May 10, 2015 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 155 Should or Must

I read an online paper called Brainpickings. I recommend it highly. Someone miles away spends all her time researching and presenting thoughts on pretty much everything. What I most like is her choice of material and the way she delves deep into the inner workings of her subject, supporting it with other writers’ observations, scientific fact and personal comment. Her funding for all this work comes solely from voluntary contributions. She obviously feels she ‘must’ do this for her life to be as fulfilled as she wants it to be. I doubt there’s a ‘should’ in sight.

How many times a day do we say, or hear another say, ‘Oh I should be doing such and such….’ or I ‘ought to get back and get this job done’? In our very words we are saying how terribly much we would rather not do those jobs at all. Any sentence with an ‘ought’ or a ‘should’ inside it needs challenging. It means we are not doing what feels right to us and yet we fail so often to question our own sense of integrity at this point, mindlessly performing tasks like circus animals, for the benefit of others.

I am not saying that we do only that which we want to do. How riddickerluss would that be? A great number of us would spend all day in bed, or on a beach, or watching Friends Series 256 from start to finish. No dinners would ever be prepared and the housework would go to pot. Dogs wouldn’t be walked, nor windows cleaned, nor gardens gardened, if on that particular day we didn’t want to do any of it. Nobody would commute to work and the world of commerce would die on its feet.

I am also not saying that we should swing the full 90 away from ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts’ because daily work is good, regular ordinary tasks essential to our lives, our businesses, our jobs. The key is to walk away from the should, just a little and check out the view. If I didn’t do this thing, this mindless thing that I hate doing, and no longer want to do to please this person or that, what would I do instead? It wouldn’t be nothing, no, it would be something, so what something feels right to me? What, in fact Must I do, for my own sense of what is right? Now that, my dears, is the right question. Must is when the task ahead, not necessarily an exciting one, becomes exactly the right thing to be done, in order to move on; to reach the goal, the fulfillment, the sense of achievement. I must do this and so I will.

Simples.

In my experience, inner questioning is essential. It’s the beginning of Mindfulness.

Did you know that 99% of all the work that leads to winning the Nobel Peace Prize, the Man Booker Prize, the painting that sells for millions, or the grown child who says Thank you Mum for teaching me all the right things in life, is done alone and unnoticed? The glory world we live in now, the glamour of it, the annorexia of its body and spirit, the fast-track dash to ultimate success, is one of illusions. Watch less tv, read no newspapers for a month and then see how you feel about life around you. It is a remarkable fact that what we do/watch/listen to/surround ourselves with, on a daily basis, can turn us from ourselves, can tell us ‘this is what the world says, so it must be true’ and can corrupt our glorious human nature.

I say read more Brainpickings, read more books that lift our spirits, either novels or non-fiction. Read ‘Feral’, read ‘The Road Less Travelled’, read anything, but read. We writers have some good things to pass on.

This now from Eleanor Roosevelt, one of my heroines, a woman way ahead of her time, independent, strong, beautiful and wise.” When you adopt the standards and values of someone else….you surrender your own integrity……(and) become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being.”

Following her is Elle Luna from her book The Crossroads of Should and Must. Read them both, and then walk off into silence and reflect. And then, question every move you make.

“When we choose Should, we’re choosing to live our life for someone or something other than ourselves. The journey to Should can be smooth, the rewards can seem clear, and the options are often plentiful.

Must is different. Must is who we are, what we believe, and what we do when we are alone with our truest, most authentic self. It’s that which calls to us most deeply. It’s our convictions, our passions, our deepest held urges and desires – unavoidable, undeniable, and inexplicable. Unlike Should, Must doesn’t accept compromises.

Must is when we stop conforming to other people’s ideals and start connecting to our own – and this allows us to cultivate our full potential as individuals. To choose Must is to say yes to hard work and constant effort, to say yes to a journey without a road map or guarantees, and in so doing, to say yes to what Joseph Campbell called “the experience of being alive”

‘Must’ be the difference between being alive……

and merely living.

May 6, 2015 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 154 Reality Check

As I sit here tapping on the keys of a laptop, waiting for my friends to wake up to another glorious morning in Argyll, I consider our conversation last night over dinner, on Perception and Reality. We had spent the afternoon developing depth and texture on one of my songs. Again, they said, sing that again, only, this time, shorten the vowel sound and give it more breath. Slowly but surely, a single line of melody took on colour and light. There were six of me in the end, in as perfect a repeat as made no difference. It’s interesting how difficult it is to sing exactly the same over an original melody line, not so much the rise and fall of the notes in sequence, but more the length of beats in a single word, such as ‘gold’ or ‘right’. If the consonants don’t land at precisely the same point (and a nanosecond matters) then it can sound like a shower of bullets. T-t-t……etc. I considered bringing the importance of such perfect repetition into ordinary life, hence the conversation. I may walk through exactly the same situation as you, but our perception of it can be chalk versus cheese.
Why is that, and is it okay, good, even, to have different slants, sometimes as many as there are people involved? Of course, it can make for war, and often has, and will continue to do so as long as people walk the earth; one that seems to be managing to extinguish rather a lot of its inhabitants. On a goodly sunshine day, and in a warm, easy, light-hearted situation, such as a merry meet in the bakery or on the street, our differences in perception and ‘reality’ matter little. We can walk away, wave, think what we like once the meet is done, but life isn’t about merry meets all the time.
Sometimes we butt up against an opinion we do not share, but however skilled we are at marketing our own, however loud we talk, however clever our words, we can never change the perception of another soul. We do not live their life, share their dreams and longings, feel their pain, know their joy, understand their song. And we have never looked through their eyes. We may try to do just that and call it empathy. We learn to listen, some of us, and then to mindfully consider that our own perception of reality, the one we are absolutely convinced is the blue print, just might be a blur to another.
At the moment we are all facing a Perception/Reality check, as the country moves towards election day. Some of us will shrug it off, not bother to vote, asking What’s the Point when Nothing Changes? We are bombarded with arguments, one party shouting its promises, another berating those promises as so much rubbish. Accusations of past failure, one-upmanship, clever quips and outright slander is all around us. Who is right to lead us and do we believe in the depth and texture, the perfect unity of their song, or do we feel bullet-battered and uncertain of the melody line?
One thing is for certain. If we bother to vote, at least we make it clear that our own reality matters to us, however we perceive it.

March 5, 2015 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 153 On Good Men and Unicorns

I have heard said, that good men are like unicorns. Everyone talks about them but nobody ever sees one.

To compare a man with a unicorn, is, indeed, a strange thing to be sure. Unicorns may be ‘fictitious’ creatures, but they are very real in fairy stories, folklore and even in Harry Potter’s world, which is one I almost believe in. Many times I have faced down a pillar on some bleak and windy station, thinking positively about rushing towards it in search of Platform Nine and Three Quarters. I don’t, of course, being ever so slightly aware that I may, indeed, be a Muggle after all, and, thus both bitterly disappointed, and in need of cosmetic surgery.

The other thing that stranges me about a comparison between unicorns and good men, is that men, in my experience, couldn’t be more earthed. I may attempt, for example, to unfold my feelings about some aspect of my life only to be asked scientific questions. What shape, when, why and how. I may float (just a bit) around concepts of life, love and marmelade and be yanked back down to earth with a sensible ‘fix’ to the situation, one that completely misses my point, not that I have had one of those in a long time. In fact, my being afflated about some other-worldly issue very possibly negates the need for a point, as there are many and none in the mackle mind of a woman at such times.

Now, I know, like you do, that unicorns have hooves and must, therefore, do things like walk, trot, canter and gallop, and for all of these activities, they require some sort of stable terrain, one with depth and structure, one they can see and expect to see whilst they do all of these things. In this, they are very like men, I agree. But, and this ‘but’ divides and separates, they can fly, of float, or elevate and there are few, if any, good men who can do that.

But is there a difference between Men and Good Men? I wonder if this is simply an act of perception. I say ‘act’ because it is a doing word and not a being word and there’s my point. And I have another. Does the perception of a man make him good? If I imagine him to be like a unicorn, powerful, there when you need a lift out of danger, able to move fast over ground or through the air, beautiful, intelligent, magical and interesting, might he not become so? Whereas, if I imagine him stupid and blunt, strong-like-bull but dimwitted and messy and thoughtless, might I not be fashioning him that way?

I know this is a chicken and egg question, but it has thinked me for a while and made me watch folk and consider. We can divide our lives into little controllable units, and, in many ways, this is a good thing. I want my day planned, to a degree, to the degree that is important to me, that is. I want to know when this or that is needed by my family, and what my role is in making it right for them. But, if I have forgotten what it was like when first we met, then, chances are, so has he. Life and the gravity of it has pulled us all down. It happens, but the clever ones among us notice this. If I stopped the car suddenly and said to you, Look There Goes a Unicorn, even if you were the biggest domesticated woman cynic ever, you would look, you would ask Where? But if I said There Goes Your Husband, you might look, you might, but, if it was somewhere you didn’t expect him to be you might say…..well you might say all sorts of things but you would not have the same look on your face as you did when I called him a Unicorn.

January 29, 2015 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 152 Small Things

I had to take action. I’d been listening to their scurryings above my head every night and wondering what they were up to in the loft. It’s a dark, cobwebby space, long and spooky, silent, waiting, holding boxes of heaven knows what, familial bric-a-brac, books – stuff the children will wander through when we are gone, wondering why on earth we ever kept any of it.

Okay I said to myself, time for mouse traps. Yeuch I hate them. I hate mouse poison even more, not that I’ve ever tasted it, of course. I hate the slow dying of it. At least traps are quick, unless they’re not. It’s the ‘not’ bit that keeps me turning over in bed and pretending it’s the wind pushing things over up there. Well, it could be. There are loads of holes for it to shoot through. ‘Up there’ is one of our mysteries. Unlike modern day lofts, ours is 19th century and has hardly changed at all over the years, beyond its contents. Gaps between slates show me sunlight, and as for lagging, there is a bit here and there, but nothing that quite spans the space between roof trusses or ceiling beams. There is flooring, but that just hides a possible Mouse City so I’m not fooled by it. The cobwebs are black and strong. I’ve been right to one end on my hands and knees in search of something, anything I might recognise, batting away cobwebs quite impervious to batting. After a fretful and panicky few minutes during which every episode of Nightmare on Elm Street shot through my brain like fire, I re-appeared down the wonky steps in dire need of both a jolly good hoovering and a double brandy. I could hardly breathe for hours and my dreams were littered with gigantic spiders for nights after. I actually like spiders very much. Just not the nightmare ones.

Anyway, back to the mice.

In trepidation and braced for Cobweb Attack, I donned my head torch and pulled out the wonky steps, took a deep breath (my last for a while) and, with my head, pushed up the trap door. Let’s re-name it. Loft door. Yes, that’s less scary. I pushed up the loft door and let my torch scan the darkness. What did I expect? A line of jaunty mice, all waving and saying ‘Gosh, we haven’t seen you since last winter! How have you been?’ Hmmmm. Nothing, of course greeted me beyond the long dark spooky silence and all those flaming boxes of nothing I recognise. I actually did wonder if the stuff wasn’t ours at all, but left behind by one of the Whoevers who lived here before. I saw a cricket shin pad thingy, well, half of it to be precise, the upper part now a fluffy mish-mash of ‘munched white’. Spurred on by this sight (himself will be horrified…..no more Wicket Man) I set the traps with peanut butter and nearly lost a few fingers before getting it right. Sorry…..I whispered into the gloom and let myself down. All day I hated myself with a strong hate. How can I be so cruel? I know it is utterly foolish because mice should stay outside shouldn’t they, and if they don’t, well, it’s their funeral?

It thinked me of small things, generally, in life, because it is the small things that have the power of big failure or of big success. For example, our daily habits are small things. We dont really consider them much, are not mindful of them until one of them begins to jar, to feel wrong, to nudge for change. If we don’t make regular checks on our daily habits, we may find ourselves caught in the cobwebs of our lives, trapped in the dark. We humans can think that we are who we are and that’s that. We can’t change now. Well, I will challenge that. However old we are, we can change and all change begins with the small things, one small thing.

I may feel ludgy and lethargic. What can I do about that? Well, I can stay ludgy and lethargic, or I can decide to take a walk for ten minutes and then tomorrow, I can make the same decision until, after a few days, I have created a new synapse in my brain, a new habit, one I don’t even question. I just do it. Then, one morning I wake up and I don’t feel ludgy and lethargic any more. Gosh! How did that happen? Well, it didn’t ‘happen’. I happened it.

I caught 12 mice. I didn’t feel great about any of the process, but I knew I had to deal with the small things before they became a big thing and chewed up all those mysterious boxes in the long, dark, spooky loft. I went up this morning and found both traps un-pinged. I’m not saying the job is done, for the small things will, no doubt, be back, but because I have taken action, I have created a new synapse in the loft of my life. Who knows……perhaps this Spring I will crawl up there in a hard hat, with a sharp knife to open up the past.

Somebody’s past, anyway.

January 20, 2015 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 151 Winter and Spring

“Winter is not a season, it’s an occupation.” Sinclair Lewis

Now, as the cold sets in and the winds bite, we can turn towards home. The lack of strong daylight draws us to the soft lighting, the fire glow, candles and a good torch for the Last Dog Walk at bedtime. I find I read even more, if that is, indeed, possible. My tastebuds changed their tune and thick soup replaces a rocket salad. I remember Elisabeth Luard, the famous cookery writer saying to me, once, that she loved the winter. All those bonkers unmatching hats and gloves, the fat woolly jumpers, thick socks, big boots and nobody watching her waistline, least of all, her. It was almost with a sigh she welcomed Spring, knowing full well that those pretty frocks might well resist joining at the zip.

Gone are those foraging walks, the fresh tang of autumn with skies full of redwings and the leaves turning into gold and red to finally fall to the ground, a crunchy carpet at first, then a soggy mulch beneath our boots. Mud gathers below the verges, frost splits the tarmac and the potholes re-appear with a vengeance. But, walking into winter can hold its own delights, after all, who doesn’t like jumping in puddles? If you have gone beyond puddle jumping there is something wrong with you because it may be the best form of excercise you can take and there is never any harm in re-visiting the inner child. So many of us lose our sense of play and it is a Zeus of a mistake. The finest people I know still play childish pranks at 80 with twinkly winkly eyes and a dare in them for you to even think of disapproving.

In Sweden, so I am told by my viking daughter-in-law, there is no rain/sleet or slush. There is only snow. Kissing the ground at first, this white out can grow to terrifying depths, disappearing whole houses overnight. If it ever happens here, there is considerable panic as if we are all about to turn into snowmen. Trains stop, buses stop, and nobody can get to work. Well, I struggle to find the bad in that, unless, of course, you are an emergency service. In Sweden this is all carefully thought through and those who need to get about grow wings. Although I don’t want to say this, I do wonder at the flapdoodle this country gets into about seasonal changes, and I do shake my head. At Tapselteerie, if the track was impassable, we just didn’t pass it. Sudden holidays, lack of food, the power off, no phone, all meant fun. As long as the stock were fed, milked and checked, we were all quite happy to play. I remember once being at the hairdresser in town and the local police (pronounced poh-liss) popping his head round the door of each shop to recommend that those of us who lived ‘over by’ meaning anywhere but the town, should head home as the hill road was fast being wiped out. Being wiped out is exactly what happens. The terrain is just one hilly blanket and there is no way to tell where the road lies within it. I said to the poh-liss that I wisnae going hame with one side cropped and the other trailing over my right ear, and, by the time I did head overby, someone had already found the road and marked it out which was very thoughtful even if it did take two attempts to top the highest hilly bend with a neat short back and sides.

It seems to me that fear is the killer here. What on earth is there to be afraid of? It’s only snow and puddles after all, although not both together. Ice is a bit different though with its chameleon ability to become the road. When someone ahead of me scooted neatly off the single track road in the un-gritted glen, landing just under the nose of a startled horse munching hay, all of us stopped to help. We hefted and bumped and, on finding all that hefting and bumping quite pointless, popped the inhabitants into our own cars and trundled them home, waving to the horse as we drew away.

And, of course, there is always the promise of Spring. Crocuses are coming, snowdrops pushing into the cold light, birds looking for nest sites. But we should honour winter. There is a beauty in it, a bare stark beauty that should not be missed, like building snowmen, puddle jumping, making soup, wearing bonkers and unmatching hats and gloves. Longing for something to end just lengthens it I find. Our winters are unpredictable, unlike Sweden.

How versatile are you? I personally want to be able to bounce like Tigger (or move like Jagger) whatever comes my way, even if it does require forward planning and something to hold on to. And, there is always a temporarily unbouncing somebody who needs my help.

December 20, 2014 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 150 Space and Time

Last night I watched the International Space Station move across the starry sky. A golden orb it was, arcing overhead, just a tiny dot. Six atronauts are aboard. I waved. I know, sad really, but you never know what a welcome wave can impart across space and time. I’m thinking ‘butterfly wings. The illusion of ‘just a dot’ in the wide sky of a sparsely inhabited island would be no less to anyone who glimpsed it last night between high rise buildings in a big city. And, yet, six whole living people are aboard. To them, we, the whole WE, that is, the Earth, is also illusive. They know we are millions, we are legion, and yet, all they see is a rolling ball of mountains, plains and seas. They don’t see us and we don’t see them, but because of our vast technology, we know we are all where we are.

Let’s look closer.

Up there, last night, NASA emailed a racheting socket wrench. Well, not quite the actual wrench, but a 3D image via a 3D printer that guided the Commander to fashion one himself. It would have taken months for supply vessel to deliver one. Months.

When we look up, we imagine stars to be small sparkly lights dinging about when the clouds are away bothering someone else, even though we know that some of them are much bigger than our own world. Still, as we point them out to a little one, to gaze up in wonder, we don’t think of great lumbering planets, already dying, but of diamonds in the night.

The International Space Station travels at 27,000 km per hour at an orbit height of 431 km, and here I am wondering how long it will take to drive to Doune for Christmas with all that festive traffic. But, my place is down here, not up there, and here is where I need to remember the illusions of time and of space. We know both are always with us, always influencing our decisions, our routines, our days and our nights, but because we cannot control either of them, tame either of them, rule over either of them, we just have to let them be. We must walk with them, through them and around them as fellow miracles.

Now, we may not think of others as fellow miracles. In fact, some are way off miracle grade, in our opinion. But again, this is an illusion. I know that, at this time of year, everyone is ‘goodwilling’ themselves to death, smiling when before there was no smile, giving when we only take for the rest of the year, lifting our care-worn spirits and tired bodies in frightful jumpers and paper hats and telling ourselves it’s fun, and I never did understand why January is all about diets and New Year’s Resolutions. Why don’t we eat sensibly and employ self-control all through the year? Why can’t we give to those who need something we have, and they don’t, every single month? It seems we turn back to ourselves after this crazy happy festive season to face the big black hole inside every one of us all over again.

Black holes. They’re in space too, and in time. Those who are lonely are often closer by than we might like, often in the family. In space, they eat you. As they do down here. For all the technology, the space research, the developments in education, social media, lifestyle (for some) and health care, we are still lost.

And yet, we are found too. If every one of us chose not to turn back in, to scrabble around in the illusion that we are not enough, not clever, not destined for greatness, not important, we might learn, bit by bit, to look out, to see other walking miracles, to learn from them. It isn’t easy for any of us. We all have black holes, black illusions. But those who do make a difference, who do become important, who are clever and definitely more than enough, are those little people who choose not to be consumed by self-pity, guilt and regret. Not one of them was born with anything more than the rest of us. There’s no magic here. Every single one of us grows a black hole. Once we acknowledge that, we can move on beyond it, whether we have ‘everything’ or ‘nothing’.

Another human illusion.

The people who have chosen not to turn back in are the heroes, the warriors, the fighters for life. And they began right here, taking one step at a time, one day at a time.

It’s a new day today. Christmas is coming. But Christmas will also go, leaving us behind.

What will you make of yourself when it does?

December 3, 2014 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 149 Fire and Ice

149 – another Prime Number – indivisable by any number other than 1 or itself.

I like that. That’s me. Others may suggest alternative descriptions of something or someone so resolutely singlular, not many of which would raise me high on any Christmas card list. Words like Selfish, Stand-Offish, Stubborn, Thoughtless, Narcissistic, Ego-Centric and so on and so fourth and fifth and sixth. You get my jist.

But (and there’s always a few of them) in order to carve a furrow along which I am happy to walk, I have to be the one to carve it. No, no, not that way! they might cry. Look, see, here’s a nice womanly path, one full of other nice womanly dudes with behaviour manuals and clean tea towels in their well-ordered drawers. One look is enough for me.

How I have managed to love love love being a wife and mother of many, whilst maintaining my singularity is a puzzle to me. Actually I didn’t manage that maintaining thing to be honest whilst living in the melee. It was a question of forward motion at all times to avoid being crushed, but now, with hindsight, I can see that my intense and consuming need to be singular, even in those times, kept talking to me – an internal sustaining dialogue, despite the requirements of hostessing, mothering, catering and, against humungeous odds, domesticating those in my precarious care.

Anyone who has forged ahead in life has to be of singular persuasion. Forging ahead and tidy tea-towel drawers probably argue with each other. Now, shall I forge today or tidy my tea-towel drawers?

Some might say there are those who could do both and in the same day, but I doubt it, because the whole thing about forging is that it decides not only what you do or where you go, but who you are, your choice of path. Consequences arise inevitably. For example…..if I choose not to cook supper because I am busy writing, which is important to me, this ‘me’ who is completely forging and not a bit hungry, I may well upset you who are:

a. Hungry

b. Not a little irritated that I have abandoned my post.

c. Alarmed at this turn of events, and concerned that, if ‘allowed’ this turn may take an unhealthy hold on me.

If I continue to walk this path it will eventually become the norm, expected and, to a degree, accepted.

Really? Well my mother never told me that and nor did anyone else by the way Jimmy (certainly not him), but it doesn’t mean I can’t learn it now. Anyone can learn it now, any now, however grey and worn and old and tired. People who decide to make a change will always find a guide when they need one. Thing is, you have to take the first and scary step.

When a volcano erupts, it doesn’t ask permission. ‘Oh, now, sorry to bother you, but would it be okay if I erupt next Tuesday night about 10pm, hmmm?’

When a glacier decides to move along a bit, causing masive tidal chaos, seals to flip overboard and huge ships to bonk their noses, it doesn’t check with anyone first. It just moves.

These are prime events, huge events with consequences for us all, and, of course, barely related to any human ‘forgings’, but they illustrate my point to a degree. If I wait for permission to forge, when my internal voice is hot enough to bend steel, then what on earth is my life all about? I may well be remembered at the wake as a Good Woman (with tidy drawers) who was kind to everyone, never said NO, and certainly not in capitals, and who always put others first, which, in my opinion, says only a small thing about me. The BIG THINGS are :

What did I do with my life?

How did I make a difference?

What legacy do I leave and who will learn some wonderful new freedom for themselves, by observing my work?

If the answers are Not Much, Didn’t, and Not Much, then all I have done is make a sandwich.

We are born of Fire and carved by Ice, like mountains. We might take a little trip inside ourselves and remind ourselves of that.

November 9, 2014 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 148 Dark and Light

We were talking, my small-panted grandchildren and I, about the dark. Was I, Are you, Button Granny, frightened of the dark? I was having a ying tong at the time (ying tong piddle etc) and she, the smallest pants, burst in, quite the thing with this fairly big question. Well, I said, thinking, or looking like I was…….I used to when I was little, and then, later, when I was bigger than little, yes I did. Why? she asked.

Good question. They ‘why’ bit always throws me unless it’s obvious, such as Why did you not put your fingers in the fire Button Granny? I thought more, albeit in a slightly compromised state (I can still think at such times, being a woman) and said, Well because I know the dark now.

How? she continued. Oh dear. Well, I said (what would we do without that wonderful word of delay?) I think that I know that, that……there is nothing to frighten me in the dark anymore. Oh, she said, and dashed off to complete her Angry Cabbages Puzzle, which, by the way, I do wonder at. If cabbages are angry in her little mind, then what hope is there? I had, earlier, read both herself and her bigger brother a story about an Elephant and a Bad Baby, who, together, stole two pies, two pork chops, with no thought for the poor pig, nor, I might add, the butcher, two ice creams, two buns and two apples, so I guess Angry Cabbages are small fry by comparison. I am consoled greatly to know that their parents think the book ‘dickerless’ too.

The dark is just the other side of the light. I remember my lovely dad saying just that, as I shook him awake, about yay high, my little heart beating like mad, my feet light and running all the way to his side of the marital bed. He rose and guided me to the bathroom, his voice soothing, regardless of his broken sleep, sleep he badly needed for his busy working day, yet to dawn, and laid a towel on the edge of the bath. He turned on the taps to run tepid water into the tub and then lifted me onto the towel so that my feet dipped into the soothing water. He talked about this and about that whilst I calmed, and then, softly dried my feet and lifted me back to bed with a gentle voice saying gentling things. I don’t know if he stayed till my eyes grew heavy, but I do know that I never saw him leave. He never asked me to tell him of my fears, just seem to understand them and then he washed them away. I thank him for that, although he is now long gone, a Marine Commando, another dad who never talked about the war he lived through, at least, not the dreadful bits.

As a teenager I was still afraid. Not outside, bizarrely, but within the walls of a house. Once, when invited at stay with a schoolfriend, the daughter of a pig farmer, for the night. I lay in the guest room, weighed down with warm bedding and I just knew there were rats in the room. I said to myself, Don’t be Dickerless, but the rat-knowing part of me stayed resolute. Then, as I began to doze off from complete exhaustion, the house around me quiet (which meant the parents were in bed too…..) a rat ran over my blankets. I saw it and I felt it. I spent the night in the cupboard and cried so much at breakfast that my poor mother had to come and collect me, effusive with apologies and, no doubt, embarassed for ever and a day. But I Saw the rat! I wailed. Uh-huh, she said.

The dark is something personal. To each one of us. Maybe it isn’t the night sort of dark, although it can be, but perhaps the inside dark stepping out. A fear of something or someone. Doubts can bring the dark. Crime on television just before bed can continue to play out and develop in our dreams.

Dark is the other side of light. As adults, sentient adults, we know this. But knowing something and it settling into our bones can be a universe, a lifetime apart. I know that when I am troubled, my dreams bring more dark than light. I have downloaded a Sleep App on my android phone (get me) by someone with the most boring voice I have ever heard, whose control over the english language would have sent my english teacher, Miss Machoolish into one of her dizzy spells, and it works, the boredom treatment, never mind the bright lights, the secret garden or any of the stuff he drones on about. I just want out, so I fall asleep.

Now, I love the dark. I know that, inside it, there is calm and peace. I also know that night creatures move at such times, but they don’t want me, they want mice or wandering birds, and, although I may, indeed be a wandering bird, I am way too big for their taste. I sincerely believe that television, for all its great dramas has bigged up the darkness with fear and we believe it. Although I do acknowledge that, living on an island, my dark is just dark with not much inside it to worry any of us, I still think fear as food is something we don’t need. We spend too much time, me included, looking at how things might go wrong. Why should that out-balance them going right? Perhaps more looking at the light in our lives would gentle the dark in us.

Dark is dark. Light is light. It is enough.

October 31, 2014 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 147 If Not Now

Today is Halloween and I already have a witch or two in my head, and if crossed, in my mouth. Not a really bad witch, but one of those ones that knows her power and won’t take any messing. I like her. She is a tad unpredictable, but we work together pretty well in the main, perhaps because I am also a tad unpredictable. Witches are really ‘storybook’ to me, I don’t do black magic at all, although the white ones are worth a second look. I pull them in and shape them up for whatever hurdles I need to cross on a daily basis. My witches are humourous and feisty, clever and quick, kindly but firm, independent, solo, and able to lift above any situation with a switch of a wand. They don’t sport warts, nor crooked chins, nor do they cackle unless it’s whilst watching the ‘bad’ guys fall into their own come-uppance, in which case, I cackle too.

My time on Skye was wonderful. Every time I travel to new places, I meet new people and people fascinate me. I watch them and I listen and I learn. I stayed as a guest in a lovely home overlooking a sea-loch that raged and spat for days, driven mercilessly into a right stooshie by strong winds and heavy rainfall. The rain travelled sideways, whipping into my face and grabbing the breath out of me. It was hard to stand up whilst walking two lively spaniels whose main aim was to find rabbits and chase them, not possible whilst held firmly on a lead, but nonethless, their aim. When we had the rare sighting of a car approaching along the single-track road, we had to bundle into the grass in a fairly undignified heap, the spaniels panting for breath and the blood cut off from my lead-holding fingers. Waving was tricky, lifting just my hand and not a whole spaniel into the air. I was treated like royalty and yet welcomed as part of the family and now I have new friends, new people to learn from, a new bond between us. Just as an aiside, I belong to the Scottish Book Trust who can sponser such trips and I am always delighted to be invited anywhere in Scotland to talk about Island Wife, to sing my songs, to reach out to people who relate to my story, in book groups, libraries, or at any public event. I know, shameless marketing!

Moving on…….

In every area of life, there are people. Machines do a hec of a lot to assist communication, its reach and the speed of it, but we need people or there is no heart. Talking of hearts, I believe hearts are inherently good, even when the outside of someone challenges that theory. Nothing is black or white, we are all both, plus all those rainbow colours in between. Of course, life can throw us from time to time, but none of us want to be remembered, or pidgeon-holed at such times, especially if the outside of us says different. But we can and do define people, if we’re honest, by their behaviour on a certain day/week/month or year. We may be asked to describe someone. We may say…..well, she is very good at her job but dreadfully overweight. Now why do we add that last bit? Is it that we must balance a good thing with such an unnecessary comment? It’s irrelevant to the profile of that person and, sadly, the one thing that will be remembered. Her overweight is something she doesn’t like either, we can be sure of that. I have heard such defining often and, to my shame, said nothing. I remember one of my boys saying once ‘I wonder why we don’t stand up for each other’ and he is right. Why don’t we? Perhaps we don’t want to be the reason for any awkward feelings. After all, we can just remove ourselves can’t we and think how judgemental that comment was and the person who made it. It’s easier that way. But aren’t we judging too by keeping quiet? It has a name this keeping quiet thing. Although we didn’t directly commit the crime, we affirmed it by omission. We omitted to stand and be counted. In this climate of not standing, we need to make changes. I have a rule for myself. If I wouldn’t say something direct to a person, then I won’t say it at all. I can’t always manage it. I am human. But what I aspire to, and practice, will eventually become a habit.

We are all doing our best to manage our lives. We fall, we falter, we stumble and we crack, but we are not china cups and we can mend. Not one single one of us knows what it is like to live another’s life. The saying that we should not judge another man till we have walked a mile in his shoes, is a good one. Even living closely with another human being tells us little of what lies in their hearts, what dreams are shattered, what disappointments hurt, what shame or oppression has done to their sense of self. Little choices make up our pathways, but we cannot all walk straight and tall if those pathways are not going the way we want them to. We redress the balance as best we can, and it takes time to find the normal, sometimes a long time, often a long time. If I have learned anything in my life it is that I am not an island. Although I love solitude and am happy on my own, I still crave a warm smile when life feels like it’s wrapped me in chains and thrown a tsunami in my face. Stopping to smile back, to ask How Are You? and to listen to the answer can lift me far higher than any job-well-done will ever do. I may rush by you, Can’t Stop, and you may understand my busyness, and I may complete the housework in record time, but, I am smile-less deep inside and not lifted up at all. Better, by far, that I dally a while with you beside the dried goods and coffees for a human encounter. We are dead a long time. Life is for us to live or it will carry on without us.

If not now, then when?

October 23, 2014 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 146 Travelling Light

As I pack my bag for the trip to the Reader Room on Skye, I meet all sorts of thought tangles. What to take, what not to take and in which suitcase. The big stripey one or the smaller spotty one? Both have noisy wheels and both weigh too much empty. I won’t need much, will I? Just jeans and tops, a warm jumper, walking boots, books, notes, wash things, face paint, a frock for the night, leggings. The smaller spotty one will do. Until it won’t.

Travelling light is a dream of mine, almost a passion. I want to be light and flexible, easy to move along please, to glide through doorways, over metal bridges without needing CPR on the other side. I want to fit into that space the huge-suitcased lumberers leave between themselves and the dangerous side of the pavement or platform. To scurry, hurtle, dash with momentum and forward thrust. I want to be at my destination before half of these goodly folk have reached the ticket barrier. I catch earlier trains that way, denying myself the takeaway coffee, the creamy bun. I don’t push or shove. I am perfectly respectful of the Overladen, but my constantly working mind maps out the fast route and my feet take me on. I don’t mind queuing at all and must be the only Brit who doesn’t. I just factor it into my dash to wherever I’m going, and speed up where necessary when momentum is paused.

Travelling light, I tell myself, is a state of mind, a decision. Taking too many changes of clothing, just in case, comes from a place of fear. Will I have the ‘right’ thing to wear? Will I be too cold or too hot? Have I the right shoes? All of this is dithering and arrives me laden, out of breath, hot, bothered, and with a load of unnecessary vestments, not one of which gets beyond crumpling itself in the dark depths of my suitcase. But we all do this dithering, if we’re honest.

When I first decided to travel light, it was to a funeral in Yorkshire. I just needed the gear for the church, and mufti. We said bye bye to the kids, minder, collies and cats and left Tapselteerie. It was coming into York that we discovered we had left the cases in the front hall. As our life had always been lived by making good decisions quickly in the face of adversity, we dived into a dress shop and bought this and this and that, then shoes, and arrived at the funeral with the labels still attached. Nobody cared. It was enough that we had made the journey.

The second time was when I went South for a different occasion, on my own. This time, I did have my lightly packed suitcase with me, too heavy even when empty, and handed it over to the nice Easy Jet steward at check-in. I arrived, my case did not. Mum and I dashed to Sainsbury’s, picked this and this and yes, shoes, and off I went to my date. Nobody cared. It was enough that I had made the journey. My case arrived home ahead of me, minus a handle, rendering it completely pointless.

It has happened since, the careful planning, folding, fitting into a small space, all that I think I might need, in case of shipwrecks, strandings, sudden invitations to a military ball, a funeral, a heatwave in October, that my luggage has abandoned me. I have always found a laugh in it, after my initial fish wife impression. I have borrowed clothes I would never buy, applied make-up all wrong for my small pale face, shared toothpaste, boots and even underwear, but, most of all, I was given the chance to find my sense of humour and to lean on it as my support. In the absence of things, I found people, and people can rise over things every time. It’s boundless, the human spirit, warm and strong and constant. Their handles don’t fall off, and in the main, they do what they say they’ll do, and much, much more.

But we forget don’t we, as we live out our lives as islands. We think we must have everything we need with us, just in case. We imagine, with horror, the disaster of being cold, or hot, or lost, or stranded, of our train/ferry/plane being late or worse, cancelled, and yet, in all of those circumstances I have found human warmth and friendship. I have found team spirit, good attitude and kindness. In times of trouble, we look to each other. Sometimes we might consider doing that every day, troubled or not. It might make us less fearful. We might engage in sharing ourselves with others until it’s easy to do, natural, uncomplicated. All of us are alone, but we can travel side by side.

Now I’m going back to fret about packing, about the ferry being cancelled due to gale force 22, the bus breaking down on the way north, and, finally, me arriving on the wrong day.