Adventure

by

Island Blog – Actually Tuesday

In deference to the olding of me, I get the flapdoodle assailment. I suspect it was always here but when I was dealing with immediate disasters, such as fire in the hold or a child dangling from a rope that fell three floors and yelling Mum in a screech beyond the beyond of sludgy sleep, his slippage a definite concern, my inner Dante could barely whisper. Ditto when there was disaster at lambing, or the horse was sinking in a freezing bog, or a guest was stuck in the bath in a locked bathroom requiring a deal of laddering and a lot of looking away. Nowadays with all of that a chuckle in my mind, when most survived, I have the silence of olding and widowing. I love a lot of it. It even funnies me at times, usually when someone I am talking to bursts into giggles. Life is ridiculous after all. No matter how we plan, how prudish, how strait-laced, how desperately we hang onto rules and restrictions for ourselves, our children, our husband, wife, partner, there comes a time when Life flips us like pankcakes without a safe landing. It always has and it always will. As we hold too tight, there is always slippage. The key is to teach that to our children, even as nobody does, holding on to the right of the times, the limitations, the fences and boundaries. I hope we learn one day. I really do. By the way the dangling son landed safe, the wee shite, after a deal of leaning over bannisters, proffering smoothing okays, being there to catch him.

Talking to my children, adults now, they tell me thank you for the crazy life, the wildness of it, the way they learned to accept life/death/life at an early age; the way you did this mum, sorted that, the way dad made us safe. We never doubted that. Pretty good, eh? I have all of this and so very much more, the convoluted vortex of it, not pulling us all down, but containing us in a swirling collective. The olding years show just me centre stage, and I have to confess, despite my siblings sniggering at my ballet moves, I feel proud. I make mistakes. Today, for example, I got all ready to go to the Library Coffee meet. It’s Tuesday here half way along the sea-loch, but not there in the village hall, I discovered. It’s Monday there, the hall’s wooden mouth clamped shut. I laughed at myself and drove home. I walked up into the woods just to say hallo and tripped over a willow root, apologised and rose again. I lit the woodburner and went to close the doors, the door closing handle breaking right off. I walked into the beyond of marvellous at 3 and met the hind and her calf, about 5 feet away from me. She looked up. Hallo Lady, I said, gentle and low. She looked a minute more, then ducked right back down to graze.

The clouds are umber grey just now, a bit shouty, pushing at each other’s backs, against a dying blue. Their tips are burnt umber, gold, rose madder, the hills below a silhouette. The day is leaving. I’m hoping tomorrow is actually Tuesday.

by

Island Blog – A Speluncar Paradox

Blimey it’s hot. Even the stoics are wilting, including me, although I rarely confess to any such thing. And that thinks me, a lot. What is this inborn choice/need to always present upbeat no matter what the what or the whom? I spent this non work day with my thinks. We played think tennis together, the ball whacking over the net and back again. We both did a load of sweaty running about. The ball, the answer, said damn all, and no surprise there. Had I been that ball, that question, in this heat and being arse-whipped again and again, never mind the bouncing thing, I would probably have remained silent. Did we come to a conclusion? Well, no, although the match may have brought in a synergy because what I (we) realised is that I choose to be upbeat and also that I need my cave. There’s another also. I do not need to explain nor justify either, particularly the cave bit. I am human, chancing into weak, rising into brilliance. No, not weak. Bin that. If I always bring in the light, my choice, my need if you like, and my pleasure, then this cave choice is my safe hideout. Equally vital.

So, when I mourn for the lost children, for the wars which devastate ordinary lives, when corruption in high places decide the way the streets will or won’t move safely, when social media desecrates young trusting children, when lies are told in high places and those of us is ‘low’ places hear of them too late; when huge companies hide their truths, when weapons trade across oceans, hidden and politically permitted, when news comes too late, when everyone knows what’s coming, but if the sun shines and there’s a barbecue, a dance, a chance, a band playing, then everything’s ok. Isn’t it?

I am ready for my cave, my paradox, because tomorrow I will leap into the light I bring and spread it blooming everywhere.

by

Island Blog – Even When

There are times, I confess, when I am not proud of people. We islanders know it’s coming, the influx of visitors, and that those folk who arrive bringing all their issues with them do not represent the whole of island-hopping mankind, but the few can spoil it for the many. Since expected accommodation standards have elevated to 5 star, no matter what cottage nor house a visitor might pay for, at equally elevated prices, the reality of skinny single track roads, the paucity of supermarkets. the angst that arrives within each big-ass four-wheel drive, complete with bike racks, canoes atop, arrives too. I meet you on my drive to the harbour town, through the glen, through any glen, peppered with cattle and calves, with sheep and lambs, with cyclists, and I do shake my head. I’m thankful for Radio Two to calm me with tunes as you, the few, continue until we are both stuck in a hard place. No, not a hard place, a skinny, blobby, fall-off-the-edge,soggy place when your wide passing place is just a wee scoot behind that big black ass of yours. Oh, but you can’t reverse. I forgot. Let me shimmy and jimmy my way around two corners and let me wave with a smile. But do you return the wave?

We work here. We also need you, to fluff up our economy, to buy our builders, plumbers, sparkies, cleaners, servers, cafe and restaurant owners, hoteliers, guest houses, yes, we need you. Our winters are way longer than yours. When you are back in the hopeful warmth of your earning and your sweetly safe home, in a city, all without friendship and community, after you have complained of one dirty pot in the house you enjoyed big time for a week and left in a 6 hour mess, after you demanded space and questioned a slightly dodgy entrance, a slight wobble in a decking, spare a thought for the work we put in to make sure that you have a wonderful holiday next time winter goes. Because we do care, we absolutely do. We just ask respect for that about which you have no clue. We will always do our best. even when you are careless.

by

Island Blog – A Capacious Confusion

There’s loads of room in there. In fact, acres, hectares, whole countries. When I find myself tumbled into such a state, unexpectedly and completely unprepared, my thinks go viral. Something, or someone, I knew as in a confirmed state, the shape of it, or them, suddenly shifts like a new weather, from sun to cloud, from known to strange, from confidence to pull back and run and I do tumble. I have been good at such tumbles over the years, although I am no acrobat. But, I can resume a stand-up and pretty quick. Things change, things break, people change, people break. It wonders me, it does, because it seems to me that, in this culture, in the the now of now, change brings in a desire to destruct, and I don’t mean, necessarily, to take apart and reassemble, not if the break is a person, a living, breathing strong, and wonderful person who is, let’s be honest, in the evening of their life, and for whom a switch has been switched. They gave no permission for such. It isn’t as if their battery ran out. It is just one of the many things unexplained which took a foothold. just when they were about. to make some great adventure. What I mean is a a desire to control.

My issue is with the response to such a dynamic shift. Because it comes a-sudden, just when, ach, please, no, ‘I don’t need this thing’ blasts in on a new wind, not one anyone had heretofore noticed, and which now is very and loudly here creating confusion, at first. That’s shock, and I get it. But for those who can think beyond their own convenience, and for those who can swipe away any talk of confinement or control, there will be renewed freedom for the changed one, and for everyone else. Someone else doesn’t know best. The person who has experienced all of it is suddenly falling into the mercy of others, having never been at the mercy of anyone, and for decades. It saddens me. There are so many rooms in this situation, acres hectares, whole countries.

Why would a person who has lived over 7 decades want confinement, control? Would you? Oh, I know we might need help with bigger letters on our phone, with a stick, with kindly neighbour watch, with lifts to a doctor’s appointment, to a farmers market, even to check we didn’t have make-up in the wrong place. This is life, and this is the autumn of a long one. Not many of us get here.

I get that a change is Confusion. Think Capacious. there are so many rooms, acres, hectares, a whole country, for the intuitively wise thinkers. Even in your busy young lives. You’ll be here one day.

by

Island Blog – See You There

We do what we do, what we can. We step out there every single day, sometimes with the underworld sludging our forward movement, all those doubts and obsolete plans and the damn chatter monkeys that always fill the spaces. But we keep going and that is a very big thing. Being human, we have a strong hold on the life force, even when we might consider letting go. Finding a reason to be cheerful can be a daily frantic search through the dusty dark corners of our capacious minds, but we keep looking anyway, because the alternative is a steady sink into a pit with no footholds, and in the middle of the biggest of Nowheres. Even those around who make out they never feel low, sad, unhappy, depressed, disconnected, doubting, hopeless or desperate, do, believe me. They, perhaps, just see any such admission as a sign of weakness, and, perhaps again, they have managed to build multiple layerings of protection atop any rise of darkness, until even they believe it doesn’t exist.

Although it is over four years since Himself took off to join his mummy and the angels, I have never really mourned for him, at least not in any messy breakdown sort of way, nor into uncontrollable tears that might have rendered my nose blocked, my head pounding and my face a strew map of a continent randomly divided. I don’t want him back, not as he became, anyway. If I miss him, I miss the way he could lift my spirits, comfort, encourage and support; the way, I think, that he showed his love, not being a romancer at heart; the impulsive Shall we go out tonight invitations. Walking just now in the sunshine (how wonderful to even write that word!) I feel a powerful rise of emotion, the roaring in my ears which once would have heralded tears, tears I haven’t been able to shed for many decades. As I bring his face onto centre stage, he is young again and grinning wide, his eyes bright. Do I miss you? I ask him, knowing that I don’t. What I miss is Love, pure and simple and yet not simple at all. I can feel love all around me, from my kids, my sibs, my friends, my fellow islanders, but that love is not the same as one between two people for whom the other is the only other; the only one you don’t mind being stuck with in any situation, like a tailback, a broken down lift, outside a ‘sorry, no tickets left’ venue, anywhere, everywhere. There is always another option because the most important element in any situation is being with that other person, not the stuff around it. What a rare and beautiful thing, and one I realised, saw super clear just now, on a walk I didn’t complete.

So, I am open and honest about feeling deeply sad for myself, for my loneliness, full of self-doubts and confusion in my go-for-it navigation of a world I never wanted to inhabit. As I bounce out there like Tigger every single damn day, grinning, thankful, uplifting others, making friends, cracking jokes, it is my truth because this attitude is a daily choice, not a lucky-for-her gift from birth. Most days, really most of them, I believe in this attitude, and then comes a day when I want to cry me an ocean, never mind a river; when I just want to hide away, to not be seen by anyone, to disappear completely. I know, for sure, that everyone has such days, but that is not my point. To be honest about it, particularly to oneself, is to fully embrace the holistic human state instead of pretending everything is tickety boo all of the time. We all are the drivers in our own lives, and nobody wants to slop around in a cloak of gloom and misery, but it is exhausting to stiff-upper-lip (whatever that means) all of the time. And, it isn’t reality, and I honestly believe that good people who are doing their very best to live life to the full might stop judging themselves so harshly. Accepting down days, admitting loneliness, self-doubt and so on, isn’t comfortable, but it is real and honest and normal and understandable.

Social media is uplifting twaddle a lot of the time, although I have uplifting quotes stuck to the walls of my kitchen, and they do help. The hourly news are about as ghastly as can be. Some days feel just as ghastly. Our culture is all based on couples. Two steaks, two tickets, two, two, two. One to hold the front end, the other, the back; one to check this, the other to check that; one to joke, the other to laugh; come for supper invitations are usually for two, adventures are shared and somehow a tad pointless alone. Going out is always uncomfortable at first as an unwilling single. Do I look ok, is this the right wine, should I mention this, how can we (we) avoid that, or him or her? Somewhere in between, we live on my lonely friends, doing our best, falling, rising, laughing, crying and then doing it all again, over and over again until the wind changes and our candle gutters to the wick, once and for all.

See you there. It’s guaranteed I’ll make you laugh.

by

Island Blog – The Beyondicous of Me

They do it all. They use every single minute of their time in their ‘home’, connecting with their roots, roots none of us knew about until fairly recently, and roots which have explained the feeling of being HOME when on this Hebridean island. For them, t’is obvious. They were either born here or came as wee smouts, one still in terry towelling nappies. Good lord they were a struggle to force into anything beyond huge lacy knickers under a skater dress, which tutu-ed no matter how much mother ironed the skirt. Boys (in blue) just looked ridonculous, all bottom and with a bow-legged gait. I digress.

Family have been here. I’m guessing you guessed that. Just a week, but not just a week, because of all the moments they filled with adventure. Come on, let’s go! I heard that many times even if I was just beginning on a bacon roll. Just bring it, just get on, just hurry up. I am, at heart, an adventurer. I love spontaneity, and the let’s go of most things, and this dynamic wondered me and remembered me, the me who experienced this bonkers and, mostly inconvenient, adventureness, and did I go back then? Maybe, but maybe not. I would have been shackled down to dinners and guests and the endless wotwot of hospitality, not that I felt hospitable a lot of the time. Did I miss my children’s rise into the wild, or did I, somehow, by waving them off time after time, with bacon butties or cake or a kiss, teach them what was always in my heart? Go, go, go my beloveds, go, and have the best fun. Perhaps.

This time, those ‘children’ are fathers and mothers, with their own adventurers, and, I am delighted to say, this adventure thing is very encouraged. Seek, Ask, Search, See, don’t just look. Stop, Notice, Challenge boundaries, Find opportunity and connect. Seize the moment, the sunset, the sunrise, the call of the wild, and follow, follow, follow. They’re like wild creatures when they are here, my kids, and they bring their own kids to catch the scent of it, the catch of connection to adventure delivered down the line, colouring the hearts and minds of young absorbers.

They caught the tide and found ‘out there’ beaches for a barbecue. They watched the sun sink into the Long Sea as oystercatchers, curlews, many gulls and whitetails cruised the pinkling sky. They traversed woodland walks, walked the machair, swam, dived, paddle boarded, fished for crabs in the rain, picked blueberries, raspberries and blackcurrants from the lovely community garden. They caught newts and released them. We talked about clouds and rain and colour and sunshine and how steam clouds granny’s glasses when she checks a pizza in the oven. I watched the grand girls, backflip, drive my quad barefoot, show me a better way to do this, and that.

They beyondicous me. And it is a joy.

by

Island Blog – Risk, Wild, Adventure, Lipstick

My roses are ridonculus. This year, despite being cut down to their knees last Autumn, they have risen like blooming lamposts. They know, they have to, that wind and WIND cometh, and daily, along with slews of rain, a veritable slam-dunk with potential collapse. But, they don’t do that collapso thing, not like the beech limb, that sweet strong gone-thing that prevents my traverse in the most polite of ways in that it fell whilst I was not beneath its massive tonnage. I see the black, the ingress of rain for perhaps decades, the finite a silent given, but not to me, not to all of us who wandered beneath the bow and the beauty of this superb and wonderful spread. We, human we, didn’t think at all. We just lifted an overhang, leaf heavy, and for so many walks and talks and unthinks.

Today, returning from work, I saw something, a definite some-thing at the side of the track, and moving. A buzzard low and just above this moving thing, taunting, dunting, a significant part of the moment. I slowed my mini (she doesn’t like to slow, so there was a tussle) and looked. An otter, an OTTER, right there beside me, slid into the ditch, then paused and looked right at me. It’s face, its eyes, my face, my eyes, we collided. Then, it grabbed the hen it had pinched from……where for goodness sake? There is nothing and no-one here, not for miles. That eye connection champagnes my insides and, for a bit, whilst Mini grumbled, I could not press play. I was in the wild and I didn’t want to leave. The. otter did, lifting over ferns and rocks until all I saw was the nothing I had expected pre this sudden eye-catch, this adventure. It thought me.

Adventure, risk and the wild is not for some, but for us all. We just have to see everything and to seek something beyond and above the usual, the what we’ll have for dinner, the whose turn it is to take the kids to their groups, the grind of expectation and disappointment. I remember being there, but please don’t think that just because my kids are born and gorn that everything becomes marvellous, because that is a myth. I began being ridonculus at 21, deciding to see the wild, to risk adventure, to find connection with my people, who were not always my family. It is a choice. I ask myself, and daily, Who Am I in this Here and Now? The answer comes. You Know Who You Are. And the voice is right.

One day I drove to the harbour, knowing one of my boys had parked there. I also knew I wouldn’t see him, but that didn’t matter. I found his big ass buckie and pulled out my pink lipstick. I drew a huge heart on the driver window and wrote I LOVE YOU, right across the windscreen. No-one saw me. Chuffed, I walked back to my car, passing, oh dear, passing, his buckie, I knew it, his stuff, his order, his things and thought, oh holy shit! I just defaced an unknown’s glassware. Then, the wild in me, the adventure, laughed me and I did it all again. As I hiked my wee car up the hill and away, I did wonder what the other guy felt as he came back to such a message.

by

Island Blog – Travelling Light

This day I am packing, not to fly back home, not yet, but instead to stay for a few nights inside the wildlife reserve at the Switsonga Guest house. Why am I doing this? Well, it is to give my son and his wife space in their own home after almost a month apart, the longest since they married almost 9 years ago. Another reason is to push myself into being alone, sort of, and in a place I don’t know, all an important brick, or bricks, in the wall of my new life. Not a boundary fence really, but more of a construct of my own making. My complete, and thankfully short term, loss of confidence after 10 years of caring plus Covid lockdowns, plus a dead husband have all shaken my foundations and I am tired of tripping over the rubble of it. I am a sturdy, sure-footed woman, fleet and curious, excited about life and on the other side of death by over 2 years. I want to learn how to be alone with confidence, appreciating the joys of freedom after many years and to experience, through a new way of seeing, how wonderfully lush the world really is. I have hidden under tables, under the bedclothes, in the cupboard under the stairs for long enough now. My time being under is over.

I don’t plan to take my long haul suitcase, large enough for a small pony, not for 3 days, so I borrow one from my son. It looks perfect, perfect, that is, until I see the piles of stuff that will need to fit within its perfect space. My laptop, plus charger, my sewing paraphernalia, no charger required, my blue-tooth speaker plus charger, my phone plus charger, my ground coffee plus cafetière, my washbag, make-up kit, sun preventer, sun soother, after sun balm, mosquito protector spray, calamine lotion for any sneaky bites, my writing pad and pen, my anti histamine, vitamin tabs, lip balm, flip-flops, costume, cardy, clock, torch for power outage, nightie, underpinnings and the case is bulging full. There is just room, just, for four rolled up frocks, squished in and sat upon. It wonders me this packing lark. Although I always travel light, in all senses of the word, I seem to be struggling with this short stayaway. What is it that has me packing for the end of the world? Well, once inside the wildlife estate, no going out at night #leopard and no car to drive myself anywhere, I need to be independently equipped for sunburn, a plague of mosquitos focussed solely on me, for all possible internal combustions, a sneezing fit (take tissues), cracked lips, tongue ulcers, beri beri fever, hyena attack, malaria and floods. Why? Don’t the owners of the guest house keep all that in their cupboards? Are they not more than able to deal with any of my imaginary fears should they manifest, which is about as likely as Johnny Depp knocking on my door to invite me out for dinner? It laughs me but I don’t take anything out of the case.

Remember, I admonish myself, that of all the fears you have listened to in your long life, only one came true, the one that named you Carer, and you got through that didn’t you, with humour and grace, despite the accompanying horrors? I nod, yes, true, but…..No Buts! I hear inside my head. Okay, okay, no buts. I’m still not taking anything out of the case. She rolls her eyes at me, Mrs Sensible does, I can feel them revolving and they tickle me. All those imaginary fears and only one came true, the big one. If I could have chosen a different fear manifesting itself, I would have. Might have. Wouldn’t have. Why is that? Well I can answer that one. Despite the battles within, when I felt like Gollum versus Smee around himself, and without, during The Resistance to Everything, the calling out of my name a hundred times a day for no good reason and the way he was alone with me, dark and preoccupied, but light and chirpy around the carers, nurses, doctors and professionals, it was a role I do not regret playing, not at all. In lockdown, when nobody crossed the threshold, not even the carers, we found an easy peace, uninterrupted, unchallenged by said interruptions, the days seemed to flow. Even when I was called often in the night, I didn’t mind, so focussed was I on keeping his dignity. I found and held onto compassion and light, changing as he did, pushing for nothing, sitting to talk when he wanted me to listen, gently, softly, lonely but entirely present and travelling light, from room to room, task to task.

So, where is your travelling light thingy gone? Asks Mrs Sensible. Oh shut up woman and please don’t come with me today. I’ll do what I want with my ‘in case of stuff’ plan and if I return unscathed you can smirk all you like. I make my own decisions now and, you can be sure that I will take the consequences thereof. Therof! she cackles as I shove her under the duvet, zip up my case, close the bedroom door and head out into a new adventure.

by

Island Blog – No Moment Missed

Life is an awfully big adventure or it’s nothing at all. Or something like that, if anything could be just ‘something like’ an awfully big adventure, or a life. But we so often take days for granted, allow them to limp along in trudge boots, unseeing of the beauty of our one and only chance to make a difference. Now why would we do that? Death is the end of life and we don’t much like death although I, for one, am completely okay with it for it is just part of a cycle, unless the death is too soon, too young, too inexplicable. Those deaths take forever to be allowed in a mind. But the days we, who yet live, must be roiling with adventures or they just slip through our fingers like mist; missed; missed opportunities to scamper if we can, sparkle our eyes, notice everything, to engage with everything and with everyone we meet. It isn’t hard at all, not if we think it so because by thinking it so we show our humanity and our gratitude. Things will annoy, people will irritate, life will throw curve balls and situations will seem unfair or cruel but if we choose to see life as an adventure, we will learn techniques to work around, work with, work intelligently through any amount of sh*t. Our belief that our piddling little life is more important than anyone else’s is what creates war and war is nothing if not pointless and destructive. From neighbours to posturing countries, from pub quizzes to dinners out, as long as we tell ourselves we are the proverbial ‘it’ the road ahead is paved with troubles. The key is to let go and to let be. And until we learn that, until we take down our walls of protection, we will always be something’s or somebody’s target.

This weekend past I drove to the ferry (most of the way in Nervous Gear) for a visit to my son and his family. I can almost see their home from my own so don’t think airports or anything as scary as that. All I had to do was park, walk aboard, cross the sea and then walk down the gangplank, straight into my son’s big strong arms. We laughed and talked, ate too much and wandered each day with their littlest one in her polar suit and furry lilac boots. During that time I learned much about about them, how they are now, so much more than I could ever learn in a text or during a phone call. Engaging in their life, albeit for a short time, showed me their life, told me how they think and let me know how they have moved on since last I spent some days with them. In my big family it is easy not to manage any of that. A few exchanges when the little ones are playing elsewhere is enough for the time but doesn’t show me how life is for any one of them inside their own lives. And what I noticed is that they grab every opportunity for adventure. All my kids do and in doing so they teach their own little ones to do the same. A sudden rain stop. Let’s get out there and climb trees, or splash in puddles or play ball! There is no faffing, no hesitation, just action.

I return home with memories of our daily adventures roiling in my head. Colours, laughter, pink cheeks, cold fingers, encounters, good coffee and the warmth of a shared evening. It hopes me for a better world. If everyone just got on with life, really living it, giving every moment the respect it so deserves, well…….who knows what the earth might look like? Okay, maybe not the whole earth, but our own little bit of it, our own homes, neighbourhood, street, community. And it all begins with a morning decision to see the good in each moment, every person, every situation in which we find ourselves. When I was fearful on the scarily empty ferry, the cafes closed, the staff minimal, the travellers all unreadable in masks, I decided to stop, breathe in the salty air and to look around me. I watched a couple with a lovely wee dog, the way the woman reassured when the loudspeaker yelled everything in Gaelic, the way another couple took pictures of the passing lighthouse. I counted the beat of the lights and wondered who decides which lighthouse does what and when. I smiled at passing crew members and noticed the way they were already ready for a mask muffled exchange. They, like me, are short on conversation, I realised. The ship was ghostly, almost empty and yet so big and powerful. I watched the wash created by the engines, the wake, the seagulls fly, the islands I cannot name moving by, dark in the darkling light as the sun sank into the great Atlantic. I heard all sounds around me. That door needs oiling. This flag needs a seamstress or replacement. I noticed the colours and their lack. Why does everyone wear dark colours in winter? It’s as if we need to blend into the sleep of the season, no colour upset to the quiet vibration of January. I, in my colours felt a bit rude to be honest. But, no matter. All of us, the dark and the coloured folks, all 10 of us on a ferry that can carry 1000, arrived together and safely. As the crew threw ropes and japed with the land crew, I saw the sea settle, the salt sink, the last light catch the spume turning it into an adventure – just a moment but I caught it and the lift and startle of it carried me all the way back to my wee mini who, I just know it, was excited that I was back. Hallo Pixty, I said and she smiled into life. We trundled home once I had worked out how to put on the headlights and arrived as we had left but not. No. We arrived back adventured up. Changed. Not a moment missed.

by

Island Blog – Thing with a Point, Small Whispers

Have you ever said, or asked yourself – What’s the point in me doing this thing? I certainly have and still do, only now I understand that even the smallest step is always worth taking even when I can see no end result, no point that brings me the whole Something; that Something that would show me the point of my pointless steps and would surely confirm that I was actually prophetically brilliant without realising it.

Every single day proffers opportunities and we evaluate each one. What is the point in me sweeping the kitchen floor when nobody but me will see it today? What is the point in my adding a few more stitches to my latest fantasy landscape tapestry when I make no effort to market them? What is the point in applying loud makeup? For the sheep to ‘baa’ at or for the birds to tweet to their own Twitter mates? Why am I considering hoicking out that lithograph of an ancient stuffy old ancestor I never ever met, just to add ink and make a print? For whom? Whom cares?

Chances are, nobody. Not a who nor a whom; not at step one, nor two or even ten, but when a body remains committed to the small steptasks, something wonderful joins that bodymind on the long and winding road. As I make myself perform these, frankly ridiculously ridiculous, tasks that have popped into my intelligent head only to be sideswiped by my intelligent head, I feel a sense of achievement in my soul. Now, the soul is powerful and it has a voice. I turn to address the cynic in me and hold up my hand. Stop right there. I am doing this ‘pointless’ thing because something way bigger than you or me sent me a whisper. Through a word, a song, a looking, a noticing and I am tired of being so grounded in earthly limitations. I have wings and you, Mrs Cynic, do not. You are not spiritually wealthy. I can tell by the tight purse of your mouth.

So I do all the pointless things because every one of them has a point, in itself, its own point and who doesn’t want one of those? If I honour the whisper as the one who can make this thing a better thing then, what is not to like? In my long life, I have found that the end game is often imagined. The success story we read, the achiever, the award winner, the one who won Strictly. We are fools to aspire to such ‘success’ unless we are prepared to swallow the bitter pill of the millions of small steps that would make that success possible. I don’t want awards, nor to win Strictly, but I do want that sense of warm pleasure that comes from any job well done, no matter how pointless it felt at first. It doesn’t matter if nobody sees because I do and I am my finest seer. We all are. I wonder sometimes that we teach our children shortcuts, to run fast and not to stop for anything, resulting in hollow hearts. Taking the fast route can work at times but not all the time. There are small whispers being missed at a cost.

So, I would say this. When a small task whispers in, take action and value that connection. You never know what will come in to help and to guide. Don’t give up and don’t give in to old Purse Lips. What does she know, she who never partied till she lost a shoe? Live wild, people, no matter how old or young you are. Adventurize your life right now. Otherwise that life, our only one, is nothing at all.

And nothing is pointless, at best.