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Island Blog – Rings

Today I called a nurse, took my kitchen compost up to the bin, felt the wind slap dunk me, the smell of other climes, other stories, blustery like Winnie the Pooh. He was pretty cool about winds, bees and troubles and he is my guide when I feel worried about pretty much anything. Calling the nurse was just about the jojo of jags for old people, covid, pneumonia (tough spell) and shingles. I said No to shingles. She said you’ve already had it twice, which makes you more susceptible. I had thought my trusty immune system had this. No Shingles Allowed. Not so. Anyway, I now have, it seems, to check with the cancer team about everything. Those jags, a simple visit to the dentist for a teeth clean. It rings me around.

Rings. I Love rings, oh I so love rings. Rings are the firsts in my looking as I press towards a jeweller’s window, the dynamics of a ring, the gold, the silver, the copper, the rose gold, the jewels, the dynamic twist and swirl of the modern artist. It all halts my breath and my feet. I think of the meaning, the intent, the power of all that ringing around. Then I remember control and I walk on. However, I have bought rings for myself, rings I try on, now and again, but rarely hold for more than a day. What is this ring thing? Capture? yes. Oh…..maybe I rest there.

This day, the ring thinks were loud in my mind. There is no reason for it. It just came. I laughed as I recalled a day on the island ferry, en traverse to the mainland, and himself angered me beyond my reaches. I was aloud and not allowed. I was at the end of my reasonable thinking. I was done. On the upper deck of the ferry, I turned like a wild animal, and took off my wedding ring, dramatically, and threw it into the sea. It was like taking off a whalebone corset, or, in my experience, removing a liberty bodice. Ghastly things, trust me, and inaptly named for sure.

Today I was moved to check my jewellery box. I kept one ring from my mother-in-law, an eternity ring, gold band, thin as wire, with, I think, battered dark sapphires as a surround. It made me look for my own, gold with five dark sapphires for five beautiful children, and I tried both on. My own will not fit me on my wedding finger, but my mother-in-law’s slim band fits nicely. It’s loose and easy. Maybe I can wear it, bear it. Nothing on that wedding finger has ever felt easy before. Rings contain, control, or they did it my life, even as I love them. I still love them, even though I cannot wear them for long due to my perception of ring control, as if it was a restraint, which it never was. My fingers have memories, it seems and one finger in particular. As I turn the ring around, I wonder what it meant to the old girl, and I make smile. It is a lovely thing, that ring, as is my own, which goes back in the box, too small, too tight.

Thoughts of my surgery rings me around, although I distract well and keep occupied. How can it not? I have a date now, not far off and welcome indeed, because this perceived restraint, the whale-bone corset of it, the ring control, is not for eternity. The surgeon is confident, thus am I. A short period of discomfort is just a short period of discomfort, and thereafter I will celebrate my freedom every single day, in this wild place. On the return ferry voyage, as we pass the lighthouse and carve our seaway home, I will stand on the deck (not burning) and throw the ring of cancer overboard. Not in fury, as I had when sending my own wedding band down to Davy Jones, but in joy and gratitude.Today I called a nurse, took my kitchen compost up to the bin, felt the wind slap dunk me, the smell of other climes, other stories, blustery like Winnie the Pooh. He was pretty cool about winds, bees and troubles and he is my guide when I feel worried about pretty much anything. Calling the nurse was just about the jojo of jags for old people, covid, pneumonia (tough spell) and shingles. I said No to shingles. She said you’ve already had it twice, which makes you more susceptible. I had thought my trusty immune system had this. No Shingles Allowed. Not so. Anyway, I now have, it seems, to check with the cancer team about everything. Those jags, a simple visit to the dentist for a teeth clean. It rings me around.

Rings. I Love rings, oh I so love rings. Rings are the firsts in my looking as I press towards a jeweller’s window, the dynamics of a ring, the gold, the silver, the copper, the rose gold, the jewels, the dynamic twist and swirl of the modern artist. It all halts my breath and my feet. I think of the meaning, the intent, the power of all that ringing around. Then I remember control and I walk on. However, I have bought rings for myself, rings I try on, now and again, but rarely hold for more than a day. What is this ring thing? Capture? yes. Oh…..maybe I rest there.

This day, the ring thinks were loud in my mind. There is no reason for it. It just came. I laughed as I recalled a day on the island ferry, en traverse to the mainland, and himself angered me beyond my reaches. I was aloud and not allowed. I was at the end of my reasonable thinking. I was done. On the upper deck of the ferry, I turned like a wild animal, and took off my wedding ring, dramatically, and threw it into the sea. It was like taking off a whalebone corset, or, in my experience, removing a liberty bodice. Ghastly things, trust me, and inaptly named for sure.

Today I was moved to check my jewellery box. I kept one ring from my mother-in-law, an eternity ring, gold band, thin as wire, with, I think, battered dark sapphires as a surround. It made me look for my own, gold with five dark sapphires for five beautiful children, and I tried both on. My own will not fit me on my wedding finger, but my mother-in-law’s slim band fits nicely. It’s loose and easy. Maybe I can wear it, bear it. Nothing on that wedding finger has ever felt easy before. Rings contain, control, or they did it my life, even as I love them. I still love them, even though I cannot wear them for long due to my perception of ring control, as if it was a restraint, which it never was. My fingers have memories, it seems and one finger in particular. As I turn the ring around, I wonder what it meant to the old girl, and I make smile. It is a lovely thing, that ring, as is my own, which goes back in the box, too small, too tight.

Thoughts of my surgery rings me around, although I distract well and keep occupied. How can it not? I have a date now, not far off and welcome indeed, because this perceived restraint, the whale-bone corset of it, the ring control, is not for eternity. The surgeon is confident, thus am I. A short period of discomfort is just a short period of discomfort, and thereafter I will celebrate my freedom every single day, in this wild place. On the return ferry voyage, as we pass the lighthouse and carve our seaway home, I will stand on the deck (not burning) and throw the ring of cancer overboard. Not in fury, as I had when sending my own wedding band down to Davy Jones, but in joy and gratitude.

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Island Blog – I Still Am

Well, who would have thought this? Not me. How can one day feel like a funeral march and the next as a beautiful thing, a day awakening after a long sleep. Nothing has changed, the circumstances are just the same, the day just another dawning. I still face surgery, a lumpectomy, a full mastectomy, I don’t know. And, yet, not the same at all.

I woke once in the night, ignored the dog bounce, chances are, at my peril, and re-awoke at 6.45. A lie in for me. And the day just kept her colour, her bright shining. I just flowed free, happy, light and full of ideas. I will knit. Who said that? Not me. I have wools, I have paints and texture ideas for a canvas. I have wires for stringing beads, I have the wisdom of a textural artist. Well, I did, ten years ago. I looked around me. The birds, the sparrows, flutter like gorgeous all around my feeders. They have learned, even with their fat beaks, to grab nuts from the feeder, and I do help them a bit with seed in a carefully placed place, limiting (no offence) the dives of sparrowhawk and goshawk. I just want to watch them, not offer them as prey. It has taken me years to work out the best location for feeders.

I wander through my day. I found Radio 4 Extra, plays and series. I listen as I knit nothing, just knit. I watch the New Moon finally give way to the Ordinary, that space between Tricksy New and then the even more so Full Moon, when the tides are slow to lift, slow to rise, kind of flat a lot. The big ass full is coming, but we, up here, the fishermen, the island women, and some of the men, enjoy a reprieve in that ‘slow’. I walk my small four legs twice around the short loop. We have ‘The loop’ one most people walk without thought. I used to do that. The weakness from being nearly dead has changed that for me. I know my footing here. I love it, the every step of it. I never thought about my steps before. Now I do, so I walk the short, twice a day. I am not afraid.

When i leave my beloved home, dog, island, on Monday to go to Edinburgh and then to the Western General for my consultation, for the decisions on surgery, on the next bit, I feel some fear, of course I do, but the NHS up here is fantastic and the things they have learned and perfected over just the last ten years is so encouraging. i don’t have the mind that knows everything about everything, nor about anything much, but I know I am supported by those who do, family included.

I remember a day in Barcelona, my tiny granddaughter fearful because her mum left her to go for a pee. She clung to me. She is now ten and quite the thing. But I remember that moment and how valuable I was in the moment.

And still am.

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Island Blog – Grace of an Otter

Life comes and goes in waves. That’s what I think, but as I think the think, I wonder what I mean by that. Life, by definition, as long as I am alive, is a constant. More a line than a wave, like a path I walk each day. It is my nature to deviate as often as possible, but even my deviations are visible. Oh, yesterday I must have pathed off this way and last week, accordion to the way grass has grown back, I meandered that way. Unless the path is well-trod and regularly, grass will grow over quickquick, beginning it all over again as an opportunity to head off piste and, perhaps this is good enough in the limitations of my deviousness.

One of the most infuriating, at worst, or thought provoking, at best, sayings is ‘I always do it this way, or I usually walk this way, or I always have lunch at midday and so on. I work on not falling into the always and the usually, simply because of my desire for deviation and also because it heralds a setting in of routine and the shutting down of curiosity and imagination. Living this way is living in the past and not with an eye on the future, in my opinion.

Today I set off for my ‘usual’ walk. Oh, Hallo. As I wander up the track towards the sea, I stop to locate the sudden of fragrance, stand quite still and just breathe it in. Honeysuckle tumbling over a long fallen pine trunk. I watch the bees disappear into the cream and yellow trumpets, whizzing like an electric egg whisk pulled from the froth of albumen, and then emerging laden with pollen and free to fly. I notice brown leaves beneath the Horse Chestnut and find my eyes looking for conkers. No No Silly…….not yet (please not yet). These leaves just fell and turned brown on the track, that’s all. There’s a soft warm breeze and I shuck off my jumper to feel the sun on my skin, nice skin, brown skin thanks to these glorious summer days. My tattoos catch my eye as my arms swing. Each one marking an event. This one, Pegasus the Flying Horse, affixed in Glasgow when Himself was airlifted into the Uk after a massive African stroke. I had to do something that flew me above it all and Pegasus came to life. That one, the dragonfly curlicues, on a visit to Edinburgh with a lovely friend. She bought a lighthouse and I, a tattoo. This is my favourite. The artist so talented. There’s a Butterfly, a Quill, another dragonfly and I am not done yet. I have a date with my niece in Glasgow to visit her tattooist and, although I cannot go there yet, I enjoy searching through designs and placings. It matters not to me that my skin, my lovely skin, is wrinkled. Not one tiny bit.

I turn down towards the sea on a sudden whim, open the gate and read the sign affixed. YOU ARE NOW ENTERING…….and then nothing. I enter. Walking through thrift and wild grasses we reach the flat rocks, smell the salt and the kelp. I sit whilst the wee dog bolts in and out of the shallows barking at nothing. The tide is flooding, the air warm, the sun hot, the peace complete. There is nobody here but me. I remember things, like the whale-watching boat departing from the pier just behind me, returning with happy visitors, day after day after day. I hear their voices, their laughter, their whoops of delight if they had encountered whale. You will sleep well this night, I told them, and they always did. I remember Himself, all grizzled and strong, the Whale Father, the cantankerous hero. Suddenly a head pops up, sleek, black, fleeting and is gone again. I watch the water for some time. A young seal perhaps, a big otter? I am not sure, it was fleeting.

I am just about to leave when the sleekest finest dog otter rises effortlessly onto a rock not 12 feet away from me and the wee dog. She doesn’t see it and I grab her collar to stay her with me. The otter rests on a rock and crunches away at something. He is so clear to me but with his poor eyesight, he doesn’t see me. I watch him complete his meal, slide back under the kelp and reappear moments later with another crunchy thing. He is even nearer now, looks straight at me, but still doesn’t see. The wee dog makes a small bark and he looks at me square, holds, holds, then goes back to his meal. I can hardly believe my luck. I watch this wild creature, flow like liquid, sleek dark, effortless, easy in the tide tow, the flood and ebb, the wild and calm of an ocean. Elemental grace. I totter carefully away across the rocks looking back again and again. The otter just keeps being an otter. It reminds me that my very best bet is to be what I am. A woman aging, a woman strong, a woman who likes adventure, deviation and tattoos. A woman open and wild. A woman who cannot take on an ocean but who surely can take on her own life, the tide tow, the flood and ebb, the wild and calm and with as much grace as an otter.

Here comes a wind change. A door slamming, fly curtain whipsnap sort of wind. Puff clouds rise above the Blue Ben and the sea-loch ruffles and skids to the shore where, if I could hear it, there would be an argument with the rocks. From up here I can only imagine it, unhook the fly curtain and retreat into my home. Changes. At times infuriating, at best thought provoking. I like the latter best. I will be an otter inside my life of changes. I may have to swim faster or hunker down within the safety of rocks. I may enjoy sunshine kelp slip and slide days when apparent threat just observes me but does not confront. I may face off fears, imagined or real. I may bask in family or feel completely alone. None of these are in my control but I am. I. Am.

Think Otter and take on your ocean. It works.

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Island Blog – Pas pour Moi

I wake with the sun, can feel the warmth and the promise of a new day ahead. Impatient, I leave first, walking from the apartment down the little hill towards the village. Bonjour Monsieur-dame, I greet an older couple coming towards me with bags of shopping. I can smell the baguette and see it too, peeping out as baguettes always do, refusing to fit in. She, Madame, appraises me, her eyes covering my body like a touch. She is, I know, looking for an inappropriate bare of skin. She won’t find it, for I know this old fashioned place and am respectful of its rules of thumb, its unwritten laws. She, naturally, is dressed for a winter’s day in Alaska, all in black and so buttoned up as to appear more like a seal than a woman. Her face, pinched into a critical catch tells me that her smiling Monsieur will be disappointed at my coverings and also that her life has not been an easy one.

The streets that wind through the village are cobbled, worn by thousands of feet over hundreds of years, smoother around the entrance to the cafes and bars where feet have scuffled and stopped, turned around or opened the door for refreshment and friendship. Picasso painted here, as did Matisse and Dali and it is to the painters I am bound. Through the archway and down to the rocky harbour I find them, placed like buskers and probably with their own pitches considered sacrosanct. Bonjour I say and more than once as I walk by with only a glance at their work. I know the rules. No artist wants to be gawped at and most certainly do not invite comment. as they apply oils to canvas, eyes on their subject. I look out to where the sun rises pinkly perfect over a calm and submissive sea. Around the curve of the natural harbour an old stone edifice stands sentry. Much of its face is gone but once it would have stood proud as Punch. This is the way in, it would have said to the fishermen and sailors seeking sanctuary.

On the edge of a spit of rock stands a woman in white. Her long dress floats a little in the warm morning breeze but nothing else of her moves. Her hand below a bonnet of white satin is shading her eyes as she looks out to sea. Searching for her husband, says a gruff smokers voice behind me. I am startled back to myself. How did he know I was English? Ah, Madame, he says, English always look English, no matter where they go. I am momentarily disappointed but concede he is probably right. She will not move all day, he continues. She is an art student and this is how she earns money for her studies. I smile and move closer to her. She doesn’t even blink. The heat, I think, the heat! Already, at 7.30 am it is 20 degrees and she has enough clothes on to kit up the whole cast of Hamlet.

I move towards my favourite cafe and sit outside beneath the shade of a tree, one I cannot identify. Cafe Madame? Our, mercie Monsieur. In moments he returns with a small coffee, black, thick and hot. Beside it he places a tiny shot glass of something and winks at me. For the heat, Madame, he says and swings away.

Later we swim. There is a storm gathering and the waves are restless and confused. Himself, snorkelled up, is ferreting about among the rocks whilst I sun myself on the stony beach. When he returns to me I can see something is wrong. He has lost his teeth, pulling them clean out along with the snorkel tube. Lost, he lisps at me. I roll my eyes and feel a small panic rise but the storm is closer now and the waves too high and mighty for a search. I resign myself to a toothless husband who doesn’t care one bit. For three days as the storm rages he orders omelette or scrambled eggs for dinner and thinks the whole thing hilarious. I smoulder across the table. It is, after all, one thing to lose all your teeth to the ocean and quite another to think it amusing, having no intention whatsoever of either organising a new set once we get home or to have any regard for the way I feel watching him lose food through floppy lips and talking like a drunk.

After the storm has moved away and the waves, their skirts still upskittled a bit, have calmed, I move into the water. Point at the place you lost them, I call back. He looks at me as he might a crazy woman and guides me. There! he says and turns back to his book. I duck beneath the water and there they are, sitting atop a rock, complete, waiting. Triumphant I lift them to the sky and call out to him. The whole beach looks up as if I had just found gold, which, in my opinion, I have.

We are the talk of our favourite restaurant. C’est impossible! They say and I am a Cheshire Cat. Pas pour moi, Monsieur, I reply. Pas pour moi.