fun

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Island Blog – Take Another Look

Let us take a look at Olding, from another aspect. Olding can be dire, upsetting, astonishing, in fact, but if we look at it through laughing eyes, it can also be hilarious, not just to those who are nowhere near missing the edge of any pavement, but to we who know how it feels to be anxious about exactly that. Stepping out of a body in some level of decline is to free a mind. It allows a sense of humour to engage with a strong spirit and a still beating heart. Look back, my friend, at what you achieved in your life, how hard you worked to get it right, to BE right for those you loved and whom you still love, here now, or gone too soon. Remember that time you lifted other flagging souls into your arms and carried them over stony ground, through fire, over oceans of shit. You did all of that, we all did all of that, and yet the memories of the times we have faltered or failed, said nothing or said too much, halted instead of running towards justice, fairness and inclusivity always leap to the front of the queue. We judged, yes we did, unfairly. We decided what came next and now we might regret that. We were unkind, dismissive, rude, even. So what? Do those ‘faulty’ memories define us now? I say a bit fat NO to that, even though I can be guilty of such regrets. It thinks me.

Why is it that we daft humans can always find and build on, the times we got it wrong? Do we stand as our own judge? I think we do, but we can also judge others wrongly. We can look at how the world is changing, decide we don’t like it, it isn’t familiar, and diss it all, but I can remember my own ancestors doing exactly that when I was young. I laughed at them, behind their backs of course. Old fuddy duddies the lot of them. Young people move too fast, mumble their words, wear extraordinary, or skimpy clothing, and not enough of it to cover an egg, let alone a whole set of buttocks and they speak a language definitely not grounded in the Oxford English Dictionary. We have come full circle, it seems. However, in my observations of self, I can see that, if this Oldies attitude is allowed to surface and thence to take over, like pond weed in an untended body of water, it clouds vision and grows stagnant. Lord save me from stagnant! How will I do this, how will I bring in the light, clear my own weeds, unblock the blockages that prevent a free flow of fresh clean water, bubbling with oxygen and all of life? To embrace the unexpected, to show interest in it and enthusiasm for it, even if I, the Oldie, must only sit on a bench as observer, is to engage with the unfamiliar and to embrace it.

The Oldies I remember first, and with deep affection, are just bones now but the light they brought to my skimpily clad, fast moving, mumbling life, fraught with agonies and doubts and angst, stays with me to this day. They might have been on that bench as life flowed past their rheumy eyes, but the sparkle was there, the stories just waiting to be told, the mischief alive as a pixie in their hearts and minds. Despite their loneliness, sickness or restrictions, these people could still delight, as was their intention. Not for them the moans and groans, not for them the lack and loss they all must know so well, not for them the criticism of a younger world, young and determined to get things right once and for all, in new ways, ways that really will save humankind from the fiery pit.

My granny, who had endless health issues that she never allowed to control her mood, and I sat on a bench once. My legs dangled miles from the ground as I watched my jelly shoes swing back and forth. I was bored and grouchy. What can you see? she asked me. I looked up into her wrinkled and beautiful face, saw the pearls at her neck, the softness of her jumper, the smile on her lips. I turned back to the view of passers by, with shopping trolleys or dogs or husbands at hand. Nothing! I grumped, and swung the jellies some more. Right, she said, now cover your eyes and look again. I covered my eyes. What can you see now? she asked. Oh, Granny, I can see fairies and dragons and there’s Alice in Wonderland, and Pooh and Piglet! I heard her chuckle. Good, she said, me too. Let’s follow them, shall we?

And so we did.

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Island Blog – Wordage, Fun and Mischief

I am noticing the words that leap from my mouth sans aforethought. What I am recognising is that we women seem to feel that details are always needed, descriptions the concise and careful constructivation of a picture. This, to men, in my observation, is enough to fall them asleep where they stand, or, if they can internally justify escape, they escape. We allow it without question. It thinks me. If the question is ‘Did Sally actually meet up with Melanie that day?’ A man might respond with a Yes or a No, then sit back in his chair because his job is done. If a woman is asked that question, you are going to know what both women were wearing, what perfume they do or don’t use, the state of their nails, hair, choice of clothing, their lipstick colour, the quality of their home life, the names of all 15 kids, oh, and grandkids, the colour of their hair, teeth, front room curtains etc, their relationship with their neighbours, mother-in-law, where they live, their diet, the colour of their car if they drive one, the weather, and finally coming into land with many opinions on all of the above. Meanwhile the listener has missed the shop, her birthday and is busting for the loo. It seems we can’t help it. In fact, without we women, there would be a minimalistic view of the world. It is raining or not raining. There are sausages or not, for supper. The radio is on or off. The mother-in-law is dead or alive. The people of the world, in short, are naked, mindless and quite without character, sometimes even a name.

However, to be a member of the woman clan can mean she is drowning in words, the need to tell it all a cumbersome weight. Unless she notices and refines her innate need to ‘babble’, she is unlikely to feel silent and deadly and I am keen to learn silent and deadly. But this learning thingy takes considerable mental work and a honed focus on the lips and teeth. It also begs something we women might find tricky, the pause for thought. I was not born with that particular talent but nor was I born with piano fingers. I had to learn and I am curious enough to become a student in wordage. Although it might take me the rest of my days to answer a simple yes or simple no, I do love to refine and hone. Breath is of essential value in this refine and hone palaver. Just one or two slow breaths when someone asks if Sally did actually meet up with Melanie that day can result, not in a simple yes or no because I am a newbie in this study course, but it does give me time to slough off the fact that I know Melanie can barely breathe in those support knickers or that Sally’s secret passion is to work with elephants in South Africa, or that those two women have loathed each other since primary school. All irrelephant. However, it does seem to me that the less I explain, or justify or whatever, the more powerful I feel, not over another but over my own babbling self and I like that feeling a lot.

Saying sorry is another loose lipped load of tiddleypom. Not when there is a definite culpability but all those other times, like when someone bumps into us. There is no sense in that but we do it endlessly, such as stepping into a taxi with a suitcase too heavy, in the rain and without assistance, thus keeping the lazy arse of a taxi driver waiting; asking a waiter for more water in a busy restaurant; changing an order in a bakery when the queue behind us is champing to be served; taking too long to pull out a pound coin or 3 for a bus trip with cold arthritic fingers. I have even watched a woman lift herself from a park bench with a sorry on her lips because she knew a whole family were eyeing that very bench, her own need for the whole of it a nothing much and clearly stating that she is a downright sinner for lowering her butt onto said bench in the first place.

Suspecting, as I do, that in my new land of weirdohood I think a lot more about things that never crossed my mind before, when external demands yelled for immediate attention. I am curious about behaviour, choices, patterns of old and the fractal un-patterns of the new, my creation of self now un-boundaried or even influenced by a.n.other. Sometimes questions arise that might have come from the mouth of a babe, questions deep and wandering as if I am just a little outside of everything I thought was a fact. In fact, I will question facts the most and there is a skip of mischief in my doing so. Someone says something that comes with a backdrop of irrefutable evidence. It’s even printed in a book as words are printed within the dense pages of a dictionary, their definitions set in ancient stone. And that, my friends, is where mischief finds her playground because language is always changing, developing or falling off the edge altogether. Basically I am having fun and at no-one’s expense. I am Mrs Malaprop intentionally and playing with words, turning a verb into a noun or talking like Yoda whilst still communicating the sense of my words. I am only sorry there isn’t an online course on imaginative speaking, on having fun with sentences or of finding new ways to illustrate what I want to say. Perhaps I’ll constructicate one. Sentences have rhythm, a beat, phrasing just like music and there is a wonderful freedom in playing games with what is supposedly the Right Way to Speak. The other good thing about jumbling up sentences is that my mind must be very quick indeed, well ahead in the race with my mouth, and one of the first lessons I wish to mistress is ‘Don’t say ‘sorry’ for every damn thing’. Instead I might say ‘oopsadaisy’ thus immediately bringing flowers into the situation and that is always a good thing.

I guess those diehards will be rolling their eyes at such subversion but taking life and language and a million other challengeable and changeable things too seriously just ends a face up in wrinkles. Laughter and a light touch lift mountains.

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Island Blog – The Dance Ahead.

That’s the Lonely banished. It took a while. I had to wrestle this demon to the ground and, although my spirit is willing, my teeth and claws still in situ, my body is a bit wonky-chops at times. I managed it, nonetheless, holding down the limbs of it, all flailing whack and kick, its big mouth wide open and full of unhelpful words such as Fail, Stuck, The End, Best You Can Hope For, etcetera. Phooey, said I, blasting breath into its face, because I plan to have fun from now on, no matter my age or situation, circumstances be damned! The Lonely finally gave in, I felt it soften in defeat, lifting myself off its grabby little body to watch it slink, yes slink, out of the door, last seen heading towards the village. I did give it the bus fare to Faraway, however. I’m not a mean woman, after all.

Since its departure I have dived into a whole lot of exciting things, such as hoovering my floors in a dance of feet and nozzle, made hummus, walked miles and sat myself sitting on a stone bridge that affords me sight of the old days. This inlet of water led out to years of exciting sea-ventures in search of whales, puffins, shags, guillemots, kittiwakes, porpoise, dolphin and gannets, to name but a few. This inlet kept our boats safe from the mighty, and bullying, blast of Atlantic fury. I remember the boats bucking like broncos on their tethering, my hair, when I had any, flying in the wind, my ears ringing from the cold. I remember the trees bending in obrigation, root strong, the hazels as bow-backed old women, saving everything that grew inside their motherly protection from a spectacular crash-bang. No greater love……….

As I walk with my memories, the good ones finally rise to the surface, delighting me. I had forgot them, I confess, but I so wished for them to return. All I could see were the dementia years and the decline before that, for I know it is true that what began as wild love and unstoppable hope morphed from exciting plans such as ‘where shall we eat tonight?’ to ‘Did you put the bins out and if not WHY NOT?’ Or, ‘It’s YOUR turn to collect the kids, bath them, read the story, wash up, cook (arf), walk the dog, do the weekly shop.’ It comes to us all. Surviving such a disappointing change and remaining together is a sign of strength; learning how to dance it in a different way, to make it fun, to laugh together about the whole daft parabola of a shared life is genius. I like that word most of all when it applies to a shared and connected forward motion. It is a life changer for everyone involved, kids, outer-space family members, each other. Did we manage that, I wonder, just as a lone stag bursts from the trees. I was so caught up in my parabola/genius thingy that I gasped and stopped dead. We eyed each other, this young 6-pointer and I with no points at all. Those brown velvet eyes, the stand of its powerful fleet legs, the proud of its neck. It was only moments, but we shared those moments. Then it was gone, like the wind, becoming the wind.

Back home to hoovered and well-danced floors, I checked in all the rooms for the Lonely. No sign but a thought flitted about me like a butterfly, beautiful and fleeting. T’is this. What brings in the Lonely? It isn’t that I hate living alone, my life full of choices sans explanation, justification, apologies. I am loving all of that. And then it came to me, the answer. I am addicted to love and not in absentia, but in persona. In order for me to thrive and love life I need to love. Then a second thought breezed in. If there isn’t a person right beside me, that doesn’t mean I am deprived of the opportunity to find and to feel love. I just have to learn a new way to feel love. I can love the moments, noticing everything around me. I can love my children and their children actively through texts and calls. I can love a morning, a slow afternoon, the catch of light and the soft fall of the dark. I can love myself and that’s always the hardest thing. I can love the chance that I will encounter something wonderful just by believing that it is out there somewhere so that all I need to do is to build on that belief whilst keeping myself in trim for the dance ahead. And when the Lonely comes back, I will be ready.

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Island Blog – Here and That is How it Is

So here is how it is. Ten days of a visiting son with his kids, this morning, gone, the air sucked out of my lungs as his car disappears around the corner. Nothing has changed. The sea-loch still rises and falls to the whimsy of a Sturgeon moon, the birds still flit and flut between feeders, the house still stands strong, broad shouldered stone, protecting me from a load of outsidery things. The shop still opens at nine, the builders head off to work chugging iron bru at 6.30, my neighbour heads off to his fishing boat for another day of net tangles and swear words. And yet everything has changed.

I meander through the morning telling myself not to focus on the gone thing. I tell myself to get busy as if all is as ordinary as it was 11 days ago but as the hours slouch by I know this gone thing will catch up with me, with the hours, with my thoughts. I feel old, stiff, annoyed with both. I never thought I would get here to this old feeling. I used to laugh at such nonsense from my ma, my scary mother in law when they looked as I might look now if I allowed anyone to see me looking thus, which I don’t. Feeling old, I told them, is one thing. A thing you cannot avoid. Presenting it is a choice. Don’t make that choice. I hear again my wise words, spoken through a young set of lips still plump, words begat by the father of ignorance. Who can know the feel of old until it arrives one morning with enough luggage-intention to stay long term? Nobody. What we do, when this guest arrives is to choose our pretence. It’s a bit like a journey on a false passport. This is me, not me, me from choice. I may not be this person but I am determined you will acknowledge this ‘me’ because if you don’t then I am grounded with the old feelings, the fear feelings, the lack of swing and chortle feelings and I refuse, point blank (whatever that means) to accept that.

I walk as I always walk, noticing the grasses husk and ochre. I touch their still yet softness as I pass. I see bracken spot and curl, the carpet of fallen leaves, already brown and crisped into tiny coracles on the track. I see hazel nuts overhead, rowan berries blood red against a blue sky, beech leaves goldening high above me. The ground is soft and mud blown, cut and spun into soup by yesterday’s sudden thunderstorm, here and then gone in a matter of one short hour but nonetheless a herald of Autumn’s closing fist. We may have more sunshine days, who knows, but the word is out among the seasons and the Your Turn thing is shifting. I pass by the shore and look down but cannot go. For ten days it was crazy down there, endless loud girls crab fishing, the growl of a quad, the squeals of delight, the absolute takeover of a small thrust of rocks, the learning, the delight, the falls, the fire lit to cook noodles or sausages, the glorious family fun of it all. I continue around the track, remembering. In my mind I see them all, bright eyed, ready for nonsense, scaring me with their bravery, no, not that. It is their confident youth. The way they skitter like lizards over all terrain, the way they sparkle at cake or chocolate or fruit pastilles. The welcome they give me. The whites of their eyes, their teeth, the shine of their wilding hair, the flash of their feet as they dash past.

They are gone and it is a heavy thing. I know, I know (please don’t fix feelings through logic) they will come again. Others will come again to inhabit this glorious place, to redefine it, to render it their own for a short time. They will sing into the clouds, the blood red sunsets, yell at the moon, cry at the falling in, laugh at the cake, fish for the abundance, argue, storm off, come back for a warming hug. I know this. But this day I feel their loss deeply. And that is how it is.

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Island Blog – Finding me on Sundays

I’m not sure I like Sundays. I notice more things I don’t want to notice, such as nobody here and nothing on the cards and the wrinkles on my fingers and those bone-age knuckles that would need no ‘duster’ to take out a big man, had they the strength. Saturday, now, passes like a slip of a thing when Saturdays were always more of a yahoo. I don’t think that helps.

Sundays in my young past were a hair wash/get ready for school panic; or a back to work dread. Saturdays were always better. No preparation angst rising like indigestion. It was just a yahoo with crazy plans and sauncy clothing and opportunities, even as a daughter/married woman/wife, when me and him would often suddenly book a dinner table somewhere, just because it was Saturday and Sunday gave enough room for the aftermath. Now Sundays offer the same but without the Saturday fun. Doesn’t really work for me. Funny that I am still stuck in that life calendar.

This is my 3rd winter without him. Although I am, mostly, okay about ‘tempus fugit’, it feels like I am fumbling about, my fingers combing through the times, the timeline, and bringing up nothing more than seaweed or old hair as from a drain. Even as I grow into someone I never knew, nor recognise, I have this pull back to the past. Let me go there, let me have what I had; that sort of nonsense thinking. But, nonsense or not, it is how it is. This bereavement/grieving thing has no shape, no tidelines, no dateline. It is the weirdest of all times of my life as it is for anyone else who knows what the heck I am talking about. There is an identity loss, that identity having been set in place decades ago, refined, pruned, nurtured and encouraged to bloom. It will never be easy to ignore that, nor to walk away. New identity? What on earth does that mean? But, we find it, I am sure, because so many have.

And I am ready to love Sundays, to learn and to find a new me, no matter how hard the work.

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Island Blog – Tigger

The trouble with me, or one of the many troubles with me, is my Tigger bounce in the early mornings. It’s ridikkerluss. I must have driven my children mad with all that early bouncing, especially on school days. Waking in this ‘darking’ at 3.30, wide awake, excited about nothing and everything, I have to get out of bed. Thank you bed, I say with a reassuring pat, as it’s a bit startled. Most people, I add, would just turn over but I never believed in turning over anything with the exception of new leaves, naturally. I would be marvellous on early shifts in, say, a hospital. I would burst into the ward, my smile leading the way. Good morning! I would sing, as I reinflate the flagging night watch, flip on the kettle, brew coffee and head off to cheer the post and pre-ops, soothe the sad and weary, have a blether with the janitor and make him laugh but not too loudly, naturally.

By 6 I have cleaned the cobwebs and wiped the walls that have been hidden behind the Family Furniture for decades. The walls look startled too, suddenly aware of their nakedness. The cobwebs are all fluff and dark materials; very dodgy, but easily removed with my eco cleaning spray and a determined scrubber hand. Before I wipe them away for ever, I watch the way the webs float and lift as I pass, like wisps of smoke. I check for lodgers, but they have already scuttled off into a safe corner, probably temporarily blinded. I can see where the painter didn’t paint, couldn’t reach behind the Family Furniture. I pause to wonder who will buy these big pieces, who will thrill at the very sight of them, a must-have for the perfect place inside their home. I wish them and the furniture many blessings and a very happy life together. And, good luck polishing those brass knobs. I am done with brass knob polishing for ever. I have also moved furniture, stacked books and it’s not 7 yet.

I blame my mother. She was just the same. I remember us going to visit when the kids were young. I was up early, but himself, who could sleep all night and longer, remained in bed. Mum wasn’t having any of that nonsense and she wheeched off the duvet revealing his naked splendour and tickled his toes whilst singing something nobody recognised. He never got over it, not for years and years. Ah, well, I told him. You are not alone in this. Most people never get over my mother. So thanks Mum for the Tigger in me, the mischief, the fun and the way you were the most impossible woman who ever lived and probably always will be.

Unless I take over that role, of course.

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Island Blog – Two Ways of Looking

I have weird taste in breakfasts. Where most good folk are chomping on muesli, yoghurt and fruit, I hanker for poached egg over warmed avocado and chopped banana with lemon juice, salt, pepper and herbs. Sometimes I tuck into last night’s leftovers. I don’t have a sweet tooth, in fact teeth play a lead part in my breakfast choice because it takes me a whole lot of work, and time, to sort them out after muesli. I also eat very early, long before the sun is up so that lunch is often required around 11 am. Living alone, this is not a problem at all. Who cares when I eat? Who will notice? Only me and that’s just fine.

There are times, I confess, when I think enviously of those who sleep for 7 wonderful hours and who, on waking, can sip tea or coffee, read in bed, pondering the day from the warm snuggle of a duvet for another hour or so. These people sleep, I understand that, whereas I can manage a few short hours at best, waking into darkness and with no desire to remain in bed for another second. I am way too excited about the day ahead, too curious to see what awaits me downstairs. Did I wash the supper dishes? Did I buy something online, something I absolutely do not need at all? As I rise, I laugh at myself, at those questions. Washing dishes after each meal was a big issue when I cooked meals for large numbers of hungry people, most of whom were in my own family, but not now. One plate, one pan, one knife, one fork. I can barely see them on the draining board. Back in the years of manifold dishes there would have been a crockery crash had I not washed up after every meal. But it does think me because I know how easy it is to not bother as a live-alone person ages. There is nobody here to judge my standards after all. Ah, no, that’s not true because there is me and I am the strictest judge of self. My standards are always in need of improvement, and I have vowed as I watched other live-alones get sloppy that I would never allow that in myself. So, the dishes are washed, the floors swept, the bathroom clean, the rugs bashed to death and if the dog starts to smell, she is dunked in a bucket and scrubbed to a shine.

In short, it is exhausting being me. I often wish I could lower some of my standards, not one of which I expect to see in another living soul. Quite the opposite. Was I reared to be so damn critical of myself, allowing no laxity? Very probably. But surely at my age I could be less driven? It seems that I am fated to run all the way up to the end. I can’t even sit still for long, the dance in me is too dancey. I am curious about what might be around the next corner and I just have to find out, even if it is only another corner, which it often is. This doesn’t slow me down at all and when I think of this condition, this endless curiosity, I can see it two ways. Fidget, restless, too imaginative, hyperactive, or really alive, curious, interested, imaginative, mischievous, fun, inspiring.

I pick the latter.

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Island Blog – Fallout

I refuse to fall out of love. Just saying. We need to be in love, always and forever because it thrills us into life and fire and fun and music and hope. There are a million drudge days, ordinary greys than never lift into geese, tired times, hopeless fear, no tomorrow in sight. We all know these. But I am a thrust light in the dark and even for me. I will rise. So will you. It’s not an ‘if you want’ thing. It just comes unbidden.

There are times I hate that thrust light. Times I want to hide shadow like and hope nobody sees me. Then I wake one morning and that damn light is beckoning me towards hot tea and a morning I have never seen before. Life moves us on in a kindly and patient way. It might piss me off but it still moves me.

I refuse to fall out out of love. With life.

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Island Blog – Outfit, Outflit

One morning I awaken with a lightness in my step once I have connected my feets with the new carpet, found my ground and elevated into my height. I know it isn’t a dizzy height, but it is mine and I know where I start and where I end and that is completely fine with me. It is also reassuring, because the frocks in my wardrobe only fit the me I know and were the me I know to grow or diminish overnight, we would both be confounded, the frocks and me. Thankfully, this scenario only belongs in one of my fiction stories, the ones where worlds merge because some eejit has found a portal into another one and gone through leaving everyone else behind wondering whether or not said eejit will be home in time for tea. I have yet to be that eejit despite locating portals all over the place. Moving on.

I decide on an outfit. It is quite a sassy one for me, given that I have chosen full flowing billow-skirts for a longtime. It is cooler this morning, circa 10 degrees and I needs must address the coolth #scottishword. Pantaloons of a black and white scarpy slash pattern, elasticated just below the knee; long tee-shirt beneath longer frock in an arguing design; overlay, a thin unequally hemmed jersey, also not matching and a wrap-around tartan knee-length skirt fashioned from almost the same amount of fabric required for a kilt, which is, for the sassenachs, about 20 yards in old money. I need safety pins to secure the connecting lengths having lost weight since being widowed. I blame Himself for that. The finishing touch is a bead belt, hip hugging yet loose and well, quite the thing. I pose before my old cracked mirror and think, Yes, You Will Do, and scoot down stairs for a boiled egg.

It takes only 30 minutes for me to realise this outfit is not a long term thing. The bead belt keeps shucking up to my waist and I can bear nothing around my waist. Then the safety pins ping apart and stick my skin. I sit down to eat my breakfast and the skirt tangles with my body. The underneath tee rumples quietly beneath the frock and I now look like an un-made bed. I tolerate and breathe deeply. I know, as does my sassy outfit and my mirror that I will be seeing no-one today, not one soul and that this is all about me and how I feel about me, but that is not what confounds me, is not the thing that twirls me fastly back upstairs to wheech the whole thing off in a rather dramatic fling and to begin all over again with a more considered approach. No. It is that moment I need a pee. The undoing process of wrap around skirt, safety pins, layered tee beneath frock and pantaloons, no matter what the flaming pattern, all conspire to confound and I know when I am beat. T’is now. My dressing up is not working today.

It thinks me, reminds me of happy happy girl days and my absolute favourite of all games. Dressing up. My mum had a chest, or trunk filled to busting with outfits and these outfits were not made of paper or plastic. They were sewn quality and lasting and beautiful. I was Gypsy, my favourite, and mum would darken my face to a Norfolk tan with her powder (she was able to take dark, unlike freckled white skin me) and affix the hoop earrings somehow and I would flash my eye whites into the moment and dance and jingle the bracelets and anklets for hours. I also recall being the fairy, the clothing white and laced and cotton and fitted and beautiful and with wings. There was a sailor outfit but I ignored that one. I became the gypsy then, or the fairy. My friend Angela had to be queen and as I was not even remotely interested in being a monarch there was no contest. I remember watching her walk across the grass on a summer afternoon, straight-backed and completely absorbed in her queen-ness whilst I finagled around the shadows planning gypsy/fairy anklet jangling mischief. It worked for a long time. I think it still does.

So, after the wheeching myself out of the conflictions of an outfit that looked frickin great as long as I would spend the entire day standing still before my cracked mirror, I move towards my frock wardrobe with both interest and trepidation. I don’t want to lose the devil-may-care-let’s-astound-the-wildlife thingy but I do want to be able to move freely. Moving freely is a big thing for me. If I feel contained at any point on my body or in my mind I have this desire to explode. I haven’t done it yet and it could be messy but I am super aware of the exploding gene that figgles about in my DNA and which, if DNA could encompass feelings, would show in my ancestry, I am certain. So, choosing not the sameold and yet poking about with fingers of curiosity, I locate a layering option. Let’s try you, I say, kindly, because I am aware that this particular underlayer has not seen light of day for a while. It is quite hard to get it right for my mood, I say, muffled beneath the foof of the material as it falls over my head and lands around me. We look at each other, the underlayer and me. We agree. Okay so far. I go back again to the dark depths of the wardrobe and flip the hangers along. No, no, maybe but no, hmmm, okay, how about you? I can hear the excited squeak and I love it even as all my abundant frocks know the rules. I hate to disappoint but this may not be your day. Once selection is made I can go about my business. I still will meet nobody, and the frocks know this but together we swing through the day, through the ups and downs and all is well in our world.

I did wonder, only this morning, does everyone else have this much fun in such ordinary moments?

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Island Blog – My Home, Music, Changes and Fun

Today the sun shone like it was in a competition. Brazen, warm, loud in the sky. The pufflet clouds moved around it, I think deliberately, because it showed them in their best light. Edges like fire and brimstone, smokey dark below. Quite the picture.

I did a bit of this and that. I lifted some paintings to the walls of the rooms that used to be his and are now not his anymore. His bedroom, a tangle of hospital bed, aids, plastic receptacles etc, all gone now. There is a king sized double for visitors, a new carpet, a blackout blind and curtains. In the office, now not the office but instead a wee kiddies room, a new carpet flats the boards, soft and cool and slightly sea coloured. I joined an online church group and it was very lovely indeed. Then I marched out, plus wee dog, to corral some beech leaves, soft limbs, gentle emerald leaves, for preservation. I watched my old and ferocious mother-in-law do this thing. Glycerine and water mix, pop in the limbs and wait. The stalks draw up the mix into the leaves that take on a shine and are preserved for ever. ish. I can hardly believe I am truly becoming Granny at the Gate, and if you haven’t already read my book then do it now. The replication of a life in every single sense (only I am never ferocious) is bizarre. God bless you old girl for your powerful spirit. It lives on. As you can see from your vantage point.

As I re-designed the rooms that were his, I felt a falter. Although he is gone and this lovely home is now mine, there is yet a sense of notmine. It never was when he lived. It was his or it was his mother’s and I find it quite hard to brush that legacy away. As I arrange for my friend, an antique dealer, to come when he can to remove the old maple dresser, the mahogany thingy full of ancient leather bound books, I get the whiff of traitor around my person. This would never have been countenanced when he lived. Now he lives not. Now this is my lovely home and I crave white space, minimalism and the moving on of old, maybe valuable stuff, that will bring money in for my kids. For our kids.

I chose music that kept me in the bubble of me and him. Sibelius, his favourite. The Swan of Tuanela, Valse Triste, and Grieg, Peer Gynt. I played them loud as I worked. Then I brought in my favourite, thinking, this is my house now and my music is also important. Beethovens’ 6th, the Pastorale. These have been on a loop all day as the sun beats in and the birds sing like they were the choir for the Second Coming.

A good day. A day of change, of down and then up. And I look around my lovely light, bright, open home and say to myself, How fortunate am I. How lucky, how glorious is this island place. And my neighbours have just come back, all children and garden talk and fun.