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Island Blog – You Turned me

My Thesaurus is lacking, I confess. Granted, my copy dates from the early 70’s which probably explains itself. Language and the metamorphic elevation (or devaluation for some) of it has me quandarying somewhat. I’m looking for an intuitive alternative to the word Thankfulness and what I am finding is a definite slide into Obligation. Oh no. Definitely not that shit. I want to be wildly thankful. I don’t need a landing. I just want to send my gratitude out into the sky like a lift of birds, a whorl of butterflies because someone, somewhere, tilling their rice fields in a country I will never visit, might just sense something in the air, and smile for no reason.

Looking through old writings today, I found something. 2016. On to today. I had gone to a conjoined church service, sort of mid island, a good 90 minutes drive away, but the journey was fun, the low sun a complete block at times, spectacular but definitely a sudden stop as the road disappeared completely. We met in a village hall. We do this, we islanders, grabbing a venue for all sorts of things. The roads windy, the window views endless hills and what some may see as a lonely nothing, but there is way more than nothing out there, if you have eyes to see. All I felt, in the lulls of conversation, was thankfulness, and I live here. This is my beloved home and more, every single moment I learn something new, or anew, which is somehow better. The theme of the service touched me. What do you long for? Do you judge yourself harshly? Is that in your way? I may have got the wording wrong, but those questions almost cried me.

This is what I found, written June 2016. I know it was smack in the guts of dementia care, but I recollect nothing more. Here goes…

‘I am a brilliant and prolific writer.

To those who squashed my creative growth, who never wanted the best for me, who chained me up and pinned me down, who convinced me I was a show-off, too loud, too selfish, un-special, untalented, untrustworthy if set free, fluff-headed. Those who told me my duty lay in conformity and fed me daily guilt and self-doubt, who stole my life. I thank you. You turned me.

To those who encouraged me despite seeing clearly my handcuffs, ball and chain. You who brought me back to myself, asked me. something about Me, and listened with interest, who liked me for who I was, not what I could do, nor how well I could accommodate, or behave, or change shape. You helped me keep myfaltering light alight, you gave me hope. My first, a teacher in primary school, my second the mother of a widlfree family. The first looked me in the eye, said nothing, didn’t need to as her eyes said everything I had never seen before. The second spoke out. You are lovely, she said, as she whacked the bejabers out of newly gathered salad leave. Just be yourself. I was astonished to realise that it was an option at all.

There are many of you, many more than two and to you all, from my heart, I say this….

Thank you for telling me it’s not only ok to be me, It’s wonderful.”

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Island Blog – Indigo and Goose Shit

I’ve been blue for a few days, I admit, and blue is my favourite colour, but not my favourite way to feel. Although I don’t show it outerly, this feeling, I still feel it. It’s like a trudge in my heart, filtering down to my legs and up to my thinking. And I did trudge, all of me did this trudging thing. Each task felt like a frickin bore and a half, more. I kept going, automaton switch on, but felt almost absent from proceedings, even if I did proceed. Sleep was bumpy and ebullient with odd images and chilly moments. But, now I have moved on to green. I also love green, the growth colour, the one that heralds change and the promise of astonishing colour. I went to church today in astonishing colours, my boots and one of my layered frocks, the colour of goose shit after a korma, and my underfrock green with white flowers and yellow interiors, the teeshirt below a washed out blue, a concession and a wink to the blue of late. My socks were wildly striped, my coat blue/grey with red hearts. Nothing matched but I read the lesson quite the thing, acting it all out in my voice. A definite improvement.

It thinks me. Sometimes, actually many times, when I remember the gazillions of counsellor guides who have gifted wisdom, revelations and inspiration over most of my adult life, there has oftentimes been the invitation to colour a feeling, or a state of being. As I am me, with my instantly curious mind, I wanted to know ‘which shade of this colour would you like me to name?’ There was a silence after that until, I’m guessing, strength was gathered along with an eye roll, pre responding. If asked, I might explain the difference between shade and hue, between the wisdom of naming a colour as a single thing instead of the many, many hues and shades of that particular colour, depending, naturally, on what other colour/solution/medium was added, and in what proportion. Have I lost you?

I walked today in the wild place. It is right outside my gate, a few steps, slew right, and I am on the right track. Always the right track. The air was a gasp of what might have been a snow warning, had the clouds told me so, but no. Damp held in fists as I breathed in the smell of Autumn’s stand against the Winter King. He’s a bugger, so he is, arrogant and confident and blowing early shards of ice at people when they’ve only just got the hang of those awful wooly stockings, only just thought about packing away all their summer kit. The trees wave at me, spindly now, ghost trees, sap sinking into roots. The snipe are in, the hedgehogs snuffling about for a place to hibernate, the stags are silent, dead, or triumphant, but wary. Grass is held in stasis and will soon be dead, but the moss and the fungi still stand tall, an arrogance in their standup. Thats an island word.

So, if asked the question today, What colour are you? I would grin, avoid doing the shade, hue thing, and answer, still blue, but with green. Blue but with a touch of rose madder = indigo. Green with a touch of cadmium yellow = goose shit.

Sounds like confusion. That’ll do.

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Island Blog – Showing Up

Today I feel small, not insignificant, but small. It thinks me. Feeling small is good considering the smallness of me, of any of us, in the hugeness of the world. Okay, that’s the number of people. However, in a wider way, I am small. So, by the way, are you. It can humble us, this feeling small thingy, but it doesn’t mean we don’t matter, I don’t matter. I can think I don’t matter and I meet other septugenarians who also can think that way on days when effort is required just to show up, when a life-long-lived turns into a solo act with nobody in the stalls, no tickets sold; when children with all their noisy demands and angsts and troubles and growing pains are now living their own lives, to which I am an add-on. Loved, yes, cherished, yes, but an add-on nonetheless. How did that happen? Not so long ago I was so very big. Now I am small. I live on the edges of other lives, cheer their joys, comfort their sorrows and after that I am small again. Just me. Alone.

I look at life as an opportunity to learn and to adapt. On days when I feel small, I round on it, question it, investigate it, challenge it. Not as some others would, not saying, as in a pantomime, Oh No You’re Not! No, not that, because denying a feeling or pushing it into the shadows just creates a bigger shadow and it always returns, bigger, darker, stronger. That way danger lies and I have seen it, seen folk lose their foothold on what life has to offer, watched them give up, grow unkempt, uncaring for themselves, trudging. To hellikins with that. But, and I am very aware of this, t’is so easy to fold in, to shut off, to let the ‘small’ feeling define a man, a woman. In this state a person can start apologising for their voice, their choices, their very existence. It is a sad observation indeed.

But that is not me, and it needn’t be anyone else who questions and wonders and whose spirit, once effortlessly strong and which now needs CPR, is resurrected consciously. Rise you sleepy twit! Well, that’s what I say and loudly. It is definitely harder in the older and lonelier years, I agree, to make something of what’s next. It can be cranky-sore to show up. It can be a massive push through pain and loss. But (love that word) I have met such ‘small’ people over the years, those who still appeared for lunch in a colourful turban or a swishing skirt and emerald leather boots, men included. Those whose spirit refused to stop the party, who danced as best they could, who sparkled in the queue for the Sunday papers. I have seen them, I know. And, do you know what? The younger generation LOVE to see such a love for life because it tells them that growing older, feeling smaller, does not mean a miserable decline, not at all. And what better legacy can we leave those beautiful young people?

So there I was feeling small. It lasted an hour or so, the lonely, the emptiness, the wondering if this is it. Then I whacked up the music, wrote a prayer, went to church, read it, laughed and joshed with others, drove home, walked the wee dog among the wild primroses, violets, new larch green, the nesting birds, geese flying overhead, a sea-eagle half way to heaven. I’m still small in the bigness of things, but I am not insignificant, not at all. If I can show any young person how an old person can still dance, even if only in his or her mind, then I will show up, again and again and again.

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Island Blog 146 Travelling Light

suitcaseAs I pack my bag for the trip to the Reader Room on Skye, I meet all sorts of thought tangles. What to take, what not to take and in which suitcase. The big stripey one or the smaller spotty one? Both have noisy wheels and both weigh too much empty. I won’t need much, will I? Just jeans and tops, a warm jumper, walking boots, books, notes, wash things, face paint, a frock for the night, leggings. The smaller spotty one will do. Until it won’t.

Travelling light is a dream of mine, almost a passion. I want to be light and flexible, easy to move along please, to glide through doorways, over metal bridges without needing CPR on the other side. I want to fit into that space the huge-suitcased lumberers leave between themselves and the dangerous side of the pavement or platform. To scurry, hurtle, dash with momentum and forward thrust. I want to be at my destination before half of these goodly folk have reached the ticket barrier. I catch earlier trains that way, denying myself the takeaway coffee, the creamy bun. I don’t push or shove. I am perfectly respectful of the Overladen, but my constantly working mind maps out the fast route and my feet take me on. I don’t mind queuing at all and must be the only Brit who doesn’t. I just factor it into my dash to wherever I’m going, and speed up where necessary when momentum is paused.

Travelling light, I tell myself, is a state of mind, a decision. Taking too many changes of clothing, just in case, comes from a place of fear. Will I have the ‘right’ thing to wear? Will I be too cold or too hot? Have I the right shoes? All of this is dithering and arrives me laden, out of breath, hot, bothered, and with a load of unnecessary vestments, not one of which gets beyond crumpling itself in the dark depths of my suitcase. But we all do this dithering, if we’re honest.

When I first decided to travel light, it was to a funeral in Yorkshire. I just needed the gear for the church, and mufti. We said bye bye to the kids, minder, collies and cats and left Tapselteerie. It was coming into York that we discovered we had left the cases in the front hall. As our life had always been lived by making good decisions quickly in the face of adversity, we dived into a dress shop and bought this and this and that, then shoes, and arrived at the funeral with the labels still attached. Nobody cared. It was enough that we had made the journey.

The second time was when I went South for a different occasion, on my own. This time, I did have my lightly packed suitcase with me, too heavy even when empty, and handed it over to the nice Easy Jet steward at check-in. I arrived, my case did not. Mum and I dashed to Sainsbury’s, picked this and this and yes, shoes, and off I went to my date. Nobody cared. It was enough that I had made the journey. My case arrived home ahead of me, minus a handle, rendering it completely pointless.

It has happened since, the careful planning, folding, fitting into a small space, all that I think I might need, in case of shipwrecks, strandings, sudden invitations to a military ball, a funeral, a heatwave in October, that my luggage has abandoned me. I have always found a laugh in it, after my initial fish wife impression. I have borrowed clothes I would never buy, applied make-up all wrong for my small pale face, shared toothpaste, boots and even underwear, but, most of all, I was given the chance to find my sense of humour and to lean on it as my support. In the absence of things, I found people, and people can rise over things every time. It’s boundless, the human spirit, warm and strong and constant. Their handles don’t fall off, and in the main, they do what they say they’ll do, and much, much more.

But we forget don’t we, as we live out our lives as islands.  We think we must have everything we need with us, just in case.  We imagine, with horror, the disaster of being cold, or hot, or lost, or stranded, of our train/ferry/plane being late or worse, cancelled, and yet, in all of those circumstances I have found human warmth and friendship.  I have found team spirit, good attitude and kindness.  In times of trouble, we look to each other.  Sometimes we might consider doing that every day, troubled or not.  It might make us less fearful.  We might engage in sharing ourselves with others until it’s easy to do, natural, uncomplicated.  All of us are alone, but we can travel side by side.

Now I’m going back to fret about packing, about the ferry being cancelled due to gale force 22, the bus breaking down on the way north, and, finally, me arriving on the wrong day.

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Island Blog 121 Listen to your ears

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When I hear something, I hear it.  I may respond distractedly, or with intense concentration.  I may not quite hear it for a few seconds, when a word or phrase yanks me back into the room, back beside the person who spoke and then I will ask them to say it all again.  In domestic situations, taking into account familial or relational baggage, I may find myself in the blast of a dismissive retort.

You never listen to me!  I’m not going to talk to you until you put down that mobile, laptop, dog,book, whatever!  Then follows a doggy-type following around, an apology (if you’re lucky), a plead to say it again, an ‘I AM listening, honest’…….sort of drama, which, if I am very lucky, ends well, although by this time, having pattered about whimpering and wagging my tail, I am so not interested anymore, even supposing whatever I didn’t listen to, on first delivery, could get me to the ball after all.

I have read much on the difference between hearing and listening, and, to be honest, am none the wiser, confusing the two whenever I deliver said difference in an astonishing phrase of pure wisdom.  Nobody has ever corrected me, confirming my suspicions that nobody else gets the difference either.  But I do know how critical it is to listen to what our children say and really hear it.  Really not hearing it is the root beginning of an immense baggage collection, guaranteed foreign holidays for psychiatrists, counsellors and mediums, and establishing once and for all that 90% of our troubles, self-doubts and hangups stem solely from our mother.

But what about those things I hear without actively listening?  Those words far off, lifted at random from another conversation, over there somewhere, that can float all by themselves into my head to settle on a comfy sofa, feet up, just waiting for the chance to rise into my concious mind.  I can read something in a book, or in the poetry of a hymn in church and, without consciously choosing to remember any of it, I find myself looking at it as I wake in the early morning, hearing it anew, and marvelling at the brilliance of my aging brain.  Because our senses are all linked by millions of little byroads, I might watch the movement of the clouds across a darkling sky and find words in my mouth and I don’t mean ‘Wow, look at THAT!’  It might be a line in a letter (does anyone remember the last letter that came through the post, with a stamp, licked by the writer and handed over by Amy the Post?) or it might be a phrase from the book I’m reading, or something someone said, but I don’t remember the time or the context.  Somehow, it fits in with the clouds and the darkling sky and again I am astonished at the incredible majesty of the human brain, even though we only ever tap into about a third of its potential.  Just think what we could do and who we could be, if we only knew how to build a mental motorway or, even just how we might repair the byroads already in place.  But we don’t, despite all that irritating knowledge that highlights our human lack.  Why do we have this immense brain in the first place?

As we grow older we begin, everso gradually, to lose the byroads we do have.  One by one, they give way to sprawling grasses, weeds and foliage that turns a shortcut into a wilderness.  Ok, we know this.  We might not like it much, losing our glasses ten times a day, forgetting an appointment made some time before, leaving the margarine out of the cake, and so on, but it a fact of life and we may as well find the dance in it.

My old granny, long dead but unforgettable, never lost her dance.  When it could no longer be found in her strong and shapely legs, or her long elegant feet, it was there in her eyes for all to see.  In a shop, at a bus stop, in her own little flat, she brought that dance forward at every encounter with every person from the Red Cross collector, shaking her bucket outside the door, to the doctor or the minister, although she was highly suspicious of the minister, to be honest.  Even in hospital, dying, she lifted her smile to every nurse, every orderly without exception, and she was no goody-goody I can tell you, being overly full of mischief and with a keen eye for the caricature.  It was for herself, she danced, not to be seen to be dancing, for she had little care for such vanities.

Listening to my ears is not really possible.  It makes little sense, suggesting that my ears have ears and, with a few large-eared exceptions, this seems an unlikelyhood.  But when my little grandson said it to me this morning as we walked through a lovely wild place, I realised I had heard what he said twice.  First, effortlessly, in the normal way, and then, again, as if I was hearing myself hearing.  It made me realise, as I considered this new phenomenon, that not only is there wisdom, beyond their understanding, falling from the mouths of babes, but that, if I really think it through, this is the only way to live.  If I do practise listening to my ears, I distance myself from an instant response, one that might cause an injury to another’s heart.  Words spoken in haste, fuelled by baggage, can wound and wound deep.  Words written in anger can live for a lifetime and beyond.  But if I can learn to close my trap (oh hallo mother) and to keep my ears (all of them) open, I not only allow words to settle in the sofas of my mind, gently; not only allow the moment to move beyond my clutches, however much my fingers itch to capture and internalise it, but, in those precious moments of mouth closed, ears open, I can hear, albeit distantly, the grace notes floating across the divide and find that my feet take up the dance.