Family

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Island Blog – A Very Big Man and Sea Bear

I knew this one, him and his wife and that multitude of kids, wild as scatter stones and yet close as could be. Together, that’s what I thought. We met on the CB radio, at least I did, as Sea Bear, my husband, reached out to communicate with another islander, one beyond the one we lived on. The men had met, of course they had, out there above the feisty challenges of the wild Atlantic wavery. Not that that ocean ever wavers. She is always super confident it seems to me. The CB radio sat in the Tapselteerie kitchen, in the corner, crackling and snorting away with half sneezes, faltered messages, broken at times. This was the way we communicated way back in the day. For all its frustrations, it was the only way and, somehow, we settled within such limitations. They also pushed us into inspirational ideas, these limitations. We always found a way and even if I was catering to a load of dinner guests with way too many children bursting in and out, the smaller ones crawling about under tables and work stations with tonka digger buckets full of earth and wet stuff, asquirm with puzzled worms and tickety beetles, I would dash to the CB and say, Lady Q here. Lady Q, for goodness sake. I blame my posh accent which did me proud in elocution lessons and later on stage, but here among the west coasters I just sounded ridonculous.

Many winter nights when dark fell like a surprise and the gale-propelled rain slammed like hammers against the wispy single-glazed windows, we shared family info. Our lives could not have been more different. There we were living in a mansion house, a load of acres under our belts, and there they were. It didn’t seem to matter one jot. We just really liked each other. We laughed together as we rarely laughed with others. These people get real. They had a naughty streak we were drawn to. They knew how to live outside of the uppity nonsense we had bought into. Of all my memories, and there are gazillions, of my 48 years here, our times with this family, even mostly over the scratch of broken CB radio, stand tall and bright.

Now both men have gone. Two unlikely friends, for they were just that. If I go deeper in my thoughts, this gives me hope. It didn’t matter, the difference between us. What mattered was the spark, the naughtiness, the fun, the mischief, the solidarity of like-minded humans. We went over once, as a family, for a meal and sleep over. In our slow, very slow, boat, it took ages, but we got there to a glorious welcome. We feasted on their catch from the sea and we drank whisky and whatever else and we shared stories and laughed as the rain blattered against the stone walls, warm by the fire, warmed by each other. I won’t forget that evening.

RIP Big Man Frank. I hope you’ve met up with Sea Bear, wherever you both are.

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Island Blog – I want to be

  1. Compassionate, so that when I am tired and fed up and in an inner hurry to get back to myself, I have enough to stop me, just enough, to remind myself of my ears for listening, to expand my heart, to feel the human music of my pulse; to bring about the reduction of hyper nonsensical blood flow like a sliver-river of me me me, to dam it, to bring the beavers in.

2. Welcoming, when I seriously wish I had a shotgun in my hands; when I am interrupted mid snip of rose blooms, when I thought I was alone with this rose snipping thing.

3. Kind, as so many have been kind to me.

4. Thoughtful, when most of my thoughts are about how old and limited I am, or think I am.

5 Loving, when I am here alone and my family is/are miles away and I do wonder about that, the collective ‘let’s get far away’ thing.

6. Curious. Well I am definitely that. And, as 6 is my favourite number, I am sticking.

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Island Blog – Fidelity to Self

I remind myself of myself, here, solid, living, human, but only after a turbulent ten mile hike with the shenanigans of ‘take over’, which I meet around AI. I wanted to book a train ticket. I also tried to purchase an online voucher from a clothing company, done before, many times with all the birthdays in my life. It isn’t straightforward now. With my train booking thing, I do remember, with a pastfull wistful sigh, calling Steven in the Oban Office, having a catchup with him and his life, asking about his mum and dad, great friends whilst he found me the best deal, felt me safe. Those days are definitely gone.

Talking to my son, he recognises that his generation, is it X or Y, I don’t know, is the one which is going through the greatest change, and I agree. As the eldest daughter of a father who returned, somewhat intact from the 2nd world war, I’m not sure that the X or Y generation is more of a changer than we experienced back then with silent fathers who weren’t the dads they might have wanted to be. I know there’s no comparison. One was trauma after war. However…..there are many who see AI as invasion as war. I don’t and it thinks me. Of course it can and will be abused. Even in my ordinary booking of a train ticket or my attempted purchase of a gift token for my granddaugher, or in the writing of my blog, or even as I choose music to suit my mood, AI invades. I decide to live with it. Many, oh so many of my generation, refuse and go hide in the dark cupboard under the stairs, as if that ever helped anything, which it doesn’t. I learned from an early age that the only way through is through, not around, not blind, not hiding, because what comes in such force, comes anyway, and those who hide just stay hidden. Even if I don’t know my way through the force of an ‘invasion’ I still won’t hide, because, and I realise this as I write, I want to be seen. It thinks me.

There grows a division between my generation and the X or Y of now. I’ll tell you what that means and what that invites. The first is an incremental division, a pulling away, a retreat back. Ok, you linguists, I just repeated myself there. A retreat is obviously a backward step. I’m leaving it here. But what happens is that the older ones, the ones you find hidden in a cupboard under the stairs are someones who have a lot to say beyond their fear of the way the world is now. They have stories. Has anyone asked them, taken the time, met them in their old and foggy memories and shown interest? Chances are you will learn something astonishing, pivotal to your own life and your own unanswered questions, for they have truly lived.

There was a wedding today at Calgary. I was delighted to meet the young bride and her son as they bought ice-cream yesterday. I looked in her eyes, felt her delight and her energy. It might rain, yes it might, but it didn’t and the day is beautiful and warm and sunny and I am thinking of her on such a special day. It seemed to me as she talked with Lou, the owner, that nothing and nobody could spoil her day. I also saw life lived already in those lovely eyes. It matters not her generational letter. She was a woman in love and excited and, I believe, being true to herself. I remember being that woman many decades ago and regret nothing.

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Island Blog – Tearaway

We start with a plan. I did as a young mum with a tumble of kids. In my plan, in our plan, we were excellent parents, mother, father, we were. We weren’t. In the melee ensuing of business development, of invasive strangers, of things collapsing, falling in, stopping, as in water flow, of freezing pipes, of bat invasions, mice, cold, we did falter, our dream did sink somewhat. It felt boggish. But we were not going to go there because, even though we dreamed and thought deeply, we were above ground people. If you are a person of the land, the field, the marsh, the emptinessof soil and space, who know the fear of drought, of flood, of loss and gain, the singularity of joy, the sharing of it, then you will recognise something. Possibly more than something, because everyone knows what it feels like to sink, what it feels like to choose ‘above ground.’

I employ the above ground as an adjunct. Today was remarkable at the Best Cafe Ever. No, it was overwhelming. There must have been hundreds of customers, in line and for 5 hours. I did feel like sinking. I didn’t check with the others in the Servery because to be honest, we barely met beyond a pull back or let go in a narrow space as we served and cleared and tried to make the soup last. I did turn into the Washeroo thinking, I can’t do this. That lasted not even 5 seconds. I have great inner talk. Don’t be ridonculous, ya eejit, rise, RISE. It works.

I like to tearaway from, well most things if I’m honest, but on this one, from inner giving up. Too many do this, too many times I have been tempted. and then the Tearaway comes in, like thunder, like a smile from Joe the new postie, from a word of recognition, a smile from eyes really connecting with my own, and a tune with lyrics which stop me, the tune that takes me to my piano, makes me pay attention.

Tearaway. From old confines, from old controls, from old myths and mistakes. Tearaway.

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Island Blog – 3 Day Streaker

My blog tells me I am on a 3 day streak. After 14 years of writing blogs, this is a disappointment, and feels like a sort of criticism or judgement, as if not being ‘there’ once or twice or even thrice is a failure. Reminds me of childhood, of school when if I or my peers weren’t constantly ‘there’, failure was subtly suggested, the outfall inviting judgement. You found yourself in landfall, smelling bad and very unsure. I know enough, now, of the confusulation in such forums, in the anywheres of social media, to ignore such trite nonsense. But, and here’s an admission, it still sets me back a step. It seems that what others think or how others judge matters and possibly a bit too much. This thinks me. It does matter in all the right ways, but in the possibly wrong ways it, the mattering thing, can become confusive, and here, where all I deal with is my daily blog fight with grammar, spacing and comments or judgements, I do have to laugh at myself. Out there in the Out There, ordinary women are fighting for life, saving flooded homes, grieving at the loss of everything. I know this, we all know this, but it is too much to take in when something assaults a life, here, now. My irritata on a robotic comment, in the aforesaid light is embarrassing to be honest, but I don’t believe it should be denied, swiped away as nothingmuch because it matters to me in the right now of now and it has an effect.

And this is my point. I feel the judgement because of some ridonculous conclusion I came to. What brought me here? It should be a laugh, a coffee, a fix, a nothing. Ah……not nothing, oh no. Childhood and child experience is a raised head here. I see the rise, the face, my young face, and she is me some decades ago, no freedom of speech and no idea what to say, no idea who I was, no confidence, no voice beyond the one which got me into a big dose of trouble and more than once. Just a rebel, they said, she’ll calm down. I didn’t lose the rebel, but I did ‘calm down’, did learn to conform, to fit the space proffered and allowed. I birthed five children, I was mother of this number before I was 30. It was all I wanted, even though, I am sure, I was way less than the ideal mother. I was absent/still in the room. Disasters came daily, mostly out there in the ‘Out There’, man overboard, calls to search for a missing canoeist, a life possibly lost on the arse-side of Tiree or Gunna; or the woodburner going on fire, pipes burning, rattling, and guests panicking and me flapping everything down with the promise of scones, a warm fire and my competent husband who made everything better and with such inner confidence.

He saw me. He left me to deal with damn well everything a lot of the time, fixing, in a state of immediacy, always en pointe. Always. I’m not sure he was aware of the exhaustion, nor the legacy it left. I remember being told, in my childhood and often, to look after the Little Ones, my wee sisters. We might have been packing to go north for our summer holiday, or anywhere. Look after the Little Ones. It’s loud in my memoric ears. It’s what big sisters do, isn’t it? It’s what you do. But, not once, not ever, did either of my parents ask how that felt for me. A tip for parents nowadays. It’s often the older kids who get lost in the mist of whatever ‘disaster’ goes on in a family. The expectations weigh like tons and the older kid gets lonely, feels invisible. And ‘invisible lonely’ grows. It has a voice which won’t shutup.

On a good note, when I began this after recovering from the slap of judgement, I noticed that spacing went wild, twice here, thrice there, and letters jumbled, making interesting words now and then. I fixed it.

Still off-pissing for a 3 day streaker blog. I’m still here.

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Island Blog – Just Flying On

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

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

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

In the now of now, we are flying on.

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Island Blog – Emerging and Engagement

We are in a seasonal change. The mornings are cool, the light less light, less strong, the mornings darker. I love such changes, all of them because it involves me and my attitude. It also reminds me of my mother’s big ottoman on the landing, wherein she would carefully fold all summer clothes, bringing out the scratchy woolen jumpers, the thicker trousers, the warmer underpinnings. Not sure we can do that anymore, even if we do own a landing big enough for an ottoman. Nonetheless, the temperature does lower as Summer gathers up her swishy skirts and dances off to Africa. Seasons don’t stop being themselves. They just move on to do their thing on the other side of the world. I love that too and it thinks me.

I hear, oh god we all hear, the moans at the loss of Summer as if nothing will ever be right ever again, as if cool mornings heralds the end of everything. Such nonsense. We have all lived some years knowing that nothing at all lasts, that everything changes and never stops doing that change thing. I suspect that too much talk of ‘loss’ can, and probably does infect a community, a workspace, a family situation, There is nothing like a single voice of misery to bring down the most dynamic team. But this subject is on no more than a change in seasonal flow. I do understand a sense of loss, nonetheless. Those heady days of frocks and bare arms, of walking for hours beneath glorious sunshine, of taking warmth for granted, leaving doors open and not shouting about it; of dry dogs after long walks, of mud solidified enough to be just dust on boots; of standing for a conversation, of sitting on a balcony with a glass of chilled something-or-other and of trusting all of the above. I get it.

The thing I have learned is that attitude makes any change shift into opportunity. As those of us who are getting old get older, it is our essential choice. As joints stiffen and shout, as it gets harder to gauge the level of bumpy land, as the cold sneaks in knife-like, as self-doubts grow mighty and decisions flounder, we cannot help but remember how vibrantly we once swashbuckled through our complex lives. A seasonal loss? Yes, definitely yes. A different seasonal change, one of a life long lived. When we began it was Winter. Then we met someone and Spring began to flower up, cautious, yes, but little blooms pushed through the cold. Then came Summer, the crazy warm long hours of sunshine, the swing of it, the fragrance of hope filling the air, the dance of it, the wild long hours of daylight, of hope, of dreams. Then Autumn, golden, still warm, the light like a chiaroscuro, elevating what was already there, sharpening its edges, pulling the distant closer, reflections brighter, calls stronger out there in the otherness. Then Winter again, but a different one from before, before the commitment to the one, to children, to family, to decades of hard work and laughter and sharing and agony and loss and gain and goodbyes and hellos.

I like the word Emerging, not that I thought for one minute I would be still doing it, not at this age, but I am and my attitude is absolutely IT on this. I don’t like being alone. I don’t like being old. I don’t know anyone who does. Ok, so that’s the bottom line. Let’s think up. I do. I wake every morning and say thankyou to my bed. I won’t say I plan my day because, unless I have work in the Best Cafe Ever, I don’t. I just wake up and that’s damn good. I wash, dress, make-up my face, eat breakfast, clean up, look out. And whatever is going on out there, I choose to go with it, up the warmth if required, call for help if I need a big gas cylinder attached, download an audio book, hoover (boring), wave to walkers, plan supper, make hummus or something like that. I have the urge to emerge.

I can’t change the loss of me, but I can rise above everything if I choose to engage with change.

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Island Blog – Brackish Waters and Swim on

In my work at the Best Cafe Ever, I am among young people, young with dreams and opinions and attitudes. They are all sure they can do it differently, as I did once, long ago. I listen to the chat about the whatevers in their lives, the doubts, self doubts mostly. I can hear the outpuff of frustration as they may or may not acknowledge expectations lowered over their heads, the fears and concerns of their parents, ages with my own children. I hear it all and smile as I shove yet another heavy load of dishes into the wishdosher. I say nothing. I am granny to them, old and brackish and I like that place. I can circle in the safety of the inlet whereas they are pushing hard into a new ocean. They are about to head out alone and somewhat scared. What will their idea of the world out there teach them, confound them, frighten them? Even the cafe owners don’t know of what’s ahead and how could they? We can have rain and a complete invasion. We can have sun and a complete invasion. We can have neither. This business is a risk and a beauty. We are here and where are you? Or, we are here and what on earth just brought so many of you in? This is how it is out there. And I remember it as I went to collect those who wanted to watch for whales. Sometimes a few keenists, sometimes an acre of humans I managed to cram into the back of the landrover, just hoping it would be ok for all of them to fit on the boat. I remember first taking my children to school, watching them go,, even tearful and turning back to business. I didn’t like it, but I did what I did.

I sense a different parentage now. Oh, I remember the dream talk when we were expecting our first. We will not be parents as ours were, not the harsh stuff, not the judgemental stuff, not the controlling expectations, none of that. And, I believe to a degree but not enough of one, that we did that. But there was a leak. Actually two. I was 29 with five kids and with a mother-in-law living down the track and she had a hold. I don’t blame her. I just remember how the father of our children gradually absorbed the old ways to a degree. We had such rebellious dreams, I thought. And yet, over time, I complied. I make no excuse. I was also of the old controls and recognised them. And yet I watched him be the father he never had, at times, but not all times.

Enough of that.

I smile a lot as I listen to the young women and I so want them to be able to absorb what they meet and yet to stand like an Amazon in the face of the old ways. I didn’t. I want them to be who I wasn’t, just to show me that it is possible to set out on an ocean,resting in brackish waters when needed and then to actually find a new shore.

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Island Blog – Liminal Dilemma

We all have them, the dither on the cusp of a new thing. Summer and Autumn obviously feel the same. Autumn comes in with a bag of chillswag in the morning, clouding windows, cold to the touch and bringing shivers into the house, the snatch and pull of a warm cardigan around a human body. I can hear her chuckle as I do this very thing. And, as the day moves on, the temperature rises until I am here at almost 5pm barely frocked and with the sun almost burning. It thinks me.

I have dithered many, oh many times, on that cusp. Trusting that whatever I did or didn’t do would breach the void, move some situation on. I have stood there, often, skidding on the rocks of slippery, hesitant, wondering, doubting and very much alone. But there is something about being there in the first place. What brought me here? a question requiring an answer and, from what was around me at the time, nobody else was in answering mode. Is that what it comes to……..nobody but me to step across the void, to acknowledge there is no-one there at all? Perhaps. It’s lonely though.

On the obverse side of this I can see that it isn’t just me who make decisive choices plus impact and, possibly, initiating chaos. Even as a young mother, I did face all of that. I was the one who found myself, discovered myself, on the slippery rocks, and who stepped on. Looking back to my then situation, there was nobody else who would have even got there, nor wanted to, the whole maintenance of equilibrium, the status quo, being an absolute. For so many years I doubted myself, this crazy skidder on rocks, the one who yelled Enough! and worked on the change. Maybe it’s a generation thing. My peers conformed after all. I was born different. All through school I disagreed, and was silenced or expelled. Now I live with that self and can see her as before her time, the rebel, the one who actually did make a difference in so many ways, in business decisions, in the lives of my children, in the community, in my own life.

So, I recognise Autumn, the proud mother that she is, and welcome her. I also feel a great affection for Summer as she, unwillingly diminishes. I have loved her light and her warmth, but she needs her rest now. However, the combination sisterhood of these two proud seasons does bring the most glorious of surprise light. I think I love the cusp, the liminal dilemma.

Perhaps I see myself in this.

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Island Blog – The Cafe, Keeping on, Q and Clouds

Someone said the Q word this morning. It isn’t allowed, and we all flinched as it spilled through lips and took off like a jester cloud, filling the whole place. It was gentle for a while, coffees, hot chocolates/what type/marshmallows/cream, bespoke teas, cakes, scones with jam and cream, blueberry bakewell, still warm, chocolate cake so full of chocolate as to dynamic the most miserable of souls into hopefulness. Peanut butter brownies, gluten free flapjacks, and so much more. WE are so much more, the team who work here and that’s a good thing because of the Q word earlier.

Around midday they came, and kept coming. The Washeroo was swamped with plates and cups, water glasses and pots and pans and all things kitchen. I don’t even know what half of this equipment is for but it does produce excellent lunches so I don’t really need to do more than to make sure all of it is thoroughly scrubbed. We welcomed dogs, children, families, couples and we never stopped at all, clearing, chatting, welcoming, delivering great food. I ducked out at times, just to escape the high piles of plates and cups and cutlery and pots and the endless parts of a new mixer. I changed the water many times in the deep sinks, so scurrilous did it become. I remember pulling back at one point and looking at the greasy brown swirl of it and thinking this. I don’t want anyone to think that I would ever countenance such water in my sink, not staying there like it was an ok staying there thing. I pulled the plug often.

The thing about running a very popular cafe is that the populous will come. They come because they hear it is a lovely welcoming space and that the food is healthy and fresh and prepared daily. Of course they do. And reputation will grow because people will recommend and new visitors will come because of that. I know that the owners of this cafe have got it so right. I also know that a business takes years to learn its wingspan. I remember growing a few and the early years were also cloudal. I remember doubt and judgment and loss of confidence. However, I am glad we kept going because now all around the world the work we did is used in protocols around sea-mammal research. There were clouds aplenty in the long years of that keeping on thing.

Home now and the sky is a big nudge of clouds. Not a flat sky, not lying down, not at all, but there are stratonimbus and a dwindle of cumulous and a load of feathering interruptions going on in the conversation. I hear it loudal. It moves all the time, shifts, blends, pulls back as if in outrage. Below, I have a baked potato and salad for supper.

The Q word? ‘I think it might be Quiet today”

Enough said on that.