dance

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Island Blog – Past, Last, Elastoplast, Vast

Listening to a singer songwriter, Irish, a beautiful voice, I remember singing her songs way back when I had confidence, long chestnut hair and strong limbs. They said I sounded like her, this beautiful Irish singer, and, at times, I could hear that. Just a glimpse, but a glimpse, nonetheless. I knew how to get lost in the words, the music, the glory of good musicians backing me, and a pub full of folk listening. I am so glad I knew those days, the arriving, setting up of mikes and baffles and wotwot. Walking down from Tapselteerie House, once my kids were (almost) in bed and all the dishes were washed, there I was, just me, wild and excited, nervous and alone. Each week we gathered, played Irish, Scottish, Gaelic, blue grass, anything that just came in the moment, no script. Then I would make the walk home down the unlit village street, on and up onto the dark track for well over a mile, high on music and laughter and strong and wild. I do remember arriving (quietly) through the kitchen door, shushing the dogs, grabbing water and going to bed wherein I could not sleep till almost dawn and HALLO wee ones, and Hallo guests expecting the full Scottish. I didn’t mind one bit, had the energy for all of it, just for that buzz, that wonderful buzz of music, song and just me away from the domestic demands for an evening.

A past now, but a last too, for I can still feel the thrill. I can smile at the remembering, and I can let it ribbon into my past. However, I may still bring back the light of those days should one of my children, or their children ask me to tell about me, not the facts, but the feelings. My own do this, but is that because I ask them to hear what my life was like at their age, no matter what they think they saw and understood? Perhaps. I know I have sat at the ancient feet of someone decades older than I and asked a question, that led to another question, that lit something in that old body and faltering mind, and I have heard stories way wilder than mine. I am glad of it. To imagine this shaky set of bones living a bonkers life, full of fun and mischief and crazy is, for me, a truth. Of course they did. They lived through two wars, real threats, real deprivation, not just two years of Covid lockdown, not that I want to minimise that, but I’m just inviting a perspective shakeup.

What I have learned of said fun, mischief and crazy from those old bones has laughed me into hope. They may be falling apart in a way that is overly ghastly, but they did really live. They were wild, once, crazy, full of fun and mischief and, ok, not all of them, but oh so many. They have stories they seriously believe no young person would ever want to hear. Ask them. Because I did, I learned coping mechanisms I would never have learned otherwise, domestic survival tactics, the way to keep bloody going when every sinew said I’m Done.

We can put an Elastoplast on our past, hoping it might heal. It won’t. Our past is what it was. Although I love and celebrate the current culture within which all those in dire mental pain, survivors of everything shocking and horribly wrong finally have a voice, I really hope that family, support and intelligent healers are ready to help a move beyond. I have no experience of such, thus, no voice in this space. From my fortunate place, I would fight for all freedoms, all areas, all colours, all sexuality, all of it. The past of us is not just my personal past, where I had bacon and eggs on Sundays, and cleaned the car on Wednesday afternoons. We have blasted way beyond this. I might get the terminology wrong as we all move, bumpily into a future, with all the wrong words, and wonky limbs and the mischief always at the ready.

I remember coming home at the ten o’clock curfew, my Dad (bless him) would not sleep till I was safely home. I waited some beats, heard the phew of silence and then escaped through the sitting room window, had a ball, and arrived home on the 5 am milk float. Who knew this? Well, you do now. It was my past and is my lasting memory, oh so many of them and mostly out of hours, on the dance floor, out there, out there, the vast of what was. And I was colourful, I was psychedelic, although I never took drugs, and then the comes in as it always does. See the stories?

I met someone today, a woman I respect and love, and she has dementia, and I saw it. Ask the stories now, right now, let the grandchildren ask, encourage it. This woman, that man, they really lived. Once. They walked back from the pub after a session, a song, a lift for a few hours from the dire of their lives. They all had, have a voice, have stories that will make your perspective shake into a whole new shape. Trust me.

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Island Blog – The Sad

Today I wake with Sad. I do sometimes. It just happens. Sad comes in like a burglar, and nobody really wants such a bedmate, nor a daymate. Sad doesn’t take up half, or more, of the bed, nor does it bring me tea, plump my pillows, sit to tell me what fun we will have today. It is a mournful beast, so big that it fills the room, clouds me around and is unshakeable off. I can shower, whistle a merry tuneless tune, turn up the volume on Radio 2, light a candle, because. it waaaaay before dawn, all those things. But Sad stays true, true as an old friend, one I have totally gone off, and some time ago; one that takes no hint, obeys no command, one that can, if I am not very vigilant with my thinks, subsume me for the long hours of a whole day. I can swear at it, threaten appalling punishments, sing LA LA LA very loudly, but it won’t go and I know it, and there is only one way to bear its presence, and that is to turn, smile, and welcome it in. Okay, you are here again, bringing me bearings, not of gold, frankincense and myrrh (well, maybe myrrh) but of husband gone, children gone, Poppy gone, breast like a war zone.  You want me to wallow, I know your tactics. You want me to search about for a reason, the reason you are here and to dive into the muddy cold depths of that pain. It could be my parenting failures = millions; could be my bad choices=billions; might be poor decisions, awful choices, myriad regrets, endless falls from Grace, whoever she is, the snooty madam. 

But I won’t go there, so if that is the conversation you plan, then try another tactic, because I will not go there. My lips, thin now, old, a skinny bow below my nose, will not allow any responses to escape. They are sealed. 

Sad is silent now, so I continue. 

I don’t need to define nor explain you, not any more. You’ve been around for most of my life and I engaged with you at my peril, because you took me down down down into complete darkness with no proffered candle, no guiding light, and you won’t take me there again, I promise you that. My mistake, I continue, as Sad is just sitting there saying nothing, was first, to banish you, I get that. You will visit so many people, so many homes, and banishment means nothing to you. You just dissipate and reappear again and again. Do you have a To-Do calendar, names written down, days to visit? Do you discover times of loss and grief and leap into action? I suspect you do, but I am moving on now, not up, but on. I know I cannot prevent you in my morning, the way you stay all day long, and I will be polite but I will not allow the seep of you to infiltrate my new self, my lonely self, the self who, despite the cold of sadness and loss and grief, is bloody determined to smile, to give out, to laugh and to dance.

And btw, you won’t be here tomorrow when I wake. I just know it.

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Island Blog – A Story for the Bridge

The birds wake me, for there is no other disturbance here. I know, I know, many hear the bin lorry, early traffic, noisy neighbours, those heading for work or those heading home from work, but not here, here where the biggest sounds are from Nature. And I am glad I live here. However, it is not always a treat. The sun doesn’t always shine big, bright and warm and oftentimes the birds are punched backwards by the gales that can rise in Spring, Autumn, and definitely in Winter, and Winter stays way too long. Always has. But we who have lived here longtime, have learned to love the whole of island life. We might turn blue in the endless months of rain and chill, but we know that our weather, an unique weather pattern, will, in time, turn on the sun to warm us. And we have learned how to bring a smile into any day, even if it takes a lot of physical strength to remain upright when moving from car to shop.

The garden is dry, the island is dry. A rare thing, and not so rare, historically. There is talk of a water ban. I remember one, way back in Tapselteerie days, when bowsers came over on the ferry, their big rotund bellies full of someone else’s water. Not for us, though, with our independent flow of spring water, but for others on the mains. Holiday cottages, bed and breakfasts, hotels, all flapdoodled without water. Water. The {almost} only thing we need to survive.

I am watching weeds thrive in this mini drought. It thinks me. If I had to come back as a plant I would come as a weed, a pretty one, mind, but a weed, nonetheless. These creatures are tough, survivors, invasive, yes, but they survive. What does that say about me, I wonder? I believe I am hot-wired for survival, and not just a wimpy sort of almost there sort of survival, but a pushy, strong and flowering one. I meet many of my age and on into their 70’s, and see myself as fortunate, indeed. Others have not been so lucky, as weedy me, I see, walking with sticks and supports, with hair that hasn’t seen a hairdresser for some time, who are out of breath and melting in this heat. I put up a big thank you, and pull down a blessing for each one of them. These folk are my folk. We danced in village halls together, not so very long ago, but there will be no more dancing for them.

There is a bridge over our lives, one we all must traverse, at some point. It’s a swing bridge, one we don’t really trust. Half-way across, exactly, is the keystone. It lies in the middle ride, and without this keystone, we would all end up in the water. I am on it, we all are, once we hit our three score years and ten, and, because I can still dance, i can help, encourage and support others around me. Together we can laugh at the inevitable, remember our younger days and lift our long memories into play, batting them back and forth between us like shuttlecocks, because we have shared a history on this island, through all the difficult days and through all the happy ones. Only our circumstances are different. Our sense of fun is the same.

I just went to the shop to buy compost for the dry earth, readying it for a sluice of goodness. Prior to this, I had walked the hotdog to the shore for some coolth and a tiddle about on the rocks. I found a tiny shell, a twizzley one, like a minute snail. I also picked up wire, plastics, rope and twine, which would, had I left it, have rejoined the ocean at high tide. Having only two hands, I pushed the tiny sea-snail shell down my front. I would find it again, eventually. Forgetting it completely, I drove to the shop, smiled everyone up and lugged my compost into the boot. Once home, something caught my attention and I burst out laughing. This snail shell had migrated into just the wrong place, so that it looked like one nipple stood out and proud. I thought the shopkeeper had looked at me, a tad abashed.

I wish I’d had that story for the bridge.

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Island Blog – The Jist of the Dance

The New year’s Dance. I haven’t been for many years, wanting to but encouraged to scoff at the whole hogmanay hangover/hair of the dog thing. But I did go, lifted by my kindly young neighbours and thus chaperoned and only for the Children Bit, 7-9pm. The hall was buzzing with families and those, like me, who tend towards early experiences, finiting them when the big people arrive with a long night on their minds. It was wonderful. For a while the music was disco, minus DJ and I watched the children, all fined up and flutey, the girls with sparkles and sass, the boys stuck to the walls, eyes on their shoes, the odd flicker of uplooking. I smiled at the memory of my own children at such events, way back way way back. Now I am a granny on the dance floor and don’t let anyone police me off it, oh no. I am here to boogie, to ceilidh, to absorb every single wonderful moment of freedom, not just from covid restrictions, but from life, from wife, from my children leaving, from explanations. I am aware I may well have looked like a right narnia, barefoot, dancing, as I did with another granny, a dear friend, another creative, a woman who knows what it is to have experienced the joys of gain, the pains of loss, her heart, like mine, a mosaic of cracks and craiks and smoothed over and over by her own hand, the crafter of renewal, of necessity. To be such a woman, any woman, is to learn that heart breaking is not a final act but a daily one, perhaps hourly, but nonetheless inevitable.

So we danced, we grannies, a lot. And when the ceilidh band, young men, arrived on stage, I played man to her woman and we swung and spun and giggled and bumped and it was perfect. The lights twinkled and the young, soon to be dragged home by parents for the 9pm curfew, danced faster and with wild enthusiasm. I watched their faces, caught their sparkles, saw the boys unglue from the walls as if they knew it was now or never, their pressed shirts and shone shoes a waste of effort if they didn’t just go for it, now, quick.

And then I caught sight of a young man, a friend of my eldest, a wide smile on his face. He lives away with his family, but he was here and this was now and, like the curfew children, I was leaving soon. Dance? I asked and he smiled his warmth, reaching out his arms in welcome. What is this dance? he asked. No idea, I replied (so many complicated island dances). The dancers formed a ring. Shall we middle it? I asked. Yesss! he said, and we did and the joy of dancing without knowing a single step with a young man who only had the jist of the dance was glorious. We spun and jigged, bounced and twirled and all the time he held me safe as we middled the whole wheel with absolutely no clue as to the regulation dance steps. It has been very many years since I felt that safe.

I would say, even at this late stage that I have only ever caught the jist of life, of living, not understanding most of it, and I am glad of it for life is a deep thing, and wide and way too much for resolving. But to recklessly dive into the middle of the dance of it is a glorious sparkly thing. It may not sort out heartbreak nor last into the next day but if I know I can take that barefoot step once, even at almost 70, then I can do it again, and, if I cannot, at least I did and only yesterday.

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Island Blog – Roots

The first time I set foot on this island and I knew I was home, not because of his story but because of my story, yet to reveal itself to me. How very far we can wander in this life, our roots keeping faithful track. We will not let you go, they say from deep deep down in the ancestral core. I had no reason to know any of this, not at first footfall. It was simply that something seemed to rise from the rocks and the muir through my feet, into my legs and on up into my heart, my soul, as if the roots had been waiting for me a very long time, longer by far than my own time. Although it took a while for me to find my place, although life was sometimes just too hard, nothing changed my knowing. I was home. I am home, among my own people, their stories, their lives, even as I knew nothing at all about any of it. The cold, the wet, the slap and fret, the endless winter, mould growth, frozen pipes, chilblains on chilblains, hot tears, wild fears, none of these made me doubt, made me hanker for somewhere else. Guests are coming, must be Spring despite the snow still falling. But I cannot. Fall.

No hardship born, imagined or played out could change my mind. I am home. Breathe it in, suck it up, breathe, wait inside the wildness, the raw bloody wildness, fickle weather, my damaged plans, my lunatic fantasies of escape that turned to dust as quickly as they formed, all melted away by a merry lick of fire, a babble of feral children, a few of them I don’t recognise as my own. In this place my heart beats along to the rhythm of the stones, the shush of the sea, the scream of the storms, the sight of swans overhead, a whisper of wings in the sky. I dance to it, sing along to its melody, an integral part of something old, something new, something ancient. I catch the stories of lives long done, the bones buried deep in the island’s heart, never to be forgotten, held safe. Where grows the heather old feet have walked. There is old laughter in the sky and old tears rushing the burns into spate. On it goes and on and I am proud to find my forbears lived and walked the islands, knew what I know now, made the wraparound Atlantic their protector, provider and sometimes their cradle unto death.

Even as I never knew way back then, I know something now. I didn’t find this place, this home. It found me.

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Island Blog – The Dance Ahead.

That’s the Lonely banished. It took a while. I had to wrestle this demon to the ground and, although my spirit is willing, my teeth and claws still in situ, my body is a bit wonky-chops at times. I managed it, nonetheless, holding down the limbs of it, all flailing whack and kick, its big mouth wide open and full of unhelpful words such as Fail, Stuck, The End, Best You Can Hope For, etcetera. Phooey, said I, blasting breath into its face, because I plan to have fun from now on, no matter my age or situation, circumstances be damned! The Lonely finally gave in, I felt it soften in defeat, lifting myself off its grabby little body to watch it slink, yes slink, out of the door, last seen heading towards the village. I did give it the bus fare to Faraway, however. I’m not a mean woman, after all.

Since its departure I have dived into a whole lot of exciting things, such as hoovering my floors in a dance of feet and nozzle, made hummus, walked miles and sat myself sitting on a stone bridge that affords me sight of the old days. This inlet of water led out to years of exciting sea-ventures in search of whales, puffins, shags, guillemots, kittiwakes, porpoise, dolphin and gannets, to name but a few. This inlet kept our boats safe from the mighty, and bullying, blast of Atlantic fury. I remember the boats bucking like broncos on their tethering, my hair, when I had any, flying in the wind, my ears ringing from the cold. I remember the trees bending in obrigation, root strong, the hazels as bow-backed old women, saving everything that grew inside their motherly protection from a spectacular crash-bang. No greater love……….

As I walk with my memories, the good ones finally rise to the surface, delighting me. I had forgot them, I confess, but I so wished for them to return. All I could see were the dementia years and the decline before that, for I know it is true that what began as wild love and unstoppable hope morphed from exciting plans such as ‘where shall we eat tonight?’ to ‘Did you put the bins out and if not WHY NOT?’ Or, ‘It’s YOUR turn to collect the kids, bath them, read the story, wash up, cook (arf), walk the dog, do the weekly shop.’ It comes to us all. Surviving such a disappointing change and remaining together is a sign of strength; learning how to dance it in a different way, to make it fun, to laugh together about the whole daft parabola of a shared life is genius. I like that word most of all when it applies to a shared and connected forward motion. It is a life changer for everyone involved, kids, outer-space family members, each other. Did we manage that, I wonder, just as a lone stag bursts from the trees. I was so caught up in my parabola/genius thingy that I gasped and stopped dead. We eyed each other, this young 6-pointer and I with no points at all. Those brown velvet eyes, the stand of its powerful fleet legs, the proud of its neck. It was only moments, but we shared those moments. Then it was gone, like the wind, becoming the wind.

Back home to hoovered and well-danced floors, I checked in all the rooms for the Lonely. No sign but a thought flitted about me like a butterfly, beautiful and fleeting. T’is this. What brings in the Lonely? It isn’t that I hate living alone, my life full of choices sans explanation, justification, apologies. I am loving all of that. And then it came to me, the answer. I am addicted to love and not in absentia, but in persona. In order for me to thrive and love life I need to love. Then a second thought breezed in. If there isn’t a person right beside me, that doesn’t mean I am deprived of the opportunity to find and to feel love. I just have to learn a new way to feel love. I can love the moments, noticing everything around me. I can love my children and their children actively through texts and calls. I can love a morning, a slow afternoon, the catch of light and the soft fall of the dark. I can love myself and that’s always the hardest thing. I can love the chance that I will encounter something wonderful just by believing that it is out there somewhere so that all I need to do is to build on that belief whilst keeping myself in trim for the dance ahead. And when the Lonely comes back, I will be ready.

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Island Blog – A Gentle Circle

When I write I feel better than I did with all those words and feelings and observations twinging about in my head. They circle like planets, a circumcircle within triangular sharps. As I move to sit here at my desk and lift my fingers to the qwerty keyboard, I sense freedom. From here I can fly my words , no, not fly, because flying is random and words must needs sentence up, find rhythm and then there’s grammar and punctuation and la la tiddly pom, all sharping their own sense of self, of importance, of an importance to the whole and quite right too. The one who drives the forward beast, horse, bus, train, plane is no good on his or her team. Every other who takes a part takes a vital part. I mean, just imagine the world without full stops or question marks or spellcheck? Well, I can, actually. Many and I mean ‘many’ letters (did I sound old fashioned there?) or emails astonish me with their obviously random dance into the world of grammar, spelling, sentence building, the verb in the right place, ditto the noun. For me this is basic material but, and but again, I am one who believes that language moves on and changes and so should we, even as I squeak at grammar ghastlies. But I am not a grammarphobe. Jeez no. Life needs to move on and btw She is not moving on without me.

No matter the day or the previous night. No matter the weather or the to-do list, or lack of one, I find joy in so many things. No, not things, although the things are things. Like the rose bush outside my window. I watch it. I see the blooms bud, open and fall in just 3 or 4 days. Something I could miss if I wasn’t watching. I go out barefoot (it is essential to feel the wet grass under my feet) and smell the fragrance. I know is isn’t perfect for these sentient plants, they know the climate is changing and that they need to burgeon quickquick before another and unseasonal gale wheechs their beauty into nevernever. I walk and see 3 bullfinch, such a gasp of beauty, lift from the undergrowth, chirping danger and warning to their one chick. They are teaching it to fly. I knew it. I hear gulls in a frenzy and know I will find a big bird somewhere out there, a sea-eagle, a buzzard, maybe a kite. The dingdong goes on until they wild into the sky, the big bird and the hecklers, white white against a grey skyfold. And then I write. Not about the missing, about the emptiness or the triangular sharps, for within is a gentle circle.

Like grammar. I must move on.

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Island Blog – The Last to Leave the Dance Floor

Around my home the fragrance of Spring is an olfactory delight. Every room sings me daffodils. My garden sways with them and bunches arrive for my birthday. As I arrange them in vases, I consider their spacing with a view to the final picture, correcting myself from time to time. I never was a ‘shove-em-in’ sort of woman. I like presentation and flow, design and a sort of roundness that tells me I am probably OCD around the flower arranging thing. I might be thus around other things but that doesn’t fuss me now, even as it does think me about a book and its cover. Let me explain.

As I walk in the still cold wind, but not so cold as to beg a jacketty coverance, what I think I see is randomness, in the woods, along the banks, beside the shore, where various shrubs, trees and plants are exploding through the ground in a shout for life. Maybe ‘exploding’ is a bit ott. It is, to be honest, a more cautious peek out and no surprise there for the slice and dice artic wind is not gone yet back to wherever he takes his raggedy old destructive self as we welcome Mother Spring. His bite is one of anger and rage, of sudden ice, of ha ha and you thought you were safe to show your colours. Mean. But he can come in this month, oh hell yes, he can come and we must stand vigil, sniffing the weather and just knowing, as we once did before diesel fumes and light pollution turned us into eejits.

But I am wrong to think that anything in nature is random. It is anything but. I get that we randomise merrily away inside the confines of our garden, forcing intelligent plants to grow in all the wrong places, sentencing them to gigantic effortness that will never produce good blooms, but out there in the wild places, new life will explode into beauty and a future in which we have had no hand at all. I like that. So as I wander beneath some ancient larches that are pushing out buds I recognise their intelligence. Here is sheltered, both from strong wind and from ice wind. There, not so. Therefore the buds are still holding, holding, because a blast would ping them off into the nothing.

I notice my thoughts, about 200 thousand a minute. I watch fat trunks pass by, ancient and strong, moss covered, they who have stood for a hundred years. They may be bent and leaning somewhat, but I bet they are not fussed about how they look. They don’t bother with a mirror to tell them how wonkychops they are now. They don’t care for such nonsense. Their sole purpose is to stay alive through whatever ice slice dice weather comes their way. They are grounded but not trapped. And that thinks me. As we grow older, things will go wonkychops. They will. And, in knowing this, we have a choice. We can fuss and fret and btw get mildly histericous about turning 50, a year I uninhabited almost 20 years ago, or we can decide to dance whatever. My thoughts are all about my kids now and their kids. This is my world and what a world. It doesn’t matter how I look. They don’t care. It’s all about me showing up. Like the push for life in Spring.

And on we go, until we stop and, just fyi, I will be the last one to leave the dance floor.

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Island Blog – You have to want to dance

There is a scowl in the sky this evening. The grey pushdown clouds point fingers. The Blue Ben bothers not and why would he, standing there all granite push-up shoulders and for centuries? It doesn’t mean he doesn’t notice. What we eejit humans don’t understand is the natural communication between the elements. Earth, Wind, Fire, Water. They were here and talking long before our ancestors arrived, whether from the sea or from Adam. It matters not.

There are times I feel very small as an eejit human, as a sudden ‘insider’, in such a huge story that tells of life so long before me that it means nothing beyond its echoes. And, to be honest, they are easily ironed or washed or swept away along with the dust and the creases. However, I am very busy noticing myself. Not in the mirror, no. But in my responses to whatever comes in, including my thoughts and my ditherments and my hesitations. I have to say that once I step into those footprints of acceptance I feel engaged with the oldness in me and with all the ridiculous crap that goes with oldness. I won’t say it is a fear-thinking thing because it is so very not. It’s in the bones, the creaks, the inevitable inability to lob a fence as I used to be able to do. It also isn’t about striving for that agility. No. I get my limitations, but I will not accept without challenge. Again, No. I just step up. I acknowledge that I will not be young again. I say that I know where I am and who I am and I will (don’t do this) always accept a challenge. I will dance the rest of my life. I am under nobody’s control, only my own.

There are scowls. There are fabulous starlit nights. There are cold wet mornings and sunshine afternoons. There is that moment when the sunset blows poppy red, and suddenly in a dawn when a new daffodil takes the breath from me. I am watching myself. I say that because it is so easy to keep flopping onwards without noticing ourselves. I know because I have done just that until I clocked my flopping and turned around to question why. It whirled me around and back till I looked at the old thinking and saw it cobwebbed dark and without the spin of a live spider. It takes mindful thought. You have to notice and to question. You have to want to dance.

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Island Blog – Dancer

This lovely day I am aswirl with thinks and memories and some very deep hurt. Bereavement, however much of a relief it might be, does not adhere to a timeline. Recently I have gone through the however many stages of grief backwards, flip side up, out of order or all before lunch. I make the mistake of berating myself for this chaos but only until I literally wash my hands of any control. This chaos is not birthed from me. This chaos just snuck in and is currently picking away at wounds and digging the black hole even deeper than seems possible. I had no idea there was so much space inside for black hole-ness, one I cannot navigate nor have a conversation with because any questions I send its way just echo back to my ears in triplicate minus an answer. All I can do it seems is to trudge through the hours of light and the longer hours of dark until this chaos gets tired of chaoting and moves on to bother someone else. If, I tell myself, this process actually looked like one I could understand, I might be then able to formulate an algorithm, one that would guide me step by step up and away from the turmoil. But I can grasp a hold of nothing. All is smoke, mist, cloud wisp and yet so heavy and solid around me. I cannot run from it, nor hide. I change my thoughts but my mind is colluding with the chaos so quickly does it shift back to the black. I get the Amy Winehouse song now because I feel it, just like she did. It takes huge and determined focus to remain in the positive when I am not having to pretend to the Out There, a role I can play with ease. A song, a phrase, a catch of light, a lift of birds, among my beloved trees, all can shunt me back to a memory that cuts like the sharpest of knives. I remember, I remember, I remember. I remember that song, that disco tune, Chain Reaction, the one you always played for me when the dance floor was empty and it was up to me to bring the kids off the walls. You grinned and watched me taking over the whole floor, spinning, moving, electric, fiery, wild. Many years ago, yes, but it comes back so clear, that smile from the stage and my smile back.

I suspect this dark time is a good thing and I don’t fight it. I sit with it, walk with it, let it flow through me, no fight, no fight. It is exhausting, upsetting, deeply painful and my mascara is invariably decorating my chin, but when I remember saying to my counsellor about 4 years ago whilst in the thick of caring for a man who still looked like my husband (sort of) but who was not that man, that all I wanted was to cry real tears, so taught and fraught and caught up was I in controlling my whole self, I realise I have achieved my goal. And there is a feral beauty in that for it has been a deep longing for many decades.

I smile as I realise how drawn I am these days to running water, a waterfall, a trickle, rain, a slow tidal dance as if my eyes are glued; it takes something loud to snatch my attention away. Walking this sunshine afternoon, I found my favourite tree. Looks about 100 foot tall, its topknot fingering the clouds, a softwood, strong and with the girth of half a country. I remember it holds water after rain until the water pools in a holdcup where two great limbs conjoin. Then, all of a sudden, the level raised to meniscus as it hits the air, it begins a spill and a walker by is soaked. I stood beneath the massive giant and looked up. Drops from way up there landed on my mouth, nose, eyes, head and shoulders. Ha!! I chuckled. You minx! I moved back a little only to be pelted once again from another branch. Game on! I said and for a few moments, a few playful moments, I and the giant made each other laugh out loud as he stood still and I danced, just me, alone on the floor moving to the song of the singer and the rhythm of the rain.