life

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Island Blog – Thing is…..

We all have to deal with today, the to and day of it, and it can stretch out like a frickin slimy mud walk through slicktastic brown sink. Or it can be a dance over a chalk-easy dance floor. Mostly not that in my experience, but I have danced that way, and that dance needs remembering. It is so easy in a life to forget the times when we did dance over easy, only remembering the sludge trudge.

At a certain age, I have noticed in this brown sink/dance easy life, that I am watching my agers fold into a complicit fold of flesh and obeisance. It confuddles me. I also get it. Thing is, choices in life have an a habit of (apparently) removing themselves. It can seem, and this is not just about olding, that individual authenticity puffs into the sky, losing gravitas and voice. Who am I in this time? Who was I ever?

I know those questions. I have rolled and sparred and fought with them for years. This is what I think, mostly for my peace of mind, I confess. There are those who rise above the concrete of their lives and keep shouting. There are those who don’t mind the concrete. There are those who do, but feel they don’t have the strength, voice, power, to push through, and, let’s be honest, concrete is a big opponent.

I watch my children. Strong and feisty questioning Fivers. I know their lives are not easy, not plain sailing. The tought times, I remember. A child is born and there’s a load of shenanigans at the pub and mucho celebrations, and then reality kicks in. And it goes on, and on and on, and then some.

As a septuagenarian……jeez, the length of that…….I have finally learned to greet every day with thankfulness. I say thank you to my bed as I rise. I salute my cafetière for my strong black coffee. I say thank you that I have purpose for the day. Thankfulness for every single thing seems to lift me. It encourages me to grab any opportunity.

It really helps.

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Island Blog – A Puckered Life

We all live one of those, times when the material beneath our feet is straight, taught as Oliver before Fagan. Others when the ripples and concrete risers trip us up until, despite our best intentions, we fall, smack, face down, bruised and bloody. Some pretend they didn’t fall, tending towards a fluff of tissue, many dabs, a flappy hand, I’m fine. I don’t buy into that flappy thing, the ‘fine’ thing, not when the fall is mahousive, even as I do get it when the fall is a nothing much. In which case, why bother mentioning it at all?……hallo old age. Back to the point.

I witnessed last week a tsunami of grief, was there, stood beside it, kept close. This is a real fall. Standing witness to such a mahousive time-blast was like standing in a storm on a cliff with no clothes on, the tilt-wind pushing overness into a done thing. I could feel the fall, smell it, touch it, even hear the music of it, the angst singing through every moment. I am glad I was there. (I’m currently looking for an alternative to the word ‘glad’. It’s so slamdunk, so, well, concrete.)

There was a big crowd, There were singers, solo and choir, readers, vicars with spice and pink hair. There was line after pew line of those who valued this woman’s life. In short, there was a tribute which blew me away. Today, at a very happy meet of friends around a table, all of us crafting something or other over coffee and cake, we talked of what we might like to be said at our own funeral. We spoke of where and how we might be buried. We laughed, obviously (gallows humour) about what we might want to wear once our spirit had left us like a butterfly. We also shared times in our long lives which had tried to trip us up, and failed.

Life is beautiful, and I just took it for granted. Oh, I’ve met the puckers a lot, and often, but I had the feet to run, the body to lift over any ruts, the strong arms to gather up my children, the mind to accommodate, and the resilience to, not just survive, but to make magic in the present for those I love. One big life is gone. What do I owe her?

To live on. To bring magic, as she did. To welcome everyone, to lift when I can, any stumbler over this puckered life.

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Island Blog – Tanglewood and Scuttlebutt

I know both. So do you. So does everyone. The tangle wood clutches, trips, confounds, all of that tiddleypom. That’s on the outside of us. It’s in the running, the hiding, the defending, the fear, the confinements. Wherever we walk, we are wary of potential fetters. Those of us concomitant with endless tangle woods may well be ready for the twist and fist and the damn roots that grow sideways and strong as a boxer’s biceps, but even we can be felled. The thing is to learn how to fall. I have learned this, in my mind, anyway. Don’t fall flat, if possible. Don’t reach out arms to defend a fall. Roll. Learn to roll. I have experimented with this, in my mind. I watch how rolling fallers roll and thought wow. Pretty much. That twist away from a frontal stramash, impressive. Takes courage. Are there classes?

So, this damn tangle wood. I thought I knew it, but it denses itself in my not-looking days, growing thixotropic, unwilling to deconstruct, even for me, a long serving member. So rude. And, faced with that regrowth whilst I was busy not growing at all, scoots me to scuttlebutt thinking. I should, I could, I ought to have, I might have. Old voices, judgmental. I reside with Well, I didn’t. Not great. It feels me like the runt puppy or the also ran at a race meet. Or, better, the second son, the second daughter in those days when second really meant invisible and unimportant. It bemuses me that such complete and absolute nonsense yet infects some. It does, including me. This is Scuttlebutt.

Scuttlebutt. Inner talk, gossip. Outer gossip. Nothing positive about it. There are too many shoulds and coulds and didn’ts, too many chances to tangle a human doing the best they can, no matter circumstance, no matter judgement, no matter history. Keep going, that’s I tell myself. At least the tangle wood has no malicious intent.

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Island Blog – Passerine Birds

They’re here now, the passerines, lifting and lighting up bird feeders, trees, shrubs and gardens. Each morning begins a new bud, a slight of colour, pink, yellow, green, buds bursting like pregnant women into new life. A bird lands, the stem bounces, a confluence of energy, just for a moment, but it is enough. Connection is an imprint made, the duplicity fixed in time. Up there, in the wild sky, whether cloud brown with incoming rain, or cloud white as puffballs against a still slightly icy blue, whooper swans seek rest on their way south, or is it north; various geese honk by, all hoot and panic and in perfect formation; thrushes sing from the tippy top of any tall tree, talking a load of shite, all sqeaks and burps and farts as if one bird makes a whole orchestra.

We wake earlier. Afternoons are actually afternoons, instead of a snippet which goes rudely dark over a cup of tea and a biscuit. It is, as everything is, just a passerine thing, for changes come, unbidden, unbound, just as life should be, if we understand change in that way, in the only way to be honest. I’ve lived long enough to know that this is how it is, no matter how much we may attempt a singular annihilation of such a limitation. Acceptance is all. And that means what? Living every day, yes, as if it is your last. Yes, indeed. But that may be too much. I remember laughing my head off at such crap, once, when I was 30/40 and sinking under the weight of business demands, of children’s needs, of a husband who tried to be what I needed, but didn’t really get it, of collies needing feeding, of muddy feet, of guests, of phone calls asking me to be sure of the best day to see whales in the wild and in good weather. Of so very much more.

I’m thinking of Lizzie. Her funeral soon. How can this be? She, already 72, but only just before me. I am alive for mine, and it feels wrong somehow. I don’t make sense of that, nor try to. I am all about living life each day. You know that. There’s a however and a but in that, neither of which I can explain. She has been in my dreams, her naughty smile. Although I was the one who took the fall as a teen, the instigator, the trouble maker, I must tell you that Lizzie was right beside me. Yes, I was mouthy, a leader, but no leader is worth anything without a Second. Lizzie was calm to my lunacy. She was so gentle beside my absolute fury at absolutely everything and everyone. I wonder at her commitment to me. Most friends ran away and judged. Ditto their parents. My poor mother. I do, now, recognise that.

Now she is gone, sharp and sudden, sort of. A shock indeed. A Passerine Bird of multi colours incorporating musical brilliance, people skills which gathered in choirs and friends and moments and times. We didn’t connect a lot once I left Englandshire for the Island, but she is still in my dreams. How extraordinary to have that impact on someone. Like the passerine bird on the branch of a budding shrub. She bends me, we bounce a bit together, and, then, she is gone.

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Island Blog – Thinkscape

I’ve done a few things today. In an elemental olding, I am guessing a few things amount to much. It thinks me. Some, no many, don’t get this far and there are times I wish I hadn’t. Not many, though, to be honest. I meet and greet young people, and I see my own young life, the way nobody can take this away thing. I love to see the tipsy don’t-care attitude. I remember it. Nobody should ever tamp out that flame.

What I have learned, through copious reading in a zillion genres, in talking to others, has taught me fire. I meet, and daily, awful stuff in my age group. I see, and did today, in a short, happy conversation with a woman who dressed so sassy, so wild, so beautiful, that I could not guess her years nor that she is facing a lot of something. We lit a fire between us, like we were young again and checking each other out. It was a few minutes, but I saw her and she saw me.

In the waiting, the olding, there are a lot of Thinks. Time rolls slow, or it can. Those of us previously agile and in some way compromised and let me say this out loud, and as a challenge to them, youneed to stretch more, to reach more, to find more, to do more. It is so easy to sit and to give up, ‘bring me this, get me that’. If the ‘more’ is not an option, that’s good enough. It has to be enough for me in a day when I am doing little else. And the reason for this doolittle, not-much bollix? Ah, now there’s a thinkscape . A tinder burn of a long life, a fire burn of memories, of dances on sand, under moonlight, with a band who never knew when to stop; when the morning arose long before me and brought a ferry in to lift me over a bumpy tidal flow, when i honestly thought this would go on forever. I like the Thinkscape. Takes me above land, under sky, halted for a few moments in memories.

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Island Blog – Fly Safe

There’s a thing about an upskittle. It, well, upskittles. And that’s okay because life is no straight line, no matter the planning. We do have to plan, of course we do, but then, all of a sudden, the incoming is not friendly. So be it. Sleepless nights ensue, the buggers, and in those hours of not sleeping, as I might imagine everyone else is, I walk through the fog, the mist of it all, and I accept. I believe that to be key. Key to what? Key to the door of acceptance.

I had a commitment today, a hair cut, a meet with a dear friend. I was cold, shivery, after all the night fog, the walking about, the cold unhug of such a longtime, and considered saying I Can’t Come Today. It’s a give-up to me, a mistake, at a time like this. It isn’t always that way. If I had scarlet fever or if the mountain river had broken its banks and flooded my home, then such a retraction would have been absolutely correct, and appropriate. That was not the case this ditzy morning, when my eyeballs worked independently and I could barely pull on my knickers, let alone the rest of my kit. Even applying eye makeup was a challenge, and I will go nowhere without that.

Time ticked on. I watched it, tick, tick, tick, the minutes not minute at all. Each one was loud and thorough with contradiction and discombobulation. To go? To not go? And then it came, as ‘it’ often does. Oh for effs sake, get on with it! Boots on and go. No excusing the fog, the missed, neither of them. I heard a sound, one I recognise, but haven’t heard for a year. I twisted up to look, as this sound came from the sky, I knew that. Five Whooper swans just outside my window, in a tight formation, in the rain, the windthrust, in the wild, in the now, going somewhere, going on, going on.

Hey, Lizzie. I said that, spoke it out loud, my breath flickering an early candle. Fly safe.

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Island Blog – Means a Lot

Today was one to get through. It took hours, long hours, long as snakes. We all get them, I know, but in our western culture of not admitting to anything sad, most, if not everyone, says nothing, as if to admit to being completely human suggests a structure broken, damaged, faulty. I don’t buy into that. I will say when I feel (and here even I falter for wording) sad, angry, lost in the tsunami of what just happened. It is as if there is something wrong with admitting (wrong terminology) to a weakening. Even that is wrong, somehow. How odd that, with such a vibrant and expansive language within our grasp, the aeons of culture control stultifies. We are a people of denial. To seek the help of a counsellor is something whispered, reluctantly, to a best friend, if mentioned at all. I am happy to say that I have had counselling for most of my life, and thank goodness for the lot of them, for they have been my helpers along my always tricky path. When I did admit, way back to seeking such a wise helper, I do recall my body language showing shame, my eyes averted, my body somewhat cowed. What ridonculous nonsense! That’s what I think now. We all need help along our tricky way, at some point. It is so damn British to think we don’t.

Today I felt the death of my friend harsh as spikes in the soles of my feet. I felt it in the way I didn’t want breakfast, nor lunch, even as I ate both and tasted nothing. I felt it every time I rose from my chair, awkward, stiff, sore. I felt it when I made myself do the 100 pulls on my rowing machine, miscounting, lost in some cut between time and untime, an airy space of nothing, of no sound, no feeling, a nothing place. I felt it when I went upstairs to read in bed for an hour, barely following the story, my eyes ever looking out to the hills, the sky, the gullfloat into a scud of clouds. I felt it when I swept the floors, watered the orange tree, watched walkers walk by. Beneath it all, I have gone away. I function, but the ordinary makes no sense. It used to. It had depth, gravitas, a point. Not now. And, this is crazy because she has a husband who adores her still. I haven’t seen her face to face for years. I know very little about her daily life over decades. And, yet, this is how I feel. We met at 6. We share a birthday year.

And that means a lot.

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Island Blog – The Disordinary

I’m on my ordinary list. Got through a few, a lot, in fact. I emptied the compost bucket, said hallo to an obviously newborn toad, for all the blinking and not moving thing he or she did on the step into the woods. I brought wood in, welcomed a friend for soup and a delicious afternoon of chat about everything to do with life and notlife and everything in betweem which is a hoor of a load of years and fears and tears and joy andchildren andregrets and gains and loss. I went to church, read a prayer, hugged, left. There are a couple of didn’ts. I didn’t do my 100 pulls on the rowing machine, nor did I walk. I feel bad about both. But, there is always the morra. I moved cash to cover incoming bills. I decided what I will wear to my friend’s funeral in a couple of weeks, and I felt good about the lunacy of my outfit.

Last thing is to sort the drain smell in the shower room. It used to be a bathroom, with a bath long enough anbd deep enough for a whale. It was a fabulous bath. However, times change and so on, and because we needed no bath, no chance of disaster. A wet room, a shower, hold handles and a non skid floor. A big change. The piping of this new song is too thin. The shower, still a good one, works fine. The drain requires constant attention. I have no idea what changed. Perhaps the old pipes didn’t fit with council rules.

Anyways. I went upstairs as the dusk dusked to pour some soda down the smelly pipe. Added some boiling water, just a cupful, to leave till morning. I was listening to an audio book, lodged safely on the radiator, atop my flannel. Somehow, and I don’t know how, I moved something and the mobile slid down between the radiator and the wall. I thought, oh shit. Here I am, alone, old, in the dark, and this audio book has at least 30 chapters to go and my phone is well charged. However, I am me. grinned a bit, moved downstairs to find tools, thinking all the way. Slim, grab, push, that sort of think.

I did all of that. We are together again, but it did think me of the disordinaray. It comes.

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Island Blog – Lonely, Again

Here’s a thing. That is a ridonculous phrase, but, nonetheless an invitation to stay put and listen. At least that’s what I hope. I am upside down right now. If I cast my eyes back to what has happened over the past forever, particularly the most recent past, I can allow myself this. However, and But, why would those events be knocking me off my feet now? Well, when I ask such a question with absolutely nobody here to engage with, to consider, to respond, t’is only me who answers. She, actually. She is so damn sensible. If I could catch her, I just might incur damage. And, yet, she is the one who walks with me. In this lonely life, and it is a lonely life, I must be cautious around death threats to the one who is always right beside me. I know this.

My day is organised to a great degree. There are many hours in a daylight day, and, as I write this, I chuckle. I remember endless days that seemed to nibble up the hours, condensing them into what I decided was a conspiracy, a plan set to falter me, to confound, to bring me down. Now the hours move like a snail on morphine. I wonder on all the others who might nod at that, although it isn’t always, so. If I have managed to set encounters in place, such as meeting a friend for coffee or lunch, or deciding that valeting my mini is an opportunity for huge laughter and fun, or to decide to drive very slowly over the switchback, setting off very early, noticing ducks and buzzards and white-tailed eagles, flowers, other drivers who do know about island road. I might park and watch, look, pay attention to the ripples on a hill loch, watch a cow lumber away, see her calf jink and bounce. I might play tunes as I ride. I might clean my wee home, marvel at the view, know I am safe and warm and free.

Even then, I am lonely. And, I don’t think it is just me. I remember feeling lonely in a crowd, around friends, in a marriage. Lonely is a thing. And a very big thing, a thing that doesn’t leave just because I don’t want it, or when i try to swat it away in all my pretending. It has a voice, a presence. It is solid and here to stay. Oh, I could fill my days with endless meets and commitments, jobs and nesessaryness, but lonely lurks in the shadows, well fed and just waiting to slide into the room. I don’t feel gloomy. I feel furious. I think, that, as any new shit hits the lifeline fan, the lonely, like an unburied ghost, finds opportunity, and grabs it.

My oldest friend died. Oh hallo lonely. I refuse, btw the way to give you a capital beginning. I know you. In you come. Again.

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Island Blog – Knickers,Triggers and Dreams

Life is such a funny thing. Funny. Now, in my day, that meant fun. A captivating laughter of a word, an invitation into something less boring than the rest of life, an opportunity to be ready to go, to dance, to step out into a new lift, like a birthday, when it wasn’t. Nowadays, it means different things, a few of them, and the ‘thems’ both shrivel the word into something odd, weird, dangerous whilst adding the extra ‘ny’ as if that softens the meaning, which it doesn’t. It seems to me, as I grow ever older and not much wiser, is that the shiver and sliver of words and their meaning, as I knew them, grow roots in a day. I meet them, get them wrong, am laughed at by my young, adapt, even as I untangle myself from the unexpected twist and tumble of them. It thinks me.

I was thinking about knickers. Now, when you put ‘knickers’ into spellcheck, the kicking K is banished. I liked the K. There was a kicking thing about it, about knickers, and I have a lot to say about knickers. Too big, too containing, too long, too fierce, too much, way too much elastic. As if, as if, this containment was ever going to ‘prevent’ anything. How blind, how controlling were our forebears. That thinks me too, and I remember having a beautiful and dynamic daughter, way back. But fierce knickers were never going to make any of a difference to anything. We need fun, we all do.

Today, in my now life, with my now friends, we can laugh about knickers, with a K, We can remember the triggers, the delish of fun, of funny, and, to a great degree we still have all of that. We can share a table, warm and safe, talking of our times, times of fun, of funny, of ghastly knickers, of times of elicit freedom, never spoken of, our dreams, so soft on faces across the table. Actually, I don’t think that has zip to do with age. I have seen across much younger tables and watched dreams spill out, lift, rise, dissipate. That triggered something in me. I remember that urgency, that yearning face over other tables. T’is life. And, then, fun arises, laughter lifts to bonk its head on the ceiling, and return to flutter hope down.

I remember the damn knickers with a K, and those dreams.