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Island Blog – Paucity, Abundance, the Tallyman

It has now been just over four weeks since radiotherapy. Feels like four months, at times, so damn tired am I, and being tired is one hell of a pain in the aspidistra. If, when, I allow myself to indulge in self pity I wander into a day of paucity thinking. Not my thing at all. I don’t do paucity nor any other city, for that matter. I am an abundance thinker, dance being right up there for me. I have danced through apocalyptical landscapes over the years, moving purposefully along and crunching paucity underfoot, en route to heaven knew where, anywhere but there. I believed, and still believe, that moving onwards takes me to the beyond of, not only my skinny et collapso thinking, but also of the barren scape within which I appeared to be currently stuck. This tactic has worked well and still does. But the biggest bore seems to have roosted in my eaves. Tiredness, all day, and not just that neither, or is it either(?) for feeling consistently weary is not cheery, and although I have been told, oftentimes, to be patient, I am an impatient by nature.

Rising from another patchy night, I wheech myself out of bed, physically able still, and I command paucity to get-to-hec as I gather my abundance into a warm dressing gown as I descend the stairs for coffee and, hopefully, dawn. I know that dawn, bless her, will always come, eventually. As I sip the hot strong brew, black, no sugar, I call in the tallyman. Take a seat, I say, let’s count blessings, which we do, as I write them all down. I had breast cancer, which was discovered quite by chance; I had excellent surgery to remove the blight; I have been fully supported by the NHS, family, friends and others who know what cancer feels like, the shock of it, the concerns around it and the recovery therefrom; I live in the most beautiful place, on an island, alone and independent; I am loved by many; I can write, used to sing, can dance (a bit) and have full use of all my important extras; I have life, love life, live life. Now I need more coffee.

By the time dawn has risen with the birds and their glorious singing, my mind is full of abundance, the whining of paucity barely audible. Yes I am tired, yes I am impatient, yes I have lost a considerable portion of self-confidence, yes I am lonely at times, and scared of life, but who isn’t once over the cusp of 70? In other words, let these words float out into the big wide sky, to dissipate like steam. I say that out loud. Then I hear the door open and turn around. The tallyman winks at me as we both watch abundance holding it open for paucity to slink through. The door closes quietly and we all watch the slinker trudge down to the shore, and then disappear.

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Island Blog – A Crooked- Voiced Crow

I’m hearing sounds unfamiliar to me. Above my hotel lurks a crow with a crooked voice. Sounds to me as if he has wrongly wired vocal chords. I watch him make these strange calls and when a mate joins him on the CCTV camera, it thinks me. I might have, and did, at first, consider him a case for sympathy. With that voice, will he ever attract a mate? The rasp is more ‘Go Away’ than ‘Come Hither’ after all, but how wrong was my judgement on the matter!

Inside the warm and welcoming Maggie’s centre, I watch people. Over there is a man who has throat cancer, his voice, produced via a box implant is a hoarse and raspy whisper, his own voice gone forever. Was he a tenor or a baritone, loud-spoken or honey gentle or a bit of both, depending on circumstances? Did he shout, once, as he will no more, or sing, or summon the troops into battle? I will never know. Then there is the guy who has terminal liver cancer and is just out of hospital. Despite this, he is full of jokes and twinkle, talking to everyone, ready, always ready to laugh.

I watch newbies wander in, eyes darting left and right, looking for a safe landing. I hear the welcomes from the staff, the ‘Come Hither’ in their warm and compassionate eyes. Gradually, the newbie’s coat comes off, she is guided to the kettle, the coffee and the tea, the bowls of fruit, chocolates, biscuits and cake. We sit in sunshine behind the glass walls, talking, wishing each other all the hopes for full recovery. I am aware that some cannot hope for that, but, in talking to them, laughing with them, I can see the cancer slide away from their eyes, just for a moment, an hour, a day. Back home, back into the relentless barrage of tests and therapies, reality may well re-invade, and hope can be a heavy weight to lift up each day, for some. I can afford to play the fool, I am well and ridiculous and always full of mischief. (Mischief…….interesting word to pull apart, methinks.) But, even though I am so lucky, so without pain or a possibly hopeless road ahead, I am accepted because I have cancer. We are a new family and there is much to learn about each other, many random conversations to have, many opportunities within which to uplift each other. If I lived here, I would definitely volunteer in this centre. I would meet and greet, lift and encourage, play the daft eejit, sympathise and sit beside another broken bodied soul. And it isn’t just the one with cancer who needs such. There are partners, children, siblings and friends, all in a permanent state of shock, all battling with an overactive imagination, or with a sharp and agonising truth.

I am learning, as we all must, not to hide our diagnoses nor our feelings around them, but to stand up and out, as survivors, however long that survival might prove to be. To find each other, people we would probably never ever meet, had cancer not found a landing within our trusting bodies, a chink, a broken paving stone, a pothole, an unintentional welcome to a predator. I hear, and see, multi cultures in here. I see all shapes, all sizes, listen to all accents, and all of them are beautiful to me now, in a way they never were before. How easy it is, especially in a city, to march past all of this beauty without even a ‘Hi’. I’ve been ‘Hi-ing’ my walk to my radiotherapy appointment each morning, sometimes to the astonishment of the person coming towards me, so used are they to their own agenda and a perceived unfriendliness of everyone they don’t already know. Mostly, however, I receive a smile and a ‘hi’ back and that thinks me too. We can become so very lonely as we live out our lives, not because we want to, but perhaps through fear, or the ordinary process of keeping our broken parts invisible to all. We cover them in clothes and make-up. We keep our arms close to our bodies, our voices low. But what we all long for, in truth, is connection. We just don’t feel confident enough to reach out for it, to face the risk of rejection, for fear of looking foolish. But if we could just, like the crooked-voiced crow, call out anyway, smile to each other, say ‘Hi’ to a line of folk in a bus stop, a queue for radiotherapy, anywhere, everywhere, I know that loneliness would lift, just a little, and, who knows, it could lead to new friendships, as it has for me.

For anyone interested in learning more about Maggie’s Centres, I am visiting the one in Glasgow, on the Gartnavel Campus, opposite the Beatson Cancer Centre, but these havens of support are everywhere.

Just go to http://www.maggies.org

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Island Blog – Thinks on Waiting

I love this time of year. Yes, it does rain most days, but if I wait and watch, I can pick an in-between space within which to walk out with Little Boots, the wee dog. I am so not a waterproofs woman, to hell with that crackling stuff. I am frocks and bare legs and would go barefoot if the track wasn’t so sharp with stones and wotwot. The in-between times show me chiaroscuro in the wide open sky, like a light show no human could ever emulate successfully. I love the touch of cold grass beneath my naked feet each morning, the thrill of the cold, the smell of it, the fizz in my breath. I love the sound of raindrops (not on those hideous waterproofs), the soft plunk onto grass, the tinkle of it on the roof of my warm conservatory roof, like a tap dance of fingernails. I love the feel of wind in my face, the way the (cheeky sod) lifts the skirts of my frocks, all layered up now, and flaps them wet against my bare legs. I love the sound of the current nonsensically named wind as it divides the limbs of beech trees, oaks, sycamores, larch and pine. Each sound is unique to each tree.

As I move beneath the rain-laden canopy, ready to duck, a wind nudge lifts a limb out of my way. I smile and speak out my thank you. The floor of the wood is not soaked, latent fungi leaping out in oranges and reds and snowy white and danger. I don’t know my fungi, beyond the chanterelles, so I just admire, no touching. I navigate the muddy puddles, or ‘cuddles’ as my grandaughter calls them. They are too disturbed to reflect the sky and too muddy because there is traffic on this track, workers on the estate, families who live here, passing up and down just like I did, endlessly, when it was Tapselteerie and it was ours for a while.

As I head for home, the fire already merry, the afternoon beginning to lay down her weary body, to hand over to the evening, I consider all those waiting. I think of people, all people, not just those I know. Waiting for answers, waiting for buses, for appointments, for interviews, for a plate of food, for a future, for just someone to acknowledge the pains of a troubled past; for a child to be born, for someone to finally die. There’s a whole load of waiting going on in this world. The sealoch waits, I watched it do that waiting thing, as one wind puffed out and the other (Arlene???) headed towards it. I saw geese peaceful, unfluffed up. I saw a sea eagle perform in majesty so high above me as to let me know it was probably dodging ice, wings wide, slow, dip, cut the sky in half, level and return.

I waited all day yesterday to hear the results of my recent tests. I had a friend here and we both had notepads full of questions, ready, alert. Our alertness began to dive about 3pm. We couldn’t walk Little Boots together. We had to be beside the phone. No call came. So I made contact this morning and received an almost immediate return call. It’s good news. There is still a tumour, yes, we know that, but there is no second, just an extension of the original, like a tendril. All lymph biopsies are clear. Plan is to insert, under local anaesthetic (eek) a Savvy Scout, which will grab all the floaty bits, apparently. Then, a short while after that is done, surgery. I still don’t know what, as I still haven’t spoken with the surgeon, but I am not worried. I liked him, trust him, and his team. It looks like towards the end of October when all this will come about.

I know waiting is tough. For birds who want feeding, to those awaiting decisions on scary surgery. It is exhausting, and I am as tired as I was in the days of Tapselteerie. And I am also thankful. I know I have massive support and love from my family, from friends, from all of you and I cannot tell you how precious that is, in the times of worry or confusion or just plain shatter. And, this, too shall pass. Whatever comes next, I know the sensual joy of really living, of my connection to nature, of the sound of music, the lyrics of songs telling me I am not alone; of books and stories, of my own and the impact it had on hundreds of others; of this focussed and caring cancer team; of the ferry that still runs, of the rain, of the light in the sky and of the full moon, of clouds and light and the fact that I have plenty frocks all for the changing should I get caught in a deluge of cloudal tears.

‘She is one who can laugh at the things to come’. That’s a bible quote. I like it, very much. And I can wait, as long as it takes, with humour and sass, even if I have no idea of what for.

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Island Blog – Hallo and Thank you

Today I woke too early, my head full of monsters. Will I have major or minor surgery? Will I be strong enough to deal with it all? What will be the treatment after? Will I forget my headphones? (locate my headphones), or miss the ferry because the milk lorry has capsized in the Glen? Will I arrive, as I did for the Nearly Dead hospital visit, with one nightie, no cardy and no tweezers? Tweezers? Seriously? Will my little beloved dog fall ill when I’m away, and how long will I be away? Will the chimney sweep come, will the garden go to riot because I’m not watching it? Okay, you get the monsters. They all say YES, to all of the above, of course they do, the negative bastards.

Right, you lot, I said, startling the small dog into barks and a leap from her bed. Right! No, Wrong! You is NOT getting me in a right fankle at 04.30 whilst still inside my nightie (take 3, maybe four, do I have four?) and with my eyes barely focussed, you is not. We all rose from the tangle of duvet and I did try to leave them upstairs but they had a different plan. We watched the early birds, the light spreading over the sea-loch, over my garden, over the land, like a new story. Heretofore, this has given me a new vision, a new day, a new dawn, but this morning, no. The damn monsters of fear and anxiety, of a still resident exhaustion in my battle to be undead, kept up their clatter-chatter. It is a longtime since I had to fight them in this way. I tell myself, it is okay to feel these feelings, but it isn’t okay at all because they give me indigestion and backache and a squiffy head and no inner peace. I tell myself that anyone else would feel this way, but that doesn’t help either.

Do I not appreciate the support and love from my family, friends and blog readers? Yes, I do very much. So, why isn’t that enough? It thinks me, a lot and those thinks lead me to the (possible) conclusion that, no matter how many are around us, surround us, we ultimately sail alone. We need to manage our own craft across all sorts of dodgy oceans. In the knowing of that, I managed the hours of today, just. I rested a lot, read a whole book, walked into Tapselteerie and met not one soul, something that would normally delight me, but not today. Today I wished for an encounter, just a wee hallo and a passing chat. I went to the shop for a few bits now that my ‘recovery’ and ‘preparation’ demands a whole load of dark green vegetables, pulses, seeds and probiotics. I didn’t even know what that meant before now. I just cooked and ate.

I have decided that this living alone thing is not much fun, not when you want a Resident Familiar to proffer balance in the face of inner monsters. That smile, that joke, that ‘come on, let’s go out for coffee’, or to the beach, or something. Although my Resident Familiar left the relationship a long time ago when dementia arrived to take up residence, he was still here, a sometimes warm, living Familiar. I don’t want him back, but that is not the point. When a girl is swept off her feet at just 18 when she still has no idea about life beyond the parental home, she can be forgiven for feeling somewhat lost after 50 bonkers years of marriage to a dominant male and on the adventure of a lifetime. Being alone means I have to instigate everything and others, who have a Resident Familiar, are, well, busy until next Tuesday. I get that. I was always busy till next Tuesday, and for decades. But, on the other side of that, being alone is marvellous, so freeing, so uplifting, so damn new. How bizarre.

I am not moaning. Tomorrow will come and will proffer a new set of ideas, new feelings. Today is just today. So why do I write a blog? Should I not, instead, keep all of this to myself so as to spare whoever reads these words? Possibly, but I have been a polite girl/woman for a very long time and right now I feel raw and bloody and honest and congruent. I don’t want phone chats, don’t want visitors, don’t want anything at all, in truth, other than for these feelings to melt away. I am effortlessly positive as a rule because that is how I see this gift of a life. Perhaps, then, I am simply in a place I do not recognise, one that upskittles me, tries to trip me right over. Yes, that’s it. I don’t know this terrain and it is hostile. Simples. And it really helps to write and to post. Really, it does. In writing out my feelings about whatever is going on, and to send it into the ether, whatever that is, my spirits lift into a reassurance, that no face to face contact can give me. I think of you all, in Canada, In the States, in Englandshire, in Scotland, on islands across the world, and I reach out, saying, through my own stories, Hallo and Thank you for being there, for clicking on the ‘follow’ link to my blog, for reading my words. I also imagine your lives, tough at times, maybe many many times, easy here and there, the infuriations, the lifts, the shocks, the abundance and the lack. The bones of a life, the flesh and the guts of an ordinary/extraordinary time on this goodly earth. Life, I love you. I truly do.

See? I feel better now, just writing this. Hallo you all. And Thankyou.

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Island Blog – I’ll Meet You There

I have been away. Just for a few days, but what larks we had! Old friends, they are, sharing a long history, music, and song ribbons that connect us, plus a shared sense of humour. Nothing beats such times. We just know each other and have done since we were young and strong and with no thought of ageing, nor loss. Our hairstyles, remembered visually with the help of old photos were, well, of the times, big and long and slightly ridiculous. We moved differently then, thought differently, lived spontaneously and without care. We laugh at it all, whilst we remember that we had a million cares back then, as we fought our way towards our dreams, only to find that dreams are just dreams. We felt the setbacks like kicks to the gut, the disappointments as unfair and unwarranted, whilst the realtor of our lives flicked his/her whip at our reckless flanks, taking us down paths we never really wanted to take. Ah, t’is life. For all of us.

And then I came home, bobbing over the water on the old ferry, seeing old friends, also bobbing, looking older than I feel, but still bright with a smile and a welcome. All was well, is well, in my island home, my safe space, my beloved solitude, but. But that time I had away, those nights of laughter till 2 am, the music and reflections, spin me. I know the party has to end. I know that my life is not their life, still working their jobs and much younger than I, but it is very hard to settle. My normal is this shape. Days of just me. Days of either talking to myself or to my dog, or shouting at the radio when some presenter racks up my irritation to level 1. I have conversations with my Indesit (no fulfilling conversation there) washing machine, my linen cupboard who tells me she needs a tidy, the compost bin, which is worm-absent #worrying, or the trees I walk under, or the sparrow nesting under my tiles, or the neighbour’s cat. But I have to answer, too. It’s like playing scrabble with myself. Nobody wins, nobody loses. This is not communication, and that is what I miss. That is what I have to accept, somehow. It is gone, that chat with the Old Chum who abandoned me almost 3 years ago, the ordinary, simple, often infuriating conversations we take for granted until Death shuts the mouth of it, tight, and forever.

I know it is the same for all of us. The same story, whilst each story is wildly different. There is no Standard for this one. It is chaos, mess, random and, it seems, tenacious. I am told it is a process, a word that indicates progression, a sequential list of boxes ticked and sorted. That is a lie, all of it. The loneliness of loss has no process. It is a lion waiting to pounce, a giant with a Fee Fi Fo Fum in his mouth, a lightning strike, a tsunami, and it comes and it comes and it comes. Just when I think I’ve got this, ticked all the get-on-with-it boxes, a chaos moves in, a turmoil of darkness and doubt, of fear and, yes, terror, sweeping me off my pins. I recover, we all do, and get on with the day, with myself, with my commitments, my face bright as a polished apple, my eyes light, my words cheerful and sunny, and with the dissonance a jangle, only in my ears.

So, to all of you who are experiencing this, I send my love and respect. If you are facing a newbuild of your life, be patient. I am not patient, but the advice is good. You did a wonderful thing, lived a wonderful time, shared, gave your heart, sacrificed much, let go of so much more. Now, there is a new you. Scary as hell, I know, I know. He/she is there somewhere, deep down, not forgotten. I think of building. I watch birds taking one bit of grass, one snatch of sheep’s wool, at a time to create a soft nest for chicks. I think of when I painted. One strand of raffia glued to a canvas, a dried grass, seed from a wild poppy, a thread, a tare of material from a little girl’s frock, a feather, some shells, dried seaweed. Once the glue tied these down, I would paint over, soft, watery watercolours, to create a ground. I miss my work. Perhaps I will build this way again one day. My point is, it takes one thing, then the next, then the next along with the patience to wait for each stage to dry, to affix.

The sharing times come and then they pass, be it family events or friend visits. But when they end, when the time of fun and sharing and laughter morphs into what might, and often will, feel dull and ordinary, I will meet you there.

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Island Blog – Question the Surface

Life is lived on so many levels, or it can be. Mostly we stay on the surface, paddling madly to keep up, put down, move beyond, our horizon in sight. Above us is forever, below is fathom on fathom of a world most of us know little about. Many of us never dive down, and, apart from plane travel, the above is also an endless mystery. How high? How deep? What changes as we fly, as we dive? No, don’t go there. Let’s keep our eyes on who is putting something in our wheelie bin, who drives past, who walks the safety of the pavement or who parks in our space.

On the surface we see only what is. Above and below we cannot see nor understand, so we enjoy the thought of it but that is quite enough thank you. I don’t have the kit, the understanding, the courage to even let my mind go there, never mind my body. I’m too fat, too weird, too unloved, too plain, too beautiful, too something or other. And yet, within the restraints of this constraint we fail to really live. I know this because I remember my surface thinking. Safe, under my control, behind my locked door if I choose to lock it. Enter the Lonely. Oh hell, she or he is just waiting for such a time, such an opening. In ‘they’ come like a giant in a small room, smothering.

Been there. However, not now. And Why? Ah, Why is not a question. Why is an impertinence. Never ask anyone ‘why’. If you asked me differently I would tell you that I know and knew there is depth and width to this life, neither of which, or is it whom, I can either comprehend or explain. I just know. Somethings (plural) will happen if I just decide to acknowledge that fact. There is more than me in this living palaver and thank the holy grail for that! There is nothing lonely about a palaver because a palaver takes at least 5 influences. You cannot create a palaver alone. It just doesn’t work.

This morning, this ordinary morning, I had a plan. I would wake early, make coffee, eat something, sew something and then go to the shop at 9. All sorted. However I had a feeling there was a palaver in the brewing, not of my doing, but a palaver nonetheless. As I was talking to one of my boys on the phone a car pulled in. Rats, I thought. Go Away, I thought. You are NOT in my plan. Turning to see who it was, I recognised a friend. Ah, ok, all change, I thought. He might need coffee and a hug and a chat. I beckoned him in. Come, friend, and welcome. My ordinary plan had just dived deep or lifted into the sky. I smiled.

We spent the day together, walking, talking, noticing everything. We shared laughter and tears, wisdoms and tomfoolery, we just were. No agenda. I saw things through his eyes and, I think, he did through mine. We lifted up and we dived to the depths. The sun was warm, the wind soft and gentle, the larch emerald, the birds singing out Spring, the sea almost table flat. I would have seen none of this had I stayed on the surface, my agenda in my hands. Out of my hands I saw more than I could imagine. The connectivity of human friendship, however unexpected or initially inconvenient can make us question our surface.

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Island Blog – Blue Gin and Sleeping with Ants

Happy 70th birthday to me! It bizarres me that I have arrived here at all. 70, in my experience of parents and grandparents, is an age for sensible knickers, shoes and rigid opinions. I relate to none of those. I still feel mischievous, my sense of fun and the opportunities for seeing the fun in pretty much everything and everyone, is childlike still. The very thought of becoming sensible, according to the world, is enough to send me up the curtains, in my mind, at least. Life is such a glorious adventure, a troublesome pain in the ass at times, yes, but I will not focus on those times, only learn from, and survive, them. People keep saying Life is too short, and then spend endless moments, hours and days, worrying about a future that hasn’t even arrived and probably never will. Such a ridiculous cliche and meaningless when you think about it unless the core truth of it is imbibed and digested.

This past weekend in Africa, I was feted and celebrated until my smile threatened to dislodge my ears. Taken out for lunch, out for breakfast, gold and white helium balloons and golden streamers dangling all around the big open kitchen; champagne toasts, lovely new friends over for a wonderfully daft evening with good food on the braai, good wine to drink, shared anecdotes and jokes, conversations and laughter tossed into the sky, high enough to join the stars, which, I might add, are in all the wrong places and tilting dangerously. Even the moon is on her back, the saucy madam. Something to do with the Equator or an attitude to Latitude or whatever.

Although I knew bits about what might be happening, I didn’t know it all and it felt odd at first not being the one to organise a surprise, the celebration of another. Let go, I tell myself, and shut the dufus up. You think you don’t deserve to be celebrated? Stupid woman. Look at your family, friends and other animals, how they keep coming back. This, my dear, means something. Drink your blue gin and be thankful. And I get it and I am. I loved every single minute of the weekend, gathering up the memories like wildflowers, saved into a file in my head to be enjoyed over and over again when I return to my little island home.

For the past couple of warm African nights I have not been alone in my bed. A large contingent of ants has chosen to join me and we cannot work out where on earth they come from, why they are in my bed and what ion earth they are up to. Ants are intelligent wee critters so this is no random invasion just for the hell of it, just to upset me, not that I’m upset. I studied them the first night, my miners lamp on my head (in case of power outage overnight) and my goodness they looked busy. I pulled the duvet over me, brushed a few stragglers away and wished them well. In the morning they were gone. However last night I believe they lost their moxie a bit as I noticed a lot of dithering and fleeing aboot, all the way up to me. It tickled me awake. Okay, I sigh, clock says 01.15, and I want to sleep. I wished them well and took myself off to the couch, a very comfortable ant-free zone. It is still a mystery, this incoming tide of small black busybodies, and one I hope we can solve without destroying their lives, but none of us speak ‘Ant’ and nor do we have feelers to waggle, so a mutually agreeable result is only a possibility for now.

I could easily freak out over this but that is not my style. However, if we were talking scorpions or poisonous spiders, my moxie would also be challenged, I admit, and my curiosity wouldn’t even lift its head to engage in any study. But these harmless wee people are a fascination because there is such intent and dynamism in their ordinary little lives and they very obviously do not want to be in my bed. Something has disturbed them and they are de-camping. Solid walls are preventing this, or so I guess. I wish them well and I wish them gone, obviously, but I know what it feels like to be unsettled or discombobulated and I also know that in this so-called short life of mine, sleeping with ants is rather an unique situation, a story for the telling sometime when I am home again.

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Island Blog – Needs, Things and Each Other

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what I need, what I think I need and what I don’t actually need at all. What I need is one thing and what I think I need quite another. What I need is what we all need, love, community, friendship, social encounters, a roof over our heads, food for our bellies, heat to warm us on cold days and nights. We need a bed to sleep in, a pan to cook with, a plate to eat off. And so on.

The second need is the one ‘I think’ I need and thoughts, as we all know, can be fickle friends. As I dash to re-purchase this thing online, or jot that one down on a shopping list, I pause to question myself. Could I manage without this thing? Do I really need to Subscribe and Save on mascara for instance or Evening Primrose oil or Dog chews? Could I find, perhaps, an alternative once the one I have turns solid or runs out or better, learn to live without it at all? The answers are all in the affirmative (although stepping out without mascara is a scary thought) so I make myself wait a while in order to stop my knee jerking. The absolute necessity of most ‘things’ fade into mist eventually. It is astonishing how very much I can easily do without and, I notice, these apparent needs that caused me momentary panic not so long ago, are always just things. After all I never need to write down, Call this child of mine, remember a birthday, send a card or letter or email of encouragement. I never forget the not things in my life. But in the realm of things lie all the troubles. Things need us too much, and not the other way around. They matter disproportionately, our material needs, the number of ‘Likes’ we get on Facebook, for example or the followers on Instagram and so on.

But it is people who matter, not things, never things. Rich or poor, surrounded by ‘things’ or without them we have a choice when it comes to sharing ourselves, our light, our conversation and our interest in each other. All the not things worth everything cost absolutely nothing, not a penny, not a sou. So next time you are assailed by a sudden need for a thing, even to the point of complete panic, breathe out that breath, blow it away and with it all the nonsense thought-chatter because inside that huge brain of yours lie a million neural pathways, each one leading somewhere you may never have travelled before. And, given enough quiet breathing in and out, enough space created between the apparent need and that sweet but infuriating voice of inner intelligence, you may well discover, as have I, that whatever promised to make life perfect is a liar.

The issue of what I actually don’t need at all lies entirely inside my own head. Now that I have learned to stop and to question the knee jerk, the have-to-have thing, I am laughed at how faithfully I have responded to date. I was a sheep, in truth, following the flock even if each one ahead of me fell off the cliff. How ridiculous! But once aware, always aware and I am busy awareing, particularly so since the hacking when access to any purchase slammed a door in my face, when this hacker infiltrated my social media, broke down the very walls within which I had felt completely safe. It is freeing. I can feel myself rising from sheep into intelligent woman and it’s not a new feeling. Each time I have noticed my fall into mindlessness, in whatever area of my life, the thoughtless following behind the others, it has laughed me. Good lord, what the heck am I doing, or, more likely, not doing? I think we can all be mindless at certain times in our lives when we find our ship foundering on the rocks of trouble, when the walls fall down and we stand naked in the wind and rain. In desperation we try to grab hold of all we held so dear, all that, we thought, kept our walls firmly around us. And although we might blame the ‘hacker’ initially, we can be honest with ourselves. We needed this rock-founder in order to think as an intelligent being, to reconsider the way we are living our life. But we are normal, we are human and all of us want our life to continue just as it did before. However, Life never goes back, only forwards and if we can accept this, embrace Change in her attending discomfiture, then we are the ones who are truly alive. We are adventurers, we are brave, we are mindful beings in a mindless world.

So let the stop stop you. Let time go by and ask yourself, as I asked my own self, What is really lacking here? Is it the thing I feel I cannot live without or am I just lonely, unfulfilled, frustrated, angry, sad? When a person has the courage to ask those questions, the patience to wait for an answer and the trust to address the real issue, a way will show itself. Not the old way but a strange new way on a road heretofore untravelled, at least by us. On this road, this path there is laughter. On this path everyone makes mistakes, founders and falls down but all around are those to lift, to encourage, to make you laugh, to hold you up until you once more find your footing because all around you are others who know, have learned themselves, that what we all really need is each other.

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Island Blog – Nothing Else Matters

My life is golden, a flower, one that has lain dormant (but plotting) for many soggy months, one that is now above ground, looking up and out towards summer. I have seen oh so many summers but this one is new to me and I can feel the fizz of excitement in anticipation. As I sit on the stoep, feeling the warmth of Father Sun on my bare skin and watching seabirds wheel and cant, hear the chase-off when a buzzard comes in to their air space, or a sea-eagle, I smile and whisper a thank you. As I hear a distant woodpecker nattering at deadwood in a call for a mate or see siskin and goldfinch on the nijer seed, I feel the free space around my body for I am a part of this burgeoning Spring day. I listen to my neighbours enjoying a barbecue with friends, a just over the hedge spiral of shared talk and laughter as their little ones demand another rib or a water pistol and I smile through my happy solitude. I see the sea-loch calm and soft beneath a wide sky and wonder about the life beneath the surface. I think about ‘surface’, the way I can see something that appears to be the truth only to discover that it is anything but, like the way I might think a person is until I get to hear their story. So much depth, so much history, so much about experiences I have never had nor ever will. I hear the words, Be Careful, in my head and I will. Be Care Full. I want everyone to know the peace I feel, the acceptance of a life golden because for those of us who do not face danger every single minute, nor abuse, we who have a home, a place in space, enough food in the fridge and our health and strength, our memories and our family do indeed live a golden life. A daffodil life. We can rise through the sog and bog of winter into a new timeline, a new day every day. We can walk in freedom and, if we have eyes to see, we can watch it all in awe and gratitude. We cannot change the lives of all those millions of others who have not even one of our life gifts but we can spend time appreciating our own, noticing them, naming them, listing them.

My children and theirs are well and happy. My siblings ditto. I have friends, moon rises, sunsets, tasks to complete, people to encourage, letters to write that will be received with a smile, frogspawn to move before it dries out a thousand tadpoles, supper to choose, music to listen to, a beloved dog to walk with and to cuddle. In this world right now, all of those are privileged gifts. To whom much is given, much is expected. I get it. I really do. To be thankful, mindfully thankful despite loss and a mucky past, despite the inner demons that have no power unless I give it to them, is key. Key to what? The door to the next big adventure, that’s what, and we all have one of those just around the corner. Life is golden for any of us who are not running from war, from abuse, from ethnic cleansing, from a painful past, but even they, one day, will find the golden. Let us who have it now rise into the sunshine because the truth is this:-

Nothing else matters.

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Island Blog – The After of Now

I suspect that sounds a bit weird, but I do love to play with concepts and absolutes and, if I am honest, I feel a girlish thrill as I envision the face of my Eng Lit teacher. If you actually think about it, there is Now and then there is After. There is also Before. Before the Now, which is in my case, now After, there was a Before. I am now stopping the capitals.

The anticipation of my singer songwriter friends coming to stay lasted a few days. The beds ready and ironed, the wood ordered, ditto wine, the house cleaned, although not by me #veryblest, and endless lifts of doubt. Will they feel comfortable? How will it work? Do I have the right food? Bla, bla,bla. Offs, I know these people as longtime friends! What is all this faff? Good question. T’is normal, I have heard and even more so since Covid swiped our freedom to move, to share, to connect.

They swing in a few days ago with smiles and hugs and a ton of music making instrumental kit. I am already buzzing, remembering the days when arriving musicians, including them and often them, was an everyday experience. I just know we are going to gel even though I couldn’t find any good harmonies for the songs they sent me. I thought, at first, that I had lost it. (No comments please at this point) But it took just an hour or two of settling in and catching up for me to feel the electricity between us. It was the same as we put together my music CD. Most songs were written in under an hour and adorned with a musical skeleton an hour after that. The rest was building, swapping ideas, changing this, developing that. It was the same here, in the now. We worked for four days on two lovely songs holding a poignant storyline captured in musical collaboration. Dynamic is too small a word for what happened during those days.

Now it is after. We have recorded, laughed, racked up the fire, sung before breakfast and they have gone. But not really, because the before of now is a functional surface thing and the now of now a whole multi-depth experience, as tangled and as complex as a lift from the before with all its house cleaning nonsense into a surprising and sudden connection with the whole universe, with the rain, the gales, the stars, the tides and a surprise of gulls making ribbons against a wide grey sky.

And the after of now will live for a very long time.