lifetime

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Island Blog – New Femaline

I awoke to a, quite frankly, feeble moon, full, or so she will be soon. She dithered behind the greyling clouds for a while. Come on, I said, and out loud, startling my sleeping orange tree and the damn geraniums, all ancient and why on earth do I keep them going? Duty, is all. They were my mother-in-law’s and all salmon pink and I am sick to my socks of salmon pink. It thinks me. I have annihilated quite a few growing things out there in the garden that is finally mine after a whole flipping lifetime of duty, but it always takes courage, or a glass of red, to spin me out there with my loppers. And that is how I see, or hope to see, my ten granddaughters, brave and confident and independent, freed from the constraints of an ancient hold on patriarchy. I also believe my grandsons won’t want it either, although those lads are heading into a world of strong decisive women and that brings its own consequences for them. Knowing their parents, they will be guided, but jeez the change will be tough, no known territory, no manual. I hope they learn on the hoof, by listening and observing, their learned ethics and principles supporting their journey into their own world.

Today one of my granddaughters played the pipes at a Highland games. I have two of these piper girls, beautiful young women, who know what they know, as I did not. They move like women and yet have no idea of the days into which they are moving. They have confidence, but so did I. They have answers, can parry, but so did I. In my day, men ruled and that was that. Now, it seems, women do and the outfall of that assumption of power is an obvious elevation above boys, men. Too much of a pendulum swing. But, who knows the learned behaviour of these boys, the influences to which they have been subjected? Did his/her mother teach of submission to the male, the husband, the doctor, the vicar, the policeman, the teacher, or just the husband of her next door? And did her/his father tell him to take the power, to dominate, to control, to make sure of the last word? So much has changed in so short a time, and it will confuse this new generation, until, eventually, the pendulum swings easy, tick, tock, tick tock. I am hopeful.

My role is to observe. I know that. I have 12 grandkids, 10 of them girls. The lads seem fine at family gatherings, lost in their constructions of whole worlds online, with AI working a treat, or reading, or discussing the dynamics of flight, whilst the girls flit like butterflies through every room, every conversation with wings and on brooms and sparkled with slap-on tattoos of unicorns, faeries and sparkles. All so lovely and all so transient. Does the hammer come down for them? Yes, it does, when trusted friendships sail away without them, when they meet the ‘old thinking’ inside a derisive comment, a judgement carelessly spilled from one who speaks out from learned behaviour, and it can turn an ok day into a catastrophe.

I’m glad I grew up in the arms of safety. I was definitely a child of my time when I met my match. Ten years his junior and absolutely discombobulated, well covered in the carapace of protection against my learned learning, that which made me wish I wanted be anywhere but where I was, so unfit was I for the obliging world of women back then. And he took the risk. He had also learned the old ways. And, as time went on, he brought them back. But, at first, I had met a man who didn’t treat me like the tea girl, the go-get-this girl, this don’t-interrupt-girl, the given cleaner, washergirl, the answer-the-phone-because-I’m-tired-girl. And the new of that captivated me.

I hope, for the next generation, that they can find their own way through the thixotrope of this changing world. I ache for the young men in the rise of strong women. I wonder how they will navigate. Yes, women have been suppressed and poorly informed, controlled and dominated for centuries, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need men. I suspect that it just takes good young dads to teach their sons a whole new learning, of the new female, feral, femaline.

I am always hopeful.

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Island Blog – Add New

That’s what it says when I click on ‘Posts’ on this blog. It thinks me in many ways. As I shower and dress up to join young friends for dinner inside the wildlife estate, I notice things, such as this:- One eyebrow has disappeared completely. Momentarily, I am somewhat scunnered, even as I know it is probably still there somewhere, well, not somewhere, but in the place it has always inhabited for many decades. I tip my mirror to MAGNIFIED and search again. There is the jist of it but now the other one, looking strong-ish and ‘there’, tipples my face lopsided. I attempt to colour it in, guessing the arch of it and check again. Now I look like an old woman without a map. I scrub off the colour, shrug my shoulders, and say What the Heck, or words to that effect. As I shrug my shoulders, the dewlaps beneath my arms activate. If I hold my arms almost above my head, they disappear, the dewlaps that is, but I cannot possibly sustain an entire evening thus. The young will think me bonkers and I won’t be able to eat a thing without taking the eyes out of my neighbour with a fork. I consider the dewlaps. If I was rounder, they wouldn’t be dewlapping at all, but I am not rounder and here goes another What the Heck. The rest of my make up routine is a right palaver, all guesswork and don’t look too closely as I apply eyeliner, mostly in the right place and mascara to patchy eyelashes. Spiders, I think, and chuckle. What, I wonder, do the young see with their 20/20 vision? Too bloody much is the answer, but wait. If I go wherever I go with enough twinkle winkle in my eyes, dewlaps, one eyebrow and all the rest, will it matter in the long run, the run of an evening, a load of 40 years olds with Granny? Probably not. So, methinks, tap chin, this is pretty much down to me and my attitude about me. As I move through the dewlap, one eyebrow and spiders sticking out of my eyeballs thing with the confidence of age, the history of losing things like body parts whilst acquiring others, am I not, all by myself, reversing their thoughts on ‘growing old’? How many young people, me included when I was actually young, have said they never want to grow old because look what happened to Granny or Uncle Mike or Aunty Bea? Well, maybe it wasn’t all sunshine for them and, for that, I am sorry. But if I can be just one old gal who just gets on with the process, then it’s worth stepping out there.

Today I received, as I often do, pictures of my 12 grandchildren doing things effortlessly, such as bending in half mid-air, or winning at hockey or cantering along a beach, no hands, or dressed in lycra with not a dewlap in sight. I see my own children strong, fit, altogether and jumping fences, leaping off boats, making big decisions that require effort and strength, determination and a clear mind. I had all of those, once, and that is something to celebrate. I had all of those, once. Now I don’t, not as I did. Now I falter at times, lose things like eyebrows and the next sentence, might find it harder to construct a shape to the next day. I forget a story I’m reading and have to retrace my steps. I see a crowd of people and feel lost. I struggle to chop wood. All perfectly ok if that is how I see it, because, because, I have done all of these things, with strength and confidence, no problem unsolvable, not when I was in the lead. And the dewlaps, scars, slight weakness of limbs, of mind, all are just as they should be. Will I whinge and whine about losing stuff? No, I will not. In the quiet of my mind, I will know what I know. I have seen what I have seen, lived to the absolute full and for a whole lifetime. A slowness and a thoughtfulness replaces the buzz to move move move, and that peaceables me.

So off I go into an African night, missing an eyebrow, yes, but not much else. If I Add New to my thinking, I am always beginning again, in whatever state. Now, where was I…..?

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Island Blog 42 – A Tale to Tell

Island Blog 42 - pic

 

By now, my book is out there in the world and you may even be reading it.  You may be loving it, you may not, and over this bit, I have absolutely no control.  It is how it is.  My responsibility ended as I caught the words from the air around me and laid them down upon a blank sheet of A4.  The thoughts and feelings that will arise in you as a result of reading those words, in the order I chose, will relate to your life, not mine, and, in that moment of connection, become something new.

Over the years I have found such connections myself as I devoured the stories of many folk in many places and times.  Sometimes I have been tearful for the writer, the hero, or for myself as I become lost in a life that connects deeply with my own.  Sometimes thrilling with delight at the way a story bubbles and chatters over the stones like a clear fall of mountain water after new rain.  In a well written tale, I can hear the voices and see the landscape.  I can smell the wind and taste the grit of it in my mouth;  I can feel the warm skin of a dancing child and shiver at the ice cold of a closed mind or a bitter Arctic night.  I can twist and turn in the sweaty damp of an unfriendly sleeping bag and I can pull quickly back into the shadows to hide as a cruel drama unfolds before me.  I can waken in the night to remember, and then wish I could forget.  In short, I become part of the story, and yet play no part at all.  I may follow this person, or that.  I may long to go back, to see what happened to the child, or the old woman, even knowing that I may not;  not until the writer catches the words and lays them down for me on the page.  Sometimes I even forget to breathe, so lost am I in the story.

And every one is real.

Although it may be a work of fiction, you can bet that the writer is in there somewhere, for, if not, the tale would be as dull as a Monday shopping list.

But it is not just in books that I can connect with another life.  I can find stories in faces along the island roads and they can touch me just as deeply.  Of course, we don’t often get to this level on a daily basis – merely exchanging husband news or word of new additions to the family, new accomplishments, new sofas, new guests and so on, but the eyes are the windows to the soul and no mistake.  Some bright chirpy person can tell me one thing with their mouth and quite another through their eyes.  I do it myself, did it for years.

You are always so bright!  They told me, and because it was the done thing, I kept doing it.

Just like you do, or most of you.  There are some that might consider leaving their list of ailments and complaints at home, for we all have them to some degree or other and I have found from experience that those with most to complain about, usually don’t.  And when I meet those people, who have made a decision not to bore the bejabers out of the rest of us, telling us things we can do nothing whatsoever about and causing rain to fall on that precious moment of shared sunshine, I find my supplies of compassion and respect, verging on reverence, threaten to overwhelm me altogether.  My whole day changes as I guess my way into their life and out again feeling humbled.  Suddenly my load lightens, supposing I thought I had one in the first place.

There is always an argument between reality and fairyland.  I have always preferred fairyland, finding reality way too matter-of-fact for me, and, as we know, these Matters of Fact change daily according to the latest discovery/statistic/breaking news. Shifting sands I reckon, whereas fairyland is always fairyland and you can depend on it remaining so forever, for in that world (the real world in my opinion) we are allowed to be individual in our response to that which we observe.  All views are acceptable.  Nobody is right and nobody is wrong, for we all see things in different ways according to our creed, birthright,childhood and experiences. And we should stand tall and proud inside our own story, and sing it out, for it is the only one we can really tell.