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Island Blog – An Eye on Things

The wind is wild today. She began with a huff and a puff, and a bit of spew, then, and I noticed this, she gathered her skirts into a whirl and then some, slewing everyone sideways, canting roses, ripping off their blooms. She felled a tree, well, not the whole tree, but a big limb, already compromised as I saw from the black ingress of water at the point of release. This limb fell right across the cut-off path through the woods. I bogged my way around the whole collapso wanting to see it all from another side. The fallen branches still shivered, still lived, still green and hopeful and I bent down to say something to the dying. The rich green was beautiful against the carpet of lift into the woods, still brown from lack of sunlight, fizzing with old needles, old nuts, old stories. I lifted myself, moved on, looked back, thought much. We leave life lost behind us, until we don’t. It thinks me.

Returning from a various on the mainland, over on the ferry, will there be a ferry, all thatshit, I am now home again, and so thankful for that. The plan was to go to a secret ceilidh for my beautiful daughter-in-law (such a clinical label) but and but and but, I had a sudden thing about my eyeball, left one, not good. So, after the most marvellous night of celebration and dancing and children and balloons and fun, I headed off for the eye thing. Thanks to my wonderful sisters, the tests were done and, oh my gosh, there is nothing to do! Who ever hears that! Nonetheless, being on the mainland where people, my favourite, become a crowd, a number to navigate, to avoid, to watch from a safe distance, confounded me. I would never choose to live in such a busy place. Being told where to walk, which lane to drive, no matter the wotwot of a life would piss me off, big time. I’m all about free movement without explaining, or ever needing to, my reason for rushing anywhere. Here, we respect that, if some vehicle is up your butt, they need to pass you. We know to pull in.

Now home, I think about what home means. I know that I want to stay here as long as possible, but I also know that people think too late. I never want to leave here. But I would, and I did consider that big time when the possibility of my left eye dodging me might mean no driving. I live in a wild place. I adore this place, my home. But it came to me that I am my home, no matter where. In fact, if I have my eye on things, I can see beauty, opportunity, dimension, fun, mischief, perspective, no matter where I am. When I was in the city, my elbows out, moving through the fear of missing a train, etcetera, I found a piano in the station. I had time. I sat down and played as travellers moved by in droves. For a few minutes I calmed myself. The piano was tuned and sounded good. And then I moved on, lugging my broken suitcase down the steps. In Glasgow I had time to buy a coffee. Another piano beckoned, but someone else was there. So, instead I walked outside and watched a man begging, jovial, polite, welcoming folk. I noticed no eyes on. Then a young woman’s suitcase, big, burst. He was up in a moment, helping her. She welcomed his help. I watched and watched, eyes on. Before I headed for my train to the home that is me, I went to give him something and to shake his hand. The young woman was still there. You know, she said, in her Australian accent, I have met a lot of shits on my travels, and then, right here, when my case bursts open, in Glasgow, I meet a real human.

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Island Blog – Zeitgeist

It’s been five days. I miss and I don’t miss, the Miss. I miss her excitement at seeing me, even if I had just been away for a pop to the shop. I miss her huge brown eyes, looking, looking up at me, for reasurrance, guidance, love. I miss the kisses, cuddles and the way she spoke to me, opening her mouth to emit wild sounds, upward inflections, disappointment in me, curvaceous lifts and falls to communicate her needs. I miss the way she hurtled in crazy dashes around the rooms, up the stairs and down again with a bear in her mouth, and all of a sudden, as if the joy of living just got the better of her. I miss hearing her tappy feets on the floor, her skittering and slides, her absolute ability to live in the moment. Her zeitgeist.

I don’t miss the wakeful nights of late, as what heralded dementia began a heavy tread across the delicate tipperies of her brain. I don’t miss the tension in my gut every time I went somewhere for more than 2 hours. I don’t miss her barking, even at my voice as I questioned and answered myself, or opened a door that squeaks (they all squeak), or Alexa suddenly burst into life for no damn reason. I don’t miss the anxiety of walking in the fairy woods, wondering if I might meet another dog, another human attached, one that the Miss might rush up to, barking like a forest of trees in a state of war. She never volunteered attack, but it might have seemed that way.

However, now I walk without her. No more sticks to throw and to chase, no more of her fun and she always wanted fun, play, nonsense, games, sparkles. Even when the mud chased us, the stones wobbled us, the weather bashed us about, she, naked, me, trussed up like a polar star, we, we, we, had laughing fun, returning drenched and shivering and with mud up to our bellies. Still I walk. I drove to the most beautiful beach in the world alone and in fronds of rain, soft it was and gentle, the waves loud and I could see why. Out there, way out there, the crash of wild spontaneity, the sudden, created a dynamic random percussion, its voice travelling many miles. My wild, my ocean, my home. There was nobody else on that wide curve-mouth of a beach, one that once knew families that lived off whelks, seaweed, seabirds; one that held, momentarily, the ship that became a coffin for those ‘cleared’ from their ancient lands. I stand awhile in the soft wet, tip my face up to receive it, feel the cloud-cleansing. I recognise this place, this place of seeing what was, feeling it, and of moving on. A zeitgeist. To accept, or to absorb, accept and engage with the spirit of time. Zeit, means time. Geist means ghost or spirit. And, although the term, as we know it now, refers to an era, a culture, I claim it as mine.

The Miss is gone. I am here. My zeitgeist.

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Island Blog – Revenance

It’s been a while, awhile. Interesting, is it not, how words play with our brains? Two words mean one thing and when conjoined, another, pulling me in to play their game, feeling me free to challenge the shapeshifters, as I oftentimes do.

I am a revenant. One who has returned, and I quote from the dictionary, ‘especially supposedly (no commas, I notice) from the dead’. I recall meeting no dead folk during the process of being nearly dead, although my day and night visions were somewhat weird. It was all cat. A cat curled into my suitcase in broad daylight as I slapped ice packs on my swollen body, hearing the fizz like a water drop on fire. Another two cats, differently coloured, walking through my hospital room, reassuring. The End. Or so I thought with the whole cat thing, fever, sick, one of the nearly dead.

Now, and now, here I am back home to the island with two big sons. One breast is, like (!) what’s the fuss all about? T’other looks like the surface of the moon. The op was a ‘wide excision’, in other words the spider legs were a distance apart. A scoop was required, and the wotwot pulled together, hence the strange shape. The old girl has the usual sag. The new girl on the block sings a different song. I wonder how she will look once she gets over this puffed up, bruised, attention-seeking thing? I smile.

I do my exercises. I am tired, rest often, keep doing what I can do which is mostly hanging my twinkly winkly lights now that the sun goes down like a crashbang. I can reconnect with my frock stash. It’s like meeting old friends and we all love the Autumn and Winter, my frocks and me. The cold brings out our colours, layers and revenance. We can carefully layer, we who refuse to go un-barefoot, always bare legged and feeling, really feeling the seasonal change. No protection. It is a choice and one I made a thousand years ago. I need to feel it, feel all of the all of it, of everything. Wild, yes, but not to me. To me it is a rising into whatever comes next.

This life with all her fears and worries, her slapdash, her punches and losses, her sharp cuts and traumas, all give us a wild card. (I have no idea what a wild card is, but ‘wild’ works for me). I will always play mine. It doesn’t matter what a soul has had to face, has come through. There is no competition. We all face shit. We all have the rising in us. All of us.

We are revenants. All of us. And, ‘Revenance’, the process, will be a word in the dictionary one day, telling out that all of us have, and still are, rising from whatever became dead to us, another, a thing, an understanding, a relationship, a valuable something. I have not met another soul who hasn’t lost something, someone, an heretofore (!) understanding. We are so shit at taking this out into the world.

In the breast cancer ward, giggling with the surgeon about a load of wotwot, pre-op, I watched a cat, white and grey, move easy away through the doorway. I don’t have a cat. Or, maybe I have four.

Let us rise. We are revenants.

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Island Blog. – Present, Alone and Safe

Oh how I love my home, the warm, cozy, safe happiness of these four stone walls surrounding me and my wee dog. Since himself upped and died, I have not felt safe here, concerned about loneliness and boredom and the fact that those who needed me, every single minute of every day, every month, every year, no longer do. It has taken all this time to be comfortable with that. At first, it felt like abandonment, I was abandoned, and I was, abandoned. I remember thinking, as each child left home, that gut twisting ouch, like a punch, that one of my beloveds had chosen to leave me. It sounds mawdling, arrogant, even, but what loving mother feels it any other way? I dont know if himself felt it too, but I do know that he still had me and that was enough for him, but he wasn’t enough for me, and that’s my raw truth. When they left, I longed to go with them, even as I knew I never could, nor would. A young life must learn through living it out, and a mother in tow was never going to be me. I knew one of those, my mother-in-law, and much as I respected and needed her, I didn’t admire her hold on himself, not once he had a wife and family. However, reflecting, this was a two way need. I get that.

It rained today. No big deal. T’is the norm in this glorious place, the wettest in the whole of the country, and that is saying something. To be the Best Wet……. goodness, demands a medal, or, maybe several medals distributed among all of we islanders, not that you would ever see them beneath the layering of wools and waterproofs. The rain can be slanty or stick straight. The clouds must be exhausted, or perhaps not. Perhaps this place is the only one offering regular employment, and clouds are fantastic creatures, lifting, shifting, colouring, turning Colgate white, spreading out their arms to each other, conjoining, merging, changing, always changing. Clouds can teach us a thing or two, at the mercy of Nigel or whatever daft and ordinary name the weather folk have decided to give a force of nature that begs no name at all. It is just a gale, I want to tell them, just a wild creature of magnificence and power, and you want to what……turn it into a small thing, a something you can label and tidy away once it has moved on? It ridiculouses me.

I finished a jigsaw, started another one. No, that’s a big fat lie. I laid out the 1000 pieces, covering most of my big oak dining table, tiny pieces, god so bloody tiny and dark, darker than the bright picture on the box. I left them overnight, studied them this morning, these pellets of impossibility, and snorted. There is no way I will, would, want to, enjoy putting you together. In fact, you are a big fat chore and I don’t want one of those. I gathered all the pieces up and returned them to the box without a moment of guilt. I shall take this one to the library. And it thinks me.

As I move beyond the loneliness and the boredom, and the pointlessness of me, I find a strength, a new confidence. Had I been the old, bored, lonely and pointless me of just a few months ago, I might well have battled with that horrible jigsaw, out of a sense of duty and because it might, just might, have filled in an hour or two. But not now. Now I can feel the amazon (not the company, but the woman) awakening. I can, and will, choose what I will do and what I will not do. 50 years of not having much choice about anything much is becoming my past. I will put myself together in a new way, even if the pieces confound me at first, and it will be I who choose the picture. And my head is full of colour and light and clouds and skies and fairies and walks in the woods. I can feel the Atlantic swell in my heart, and she calls me, the minx that she is, and I find myself yearning for that wildness, the not knowing and not understanding, the turbulence, the storms, the sudden calms, the snow geese flight overhead, the swans coming in, the autumn bluster. It all chuckles me. I am woman. I am strong and, I am rising up to laugh at the days to come for I am made of cloud, woods, ocean, light and dark, and I am here, present, alone and safe.

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Island Blog – A Fricker

I confess to feeling nervous. Not about the more tests thingy on Friday, not about the outcome thereof, not even that I will be alone for said tests and said outcome, but of the travel. From here, leaving home, my safe and happy place, to my daughter’s house and then, the following day on a train to Edinburgh, to the hospital. I’ve travelled alone before. It isn’t a new thing, nor a big deal, because I’ve done it many times, the drive bit and, as for the train, well, I just catch it and sit do I not? I wonder why we ‘catch’ a mode of public transport, as if it might run right by us like a headlong horse, one we have to leap aboard, arms stretching, holding tight, legs fighting to swing on, to cling on, the wind punching us backwards, as the beast gallops on, careless of our existence. It’s like that in India, or so I hear, but not in Bridge of Allan. Not that I’ve ever witnessed.

It thinks me enough to talk about it to my counsellor, she who has more powers of reassurance than she has teeth. She manages to reassemble my thoughts and my unthought thoughts, settling my imaginary fears into a neat and orderly line. I look at them, standing there, arms by their sides, a slide of naughty schoolkids, chastened into silence. They are all small, pint sized, half my height, strength, experience. It helps to see them this way, in balance, in perspective. Even the strong feel fear, I tell myself and this is as it is. Fears come to everyone, after all. It is what we do with each one of them that matters. If I allow a fear to grow, it will kick the legs out from under me and that is not happening. So, the happening is all down to me. Again.

Each time I leave the safe place, I feel this anxiety. I feel it when leaving family or when family leave me. I feel it when my wee dog is sick or when a tyre on my car looks a bit low. I feel it when my woodpile looks a bit depleted, or when a gale slam dunks the island, making a hoor of a racket just to frighten us all, when the dark is complete and unforgiving. I feel fear often in the small of my back. Fear is real but small, I tell myself. Fear is only a big thing if I let it grow. However, I am not stupid about such feelings. I know they will not stay buried just by my turning away from them. I must allow them to come in, to sit for a while with me, and then to ask them, politely, to leave. You are not helpful to me right now. You are not real.

So what is real? I have my ticket for the ferry. I know the road of old. It’s a pretty drive and I will take it at my own speed which is gentle. I will sit behind a lorry if needs be. I will allow others to overtake and make it easy by slowing down for them. I will notice the autumnal changes and the ebulliance of heather and the wild expanse of land left to itself, the arc of an uncluttered sky and I will love it. I will sit on the ferry admiring dogs and saying hallo to everyone I meet. And, on the day I ‘catch’ the train to the hospital, I will watch people, smile and acknowledge them. I will smile in the Breast Waiting Room, all those women anxious, eyes searching the room for something, anything to take their minds off their fate. I will laugh with the nurses as I unbutton and bare myself, as I am squashed and poked; as the needles go in. And, then, somewhat beaten up, I will smile at and laugh with the nurse who is my companion through all of this, and I will try to understand and to take in whatever she tells me. And, if I don’t quite understand, I will ask for a repeat.

And, then, I will catch the headlong horse back to that tiny wee station with its flower baskets and a backing of solid hills, and I will arrive to a smiling collection, a load of questions I probably won’t be able to answer and to the celebration of my eldest granddaughter’s 16th birthday. I held her on the day she was born and now just look at her, tall, athletic, full of dreams and plans to travel the world. And, as I write this, remind myself of this, I smile, this time, for myself. Although I may feel a recurrence of anxiety, of fear, I know that what is fricking about with my mind is just that. A Fricker.

Small, pint sized, and absolutely no match for me.

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Island Blog – The Joy of It

I swam today, not, as I would like, in the Atlantic, but after a long and sunshine drive to the pool, I clock in. This pool is affixed to ground control mid island, as is right, accessible to all of us who live sprachled over hillsides, down tiny access roads, and with posties confused for miles and many many miles apart. Like last time, after two lengths I loathed the whole thing, my neck aching with all that looking up required from a breastroke. Two other women were there, early doors, pre lessons and wotwot, the pool calm and the sunlight fluttering against the walls, in our eyes, a sunshine mosaic, fractal, beautiful. I pushed on. Last week I managed 20 lengths, this week 25 and helped big time by the chat in the shallow end. I learned of other women who live here, have done so for frickin ages, just like me.

I didn’t lock my mini. It was a choice. I thought this think. This is an island. People are good. I abandon my control panic la-di-da and I lift, like Bouddicca from this sprightly mini and into my swimwear and onward. Always onward, to hec with, well, pretty much everything. I watched a coach welcome folk from the hotel, off on a voyage somewhere on this beautiful rise of rock, and I waved a smile.

Home again and you’d think I’d been gone for a century for all the welcome I got. The dog was watching through the fence rail, waiting, waiting, but trusting. I always tell her to stay and that I won’t be long, and, knowing that she has no idea of time, I won’t be. But she waits, and she watches. I am it for her, and she is the it for me. We walk, slowly, and, thankfully, into the shade. I clocked 26 degrees pre leaving, but, once into the fairy woods and then to the shore, it will cool. I notice there are no conkers on the horse chestnuts. I wonder why. I have no answer, nor do I need one. The turning of the world over millennia has shown loss, failure, rise and ebullience, over and over and over again.

We walk to the shore, me and the wee dog. She always wants to go there. When I am tired, I divert her. Home, I say, feeling guilty. I always regret it, that slope to the shore, where grand girls dived in wetsuits, lofted onto dinghies, crab fished, scrambled the ancient rocks with bare feet, light and easy. Today we went there. She was a scoot on the green download of the earth, all the way to the crunch of sundried kelp, still there, wild flowers, holding on, some canoes, kayaks, tied tied to hazels. The blue moon tides have been, well, luscious. Over the top. Well over. Boats need to be secured. I walk by them, remembering their launches, remembering my family, not here anymore. And it thinks me.

I sit on a wonky rock. My arse slideyways, my feet ditto. I hear an irritation of herons across the sealoch, watch diver birds dive, rise with a splash that laughs me, then dive again, I see an otter flip a fish, the rainbow flash an indent in my mind. As we wander home, as the crunch of new life supports my feet, as everything I have never known begins to unfold in the now, I smile for the joy of it.

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Island Blog – Happy Days

Well, now I can say that I have had an MRI scan, instead of just hearing about others being pushed into a tube, ear plugs and defenders attached, and with much encouragement to remain completely still for half an hour, at the very least. I don’t ever recall being completely still for that long, in my whole life. The knowledge that, to move at all will require a re-scan, is enough to have my toes twitching. My face was pressed into a face-size hole (not my face size, however) and my breasts too, although they didn’t share the face space but, instead, were ‘placed’ in other holes, also not my size. It seems that other women are way better endowed than I. Hey ho. The MRI Controller, a delightful smiling nurse in dark scrubs and with a beautiful face and smile, said things like, Don’t Worry, Think Happy Thoughts and DON’T MOVE. She also said that, when the silver stuff begins to pump up my arm and into my chest, I will feel it like a frozen worm slinking up my veins. Oh, yum!

Pre the scan, I had to answer a load of questions. Do I have any metal piercings? Am I wearing any make-up which, nowadays, has metal in its mix, or can do? Do I have tattoos, allergies, diabetes? have I ever had eye surgery? Do I have any metal crowns? What, like the Queen? No, she chuckled. Teeth. Do you weight over over 20 stone? Oh, ah, no. Tick No to all of the beforeness. And off we go, no, me go, in the delightfully attractive hospital gown/marquee, with the opening at the front. I remained still, ignored my toe twitch and took myself up, up and away into the sky where I met fairies and cherubs and angels and a lot of space. Radio Something blasted tunes into my ears whilst the scanner chugged and beeped and roared and then did a rather attractive staccato thing. The sounds kept on changing, kept me entertained until the frozen worm began its journey. I didn’t even twitch but kept up with the fairies and cherubs, flying high above all of it, the scanner, the cancer, the reality of where I lay, my arms down by my sides, breathing in and breathing out, my body calm and still. There was no flipping way I was going to threaten the success of this scan so I didn’t, something to do with my stoic parents, or something, someone. You don’t fail, that’s it, thats the thing, that is that. So, mostly, we didn’t. (not sure it helped, that attitude in life. Failing, as we all know, is just another step towards success. I digress)

Home now, home now, jiggetty jig (Pigling Bland, for those who never read Enid B) and in a very lowtothegroundnoisyfastwonderfulclassicsportscar. Lying down, I was, which was ok until I clocked that he, the driver, was also lying down. I watched the sky mostly, as the road swirled by, loops and curls and dips and rises and all the while hoping he wasn’t doing any of that sky watching stuff as huge lorries, massive SUVs and even the ordinary saloon, big with family and dog, passed us by from at least a 5 foot elevation. No matter. We zoomed like a focussed insect, overtaking (super fast) holding the road, taking corners as I would never take them, aka, no gear changes, and with an excellent driver, arrived back home in no cafuffle at all. He did ask me. Were you scared? And I could honestly answer No. I told him this. I am old. He says Elderly, arf. I want adventures, still, fun for sure. I may be scared about cancer and scans and lungs and breasts and oldness But, and that But is important, I do not want to turn back, fold, become less of that which my spirit still is. We have tunes on, me and my Lotus Elise driver son. He is cooking salmon, prepping a salad, I am writing this.

Happy Days.

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Island Blog – We Got This

And, then, today. Children, including Little Boots, to school for nine (the older girls), and a new nursery for LB. A new nursery, strange people, other kids, unknown space and all, but she was in like she already knew the lot. How must it be for someone so wee? Looking up noses, level pegging with knees and hip bones. I don’t remember it, thankfully.

The day, as it does for young mums and dads, pulls away like a bolting horse. There is breakfast to wash up, a dicey floor food scrap mosaic for Henry to guzzle up, two cats to feed, washing to wash, dinner to consider and prep, plans to make for later, the swim lessons some miles away, the snacks to make for the journey to appease tired girls, hangry girls. We found the swim pool, swimmed, came home again, home again, jiggetty jig. There is allotted time for ‘devices’, an allotted time that is always way too short for the players, then a wee snack, a peek at the Night Garden and off up the stairs to bedlington. In theory, there’s a night of sleep ahead, but this is never guaranteed, for there be dragons in the dark, as I remember well. Life rolls on, bolts on, lurches from dance class through swim, play dates, parties and athletics, all a drive away, all with a timeline. The time these parents spend in parking slots waiting, and waiting is just a bit part in the huge production of young parenthood. I watch it, and I remember, but vaguely. At Tapselteerie we had no television reception, no devices, no computers, no mobile phones and, do you know what? I am so very glad because I would never have had the patience for what is the norm today. Never.

Cooler now, and I think of home, of my friend up there living in a home with underfloor heating off, a range off, looking after my wee Poppy dog who looks quite the thing on rocks by the shore, all fluffy and not bothered with the coolth of these days. It is as if I left in one season and will return in the next, which is true, I will. The missing of that change in my own place, my home place, my bone place, my roots, always comes like a stranger to me. It did in those times I went to Africa one month and returned 2 later to snow boots and waterproofs when I only carried a light jumper, sneakers and a piddly jacket to cover my upper echelons. Waiting for the bus at Glasgow airport, I stood out like a fairy in Buchanan Street. It laughed me somewhat, through the grinning shivers.

As I do this waiting thing, I laugh and chuckle with a scatterdore of children. I watch the parents duck and dive, consider, negotiate, and sensitively, oh so sensitively, work with the new generation, to grow them into strong, unbiased, feisty individuals. I, perhaps, did the same, we did, because it took mum and dad to do this, at least, for us and for ours. It sure looks like we did ok, as I observe the five results out there doing this living thing, in the now of now. I wonder if he noticed this, the dead dad of 3 years tomorrow. He didn’t talk much about it, about how our children ‘turned out’, but I believe he was impressed with the way they grew far beyond us, way outside our understanding, our ‘norm’. He smiled a lot around our young, got grumpy with the noise of young-ness, felt, I am guessing, de trop with a lot of their lives, as I can myself. Too many girls, he would growl. 8 of them and just one boy, nine girls now and only 2 boys. A fractal world in his mind.

So, tomorrow, old sea dog, we will remember the day you died. It was lunchtime, ish. The boys laid bets on the time. It was gallows humour, and anyone who has witnessed the dying of a parent will understand that humour.

And then we move on. We got this.

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Island Blog – Thanks to a Horsefly

I’m here, back home and in the wealth of warmth. Well, warm, eventually, as the mornings can be sharp and bitey, requiring jumpers and leg coverings and a very good attitude to the shivers that challenge a mug of hot coffee. The afternoons sprawl wealthy on the bed of confidence, no leg coverings required, in fact, bring on the fans please. T’is weird and the way it is. By noon, I am overly clad and fighting my morning garb for the sudden, and somewhat desperate freedom from all that morning hoo-ha, which I abandon on the stairs. Jumper, leg cladding, even wrist warmers for the day is in pieces up here. Where once, we knew how the day would be, might be, the wise cautionaries telling us to keep our semets (vests with buttons and much restriction) on for months to come, now there is disarray and not only in the vest, leg cladding, jumper department. Weather steers moods. Cold rain, warm rain, just rain. Promise of sun, hope of sun, arrival of sun. It all guides us from pissed off to delighted, from a confirmed ‘there’s no hope’ to the one who is alert and watching the cloud shift, is accepting climate change, is actually the one in the game. And the game is more than weather. The game is one we play together and alone. Many of us have been assaulted by massive loss, like a sudden death. I almost cannot follow that sentence. It is too catastrophic. Too alone.

I find this next bit quite hard to say, as if I feel that what is going on with me palls by comparison to the catastrophic and sudden loss, one I have been close to this last week, and a timeline I can never be a part of, beyond the paltry can give.

But I am saying it. My time in hospital, whilst I fought to be not dead, has thrown up something important. With Cellulitis, there is a lot of swelling and one lymph gland remaind high despite the massive doses of antibiotics that saved my life, and after which, my consultant, Isobel, God bless her, sent me for a mammogram and biopsy and ultra sound. She was right. I have breast cancer, an unusual one, called Invasive Lobular Cancer. She, the cancer, is quiet, not necessarily presenting in lumps, although they did, eventually find one, the half size of a frozen pea. She appears in the right breast for the first time, as I have had at least five no problem lumps in the left.

What I feel is scared, unsure, and thankful for a horsefly bite. Beyond all those intitial feelings I am unsure about being in the garden. Thankyou friend Winnie for guiding me to big ass protection. Thank you to my ex breast cancer sisters who guide me to probiotics and dark green veg. I will leave island in a week for consultation and biopsy and mammogram and MRI and a whole load of questions and decisions. I don’t know whether it will be a lumpectomy or a complete wheech off of breasts. But what I do know is the strength of my family, my siblings.

I am suddenly cautious coming downstairs, cautious about walking out without a kick ass protection slathered over me. I am aware of my age, and that seemed to come overnight. Slower to move, all of that shit. But, for now I am watching eider duck on the sealoch, divers, geese, and the sun is creating diamonds on the salty surface.

And I am eternally grateful to a horsefly.

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Island Blog – Homecoming

Oh I did not want to come home! The heat, the sunshine (dodging it a lot) at upwards of 30 degrees from sun up, the red sand, the bush, the Africa of Africa, the music, rhythm, even the mosquitos, all of it had become my familiar. After two months, that is understandable if you’re loving every minute. Washing dried in minutes, the dog was too hot to walk after 9 am, and my bare feet on the wooden stoep burned like there was a fire beneath them as I oiled, sanded, varnished and painted. I wanted to help. Don’t tell me to sit down. I can do ‘sit down’ for a while, and longer than a while indoors with the aircon blasting, but I will always choose to be involved and that whole involved thingy thinks me. I knew I was coming back to just me.

The life out there, three long long flights away, plus a train and a ferry, is a whole different life. It has its disadvantages, for sure, the usual irritations, the added falafel of dodgy drivers, slow responses, (a lot of shoulder shrugging at any confrontation, plus a wide toothy smile), the heat day after day, the impossibility of finding parts for your car, the lack of Helmans Mayonnaise. I was a visitor. Visitors have no say at all in a place of lives being lived. They, we, I, have no clue as to the reality of the it of it. Just saying. I know, for example, how visitors here on the island for a sunshine week #rare, wax lyrical on the benefits I enjoy living here. I have no right to complain. My eyeballs roll every time. And it thinks me. On the way we perceive what we see, the snapshot of it, the processing, the decision made. Fumph. T’is thus. No. T’isn’t.

Anyroad, I take three flights, the first most pleasant, a slight rise in a half empty plane with comfortable seats, an old girl for sure but sassy and just for an hour. I am still in slight clothing. Then I get lost in Jo’burg airport. Possibly not easy to do but I manage it, finding myself in Baggage Collection when I should be (and soon) in Connections. I right myself, and speed up. It is only a short about turn and march and then another 3 miles to the gate. Which gate? The signs are now and then and mostly then so I, not worried at all, ask someone. He, an official with a badge, is super kind and walks with me to the appropriate corridor. he smiles, all black and wonderful and really cares. My strength of spirit returns. I arrive at Gate 10. I sit. Gradually, a lot more passengers arrive, all muslim robed. Because it is now 5 pm, they lay out their mats and bow to Mecca. I watch them praying, their devotion. It warms me. Not my thing but I still admire anyone with deep faith. More arrive, and more and suddenly I am unsure about my choice of gate. I rise and ask a sharpshooting black woman, official. She tells me, smiling, this is Emirates Gate. Oops.

I set off again. Good heavens this airport is huge, but I am not stupid. These muslims are heading the same way as I am, to London, so I must be in the right zone. I totter, yes, I am weary now, to Gate 14 and I find my people, I can hear the Glasgow accent, the banter, the tired voices, the helping of each other. I sit once more. We are called and because I am seat 20, I am almost first on. But as we queue and queue and queue on the ramp, I realise we are not the first. No, First is first, then Business Class, then us, lower case.

We walk by Business, seeing the beds, knowing they can stretch out for the 11 hours in the air, will have the taster menu, champagne et lala. And we take our seats. I am at the emergency exit. I ask the little lady near the window if she knows how to work it. She says she hasn’t a clue. Nor do I. And then he arrives, built like a cathedral, a professional golfer with tree trunks for legs and muscles that might challenge his flankers. She at the window sleeps the whole night. He, fitfully but so polite with his body. Me, not a minute. However, we didn’t have to employ his strength as we arrived safely in Heathrow. An unsteady walk to the next gate for Glasgow and into oh my goodness, the cold. From over 30 degrees to 6? However, there was a warm daughter to hug me warm again, a hot bath and a warm sleep. Home now on the island and so very thankful for the whole shebang. All of it. I learned so much, and I am thankful and curious and, do you know what, if you do nothing else to shape up a change in your life, just be curious. She, Curiosity, is a wonderful leader.