fear

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Island Blog – The Truth of It

We don’t tell the truth. No, we don’t. We decide on a persona as we get out of bed. We do this because, well, in my case certainly, there is an abundance of moaners wherever we/I go and we/I don’t align with moaning. However, this makes it tricky for truth telling. I know this, have known this for decades. It’s as if the one we once were, the upbeat, smiler, joker, uplifter is somehow fixed, like a creature in a snow globe or a face in an old photo, the one who never changes. But we all do.

This storm frightens me. The gusts up here on the island are loud and fiery, up to 80mph. I know, I do know, that my gone man knew exactly what he was buying. He knew the gales, the wind shifts, the structure of home, the waiting for challenge that it faced, whilst catching the sun and backed by a woodland of 180 year old pines, not one of which would ever fall on the house because the prevailing wind would always push them backwards and even as I sit here listening to the huge punches of storm, I know that they won’t fall on me. Still the noise is still scary. It’s as if all the worst devils, or the most fiery dragons are initiating a full frontal attack on my home, and not just mine. However, it was my big frickin window and I met it, wondering, in the dark of the onslaught, the sudden rush of colding down my stairway. I danced up, I did, and heard the sound of anguish, the pull and push, heard the defeat, saw the big window fighting against it’s fines, confines, the plastic and glue and whatever which holds this big-ass glass in situ. This wind was winning. Gusts of up to 85mph and just me. For now. And there’s a thing. I rose, I did, I know this fear, I have been against this power before. I remember.

The roar was deafening. Everything falling off everything else. Darkness outside, no-one there. Power out. The wind gusts terrifying. It’s dark now, scary. So, here am I, window was tight shut, and not open, at all, but even in that not open thing, a hinge broke. Split, freaked the whole frame out which, in my opinion was never an intelligent build. And then she bucked and pushed against gusts up to almost 90mph. I could do nothing, my strength a nothing. The window is big and heavy. In the dark and the slam of rain and wind, I ran to my neighbour who was alone with her kids. He’s at the pub, she said. I’ll drive down and get help. Men came but even they struggled with the power of the wind, managing, eventually, to drag in huge posts to wedge the window almost shut, the props against my bed, already drenched, then wedging my bed against the back wall. Mud and leaves and rain everywhere, but the window was re-instated at last and I am so very thankful to them. I slept in another room, well, sort of slept as the massive power circled my house, keening like a banshee, slamming huge unearthly fists against the face of my old stone home.

I heard no sounds beyond that during the night. Heard nothing of the devastation behind me, in the ancient pine woods. 20 massive old friends uprooted and lying on their backs, one of which flattened the Honey Shed whilst another fell right through the power line, leaving dangling wires. It took four days for any clearing, for the power to come back on, after everyone else got their light back the day before. And now, a hot shower after all those hours of cold and I’m okay and all the visits from neighbours, the delivery of soups and power chargers, all those hours of I’m okay when I wasn’t at all. I was scared, alone, small and without appetite. I was fearful that now I am responsible for the remaining pines in the woods, the ones which never bothered to grow a good spread of roots because the big guy in the face of all this wild shit is protecting the rest of us, or so they believed. These pines are now seriously wobbly because these huge gales will keep coming and they are not prepared for the onslaught.

It thinked me. Am I? All I have learned from himself must be in there somewhere, in my head, in my knowing. There is a huge amount over which I have no control, but there will be something, some things, over which I do. For now, however, I am thankful, yes, and completely wrung out. And my damage was nothing much in comparison to others.

I know that truth, but my truth is also the truth.

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Island Blog – Wild, the Willies, a Tee-shirt

I’m not sure how to begin this one, because there are so many levels around storms with ridonculous names, not that I have a problem with the actual names, but up here, they are just frickin storms and they never, btw, stop long enough to exchange pleasantries. The levels….well, we know a storm is coming. It’s in the clouds, the yellowing of the sky, the way things suddenly feel more acute, a turn to look at what isn’t there, but which is heading t’wards us bullish and quite without an explanation. The air, pre storm can catch in our throats, a silence but one which causes us to look left and right, a heart gasp on a street mid shopping.

Another level comes in the shape of concerned others outside of said storm. A fear driven but loving message, and I completely get the fear driven thing because (about to rant) the news is always waaaaay over the top and it does make me mad, as if we, who live, and have lived, here for decades and longer don’t know how to sort out a thing like another storm. And I am the same, if one of my beloveds is in a ‘storm’ I am not there to experience.

Anyways up, it was wild walking under threatened branches, the West zinging in by the time I got my boots on this avo, a complete shift from the morning massivo gusts, and they were huge, a slam dunk, a heart gasp. I watched the conservatory roof lift and luff and I did pray. Don’t leave me. That’s my prayer. Hold tight, as I will. Stay close as I will. I still get the willies. I do. My thinks are thus…..when I feel the fear, tickerley, (family word) when it is dark, power off, winter, cold, the alone of me rises like a she devil, mocking. But I have learned to cant flight with her, and I am dynamic in the wild, I know it, I am just me but that doesn’t mean I am nothing.

I can still see the fear, the alone, the dark, and what I do is this, once the power comes on again and the storm is losing breath, I upstairs myself for a shower and a change, and it isn’t just clothal. I do change, I add different earrings and, today, I chose a tee-shirt (my favourite) in red with a message.

Bloody difficult Woman.

I love it.

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Island Blog – A Thingummy Tree, and a Surprise

Another lovely warm morning, too hot, actually, to read my book in the full sun. I look to the Thingummy tree over there, all that dancing shade and the two pigeons coo-ing on a branch. David Bowie, I think, as I take in their colourful feathers, flagrant and sparkly bright, as most creatures are in Africa. They even coo musically, more the beginnings of a melody and not irritating at all. Beneath is grass trying to grow, elephant grass, tough and fat-leaved, but failing somewhat in the growing palaver. Mostly, I notice, there are ant mounds, wee ones, not termites, little tumps of sand with an air hole I am careful not to block with careless step. I consider what to lie on that close to the ground. I’m thinking snakes, beetles, all those other crawly things, none of which I mind as long as they don’t sting or bite me. I haul out a yoga mat, towel, pillow, book, glasses and the ever necessary water bottle, and lay down. All goes well for sometime, the shade most pleasant, the David Bowies hopping around me, the flying things remaining in the air. So far so good. I had just finished The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, a fabulous read, and, becoming completely captured by Marjam Kamali’s The Stationary Shop of Tehran, I failed to notice that something was crawling up my body. It, or she, had managed quite a distance over clothing, and it wasn’t till she arrived on my shoulder, and tickled, that I snapped my head around to look. It’s always wise to look before swatting in Africa.

The sun was almost blocked out and I kid you not. This insect is huge. 2 inches long, an inch deep, scaly and brightly striped, red and black. She was, I swear, as startled to see me as I was her and, I confess, I did swipe her off, apologising as she plumped to the ground beside me. She took a minute to gather herself and then, snail-slow, no hopping, she began to wander into the bushes. She is a female African Great Grasshopper, at least seven times larger than the male and spectacular to look at. Our encounter, albeit harmless, kind of put me off lying there like bait. I read the same page twice, darting looks over my shoulder and jumping at every tickle. Ridickerluss, I know, I know, but once the thinks think me, I am done for.

I had made a promise to myself on the yesterday, I remember, and when all my hearty thoughts rushed in like I knew I had to push them away and just go. I couldn’t take a bag, a house key, anything pinch worthy, particularly not on a Tuesday when dawn rises with a lot of noisy lid closing as many poor folks, knowing it is bin day, riffle through old rubbish to find whatever they can to eat, to sell, to repair, to make into something. Not a day to be leaving a bag on the beach, even if it is always in sight. Starving folk run fast. So, cozzy on, shorts and a sun top and the always bottle of water and off I set, marching down the road towards the Ocean. Skies scud skimpy clouds, the blue endless and white teeth flat welcomes and greetings from black and coloured faces. I met the fire service attemting to stem a burst water main, a massive burst of water arcing way over my head, and we joke about me getting soaked so ‘move quickquick Ma, Ayeee!’ The car guard who watches over parked vehicles wishes me a lovely swim, and on I go, ducking under the road, dodging piles of kelp, through the freshwater flow from the Flei (marshland) and onto the white hot sand. No more thinks are thinking me as I strip off and head for the waves. The water is warmly glorious, the waves lifting and lowering me, the salt delicious on my skin. I swim a length or two, then sit dripping myself dry in no time. I watch other swimmers, dogs in the water, children at play, and I smile.

I surprise myself sometimes, when the thinks don’t think me and I take action.

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Island Blog – Equinoctial

When you find yourself, suddenly, as an author, as if you’ve suddenly elevated to some level above everyone else, with the looking down puff up that comes with so called fame, albeit momentary, it is not what you originally thought it might be. Told, as I was, that I need to blog to engage with Facebook, to put myself out there, no matter how much I might hate being the focus, how much I still hate my body, how little confidence I have when everyone is looking at me and waiting for something. For what? Oh I got that bit. People, my people, my could be friends are looking up at me and I don’t like it. I was down there with you, but yesterday, playing on the streets, hooling the hoop, laughing in the lunch queue, swapping stories of how frickin awful the weather was on wash day, and how much we hate Mondays. I remember, deciding, I had to move back home. Now, let me be clear. I did not, and never will, elevate myself because of what I have achieved. What I have achieved, what any other person has achieved, tells me absolutely nothing about who they are, who I am. Are we good to our partner, kids, family? Are we kind, always, understanding, always? Are we able to forget self in moments of stricture and irritation. Are we? That is how we are, in truth.

I felt the cold today, the nudge of Autumn. I have a few jerseys (jumpers in American) and I required a more substantial one today. And that, jumper, jersey thing brings me to a point. As I write, a blog, or read other stories, or listen to them, I hear a word I thought I knew well being ‘wrongly’ presented. I check it out. The Brits have one way of spelling this word and omg the Americans have moved a whole consonant. My musical mind, the heretofore understood mathematics of language rising up in me like Mozart in a mood, fights this. It was spelled this way, for ever! But not now. Now we flex, those of us who will. We become equinoctial even when being that close to any change is, at best, a right pain in the mental arse, at worst, a tsunami.

I felt the chill today. Actually, that is pants. I felt it a wee while ago, but did the whole pretend thing, and amn’t I great at that! It isn’t that I don’t want the equinoctial change, I love it, but there is a difference when we get older. I think of all those who are terrified of the long winter months without support, without food. I have never been there, but I see it and, as I write from a place of stone-build, a fire burning and food in my fridge, choices even, my humble stumbles. If writing could change anything, I would write it. Even as I say that, I know that brave journalists, brave writers have done exactly that. I bow to them.

We allow ourselves to become so caught up in our own stuff. I do it myself. But, but, and but again, when I notice I am all caught up in the sludge of ME, and it sickens me enough to march up the stairs, to dress myself, to pull on my boots and to step out even though that judge inside my head is urging Rest, Don’t Bother, Stay Home, Do Nothing, I push through and it is a push. Once outside the door, I breathe in the cold, hear the Robin, see the rain, feel it, watch the bowing of roses in the wind. I get in my car and I go. I’m not sure where, but the where of where I was is not the where I want. I want to embrace a change, not as a watcher, but as an integral part. I want to be equinoctial.

I have no idea how to do this, have no plans, but I reckon, am sure, that there are gazillions of people who will be right there, clueless, like me, wanting change, scared stiff, stuck, fed up, lonely.

Hallo You.

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Island Blog – Awake the Echoes

Before I left on my journey into the unknown, my head was a full chorus of discordant voices, a clamjamfry of chaos, each voice certain it was in the right place and in the right choir, which none of them were. Once I realised that I held the baton, I regained control, thanked them for turning up and sent the whole lot packing, sans pay. This confusion was birthed from my own fears, of cancer, of therapy, of travel, of the ferry sinking, the train crashing, or not running at all, of the Zap Centre not able to find my name, etc etc. I imagined the latter and agreed with myself that I would be anyone at all, just to get this treatment into my past.

As I moved into the freezing and draughty corridor pre boarding, an actual ferry sat docked and gape-moothed, swallowing cars and vans and bikes, I felt those think-eejits choking out last breaths. Funny that……once I get the hell on with something that affears me, my imagined horrors become as wisps of nothing. The ferry did not sink. The train left on time and arrived in the right station. The hotel was expecting me and my room was comfortable and safe. For five nights and days I moved with growing confidence, walking the short route for morning radio-zappery, and thence to the Maggie’s Centre where they know just how to welcome all of us cancer folk, and those connected, who want to talk or don’t want to talk, who want tea or coffee or just to wander alone.

The imagined fears think me. Echoes, they are, of old voices, the shoulds and coulds and musts and might-but-didn’ts; of failures perceived, in fact, of all that our spectacular minds can bring to bear, in order to pulp us down. I can summon up a massive storm just thinking about a short trip somewhere, and, I know that many laugh at that. Overthinking, too much imagination, catastrophising, I’ve heard it all, and used to define myself as ‘faulty’ from such opinions, but not now. Now I have learned that, for someone like me who sees these possible disasters, albeit ridiculous, is, in fact, a wise person. I still go, I still feel the fear, but I still step out. A lot of the fears, breathed out from lungs of brass, I flap away, but some I pay attention to and then prepare, because I damn well will not give in or up or over, never mind the oldness and aloneness of me. And if, and when, I hear the echoes awakening, the old fears, the invitation to say no to every single adventure, even the weeny ones, I rise. Every time I rise. I don’t say it’s a breeze because it isn’t. It’s a bloody effort even to admit I am thinking about this journey or that. But, I will not settle on the settle.

Naturally, like everyone else, I would like the echoes to go away for ever and ever, but they won’t. They are rooted in a very long past, parents, their parents, and their parents, crusty old judges, confined in the corsets of their times. They are in our blood, and they will rise every time we feel anxious about anything. We dont have to listen, well, we do, because pushing them away only lasts a wee while. We need to say, hallo, I hear you, but you are not helpful to me so please go away. It works. Then you, or I, pull up our boots, feel shit scared, and get out there, no matter what comes next.

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Island Blog – The Bog and Lifting

Mostly, I am coloured up and cheerful as a chipmunk. Then comes a day when it is even a pain in the arse to get dressed. I don’t like these days, and they know it, because I can hear them grumbling and muttering each time I push myself on and up. And I do. I think it’s because I know about being in the bowels of a depression and how vicious and controlling it is. Thankfully this time is way back in my past, but the body holds the score and we both remember the control of it, the way invisible octopus arms smothered me, held me down and down some more until I forgot who I was, and why I was. The scars are there somewhere and when the past puts its finger on the trigger, I tense, I remember, and my inner fighter rises, stronger now, powerful, even if I am not. She will protect me but only because I call her up from sleep, and that is the key.

When someone has known the ghastly of a mental bog, the knowing never goes away. But, once lifted from said bog, something rises as a teacher. Do you want to learn, survive, bloom again? If, as in my case, the answer is yes-but, then out comes the sunshine of hope. Yes…..But….? Indeed. The but bit is important because you are up there, Oh Teacher and I am slimy and hopeless and full of self-hatred and remorse. How on earth will those beliefs change? Ah, says the Teacher. Just follow me. And I did, and I learned and I was a keen student. I remember faking cheerful, faking ‘sorted’ because in my day, depression was something to be ashamed of, something imagined. ‘This is all in her head’ they said, and they were right, but the dismissive way it was whispered in corridors, was not right at all. As if I had manufactured these days of darkness and fear, just for attention.

I am not depressed now. I have learned much over the years, discovered many wonderful inroads into intelligent and compassionate support, walked them, learned the routes to feeling worthwhile, important, valued. T’is a goodly map. I also know, and believe in, the tactics for arising from the bog. I understand that the bog is still there, but I have found footholds. I know where the Pull Grass grows, that which I can grab a hold of, should I slide down. I have learned the weather patterns around a possible slide, and to avoid going out at such times. And, avoidance tactics are pivotal. On days such as this, when I can’t be arsed et wotwot, I am careful to do exactly what I want to do. I may cancel a meeting if it insecures me. I may decide to stay behind my four stone walls, light a fire, read or listen to an audio book. After all, who is judging me for my hiding, my declining, my indulgence? Only me. The critics of my past are long dead, all of them, parents, teachers, husband, so those voices are just dust in the wind. I know this now.

But, when such days wake me, confabulate me, I cannot dismiss them. A day is a day, after all, hours of it. But I can cock a snook at it, swish my sword, say I Am Important, I Have a Choice, and, most importantly, I Am Me (and that’s just dandy). I may not do this or that, those things my imaginary ‘yous’ keep banging on about, and, even if it feels odd at first, the more I do this, the bigger I grow and the further I walk from that damn bog. And my judges.

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Island Blog – Dungarees and Cake

I know we are in the middle of a right frickin blast of an angry storm. The MET office is in a panic and everyone is warned of death. Although the catastrophising is ridiculous, I am very aware of how traumatic this storm, and all other storms, are for those in the crosshairs. There is no diminish in that. It must be horribly real for many. I know this, am aware of this, as I walk beneath bonkers trees, swiping at the sky as in an attempt to slice the wind and, thus, to cut it down into bite size pieces. I notice the limbs agrounded, bits of what once was a whole, lying scattered and looking up at me as I stomp by through the mudfast track. I’m sorry, I whisper to them, as my yellow boots lift over each one.

The night noise is frightening. Punching fists of muscled wind at my glass, I start, awaken, freeze and imagine. Settling, slowly, I bring in the narrative. I am safe, I am warm, I have four stone walls around me and the dark is not a threat. I lie back on my pillows, sip water, listen. Well that’s an error of judgement, because the shriek of that damn banshee is punishing my window vents into submission, forcing their little openings into a desperate whistling breath, and it sounds me like a caust of ghouls on the wild. I stop listening.

So, and tell me this. How is it that my thought in all this melee of ghastly, not for me as yet, but for so many others, is ‘Will I wear dungarees tomorrow at our library meet?’ I have no answer to that, once I have clocked the inappropriateness (good lord what a wordy word) of my thought. But, I am guessing, that most of us, faced with the face-sure of what is happening, and what will happen more so, and again so,tor and so and so and so, will twist home to the familiar. All of us, UK wide are in the shit of this. But, is it shit? That wonders me. Many may say yes, and do nothing about it. Many may say yes and find ways to work with what is happening to us all. Some will be lost beyond the beyond of it all. Some will surprise. 

It is happening people. Meantime, I am going to our library meet in dungarees and with cake.

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Island Blog – Clanjamfrie

It is, I tell you. Well, for me anyway. Setting aside (why don’t we?) the immense lack of sleep, the immense lack of sleep……no, wait…. my dad has appeared “You cannot have an immense lack of anything, only a surfeit”. Thanks Dad. Who would believe that after over twenty years of being thoroughly dead, he can still appear to check my grammar? Perhaps, and this is up for discussion, but not right now when I’m busy flowing, I might be the one who calls him up.

We might also set aside the jolly fact that a nearby burn, turned torrent, pushed through the vent in my garage’s nether regions and created a whole new tributary, nameless but only because it was obviously a lightweight body of water which, apart from soaking all my logs and taking my wellies on a walk, one they have not enjoyed for years, disappeared as fast as it had come. Then there are the inside leaks. Only two these days, since goodly stonemasons, rubbing their chins as they peered into cracks and poor pointing, at a wall face without facia and inadequate rain resistant piping, managed by some miracle to plug the other 3 opportunities for ingress, 3 openings that our West Coast rain will always seek out and take full advantage of. I confess to a moment of sadness as I considered what wild creature may have found itself walled up.

I have walked, honest. Each day of this clanjamfrie/chaos, when the rain comes slantways and suddenly and utterly soaking, I have dragged Little Boots out for a rush and a bark at the deer, or a car, or even absolutely nothing at all. I wish I had her energy. I wouldn’t mind a rush and a bark at nothing at all. It might take my mind off the fear and the anxiety, and, more, it might mean I could let my roar out, which is something I have rarely, if ever, allowed. It feels like mental constipation. It probably is. When I awoke at 3 am I did sigh. I don’t mind 5, or, at a push 4, but 3 is just not right. The dark is pitch, the wind a howl, the rain a battering and yet, and yet, it is a new day, I am awake, and I get up and out, make tea and spend a lot of time addressing my thoughts. In my sleep, it seems to me, I am free of them, but not for long enough. It’s as if they crowd in the waiting room, just waiting for my eyelid doors to open, double doors, to submit to their pressure. I am told to be polite to them, to address them respectfully, but, much like the relentless days of rain and punching wind, I am losing the lady in me. She is becoming fishwife.

I didn’t go to the shop today. I just sat and sewed something without a name, listening to a whole audiobook (when did that become one word Dad?) thus losing myself in someone else’s story. I did sweep the floors, stack a ton of wood, lift my eyes to the sea-loch when a Whitetail Eagle made a hoor of a stooshie about something, or someone. I heard stags moaning and roaring in the rut. I watched, and hissed at, drivers who shot past my home, through now deepened potholes, splattering the arse of my little mini puddle brown. I listened to the click and crack of the woodburner munching wood. I listened to music, a bit. Actually the whole frickin day was just a bit of this, a bit of that. I have been up too long this day.

I think it’s the waiting. Waiting is, as we Celts say, shite. Always. And then when the waiting is over and the result is clear, we settle back into the clanjamfrie of our lives, as if the leaks and the rain and the inability to roar, and that interminable waiting meant absolutely nothing. As I will, no doubt.

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Island Blog – Light will Always Out

You are my everything, these scared days, you who read my twaddle and who respond, or don’t, doesn’t matter which. I see the stats, just general, but I know how many of you wonderful two legged creatures read me up. I cannot tell how how, right now, that makes me feel supported and, well, interesting. You will be interesting too. Know this and hold it tight, as you traverse the sticky roads to work, school, through troubles and strife, through pain and upskittlements. I am a fighter. You too. Know this as well. Although it is true that, in our own very personal happenings, we all walk alone, there are many others who walk a similar path. We may not see them, nor ever meet them in this life, but it matters not. Just to know it is enough. And, when I am scared, I don’t want to be fixed. I don’t want to hear that it will be over soon, because who can promise that? I don’t want to hear stories of rising from the sinking I am currently in, the swamp of it, like Duchess, my beautiful brave strong and loyal heavy horse, who ended her days on a wild shore in a night of hail and storm. If you want to know more, buy my book, Island Wife. It was the very worst night of my life, to leave her there, up to her oxters in a sucking bog, knowing she couldn’t possibly survive, all one ton of her, all her grace and fealty slowly, oh so slowly, freezing unto death. However, I make no connection t’ween my current fear and her dreadful demise. It just came out onthe page and I will leave it there, for she deserves her name to be known beyond my own troubled heart that cannot make sense of it, nor able, it seems, to let it, or her, go.

I know that cancer comes to the best of us. We do not deserve it as punishment, there is no such thing. No God nor gods, no past crimes of commission, nor omission, bring down the hammer on our heads. Life is not about just deserts, but, more, the chance, no, chances, (for they are endlessly proffered) to do good, to make right, to stand for justice and against injustice. This I believe and, indeed, practice. I also believe that all people, all people, are intrinsically good souls and doing their best, thus disallowing blame in one fell swoop. What the hell does that mean? Moving on……I am scared. The waiting for surgery, the unknown is a longth of minutes and days. I wake early, happy to see another, almost morning, check the stars or the cloud. Even clouds cannot control light. It will always out.

And there, I rest.

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Island Blog – Some Days and a Dragon

Some days lift without me doing a thing about said lift-ness. Rising with the early light, everything flows in perfect synergy with everything else and there is no chaos within or without. My body feels lithe and supple, the music, Satie’s Gymnopedies, swims through the dawn, my home and me. Birds flit between the feeders, goldfinch, siskin, blackbird, sparrow, woodpecker, dunnock, chaffinch. No neighbourly cat yet to explode them into the sky, no sparrowhawk to bring them down, just soft reverence to Life herself. I dress, make coffee and wonder how everyone else feels about this morning. Across the sea-loch, mist ghosts the hills below what might just be a blue sky. I haven’t seen one of those for weeks and it’s a welcome sight, one not to be taken for granted as we don’t get ‘spells’ of weather on this island. One day may be all we can ask for, one day of dry, a gift and not one to be ignored but instead to be celebrated actively, mindfully, each minute thoroughly lived because tomorrow, that day that never comes, may well open grey and wet, the sky closed once again.

During these widow days I have known many mornings, many hours of self-doubt and fear, of loneliness and sometimes, despair. Although I know that I must, absolutely must, animate my inner poltroon, start believing and continue to believe that I am more than able to live not only a solo life but one which can still really live even with a missing part. It will always be thus because 50 years of marriage is a very big chunk of any life and to be left behind inside that life now empty of all that was familiar is discombobulating at best. It is almost 2 years now, no, more, because dementia eats a person up little by little and ten years of watching that monster nibble away changed us both. But still, the familiar remained. I knew him and he knew me and no matter the ancient battles fought, neither of us ever won. Now I am just me and sometimes I feel very small indeed. I can spend all night awake freaking out about absolutely nothing real, such as what I will do when my oil tank leaks gallons of oil into the garden, or a huge pine crashes through my roof opening me to the sky in the midst of a hooligan gale when it’s snowing and my neighbours are away in Tenerife? Now, however, a bit further along the road un-travelled I find myself wandering through interspace, a sort of misty corridor of in-between. I am moving, learning how to create a new familiar. Ignoring the clamjamfrie of panics, I sit with myself and we chat. What can you do within this situation, she asks. I close my eyes and let said situation settle into some sort of shape. Nothing about the being alone thing, I begin. She nods. Nothing about the gale. Ah, but I can ask a tree man to check the pines and I can call the oil tank man to check that. Good, she says. Get on with it.

There is nobody in this world, no matter how rich, how well-organised, how balanced who can avoid the big things. Things like gales, oil leaks, death. Nobody. So that means that all of us can learn new ways, a new familiar, but only having gone through the dark times, the rain days, the storms both inside and out. Courage in the face of ‘disaster’ has legs, a brain, strength and power. Fears flit like birds all the time but I can explode them into the sky if I think ‘cat.’ Imagining disaster is normal but not liveable with for long. This state demands action, not helpless panic. To ask, What can I do about any of this? is the question, followed by action and fuelled with courage, even if it feels as though courage seems to have gone off to India to find itself. The human spirit is unbreakable unless that human turns his or her face to the wall and I am not doing that, no matter what.

I was reading about Koi the other day, those beautiful Japanese fish (originally from China) we might see in lakes and ponds far far away from this place. Koi represent courage, the overcoming of difficulties, challenges, big horrible threatening life-changing things. It is said that Koi can swim upstream against any current. It can fight its way to the top of a waterfall and when it arrives at the top, will transform into a powerful dragon, not a destructive one but one re-shaped by all that life has thrown at it, all that it has learned on its journey. I like the idea of that. The thought lifts me, encourages me to face my challenges, make friends with my loneliness, and more, to keep on keeping on whilst engaging completely with it all, even the fearty times. I might become that dragon one day. What larks, Pip!