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Island Blog – All Queens

Facial needling. Heard of it? I certainly had not and required the process to be thoroughly explained before I ventured near. The clinic welcomes me with lovely and uplifting messages, discreetly placed, phrases that tell every woman she is beautiful, with which I whole-heartedly agree. Beyond the weatherings of skin and body, lies a woman with goodness and love in her heart. Just look into her eyes and you will find her no matter the harshness she has survived, no matter how strong her armour and her need to hide within it. Not one of us finds life perfect all of the time. Not one.

I digress. Soft pastels cover the walls and the welcome is warm and genuine. I am guided to a flat bed and asked to remove jewellery and upper clothing and to lie down beneath the coverlet. My clinician is young and, yes, beautiful, and she explains the process. I am no fearty around needles, not me with all my tattoos, my five babies wombed and delivered au naturelle, various minor ops and various minor accidents. Needle away, I say and she begins, having first cleansed my face and neck with her gentle fingers. It feels like a sharpish massage and I wince, once, only once, settling quickly into acceptance. I relax and close my eyes listening to the buzz of the instrument and mentally following it over my face, marking out the rise of nose and dip of chin, the soft plump of cheeks, the wood of my forehead. I feel the bones beneath, the way they are perfectly fashioned to fit my skin, the precious brain they protect and have protected for 70 years, or nearly. No sell-by date for bone structure, not if you’re blessed with a good dose of bloody-mindedness and a further dose of luck. She works on my worry line, that damn thing between my startlingly dyed eyebrows which appeared when I was about fifteen and is now like a dried up river bed, deep and permanent. Or so I thought. This will tighten up all the lines and wrinkles, she tells me with a smile which I can hear, but not see. Yeah, yeah, I think. I’ve read such drivel on the backs of endless potion bottles promising youth after a few applications, and bought not one.

Process completed, advice on not using abrasive face washes etc gifted, I return home feeling as though a million prickly things are trying to get out of my face. Not unpleasant, more tingly and exciting. I have no worry line now, although I do realise this is not a long term magical fix and that I, from this day forth, fifth and. sixth will need to not worry, not invite the return of dried up river bed. I must keep my eyes wide, remain curious, laugh a lot, particularly at my worries and remind myself that I am beautiful, I am a queen. It thinks me about playing cards. What does each queen represent? I google and find that, although each one holds specific values, all four are really one queen. The queen of hearts brings love, fertility and creativity. She also tells of upheaval and change, understandably because love is heart-breaking at times, fertility never a given and creativity can be stifled by herself, by others, by the demands laid upon her. The queen of clubs gifts new beginnings, transition and opportunities. We all know all about those, even if the last has felt as far away as Pluto. Diamonds, well, she’s sharp that one. The queen of swords, intellectual, quick-witted, able to think on her feet, change, evolution. The Joan d’Arc within each one of us. HRH spades brings female intelligence, judgement that is practical, logical and intuitive.

So my thinking is that we all host all four queens, finding at the right time, whatever skills we need to make our lives the best they can be in any set of circumstances. Easily said. There’s no mention of all that sobbing in the dark, the longings for escape whilst trapped, nor the sacrifice of our dreams in order to play a bit part in someone else’s life. We all know those times. However if we can hold on, albeit with exhausted fingers, to the knowledge that we are all queens minus thrones, that tiny flicker of flame kept alive can take us through things we never asked for but which came our way regardless. What did we. expect, after all? A happy ever after, a magical and perfect life? There is no such thing and that is the harshest of truths to accept. But if we can accept it, without rancour or bitterness, we become the queens simply because we, in the silence of our hearts, beneath the armour, inside that beloved brain, believe it, even if it is never acknowledged.

At fifteen, when the worry line began to make itself known, I wrote down my dream. I want to marry a man of adventure, have lots of children and to live in a wild place. And that is exactly what came about. The queen bit had to come from within, yes, there was no encouragement on that score, but it didn’t stop me. I have no throne, no wish to queen myself over others, no interest in that. All I will ever do is encourage other women to find their own majesty and to clothe her in dignity and grace, to learn all queenly skills and to never let the world or anyone in it bring her down.

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Island Blog – Eyebrows, Grief, Cuckoo and a Butterfly

This morning I went for an eyebrow tint, always a risky business as the new ‘look’ is a startlement at first, a gasp, a good heavens because a part of me that sat quietly on my face, barely visible, suddenly becomes a loud statement. I practise eyebrow athletics in the mirror and laugh out loud. I can speak volumes without a single word jumping out my mouth. As the grey comes in, dammit, those ridiculous invading curlicues that appear without permission, without welcome, each one a cuckoo in the nest, I wince. As silently as they come, they stick out like, well, sticks. Husbands have them in spades and not just on their eyebrows but they don’t seem to mind at all. Close inspection is alarming. It’s like having breakfast with someone from another planet.

Whilst I was there I met other women there for nails or waxing or wotwot and, as always happens, we meet and greet before we seat and even after that if twinkle meets twinkle, we chat. I made a new connection with one beautiful woman, a bit younger than me who flies to the UK at the weekend on a month long visit to one of her daughters, the other one being today’s beautician. I watched the affection between mother and daughter and smiled. We will meet for lunch when she returns to Africa and I look forward to learning more about her. Tomorrow I meet with another twinkler, one I met over a delicious dinner with friends of my son and his wife in the wildlife estate. I am sociable, it seems, although I always knew that until the darkness fell around my shoulders and all I wanted to do was hide in the broom cupboard. The phone went unanswered and I even ducked under the kitchen table if someone came to the door. I didn’t know myself then, didn’t want to. If this is to continue, I said sternly to myself, I no longer want you as a friend.

Grieving is a wild thing, shapeless yet living and breathing and unlike cuckoo eyebrow hairs, won’t respond to tweezers and a magnifying mirror. It wakes when you wake, disallows restful sleep, hampers intelligent thinking and reduces a body to a mere stumble. It won’t be explained, nor justified. It refuses to present logically, there is no up nor down, nothing to understand, no map, no guide book, no list of steps that might encourage the griever to hope and to keep on keeping on. Amoebic, erratic and with no care of time, it floats around within, ever restless, ever demanding attention. What do you want of me?? I yelled, and often. You have turned me inside out and upside down and I don’t even feel sad. Who are you Grief? There is never an answer. Friends encourage, fix, suggest and invite. It’s all cold porridge. I didn’t want to do anything, go anywhere, see anyone. What do you want, they asked me and I Don’t Know was all I could muster.

Those days are gone now and I still cannot explain the ‘process’ I have survived. I no longer hide from door knockers, nor do I long for the broom cupboard. I am here, present, ready for adventure and curious about what comes next. The change from then to now feels like a birthing because I am new, not back. I am not the same woman I was and never will be again. I am that butterfly emerging with sopping wings from the black interior of a cocoon and the pain I lived through is the same as it is for that butterfly. The sunshine of new encounters dries my wings as I cling to a stalk, fearful at times but determined to be as beautiful and as dynamic as I can possibly be. I know not what is around the next corner, or at the door, but I will not hide any more. I have something to give this beautiful broken world and something to claim for myself and I won’t miss a moment of it, grey hairs notwithstanding and they are, notwithstanding any more thanks to a good beautician and a startling tint.

Do I thank the grieving process for those two or so years of broom cupboard-ness? Not really, although I accept it was necessary. Hardship hardens a ship, toughens sinews, brightens a brain if it doesn’t kill or maim. I am thankful in many other ways, for my mum’s get-on-with-it attitude, for my children’s gentle support and care, for friends who kept knocking and for my belief in hope even when hope was but a pinprick of distant light. Now, when I meet another who is thwack in the midst of grief, I know not to fix, not to encourage, not to tell of my experience inside the dark, but simply to listen, to walk beside them and to know, even if I would only ever say this with my eyebrows, that this will pass. One light bright day. This will pass.

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Island Blog – The Past, Reflections and a New Picture

I used to yearn for company, filling the yearn hours with distractions, music, audio stories, sweeping the floor, talking to the geraniums. The latter, allowing this for some time, like almost 3 years, have now, I notice, gone quiet. It is their winter, their rest time and my random chitchat irritates. We are resting, they say, turning their backs on me. We manage this alone and in silence. Try it, it is restful. Okay I say, their message clear. I will try, and I do and they are right. I move through my lovely home hearing only the rain, the rise of the gale, big waves of cloudwater on their crests, hear the deafening crashsplash against my windows. In the quiet times, I hear the sparrows ribbon in for seed, 50 or more of them and all at once, all easily startled. I hear geese honk their wobbly way between the fingers of the gale, wings tipping, holding place against the sudden blasts of 71mph strength. I hear the drip, drip of the leak into my leak bucket, the crackle of wood burning and feel the hug of warmth. I notice the click and thrum to life of a gas burner, the ping of a microwave, times up, the voices of brave walkers coming from where? Who knows in this capricious and shifting wind?

Silence is never silence. Everything is always in motion, even if I am not although there’s always the jingfangle of my mind and that rarely stills at all. Even in sleep I am painting pictures, fighting fears, et lala, just like everyone else. As sleep slides away, that’s when the picture becomes itself, an order to the jingfangle to settle in place. By the time I have descended the stairs, new thoughts of daylight and downstairsment take over because I am, in truth, moving from one world to another. The night may begin with the present but doesn’t the minx just flip back through a million pages as sleep velvets in, taking me back to the backside of life as much as to the seaside laughter days and why the hellikins isn’t there a filter process? It seems to me that inner work is required and I do have a guide to inner work me, not by supplying a filter for the night hooligans but more to help me reset my reset button. My inner talk requires a good hot wash cycle, I knew that, know that. How I define myself decides my beliefs. At least I think that’s right and I meet and talk with many folk who tell me they talk themselves down all the time, and, although this knowledge is mildly reassuring, in that I am no freakling, it also isn’t reassuring at all because how does anybody rise above their defining beliefs of the past, a past which is a gazillion miles away and of no relevance to this new day?

Nowadays I have much time for reflection, something in the past I had to do whilst having a pee, the only time free from the demands of others. This is normal, at least it is for mothers and partners. I have no idea about men and reflectioning, how they do it and if they ever do do it. As I sit here watching hefty African rain soak the parched garden and drip most musically from the thatched overhang, I am reflecting thus:-

I did not fail. I made more mistakes than most, perhaps, and certainly more than I am happy with, not that I can recall them all and there’s a thank goodness in that. On the other side of that announcement I pause. Had I not made those mistakes, had I been the perfect daughter, wife, mother, business partner etcetera, what would I have learned? My ability to adapt (from Mull to Africa, from cold to ferocious heat, for example) might not exist at all, or at least not as dynamically as it does. It takes me 4 minutes, tops, to be ready when someone offers an adventure. I can cook a delicious meal from almost nothing. I am a woman of variables, variety and curiosity. These I learned from that past of mine, from the unfairs, the boo-hoos, the disappointments, the mistakes made by myself, by others, the skinny trappings in cold times. What would I have learned had everything been just as I wanted, needed, and all of the time? Absolutely nothing beyond the holding on to that ease and that sounds like a disappearing person to me, one who cannot, will not adapt to change and who, eventually, gets left behind by Life herself.

I am not afraid. I am afraid of everything, but, on reflection, I wish to face my fear, to allow it, to question the relevance of it in the now, in the new me and that’s what I do as a woman alone for the first time ever. I notice my spine straighten in a soft defiance as I write these words and it smiles me. There is no need for nobody to change, only me, and softly softly. I have no-one to fight anymore, only myself and that sounds like a right waste of time and energy so I won’t.

I need to be the best. At what? Best over everyone else? The word is well over-used, best seller, best at this, best at that, best within a small catch of time until someone else bests you. Pshaw to that. But I do wish to be the best me I can be and that demands a set of boundaries and parameters and a hot inner wash. Who do I want myself to be if nobody is looking? What are my ethics and are they well exercised? How others see me is a care that belongs in the past, something my mum dinned into me because she cared a lot about appearance, a practise full of hypocrisy at times or so I believed. As I rub out my ever-faint pencil past, I thank all who taught me, who fought me, who sought me out. You all created a shape that worked back then but now I have a new pencil, sharp and pointy and I hold it with my letting go fingers, ready to create a new picture.

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Island Blog – A Warthog, Clouds, Shapes and Colour

I am quickly getting friendly with the heat. It bizarres me that I can go from 6 degrees to 36 and not only love both but able to adapt almost immediately. Walking off the last week plane (Orville from The Rescuers) into dazzling sunshine and a load of hot people, I felt my spirits lift. Of course there was relief in there, somewhere, after gruelling airport and plane-ness, but to feel the slam of heat in my favourite place is more than warming. There is air-con in this lovely thatched African home, cool tiled floors and plenty shade on the outside of In, not to mention a swimming pool from which I just rescued (hopefully) a huge centipede critter with a name like Chingaloolie, with a million legs and a body about 10 inches long, as thick as my dad’s middle finger. I paddled in, scooped it up in a sieve and laid it on the deck. I’m hopeful as I definitely saw its feelers wiggle. This life-saving thingy reminds me of swimming in a Corfusian sea past endless (it seemed) honey bees paddling like dingbats and with no hope of survival. I scooped them up on the back of one hand, holding it aloft as I turned for shore with a lopsided breast stroke. I managed about 8 one day and felt super delighted with myself as if I, alone, had saved all bees. Finding a rock I encouraged the enfeebled to move off my hand. No thanks, they all said with a little tail waggle. Lord knows what they were saying to each other as I became a little nervous of upsetting them into a stinging frenzy. They wouldn’t, I said, not after I saved them from Davy Jones’ locker, and they didn’t.

It is too hot to walk the dog except for early doors but not too early because Lady Leopard might not have managed her night kill and still be hungry, not that scraggy me would fill her belly. Even the big dog, although more her style, wouldn’t be enough. I’ve seen the size of her dinners half way up a tall tree, where she dragged it away from a hyena scavenge, impala legs sticking out like bicycle spokes, its glazed over eyes no longer with sight, whilst her Ladyship lounged on another branch, yawning. It’s too hot today to make foray over the decking which burns like fire under naked feets. The good news is that, once I got the hang of the mechanical options, the washing will dry in about 30 minutes, unlike back home where clouds (obviously watching for the chance of mischief) gather and merge to dump their load just after I’ve gone back indoors. I watch the dragonflies, rainbow coloured, dart and dive through the garden. Electric blues, vibrant reds, butter yellows, like the birds that sing and whoop, screech and chitter through the acacia. So much colour so much life. I read and watch, startle at a bark. Baboon? They come, you know, without any idea of boundaries, leaping and bouncing through gardens, over high walls or to swing down from trees in search of food. The abundant Grenadilla hangs heavy with fruit and they love it. But, no, it isn’t baboon, this time, but a neighbouring dog with a talent for impersonation. I relax back, for now. I remember the last time I was in Africa, inside a wildlife reserve and working on my laptop on the stoep. I heard the bark of the head male, a massive creature with big yellow teeth and scarpered inside just in time to hear the roof drumming with baboon. Mothers with babies a-clung, exuberant teenagers and himself, the patriarch. I ran to lock the windows and doors. They pull doors open. In no time they were gone leaving my ears ringing with their screeches and thumps, my heart beating so fast I had to hide in the loo to calm down. It took me some time to ginger back out.

Yesterday we did walk through the reserve and enjoyed a stand off with a mother warthog. Her piglets squealed around her and we were careful, very careful, not to get in between her and her young. Those tusks are big and she will charge in a flash. She wouldn’t budge off the track. We inched forward as everything in me screamed TURN AROUND! My African son held my hand tight and slowly we moved onwards. She watched us pass, through those piggy eyes, as if we were no big deal but for the rest of the walk I was on tenterhooks. I had always considered warthogs to be hideous creatures but this far-too-close- encounter. showed me how stunning they are with that red-dust colouring and those fine lines. Nonetheless I would rather see them ways off from now on. Driving into town I see a male giraffe, his head way higher than the trees, whilst overhead huge vultures wheel and loop through the blue. Nothing compares to such sightings, so close, so free to roam, so endangered. Much of what I will see, have seen, will be nothing more than a picture in a school book in the not too distant future, a sad thought indeed, albeit an inevitable one. At least I have seen, with my own eyes, the real deal, watched it lope, run, pounce, climb, swing, charge. I know the Go Away signs, the body language, what not to do in the event of trouble and these come with feelings and memories not many future generations will ever experience.

A scoot into town for a coffee and I am thrilled to be remembered. The welcome from Cosmos at the Rock Fig was warm and smiley and the coffee as I remember, hot, strong and delicious. Thence to the material shop because I plan to sew a story using soft linens, threads and wools. Sewing without a scooby as to what will reveal itself, just working on instinct and with colours and shapes already seen, the insects, birds, animals and people, is deliciously freeing, the result oftentimes a complete surprise. It thinks me. A life is painted this way, starting at the beginning, being curious, trusting instincts, with courageous application of every small step. Looking back on my own life I can see the patterns and shapes I never saw at the time, not believing that these apparently insignificant choices and decisions I made could ever become a whole painting, become just that. We need the bland hues, the times we thought nothing much was happening, would ever happen, for the vibrant lifts of rich colour to really show. Life is a lot about waiting for something to present itself, a new path, a new relationship, a new opportunity and those times demand and require a patience we find lumpish and pale, like yesterday’s porridge. But Life has her plans. All we need to do is to show up and to keep showing up; to fake courage and a can-do attitude no matter how grey our sky, how full of colluding clouds; to keep taking another step and, most of all, to be curious like Alice, however old we might be in years. It is easy to falter, to fall and we all do it but there will be someone nearby who is upstanding. Reach out a hand and hold on tight, eyes wide with the looking and something or someone will appear to colour up the bland, to inspire, to startle our canvas into electric life. A new way to work with the old things is like sunshine on a rainy day, an eyelet through which we can see for miles. They were always there, the miles. We just needed a wee rest for a while.

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Island Blog – Into Africa and Nothing Else Matters

Blimey what a journey! Car to ferry, ferry to the mainland, down to Glasgow airport, which was half empty with no snakeline to checkin and no false bejewelled tans heading for Ibiza or some such destination. Then down to Heathrow which is the size of a small planet and peopled with nobody who says anything to anyone, at least not in the concourse. Delay number one. Apparently the luggage carriage lift thingy had got stuck half way up and half way down and we could hear a load of hammering beneath our feet as we sat and sat and sat. At least there was conversation in the belly of the beast this time and it thinked me, that people all tense and fretting about hand luggage and security and whether or not He has packed his spare set of dentures, not to mention all that ironing of cloth, never ironed as a rule, pre departure plus the baby teething and how on earth did that girl get into that body stocking with sparkles and isn’t she bloody freezing relax once there’s no going back. There still remains, however, the panic over who gets onto the whatever the train thing is called, everyone belly-stuck to the sliding doors just in case the flight goes without them, which it won’t and never does. Eyes on the 2 minute, 1 minute warning and the tension is palpable. We all needed a beer and to calm the heck down, especially as the luggage subsequently got stuck and held us in stasis for over 40 minutes. All that rush for nothing, in the end.

We land in Glasgow and the slow snail of faffing people dawdle off the plane drive us crazy. Our fault for choosing seats at the back of course, although you would think someone in authority might have requested that all those heading for possibly already missed connecting flights should leave the plane first. Well that didn’t happen. Nonetheless we hurtled (I was impressed with our hurtling) passed the tortoises and even a few hares to finally arrive at our gate, about 17 miles away from the one at which we landed. We waited. And waited, noticing on the app (yes I have one) each delay registered. A few minutes here, a few there but as we know so well, minutes can become an hour just like that, we had a third connection to make and there is a whole 11 hours of night to get through, sitting glued to a stranger and bolt upright. Everyone but we (or is it us?) slept. It was no fun, despite walking up and down the aisle, stretching gently because any wide-arced limbal reach might end in an assault and battery charge and we didn’t want that. We had to be polite ballet dancers in a very narrow corridor, a big ask of my African son who is built like Atlas. The last 4 hours were tough and it made me rethink my future journeys to beloved Africa, for I hope there will be many more to come. I did travel once, first class or business class wherein there’s a bed to stretch out on and no chance of being glued to a stranger, no matter how delightful he or she might be. However, it is very expensive in terms of cash. This trip was very expensive in terms of my comfort (not). Which is less important than the other?

It is so ‘normal’ to be cautious about spending money on ‘myself’. Well, it is for me and is for many others. But the core belief needs investigating. Whereas I might happily spend money to help my family members, I might maintain that I am happy wearing ‘this old thing’ for 25 years, when I am absolutely not happy at all. I just cannot get my head around the indulgence of money for me, for a thing that doesn’t feed the brood, nor enable the electric to work but would simply make me feel rather wonderful. There’s a master’s degree subject for you.

So, I may or I mayn’t consider upgrading for the journey home at the end of March. For sure I will dither, self-question, flip like a ping pong ball between yes I can and No I Cannot a gazillion times between now and then. In the meantime, I will watch butterflies the size of birds, Chameleons the size of small dogs and scented flowers that outsmart all designer perfumiers. This is Africa. I am here. And nothing else matters, even that this blog might be a tumbleweed of slipshod tiddleypom.

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Island Blog – Machines and People

So there I was, and still am, tiddling about with a replacement washing machine thingy. It has been in my head and at the end of my dialling digits and a rumble in my tumbly for two weeks. The whole online deal appears clear and simple but it is anything but. The baseline is this. My washing machine crossed her arms across her barrel chest and shut down like a judgmental matron and I have known a few of them in my time. She would receive water but would not slosh, nor allow her belly to rotate, nor would she spit out the water taken in. A couple of floor floods later plus a heap of sodden towels, I gave in and hunkered back on my heels. Right! I said. Damn You! I said. And then I mellowed, not least because hunkering on my hunkers was fun once but not so much these days. I could feel my big toes shrinking. Okay, I get it, you are gone. RIP my faithful friend of years. She loosened her arms and I could feel a mellow fill the little room. I rose into action.

My washing machine is insured with full and complete and absolute promise that, if an engineer cannot be found, or one is but he decides my machine a write-off, I will receive a free replacement. When I took this insurance out, I did inform the company that, a) I live on an island, b) there is no such engineer here and c) no washing machine company will deliver to the island, never mind recycle the old one. They, the company, assured me (from Bedford or Manchester, Dubai or India) that all of that isn’t true. I find it is. I order a free replacement and am promised installation and recycling of the old one, but I am canny so I call often to find out wotwot. Twice, my order was not acknowledged even thought I had confirmation delivery emails both times. Third time I asked deeper questions and discovered astonishment. I could hear in their helpful voices they had never encountered island shenanigans before. Quite an excitement for them I thought. I was not angry, nor challenging. All voices came from the throats of genuine warm people who just wanted to help.

Today, I hope, and after some time, I believe my replacement machine is on its way, due for delivery tomorrow. Ah, I thought, I doubt that, so I called and spoke to yet another delightful and puzzled person. She clocked (finally) that island delivery will never be straight from the original courier. So, my machine will not arrive tomorrow. I laughed with her, said I know this place and did she know the name of the courier? She did. Two in fact. I had never heard of either but she said one was Glasgow, one Inverness. I laughed out loud. Days away, I said. Oh, she said, really? hell yeah lady. She gave the number of one and that’s my work tomorrow. It, my machine, will be taken to another courier in Oban (I know them all) and then eventually, come to me. T’wont be here before I leave for Africa but I have neighbours with machines. All is well in this island world and in this exhausting process of calls and holds and so on and so fourth and fifth and sixth, and even though I absolutely know I won’t get installation nor recycling, I have met some lovely warm helpful people.

And, for that I am very thankful. You can have such fun on the phone if you decide to get to know, a little, the warm human on the other end of the line just doing their job.

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Island Blog – RIP Old Friend

I knew it was coming but not when. Meantime, not knowing the ‘when’ part, my days continued ordinary and soft, although the sadness lifted my ruffles from time to time making me shiver. Those around his bed would know more, I knew that, just as we had known as we watched our own ‘him’ move invisibly towards that other place whence no-one ever returns. He was ill, he was dying and yet the hold on life seems to me to defy even intense pain and the desire for it all to end, for a life to end. Life is a strong force indeed, no matter how careless we may be around the years we live it. We hold on and hold on and why, when it is clear to everyone, to ourselves, that death is in the room patiently waiting for our fingers to let go.

I picture an image of those children, now with children of their own, of my friend, his wife, around his last bed. I know the taste of exhaustion, the longing for it to be over, the fear of just that. I know the smell of dying, the sound of it in raspy and hesitant breaths, the lift of gallows humour among the watchers, laughter flying around the room, small fry defence against the enormity of what lies before them all. A whole long life almost gone but not quite, no, another breath, the rise of it a sinking inside the room. Let him go. Let. Him. Go. But he defies the wish and breathes on and on and on and the night watchers watch and there is tea and coffee for staying awake and stories to fill the room. Remember This? Remember when he, when we, that time on the beach, on the farm, during the thunder storm, when the dog died, that party, my wedding, my wedding, my wedding?

And his wife of over 50 years will be numb. What do you do after over 50 years as a man’s wife, as mother to his children? Does anybody know the answer to that? You were a young beauty back then, full of hope and sparkles and dreams, a real catch, they said, lucky him, they said, and he was. To be a farmer’s wife is no easy task. Nobody takes shifts, you just both shift and often at the drop of a hat, or a piglet or a calf. You rise from slumber because you have to. There is nobody else will take this job, not at this hour when night is still heavy black and dawn is miles away enjoying herself. You take it all on. So what happens to your dreams and hopes and sparkles? Ah…….good question, and here comes strength and spirit and the life force within and she has plenty of that, this new widow, my old friend.

I know what it is like to be a widow and I also know it has taken me over two years to even like myself in my solo role, one I yearned for so many times but had no clue about until he breathed his last. It was a relief, at first. Nobody wants to watch suffering after all, but that doesn’t last. I know that she will be busy and organised at first, dealing with admin and people and responding to sympathy cards et lala , but about two months in, it hits like a demolition ball, wheeching the feet out from under and with just cold ground on which to land. I wish I could wish this away for her but I cannot. I know the impact of this explosion will be huge for his children but not in the same way. She is now alone in her lovely cottage and no amount of warmth from the range and the fires will un-chill her, because, and I am only observing here, her marriage, like my own, was a traditional one (although she is a lot feistier that I) and he will have taken care of things she never had to learn.

And so, it is. It makes no difference at all that he was of a ‘good age’ as if that makes it acceptable. The death of a life is never that. A whole person is gone, all of the irritations, all of the expectations, frustrations, criticisms, encouragements, smiles, rejections, affection and direction has hit the final buffers. We are now arriving at Death Station where this train will terminate. Just like that. Just today. He is gone. RIP old friend.

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Island Blog – If you Choose, then Dig.

Today the hooligan is blindways with a sideway slant of rain and wind. It’s from the South West which makes it okay enough, in that it won’t cut the legs off me when I walk out, nor skin the lips off my mouth, nor turn my eyeballs to ice. It’s irritating nonetheless. I slew right into the punch of it and hear the skitter upset of sparrows inside the rhododendron infiltratus, their safe house. There are many of them in there, all a-chatter, all talking at once. It wonders me that anything finds resolution in the sparrow world. There seems to be no leader, calling order, order, order. I move on watching puddles ripple as the wind skids across their surface, the sink holes, those birthed from the recent frosts, deep as ditches overnight. Cautious you drivers, gaw canny over this track. In my boots I have time and unfrozen eyeballs enough to avoid a sink, even though I do look, I do peer down, wondering if the old track I used to know way back is fighting its way back up to reveal itself, to have a voice in this cover-everything-over world.

The tram wires shimmy and shake overhead. A blackbird lands and I watch the way he, for it is an he, works his body into balance, his tail canting, a rudder in the wild of this wind. The rain, I watch it across the sea-loch as it rages right, right out to the west yearning, as water always will, to rejoin Mother Sea. I will be blown easy on the first leg of my walk and the return will be a fight. I align my frocks accordingly. I have no fear of rough weather, and great respect. Out here on the almost most westerly place before a collision with the US, I know what I am dealing with and it delights me. I can hear the stories, but not the words. I can feel the feelings of those who lived and knew this place even as I have no idea at all. My childhood, safe and not here at all, did not give me the roots I now know belong here, on the islands. It was as it was and it was a wonderful grounding, for a while, but the wild in me is home here in these capricious winds, even with climate change because it really isn’t so very different from how it always was. It was no big deal to walk down to a ceilidh and arrive soaked to the skin; no big deal to be marooned on the wrong side of the water when a gale arose like a nightmare from nowhere. We learned to adapt and I, as a Blow-In, or White Settler or whatever label was pulled forward at the time, found my home. I know, now, through research that my maternal forebears were island fold, sea-going folk, west coast folk and it thrills me for I am home. I am home.

Many of us wonder, if we do wonder, why it is we feel out of kilter, un-heard and lost. It might take a lifetime to find roots but if I was to suggest anything, I would say Go Seek. Roots run deep and deep can mean nobody digs. So, if you choose, then Dig.

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Island Blog – A Finagle, Life, Death and Beauty

I have spent many days finagling with my bird feeders. Initially I moved them, a no brainer, from the middle of the tiny front garden because my neighbour let her cats out. They are beautiful creatures, tortoiseshell and long limbed with amber eyes, a bit like the Scottish Wildcat. The male, Hamish, is particularly friendly so that I just could not squirt him with a water pistol after he leaped onto the bird table and made himself comfortable, awaiting breakfast or lunch. The female, a fast hunter was more wily. She found that to hide beneath a Pieris Japonica gave her just the chance she needed to pounce-and-claw a bird too many times. I wheeched out the bird table and cut all the lower branches of the PJ, thus un-hiding her. I still couldn’t bring myself to squirt. I am not, by nature, a squirter, preferring as I do to befriend all animals including human ones. Then there was the sparrow hawk, her dive of certain death, for she rarely misses. He, her mate, prettier by far with his red and indigo colouring is smaller, slower and more likely to be on my Christmas list, much as I respect his missus. I walked out once and it must have caught her mid dive, mid dive at 80mph from the ancient pines back of house for I felt her lift my hair, the touch of her claw on my head before she lifted up and away, no doubt in relief. The bird table, mid grass, made successful hunting all too easy and although I know sparrow hawks mun eat too, I didn’t want to feel that I was holding out a plateful of sparrows, finches, blackbirds and robins like a waitress in a restaurant.

I moved all my beautifully honed bespoke iron feeder posts, some swirls, some twists, some straight up and down to just beside the fence. I eyed the line from ancient pines to bird swipe and saw that any dive could be a disaster. My mini, parked close by and the wheelie bins in line would certainly threaten a headache at the very least. Satisfied, I watched the daily arrival of my feathered friends. A sudden throng of sparrows, maybe 20 at a time, fluttering in as a group to feed; a nervousness of goldfinch, individual robins and a bicker of blackbirds, all friendly as I walk out, staying nearby, chirping at me. I am a friend, unfeathered, slow-moving, soft spoken. There is no squirter in me, no fast diver of death and with no desire to eat any of them, and they know it. But wait. The ground feeder birds, blackbirds and robin redbreast, do not have the feets to cling as tits and goldfinch do. They need some flat base upon which to land. I eye my bird table now resting in the garage and shake my head. It’s big enough for a cat, remember? So I order online what looks like a flour sieve with a hooky thing for attachment, to what I couldn’t work out but I’m resourceful enough, so I tell myself. It arrives and I wander out barefoot in the snow (you should try it, so so so exhilarating) on a quest to find something to attach the hooky thing to. A post, yes, perfect. I find a slim post and embed it into a raised bed near to my beautifully honed bespoke iron feeder posts and wait. The first to come is the coal tit, the bravest alongside a wren and the most curious. Others follow and I am all smiles and delight, until. Like a bolt of lightning, a female sparrow hawk dives, grabs mid-air and lifts away with a sparrow. I hear its cry of alarm and pain and they are gone. Furious at myself I stomp back out to remove what, in effect, was my waitress in a restaurant offering plate. I study the line from pine to pain once again, and what I need to do is to sort of hide the tray of seed behind something, but what something? Here it is, my wrought iron sweet pea cone with nobbles and sticking up bits, all ready to stand like a solid bodyguard between life and death. So far it’s working. When the sparrow hawk comes I no longer feel outrage and fury for they must eat and their flight and accuracy is a marvel to watch, but, like a mother, I will do whatever it takes to protect those within my power to protect. If I invite birds in, I take responsibility for their safety, as best I can.

I like the way I feel, the way I act. I love being curious. I also am happy to be aware of how nature works, how life becomes death in a flash, how species need to hunt in order to survive. Garden birds are pretty, beautiful to watch, but now I can watch death without thinking it cruel. It’s normal. It is how it is. And soon, I am off to Africa for 2 months. Let us see how accepting I am of the predators out there, the leopard, lion, hyena, hunting dogs, cheetah and many more as they bring down impala, zebra, giraffe or buffalo (only I don’t recommend that one, the most ferocious of bovines). I hope not to see it happen but I might. Beautiful predators, beautiful prey. It’s a tough one for us to accept. Perhaps that is what makes us compassionate human beings. I like that. I’ll stick with that.

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Island Blog – Draggle Days, Twist Ice, Real Life

Ah Winter! Although we know he will come, we turn away at his approach, our longing eyes t’wards Spring as if this season means only draggle days and we try to imagine ourselves out of ourwinterselves, into frocks and shorts and easy light. But Winter is here, these ice twisted streets, the wind like a bully with too many teeth, powerful, pushing us down, slapping our faces with a cruel hand, all but just Winter. We can cow down, submit, falter and become less powerful. We all do this at times, in the dark, in the longing for Spring. Just heading for work is a fight and a soak or a slip. It can make us crabby, shift our saliva into spit, our feet into loud pounding away. Winter can feel like Culloden to me, the oppressor being Winter himself which, if I think about it, is ridiculous. Winter is winter and I am a piddling mortal. So what to do about the darkling ice twist draggle day thinking?

Well, music for me and inside work and more. I get out there with a challenge. I am me Big Winter, and you have no idea how good I am at being me. I pick my sky and I know I am lucky to see the whole of it from my island home, and then I just go, quick, fast, right now because I can see the grey cloudskid laden with hail and more about 20 minutes off. I walk the track, looking up and out at the bone trees the cold stones, the brilliant moss, impervious it seems to any winter bite. I watch a bird flight, hear the geese honk about, catch the flash of low sunlight through a spider web ‘cross dead grasses, see the sky in puddles, crunch last ice and smile at the amoebic snow melts aside the track. All is passing. All always will. Winter included.

I would, in my younger days, begin a Winter Love thingy. I would encourage poetry, song and music, twist ice walks and evenings beside an ebony fire, a gasp of talent only visible in the clarity of winter. Northern lights are wild and not just behind my home but in every one of us. We just got lost in cities and wages and other stuff that has nothing to do with real life.