Clouds

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Island Blog. – That’s my guess

There’s a time and it comes as the night pushes down the day and takes over. Before, when they argue with each other, the clouds tangle and squish, bumping against each other like school kids in a lunch queue. Inevitably the dark wins. How could it not, pushing down like that, an easy pressure, whereas, just saying, the light has far harder work? Dawn has to push up, after all. I think of Dawn with strong shoulders, her determination strong. She’s been doing this for millennia. Let’s hope she doesn’t get tired of the whole pushing night away thing.

Once night has squashed all of the light, I move me towards music and candles. It isn’t a stoop of my shoulders, more an invite to a new dance. The fire is fiery, licky flames thankful for the island timber, those old trees felled, usually by some storm with a dinky name. Eish the nonsense in that! A storm is a storm is all. I will never understand why there are pet names for such as storms, those massive and upwrenching take-out blasts of gargantuan force. We are, in my opinion, both foolish and blind to the truth of what is true. Nature will always win. We are almost irrelevant in that truth, but not quite, not those of us who learn, who are as prepared as anyone can be. It’s those who pretend it isn’t happening who concern me.

I went off on one there. I am not a worrier, not a fearty. I turn on the tunes, light the candles, begin to write. In this simple island life where roads may be passable in icy conditions, when a ferry may run, where rain falls a lot, when there are parking spaces in the harbour town, when everyone sees everyone else as an islander even if most of us are blow-ins, white settlers, whatever, even as we did choose to actually live here, to work here, to join the community and there is a strength in that. I think on that, as tunes play through my speaker, as my twinkly winkly lights twinkle and winkle. So simple. Enough, yes, enough. I walked today, twice, once with. a friend who laughed me a lot. We met muddy dogs, squelched through mud and the sharp stones of puddle refills. We talked of life and hope and christmas trees and future plans as we listened to the plop of raindrops on rhodie leaves, or from the ridonculous highs of Cyprus, Caledonian Pines, the Oldies in this place. The music of it, the beat, the laughter it brings, the musicality of Nature. Who hears it anymore with headphones on?

Community life is simple, bloody hard, difficult, awkward, challenging, slow moving, and wonderful. What else is real life but this? A confusion, an out of self. That’s my guess.

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Island Blog – Looking for Corners

Thank you Franz.

I’m watching a lour of grey clouds, rain fingers pointing down, loaded with rain. The sea-loch is doing her thing, at the mercy of the bothersome moon, which, to my astonishment can morph from a frickin upsetting orb, beautiful, yes, interrupting a million sleeps, that too, into a finger slice, almost overnight. I would like to know how she does that. The full tide is still in Springs. Neaps will come tomorrow. You can Google that.

These louring rain-soaked clouds with pointy fingers are travelling. I see them move across the wide sky. I see the fingers, I do, and it thinks me of those who face tricky situations, as if life is pointing at them. You. Oh, that can be a good thing. You might have won an award, been chosen, but that’s fleeting. It can be a tougher thing. I know those in that tougher thing thing. They are suddenly way north of familiar, and unsure of footing, no knowledge of the landscape, searching for corners, because corners proffer a quick turn, and in a different direction.

However, life isn’t a box, nor a bloody duvet cover. It’s linear. We think we’re moving on quite the thing, and something happens. It spirals us. We never saw it coming. We were just doing our thing, watering gardens, shopping, choosing dinner, sorting diaries, planning, and BOOM! The fallout is well named. It is a fall and an ‘out’ because after the shock has turned into clouds and rain, the last thing we need is anyone with their head on one side being lovely and spouting platitudes because they haven’t learned to think beyond them.

I’m going south of the familiar for them. And you never know what you might discover in corners.

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Island Blog – Catastrophise, Dramatise, Realise

I am altogether not sure about the z and s in the spellings of these words. It was always s in my day, a zillion yonks ago, and there’s a thing. Zillions were Millions back then and that was beyond most everyone even then. So I play with the ‘zee’ and the ‘ess’ for godsake. Language changes after all, and I don’t know what that means, not neither. Moving on……..I have been full of thinks these past quiet times, and not just thinks, although the thinks-thing is of value, in that it, the think, thinks me. I had the eyeball check, all ok in that nothing will heal my left eyeball. My right is right as right. I was always right oriented, not that I need to be right, but my right side is my strength. Writing or any other thing, I do with my right. But I need my left, to educate me. So, my leftie is a tad compromised? We can deal with this, the two of us. And there’s the thing, again.

The clouds louer, growl, hover, push down, closing the sky. That sounds so like a sentence, but it is nothing of the sort. We know clouds out here, in the hawk spit of a volcanic finality, where it landed, where we live. It rains and loud, like a growing out of all sound, even the meen of a liquidiser, conversation stalled, loud, that loud. The Western isles clouds move like queens out on the raz. They come with punch and independence and consequence. I have known these trixy clouds for decades. We have had many conversations. They have guided me through lambing, sailing, hanging out the washing, choosing time to walk, to lead the horses, the bull, the milk cow to a field, or out of it. A keek at them clouds, and a wee question, sometimes a negotiation, and we have worked our way through the days.

I know that weather has changed, but for those of us who knew this was coming, it is no surprise. I know I have the benefit of longtime association with clouds, and intuition around weather patterns, but anyone can learn this. I am no scientist, no clever student. I just know that we can catastrophise and dramatise. We can hide, pretend it isn’t happening, but it is. And, happily we can realise and research and be aware as much as possible. And life is so beautiful. I hear at times, those who hold on to what was, the summers we knew, the way fungi should not be rising just now, what happened? That pointless question.

We can catastrophise, dramatise, or realise, and get going with how it is, how things are. It is a beautiful understanding, and an opening in the clouds, and more, an opportunity. Roses are fabulous this year, the sun blast sudden and as a real head turn, the random warmth like a mother, colours rise like fires in the grey, raindrops diamond, people laugh at the turn of it all. There is so much for the ones who notice, who engage.

Dont’ miss this. Realise.

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Island Blog Clouds and Colour In

I watch Clouds. They’re like television for me, so much big ass sky out there. Below, a sealoch, reflecting. Clouds in the saltwater flatwater, trees and homes too, otters, fish, sometimes kayaks, canoes, people spinning over they know not what. The clouds bump each other, argue, lift above and change shape, give in and dissolve, or are pushed into nothingness, wind-altered, dismissed. Like us down here. There is music in the sky, melody, dissonance, discordance, and dance. Same below, changing moment by moment. It thinks me.

Down here, we have to walk in boots. We are grounded and sometimes stilled and stopped. We don’t have cloud privilege. I know that clouds are moisture and not there and all that weatherly wotwot, but from down here they have substance. And, when the landing you inhabit feels like a place you would rather not be, the chance of a lift into the sky is not so weird. Thankful am I for my imagination, for my belief in the extraordinary, in the impossibility of possible, in the chance, the random, the wild connection with all that not one single one of us can ever explain, nor define. However, and nonetheless, I, like everyone else, am damn well stuck here, and in boots. And when the knocks knock, it hurts.

We are taught, and I am thankful for that taughting, that there is a way beyond loneliness, rejection and self-recrimination. More, a swipelift on and up into the wild and the fun and the adventure. I believe it. I also know that, without such guidance, I could have fallen off my perch.

I walk under clouds, as you do. We know that things ethereal are changing. It will affect us, the grey, the wet, the cold. I bought red boots today. Colour in. Colour in.

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Island Blog – Just Saying

My garden throws its colour to the sky. I know from the slow down of all those throwing blooms, that these wise creatures are saying farewell for another year. They feel the chill of Autumn, are bent tapselteerie by the sideways punchgusts of October, and they accept. They’re probably knackered anyway. I know how they feel. Pushing out colour and brilliance, every day and for months, is a demand and a half, for sure. Languid clouds in a troposphere of unusual calm, float like holidaymakers, pulling apart now and then to let the sun blast out his light, dazzling my eyes. I watch the season turn and it thinks me. I probably do that thinking thing a bit much, but everything fascinates me. On walks with friends, I point out the spot where deer have traversed the track. I see the flattened grass over here and then, look, a continuation to our left. I see where mice or voles or wotwots have nibbled at fungi, where birds have pulled off the buds that come, always too late, a nourishment as food supplies dwindle. I hear the change of birdsong. And I think about all of it.

What is it like to roost hungry, and how many days can any bird manage that? How many deer in this fold? Are there young? A hind and her healthy looking calf, stand just beside the track. I lasso the dog and avert my eyes. I mean no harm, I tell her, in my calmest voice, and keep walking. I look up now and then to see here black eyes fixed on me, her head turning as I move on. She is beautiful. From the look of her calf, she is a good mother. I remember that this is the rutting season, the big fight ahead for the stags. I will hear them roaring soon, the clack of antlers across the sea-loch and that will think me all over again. Survival is key to all animals, the continuation and strength of bloodlines. The old guys will be thrown out, or killed on those hillsides. It makes sense, in the animal kingdom. The males fighting, always fighting. The females protecting, always protecting. Who is the wiser, I wonder? Neither, is the answer. Both have a role, an essential role, and in the animal kingdom it is clear and unquestioned. Perhaps in the realm of humans, this is where we get in a muddle, because I believe that our men can feel very lost around all the powerful and assertive women.

Not that I pay any homage to the old ways. I have, personally fought against that load of nonsense, and with zeal and planted feet, but I do think that even our young men are in a spin. They learned a role, it was clear. And now, it’s as if they have been thrown into a womansphere, in which they might be forgiven for feeling that they have little space, if any. Perhaps we women might refrain from criticising men in general, much as we worked hard to stop them from critising us, and to, instead, see them as individuals, just as we women are.

Just saying.

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Island Blog – Thinks on Waiting

I love this time of year. Yes, it does rain most days, but if I wait and watch, I can pick an in-between space within which to walk out with Little Boots, the wee dog. I am so not a waterproofs woman, to hell with that crackling stuff. I am frocks and bare legs and would go barefoot if the track wasn’t so sharp with stones and wotwot. The in-between times show me chiaroscuro in the wide open sky, like a light show no human could ever emulate successfully. I love the touch of cold grass beneath my naked feet each morning, the thrill of the cold, the smell of it, the fizz in my breath. I love the sound of raindrops (not on those hideous waterproofs), the soft plunk onto grass, the tinkle of it on the roof of my warm conservatory roof, like a tap dance of fingernails. I love the feel of wind in my face, the way the (cheeky sod) lifts the skirts of my frocks, all layered up now, and flaps them wet against my bare legs. I love the sound of the current nonsensically named wind as it divides the limbs of beech trees, oaks, sycamores, larch and pine. Each sound is unique to each tree.

As I move beneath the rain-laden canopy, ready to duck, a wind nudge lifts a limb out of my way. I smile and speak out my thank you. The floor of the wood is not soaked, latent fungi leaping out in oranges and reds and snowy white and danger. I don’t know my fungi, beyond the chanterelles, so I just admire, no touching. I navigate the muddy puddles, or ‘cuddles’ as my grandaughter calls them. They are too disturbed to reflect the sky and too muddy because there is traffic on this track, workers on the estate, families who live here, passing up and down just like I did, endlessly, when it was Tapselteerie and it was ours for a while.

As I head for home, the fire already merry, the afternoon beginning to lay down her weary body, to hand over to the evening, I consider all those waiting. I think of people, all people, not just those I know. Waiting for answers, waiting for buses, for appointments, for interviews, for a plate of food, for a future, for just someone to acknowledge the pains of a troubled past; for a child to be born, for someone to finally die. There’s a whole load of waiting going on in this world. The sealoch waits, I watched it do that waiting thing, as one wind puffed out and the other (Arlene???) headed towards it. I saw geese peaceful, unfluffed up. I saw a sea eagle perform in majesty so high above me as to let me know it was probably dodging ice, wings wide, slow, dip, cut the sky in half, level and return.

I waited all day yesterday to hear the results of my recent tests. I had a friend here and we both had notepads full of questions, ready, alert. Our alertness began to dive about 3pm. We couldn’t walk Little Boots together. We had to be beside the phone. No call came. So I made contact this morning and received an almost immediate return call. It’s good news. There is still a tumour, yes, we know that, but there is no second, just an extension of the original, like a tendril. All lymph biopsies are clear. Plan is to insert, under local anaesthetic (eek) a Savvy Scout, which will grab all the floaty bits, apparently. Then, a short while after that is done, surgery. I still don’t know what, as I still haven’t spoken with the surgeon, but I am not worried. I liked him, trust him, and his team. It looks like towards the end of October when all this will come about.

I know waiting is tough. For birds who want feeding, to those awaiting decisions on scary surgery. It is exhausting, and I am as tired as I was in the days of Tapselteerie. And I am also thankful. I know I have massive support and love from my family, from friends, from all of you and I cannot tell you how precious that is, in the times of worry or confusion or just plain shatter. And, this, too shall pass. Whatever comes next, I know the sensual joy of really living, of my connection to nature, of the sound of music, the lyrics of songs telling me I am not alone; of books and stories, of my own and the impact it had on hundreds of others; of this focussed and caring cancer team; of the ferry that still runs, of the rain, of the light in the sky and of the full moon, of clouds and light and the fact that I have plenty frocks all for the changing should I get caught in a deluge of cloudal tears.

‘She is one who can laugh at the things to come’. That’s a bible quote. I like it, very much. And I can wait, as long as it takes, with humour and sass, even if I have no idea of what for.

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Island Blog. – Present, Alone and Safe

Oh how I love my home, the warm, cozy, safe happiness of these four stone walls surrounding me and my wee dog. Since himself upped and died, I have not felt safe here, concerned about loneliness and boredom and the fact that those who needed me, every single minute of every day, every month, every year, no longer do. It has taken all this time to be comfortable with that. At first, it felt like abandonment, I was abandoned, and I was, abandoned. I remember thinking, as each child left home, that gut twisting ouch, like a punch, that one of my beloveds had chosen to leave me. It sounds mawdling, arrogant, even, but what loving mother feels it any other way? I dont know if himself felt it too, but I do know that he still had me and that was enough for him, but he wasn’t enough for me, and that’s my raw truth. When they left, I longed to go with them, even as I knew I never could, nor would. A young life must learn through living it out, and a mother in tow was never going to be me. I knew one of those, my mother-in-law, and much as I respected and needed her, I didn’t admire her hold on himself, not once he had a wife and family. However, reflecting, this was a two way need. I get that.

It rained today. No big deal. T’is the norm in this glorious place, the wettest in the whole of the country, and that is saying something. To be the Best Wet……. goodness, demands a medal, or, maybe several medals distributed among all of we islanders, not that you would ever see them beneath the layering of wools and waterproofs. The rain can be slanty or stick straight. The clouds must be exhausted, or perhaps not. Perhaps this place is the only one offering regular employment, and clouds are fantastic creatures, lifting, shifting, colouring, turning Colgate white, spreading out their arms to each other, conjoining, merging, changing, always changing. Clouds can teach us a thing or two, at the mercy of Nigel or whatever daft and ordinary name the weather folk have decided to give a force of nature that begs no name at all. It is just a gale, I want to tell them, just a wild creature of magnificence and power, and you want to what……turn it into a small thing, a something you can label and tidy away once it has moved on? It ridiculouses me.

I finished a jigsaw, started another one. No, that’s a big fat lie. I laid out the 1000 pieces, covering most of my big oak dining table, tiny pieces, god so bloody tiny and dark, darker than the bright picture on the box. I left them overnight, studied them this morning, these pellets of impossibility, and snorted. There is no way I will, would, want to, enjoy putting you together. In fact, you are a big fat chore and I don’t want one of those. I gathered all the pieces up and returned them to the box without a moment of guilt. I shall take this one to the library. And it thinks me.

As I move beyond the loneliness and the boredom, and the pointlessness of me, I find a strength, a new confidence. Had I been the old, bored, lonely and pointless me of just a few months ago, I might well have battled with that horrible jigsaw, out of a sense of duty and because it might, just might, have filled in an hour or two. But not now. Now I can feel the amazon (not the company, but the woman) awakening. I can, and will, choose what I will do and what I will not do. 50 years of not having much choice about anything much is becoming my past. I will put myself together in a new way, even if the pieces confound me at first, and it will be I who choose the picture. And my head is full of colour and light and clouds and skies and fairies and walks in the woods. I can feel the Atlantic swell in my heart, and she calls me, the minx that she is, and I find myself yearning for that wildness, the not knowing and not understanding, the turbulence, the storms, the sudden calms, the snow geese flight overhead, the swans coming in, the autumn bluster. It all chuckles me. I am woman. I am strong and, I am rising up to laugh at the days to come for I am made of cloud, woods, ocean, light and dark, and I am here, present, alone and safe.

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Island Blog – Transitions in an Ordinary Life

A lovely blue sky morning it is and the wee girls are being nudged and encouraged through breakfast and into the car for school. I notice their natural resistance to a Monday morning which comes like a crashbang after the easy weekend. No deadlines, no shoes required, no hurried breakfast, no questions. I get it. I also remember my own young mother days when nobody thought that going to school was a good idea, in fact, it stunk. One shoe on, the other lost, in the dog’s bed, in the bike shed, anywhere but on the other foot. Teeth to brush? You are kidding, mum, it’s about 3 days climb to relocate the bathroom, this is Tapselteerie, remember? It was undoubtedly raining so the very thought of cycling down that track of potholes and potential deviations was an anathema. We are young and lively and want to play, not sit in that bus riding the switchback under the judgemental glances of the driver. We don’t want to sit in class to learn about the life of snails or the names of body parts or the history of a world we cannot begin to imagine. In fact, best not to imagine anything much because Mr This and Miss That are ancient and boring and quite without a head full of dragons that fly with fire, or trees that tip the clouds, and who don’t have a clue as to where all the wild things are, whereas we absolutely do.

Suddenly, they are gone, the silence a gasp as the front door closes between us. I know they will move beyond the transition, their little minds open to the next thing, as always, even though they resist. I also get that, the resistance, but in adult minds, it takes mental strength to live in the moment when all past, and imagined future, moments swarm together in a buzz of chaos. It seems to me that this is the primary work for us, to let go and to keep moving, through each uncomfortable transition, allowing it, just allowing it. When I wake, my head is already in connect mode, connected to every possible aspect of my life, present, past and imagined future. It is logical, of course, to divide and separate, I know this, but the chaos can overwhelm. Will I, should I, did I, can I? I know the past is ‘another country’, just as I know the future is a mystery. I can plan wee bits of it, such as my choice of clothing, my attitude, my next forward step, but the vast expanse of any future is beyond my control.

Perhaps, even as children, we know this. Perhaps this is both exciting and terrifying. Perhaps. Although I don’t remember how I dealt with my inner chaos as a child, I do remember loving a fantasy world, living in one as much as possible until I had to find my missing shoe on a Monday morning, eat breakfast quick and head off to the school bus. Actually, I would have done anything to lose both damn shoes, so miserably hard and uncomfortable were they, so clumpy, so hideous. I wanted fairy wings and ballet pumps and a lift up to another planet where greens were optional, where trees tipped the clouds, and where nobody wore shoes at all. Now, this morning, as I write into the silence left behind, I remind myself that what lies ahead is beyond my control. I must needs float along with it, listen, keep alert, ask questions, accept and then decide my attitude, for today brings in transition, the leaving of here and the moving into the next here, which is only ‘there’ for a few more hours. Not another country, not another state, just a few steps, a few miles, a few adjustments to my thinking, that’s all it is. Not a nothing, but an ok something, an inevitable something with opportunities for laughter and conversation, observation and fun, all nestled in the folds of this new day, this Monday.

Whatever you face today, I wish you fun and laughter, no matter the circumstances. There is always, always, someone out there whose transition is troubling, scary, alarming, terrifying, someone who could do with a smile, a ‘hallo’, a kindly gesture, a reminder that they are not alone in the chaos of an ordinary life.

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Island Blog – Nothing So Finite

The birches glow purple across the sea-loch as dawn hefts night over her shoulder and away. No, not purple, not just one colour descriptor. There is wine in there, the deepest darkest Rioja, some indigo (how come that rich word does not demand a capital letter?), amber, chestnut, a little, ebony and ivory. Not just purple, never ‘just’ anything. However, all that aside, the flow and blend of faraway birches in winter colour, arrests me. I watch them for a bite, even though they’re not going anywhere, rooted as they are to the whatever of whatever. The sky is blue-grey like our young heifers on the Tapselteerie hills, and, like them, refusing to be contained. Every time I look up, the dynamic changes. Flat and apparently peaceful, they erupt into crescendos and subside again, fooling us all. Feeding those female heifers took all my courage, the blue-greys I mean. Like rebellious teens with a strong sense of self and a kick-ass attitude to any authority, they would bound like puppies. However puppies are usually afoot whereas these wenches powered over me, canting and taunting with way too many kickerly hooves. One sent me flying once, the little madam. I got too close to her girly bits and she lashed out. I caught it on my knee and, in slow motion, flew miles, or it felt like it, before crashing to the unwelcoming ground in a most ungainly heap. Needless to say, as I slowly came back to myself, the whole playground had come for a looksee. 20 noses puffed sweet silage breath into my face and all I could see were legs, legs with hooves attached, far too many of them to make sense of the nose count. I touched one, wet and soft and like rubber. I looked into enquiring eyes. A child’s eyes.

Walking today, the wind is coldsome and from the east. It thinks me. What countries lie east of me? Ah, yes, the cold lands, the Swedish, Danish, Norwegian lands. Oh the stories I can hear as the wind brings them in. Tales of hardship and cold, of desolate winters in unbroken places that could break a person in the end. Tales of survival against odds I will never experience, the harsh honing of a human body, the dark, the endless winter dark, the pervasive cold, the snow children moaning at loose window panes, the biting teeth of a wind that will not abate until the very last minute. Of frozen lakes, no fish, of impassable tracks, no food supplies, of harpies and wood sprites and other complex variables that can, and will, derange an isolated mind, break a body, fracture a family. Of course, any environment can do that but my imagination likes to fly and the very thought of only 3 hours of light in a whole long winter shivers me. I have read the stories, the memoirs and the fiction and I can see how easy it might be to capitulate and to sink. We only have laden clouds to winter us through and very different stories to tell. Today, I might say, inside a story, I took my wellies off for 5 whole minutes, dancing in the freedom of toe escape. I scrubbed the mould off my legs and clothes and basked in the lick of flames from the fire we all fight over because A, it is pathetic due to the wet wood that would so love to dry given half a chance, and, B, there are way too many of us doing this basking thing. Plus, the smell of wet sock, unwashed feet etcetera is only for the desperate to endure. Some of us slink back to the cold. I have done this, lived this and, with hindsight, loved that I did.

The track is coppered now with beech leaves, a warm colour, a lie but I love that lie. Is it a holding on to the last warmth of summer past? Is it a transition, yes it is definitely that. Standing here, watching not the birches, purple or not purple, but the skerry, pumped like a lunatic with rising salt and spume and flying birds and danger, it thinks me. Do I like transition? Hmmmm. Nope. Who the hell does? Only those who think too much before they answer that question and I smile when I hear that think translating into Politely Positive Response. Way too much blah coming. The sky is darkening and is putting on a spectacular blue-grey show. There’s a moon landing ahead. I watched the moon this early morning. She’s a crescent just now, clouded in puffs of those lower in the ranks, those fluff balls loaded up until their bellies birth, and all over thee and me.

How extraordinary life is. How transitional. How small we are. Purple? No. Nothing so finite.

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Island Blog – Lilliput and Gulliver

I stand beneath an eagle. It hovers, canting on the high wind, still as anything can be up there in the blow. Wings spread 8, 9 foot wide, only its tail to adjust balance. It ticks, the tail, this way, that way, sensing the windshift, balancing. My mouth is open I realise as I watch the flick flick of white beneath its tail feathers. It sees me, I know it does, but I am of little interest being not prey to this predator. Its eyes scan miles whereas all I can see is what I can see from my pinprick of limiting ground. Up there, if I was up there, mountain high and just beneath the clouds (or so I imagine) what might I see, how wide might be my vision? People, roll the eagle eyes, ach People, those straight up and down groundlings, a mass of useless cells, no flight, no feathers, no ability for lift: rabbits, plentiful and foolish, grazing, earthlings: other creatures I could snatch if hungry enough, determined enough, desperate enough. But what might I think if I was up there? Not thoughts of prey. Then, of what? If I could look down on an eagle, a kestrel, merlin, goshawk, buzzard floating on thermals, its entire body line flattened like the pinned down body of a collectors butterfly on a board, would I feel something?

I would. Awe and reverence come to mind and more, the way things, creatures, situations look from the antithesistic viewpoint. When facing a situation, a set of old beliefs, a family tradition or condition from the ground, not much is changeable even if that is what I want and I very oftentimes do want. I must climb higher. The higher I climb the better. So what am I climbing from or to? I don’t know the answer but I do know that, in the process of climb from all the aforementioned limitations not only the view changes. I begin to see things differently as new ideas roll in on the backs of the clouds. Hope rises on the thermals and opportunities I never imagined from ground level lift into my mind. I grab at new breaths as the air thins, my lungs inflating like bellows, igniting new fire. I can feel it in my belly, the endorphins that think me of dolphins, play before me, delighting in the bow wave I create as I push on up and up and up and there it is! I am here, looking down on a flight bird, on groundlings, on chimneys blowing smoke, on skinny snaking roads, on dark valleys that, heretofore, rendered my circular thinking to nothing but a swirl of leaves on the forest floor, so easily twisted away underfoot.

It isn’t always possible to climb a hill. I get that, but an imagination can lift you anywhere, into the sky, onto a mountain top, even into flight. The best adventures of all are played out in a mind, everyone knows that. The point is not of physical but of mental prowess #courage in battle and most battles are played out in an internal theatre. How would you direct such a play, your play? My choice is to remove myself from centre stage, the super trooper blinding me as I stumble, forget my lines, fall of the limiting boards of my life and to step elegantly down and into the front row, and to observe. How different the whole looks once I remove my fretting, fretful and irritating self! Now I see and not through a glass darkly. No, I can see all the flaws, most of which I brought with me. Perspective is powerful and illuminating.

And so, and and so. So. What do I do on my descent? I am just finding my way down after all. I have looked down on an eagle, on life, taking in the Lilliputian life I had considered so very Gulliver. Truth is, I do nothing because my inner mind is way more powerful than I give her credit for and she never sleeps. If I banish (off you f**k!) my groundling interferer and just allow my experiential change to, well, change the whole of me, it will. All I have to do is trust and wait and, after all, I have looked down on an eagle.