different

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Island Blog – Who Will Stand?

Opinions are easy to form. They rise like birds, or bile, and the moment they are heard, they create an emotive reaction. The one who hears, the one to whom the compliment or invective is aimed, is immediately affected. A positive or uplifting opinion is voiced from a place of love, a negative one from fear and a lack of knowledge. ‘You shouldn’t do that, or say that’ is gifted, invariably, by another who has never done that, nor would ever do nor say that, because doing or saying ‘that’ carries a degree of personal risk, particularly if delivered in public. I would be judged, for sure, marginalised, criticised and rejected, and who wants to risk finding themselves in any of those uncomfortable states? Safer to stay quietly in crowd thinking.

It is very different if a judgement is proffered. Then the forum is mine, because everyone is fed up of delays, costs, the weather, tourists, noisy children, the limitations and demands of work, of family life, of rules, rules and restrictions. Now I have the crowd behind me, the mutterers, the ‘angries ‘. I can lift my voice in this scenario, I can go flipping wild with my fists and my body and my learned beliefs around caste, colour, sexuality, the government, Calmac and the state of the NHS. I have wings now. I can fly with this, lording over all of you mutterers down there, muttering. Danger alert.

Just saying.

Have you noticed that any negative judgement or criticism is invariably delivered in a whisper, or anonymously? This is Fear in action. Sometimes a name is named, but the personal risk is slight because taking the negative stance is our natural leaning as humans, and there are many ready to agree. And why is that, I wonder? How long have you got? To distil……..poor housing, no, disrespectful housing, overcrowding, lack of staff, old trains, planes, ferries, Covid, Brexit, wars abroad and encroaching, flimsy governments, corruption, domination, lack of respect, lack of respect for every single one of us. I get it. I really do, from my comfortable home on a beautiful island. But someone has to ‘voice up’, and there are many such someones out there, the brave, the courageous, the risk takers, the ones who understand that the only way forward is not through fear, but love.

I attended a women’s business conference once, many years back, in Glasgow. There were a lot of women there, and many good speakers. The attendees came from diverse backgrounds and varying levels of success (so called). High heels, perfume, smart suits abounded. We settled. Success, so called, shouted from the stage, women who commanded businesses, entrepreneurs, food chain giants, those who had noticed a gap in a market and who had dived right in. It was exciting, dynamic and, for me just a show. I was never going to be any of those hard-nosed focussed female leaders, even as I loved their stories. The last speaker talked of giving love out, or walking it out. A very different presentation, and, ahead of it’s time. She was ahead of her time. Because it was just after the first Afghan war, there were mothers, sisters, even grandmothers in the audience, and giving unconditional love caught like a knife in many throats. The crowd grumble rose into something scary, so I left, but I still got it. What I got, was that I, in my safe place, had no idea what these angry women were going through.

Hard to find love in such a place. I will not ever experience what another has experienced. I know that. It doesn’t stop me, however, because we need to stand, to speak out for renewal, for hope and for the true meaning of love. It isn’t only sexual, or even familial. Love is just allowing, accepting, non-judgemental, all inclusive, no matter colour, sexuality, choices, directions,space issues. None of those, none.

Perhaps it is a gentle allowance, even as that word sounds patronising. Eish (African word) I don’t know, but we must do something to bring Love back. In any form. Who will stand?

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Island Blog – Olding, Big Pants and So What

Blimey, life in the city is crazy! I watch the people go by, push by, wander by heading for a collision either with a lamppost or me, busy as they are in multiple worlds, connected to a mobile phone. But everyone seems to know about both lampposts and the folk like me who dither and dance along wide pavements, all rushing us along like those moving floors in airports. Colours brighten the morning, some barely covering bodies, others caping older skeletons, tent-like. And, still an amazement to me, no two people look alike. We have two eyes, two ears, one face with a mouth and a nose and yet, and yet, we are all different. I notice when life has bowed, bent, twisted and sometimes collapsed a face, a body. I notice the focus of traverse and in the shortest possible time. And then, there’s a woman, a man, moving slow as a snail, every footstep considered and, possibly, doubted, the young dividing by like a rush of water around a big old stone. I notice bags and dogs and sticks among the careless swing of young bodies, showing midriffs taut and flat, feet holding the ground as if they believe they always will.

Perhaps I see these images more as I consider what is happening to me, the slow (I am reliably informed) growth of an invader within, an invader with intentions. Not a welcome guest, but one that is here, just the same. My sister and I wander past and through endless shops, all promoting the Beautiful, the Perfect. Faces of models, as my daughter in law was once, teeth white as snow, body perfect, full of a life taken for granted, one without end. After all, old people are not us, they seem to say. We are miles from the collapse of skin, the way a bottom slinks down legs, the way breasts, if you have them, plummet into a waistband, the way feet become unsure on steps or pavements. I was she once. Not the model, no, but nonetheless certain I would never grow old. It just wouldn’t happen. What did actually happen to me was something I gave no thought to. Olding comes suddenly and it came to me after my husband chose to leave this world. Not immediately, not when I experienced the euphoria of my own space, the way I could play music louder than a whisper, when I could crash plates, clatter cutlery, talk on the phone in my own sitting room. But that euphoria didn’t last. Its aftermath was the realisation of Olding. Now, I don’t mind growing old at all, but I wanted to do it without aches or insecurities or self doubts, without pavement angst, without cancer, tiredness, confusion and the faffing. Oh god the faffing. Do I have my specs, where are they, they were here just a minute ago? Do I know my PIN number, the code to unlock my phone (who locked the damn thing anyway?). Did I lock the car? Where IS the car? Did I pay the chimney sweep, the gardener, the window cleaner? I did? Twice? Seriously?

And so on. To be honest, the self-doubt that comes with ‘Olding’ is pants. Big Pants. And it isn’t just me. Others of my age, particularly those widowed after a generation of marital years, compromise, security and dependence to whatever degree, tell me the same story. It is as if we have no idea who the hell we are at this wobbly point in our lives, we who were so certain, so confident, bringing up children or not, working, holding down chaos, fighting fires minute by minute. We could cater for sudden add-ons, taxi every which where, and were still able to dress up for an occasion. Now we just hope no occasion will arise, ever again. We want, or think we want, empty days, a blank calendar, but we don’t really. We probably say NO to everything because we haven’t been outside of the house for weeks, or maybe we just can’t remember how to Small Talk anymore. We think we have nothing to say of interest because our time is in the past. We apologise for ourselves, for our Olding years. We watch young things dance by, remember (vaguely) our own young thing dance, and we turn away.

I think that is a big shame. So what to do? Who can say, who can tell? I take my inspiration from other silver foxes I notice walking by the window, determined to move, regardless of pavement angst, their emptiness in life, their Big Pants questions, all of them coated, booted and sharp looking as if they know just where they are going and are excited about getting there. So, when I breathe deep and set forth of an early morning to visit the swans on the pond, I decide to look the same way as them. I smile, I walk, I greet, I cross roads about 3 times as wide as any road back home with my heart in my mouth, but I feel better about everything once I return. Perhaps this is how to live in the Olding years. Just one thing at a time. Then another.Blimey, life in the city is crazy! I watch the people go by, push by, wander by heading for a collision either with a lamppost or me, busy as they are in multiple worlds, connected to a mobile phone. But everyone seems to know about both lampposts and the folk like me who dither and dance along wide pavements, all rushing us along like those moving floors in airports. Colours brighten the morning, some barely covering bodies, others caping older skeletons, tent-like. And, still an amazement to me, no two people look alike. We have two eyes, two ears, one face with a mouth and a nose and yet, and yet, we are all different. I notice when life has bowed, bent, twisted and sometimes collapsed a face, a body. I notice the focus of traverse and in the shortest possible time. And then, there’s a woman, a man, moving slow as a snail, every footstep considered and, possibly, doubted, the young dividing by like a rush of water around a big old stone. I notice bags and dogs and sticks among the careless swing of young bodies, showing midriffs taut and flat, feet holding the ground as if they believe they always will.

Perhaps I see these images more as I consider what is happening to me, the slow (I am reliably informed) growth of an invader within, an invader with intentions. Not a welcome guest, but one that is here, just the same. My sister and I wander past and through endless shops, all promoting the Beautiful, the Perfect. Faces of models, as my daughter in law was once, teeth white as snow, body perfect, full of a life taken for granted, one without end. After all, old people are not us, they seem to say. We are miles from the collapse of skin, the way a bottom slinks down legs, the way breasts, if you have them, plummet into a waistband, the way feet become unsure on steps or pavements. I was she once. Not the model, no, but nonetheless certain I would never grow old. It just wouldn’t happen. What did actually happen to me was something I gave no thought to. Olding comes suddenly and it came to me after my husband chose to leave this world. Not immediately, not when I experienced the euphoria of my own space, the way I could play music louder than a whisper, when I could crash plates, clatter cutlery, talk on the phone in my own sitting room. But that euphoria didn’t last. Its aftermath was the realisation of Olding. Now, I don’t mind growing old at all, but I wanted to do it without aches or insecurities or self doubts, without pavement angst, without cancer, tiredness, confusion and the faffing. Oh god the faffing. Do I have my specs, where are they, they were here just a minute ago? Do I know my PIN number, the code to unlock my phone (who locked the damn thing anyway?). Did I lock the car? Where IS the car? Did I pay the chimney sweep, the gardener, the window cleaner? I did? Twice? Seriously?

And so on. To be honest, the self-doubt that comes with ‘Olding’ is pants. Big Pants. And it isn’t just me. Others of my age, particularly those widowed after a generation of marital years, compromise, security and dependence to whatever degree, tell me the same story. It is as if we have no idea who the hell we are at this wobbly point in our lives, we who were so certain, so confident, bringing up children or not, working, holding down chaos, fighting fires minute by minute. We could cater for sudden add-ons, taxi every which where, and were still able to dress up for an occasion. Now we just hope no occasion will arise, ever again. We want, or think we want, empty days, a blank calendar, but we don’t really. We probably say NO to everything because we haven’t been outside of the house for weeks, or maybe we just can’t remember how to Small Talk anymore. We think we have nothing to say of interest because our time is in the past. We apologise for ourselves, for our Olding years. We watch young things dance by, remember (vaguely) our own young thing dance, and we turn away.

I think that is a big shame. So what to do? Who can say, who can tell? I take my inspiration from other silver foxes I notice walking by the window, determined to move, regardless of pavement angst, their emptiness in life, their Big Pants questions, all of them coated, booted and sharp looking as if they know just where they are going and are excited about getting there. So, when I breathe deep and set forth of an early morning to visit the swans on the pond, I decide to look the same way as them. I smile, I walk, I greet, I cross roads about 3 times as wide as any road back home with my heart in my mouth, but I feel better about everything once I return. Perhaps this is how to live in the Olding years. Just one thing at a time. Then another.

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Island Blog – The Difference

When anyone asked me if I was looking forward to some event or other, such as a visit or a trip away, (why is it called a ‘trip’ as in a falling over?) I couldn’t find any feeling of anticipation, nor excitement. And this has been the case for years. Although I longed to reciprocate the thrill in their eyes or their voice, all I saw were the problems around leaving home, even for a day, even, back a few months, when I only had to go shopping for food supplies. In short, I looked forward to nothing at all, even though I felt certain that I was not right, my head not right, that faulty wiring thing again. Until, that is, I discovered that I am autistic. I had never even considered it, felt far removed from what I believed autism to manifest in human form. I am extroverted, a crazy and colourful dresser, excellent at showing off, talking to strangers and one who loves physical contact. However, having read the book recommended to me by a doctor, called Unmasking Autism by Dr Devon Price, I found myself. There she is, all out-there, noisy, loving people, colourful, high functioning and not wired faulty at all. I never was. All those decades of counselling, of studying ‘self-help’ books on how to be a better fit, all those days and nights of angst and self-doubt, gone in the very moment I heard the diagnosis. I felt relief and immediately, because at last I am seen, recognised, respected. I felt my strength returning, even if I had almost no knowledge of what it means to be an autistic.

Overnight, it seems, I grew more confident in my my decisions. I know, now, that my dislike of chaos is perfectly fine, and the fact that I lived inside chaos for years and had small chance indeed of changing that, tells me how resilient I am and was. I know that, although I love people, that people are my absolute passion, I don’t like a whole load of them all together, nor do I like anyone coming too close, unless invited by me. I know that I need more rest times than ‘neuro-normal’ folk (who is ever ‘normal’?), that I don’t like being forced to stay when I want to leave, that my independence and solitude are very important to me and so on. All of these fit. I am not wrong. I am not disabled, but more unable to be what the world expects of my out-there, high functioning, colourful self. For the very first time since I was five years old, I am free, freed from the chains of stereotypical human-ness. I am unafraid of life. I can say, and with confidence, that I am looking forward to my travels, whether abroad or just into the little harbour town for avocados. I am more definite in my No and my Yes. When I wake each morning, the day is not a challenge, not a bank of potential troubles and worries, but a fascination of hours within which anything can happen, and so be it. Even when I meet a female adder in my garage, I feel excitement rising (as she did for a strike) for she is beautiful, all 3 feet of her, her markings breath-taking, the work of the Master Painter. She is lethal, yes, but only if I upset her, so I don’t. Nonetheless, I will be wearing thick gloves for weeding, just in case she still lurks.

It thinks me a lot. To find myself, even at 70, to know how well I lived inside a life that never really fit me, despite the depression, self-harming, insomnia, self-doubt and self-abuse, I know I am a strong and powerful woman, and not the misfit I had always believed myself to be. I feel no blame, no regret, no wish to go back and to do it all again, because it doesn’t matter to me. What matters is that now I am found and the glass is no longer dark. I am deeply thankful for all that research on autism and all other mental health states that now free all those of us who have felt trapped and faulty, perhaps for a whole lifetime. Understanding of Difference and the subsequent exposure of those differences to all people is progress. Recognition of how uniquely we are all wired and the acceptance of such will ripple out into work places, schools and colleges, homes and communities, changing lives as it tickles every shore. And I am glad of it.

In my youth, we were ignorant. Anyone showing ‘alternative’ behaviour was judged as mentally dodgy at best, shunned, marginalised, abused and hidden away at worst. Labels were handed out like sweeties. It wasn’t right but it happened anyway. Nowadays, a curious and questing person or two has dived into a probably aggressively resistant sea of research, and come up with treasure. We all are needed in this life, all of us, no matter who we are. People broken down by impossible expectations need to be seen, not judged and dismissed as weirdos. It is coming and there’s a looking forward to it. So, if you ever wonder who the hell you are inside a life that fits like a hair coat, I get you, and, sincerely, I hope you can find out who you are because the best freedom of all is to have the answer to that.

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Island Blog – Grammar, Flying and My Name is Judy

There is a thing about things that thing me. Now, there’s a sentence for you. I remember English Language classes, the emphasis heavy on grammar and sentence construction. Rhythm, beat, phrasing, verbs in the right place, ditto adverbs, adjectives (steady on those), spelling and please do not use made up words, slang or swear words, however covertly disguised. Blimey! Throttled from the start was I, were we. It seemed to me, and seems still, that bothering overly much about the correct words in the correct order is like wearing a whalebone corset for gym practice. I want to flow, just roll those glorious sentences out, quick and slick and without losing the storyline. I don’t want to feel verbally, rhythmically or phrasically constipated whilst I spill out the words from my, apparently, overactive imagination. This was actually penned in one school report. An overactive imagination. What my well-corseted English teacher was really saying is that I was disruptive. My challenge of her she took personally and I cannot blame her, she who seemed to have nothing much more exciting in her life than the ‘correct’ structure of sentencing with the odd thrill of a hyphen or a colon.

So I play with words. Punctuation, however, is a different thing, not that I am perfect in the way I employ the marks, but it does bother me when I read an official document with glaring errors. It’s means ‘it is’. Its denotes ownership, ‘its tail, its banana, its wings’, and so on. It’s, on the other hand would precede a sentence such as ‘It’s hard to believe that Mary had a little lamb’. ‘Their’ applies thus. Their home, their choice of venue, their problem, whereas ‘they’re would mean ‘they are’ in a squish. They’re going on a train to Bandalouche, they’re in trouble now, they’re a right pair of idiots’.

My dad, a stickler for all things Language, taught us all and corrected us when necessary. I believe one of my sisters actually had her letter to him returned, corrected. It did us no harm, but stood us in good stead as women moving into the world of men. We knew how to speak, how to phrase, how to construct a sentence. What of the girls nowadays, as the subject of grammar recedes into the background? I obviously have not a scooby as to whether this applies to all schools in the whole country, but just going by the evidence of what I see written down by young adults, it isn’t encouraging. ‘I never would of thought of that.’ Really? ‘I never would have thought of that.’ Ah, yes.

I sound like an old stick-in-the-mud, I know it and I really don’t mean to. I am the first to make up words, to play with the fold and random flow of rhythmical phrasing, but I believe that a person has to learn the basic mathematics of anything before they can fly off piste. Drumming, piano playing, singing, dancing, writing, painting, scientific exploration, mountain climbing (no flying off piste for this one, not literally), plus a zillion more disciplines, appropriately called disciplines because of their grounding in just that, discipline. I completely loathed discipline in pretty much all areas of my life, but needed them all, the gravity of them holding down my scatter feet, a springboard for any future leap.

They say knowledge is everything, which is a tad sweeping for me even as I can taste the truth in the cliche. If I am unsure about any area of my life, anxious, perhaps, I know it is simply because I don’t ‘know’ enough about it. My imagination takes me into a future that doesn’t, and probably will never, exist. I must needs investigate the subject, thus imbibing knowledge which, in turn, grows my confidence, shifts my perspective and stabilises the chaos within. I am anxious about my journey back home. What is it about said journey back home that feels me this way? 1. Getting lost in the airport for weeks. Follow the signs and ask someone. 2. I will miss my connection. Catch the next plane. 3. I won’t get through security. Check hand luggage and remove all weapons. 4. I am frightened of travelling alone. Ah, now we get to the nitty gritty. Well you won’t be alone, not with 300 other hot and bothered travellers and the pilot will be fully trained, plenty stewards on board, you can ask them for anything. There will be food and a movie of your choice and when you land you will be in London where everyone speaks in a tongue you understand. The fact that you aren’t on speaking terms with any of those 300 other people is entirely up to you my dear. Hallo, my name is Judy. that’s all you have to say and in that sweet and simple introduction, you are no longer alone, as you perceive it.

It seems so easy, once a fear or anxiety is questioned and gentled apart all the way down to its core. I can spend weeks with my knickers in a knot of anxiety, but now I have learned to notice, question and then find solutions to each individual aspect. It’s freeing. Its hold on me lessens, loosens and, eventually, lets go. I can still feel a frisson of fear but can quickly refer back to my solution list and breathe in the adventure, fill my lungs with it, fly with it, curious as a child.

Hallo, my name is Judy.

(Oh lord, she’s going to talk the whole flight) Hallo, I’m Simon, Mary, Lord Fauntleroy.

Do you like flying?

(Here she comes) Not much.

Oh I love it.

Good.

And if that’s all there is, it’s enough for me not to feel alone.

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Island Blog – Still

A word with more than one meaning. This morning I awoke about 5 and thought, rats, but only one, so, rat. I love the dawning mornings even if I am ready for lunch by 10. I came down for coffee, could smell it long before it was brewed, the good strong ground stuff and black as soot. I heard chaos in the skies, gulls in a frenzy. Hallo, I thought, there’s a big predator bothering these noisy sky-jackers. Then I saw them swinging and dinging around a faraway tree across the sea-loch, circling, rising, punching their white bodies into a space between the woodfull banks of the other side. I pulled on the bins, eyes still cloudy with unslept sleep and the lenses kept clouding from the heat of my eyeballs. Ffs, I muttered, wiping again and oh, again, with my wiper thingy until the glass and my eyeballs stopped posturing. Finally I catch them, two huge sea-eagles sitting quite the thing on a branch that already looked exhausted from the weight of their task. I saw the heads of the two, beaks moving langourously from one sky-jacker to the next with a barely visible shift of the neck muscles. Still. They were still in the face of the frenetic. I like that.

The sky was still, the clouds, not bothered, no wind. They sat like fat observers of my village, my home, me, no judgement, just watching. I felt the calm of both the clouds and the eagles move towards me, me in my jim-jams with soot black coffee on my tongue and in a way too early moment. It calmed me, smiled me. I said Thank-you for waking me at just the right moment to see the very perfect thing. I looked again and the eagles were gone. I missed their gone-ing, but here’s a thing – the sky-jackers kept pinging about the tree, squwalking and squealing like unwelcome thoughts. I have these too, I said to no-one there. I might be stilling myself, madly, only to find that, although no human interrupts this stilling process, my sky-jackers are within. Well, blow that.

Let’s take a look. I know I can’t ‘blow that’ because blowing that is what I have done for decades. Now I actually want to notice the interruptions when I am madly being still. I confront them. What do you want? I ask. The minute the voiced out loud question spills from my mouth, they begin to reply. They’re flapping like dingbats in a turmoil. What does this tell me? That they want me to listen to them. Ok, ok, I say, patting down the air around me. Form a queue. And they do. Ok, first…? I hear First. First reminds me that I had decided to check my household bills about 3 weeks ago and procrastinated because the thought of doing that is the ultimate yawn. I write it down and promise I will check that list this very day. Next? Next marches up with yet another thing I knew some while back demanded my attention and action. And so the list goes on. I actively respond to all of the demands. Then I still. I am like the not bothered clouds with no wind. And that is all it takes.

Cousin to this process of sorting out the immediate buzz flies or sky-jackers in my life is to respond to those who sing at me in a lower key. They come from way back. They are the Dodo, the Great Auk, The Tasmanian tiger of my life. They are, so called, extinct, but they are far from that. These other selves, our past selves, are still alive and kicking inside us and longing for love. I know this. My little girl and my teenage self were both angst ridden and for many years. And that is how it is and was. But because of studies into connectivity with our past, and with the exciting knowledge and support we now have access to, to heal our young hurts and breaks, there is the chance to be still again, to be at peace with the strong, bright and beautiful souls we have made of ourselves, no matter our beginnings. And we did, those of us who did the work. Just look at us! We changed neglectful, unthinking parenting into warm protection for our own children. We did that. We became eagles on exhausted branches not fussed by sky-jackers. We decided not to be bothered by old thinking peckers and baiters. We stood strong and our children are free-er than we ever were.

And for those of us who are still working on ourselves, allowing the mistakes we made as innovators of a future we had no manual for, we might like to say to ourselves this:- Well done. You shifted the time belt. You decided, whether consciously or unconsciously, to make a change, to do the old in a new way. To love instead of judge, to let a child think for his or her self. Go you. It isn’t done yet. But it is on its way if (thanks Maya Angelou) Still we rise.

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Island Blog – Flapping at Clouds

Yesterday was a day of long hours, the end game of a week during which I wasted much energy flapping at the clouds with a tea towel and expecting them to move on, metaphorically speaking. I don’t know why such times come, nor when they will, but I know everyone has days like these. I used to scrabble about for reasons why, most of which required me to beat myself into scars with a bendy switch. I don’t bother now. Now I am well aware that there are forces at large who are invisible, all knowing and with the big picture in mind, unlike me down here inside my little life. I let them play with my mood and my mind and just wait for them to go, which they always do in the end. But oh my, it’s uncomfortable. My body feels like I swallowed a hippo and my brain is a peat bog after heavy rains. I have to make myself do the ordinary tasks and cannot settle to anything creative. I stare out at nothing and wish the hours away. There is no reason for this; nothing has drastically changed; it is, as if, punishment is due for some heinous crime, one I have no recollection committing, or, worse, that I am sick. Long experience of this scoffs that nonsense away. It is just as it is.

I know these discomforts have come to learn me something; that I will, after the air settles back around me like a soft blanket, understand something that wasn’t on my radar before. It’s a shake up, a wake up, a take a look up thingy. Oft times it is easy to keep on going on without noticing the whole. Sometimes ‘noticing’ the whole, through the eyes of my own limited vision, is merely me circling through the same precepts, the same thoughts, opinions and ‘absolute truths’ until the goodly wise decide on action to stop me eating my own tail. I’m glad of it, once the discomfort has passed, because even if it takes me a while to learn the new learning, the new way to do an old thing, or, even, to relegate said old thing to the compost heap and to reach for a new thing, I am curious by nature and well aware that stuckness is death in life. Lack of motion and the refusal to allow new ways to infiltrate my old ways would kill me off inside a month. Maybe that’s just me. I know that some of my ancients were very happy to be stuck in old ways. We is all different and some more different than most. I know this too, but being stuck is not my nature, even if I can become so without any trouble at all. I always have my eyes on a better me. However, I cannot do this alone. How could I? I am the one who folds into little life without a second thought, scrabbling on through the tall grasses with the odd tea-towel flap at clouds, should they irritate me. I need those goodly spirits with vision, the high flyers, the ones who already know me better than I will ever know myself; who understand and who are kindly-meant. I need to lean into the storm in order to feel the vital force of it.

This morning I don’t need my tea-towel. This morning I know they have moved on. I can tell because my belly is not kicking up a storm and my heart is more Beethoven’s Pastorale, less Def Lepard. I also know that something will dawn on me soon enough and I will add that to my very long list of Aha’s, taking whatever I learn into myself so that I can inch a little further forward in this journey of life. I am certain all of us know these times. We are human, after all, grounded and unaware of so very much. Oh, we read the news, know the science, understand the proven truths, but we have no explanation for the Mystery. We can try. We can argue points, choose different names, fix on gods or God or no gods at all, but we cannot fully explain any of it. And there is something wonderful about that.

All I know is this. As I quest through this amazing life, grounded among the tall grasses of this beautiful and broken world, my mind is free to roam and, in being vulnerable, I know I am fully alive.

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Island Blog – Bloomers, Sunlight, Lacklight, and Tatties

Walks for me are meditative and questioning. I cannot sit still for more than five minutes nor pay serious attention to the in and out of my breath without getting the giggles. My breath works just fine without me paying attention to it, as does my heart beat steadfastly on without me bothering it. In the wee small hours I felt about for my heartbeat once and all was silent. Well, I thought, that’s pretty cool. My heart isn’t beating and I’m still alive. I always knew I was different.

Back to meditative/questioning walks. As I wander I notice, stop, chat with or admire something I missed yesterday, or something that wasn’t even there yesterday such as a new bloomer peeking up through the grasses. I see the burst of emerald leaves on an alder or the delicate fingers of Lady Larch, HRH of the Woods, dancing in the warm breeze like the wings of bird flight. I watch blue sky through the branches, squares, diamonds, circles, striations, fingers and whole swathes above a treeless bit, an artistic dash of cloud splitting the sky and in a hurry, it seems, to get to somewhere else. I contemplate it all and then me and me have a conversation. Look, I say, this side of the tree is in full bloom and that one (I indicate the inside of the wood) is only just coming. Why is that? Well, this side has the full sunlight. That side is darkling buried, its allowance of sunlight controlled by A N Other, or maybe a few A N Others if the wood is densely wooden.

It thinks me. If a tree can be affected by the amount of light shed upon it, how much more a human? If I am to bloom, I need light. If I don’t get light, I don’t bloom. If I don’t get light for decades I am in danger of turning the colour of mole, even if I am naturally infused with positive attitude and born with a natural propensity for fun, beauty, joy, laughter and dancing. Eventually my need for light in the form of real love, kindness, to be cherished, complimented, accepted, understood, admired and listened to, will require fuel from A N Other. If the light I am receiving is in A N Other’s control, and if it flashed on and off at will, then I may begin to mole-up, or is it mole-down?

I think of those who have told me of such lacklight. In the workplace, in the home, in school, in neighbourhoods or in family relationships and I have done what we all do when we don’t stop and think. We encourage this person who is turning the colour of mole before our eyes to look on the bright side; to look at what they do have; to count their blessings, to go for long walks, cook, listen to music, sew something……. none of which helps one jot, because what this sad person needs is not advice, but light. And we can shine it upon them just by listening, understanding, caring and walking beside them. We cannot change their circumstances, but they can, and well they might once they start to feel like blooming again. We can be the fuel they need, the sunlight they crave, by doing absolutely nothing.

In the garden, in the woods there is fierce competition. It is no different amongst we humans. Everyone wants to grab as much light as possible, but there is room for us all even if some of us are late bloomers due to lack of light; late, that is, until someone saw us turning the colour of mole and moved their branches just enough that we could feel the warmth on our skin.

I decide it is time to put the tatties on to boil. It’s 4pm after all and Himself needs food early. Why do you need to put them on to boil? asks my other self. In order to feed a human. I reply, eyes rolling. Why do you need to feed a human? Because I am one. Ah……ok….better get the tatties on, then.

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Island Blog – A Different Summer

Looking back on life, I imagine we can all remember one particular summer, for its joy or for its unjoy. Perhaps it was that one, as a carefree youngster, first in love, heady with dreams and hopes and madly keen to escape the confines of diligent parenting. Perhaps it was that memorable holiday, the colours, swirls and shape of which are ingrained in a mind, body and soul. Perhaps it was the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, the time the wisteria went crazy up the walls, dropping sweet perfume and amethyst blooms every time you walked underneath.

This one, the one we are welcoming right now will surely be a collective memory, one we will talk about, write about and think about for a very long time to come. By definition, ensuing summers will still be summers but might appear ordinary, now that we have met extraordinary. I love this time of year. Less clothing, more colour, bare feet and crisp salads; sunshine skin and long bright evenings; new life all around, birds, animals, flowers; brown babies, freckles, picnics and barbecues. Everything in me shifts with the rising warmth, reflections of green at the waters edge, the sound of Earth singing us back to life.

Okay so this summer is different and although each summer is different, in that we have all moved through the winter and, therefore, learned new learnings, this one is more different than most. But, even as we are refused access to each other, to dinners out, lunch al fresco at a local restaurant, long walks together or parties on the lawn, we can still summer. I know that the isolation can chip away at us, because, as humans, as social creatures, we long to share. Witnessing something wonderful, something new and delightful all on your own is just not the same. There will be many, like me, who are talking to themselves. I tell me many things throughout the day, share jokes and stories and me is a good listener, wise, too, sometimes irritatingly so. I remember learning once that inside me are as many as 25 others, all still me but different aspects of me. There is the Judge, of course, the poker-faced harridan with a lemon in her mouth. She is the most vocal, but as her repertoire is unimaginative and predictable, I can soon shut her up. There’s the little Alice in Wonderland and I am very fond of her. She always wants to play or shrink or sup tea with the Hatter and, together, we have great adventures. Then there’s Mrs Sensible. She is the wise one who keeps me from sailing out to sea without a compass. There is the Wife, the Mother and the Grandmother, and together we are quite a team. We are the ones who move through each day in acceptable clothing and with a well-ordered mind. Keeping a balance of the females inside my head is sometimes tricky. Sometimes I want to run riot, to disappear into my imagination, to break the rules of the well-ordered daily routine. And sometimes I do.

We are all having to search ourselves to find the fun, at times. And, for all the worries and concerns that have cut us off from each other, we have the chance to learn something wonderful from this summer. How we live thereafter will be directly aligned to what we have taken the time to study and consider. Great things will grow from the ashes of this, much like the flowers are doing right now, just outside the window.

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Island Blog – A Secret Garden of Change

When change or improvement of standards are required, they nudge me, bump me, sprawl me until I turn to acknowledge their existence. I don’t really want to make friends with any of them to be honest because change, or improvement of an existing way of doing things, requires effort and action and the only person who can effect said change or improvement is little old me. Me, who, btw was quite happy not changing for ages, dammit. But these infuriating bumpers, nudgers and sprawlers will not give up. They know, smartarses that they are, that they know a better or, worse, a new way to do an old thing. However, I have to admit that on consideration I can see their point. There is always a better way to do anything, everything, always. Pretending I am not interested just sharpens their wits so that they bounce and trounce me from around corners that were just corners before – nothing lying in wait for me. It’s like hide and seek except they are the only ones hiding and seeking. Okay, okay, I say from where I have landed all ungainly and definitely cornered, okay. I’ll do it.

Now the work begins. I must deconstruct the doing bit of this thing, embark on a new spreadsheet #myanathema, write a list of do’s and absolutely do nots and this is the hardest bit. Absolutely do nots are so well established in my neural pathways that it is going to take the wiles and the wisdom of Captain Cooke to navigate new passage and I’m already yawning. However, I do know what comes next for I remember this embarkation process of old. Change is a procedure and can drag on for months. What it does not do is arrive for one sleepover with an instant solution in its pyjama pocket. I don’t get handed a miracle, complete, accomplished. Oh no indeed. What I need to do now is to relocate the secret garden, find the key and walk myself inside. Once within those walls that hide me from the world, I must open my mind, be still, reflect, consider and above all, not come out again until I know what I need to do next.

In order to effect change, to add gravitas to a new way of seeing and doing an old thing, or even to not do that old thing anymore, there is an uncomfortable period of self restraint. In small matters such as biting someone’s head off every time they slap their lips together whilst eating toast, or turning into Miss Trunchbull at every spill of milk, or a big matter like eating a whole cake for lunch every day, thus putting on 3 stone in a week, there must be a time when self control, diversionary tactics and a plastic smile must be applied appropriately. Whatever it is, we all know what we need to do but not always how to do it. The steps towards refinement of a person are so personal that there is no official manual to follow. And some of don’t fancy refining anyway, which is perfectly okay by me. I am not one of those people. I most definitely fancy refining but it still irritates the bejabers out of me. Just when I think I could not do this thing any better, those nudgers, bumpers and sprawlers who, obviously, don’t have enough takers for their grand designs, arrive to trip me up and, with my eyes rolling back in my head, I am eventually given no option but to turn around and acknowledge them. Again.

When I have finally conceded defeat and am still and reflective inside the secret garden I always wonder why I resisted to the degree that I did. Surely everyone loves to be better, kinder, more sensitive, compassionate, interested – curious to find out how they will feel as the process of effecting change reveals that which was hidden before. It’s like an Alice adventure. Wandering through the fruit trees, noticing the delicacy of petals, their vibrant colour, hearing the birdsong, the bee song, the rustle of soft breezes combing the leaves on the tallest tree, looking up at the wide, clear sky, all this stops me, halts my breath, slows my mind. And it is healing me too. From here I can see the old thing, the old way, as definitely passed its sell-by date. Why did I not see that out there? Well, I’ll tell you why. Out there, running like a hare on fire, doing things out of habit, routine or because my mother always did it that way, leaves no room for my imagination to rise above zero. I might think everything is tickety boo but that is my illusion, my delusion. Inside the secret garden of change I can see that now. I can breathe at my own speed, hear my breath, feel my heartbeat. I notice, that’s what I do, in here, waiting, reflecting, accepting. Out there I could run into a herd of elephants and not see them until we collide.

Everyone has a secret garden and everyone has a key. That’s the wonder of this human life.

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Island Blog – Patching and a Merry Dance

As I complete my task of sewing up a hole in Sheepy, it comes to me. All my days I have worked on repairing the tears other people made in things, in each other. From Sheepies to hearts, from fixtures to fittings, through burned casseroles to burned chances, I have pulled out my needle and thread or my magic wand or the car keys and set out to patch and heal. I felt like an angel at times when it seemed to work and an obstacle in the way when it didn’t. This morning’s epiphany showed me that a lot of my actions were, in fact, self-gratification. Although my intent was to dry sad eyes and to mend broken hearts, I had set myself up as the answer to the problem. In other words, it was really all about me, not them. It saddens me to realise this. My own longing for love manifested itself in my attempts to please others, more, to be the one inside their lives who could patch to perfection. A wiser me would have done it differently. A wiser me would have stood beside them in their desert and listened, comforted, told them they can sort this and asked them how they might see themselves doing just that, whilst assuring them I would stay right beside them at all times.

I am grateful, always, for the way life teaches me important lessons. Not as an opportunity to blame myself but to move forward in my learning, with curiosity and acceptance. The way a new understanding comes into my head whilst repairing a hole in Sheepy chuckles me, even if I do immediately dash back over the decades past with a machete in my hand, ready to take revenge on my earlier ignorant self. Woa! I say. Steady girl. That woman back there had the best intentions and did good, really good, mostly. She didn’t know what you know now, old woman. She didn’t know the lack of unconditional love in her own life would drive her to select herself as guardian protector of pretty much everyone in her care. Give her a break and tell her Thank you for all you did in love.

These are wise words. Seeing something old in a new light, one that illuminates all the faulty wiring simply means I tried my very best under the circumstances. No matter that I was naive or seeking to fill my own black hole with good deeds (which never works by the way). Let the judge in me leave the courtroom. I recall my mum saying a similar thing to me once after she had felt criticised and judged by us. She said, simply, I Did My Best. And so she did.

However, whilst we girls and women of good intention repair until our fingers bleed, we may forget that we too need that care and love. I certainly did. I took the smallest portion, the back seat, the last straw. I taught myself to accept mean graces because all the best ones were doled out to others. I was the one who cleaned out the landcover with a smile, allowing everyone else to run indoors for toast and jam. I was the one who couldn’t sleep if a child was troubled at school. I was the soother, I was the warmth and the safety net. But what was I to me? Not enough and there’s another learning. In my day to think of self for more than five minutes was heresy. Women who shared the same turning of the earth, at the same time as I, knew this too. To be accused of being selfish was devastating.

Now we know different and thank goodness for that. However, it does present us with a problem. If we have loved and patched and healed others for most of our lives, how can we now place ourselves centre stage? The super trooper is too bright and we have forgotten our lines. Do we have opinions or did we just repeat the ones we heard others opine? Do we like pasta, kangaroos, thunderstorms, cats, driving, dancing naked in the rain? Can we quickly make a decision when someone asks Early Grey, Darjeeling, Builders, or coffee? Oh……I’ll have what you’re having. Wrong answer. But we all make it. We have spent so many years obliging that we have mislaid ourselves.

Recently I have been stopping myself from answering like a well trained robot when faced with a question. I pause. this pause can irritate the questioner. It’s a simple question after all but I am tossed on a stormy sea and feeling seasick. In the past I was a I’ll Have What You’re Having sort of woman and she is quick to come forward at such times with her pinny on straight and her bright voice loud in my ears. I push her back. Hold………! What is it I want? I know what I want but I don’t think it will be popular so I can’t let it out. Speaking my truth takes balls and I am terrified of critical judgement, of upsetting the others, the applecart. However, it also feels free-ing.

I suspect it is never too late to learn. I’m curious, too. I might discover what I do like, what I do want and that learning might lead me a very merry dance.