hillsides

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Island Blog – Amen to that

I walk out, barefoot, onto the morning grass, feel the cool bite of it, the ice chill thrill up my legs. It’s early morning and the birds already line the staves, making what sounds like the beginning of a piece of music. I’m coming, I tell them, armed as I am with seed, with hemispheres of nourishing fat. I watch the sun lift from his eastern bed, the clouds turning fringe-pink, the blue mountain defined as if by a black marker. I see late bats scoot through the dawn, a pair of early ravens cawk overhead, a five of Brent geese loop around to land with a scoosh of bright white spume into the sea-loch. An ordinary morning, for me at least.

As the sun lifts higher and the cumulus resolves into cotton wool, I see the beech trees yellow into gold. The sky is stratus with high wind, but down here we are calm. It isn’t often like this. Mornings like these just beg to engage with us, beg us not to waste a single moment at the controlling end of a hoover because the birds are waiting for an audience, the puddles slack and dull and just longing for a jumping foot to cause exciting chaos. Do we ever think of that? Do we understand our own importance in the jungle of nature, that a path wants to be walked along, a sky craves our attention, a bird wants to be heard and not just by another bird?

I hear the stags roar across the hillsides, not visible to me but their voices are, that fight for dominance, for life itself. I hear the rally cars out there, the roar of them, the lights, the speed as they take the island roads by storm. I hear voices in the village shop, the words flying up from somewhere in between fresh veg and chilled goods, the lilt of a conversation, the murmur of loneliness from a single shopper reading his list out loud. Are you lonely? Are you alone? Two very different questions. I wish a rally driver the very best of luck tonight and he smiles as wide as a whole country. Thank you! he says. What number is your car? I ask, having heard it roar past my door, all throaty as an old whisky drinking rock singer, a few times over the past few days. It’s bright blue and covered in stickers and he, the driver, is young and full of spiritful life. I know nothing of him but I do know his smile and his response and that what I suddenly said meant something to him. We all need to be heard.

Before each rain shower, and there are always those, I watch the fall streaks, the virga , and I marvel. As they dance across the sea-loch like ethereal ghost dancers, I wonder how many people missed seeing them; on the way to work, dealing with recalcitrant children, caught up in the gazillion immediates of an ordinary life. It thinks me. If any didactic had ‘encouraged’ me to take time out, as a young mum, to really see, no, to REALLY see, the wonders of the great Out There, I would have whacked them in the chops. I would have screamed ‘ Can’t you see how impossible my life is right now!’ And that scream never deserved a question mark.

So, there is something about being older, about having the time and the head space to connect with something greater than myself. Another thing about being older is this, and I quote from Oscar Wilde, even though he says it with more drama than I might :-

‘The tragedy of growing old is not that one is old, but that one is young.’

And I say Amen to that.

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Island Blog – Flying Flagrant

What a weekend! All the family together minus the old sea-dog, for some years. Five children, their partners and 12 grandchildren. And me. And the sunshine. I watched the little ones fly flagrant onto and off paddle boards, across rocks, up hillsides, all legs and squeals and motion. Come on! they cried and Hurry UP! Their young parents fed them, dried them off, eased hurts, settled them for bed. It was a squash but the best sort of squash. And there were huddles, of little leggy ones with enough secrets going on as to become suddenly silent when an adult appeared unexpectedly. Huddles too for the parents all finding out about the real deals in each other’s lives after all this time of not having much of a clue beyond the usual upbeat I’m fine and All is well sort of phone tennis.

I noticed many things to think me. How children fly free and how beautiful it is to watch; how my own children as parents have settled into their legs, their more cautious step. Not one of them flew flagrant over rocks although had a precious child fallen, they would have moved like otters over those same rocks. Instead they watched, as I did with all the flagrant flying lost to me. But here’s a thought. I did it once, in the right time for doing it. I had that. I did that. And, in my mind, I still do.

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Island Blog – Windstitch,Cloud Shadow, Birdlight and Fox Gloves

This wilderlight dawns a beauty. Sunshine goldens the little garden and birds catch it in their wing feathers as they lift and flutter overhead. Rainbow snow. Birdlight. I wonder if they know how much they delight, these little wild things. How on the grass they look like jewels and how, above me, they trill a healing melody. The poppies have survived another night of sea-wind and I welcome them with a smile and a word or two of encouragement. This morning, however, someone has sewn a stitch or two into that cloak of chilly salt-laden breath, arresting it, offering a challenge to change, to turn about face. The resulting warmth eases my bones, kisses my face, softens the tension in my skin, like a promise of something wonderful.

This morning a carer came back after 18 weeks of me managing on my own. She was almost as beautiful to see as a bird caught in sunlight, which is what she was. Together we showered himself and tidied up and the bubble of chatter, the catch up of news and opinions on various subjects lifted me yet further. Although I would not have welcomed any incoming before now, I am glad of human encounter that isn’t all about one person’s needs, moment by moment. Suddenly I found myself present in the unfolding dialogue. She complimented me on my hair cut. I told her she looked really bonnie, even though she was gloved up, face half hidden by a mask and crackling like a bonfire in her plastic apron. We discussed the village, a place I haven’t seen for weeks, the number of visitors cars, the walkers, the camper vans, the motor bikes. I had not realised how empty my mouth has been of anything that isn’t care related and the words flew out like birds, the laughter too.

Although we will remain isolated for some time to come (my choice), it is good to hear that life is waking up once more. Some folk have been trapped in small flats in cities, or alone in bed sits, and these folk must be twisting in the wind by now, desperate to catch on to its tail coat and to fly once more. To share a view, a joke, a meal, a conversation is what we all need and what we all miss, like fresh water when access to it is denied.

Sunlight tunnels through window slits as we move around the sun, illuminating the ordinary. A line of carpet, a vase of garden flowers, the shiver of iced tea in a sparkling glass. The doors are wide, the soft breeze fluttering the bird-curtain. Before the bird curtain, there were oft more birds inside than out, bashing against windows, terrified hearts pounding in tiny ribcages. When we are suddenly trapped, we panic. All of us, humans, animals, birds, insects, all of us. And we were trapped for a long time.

I watch cloud shadow on the far hillsides. Foxgloves disappear into it, then leap back crimson purple. We are like that. Lost in shadow at times, or caught up in a twist of wind, swept off our feet or shivering in sudden dark. It passes. Everything passes, be it what we want or what we don’t. Over this, over wind, time, sickness, cloud shadow; over times of exhilaration, loved ones, intense joy. Over all this we have no control. The very best we can do is to stand tall, rooted, blooming, ready for whatever comes.

And equally as ready to let it go.