to solve any problems, however overwhelming they might appear at first. The key is to appreciate whatever floats into a mind, to notice it, to say Hallo, sit down, let’s talk. Wishing fears away, or dismissing them with confounding logic, only holds sway for a short time. I know where my fears come from. Self-doubt, lack of self-confidence and from believing all the horror stories in the media. The world is not like that even if the tabloids and news programmes would have us believe it. We make up the world, we people, all of us. And we have big hearts, remember? I have also learned the art of stepping out of my own head, my own room, when fear and logic lock heads. Neither of them will win, this way. The removal of my sticky fingers, my gobby mouth and my imagination is always a good thing.

Let us take control of how we deal with our minds. Let us learn how to take a step back when turmoil hits the boardroom. Just through observation and without any attachment to either argument, we can solve any issues inside our brains.

It isn’t the world that needs fixing. It’s our minds. When they are seeing the good in everyone, the beauty in the life around us, when they decide to be unbiased and open, to step out of the current melodrama within and to think, instead, with our hearts, the world will automatically heal.