insects

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Island Blog – The Immaculate Lawner and a Splinter

I just got one, a splinter. I went up my mosaic steps to the hilly garden behind my home. I had no mission, no compost to empty into my worm-tastic bin, no purpose beyond this, just to see what wild flowers are drinking in the sunshine. Gazillions. I took them all in, had a wee chat because they might think I was some wandering weirdo. I went barefoot, feeling the soft grass like clouds, watched the green spring up between my toes, felt the sun on my back. We had a wee revel, the grass, the moss couched on rocky bits, the wild flowers and me. Even the black honeybees joined in, although they’re more about their own stuff I find. Then, on descent, and holding the handrail as I choose to do these days, a splinter decided to come with me, sharp and into my palm. I need my palms for work at the Best Cafe Ever, and I swore. I did. It hurt and I can’t see it without binoculars, let alone remove it. My specs are, well, shite, as we say on the island. There’s a ‘could do better’ here, I know it.

The experience thinks me. We make plans and then get a splinter, something we can’t quite see, but definitely know it is there, because it hurts, disrupts and alters our direction. This, I have learned, is Life. I know we are encouraged to make plans, but rigidity is no friend. The words, Always and Never, for example are in my opinion, obsolete. We make a promise and break it. I have done so, an so have we all, even as we may quote the Always and Never nonsense, because we are human, soft, flexible, adaptable, dynamic, fluid. We have to be and particularly now. Things change every day, every hour, every minute. The way it was is not the ‘is’ of things.

I look at my view, one I never take for granted, the tidal ebb and flow, the woods out back, the sound last night of Barn Owls. I see the grass longging, lengthening, cupping wildflowers random in their rise and I see the chaos of that, and the order. Think of a baby. We watch, observe, marvel, encourage, laugh at the random. And, then, we control. We become the splinter. Why? Ah, yes, to conform with the rules handed down. This is how you do this. But not anymore. The innovators are all over us now. We have Autonomy. We have Choice. We know what is happening in our world. If we do nothing else, let us keep the green, the life-flow that feeds us, mind, body and soul.

I know, when I drive somewhere, even here, that I will see immaculata. Gardens synched in, controlled and statuesque like women of the past. The colours will be gorgeous, all in rows and all controlled. Immaculate lawns. Not here. I am already in a dither about cutting grass at all, taking the heads off those lions and cuckoos, the daisies, the others I cannot name. I probably will cut just once and avoid any cut in May because the bees so very much need us to stop tampering with their lifelines. And not just bees, but all the flying insects considered swatting material, pests at best. Do we actually realise how important they all are?

Splinter moment.

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Island Blog – Poppies, Tides and Hugs

There is something deep about a hug. Like an ocean flowing over, through and around you. It won’t drown you because you can breathe underwater. Enveloped inside big strong arms, feeling the pressure of warm fingers, the familiar smell of home. I am home. You are here. You and I are, for the length of this hug, as one body. My love flows to you as your love flows to me, right down to my very core, fizzing along my capillaries and through my muscles and over my skin like the first sip of champagne. When we part, the tide has turned. From slack water to ebb or flow. Birds lift in anticipation, fish swirl in the depths, sensing a change; seaweed flutters in confusion. Which way now?

After months of slack water, these son-hugs turned the tide. Tall, strapping men, fit and healthy, warm and soft, gifting love and support, hugging. They have to bend down a bit for a hug with me and even further down to hug their wheel-chariot dad, but they can flex and stretch, rise up again effortlessly, as once we did. Buried in their chests I breathe them in, remembering. Not so long ago they dandled on my knee, fed from me, squealed their delight, screamed their anger and now look at them, fathers themselves with knees for dandling their own little ones. How fast life travels, how fragile it is and yet how strong. How long is a life? There is no answer to that. What matters, it seems to me, is what we learn during that life through observation, sail correction, through the anger and the joy, the near drowning.

Moving through a morning of poppies, I feel the inner shift. Tomorrow, if the wind rises, these crimson wide-open petals may be ripped and stripped. I saw them as buds at 6 am. By 7.30 they showed me a cadmium red mandala. By 8 they were face-up to the sky, black mouthed, anticipating insects, their petals combing the breeze like silk. To seize the day, the moment of lift, as they do, teaches me. To show me life is beautiful, fragile as poppy petals, strong as sons, and, most of all, to be truly lived, no matter how long or short. No matter at all.

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Island Blog – Watcher

In this clifftop cottage I have panoptic view. The sky fall, the sea-rise, the shapeshifter clouds, the sempiternal changes of light and the communication between them all. I am not a member of their group, merely an electrified and interested observer. I cannot watch enough, hear enough, sense enough. I’m always hungry for more, more change, more manifestations of a slant in the conversation, a break down, a loving reconciliation, from peace to a wild fury. Much like a family I suppose. One misplaced word, one tipped comment, one challenging stand and Boom is an understatement. Not that I know. My family is too focussed on the greater good of the whole, thankfully, no matter what.

The days have been tipsy. Rain, hail, sun, calm, hooligan winds, complete still, noise, silence, birds, no birds and so on. Life is exciting on a clifftop on the West Coast of Scotland and very unpredictable. I doubt I could ever live a life that wasn’t either of those. We come back from a wild walk, soaked through and frozen. Wet leggings, rain heavy frock-tails, dripping faces, happy, alive, rejuvenated. Now that we are inside, the sun laughs a big Haha from the sky, a great, round, hot orb of fire who, by the way, was nowhere to be seen whilst we pushed against a wall of hail-gusty wind. Thanks, I say, looking him (the sun) straight in the eye. He isn’t remotely bothered. At his back another load of watery ice gathers a boil of grey into which he will evanesce without a backwards glance. I think he’s enjoying himself. If I was him, so would I. We mere mortals who take 20 minutes from decision to departure, wrapping, zipping, pushing feet into socks, then boots, re-locating gloves and tissues are a joke at our own expense.

Niveous spume froths around the rocky shore, sometimes leaping feet into the air as the sky messes with the ocean which in turn messes with the shore. Oystercatchers lift and land like pinging tiddlywinks, their voices carried on the wind. A sea eagle startles a bunch of Herdwick sheep as it floats like a small plane overhead. They scatter and I wonder if they’ll do that once they lamb. I hope their instinct to protect will decide them on that although sheep are not known for their large brains. I have seen hens do a much better job. Once, when leaving a cottage we had cleaned for the new guests I caught a large shape overhead. A buzzard. On the ground along with me, a hen clucked her tiny brood under the protection of her wings, filling me with a new respect for the farmyard hen. If she can do this, why not a ewe?

In the warmth of the conservatory we, my best friend and I, sew and knit and tell our stories. We are no influence at all on the conversation between the sky, the ocean and the land, and, yet, we are an integral part of the group. Our influence is made evident in many ways, not all of them empathetic. But this bit of the island is in good and intelligent hands. We watch the farmer fork a huge load of kelp onto the grassland which will feed the grass, the wildflowers, the insects, the birds and the sheep. They, in turn, will feed him and his family. This is active participation in the pursuit of the greater good and I am uplifted every time I stay here, just knowing that one small corner of our beautiful worldly conversation is unhindered by short-sighted greed. The place is heaven (www.treshnish.co.uk). Isolation, comfort, welcoming warmth and a family who take their role as caretakers very seriously indeed. My kind of people.

The sun is out now, big and brassy and with no threatening backdrop. The farm tracks bifurcate into the distance. It’s down for the ocean, along to Treshnish Point and up to where the hills nudge the sky. I can choose my way as I do with everything else. Whatever life expects of me, I always have that choice, as do we all. I may not be free to follow my heart at all times but I can always have a conversation with my heart….. and together we can, and we will, go always forward into whatever happens next.