I’m about to challenge all those words, although I will, for this sentence, acknowledge their dictionnary confines. Since the whole hooha in my life, at this late stage of said life, but not lacking a single moment of sparkle, and, as I solidify, with great resistance, I notice words. They flicker about my head like the swallows, all of them going somewhere too fast for me to follow. I watch them flit away, catch the tail end, reach out to catch what I can never catch. Fleeting are they, and so are many things, many people, it seems, and I know it, have known it for decades, had forgotten it in the steady dusky trudge of olding. I had. I really had. When I reconnect with the students we had working with us over a decade or more, I hear of families, even of teenagers, of the birthdays and failures, the surprises, the moments, and I am confounded. These wee ones were my wee ones, once. They arrived all full of promise, fists up, (particularly the girls) and with intelligence we really needed in order to create a huge charity that still lives on today – The Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust, one committed to benign research in Atlantic Waters.

I remember walks down to the pub after looooong days at sea, doing this research thing, my own boys as crew, or skippers, eventually, and the buzz, oh the buzz of being recognised and invited was so exciting. I thank them all. I get that this sounds ‘all about me’ and that’s another thing I would blow out of the water, given time. It’s dismissive and judgemental and, ok stop there.

To the point, or points. Solidify gives me indigestion, the word, that is. It sounds like sludge. I don’t do sludge, even though these past few days of what, of coping, no, of moving on, no, of understanding, no, I sense a sentence barking for ‘in’. I may not be such a writer. The confluence of contradictory wordage can split an understanding. I think I need my dad here. When, let me develop this……the challenge is made (weak word), the challenge accepted, the pistols at dawn are an inevitable. And, although I’m unsure of that word too, I kind of like it. Hearing it, or reading it, gives me fight.

I was fine as I was. I was in sludge, I now know. I was thinking, I am over the hill, now. I am 71. I know I am feisty, I know I am strong, I know I am lonely, I know I am, what? I know obeisance. click. I know levitas. click.

And here is where I challenge, Foundling. With the deepest respect. I am she.