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Island Blog – The Grannies, the Shelf and Doorways

We are many. We are legion. We step back having been the quickstep for decades. We hold the walls, hold to the walls. We keep the balance, we interfere, we quicken and we falter. We don’t know who the hec we are a lot of the time, apologize and curtsey in doorways we never knew existed before, not in this house of endless meals, of welcomes, of beds made up short notice, late talking, of searching without the right language into the new world, one we really don’t understand, the lie of the land all around the home, bodies everywhere, party detritus tidal in its curve over a once ok carpet. Of a lot of holding back, of rubbing old tinsel lips in ponderance, of confusion and inexellence, where once we were excellent, the ones who bandaged, made fast decisions, even overriding the hesitating grandpas, who btw were astonished to find themselves on that high shelf, in my generation. In the laughness I see exactly that in the generation after me. Nobody is ready for that shelf.

For me, oh I know I am lucky, fortunate, blest, whatever. But I do remember the full stops, the commas, the parenthesese which came like a blow. It was never that I was eradicated, never that, but I sensed the invitation to full stops, commas and doorways. I was suddenly not who I was. Not excluded, never that, but there grew woods and motorways and lifestyles that rose up between us, between me as the feeder, accommodator, welcomer, and the new woman in his life, the new man in hers. It thinked me of those shunting trains on tracks, always going backwards. And I did. I curved away, into foetal at times, unsure of my voice. I had never even thought about my voice before. I lived in chaos, beautiful chaos, exhausting chaos for many many years and I was she. I was She. I lost my voice. Not the actual voice but the knowledge of it, the recognition for me. It had been an usual, ribboned, rainbowed, musical, gifted and now the hesitation to emit anything vocal spun me into a hole in the ground.

Something rose me, rised me up. It was the acceptance that you, young person, now my child’s beloved, is a generation below me. I want to learn from you. I also see your welcome. I am aware of doorways. I respect you, see your dreams, love that you want time with me, invite me into your video games and endlessly bleeping iPad or whatever trackillion light tracts. And your beautiful children, real humans with a truant of consilplisit emotions and longings and dreams. And I am still Granny, or one of them. There is always a welcome, warm food, bandages and no judgement although I might twist a tea towel at you if you don’t help with the washing up.

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Island Blog – Symphysis and Sine Qua Non

I am not friendly with the new Oxford Thesaurus. The original, assembled in 1800 and something, would have been filled with delicious words, now long stuffed in the attic. Words with musical flow, words which have depth, structure, timpani and texture. I don’t mourn their loss. I do mourn their loss, but I will still find them, even though I knew nothing of the 1800s beyond the authors and constraints of the day. Today I was thinking of conjoinder, of the word for life partner, of the push and pull of any relationship. Glancing back to my own past, I saw a scatterment of brilliance, of sunlight and of storm and of unclinch. I saw the giving and the taking, of the imbalance. In the words of my old Thesaurus, battered and losing yellowed pages given half a chance, I find so many words. I was satellitic. I know I was when I fell in love. I orbited without question until I did, and then came the tumbles. I think we all know what I am saying here. Falling is wonderful and euphoric and scampatious but it doesn’t last. Looking back, glancing, I can’t say I can point a finger at the timeline when something shifted, but it did.

Relationships are a bizarreness. We contain, maintain, restrain, align, define, rejink, rethink. It’s how life is and that’s not a gloomy thing, a shadow counterpart, a darkling sepulchre. Oh no. It’s a profferance, a chance to rise. When I realised that this orbiting thing just made me dizzy and distant, I cut off all my long and thick chestnut hair with pinking shears. I was in a temper, yes. He loved my hair. I hated it. The cutting was a ferocious hack, painful and very slow. I remember walking out looking like a waif in wellies and taking pack lunches to both himself on the silage cutter and Bruce on the Something Else. I went to Bruce first. Oh, he said, his smile a bit wonky. Good luck. I nodded, handing him up big sandwiches and a drink. That walk between both tractors saw me and Lunch full focus, could have been miles. I was so visible. My first No More Orbiting illuminated, every stumble step, every mental correction, every giveaway, every risk held in my body like fizz.

He took his lunch, his face rockface, turned away. I had hours till he was home, the weather good for cutting and bailing the precious winter food. I remember the skin on my back alight as I walked home, the relief on entering the farmhouse kitchen, then the fear, the judgement I knew would come. School collection and noisy kids were a good distract. Eventually, he came back, tired, wanting what he had left at breakfast, missing that. But I had landed, no more orbiting. I had no idea where I had landed, but I had, I could feel it, the roots growing from my feet, solid and symphasistic. I didn’t feel strong at all, and even though I was banished from the marital bed, I had begun a singular journey in a conjoined duo, and I could not go back, would not.

Sine Qua Non.

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Island Blog – You Did This

An ordinary day. I awoke to my range sputtered out and her sputtering was soot, all over soot. Thankfully, possibly politely and to save me, her spit didn’t go too far. Anyone who has dealt with soot will know how determinedly it holds to itself. Tiny balls of refusal, sitting there, all sizes,complete and resolute. Cleaning cloths are ruined in immediacy. However, I know this game. She, the Spitter, the Fed Up. Someone turned me down too below the hum beat of the home and she obvously struggled to breathe, eventually panting into something big and black and stuck to the wall, like a nothing much. When I arrived down about 6, I could see the story. Ok, I said, because she is very important to me and keeps my winters a warm hug and much reassurance I will call in the sweeps. Your throat is choked and you have done so well, because, if I am honest (confession here), I knew her flues were compromised and did nothing about it. I am not a woman who does nothing about an alert, but this time, I did. I swabbed her down, caught those balls of refusal into kitchen roll and binned them. She, my lovely warming range will have her skirts twirled and her breathing tubes whistle-cleaned and her privates rid of all amorphous carbons next week. A relief for sure.

The day dindled on with a this and a that, gentle and amorphous. I did things, swept floors, enjoyed watching the trickles of my life conjoin and connect. I watched the sky, the cloud bumps and the pull-aways, the almost parental cloudal wrap, as if the kids need corralling. I washed things which required washing. I fed the birds, watched them jink along the fence, saw the long unpainted fence, thought about that. I read awhile, and then something blasted in my phone, a voice saying my mobile is in danger, hacked, all information already absorbed. It was alarming at first, the voice cutting through the audio book I was listening to, I will not panic (I told myself). And it kept coming. Your private information, bank info, passwords, social connections all compromised, all hanging off the cliff. I still didn’t panic. I might be ostrich here. I did breathe a lot, out in out in, mostly out. I thought, child. I thought Stu. In the overtake of my screen, where the invader could not be swiped away, I could still connect with him. He talked me through it all, go here, swipe there, delete there. All done and deleted.

It thinks me. There are a gazillion things I can, and will, sort myself. There are more which I cannot. I believe that the strength, the power in me is knowing that and then recognising it and then taking action. Tripling. I see the tripling gate. If I go through this, ask for help, I am weak, a failure, needy.

I say oh no. You are brave. You are real. You were the strong support once, and through decades of so-called ordinary days full of soot and cold and turnaways, for days, weeks, months, years.

Remember them and smile. You did this.

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Island Blog – Tinkle Rain

Today begun massively soggy. I heard the grass groan, I swear I did, it woke me at 5. Pelting wetness as if anyone or anything needs that, at least here. Africa might. Thing is we are within the mercy of mercies here, standing under awnings, umbrellas, bus shelters, trees and buildings because there’s too much of this wet thing…..and everyone is bored with repetition. I need to decide my decisions. It matters as I am no control freak, whatever the hec that means beyond being a judgement from someone who just feels better making that judgement. However I do want to exert some control over that which I can, or could, within certain circumstances, exert said control. Not rain, unfortunately.

I decide this is the way it is up here. I remind myself that Australia, Africa and other dry zones now face wild fires and drought. Drought? What does that even mean, feel like? In this wetzone, I cannot imagine, although I do recall weeny droughts here, like a few piddly days, maybe a week, ten days and the flapdoodle of local gardeners. I remember hose bans and those out at midnight watering. The Facebook illumination of these gentle gardeners, the pointing fingers. Didn’t like that. Sometimes a garden is all we have in a life of loneliness.

I feel the caution alone and trapped inside the soggy. It was cold. Preventative, a shuck, a go-away. Awake at five, the usual, and happy with the dawn blackbird and the light. Coffee, strong, black, music on. I am all about music. Like blood flow for me. And looking out. Early birds, the lift of geese, jeez the noise of them, as if every time they lift there is confusion, or so it hears me, a mere human.

I worked on a tapestry today, a half cut not much, boring elevation of colours with no direction. I am so crap at hobbies. I worked once on huge canvases with wild brushes, wild and unthought thinking, inspiration in my fingers, my heart red pulse, sensing everything, every sound, even a creak on the stairs, the call of geese, the sudden of single seconds. It’s quite hard to tamp down. But it’s ok. So back to the rain, and there’s a relevance.

It rained, pelting, unremitting, wet. I watched dog walkers in full waterproofs walk by. Nobody else had to do this wet walk thing. Around 4, the rain got bored of itself, turned into a smurr. I sensed a weakening and pulled on my boots and stepped out. It was glorious. The rain, still falling, was soft and gentle on my face, like a spar treatment. All branches were lowered, so dipping was required. The raindrops shivering on leaves, on the tiny fronds of woodland flowers, the sparkle of hope on fallen trees, beautified my walk. And the rain on my face. I lifted myself to that gentle caress, the cold of it, the knowing that this came from far beyond my knowing, carrying stories I will never know but have inadvertently absorbed. Felt like a tinkle, gentle fingers.

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Island Blog – Cross the Street

We walk as we always do, along the paths we know. Of course we do. It’s safe and familiar and we meet the same people, the same contours, the same trees and spaces and views. We know who we are along the way and it’s comfortable, normal, uneventful. To be honest, we don’t want ‘eventful’ not as a sudden thing, not in this life we have worked hard to bring into a shape we can manage. Manage. As if life is ours to control. No surprise then when a shadow falls on our path and we are suddenly and severely compromised. Of course, there is a perception thing going on here. Most of us, hopefully, won’t meet muggers, or a pavement explosion, but we will meet rejection, taunting, something that trips us up and makes us fall hard. Could be a realisation, a thought, an encounter, a sudden eclipse wherein we see what we have avoided seeing for possiby years.

Here’s a thing. A thing I have pondered for decades. What is it that keeps us in the familiar? Think on it. I am guessing that the people we most admire have broken the chains of it, whether in a film, a book, a story, the ones who actually had the courage to cross the street, those who said no, this is not me, and who stepped out and kept going, with the wrong shoes and no money and into the unknown .

I meet teens who know who they are and it isn’t who they supposedly were. They speak out and they cross the street and I applaud them because they are bravehearts. I know I am granny and old but I glory in this. We all deserve pavement space, can work together to shift and move, to single file or to shimmy around each other. I believe in this world and it’s about bloody time. We need each other, We need the skills we all bring to the work place, to the world to the pavement.

I have crossed the street, the odd times I have been in a city, when I knew I didn’t want to encounter what was ahead. Another time I could see a blanket of threat heading my way. Youngsters yes, joshing yes, but with the louding of parental lack and that saddens me. I didn’t cross the street then, although I probably should have done. I kept walking and smiled up. 10 lads, merry, Bacchus, The ages of my own boys. Hey, I said, have fun. Thanks Missus, they all said, swerving around me.

Not need then to cross the street, and there’s a message in there there too.

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Island Blog – Im Patient, Com Promise

I’ve just reversed out from under my desk. Not my desk. A desk inherited with uneven legs and good drawers and with a fallen sharp thing hidden in the down below. Much like me. I had, I noticed, flipped my Winnie the Pooh calendar to September which, even for twitchy, fast-running me, is an overdash and so I set to correct, losing the lot down into the spider depths, hence the reversing thing. This, as you may guess, is a complete irrelevance.

I am (searching for an adverb) fed up with not being able to do whatever I suddenly, and twitchily have done without any thought and for years. I cannot bend down lower than my waist. Well, that laughs me. Waists are, from my own observation, all over the place. However, I know where mine is, and I do not bend below. This constricts, obviously. I am required to curtsey before the saucepan cupboard, before the washing machine, the freezer, before the cupboard under the stairs, before the picking up of any fallen objects anywhere. I can hear my white goods, my doorways laughing at me.

When releasing my washing from the cylindrical drum, I am required to kneel. I was never good at that. I pull out the sheets, towels, tees and jeans and turn towards the skids. Still on knees because I can’t lift anything heavier than a pregnant hamster (they don’t say that), I work my way to the pulley. I rise, good core muscles, and take each piece by itself. It thinks me. I never did that before, just wheeching the whole damn lot onto the struts without noticing a thing. I notice things now. My olding pants require either new elastic or a trip to the bin. Perhaps this is what I learn from this limiting limitation, my eyes so very important, so momentarily com- promised.

Without my work in the Best Cafe Ever, I am remote, stumped, awkward with myself. That’s one truth. Another is the wealth of help offers for lifts, deliveries, friendship. This glorious community. I know I am an im patient. I remember being compromised in Tapselteerie days, so sick I was falling over, but there wasn’t the time nor the opportunity. I was the It and there really was nobody else who could fill my role. I am so rarely decked and thank the bejabers for that because I am twitchy and need to move on. Although I would love for arms around me, for someone to bring me fresh food, light the fire, the candle, gentle the evening, I am alone, strong at times, weak at others. Hearing swans overhead, rushing out to see their traverse, watching still tide, seeing the lushgrow across the sealoch, catching the firelight, hearing the music.

A com promise.

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Island Blog – The Wild

I remember the shout. Reef in the mainsail, now! I didn’t hesitate because with him at the helm, there was only me and that me was down below hooking a Moses basket onto a gimballed hook with a baby nestled within. I was fast, no hesitation. As I scooted up the steps onto the deck, I could see why this reefing mainsail thing was not something to be considered, nor questioned. There was a black cloud threat and building. Grabbing and affixing my safety harness and with rain already slicing the wind in two, I got to work. He risked a tilt into the quiet space between the was-wind and the now-wind, two very different creatures for sure and the huge mainsail flapped and crackled, bucked and heaved. I had never felt so alive, so valued, so very the It of the situation. Skidding, sliding, grabbing, holding, I used all my strength to crank the crank thing, bringing the huge mainsail down to the boom. I remember watching the sky appear above each reef. I remember my arms aching, my fingers flexing, turning, holding and that moment when all was safe, that massive sail contained and that sky glowering at me like she just lost at checkmate. I slid on my butt back to him, grin wide, eyes full of rain, and unclipped.

I remember the wild. The buzz of being so essential, so needed, so valued. He smiled me in. Well done, lass, he said and those words meant everything. The hanging baby slept on. The storm was nothing of the sort, just a teenage tantrum. The sky cleared, the night began and stars came out. Ha. I said, as I looked up at the wide expanse of a gazillion constellations. I got there before you all, and I did. It remembers me and I don’t say that lightly because even when we forget the feeling of such wild times, our body remembers. Water has a memory and we might do well to accept this as we, those of us whose wild times might seem beige and back then and of no import and no longer possible in the shape of what is. I have to challenge this, in myself for starters. If there is wild, was there once, it does not die. We will eventually die but the wild is like a fire within, a sparkle, a crackle, an opportunity, a magic. I don’t like to see it allowed to fade in someone’s eyes once health limits barrage in. However I also get it and it is so easy to believe that the wild was then and now I am compromised and afraid and kind of stuck with a stick and all I have are the memories of me doing crazy things I couldn’t do now.

Where’s that wild? Where’s that dancer, the one who was spontaneous when others dithered and who danced me till I was dizzy and on fire? Where’s the one who said yes we can do this, who made the fire on the beach, the one who said ‘ just lie here and see the stars’, the one who sang, who told stories, who always made something happen, no matter where nor what, nor when, nor who(m)? The wilders who always caught the magic, grabbed it, reefed it in at times and then let it fly. They still do and you don’t have to be young to grab the ties of that kite. T’is only fear that makes us pedants.

The wild is in you. Keep her fired up.

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Island Blog – Rebel, Conformist, Fear

When you have the rebel pusling through your veins, following rules feels like being really good at dodging bullets, those fired from the gun of ‘authority’. Whenever I am required to conform, I get this itch, everywhere. As a youth I didn’t always employ sense. I am altogether great with sensibility but going only with that has led me up some very dark alleys, and so I have grown up, sort of, although the call to irrationality is strong. For decades I thought there was something wrong with my wiring, that I was, and I was, a rebel without a cause. I like the word Rebel and for sure there are many times in life when a rebel is a very good thing to have within a pack of conformist ditherers, all drunk on fear. They say this so we should comply, even if we don’t agree nor understand and even if it feels horribly wrong. We will settle. I remember, once, visiting a very proper house with everything in place, dust free, with everything either beige or polished and being taken into the ‘front room’ which had obviously only been used at wakes or on Sundays. Take a seat on the settle, she said, pointing to one, an arthritic looking straight-backed L-shaped thing, and as rigid as a born again, and deciding I wouldn’t. I walked to a chair instead and parked my butt. I could tell from the snort that I would not be invited again, but I just couldn’t do what she asked. The very word riled the rebel in my red-blood heart and that rebel took over.

So, when I come back from eye surgery with a loooong list of ‘don’ts’ I manage my own snort. I know it is important to comply in this instance because I want clarity, but there is so much about fear in just about every ruling and I won’t play with fear. I know that I make choices others avoid, but here’s the thing. I have common sense now, although there is nothing common about it, and I thank my parents and my granny for gifting it to me. For all they complied, they were rebels, not overtly, but subtley. It was in the twinkle, the suggestion of mischief, the stepping out of line as the line dozed off in boredom and compliance. They had a voice and they used it. It’s nothing to do with birth, nor wealth, nor privilege, nor the desire to be better/louder/cleverer than the next person. It’s a blood rush, a have-to and it is all about bringing mischief back, bringing fun back.

In the Premier Inn, Braehead, I met many ordinary folks over two days of consultation and surgery and I noticed, as I always do, that everyone feels alone, that everyone welcomes a smile, a chat, a craic, everyone. Conforming is doing a grand job of turning us into robots, lonely, silent robots. I watch someone heading for work, worried about something or someone, light up and twinkle me back. A fireworker, a builder, a nurse, a medical supply driver. We have nothing in common and yet we do. We have a few moments of conversation. I could have said nothing but I said something and from that we connected. Each time we both left thinking of each other. They probably left with a chuckle, this old woman outside a hotel watching the diggers dig the life out of a spread of green to make room for yet another building, but that’s ok with me because I saw the twinkle, the fun behind their eyes, and I heard them, I saw them.

We need more rebels.

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Island Blog – A New Matrix

I’m squinting at the screen with my dodgy eye. I have two, by the way, but one is dodgy and on Monday I am offski for minor surgery. All will be well, of course it will, it always is because there is a matrix for this as there is for everything. It thinks me. Matrix, from the latin ‘Mater, meaning mother/womb with the secure landing of ‘ix’ gives me confidence. Needless to say I am not concerned on behalf of the surgeon. He, and he is a ‘he’ has trained for ever and comes highly recommended. It’s the cricks in the matrix which unnerve me, the ferry not running, or running late; the potential miss of the train to Glasgow, the stranding of me. I remember, once, that all we had to do was to check the maritime weather report to know for sure that we would make the crossing. Not now #cricks.

Perfection is a rubric, a guide, a set of rules and moves and decisions that would always result in a tidy cube. Over generations this rubric slices into lives, fed wordy, initiating acceptable behaviours, cementing vows of loyalty, stultifying relationships and informing choices and, in places of power, decisions. Such a complexity and so rigid, a scoring guide with awards proffered to those who comply. And, bizarrely, I get it, even though I have lived within a rubric matrix at times in my life and fought through the cricks to escape. We do need order because disorder is unsettling, even though the ancient greeks and well before them considered Chaos as being the most powerful auger of change. I also think they were right because only from chaos does anyone, eventually, choose a new rubric, to then form a new matrix.

Think on it. In a war zone, when bombs take your everything and the street is a heavy landing of rubble and dust, there will be a voice, a someone who rises and who gathers in the broken. In a family when disaster hits there will be one who rises, takes control. In a troubled mind, full of ferrets and snipers, a voice. These voices don’t dismiss the situation as so many humans do. There are no platitudes, no empty words, no sugar coating. They are simply there and vocal. Just saying I am here. I can keep you safe. Here’s a new matrix.

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Island Blog – The Influence of the Pause

Not my brilliant words but those of my wordsmith son in Africa, who can just say these things. The brilliance just falls out of his mouth, it seems, without thinking at all and with no sign of a ‘like’ nor an ‘erm’ nor a clearing of his throat as if in a bid to buy time. I had to write it down, and have looked at that phrase on my to-do pad for a few days, letting it influence deeper thought. In fact, I have employed it in my daily round, halting myself in my usual hurtle to nowhere as if somebody just might snip. out an hour or two, thus leaving me believing it is 4pm when, in fact, it’s bedtime. Pausing is indeed influential. For example I am washing my few dishes as quickly as I can, not noticing the plates or the old silver, or the ancient wooden spoon, my favourite and granny’s favourite before me because it has been so favouritised as to have warped and twisted into the perfect of all wooden spoons. I don’t notice the pattern on the plates, bought from the island charity shop when I decided to move on all the stuff I had washed and sparkled for 40 years, and was utterly sick of looking at. I don’t see the old cutlery, solid silver and generations old as I swish it through the suds, not wondering at all of the many hands which did just this in many kitchens when suds did not come in easy-squirt plastic bottles.

The air is warm today even as the sky is shut. Sometimes the sun gets pissed off at being in the wings and blares through the smoke and mirrors, a spread of white light, a dazzle, a blinding. But, mostly, the sky is shut. I did a lot of pausing today, stopping mid whatever and noticing myself within that pause. I could feel myself inhabiting the space this pause created as if I had only just caught up with myself. It was almost a surprise. I don’t know why we hurtle, except, perhaps, it is old training. If I hadn’t hurtled in the days of Tapselteerie, nothing would have come to fruition. What bizarres me is when we are advised to leave the past in the past when our body memory just isn’t listening. Don’t these wise ones know that?

I scattered some poppy seeds, all random and sent hope from own mouth. Are you talking to yourself? laughed a passing walker. No, I said, I’m talking to the poppy seeds. Oh, he said. I love poppies, he said. We have plenty in our garden. Do you talk to them? I asked. Erm, no. Pity, I smiled. They would probably benefit from a well-wish or two. He walked on.

I walked this afternoon, wearing walking sandals for the first time, the warm air encircling me. On the final leg I paused beneath the sycamores and listened to the Bombus, the bumble bees, filling the still air with their wing beats as they bumbled from flower to flower. As I was doing this pausing thing, I heard voices and saw a young couple coming towards me down the hill, full of chatter and love. Do you hear the bees? I asked and they paused. Oh YES! they said and we paused together and they asked me things as I did them. Then I saw her, the young hind walking softly up the track we sort of filled with ourselves. She stopped, looking at us. We are in her path, I told them. She wants to come this way, so let’s move into the trees. Immediately we had stepped aside, the beautiful creature walked confidently on and we watched her, saw her soft body, her straight back, her beautiful dark eyes, her long legs for the running.

And we marvelled at the influence of the pause.