It is two weeks this very day that I landed down in Glasgow. Only two weeks. Although Africa seems much further away than that, I am delighted to know it has only been two weeks, during which I have managed to find my footing once again. I have stumbled, and often, over the rocks of resistance and recoil but instead of feeling that I have failed to turn into a paragon of eternal virtue, I now know I haven’t given myself enough time to adjust. I can be kind to myself, patient with myself, encouraging and compassionate. Instead of failing in a ridiculous and impossible climb to Perfection, I am doing pretty damn well.

The space and the light, the warmth and the freedom, the sights and the smells of Africa are, well, still in Africa. Here, in my little island home, things are very different. Space is a smaller concept for a start. Warmth is man-made, smells are not fresh and exciting unless I kick start my thingy that burns bergamot or lemon grass. The layout of the day is one of many little tasks, all of which require me to be their master. In my list of ‘failures’, despite brave plans compiled at 40,000 feet I count Not Reading My Self-Help Book for an hour in the morning. I also add Not Writing Down My Gratitude List, and another, Not Eating Good Fresh Food. Ok, well none of those are tragedic and all can lose their ‘Not’.

On waking, when first in the land of light and heat, space, freedom, sights and smells, I discovered my unwelcome thoughts had travelled with me. It took at least three weeks to finally scoot them out the door. It is always my time for dishevelment and discombobulation, the moment of waking, and the dreads and the nonsensically assembled images of disaster come unbidden, come hard and fast, filling my brain and rising my heart rate well into the red. I found a way, however, to dispel them in a flash, a word, a silly word, but a word that worked for me. Halibuts. I know, there is no such word. You have one halibut, you have 2 halibut, you can even have 300 halibut, and there is no ‘s’ required for a plural. However, the word not only makes me smile, but it does the job. I would check my head after speaking out this word, amazed to find that instead of a horror movie, there was absolutely nothing in my mind but space. It was and is all about noticing my thoughts and taking action rather than allowing them power over me.

As time went on, I didn’t need Halibuts at all. I do here, however. It isn’t enough to re-programme a brain once. It is something I must attend to whenever I feel my skin crawl with fear and dread, but the practice means I have the right tools to hand just when I need them. Now I can say my thank yous from a clear mind, with a steadily beating heart and a smile on my lips. Halibuts indeed……..

In just two weeks I have achieved more than I thought I had. I know, and let this one be heard by all carers, that I needed that break away and that I left it too long. I thought I could do it all myself, should do it all myself, ought to love doing it all myself, but that is dangerous thinking. I get that I am fortunate enough to have a son and daughter-in-law who welcomed me with open arms and charged me nothing for 3 whole months. Not everyone has that good fortune. I also know that it took me all of that time to find new footing, better tools, clearer thinking, a change of heart. It took me that long to find hope and to begin a dream again. Although I have no idea of the point of either, they sure are good companions, and far more friendly than the ones I have let go, like friends who are no longer good for me.

Regular breaks are the key, however short they may be. For some it might be a trip to town, a visit to family, a day out at sea, but whatever it is the key is in the word Regular. I found it hard at first to allow myself two nights in an island hotel. I felt guilty and selfish, but that was empty tool box thinking. It doesn’t help that the one being cared for will often feed that guilt, look sad, become more needy and so on, but be warned this will happen at some point. It isn’t easy to say I’m Going Away without feeling guilty and selfish. After all, wouldn’t this person want to go away too? Well, yes, they probably would but by the time you have done all the planning, stacked the car with mobility scooters and walking aids, sorted the house, the dog, the bookings and the ferry tickets, you may well want to jump overboard.

In the life of a carer, there is no easy road. No map, no guidelines. Although there is, in my case, a load of wonderful outside help, it is the inside of it all that will consume unless I take excellent care of Me. I must learn to love myself, however weird that may sound, to love myself enough to know that, without me, this whole fortress would crumble. That does not mean I have to hold up the walls. It means I have a primary duty of care to my own health and well-being, and even if I don’t know how to achieve that at times of exasperation and overwhelmness, I can, at least, take each little step as it comes. I can select my tools. I can give myself time to read, to walk, to listen to music, to escape and to feel deliciously naughty about it. False Guilt, Duty, Judgement, Expectation…..

To you all I say one word. Halibuts.

I am not a natural carer. That’s a sentence, a thing I hear in my head, have heard for years now. Somehow, there was always a question mark at the end of the statement, like it wasn’t quite finished. As I am a carer now, it seems almost rude to make such a pronouncement, even to myself. This morning it came to me again and this time I let it sit with me for a bit instead of tidying it away quickquick. It could be dangerous thinking, after all. This time I looked at the words and the question mark and waited for more. Then, I got it. I am a natural carer. But there’s a but.

The times I have felt the call to care have been many throughout my life and I have risen every time. A child in turmoil, a friend undecided about his or her next step, or someone in a right old mess with a head full of fear and resistance. I have always been right there, a calming voice, a peeler back of protective skins, a listener and a very well read woman who can offer up ideas for the choosing. Then I would walk a way beside this person, encouraging, supporting and watching them move on and on into the distance. In other words I wanted to help them up to the top of their mountain from which they could see the whole view of their lives. From up there, new courage could be garnered from the winds and the light, and the world, way down below, far in the quiet distance, would lose its hold on the fetters.

However, this caring work promises no such freedom for the one who is now firmly grounded and heavily chained. There is no climeable mountain. There is a huge range stretching from east to west, from north to south, enough to darken any size of sky. I am not able to suggest anything much beyond a small thankfulness for what is. There is no chance of permanent repair, of a new choice of direction, a shaking off of old feathers. It is as it is and it will never get better.

Understanding this must be a freedom, or so I tell myself. Instead of thinking ‘I am not a natural carer’, with ‘I am a natural carer’ being the right answer, 10 out of 10, well done………… I look at the greys. I still love to help someone elevate their thinking. I still want to walk beside a person in a quandary to the summit of their mountain, to see them breathe in the cold clean air, to watch the sky and to re-consider without the fear of worldly pressure. But this is different. This can feel pointless at times, even though there is nothing at all pointless about making sure another human being is safe and warm. It can drive me to screaming point, or to a glass of wine at the wrong time of day. It can have me overwhelmed with compassion, flooded by tears, scared, tired and as restless as a flea on a dog’s back – and frustrated beyond measure because I cannot fix this problem, this man, nor this situation, no matter how much I want to or what well-read-up skills I bring to bear.

We women hate being fixed. Men are fixers and there is much written on the bizarre design of both sexes. You would think that we would have sorted out that nutty problem by now, what with all the scientific brilliance we have at our disposal, but it still stands firm between us and is still the most discussed subject in couples counselling. However, we women can want to fix too. We want everything to be the way we want it to be, within whatever parameters over which we have autonomy. This place of autonomy, in a traditional marriage is usually the inside of the home, although you are a fortunate woman indeed to have enjoyed such a widespread rule. We can fix our children until they tell us to get lost. We can fix our man, to a degree, but what happens when it is no longer possible? How does that feel? When something horrible arrives, like dementia or other mental illnesses with no cure?

I think there has to be some freedom in my understanding of this morning. I am not a natural carer for a long term circumstance. Next question……So what do you plan to do with that understanding? I will search for ways to lift this man to the top of his mountain, to breathe the good clean air. Well, not lift him, per se, for he is heavy and frail and fell yesterday flat down on the stone floor, no strength in his arms to do anything but lie there. But there are other ways to lift. If he can accept his sentence with whatever amount of grace he can drum up, then I can find him a mountain top. He was never an inside man. He was out in the wild, with the winds tearing at his face and the sea spray leaving sparkles on his skin. He was restless, always striding out somewhere and now he sits all day in one of two chairs, traversing the space between, very slowly, with the help of a walking aid.

I could look at that and feel very low. And, at times, I absolutely do. I can also find the mountain top inside my own mind and remind myself that, although this job may not be of my choosing, there are powerful and life-changing lessons to be learned as I take each day as it comes. Yes, I will falter and fail, over and over again. Yes, I will be frustrated and snappy at times, but if this is the ultimate journey of understanding, then I will make this pilgrimage all the way to the shrine because I know for certain that I will be a better woman in the end.

And that is worth the walk.

A name. What does it mean to hear it spoken out, or to be called for? For some, it is a longing. Many rarely hear their own name formed in another’s mouth and delivered into the air between. Softly, kindly, in anger or loaded with blame, a calling for help or a reprimand, they might be happy just to hear their name at all. An upward inflection helps however. To be called is to be needed, wanted, valued. To never be called is to feel invisible, unimportant, not needed at all. Even if a person isn’t very fond of their own name, it is about the only thing of real value any of us can say we own, even if we do share it with others.

I never really got the hang of my own name. Even as a teenager, once I had the head power to wonder why on earth my parents chose it at all, it sounded odd to my ears and still does. I spent a large part of that angst ridden time planning to change it as soon as I learned how. I wanted an exciting name with an ethereal ring to it, something that others wowed at. Plain Judy just cut no mustard at all. Over time, I forgot all about my name changing plans as life got herself very busy around me, and I had to keep moving for fear of being trampled in the rush, or, worse, left behind.

I suspect I am very blest nowadays to hear my name called so often, even if it irritates me – the name calling, not my name, although it still doesn’t suit me. But, I am old enough, now, to ignore such frippery thinking. When I am needed I am called for, sometimes up to 50 times a day. I am the one to help put this on, or take that off, or fix this or collect and deliver that. I am the chosen one. When I have just settled down to work on my tapestry, or have sunk my butt into the big old armchair, or am just zipping through the kitchen for more wood, or to write down a post it note, or to add to the shopping list and I hear my name called, I feel a scream rising. Perhaps I had already fetched and delivered, assisted with the pulling on of a warm jumper, washed the porage bowls etc etc and thought, foolishly, that all was well, that we were done, for now. I would be wrong. When someone cannot do for himself what he considers important right now….well, there is only one recourse, don’t you think? Where is she? Oh, there she is…….

And everything is right now in dementia. However, I have thought long and hard about it, reminding myself that if this was me, stuck in a chair, mobility very challenged, no dexterity in my fingers, no lightness in my feet and a demising ability to think laterally, I would need help too. How patient would I be? How would I feel about not being able to jump out of bed, pull on clothes, tiptoe (there’s no more tiptoeing for him) downstairs, flip open my laptop, sign in, write, make tea, light the fire, sweep the floor, sync my music to the speakers and so on and on and on – all that I take for granted, in truth. How would I adjust my mind or would my mind adjust itself on my behalf?

I can’t answer any of that, because I cannot really know. All I can do is to respond with compassion. Well, that’s a big ask sometimes! So, here’s what I do (sometimes)………I hear my name called, twice, thrice. and I hear it but stay quiet, giving myself time to push down the scream. Can you hear me? he calls. No, I reply. It makes us both smile. At other times I run through the room at speed, obviously on a mission for wood or bird feeding or somesuch and desperate not to hear my name called. My name is called. This time I ‘can’t’ hear. Perhaps I am going deaf. Perhaps I am just so deep in thought, no sound can get in. When I do respond, I must bite back the tone of resignation, that ‘yes?’ that says Please stop Bothering Me. I don’t always manage it. Remember, I admonish myself, that he needs your help. Well, yes, he does, but he mustn’t lose what remains of his strength. There are some things he can still manage on his own, so there.

I told him, the other day, that I planned to change my name. After all, I have a long list of muchnicernames gathered over the years. Oh, he grinned, knowing my faddiness, what will it be?

Ah, I replied. I’m not telling you.

I awaken to different sounds. A barn owl, for instance, and the first bird, or the creak of the central heating pipes warming up and the sound of an oystercatcher down there on the shore. After 3 months of very definitely African sounds of dawn, I am a little discombobulated. All those thousands of miles across the world, way below the Equator, where the moon is upside down and the Seven Sisters are in quite the wrong place, I woke to the pure voice of a Barbet, or a Turaco, a Ha-di-da, a Go-Away bird and, of course, the shrieks and thumps of the monkey troupe as they traversed the roofs of the buildings in search of leftovers.

Ice crackles in the water butt and I sleep under two goose down duvets, instead of one sheet with full aircon blowing away the heat. The bird feeders are ice-fixed shut and it’s not easy filling them in thermal gloves. All material and no fingers. I watch a wee mouse on the drystone wall looking up for any spills of seed. I watch the cloud shadow on the far snow-covered hills, a buzzard on a fence post, keen-eyed and with feathers fluffed. I see the sheep nosing through the icy grasses, puffing warm breaths out to free each blade. I pull on furry boots, even for indoors, to avoid chilblains, my most unfavourite winter gift. The fire is lit, the classical music on and here I am writing this.

I remember the winter months during which I wrote my book. A rug over my knees for the capricious draughts, two big jumpers on, mittens and lots of socks. Back then we had no central heating, no double-glazed windows, big leaky holes all over the place and old worn carpets. How times have changed, as times generally do. Not always for the best, I know that, but even through the dark times, there was always light somewhere.

As the sun rises red and the sky turns from sparkly black to blue, I think on what it means to move from one place to another and what it is to value both at the same time. It doesn’t have to be a physical migration. Sometimes, when I talk with a friend, he or she might dismiss what was, in the light of what is. The past was painful and should be buried and forgotten and I don’t want it back. Or the past was wonderful and it should be buried and forgotten, because I can’t get it back. Both may well be the truth but, somehow, it seems to me that to dismiss what was just because what is has arrived is a mistake. Either this, or that, in other words. Black or white. My question is this…….what about all those greys?

When someone asks me if they should choose this option or that option, I always suggest both. You can laugh at that, as I once did, till I did some serious studying. Instead of either this or that, which immediately throws a person into confusion, consider allowing both. One is emotionally driven, one by logic. A thought is very different to a feeling. Both require attention and simultaneously. If I feel sad that I am not in the place I was in, then this is perfectly okay. I am here now, in my present. But to bury any feelings of sadness is to park them for only a short while. They will rise again. If I want to make a decision about this or that, I must embrace both my emotional connection to the decision and my logical mind. For instance, I cannot just fly back to Africa because I was free there, free of lists and obligations and duties. No, I am here now and this is my home. Actually I don’t want to fly back to Africa because it was what it was. A break from the norm. In order to make inner peace about there and here, I must remember all that sun and freedom in order to bring it into where I am right now.

I never say that I go back. I go forward instead. Forward to home, not back to home. And, so, in going forward, I honour all that I have had, all that I learned, all those memories and pictures, the sounds and the sights. I honour the warmth in my home, the freedom to walk in the wild places, the newness of every dawn. Engaging emotion to logical thought promises a good marriage, and there are wise books on that very subject. We have been gifted both. Although the world leans more towards a logical outlook on life, I would warn against taking any notice of such a singular approach. Too many folk suppress how they feel about what happens to them, and so, they starve. Let feelings be spoken out loud. Let feelings show themselves. A world without passion is just a machine.

Not either. Not or. But both.

The moon is upside down.  Back home, it arrives in the sky as a fingernail, the top is the top and the bottom is the bottom.  On this side of the Equator, the rules are different, so that the moon lies lazy on her back, filling up over the days until she is fat and round.  She makes me chuckle each time I look up and see her.  It seems she can relax more as she goes about her business making a big golden hole in the African night, whereas our moon must shiver over the colder climes of home.  The clouds show me ships and dragons and mountains and valleys, pushed by a warm wind and heralding crazy storms, change, threats and promises, and stories from far away told through voices I will never hear.

All this thinks me, as the moon grows fat.  Of circles.  When we are little, we learn some wonderful things at our mummy’s apron strings, and we also learn some less than wonderful things.  As we are consistently praised for doing things well, for achievements ranging from winning a place on the team to putting our pants on the right way around, we are collating important information.  Over time, and as we grow into adulthood, we will hold onto this information, believing it to be factually correct.  The right way to live.  We don’t think much about it, to be honest.  It is how the world works, this striving to achieve, this drive towards perfection.  But ‘perfect’ does not exist.  Not for warm blooded humans, emotionally driven and longing for love.  It does exist, however, and absolutely should if I were to build a bridge over the Firth of Forth, for example.  Anything less than perfection in my work would cause massive destruction.  This is clear to me and just a bit obvious.  However, if an individual judges themselves by this rule, then guess what?

Failure, is what.  Using the guidelines learned in childhood with intelligence and aforethought is a good rule for a life, but only as a starting point. If those guidelines tip us into circular thinking, meaning we don’t stop to notice our thoughts, we are doomed to run out of steam and to hit the buffers.  So many of us need to be perfect and as a result we feed the inner judge, the feelings of regret and the sense of failure.  Just imagine allowing ourselves to be imperfect, to get it wrong, to develop within ourselves a ‘Good Enough’.  This does not mean being sloppy.  I don’t do sloppy, nor ‘can’t be bothered’ but I am, thankfully, acquiring new Good Enough skills and am still getting whatever I need to do, done and done well.  Just not perfect. I take the circle and I break it so that it is I who holds a line, not my parents, not the world.  And this line is one I can make into any shape I choose.

Perfection brings comparison into the mix.  We have an astonishing ability to watch someone else present their huge carrots at a garden fete and to wish we hadn’t brought along our own.  I must be doing something wrong here.  These carrots of mine are definitely not perfect, not beside those ones.  I’m a carrot failure.  Even if we manage to laugh it off, whilst crying inside, we still chew over what we did wrong, our fault, not enough not enough, for days or weeks afterwards.  We may even give up growing carrots at all, speaking out the lie that we’ve quite gone off carrots anyway.

I am reading a book I want to recommend.  I want to recommend all the goodly guide books consumed beneath the African skies, but it would take too long.  Daring Greatly, by Brene Brown is a winner for me.  I had no idea that I was so controlled by a need for perfection, so armor plated before the world with its judging eyes.  I learned, like we all did, that to succeed, to win the prize, brought me a tsunami of parental love that seemed to disappear completely with a bad report, or when a tale teller told that I was in the pub drinking Babycham, at 16 with, god help us, a MAN.  I want to be a perfect wife, mother, friend and carer.  I fail all the time on all counts and beat myself into a bloody mess.  It takes days to recover and by recover I mean by pushing the regret, self blame and shame into a shadowy corner of my mind in the hope that they will rot away to nothing.  They never do.  The next time I am imperfect, they awaken and scoot onto centre stage pointing their fingers at me and, worst of all, laughing in derision.  Ha…..you’ve done it again, you failure.  You’ll never get this right.  We warned you…….

So, flying home a week today, I return imperfectly, although I sincerely hope there is no such imperfection in the construct of the airplane that will fly me past the moon, the cloud dragons, the ships and stories, across time, the Equator and on down into the snow and ice.  Back home to where nothing has changed.  But I have, thanks to my guide books, those encouraging and challenging friends who have shown me I am absolutely, unequivocally…..

Good Enough.

Yesterday we walked around the high fence that keeps the Eaters away from the Edibles, aka, us.  When I arrived I was fearful of every step, especially when we saw the fence pulled up just high enough for an Eater to sneak inside.  But, yesterday, walking beside my big African son, I enjoyed it.  I had learned something over time, something I then had to take action over – that the Eaters are nocturnal and this is hot sunny daylight and I want to walk.

When I learn something new, about a place, about imagined danger, about a way forward, I have to take action.  I can, no longer, shiver on the spot, because I have new information.  Doing nothing with that new information is like stuffing a book back on the high library shelf and leaving it to gather dust. However, taking action is brave talk.  For starters, I have no idea what to do with this information.  I could discuss it with another, sounding hugely intelligent as I weave clever sentences together to form a thing that astoundeth, but that is just my way of avoiding doing anything myself.  It seems to me that a new understanding should stay quietly within as it incubates.  As days pass, hours and minutes, this incubation period will develop beyond itself showing me a way forward.  Birthing is inevitable, with or without my attention.  Just think on a baby borning.  It would be quite a feat to ignore this particular result, and just a little ungrateful, not to mention noisy.

So, ok, I have this new information.  I looked for it, let’s be clear, but now I have it, I would quite like to unlearn it.  Trouble is, that isn’t an option, not for any peace of mind to be forthcoming, for it will haunt me, now that I know the damn thing.  It might be new information but it most definitely relates to something I have let slip for too long.  I was fine with said slippage for maybe years, and I still have no idea where or how to initiate change.  A good part of me doesn’t want to anyway.  Life was bumbling along, wasn’t it, before I found this new understanding? Well, no, it clearly wasn’t or I would be merrily bouncing along like Tigger by now, instead of wandering lost through the wasteland of my soul.  In fact, all that angst and self-flagellation rises precisely because I am not living the way I really want to live.  I don’t mean location, or circumstance, but right inside me.

So who the hell is me?  Does anybody know?  If so, please tell me so I can follow your instructions from now on.  You will say I am all kinds of wonderful even if you observe me behaving in destructive ways, because that’s what we nice folk do for each other, thus letting me off my hook.  That avenue, although a very reassuring and flower-lined one, is claptrap, in a word.  In order for me to ‘get’ me and to make goodly changes, I am alone in my wasteland. And there are Eaters pushing up my fences.

Committing is a scary word.  It makes me accountable.  However, I have found that it is easy, and foolish, to decide on a 20 mile hike every morning at ten should I commit to a new fitness regime .  I would start on Monday, all gung ho and lycra-ed up, adrenaline pumping and with half a grapefruit in my jelly belly.  By Wednesday I would be sore and wheezing and by Friday disappointed in myself.  Instead of planning it out with due consideration for my previous unfitness I thought I could get from A to Z without the other letters bothering me. So, now I’m even more of a failure.  Might as well give up and sigh and pretend everything is fine by spending hard earned cash on bigger trousers.  No-one will mind after all.

But I will.

It might be facing down an addiction.  It might be squaring up to someone.  It might be a whole load of other things, but, whatever it is that ‘bothers’, the way forward is daily practice, carefully considered and in tiny increments.  And changing takes time.  However, the great news is this.  Once a person begins to head for Z, each letter becomes a helpmeet.  From the A position, it is impossible to see that, and even harder to believe it.  Admiring others who actually go to the shops in their lycra, have smiling faces, good skin, toned muscles, and thinking ‘It’s easy for her’, is both ridiculous and wrong.  She also had to work hard to look and to feel so good.  It’s the same with someone who has given up smoking or alcohol or chocolate for a long time and is finally free of an addiction.  They had to work too, they felt the same fears, they failed and began again perhaps many times over, but they got there in the end.  So can I.  So can you.  Daily practice is just what it says on the tin.  Daily.  Not now and then, not when I remember, not when it’s convenient, but Daily.

Why is that?  Because, my friends, there are always Eaters pushing up our fences, and the biggest of them all is Giving Up.  I have heard of a lion defeated because its intended prey fought back hard enough, and lived to see another day.  It isn’t that we fail to succeed that matters.  It’s that we give up trying.  Sometimes it takes gargantuan effort to keep the faith as hyenas circle, but nobody who got to Z did so on a short internal flight.  It takes daily commitment. Daily practice.

I’m up for it.