life

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Island Blog – Family, time and A.I.

They barrelled in, the girls, all grown up now, or so they think. I remember barrelling in with just that belief, even though I was always dodging the parental thumb. They’re like butterflies, the really colourful ones, dipping and diving, fluttering, spinning bright sparkles around the room, any room, so vulnerable. I smile a big welcome, ask questions because these girls now think they are adults, autonomous, certain. They have opinions, strong ones, a surety that I have definitely lost over time. For now, they know the world. It’s round, and contained in space within a gravitational pull, but they’re not, with their piecings and tattoos and that certainty that the world is just waiting for them to cause a wow. A really big Wow. One is heading into performing arts, another to the science of human geography, another to animal whispering (it’s not called that, but she is definitely a student thereof, already). And there are more plans for futures. Forgive my forgetting. All these teens are alight like fireworks, grasping life, opportunities, fighting for space within the inevitable confines of peer judgement and parental disappointment. What the parents wanted and hoped for, even planned for, was not what this teen had even imagined. No, Dad. No, Mum. Teens can say that these days.

I am, at first, momentarily surprised at how short I am. They were babies, toddlers, kindergarten deposits, when…….a few months ago, weren’t they? Now they are tall, strong girls, all made up perfectly, in lycra, toned and svelte, excited, fit, adventurous, wild, aware. I don’t mind being short btw. It works, for a granny. They look after me, help me unscrew a wine bottle or a jar of pesto, open the door for me. I am loved and I can feel it. Actually, the surprise thing continues. My quad shoots by loaded with girls, all squealing. I know they have walked into the wild Atlantic from Calgary beach, swung on tree limbs, investigated deer tracks, not a moment of boredom. And they are doing all this right here. Although I may only see them in quad passing, I know they are here, and it thinks me about moments, which is really all we have. Although I am alone on the island, I am not alone at all. Family may not live here anymore, but they come back and those explosions of the familiar are welcome, so welcome. Even when they are here, they have their own agenda, their own plans, of course they do. Even their parents, my kids, move to a different beat from the one of their childhood.

I get this glimpse and then they are gone again, but I have watched every given moment, listened to hopes, dreams, plans. I have watched faces alight with hope and faith. II have given over my kitchen for cake-baking, have watched my quad roar by way too fast, loaded up with girls. And I think this……

Go girls. Make a difference. Be canny, aware, safe and, oh, another thing….Artificial Intelligence can never be human.

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Island Blog – Freedom and the Pefficor

So what is freedom? A massive question and with a gazillion answers, for sure. For some it means a facilitated or courageous move away from confinement. For others it might mean, well, pretty much the same thing. I get that it isn’t always possible. I also get that it is possible, but would take huge courage and a faith that, eventually, a life would improve. It has to. Confinement is always wrong. Always. However, a person may have been complicit in the confining thing and that bit is often the one reason to stay. I agreed to this. I let this happen. I am to blame. We are such suckers for personal blame, as if it was born with us like a tricky twin.

Here’s a thing, one which might sound bajonkers. Not only might we be the one confined, physically or mentally, but we are also the pefficor, the more senior ‘officer’ in the ranks, of which we are but one. This nonsense is crazy but it is real. Inside our minds there are the critical voices, or just one, from our past, our childhood, and there is the pefficor, quite a gentle name for such an ungentle, who didn’t see us, not really, hear us, not at all, ask about us, our feelings, our life, well, maybe once or maybe twice. We can’t understand the power of that voice, nor why it keeps triggering us into a big response in the life we now live. I know what is missing. A good self-esteem, a strong sense of self within any dynamic, any workspace, any group of friends/ strangers.

The next bit is always inner work. In this world, so lost in the machinations of gain and power, even though all of us seek simple, gentle, loving, kind, we keep listening to the pefficor in our heads. Life is all about success. No, it isn’t. Life is all about listening, learning, uplifting, observing, slowing, watching, accepting. Striving for money is a death wish. We know this. We’ve seen so very many fall into that black, snake-infested pit. The wrong goal.

Whom do we admire? And I omit with a big omit anyone in fame because that place just doesn’t exist beyond a cloudal fluff. However, with many teens in my grandlings, I can see the power of the pefficor in their lives, the subsuming of self into the morass. I can see how tough parenting is nowadays and I am glad my kids, now parents, had the freedom of the wild.

I have no idea why all this came to me as I sat down to write, but it did. All any of us ever want is the freedom to live, to love, to move, to lift, to change, to settle, to choose, to speak, to listen, to be heard. Not a lot to ask.

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Island Blog – A Stopping

The day begins. I rise, dress, and head for a what I believe will be an ordinary day. I’m thinking about myself, the what-I-will do, my plans, my things, me, me, me. We all do it, and it takes something outside of ourselves to shock, to shake us into the outside of our fixation on self. It’s a very big world out there, a load of people, situations, circumstances, troubles we will never experience. We forget in the fuss about clothing dropped on the floor, the loo seat left up, the greasy fingerprints on furniture, the abandoned sweet wrappers, pizza boxes not emptied, not cleared, and I could go on for a whole year on that stuff. I was there, I remember it all.

And then something happens, news comes in. Suddenly we are twisted and twizzled into a spin, one that sends our eyes open wide at first, and then into a crazy spiral. As suddenly, the whole shit about clothes on floors, careless loo seat attention and abandoned wrappers become a nothing. Just like that. Because this news is so big as to automatically and perspectively diminish the things which, moments before, sent us into a snort of fury as if they were our only vision of our lives, we stop. What we were doing, or about to do, birls in our minds, and away into the mist, the rain. We cannot see them anymore.

Death is part of life, obviously. We all have to do both. It’s ok, sort of, for an old and beloved to leave the world, even though he or she leaves a big and wide grieving family. The dying in this case of a mum of many, grandmother of gazillions, was expected, and she was well into her 90’s. Still, the loss…….

This is going to sound weird, but I like to be reminded out of my own small agenda. I don’t like the news, don’t like the fallout of a big family home, one I remember, all sparkle and can-do, all fixed and sure, all young out there, naughty, finding their way, moving out, moving on, loving and loyal.

RIP Mary. I will remember your smile and those twinkles in your eyes, always.

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Island Blog – Can you see me, hear me?

I repot the Money Tree. I’ve had it for decades and in the same pot, the escaping roots lifting it all wonkychops. I cannot think how long that feisty wee bonsai darling has allowed the wonky. It thinks me, about wonky, I mean. I had heard it ask for a repot, for a long time, but, as happens to us all, I was just too busy with the what now of pretty much everything so that its asking floated into the air until I couldn’t hear it above the insistent demands of each day. Until I did, hear it ask again. It now stands in a slightly bigger pot, roots tended and loosened, wonky no more.

I think about re-potting, about asking and about not being heard. Today I had no work and I was very tired, all bog-eyes and rising from a very restless sleep, if sleep came at all. The dynamic in work is a great place to learn, about others, about the space, about the levels, about wonky. My mind scoots back to the times I have listened to the angst in a workplace, the strife of it all spilling from another’s lips, the obvious wonky. Having lived this long, I know that it is natural to look for a solution outside of oneself; the wrong dynamic, the wrong allocation of duties, the member of staff who is so in your face that you just can’t find a way to work with them. The ones who avoid duties leaving them to you. The getting away with it just because they are who they are, damn good at their job but not able to work with emotional intelligence within a team. I’ve heard it all. It’s wonky.

I have also learned that love, compassion, a listening ear and recognition of another is key to solution. It takes humility, yes. It asks for a choice to make something work, together. There are many people, all awkward with their things, who cannot communicate as perhaps I or you can. They just cannot. Nonetheless they are asking to be seen, heard, loved, kept safe, and, if that is determinedly acknowledged, the wonky can find a level. Not their wonky, but the one of the whole. Imbalance is a sea thing. God, don’t I know it, out there where each wave blocked out the whole sky. I know it in a bumpy marriage, a tricky parentage, an uncomfortable time with my own children. There is wonky everywhere. But here’s the thing. It isn’t about being perfect, or, maybe it is, because not one of us can aspire to that, but being the one who allows, who befriends, supports, nourishes, even if another is a complete alien in our perception, that one can actively prevent a serious wonk, one which just might tip the whole thing over into disaster. If we all stopped thinking so much about ourselves and our own wants and needs ALL of the time, we might hear the little voice asking.

Can you see me, hear me?

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Island Blog – Skinny Dip and Washeroo

Work in the best beach cafe ever was dynamic, busy and fun today. I notice the invitation from faces, the longing for recognition and connection. I remember noticing the same whilst welcoming Colonel and Mrs Tiddleypom after their very bumpy traverse along the Tapselteerie drive. That look. It is universal, on any, no, every face. Seen it in Africa, in Glasgow, in the Edinburgh queue for opera, in airport security, in the aloneness of a bus shelter, in the face of a beggar, the face of a starlet, the face of a terribly important high-flying-big earning business man. (There never were women in those so-called elevated roles in my back-in-the-day.) There is a longing for connection, skinny as hec, yes, but the eyes win, every time, no matter the flicking away, nor the make-up. I can dip into that, you who are right in front of me, as I am in front of you.

There’s a lot of dipping around in the wee space where deliciousness is delivered. We dance well, the skinny we of the serving team. We pull back to allow a big tray of quiches, soups, cakes, coffees, teas heading for a big table and zip sideways, which makes sense. Another, incoming tray of clearings, equally requiring the zip thing, and we pull back or lead, doing it for hours. My role, one it seems I have taken over (which might not be right) is the Washeroo. Is this my mother thing, the historical one who believes she is the only one who can wash up properly? Hmmmm

In the Washeroo, I am listening, peeking out to see if there’s a human on the other side of the counter who wants, yes, to order soup, quiche, cake, but more, someone who, regardless of their worldly elevation or wish for it, or feelings of loss, despair, failure, whatever, just wants a “hallo, what can I get you? Yes of course your dog is welcome, please sit anywhere. And they do. I have noticed that folk stay long beyond their food, talking, laughing, feeling happy, welcome. A lot.

The pecan brownies are delicious, the quiche, oh yes, it comes with a fresh salad, the chocolate cake, I’m sorry it’s gone, but there are flapjacks, cinnamon buns, rhubarb crumble slice, lemon polenta, blueberry muffins, and I have to tell you, this baker knows about air in her baking because EVERYTHING is light.

So, the skinny dip in and out of our work to serve the lovely people who come, just them as themselves, and the work within this skinny dip team, is such a privilege. I honestly don’t know that I have ever been in this dynamic before. I haven’t. We are making a new thing.

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Island Blog – The Dance in the Delight

So much to say, so many observations and thinks. Let us begin with the bump on my pointy finger. It isn’t painful, just there and it and I I do need the odd conversation. It’s possibly an olding thing. Anyways, this bump. I filed it down to a nothing much. Then I went to my laptop to sign in with finger recognition and was refused. I’ve been refused for days until the bump came back.

It thinks me.

Today at the Best Beach Cafe Ever, it was fun, as always, the bosses so flipping great with customers, an immediate welcome, even when we are 10 orders behind them, the chat dynamic and chuckly. Did I just make that word up…? We do all the dietary requirements here with spectacular cakes, quiches, scones and more. I love the twist and the dance of this cafe. I don’t think I have met it before. There is never a ‘No’ but instead a suggestion for a something else. I honestly think anyone who comes here feels immediately welcome, as if we were just waiting for them.

They come, the cyclists, the couples, the young families with wee ones, the folks with dogs, with troubles, with the exceedingly important need to escape to the glorious wild of this island. I met two really fun couples today. Now, here, I am clumsy with myself because I don’t know (old) the naming, labelling of pretty much anything nor anyone, nor do I care. Both couples were married men. I don’t give a bejabers about labels. I just loved interacting with them, their dog, their story. All beautiful people. We laughed in the sunshine. I watched their faces, saw their connection with each other, the familiar, and that is a beautiful thing. It lasts me.

I brought strawberries home, for ‘jammin’. My lovely bosses, who know about weighing and stuff, asked me to weigh (and stuff). I did, I did try, but got lost at 2934 kilograms. Not sure what that all means. The jam will be good, I know that. I have cooked for 40 years without weighing a damn thing. However I was nonsense at costing anything and there’s a story there. This new leadership is young and building and right on the whole lot of it all. I admire that.

It was a day of sunshine and random requests……americano, short with oat milk on the side, triple espresso, with mascarpone and lemon topped carrot cake; salted hot chocolate with a pecan brownie, a slice of lemon polenta, oh, and a fruit scone, warmed, yes, with jam and butter. An herbal tea, yes in a pot, is there lemon, can I have two plates, two forks to share that gorgeous coffee cake?

Yes, every time.

I love working with such authentic people. There’s definitely a dance in such a delight. And, a going on with what is there, just right there, without any botherment.

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1sland Blog – Breath

I hold it, my breath, at times, sudden times. Perhaps at a moment that confounds me, as if a rock has tripped me. It might be a word-spout from another’s mouth, of judgement, finite, challenging, and there’s a momentary confusion, like the after blast from an explosion, even though I have no idea what that feels like. The silence at first, then the thunder and roiling in my ears, the deafening to all else around me. We’ve all been there, and when I have, I always wished I had said something, stood up for someone, answered with confidence, not that the finite ever begs a question. I still wished. I also, to my womanly and well-trained second fiddler position shame, deferred to the height of the voice, the learned-ness, the confidence of delivery, the surety that no-one in this (now self-assumed as piddling and inferior) gathering would dream of cutting down this particular invasive species, of which he is a member. No matter his derisive comments, his freedom to dominate, take advantage, to touch, to control. Ok, that’s my stuff, my history, the deferment to men. I have no issues with men in general. I love men, in general. Let’s move on.

I hold my breath when a bird slams against my window. I hear the slam, the ouch of it and it sharps my lungs. They stop, as if they have seen and heard what I did. We go out into the garden, my lungs and I, to check. Mostly these birds slam wing first. They sit a bit, we talk a bit, I crouch on the steps. Little heads turn to me and away, always watching for the hawks, the predators. Not while I’m here with you, I soothe. Sometimes I can pick them up, the wing-slammers, and they clutch onto my fingers, settle in my palm. I can feel their heartbeat through my fingers, daring to, longing to live on. I can run a soft finger down their spine, from head to tail, encouraging blood flow, offering peace, renewal. They take their time, enjoying the connection perhaps, and then fly off. The head-butters don’t rise again, and again there’s a breath stop when I find them crashed on the concrete. Such beauty, so many colours, a pitch for life downed.

Music can hold my breath. I don’t know why. Who does? A superb lift of harmony, melody, a spectacular change of key, from major to minor and back again, the words clear to me in the agony, the joy, the wild, the wild of music. Could be classical, could be the music and lyrics I listened to through angsty teen years, could be songs of longing, of loss, of fury, of celebration panning decades. Something will suddenly touch me, even if I am caught up in a recipe or a to-do list and my breath will stop, just for a catch, just for a moment.

Could be something someone says, a compliment, a line of words that tell me a person has actually seen me, got me. Now that’s a rare breath catch, and no mistake.

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Island Blog – After a Squinny

A sticky nob, on a cupboard (just for clarification) and suddenly I see. Actually, no, none of it was there before, it just appeared like measles do on a body. There was one, maybe two, and all you have to do is turn away for a moment and that body looks like a field of poppies in full bloom. This is what happened to, not just all the other nobs, but the whole cupboard, all the cupboards, 10 of them plus 6 drawers. After a bespectacled squinny, I gasped. I did. I had heretofore imagined a quick wipe over the damn nob and then had planned to move onto considerably more interesting pastimes, such as a dab or two of oils on my painting, around that shoreline, I thought, or to just wander out, barefoot to fill up the bird feeders which seem to empty within minutes, but no. Suddenly I could see that my entire kitchen unitry would cause apoplexy should an Health and Safety inspector appear on a spot check. Unlikely, yes, what with the ferries in confusive disarray and it’s after 4 pm anyway which, as we all know, is when any officials employed by any government or council drop everything. Well, not everything, but you know what I mean.

Back to the knobs. They were all sticky, brownish and scuddy. Disgusting, I snorted, looking at my fingers. Then I saw the runs of coffee, the splashes of bolognaise, the sunshine drip of egg yolk, the blobs of god knows what. How could I not have seen this before? The answer I have worked out. We see A) what we want to see; B) what we expect to see and C) what we absolutely know, because we are clean and tidy and mindful in our homes, isn’t there at all. What a collision! Needless to say I had to squirt a lot and rub a lot and gasp a lot as my smart eco bright turqouise cloth greyed up and my squirty stuff lowered its meniscus by quite a few centimetres. My white cupboards and white drawers and white nobs are now sparkling like newly fallen snow. But, oh, there’s a cobweb, up there, look at it. It? There is a halloween party going on above my head in this kitchen. I determinedly refuse, despite the massive temptation, to check other rooms. After all, I did well today. I changed and washed bedding; went to Library and came back with not one book; sorted out the roofers, walked, chatted with various others in all of those situations and shovelled up a huge dump of sheet poo from right in front of the church gate. I even prepped supper.

Thing is, as all this thinks me, is the importance of laughter, even alone among sticky nobs, cobwebs, etc. Also, if the so called negative of a situation can be shifted into an ok thing, ok with me that is, then I won’t cart about any uneccesary shame nor blame. And then, as the thinks think on, what about how we judge someone else for their ‘cover’? I know people who won’t ask friends to their place because they are embarrassed about their ‘cover’, their ‘lack’. How sad. When I visit someone’s home, I couldn’t care less about the surroundings, the spills, the stains, the anything. I visit to look into the eyes of a friend, a human with a heart, doing their best.

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Island Blog – Maybe an Acceptance

I know that, when I am feeling tired, things arise that don’t bother doing so when I am not. I have learned this over many decades, not to fix on any choices, opinions, nor decisions when feeling tired, angry or hurt. It’s as if a mind, so clear and engaged with daily life falls into super-tired and then goes deeply weird. Sometimes, most times, the whatever that finds a way into the within of an already compromised state takes on the efficiency and the focus of a drone, with no empathy, no emotive colour nor depth, no ability to connect beyond its own directive. I was going to write that it feels like finding myself in a small space with a whole nest of angry wasps, but, although there is something of that, it isn’t quite the truth. It’s more as if the whole terrain changes, one I trusted, was sure of, my footing securely supported, all my thoughts lining up like good wee scouts, my inner team.

With all of that gone, the troublemakers come in like missiles, like drones, laden with regrets and recriminations. The trigger can be something someone says that swipes a person right back to childhood; could be a moment in time, long long past; could be a choice made in a different time that still troubles up in a bad dream. For me, it’s listening to an audio book today, feeling tired. Although the book is fun and engaging and brilliantly written and spoken, one of the characters has a husband with dementia. She knows it, we who listen know it, even the husband knows it, but he floats in an out of reality. Because the writer has obviously experienced this situation, even distantly, the theatre is accurate enough to take me back to so much of the real situation.

However, I have read acres of books on dementia. They do sadden me, but only at a distance. I was there and for many years. The grief for a strong and heretofore upright, impossible, infuriating, figure of importance and value as they lose their grip, their hold on reality, their control of self, begins way before death. Way, way before. We know it, all the family knows it, all friends know it, neighbours, shopkeepers, anyone and everyone. However, and here’s the bit that got me in this audio book, the man, the gentle, bright, strong and loving man who caught this awful disease, also knows it and chooses to talk to his wife about his feelings of fear, of sadness, of loss.

I never had that. That’s not a poor me thing, nor written with blame in my keyboard tapping, but I can feel, like a punch in my heart, how wonderful it could have been to cry together, to talk, to hold, to share. Perhaps, and I would say this to another who told me just this, it was just the way it was for you and him. There’s hurt in there, an unintended rejection, and maybe an acceptance.

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Island Blog – The Hello Thing

I get them all the time. Caught up in my own diary, agenda, timing, thoughts, projectory, that Hello Thing whips in like a tendril. I don’t feel trapped, nor asphyxiated, but there’s an alert there, something I cannot see, hear, nor negotiate with, an announcement inside my car, my kitchen, at work as I turn to lift clean plates onto a stack, or as I turn a corner a bit wild because the track is clear and there’s a big fun in the swing because the sun is stacked bighigh and just around the next corner, and all I can hear are swallows and geese speaking languages I would love to understand. The Hello Thing arrives like a majesty and right in my head. I have done a load of thoughting about the Hello Thing, over years, over many of those long lasting buggers and there is no denying they are random spirits, nothing to do with the upright correctness of my life, anyone’s life. Hence the random element. It does wonder me, as I remember, fractionally, my teenage years, and those years are most definitely the ones least listened to. A big mistake, right there.

The alerts, the Hello Things I dissed in those teenage years and way beyond, when I was married because the others in the room apparently never got them, and were, obviously, threatened by such, are my friends now. I believe there is a wisdom out there, way beyond me and there to guide, advise, caution. I have learned to listen, to be aware. Thing is, it doesn’t matter a bloodline, siblings, a past fashioned, all of us have the ears to listen to the Hello Thing. I believe it is a beautiful connection to the beyond of us. I have never heard anything destructive in any of my Hellos.

I met one or two today, as I pulled out from my work at the Best Cafe Ever. Yes, we all get weary, as a trickle of coffees and easy cakes erupts into a diasma of soups, quiches, warmed this, decaf that, herbal teas and ‘we’re in a hurry”. I could hear the uprise of voices, all upbeat, all choosing, all laughing, all on holiday, from my hidey-hole in the wash-up area with two deep sinks. The Hello Thing shoved me out, by my skinny butt. Don’t play the old card. , Get out there. I heard it, I love it.

You know what? Getting old does not mean a folding. Does not mean stop. Does not mean I Can’t. I don’t say this lightly. There is always fight. There is always the Hello Thing. Always. It’s a twist in thinking, a sudden realisation, the arrow shoot of a truth, the flip of a treaty, the crumble of a known road, the words of a person once respected. The determination to be whoever you are.

All I will say, is listen, and pay attention.