bond

I did my own housework today. It’s so damn boring, my own housework, whereas I am like a woman on fire when it comes to someone else’s. I am can-do, let’s do this, even if the job appears magnifluent with horribleness. What is that all about? I ask myself this as I lug stuff for washing to the washing thing. No answer comes beyond the flip dash of swallows madly encouraging their second brood to fly, ffs. I feel for them, not that I ever knew resistance from my kids, as they almost went without a lookback. I pulled myself back to myself, as they say in SA, and grabbed a hoover, then a bucket and mop and sorted things that needed sorting. I like my home to be clean even if nobody ever sees most of it. This is about me and how I care about me, my personal standards.

Bring that back, roll it right back to the core. I have standards, yes, but just for myself. I feel no judgement when I meet others who don’t share what I choose to be my level pegs. It doesn’t annoy me. I cock my head at this. Really? Well, yes, probably, but I contain it. I have five grown children with five grown partners. I have met walls and fences. I have learned. What haveI learned? Acceptance, obviously. Was that easy? No. So How did it become the normal in those relationships? Did you remember yourself in these new dynamics? Not always, no, although once I got to know the partners, I found myself loving them and that was me being me. How did you do that? Asking questions without agenda, just interested in their life, their own thoughts, the she or he of she or he. And, I interrupt my questioner, of continuing that through the years. Instead of the easy homey conversations with primal children, elevation is required, I have found. To show interest and to ask about the partner of my beloved, the one, let’s be honest, who took that beloved out of the maternal/paternal sphere and into a new ellipsis.

I made chappit tatties just now. It’s a Scottish thing you might need to google. I also made a salad and all of the before was delivered on Friday, fresh island produce. I can smell the island on the lettuce, salty, safe, wholesome. I love the ground of this life, the wild, the silence and darkness at night, the safety, the community, the song and strength of it, the way we move to help each other, the way we can step in or fly out when it’s an urgence. The way we understand that the earth breathes, the sea breathes, the world is changing. We don’t know what to do next beyond the fact that we don’t have a clue.

In the now of now, we are flying on.

Today is Halloween and I already have a witch or two in my head, and if crossed, in my mouth. Not a really bad witch, but one of those ones that knows her power and won’t take any messing. I like her. She is a tad unpredictable, but we work together pretty well in the main, perhaps because I am also a tad unpredictable. Witches are really ‘storybook’ to me, I don’t do black magic at all, although the white ones are worth a second look. I pull them in and shape them up for whatever hurdles I need to cross on a daily basis. My witches are humourous and feisty, clever and quick, kindly but firm, independent, solo, and able to lift above any situation with a switch of a wand. They don’t sport warts, nor crooked chins, nor do they cackle unless it’s whilst watching the ‘bad’ guys fall into their own come-uppance, in which case, I cackle too.

My time on Skye was wonderful. Every time I travel to new places, I meet new people and people fascinate me. I watch them and I listen and I learn. I stayed as a guest in a lovely home overlooking a sea-loch that raged and spat for days, driven mercilessly into a right stooshie by strong winds and heavy rainfall. The rain travelled sideways, whipping into my face and grabbing the breath out of me. It was hard to stand up whilst walking two lively spaniels whose main aim was to find rabbits and chase them, not possible whilst held firmly on a lead, but nonethless, their aim. When we had the rare sighting of a car approaching along the single-track road, we had to bundle into the grass in a fairly undignified heap, the spaniels panting for breath and the blood cut off from my lead-holding fingers. Waving was tricky, lifting just my hand and not a whole spaniel into the air. I was treated like royalty and yet welcomed as part of the family and now I have new friends, new people to learn from, a new bond between us. Just as an aiside, I belong to the Scottish Book Trust who can sponser such trips and I am always delighted to be invited anywhere in Scotland to talk about Island Wife, to sing my songs, to reach out to people who relate to my story, in book groups, libraries, or at any public event. I know, shameless marketing!

Moving on…….

In every area of life, there are people. Machines do a hec of a lot to assist communication, its reach and the speed of it, but we need people or there is no heart. Talking of hearts, I believe hearts are inherently good, even when the outside of someone challenges that theory. Nothing is black or white, we are all both, plus all those rainbow colours in between. Of course, life can throw us from time to time, but none of us want to be remembered, or pidgeon-holed at such times, especially if the outside of us says different. But we can and do define people, if we’re honest, by their behaviour on a certain day/week/month or year. We may be asked to describe someone. We may say…..well, she is very good at her job but dreadfully overweight. Now why do we add that last bit? Is it that we must balance a good thing with such an unnecessary comment? It’s irrelevant to the profile of that person and, sadly, the one thing that will be remembered. Her overweight is something she doesn’t like either, we can be sure of that. I have heard such defining often and, to my shame, said nothing. I remember one of my boys saying once ‘I wonder why we don’t stand up for each other’ and he is right. Why don’t we? Perhaps we don’t want to be the reason for any awkward feelings. After all, we can just remove ourselves can’t we and think how judgemental that comment was and the person who made it. It’s easier that way. But aren’t we judging too by keeping quiet? It has a name this keeping quiet thing. Although we didn’t directly commit the crime, we affirmed it by omission. We omitted to stand and be counted. In this climate of not standing, we need to make changes. I have a rule for myself. If I wouldn’t say something direct to a person, then I won’t say it at all. I can’t always manage it. I am human. But what I aspire to, and practice, will eventually become a habit.

We are all doing our best to manage our lives. We fall, we falter, we stumble and we crack, but we are not china cups and we can mend. Not one single one of us knows what it is like to live another’s life. The saying that we should not judge another man till we have walked a mile in his shoes, is a good one. Even living closely with another human being tells us little of what lies in their hearts, what dreams are shattered, what disappointments hurt, what shame or oppression has done to their sense of self. Little choices make up our pathways, but we cannot all walk straight and tall if those pathways are not going the way we want them to. We redress the balance as best we can, and it takes time to find the normal, sometimes a long time, often a long time. If I have learned anything in my life it is that I am not an island. Although I love solitude and am happy on my own, I still crave a warm smile when life feels like it’s wrapped me in chains and thrown a tsunami in my face. Stopping to smile back, to ask How Are You? and to listen to the answer can lift me far higher than any job-well-done will ever do. I may rush by you, Can’t Stop, and you may understand my busyness, and I may complete the housework in record time, but, I am smile-less deep inside and not lifted up at all. Better, by far, that I dally a while with you beside the dried goods and coffees for a human encounter. We are dead a long time. Life is for us to live or it will carry on without us.

If not now, then when?