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Island Blog – Lightmare and My Wee Sister

I feel absent from myself. Unnerving, at best, but this is where I am, finally alone here in the placeI love best, alone and just me and that’s that on the whole alone thing. I had family, a husband, dogs, distractions, a massive to-do list and now……..nothing. Well, not nothing, because I still have me, and my kids somewhere out there busy with their busy lives, but in the day to day living of this alone thing, t’is just me. I love it and don’t like it at all, in wavy curves, an anomaly, a conundrum, an apogee, something wordy, anyway. But, and there is always one of those, life lives herself on and through me and I am glad of it, for she still wakes me, aways before Dawn even gets her pyjamas off. Life, the liver, the giver, the one who (not that/grammer, people) shiggles me into life and out into the glory of herself, no matter the utter shit of whatever is going on. And that, is a gift, even if the me of me is absent and silent, lost and alone. The wotwot of this place presents, not as breakfast in the dark alone, again, but also as a rocket up my arse. I feel it. I invite it because without that rocket I could easily fall. I have always walked on the edge of things, felt the pull of madness, of the tipping that might take me over the edge, and I did look down, I did, and was tempted, but no, t’is not for me. I know this edge, my bare toes feeling their way along the ridge, the cusp, and there’s a thrill. This place. I can see others come here, chaotic and unthinking, and I can be the thinker. I can hold and hug and comfort and stable. I can question and settle with them on a rock and tell them no, not now. Let’s go for a coffee. I know a place.

All of that might sound weird to those who never go into the depths of themselves. I know it. But I do, and I know so many others do, even if I don’t know them. We appear as chaos, and we are chaos, but in the understanding of chaos, there is a resolution. Chaos cannot sustain longterm. It will always resolve, and into something beautiful. The waves of the ocean speak volumes, they flow and crash, pull out and into something much greater, the snatch of the wild, the moon, the winds, the everything we cannot, nor will ever explain.

I watch my gnarled fingers dance the qwerty keyboard. They look wizened and yet still dance. Words still flow down my arms, the dance begins and, again, I am absent from myself. I chuckle. I have always been this way, and, even without family, husband, and now, faithful dog, I am still me, like me or not. So, in this state I drive to the harbour town for this and that. As I swift down the curve and into the downfall of one of the two downfalls, I spot a lightmare. It is just after nine am, (I refuse to say ‘in the morning’) and these multi-coloured lights are abundant and flashing. I wonder if they did this all night. I wonder about the other residents in that big block of flats. I move on, and by. And, i am thankful that, in my absolute solitude, one that trips to cusp me and often, is my home with no lightmare.

Thank you, my wee sister.

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Island Blog – Zeitgeist

It’s been five days. I miss and I don’t miss, the Miss. I miss her excitement at seeing me, even if I had just been away for a pop to the shop. I miss her huge brown eyes, looking, looking up at me, for reasurrance, guidance, love. I miss the kisses, cuddles and the way she spoke to me, opening her mouth to emit wild sounds, upward inflections, disappointment in me, curvaceous lifts and falls to communicate her needs. I miss the way she hurtled in crazy dashes around the rooms, up the stairs and down again with a bear in her mouth, and all of a sudden, as if the joy of living just got the better of her. I miss hearing her tappy feets on the floor, her skittering and slides, her absolute ability to live in the moment. Her zeitgeist.

I don’t miss the wakeful nights of late, as what heralded dementia began a heavy tread across the delicate tipperies of her brain. I don’t miss the tension in my gut every time I went somewhere for more than 2 hours. I don’t miss her barking, even at my voice as I questioned and answered myself, or opened a door that squeaks (they all squeak), or Alexa suddenly burst into life for no damn reason. I don’t miss the anxiety of walking in the fairy woods, wondering if I might meet another dog, another human attached, one that the Miss might rush up to, barking like a forest of trees in a state of war. She never volunteered attack, but it might have seemed that way.

However, now I walk without her. No more sticks to throw and to chase, no more of her fun and she always wanted fun, play, nonsense, games, sparkles. Even when the mud chased us, the stones wobbled us, the weather bashed us about, she, naked, me, trussed up like a polar star, we, we, we, had laughing fun, returning drenched and shivering and with mud up to our bellies. Still I walk. I drove to the most beautiful beach in the world alone and in fronds of rain, soft it was and gentle, the waves loud and I could see why. Out there, way out there, the crash of wild spontaneity, the sudden, created a dynamic random percussion, its voice travelling many miles. My wild, my ocean, my home. There was nobody else on that wide curve-mouth of a beach, one that once knew families that lived off whelks, seaweed, seabirds; one that held, momentarily, the ship that became a coffin for those ‘cleared’ from their ancient lands. I stand awhile in the soft wet, tip my face up to receive it, feel the cloud-cleansing. I recognise this place, this place of seeing what was, feeling it, and of moving on. A zeitgeist. To accept, or to absorb, accept and engage with the spirit of time. Zeit, means time. Geist means ghost or spirit. And, although the term, as we know it now, refers to an era, a culture, I claim it as mine.

The Miss is gone. I am here. My zeitgeist.

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Island Blog – Poppygon

Polygon, 3 or more sides. Hexagon, 6 sides. Octagon, 8 sides. Poppygon, multiple sides. Whilst I bother, somewhat, with all the other gons, which never got a mention, I can’t go with that thing just now. I look out at her grave, the fresh earth light and obviously from the deeps. That is where she is right now, deep and dead. My wee companion, the dog I fought not to have, became my love. She insisted on walks, her time clock set for 2pm, and, no matter that I really needed rest after her waking me at two, three, four, am for a going out that resulted in nothing more than barks at the stars, she would still dance around my hopefully sleeping form, lifting me into action. I confess, I do, that irritation was arising in me, and I hated that. So, I watched her dance, looked into her huge brown eyes that looking like a piercing, the wild in her and it would smile me. Okay, I said, let’s go, and the dance became a fiesta, her watching me rise, the excited twirling, her making sure I decant the stairs, pull on boots and jacket and then she would bounce and huff and bark with excitement until I was finally prepped. Holding out her collar and lead, I suggested, with my open palm, for her to sit. I could see her arse jig. She managed an inch above the mat, so excited, to be out there with me. I know it was walking with me, her thing, because others had invited her for a walk before, sans me, and found her resistant, looking back. She was mine, and I was hers.

Buried, she was yesterday. My friend, the vet, came softly and sweet. The ground was frozen. I’ll bury her for you, she said, and she did. I could never have done that, don’t have that strength anymore. I ordered Poppy tubers to plant above her. They’ll arrive soon. A remembergon. I see her big brown eyes and the looking of them. Her beds and rugs and food and snacks are now moved on. Needs must, on those sudden sharp jerks. But, when I walk, without her, I still look back for her, running behind me, having sniffed a gazillion things I just walked past without a care, and I say, hallo, my poppygon.

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Island Blog – Nature and Form

I felt overwhelmed yesterday. Stuff came in, calls and wotwot, like a collision. I am not good at that, this, it. I confound at dawn, no, earlier, because the beloved old frickin dog wakes me at o400 when I am finally asleep, btw. She means no ill. I know this, deal with the rag of this, and she still rises me with a smile as she squeaks and dances around my sleeping form.

Form. We all love this. It has a geometric shape, can solve an equation, can create a whole frickin building. I love form too. But today had no form, nothing form about it. My overwhelm took over. it was a spread across a peat bog. All those acres of apparent nothing. Generally speaking, I love the nothing, the gasp of cold air, walking out there into the sparkle of ice.

It thinks me. I take me and the dancing squeaker out for a walk, feel the cold hit my face like an energising gift, stopped to hear the thrust of an incoming tide and looked up at the skinny branches cutting the sky. I watched my little dog bounce through the ice-crisped leaves, saw he pick up a stick, long as a fence post and a definite threat to my legs when she scoots into the lead. I chuckled and felt the expulsion of air blast out all the overwhelm. Among the beauty of nature, things simplify. Fallen bracken stalks create a twinkling mound beside the track, all covered in ice and flashing in the sunlight as I move onwards. Ghost trees stand like sentries either side of me, and through the evergreen pines, the sky is a cerulean blue. Tiny clouds, miles above me, look like they’re painted on with a wide and wet brush. Ahead, snow clouds puff up behind the hills, a sort of ariel bonfire, ice white, sun-tipped. Will it snow, I wonder?

I meet nobody at all. Cutting through the woods, I look to the beyond. It seems to go on forever, and however hard I stare at it, this beyond, I will never get to the end of it. I realise that I have been staring at the ground too much, scurrying like a frightened mouse through my small concerns, and allowing them to create my state of mind. I watch a sea eagle slide through the sky, wings wide, slow and easy, and decide I need to get myself up there, to let my small concerns remain on a page or in. my diary, small they are, very small, and I am at liberty to alter or change any or all of them. I am unsure driving in icy conditions so, once I am home again and have rebooted the fire, I call to organise new appointments for a hair cut, an MOT, a shingles jag appointment. I settle to some sewing, eat lunch, switch off the phone and go upstairs for an hour to rest. Perhaps I will sleep a little. The walk into the wilds has given me form perspective, as it always does. Always.

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Island Blog – Find your Guide

On the theme of Help, I have something to say. We, I ,have discovered over endless years, that everyone resists it. I can do this all by myself, they say, or indicate with a shovel full of all that they have achieved before this Help thing moved in like a drift of autumn leaves. Not welcome. But we change. Of course we do. I remember himself saying to me, more than once, bless him, that he had never changed, refused to change, would not change. I was too young to see this as a serious condition, latterly I did. We all change because life changes, life changes us. Our power lies in acknowledging this change, this transformation, this dynamic twist and swirl to the person we believe we are, a challenge to transist, new word. Mine, obviously.

I found my hands less able to lift and stack wood. I looked out, asked for help and it came, big time. All wood lifted and stacked and also the joy of half an hour over coffee with a delicious young man, friend of my lads. However, and there is always one of those, as my eyes scan the past, my past, when I was all NO! I can do this all by myself, I can hear the offers of help. So, why did I resist? Why did I do the everything of everything until it made me ill, depressed, anorexic?

I have no answer to that. I also notice that my young, my extended family young, all say the same thing. I can do this, no help required. Perhaps it is a human thing, or, perhaps it is all about our current culture of succeed or fail and the pressure is immense, in a career, in being a mother, a father, there’s no escape from any of it. It’s like a push to your back, a hiding from what is not good, a protection from loved ones, a split from reality. But how can our young see this reality thing, so far from gathering whelks, firewood, fircones for kindling? So very far. In an urban situ, the roads busy, the boss bossy, the troubled teens online upstairs, money the driving force, what hope? Well, I ask this, but don’t you ask this because I believe that a gazillion youngs are working this out. Just be there. Doesn’t matter where you live. Where they live. They are brilliant human beings, loving, caring, watching, learning. And, here’s Granny……

Ask for help, for guidance, if that works better. We are a human team. Find your guide, for now.

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Island Blog – I Need Help

Today I loved the crispy cold, the conversation between ice and sunfire,walking out into the woods, the sky gathering clouds like a coverlet. They would disperse, I saw that, as did the sky. These are days and night I remember, expected, in the olden days. Frost snaps and traps, cold folds and colds, stars rise and hold, moon calls like a loon, or a luna. She woke me, the starry tramp, swirly, twirly, but it’s ok. Ok because it tells me I am here, I’m alive, pissed off and thankful.

Today I received a ton of wood. In a bag. In the cold, dry, welcome of an afternoon, I barrowed out myself behind the barrow, to bring in the wood. Gloved up, to avoid the splinter attack, I managed three loads, my hands not obeying me, my fingers weaker, my back shouting, and knew I should stop. That whole stopping thing arises the feisty in me. I could do all of this and more. I could deliver lambs, feed guests, manage children. work with anything, anything.

Not so, now. And, it is up to me to accept this. And I do. I was who I was. I am who I am. The only one who will ever make this messy, is me. I have offers of help, many and random. We are a team, people. And there is so much thankfulness in saying this.

I need help.

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Island Blog – Indigo and Goose Shit

I’ve been blue for a few days, I admit, and blue is my favourite colour, but not my favourite way to feel. Although I don’t show it outerly, this feeling, I still feel it. It’s like a trudge in my heart, filtering down to my legs and up to my thinking. And I did trudge, all of me did this trudging thing. Each task felt like a frickin bore and a half, more. I kept going, automaton switch on, but felt almost absent from proceedings, even if I did proceed. Sleep was bumpy and ebullient with odd images and chilly moments. But, now I have moved on to green. I also love green, the growth colour, the one that heralds change and the promise of astonishing colour. I went to church today in astonishing colours, my boots and one of my layered frocks, the colour of goose shit after a korma, and my underfrock green with white flowers and yellow interiors, the teeshirt below a washed out blue, a concession and a wink to the blue of late. My socks were wildly striped, my coat blue/grey with red hearts. Nothing matched but I read the lesson quite the thing, acting it all out in my voice. A definite improvement.

It thinks me. Sometimes, actually many times, when I remember the gazillions of counsellor guides who have gifted wisdom, revelations and inspiration over most of my adult life, there has oftentimes been the invitation to colour a feeling, or a state of being. As I am me, with my instantly curious mind, I wanted to know ‘which shade of this colour would you like me to name?’ There was a silence after that until, I’m guessing, strength was gathered along with an eye roll, pre responding. If asked, I might explain the difference between shade and hue, between the wisdom of naming a colour as a single thing instead of the many, many hues and shades of that particular colour, depending, naturally, on what other colour/solution/medium was added, and in what proportion. Have I lost you?

I walked today in the wild place. It is right outside my gate, a few steps, slew right, and I am on the right track. Always the right track. The air was a gasp of what might have been a snow warning, had the clouds told me so, but no. Damp held in fists as I breathed in the smell of Autumn’s stand against the Winter King. He’s a bugger, so he is, arrogant and confident and blowing early shards of ice at people when they’ve only just got the hang of those awful wooly stockings, only just thought about packing away all their summer kit. The trees wave at me, spindly now, ghost trees, sap sinking into roots. The snipe are in, the hedgehogs snuffling about for a place to hibernate, the stags are silent, dead, or triumphant, but wary. Grass is held in stasis and will soon be dead, but the moss and the fungi still stand tall, an arrogance in their standup. Thats an island word.

So, if asked the question today, What colour are you? I would grin, avoid doing the shade, hue thing, and answer, still blue, but with green. Blue but with a touch of rose madder = indigo. Green with a touch of cadmium yellow = goose shit.

Sounds like confusion. That’ll do.

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Island Blog – I Can Do This

I heard from the surgeon and all is gone, for now. No chemo, just radiotherapy in the new year. The three cancer buggers, all small, have been removed plus three lymph nodes, all of those free of cancer. A precautionary tale. My African son flew over to be with me for the aftermath, which wasn’t ‘math’ at all, and we were cavorted back to the island by my eldest. Prior to that I was with my sister who made me feel important and loved, as we went for pre op needlepoint and an information overload, well, for me, with my head tucked under my wings and my brain like spaghetti, but not for her.

Then, home, back to my beloved island. Not mine, of course, but this wild place homes me, grounds me, safes me. However, for over two weeks I was not alone. Africa was here, and the sharing, the kitchen dances inside his arms, loved me up. I don’t know how long it has been since I felt that warmth, enjoyed that spontaneity. In a loooooooong marriage, things get boring, disappointing and, although the light of love can spark, it is just now and then, or even just then.

So, he is gone. Back home now with his lovely wife and animals and into 35 degrees just like that. I spoke with him today. Too hot, he says. I cloak up to walk the four legs, blustering on, like Winnie the Pooh, beneath wind-creaked limbs, big enough to take out a whole mansion, the leaves flipping around my face, and with mud underfoot. And I snort at the ‘too hot’ thing.

I miss him. I miss hearing his footfall as he rises from sleep. I miss his voice, the sight of him filling a doorway, our shared laughter, the play of words between us over a scatter of candles. I miss the feeling of complete safety because he was here.

I am here. I am alone. It is winter. I am IT. And I can do this.

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Island Blog – The Jousting Woman

Women used to joust, you know, back in the jousting days. Needless to say, they had to look like men, breasts bound. But, coated in gmail, no, chainmail, sorry, all they needed were huge biceps, strong thighs for clamping a horse, hands free, great eye-arm precision and bloody mindedness; a Boudicca sort of attitude and a kick ass determination to be a fighter, regardless of their sex. Altough jousting was fast and furious, it rarely ended in tragedy, but only in collapsed pride. Women, wiry and flexible are less rigid, less stuck in the ways of men and, more importantly, less encumbered by ego and swagger. In fact, swaggering is not what we bother with at all. Wrong shape for starters.

I will get the call tomorrow, the one from my wonderful surgeon, the one who will tell me the wotwot of my nexting. I will hear that only radiotherapy is next, after Christmas, and for one week. Or, I will hear that more surgery is required and, then, the radiotherapy. I have said I refuse chemo. I’ve seen too many of my community go for it, only to lose a year, at least, in sickness and pale-faceless and loss of self-confidence, and then, for some, to fade away anyway. No bloody thanks. However, if I was 40 (loved that birthday) I might have chosen differently, but I am not, I am 70 and that’s a fricken long life. I have lived like nobody else has lived. I have adventured every single day, dealt with chaos, damage, disaster and celebrations which everyone who came would agree were the best. Me and the old bugger were excellent party hosts. Just saying.

Not that I am going under. Whatever my results are, I am ready and peaceful. I cannot control the most of it, but I can control me and my attitude and. my thankfulness and my humour and that mischievous imp behind my eyes and in my throat. I can do that because life is the most wonderful thing. My life is the most wonderful thing. So, btw, is yours because without it, there is nothing much.

So, although I began with jousting, I still like the thought of Joan of Arc-ing myself up to meet the stranger which is Cancer. I doubt I could hold the chainmail, nor clamp the horse, hands free, but there is something about flying there, about letting go, and not just of the joust pole; like a spirited game-on thingy, the pounding of hooves, the tension, the timing, the invisibility.

Whatever I hear tomorrow will take me forward, and forward is the only way for a jousting woman.

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Island Blog – Ouches

Ouches. I’m unsure there is a plural for an Ouch, but it can so feel like there is, or are, at times when one just doesn’t cut it. Well, it does ‘cut it’ but in multiple directions, like fissures. Too many esses in that word methinks. Backing to the point……

This morning he left, my big African son. He came to be with me after surgery and stayed just over two weeks of big son in doorways, that smile as wide as a continent, those big warm arms, that massive heart, that love in his eyes. We are so easy together. He worked with his coaching clients, stacked my load of wood, repaired a collapso chairo, went through the Spider Darkness of the dodgy understair cupboard, which, back in the yore of yore was a corridor, and they are always dodgy. I remember, as a little boots, on my tricycle, scooting a corridor in a big house/boy’s school and it was miles, and there were rats (yes, there were) and I was there pinging away on my bell and heading for Cook in the huge steamy kitchen with her buns and her smiles and her bosomy welcome. I pedalled like a dingblast. You never saw such footwork. It was darkling, old place, old lighting, possible rat attack, always a thingy. Parents were well into gins and fizz and nonsense and there was me, or I, on my tricycle. I was a brave one, even then, or was I just after Cook’s buns. They were spectacular, but you decide.

He left in the beginning. Morning was pushing Night away with her flaming torch, the sky flipping fire. I was in ma goonie and with coffee to hand. I am fine with this, I can do this, I can let him go off and up into his own life, I said to myself and she, as usual, did this folded arms thing and smirked. And, the daylight was light enough for me. I cleared old clothes, tidied the Spider Darkness and found a few things I had thought swallowed up by the Mouthie past. That chattering reminder of all we failed at, didn’t say, did say, wish we had done, wish we hadn’t done.

But as light concedes to dark, day to night, I miss him, our sundowners, flicking on the twinkly winkly lights, the jacking up of the wood burner, the shared tunes, the dances. And we did it all. And I am so thankful. Although there are many ouches, there is a fricken wealth of memories and I have them all, right here beside me, inside my heart. I can go there any time I feel an ouch.

As I walked today, knowing I would return to the alone of my life, I looked up at the leaves still falling from the beech trees, the caper of their float down, like dancers, a capricious play with the breeze, and I thought, there is so much pain in our broken world, and so much beauty, in loss, in struggle, in play, in dance, in moments shared, even in the ouches. We grow from all of it, even the shit of of it. Have a wonderful weekend. I will. There will be ouches. There always are.