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Island Blog – Denim Skin, and Off I Go

It’s weird, this feeling, as I literally plonk through the day, you know that plonk thing……..a one fingered kid before a keyboard, no clue of how to play. I had packed, unpacked, packed, unpacked, remembered, forgotten, remembered again, added, removed, placed, argued with space, all of it. My case rests now. I rest my case. My frocks are few, and tatty (never clocked that till folding them for packing) two pairs of shorts, a few tees (they were tee-shirts in my day) various other things like a cardy, the obvious underpinnings, not that they would dare risk underpinning me, and an old dress. Ah, my favourite. She is frail, long, beautiful and always commented on. I can see the sun damage on her denim skin, the loosening of seams, the hole which reminds me of that time, I leapt a fence in the dark, in a moment of wild, not wanting to be left behind, which I wasn’t. I patched that tear, tare, and love the story in this dress. I remember her as she remembers me, showing up again and again, and, the sassy minx, always inviting recognition.

The plonk thing. Back to that. I have to be prepared for this big travel, the flight thing, the squash of people all scared and stressed and fussing and taking up all the room. We are reduced to a serious invasion of personal space and for over 8 hours, in the dark, breathing recycled air. I get the fear. So, I was packed and unpacked etcetera, and then there was breakfast, lunch and a wood delivery and gifts from two friends, well-wishing, and then what? The mist out there is beautiful. I focus on the mist, on the tearlet glisten on nasturtium leaves, on the barely-there maple, on everything in the garden that is standing still. I look at those rigid stalks, actually, we had a chat as I went out barefoot just now, and I ask them how they feel after Wind Ashley or Whoever, when they were blown right over, wheeched from their roots, blinded, stripped and, basically, denied any chance of a ticket to the Species Survival Ball. They chuckled. No, seriously, they did! I heard it through my bare feet on the sniggering grass. It’s safe down there. They, the Long Tall Sallys know that this is how it is, that it may be again, may not, but, trust them, they will work a way, and will not just survive, but will flower magnificent next time Father Sun bothers his butt out of bed.

I am wistful about leaving here, the mist twisty and soft, the rain, a skin treatment. I leave my best friends, moments I will miss, in the street, in homes, in the village, on the island. I will not miss, wheelie bins flying like missiles, ferries cancelled, roads skid risks, the sharp coldsnatch of everything you touch outside of heating. I won’t miss the materialism of Christmas, the sales that elevate at this time of year, a begging, a siren, You Need This. I will miss the warm loving go of people here, the ready to help, the offering, the turning up. This is my place, my home, and I know it. When I set off, tomorrow, for the drive away,the beginning, I will feel elated, excited, and scared. I will check in, find my airport way, find my seat, say hallo, and then, if I could see it, which I won’t this time, over three hours of desert, more, of Africa coming in to say hallo, eventually. And I remember the sounds, the trill, the shrill the thrill of a sudden encounter with a very big wild creature who wasn’t backing down. I remember.

I won’t see them this visit. Different location. Different fun. Off I go.

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Island Blog – Fiddling Sticks

My favourite music, the fiddle. The word alone lifts my feet into dance. Fiddle, rhymes with diddle, piddle, widdle, skiddle, and I could add a few more. All of them traverse me into lift, laughter my aide de buoyant. That might be French, might not. I’m not for caring much right now about semantical language shifts, nor their accuracy. Actually, fiddling is rarely an accurate science. I know because I had stood standing (a rare thing for me) at a ceilidh, just to watch the wild crazy sawing of that bow across four strings, the bow and bend as the fiddle and the player become one with the dance. I hear more beats to the bar, more sudden shifts into minor, into major, I hear it and it wilds me too. Even if others don’t get the musical seasonal shift, I can sense their excitement as it happens. Needless to say, there is often chaos in the field, a lot of crashing into each other, laughter lifting like spice and sugar into the over-breathed air above our heads, and we forgive, as our toes sting like hell. We just dance, we just move, we just collide and apologise and move on. We have to or we might end up as part of the single track road.

Sticks. After all the winds we have buffeted against this summer season, we find sticks every which where, spun off from big limbs, like they are no longer useful. And, on the picking up of them, I get it. It’s a bit like clearing out a wardrobe (such an ancient name) and shucking away those dodgy frocks and blouses (another ancient word) for the moving along. That’s a season in a word. Move it along. It seems to me that nature is much better at this than we are, we daft humans who hang on to what was fine in the past, and is no longer. Nature just spits out. Maybe there’s a lesson there. However, and notwithstanding, (sorry, indulgence there) it is not easy, because we have this propensity to hold on to our past. I was young, looked good in this, once, thing. It wonders me, even as I know the feeling. And not just in bodily coverings, but in mindal (my word) acceptance. If we could, can, spit out the dead sticks in our lives, just like that, how might we free ourselves? From past pain, from regrets, from the feeling of pointlessness (way too many esses in that), how might we be able to enjoy the seasonal changes in our own lives? And our lives are seasonal, not as an accurate science, no way, but as a random crazy unknown thingy. Which it is.

In our turbulent times, as we try to navigate the yet unknown, who the frick are we? We have seen Sea take Land which seemed solid. We have been there when the light died and the black came in and held. We have danced with the reckless and longed to stay in that moment. We have loved, we have lost, we have done bloody well by the way. So what now? Who is caring, who is in charge, and what is it about that which tells us we need a leader anyways, beyond our own ability to flick and flex with a new dynamic dance? I say we need only ourselves, and that might need inner work, but that is where our power lies, not over anyone else, no way, no, no no, but over our own selves.

It’s a fiddlesticks sort of desert, seasons shifting like waves in a menace, sudden, unexpected, wild and infuriating, much as life is now. Meet you there.

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Island Blog – Ups and Downs

Changing the furniture. That’s what I am doing. I am free now to make this little house more homely. For years it has looked like a nursing home with most of the tables and chairs stacked in what used to be the office, out of the way of your wheelchair manoeuvres. The carpet cleaners came to lift the tracks across the sitting room with a big noisy machine. The painter came to re-decorate your room and it smells quite different now. Your hand prints are painted over, so only I will remember all those times you held on to the wall for support. Your favourite mug is at the back of the cupboard and our little dog no longer sleeps in what was your room. She doesn’t sleep in mine, either, choosing instead to curl up on a chair downstairs. When you were dying, she wanted to be close and spent many nights tip-tapping between us, bothered, pacing, if a border terrier could ever manage anything as big as a ‘pace’.

Music plays all day now, all sorts, classical, country, ballads, blue grass and as loud as I want for there is no-one here to yell at me to pipe down. I even play women singers, screechers to you, even repeating a song three or four times. That would have driven you to eruption, as you did erupt, Vesuvius, suddenly, and at full volume, causing Poppy to bark and me to drop something that probably broke.

I light the fire, no longer concerned that you will be too hot within minutes, demanding open windows and water to put it out again. There are no wires across the cleaned carpet, no phone chargers, of which, by the way, you seem to have been the proud owner of about ten, all plugged into an plug bank, all ready for active duty. You had one phone. No, that’s not true. You had 6 phones but 5 of them lie, rejected, in the cupboard under the stairs, along with enough wiring and enough headphones for a large choir in an even larger recording studio. What will I do with all this stuff? Nothing, for now.

The washing machine is bored. She has enjoyed a lot of spinning and sloshing for months and she stares at me, open mouthed each time I pass her by. It takes a few days for me to fill her maw, but when I do, when I pour in the wash liquid, add the conditioner, select the cycle and press Go, I swear she squeaks with delight. The fridge is almost empty, the draining board very quiet and I only have to sweep the floors every four days instead of four times a day. It all feels both great and sad, for who am I now? What do I do with my lack of purpose, the one that has driven me (to distraction at times) for years? I suspect it will come to me, over time.

The children are beginning to gather, the first arriving later today and the others tomorrow, for your laying to ground on Friday. The weather forecast promises rain and wind so we are searching for wellies and umbrellas. You always loved the wild weather, we all remember that, especially at sea when the waves rose to the clouds and the clouds answered back, soaking everything including everyone’s sandwiches. You just laughed. In your element, you were. The wilder the better. However, it might have been kinder on us to have organised something sunny and soft for Friday, for we will all be on that hill for as long as it takes to lower your body back down into the arms of Mother Earth. We are even discussing how to waterproof our readings because, as you know, rain on the island never falls straight. It curves and whips and flips and shoots up noses and skirts and kilts. I can hear you say ‘So?’. And it makes me smile.

When the children leave, I will stay. The Autumn will come, and then the Winter bringing darkness and cold and long spaces in between everything. And I will miss your wisdom. ‘We must close the garage door tonight. The wind is in this direction.’ Or ‘That drain needs scraping out’. Or ‘The gutters will need a clean now.’ Even when you couldn’t do these tasks yourself, you knew when they needed doing. Now I will have to work them out for myself and that feels scary. I tell myself I am no fool, that I will learn new ropes, that I am strong and independent and practical. And it’s true, I am, but there is always that little voice of doubt in my head.

So, my old gone husband, I will keep missing you, even though I know life will be easier from now, even though I can do what I want to do whenever I want to do it. After we lay you down whilst we stay up, keep an eye on us from your new home in Neverland. I’ll wave at you on a starry night. We all will.

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Island Blog – Hope for Change

There’s a hum I hum when things infuriate or frustrate me, when I meet a bump in the road. It, the hum, begins in upper case and probably in B minor, my favourite key and the one that fits best between clenched teeth. These bumps in the road are not just there for me, but for all of us at times. Of course, there can be no actual bumps inside this house because, if there were, himself would be tipped, all ungainly, from his wheelchair and then I would be tasked with the job of lifting him up. Neither of us want that. Once he is down there, gazing at the cobwebs, the seat of the wheelchair is as far away as base camp, Everest, or it looks like that to me. So, no bumps allowed.

However, actual bumps are not what I’m talking about. I mean bumps, as in ‘stops’ in the running of a life; things that go wrong without asking if it’s ok to go wrong. They could be little things or huge things, but, either way, they alter facts. Life herself makes a subtle shift in a new direction and it is easy to get left behind as she turns away. Standing by the roadside is not taking anyone anywhere, so we are expected to accept this shift and to turn with Life. We can do this in B minor, with clenched teeth, or we can take on the major key and loosen our jaw. I am actually sick to death of loosening mine. I have done it a zillion times and will, inevitably, be required to do another zillion times before the fat lady sings the whole flipping song. But, being sick to death of this required repair work on my attitude is not all that helpful. I get indigestion, for starters, and then cross and then crabby and before I know it, the bump has become a Monroe, one I will really struggle to climb.

Rebecca Solnit (another favourite) said that ‘Change comes, not by magic, but by the incremental effect of countless acts of courage, love and commitment.’ And I believe her, however fed up I may get with all these acts of courage, love and commitment, required daily. I may be an official unpaid carer but so is everyone else. If we don’t care, we might as well walk into the sea with stones in our pockets, for life has no meaning at all. The danger in our country now, perhaps across the world, is apathy, not caring, giving up, shrugging at the gift of Life and making no effort to engage with our fellow humans. With Christmas coming, many are thinking of others in a wonderful caring way, but that mustn’t stop come January. If, like me, the opportunity to improve my attitude comes at you daily, hourly, minute by minute, then we are the lucky ones, for we have no choice in the matter. We cannot be outfoxed by a bump in the road. I have learned and still am learning that I can make or break a situation with my attitude. I can make someone smile, or make someone cry. I can lift and encourage or cut down and break. That power is immense and we all have it. The choice is down to us. We may not be able to predict a new bump in the road but if we have decided not to make this broken world any worse than it already is, we can find our way around the bumps with laughter in our eyes and loving care in our hearts.

That way lies hope, change and the first few lines of a new song, one we can all sing together.