He leaves two strong wonderful men, his sons. I know them so I know.
I knew him too, held him tight a few months ago at the death of his beloved wife, my longtime friend.
Now he is gone. The music man, the gatherer of voices, the conductor, the shy man, quiet, gentle, loving, the nothing left of the something he once was. A tryst. A perfect melody. I hope he finds her out there somewhere. Actually, I know he will.
Yesterday torrential rain, the burns roiling brown and spit, lifting almost to the tipping spot, yet not. Driving back from work I saw it, the inching up and the not yet thing. I would have paused awhile, just to watch the boil and fold, the coming back to the confines of the channel, the space allowed if it hadn’t been for this big eejit in a four wheel drive who was pushing me back. ‘You reverse around three corners and uphill in your wee mini because I don’t do reverse, nor corners, and definitely not uphill’ was said without words, but through the big shiny fist of that face with a bespoke registration. I did chuckle. That beast could have run me over and not noticed more than a wee lift and a wee backdownagain. As I did the easy peasy reverse thing, swinging sassy-ass up and around a couple of times with a smile on my face because there always is one, I thought only this. I am happy to be who I am and you obviously are not. It reminds me, this modem of thinks, the one without anger or judgement, the natural me in the me of things. Sometimes I share this with others who do rage, do stand against, do challenge. I am not weak. I just don’t want a fight. However, and here’s a sassy-ass thing. If I meet one of those big-ass craturs which has momentarily passed a big sweep of pull-in, I just might hold.
Today big sunshine beginning with birds and pinky light fingering across the hills. Not to upset the shepherds, but the world was seriously pink. Everything pinked, the hills, the sea-loch, the garden, and the pinkers began in the cloud lift and shift. As I drew back the blackout curtains, I laughed, I did. Pink was sucking all the other colours into her maw, and swallowing. It was her dawning. It thought me. Dawn doesn’t last, no matter the wow of pinking. It evolves into the day, the day swiping it into memory. Then, despite a day’s hold on the hours, day also defers, eventually, to the bite of night. Like life, like moments in life. Not everything holds, not people, not memories. I can lose them all. And that brings in a think. What is important enough to keep a hold of? And, more important, do I notice enough to make that choice?
Back to the spin back skinny road stand-off. It’s taken me decades to notice my response to a perceived threat in a conversation, on a skinny road, in my aging, my lonely times. It’s like climbing the wires of music score, so easy on a page, so not in reality, when you doubt your voice, your place, your pretty much everything. I have learned this. Laugh at yourself. That’s what I’ve taught myself, in any situation, in the need to be valued, acknowledged, valued, respected, heard, seen. Just see it light, like a passing dawn, like the person who didn’t wave nor smile, the fact that your warming stove isn’t working, that the crazy rain is flooding your garage, that there are mice in your frying pan cupboard and inside your walls, that dark days are coming, the Winter King in the wings, all of that, and more. I’m not saying I don’t take action on all unexpected tributaries, and warm mother stoves who, after decades of faithfulness, now decide to choke, because I do, but it’s not about action. It’s about how it infects a mind. And, I decide, no matter the choke-hold of my life, the constraints, limitations, confrontations, the losts and the founds, I will always laugh at myself.
It’s a choice.
She was my godmother, a feisty, brilliant woman, theatrical agent to all the big names back then. She was tiny, smaller than me at 17. I looked down on her and I never looked down on her. She was beautiful, electric, always on the move and yet so able to pause, and listen, as she did with me, her definitely most difficult god-daughter of the three. I wonder if I will ever meet my godsisters. Maybe not. Maybe yes. Looking back I see her warm and welcoming in the home, me arriving all tense and curious and reckless and probably needing a shower/bath, with a brick building of parental tension and in the wrong shoes and with no clue about work in the Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, London, which is where this woman had negotiated me place. I very disappointed her, I know I did. I was too young, too wild, but the thing is, she never judged me, not even in a glance.
She wanted to know about my book. She called, I called, we talked and she was always encouraging, challenging at times, they laughed me, and she laughed back, but we liked each other. See, that thing matters because the link is to an older guide, that sparkle, I. see it now, the flash of her, the way she could turn a nothing into something. She did that all the time.
Her memorial is tomorrow. She’s gone, yes, but not just her. Her husband Peter was the best man I ever met. Still is.
I have loved you both, for years, and so much.
My fingers are twiddling, flexing above the keyboard, readying themselves. Most of the time, and this is the truth, they do the work, have done for years. I can think something, choose a starting gun, and in they come. I know it’s a gift and I am thankful for that gift, that infuriating nudge when the trudge is mudding me.
So, (when did starting a sentence with ‘so’ become a grammatical ok? ) Hallo Dad. Actually I so value his tuition. I wouldn’t be the me of me without his influence. I realise I am diluting myself into waspitude, too much crititude, and it cringes me until my spider fingers flex and fly. I will regather myself, as the sun, so absent today, has suddenly arrived like Lady Gaga singing feisty as the tide withdraws and the sea-loch stills and there is comment in the wondering water.
A new friend, met in the pub today. We arranged to meet at 3.30 but I was ready for earlier. I arrived and she was there, a woman who clocked me, as I clocked her on first meet. From another continent, another generation, but a welcome nonetheless. Taking this off ground, I would say we collided without damage. So random.
And then another came in, dropped his backpack, pulled out a stool. Hey you, I said, and from then conversation grew between strangers. I learned bits about family history, about the art world, about mother love, about the knife attack of trouble, about rising from trauma, about rewinding a neck for all-around looking, about the unexpected thrusting of pain like a dagger in the gut, about gentle landings, about acceptance, about moving on, about recognition of what i can do in the this of that, about sort of letting go. On on bar stool in one hour.
I know about convex. Never knew there was an upward curve. From limitation to elevation. Like today on that bar stool. I arrived curve down, left curve up.
See this is how it is. There are both bottoms and tops in every single day, the tips and the valleys, the rises and the falls, the suddens and the expecteds, and they can come as a grand slam, whatever that means. Like my teeshirt drawer. That’s tops, obviously. Bottoms are either above in the lingerie drawer or they’re fighting for space in the bottom bit. Actually, the whole thing confounds, me, bothers me a lot. I am a woman who is not remotely interested in loads of drawers. I want one for tops and one for bottoms, The End. However, due to my Suddens, I have ordered top stuff, always a regret as this slimy, badly made sh*t arrives after two months. They need a wheech.
It thinks me.
Do I actually address the tops and bottoms of my life? Ok, the easy stuff is I will go up there and pull out drawers, knowing the self of myself, eventually, and thus filling a bag of badly made stuff which will become what? Can’t think about that. My sisters, my brother would never be drawn in to this foolery. I just know it. But, beyond the clothing and buying fiction, I think about the meaning of those words, old understanding.
Bottoms meant Valleys. Tops meant mountains. I like knowing that. It takes my mind beyond the buying nonsense, the devilish pull of it. What it seems to mean today. On an airy note, I did check my tops drawer and was laughing a lot as, after a shower, I pulled out a pair of badly made pants. i snorted, I did. There was an unravel…..I took it, pulled, and pulled, until those bottoms were lopsided at best. And what jinked me was this….I know about connection, about sewing things, big things together, and you can’t even get this basic thing right?
When my life get’s tricky, bad news, no news, the lonely, the what now, the what if of it all, the olding with all its tired and broken bits, the hurtings, the way my fingers gnarl and bend without my permission, I think this thing and get that think to roll through me, to take over from toes up until it lifts my mouth into a real smile, one which reaches my eyes……..
I love my home, black coffee, red wine and a wave from a passing stranger. I love the sound of giggles from a child, the feel of a dog’s wet nose against my fingers. I love sudden encounters, shared smiles, the warm voice of a friend telling me without words that I can do this living on thing. I love the birds at my feeders, the finches, gold, green, ‘common’ not in the way I learned that word from my old ma……’common’ was basically ‘trash’…….the sparrows, blackbirds, starlings, robins, the way they fly in, watching for skyborn attack, dense aflutter, then scattering, grabbing a morsel and gone into the wind. I love that when I need help I can ask for it and not feel needy. I love tweaking my geraniums, the warmth underfoot of my heated sunroom. I love doorways and windows, my faithful car, my work, my gift of writing, my ancestors, seamen and women, out here in the wilding islands, the way they handed down such inner strength to me.
I love noisy pubs, scampi and chips, Atlantic salt on my face, the bite of winter and my ability to light a good fire. I love to welcome. I love cosy. I love sharing. I love gaps in conversation, the wait, the light and the chance in that wait. I love random smiles in unexpected places. I love boots that lace well, soles that grip. I love the West Coasters, the Island folk for their humour, their strength, their ability to turn any talk of trouble into opportunity and then take action. I love my laptop, the way she works with me, the lightness of her body, the way she can go quiet for two days when I fly to Africa and never give me grief. I love my children and theirs even if I only see them now and again. I love my sisters, my brother, my memories, my lifestory.
Then, as I turn back to the tricky, which has visibly diminished, I say (and I do out loud) I say, Hey, I see you.
I also see this.
Back from a busy work day, and I put on tunes, feed the birds, watch their flitter flow, the incoming of friendly. I check the something arrivals, boxes in my garage, stuff for me, for my kids who now own the houses we built, and there’s a big something in that. It was what we built, the me and the him, way back, and we sold, we had to. They decided to pull it back to the family. Even if none of them live here, even if I don’t like buy to let, somehow it feels ok because these ‘kids’ grew up here, played here, pissed everyone off here, built here and damaged here, knew it like blood. All the fun here, the wild crazy nights filled with music and fire and dreams and plans. So many youngsters came, so very many. I would come down for coffee and find a gazillion strangers stretched over dog beds, window seats, over carpeted floors, in doorways. Fuzzled, rising, discombobulated, apologetic, looking like shit, they appeared and. I was there, frying bacon,sausages, more, welcoming. They weren’t my babies, but they were that morning, and they so needed a mama without judgement. I was she, I know I was.
I remember them. They have lifted, morphed into whatever shape they chose, or didn’t. At times I see their faces. There were so very many over the ‘kid’ years, over the sealife years, so many. And I know they remember, because me and him proffered a welcome, loved a party, celebrated young people who had no idea when they’d get the jump on the old ploughed furrows or shift and squift a jinx to the left or right of parental restricts.
I honour you all, you brilliant men and women, and I thank you for the best fun days and nights.
And Living.
In my head, there are people I want to save. I cannot. For those in my family, immediate or a bit out there. I still care. If they suffer, I feel it. But I am impotent in the streams and reams of their lives, the high rise troubles, the ways they will work their way towards a sorting of sorts. Mostly, all I can do is to send messages of support (god I hate that word). There are many words I hate now I know about ‘support’ about ‘caring’ about the nascence of new words to describe old things, and about the okay of this splendorous birthing, on paper, in the mouths of deliverers. I know it follows a remit, a new presentation, but it laughs me now. So very trite, and so not enough, and it has followers. They’re all over Facebook and all the other social mediacs, up and down lifters.
Where are we on all this?
I’ll tell you where I am. On the ground, in the grit, watching the sparrows feed, watching the fliptalk of clouds bashing, the tide high as a sassy woman rising to speak, or sing in a bar, when she hasn’t been invited, the night coming, the wind feisty as a loud 2 year old and no taxis home. That’s me on the outside. Inside I hold my family in my gut, my whole body. I can feel them in my limbs, my fingers, my toes, my everywhere. You have pain, you are waiting, you are shrunk, closed, lifting, falling.
I sleep alone, but I don’t. My bed is my own, warm, safe, mine. And in the soft and gloriously uninterrupted dark of the night, in they come. My beloveds. They wake me. I can hear curlews, oystercatchers, always up too late, or too early. I turn for the light. There’s none. I turn back to the recognition of ‘not enough sleep’. and then I think this……you came to me in this moment, woke me and I thank you for that. Let’s meet here. Of course, it’s only me, but maybe not, maybe we just connected, you in your awful pain and me opening that door on connection.
Maybe.
I’ve done this and that, dynamiced (that word is begging for a K but I’m not playing) with others at Lunch Club, lifting and laughing and washing up. Home again and a walk and a talk with the trees, the Horse Chestnut yellowing into gold, the others, bless them and in a stand where the last wind whipped and stripped, kind of brown. Then a think about a prayer for Sunday based on, based on. Always open, always curious, always challenging. Today was a surprise here. There was a threatening, a washout. It never came. In fact the risal tide is almost full moonish. I hear the irritable squawk of herons, love the standing beneath trees where long-tail tits skitter and land and don’t give a hoot about me down here doing the watching thing. They are one on a feeding mission, a mission. Survival all important. It thinks me, as they don’t.
There’s always one we think about. Not always the same one, but there is always one. Could be a lover, a child in trouble, could be a parent lost in some hideous disease, could be a bully, a kindly friend, a someone who just recognises you and offers a smile. Always one.
Could be a beloved facing. Facing unknown. You’re there, arent’ you? Clueless, hopeful. wondering, anxious, nightmaring, reconstructing yourself every morning. Because you will.
They used to say that here, way back in the day, as a question. ‘Are you going to the dancing?’ possibly without a ‘g’ at the end. There were many dances here, fiddles playing, easily once a month and just for the fun of it. When I think about those times, no television, no mobiles nor computers and when Wifi meant the wife, the food provider and the marching ferocious woman storming the pub, intent on the removal of her husband. I saw it often, laughed as he, the Big Provider was dragged out and pushed into the fishbox at the arse of a tractor, whilst she, the Wifi, carted him home for a dry out, till the next time he managed to escape. And he would, and did, many many times over, always with the same result. I recall one evening in the pub when someone came in saying, She’s on her way and I watched him falter, this Big Provider. Never underestimate a determinedly powerful woman. Those days are gone, as have all those spicy, fun, naughty, brilliant characters and we have no regular dances these days because the whole frickin world has chosen to stay home, to watch screens, to scroll nonsense, and, worse, to believe it’s all true. To feel ok about not interacting with other humans. There’s no longevity in that state. Evidence proves that, the escalation of mental troubles and so on and so on.
To the dance. We don’t have them here as we once did. I’ve already said that, so I think wide, not forward, not back, but wide. If we were taught, really taught to think wide, I believe we would evolve from this cocoon state, one which our teens are thinking means ‘butterfly’ at the end, but which means nothing of the sort, into a determined breakout. Punch the walls. Don’t accept the dark. You know who and how you want to be, but you/we all have been duped. The way forward is community, other people, a conjoining in something, anything, because, and this is fact, AI can be very helpful, but it has no heart, no mind, no touch, no cuddles, isn’t there when you slip in the rain, can’t help you lift wood in for the fire, won’t hold you when you cry, make tea for you, sit with you in the dark hours when you cannot sleep and which will reach out, a genuine care in its eyes, and say ‘I am here for you.’
Nor can it partner you in a tango. Just saying.
Judy Fairbairns 