lift

by

Island Blog – Take the Risk and Fly

The Rose Bay Willow Herb (I’m so glad my parents didn’t weigh me down with this name) is waffling, backlit with sudden sun. I’m watching it doing this waffling thing and I get it. You beautiful lot, all purple and strong and waffling down there upside of a sealoch, are stalk stuck. For all you sway, that’s the it of it for you. The next bit is a windthrip of petals and then the aftermath. I close my windows for that. A thousand piloted seeds float in. Any window open and opportunity knocks, although it doesn’t, not for the RBWH. Indoors is not a beginning. It’s more a load of sweeperoo, and even that requires a lot of dancing about with brush and dustpan and for days. But, when I stop to catch these seeds, hold them in my palm, I am brillianced by nature. These seeds, flighter than dandelions but with a similar modus operandi, can go for miles and miles. How clever is that! We stop and start at traffic lights. We queue politely (heaven help us on that nonsense). We pause before speaking. We say ‘Sorry’ way, way too often. We can float, we can, in silence.

Trouble is, we are grounded and within a thoroughly controlled environment, rules, queues, strictures, opinions, cultures, or we believe we are, and, thus we limit our lift and our fly. Of course, I realise that plants don’t have parents, nor do they go to school, nor work, and that trio can define and control us. And, we cannot fly, not like seeds, not like birds. However, I will challenge this, not in ‘realism’ but in mind belief, in dreams, in the longing of those who just know there is something more than the grounded This.

I am old. I am experientially so. I have lived a bajonkers life. still am. I see, still, an upper age control, at times domination. I see, still matriarchal and patriarchal chains suffocating. I see, still the confines of religious beliefs, the social expectation, the racial bullying. It goes on. What I would say is this, only this:-

If you have a dream, a real focus, no matter your place, your state, your anything. Take the risk and fly.

by

Island Blog – Someone or No-One?

This is something I performed once. It begs a performance. There is rhythm, rap, and begs a reading out loud.

Wherever you grow, bloom strong and petal wide, don’t hide but spread your colour, blue is it, or red, or butter yellow, white? Be right with it, your colour, it is yours alone. Hold your own, make it known, alone, not lonely. Only you know your ground. It may be rocky, maybe rich and soft, a mountainside, a beach path, garden, grey street, river bank. Give thanks for wherever you find yourself. Hold out your petals, reach and reach up to the light, breathe right. Your breath is life, in joy or strife, breathe on. In shade or sun, you are the one.

Make a difference. Have fun and look around you. Who grows beside, or over there? Another soul with hopeful roots just pushing through in fear, perhaps, delicate heart, easily broken by careless feet or the lash of punishing rain-words, to die in silence. Cry out in anger, but stand your ground. For those who stand will remember the ones who fall. All of them.

And share your light, your bright, your coloured heart, still beating like a drum on the battlefield, and there, don’t yield, but glow with life and, tender-fingered, lift a drooping head. Warm a faltering body. Say ‘I am here, and I will not leave you’. Share your mystery, your very soul. Hide nothing, let nothing cold you, hold you fixed in ice or fear, as if the end is near.

Notice every season, but not too much. Touch another, lift, don’t drift, for Time moves on, fleeing like a thief in the assault of misbelief, no crime committed in the touch. Some of us long for touch, not much to ask, small task, withdrawn through fear and that worldly slime, the snake of self-doubt, out with you, damn spot, you are not the true voice, my choice, I touch.

Hold each blooming moment, roots in the earth, head in the sky. Let pain go by, toss it to the wind, the changeling wind with stories on her back. And, remember this. Never miss the chance to lead another to the dance. Show your light. Be curious, like Alice, and leave your smile among the trees for the bees to honey up and sweeten. Reflect the sun, the rain, the moon. And do it soon, because you know that a winter of the soul will come, and, for some, it is already here. No matter your ground, make it better for your being there, nourishing, flourishing, sharing, caring, thankfully placed just where you need to be to learn something. Let laughter fill your throat and let it fly out like birds or butterflies to smile a flagging soul up and out of sadness, and to spin their own bitter into glitter. A million rainbows lie within you. Let them show, because you know, no matter the chatter, that you have the power to choose.

Am I someone, or no-one?

by

Island Blog – A Spangled Lacuna

In every life a little rain must fall. The trouble is that we, as negatively wired humans, tend to collect up all those rain days until the sunny ones get tired of shining, and all but disappear. Folk around us can say ‘Look on the bright side’ until our ears deafen, but it makes little difference. They can also suggest that we focus on the positives, but blind inside our fog or darkness, we just cannot find them. Am I a ‘glass half full’ person, ‘glass half empty’ or ‘no glass at all’ person? Oh please…….too much platitudinosity! In truth, we are all three of those, at times, all of us, even the ones who exhaust us with bounce, their faces always lifted, the lie a cloud in their eyes. None of us are Either, nor Or, Black nor White, for we are both at times. A million colours and a million greys at others. And to feel disallowed when wallowing in black is to feel corrected, fixed and re-routed which does little, if anything at all, to help. We long to be heard, listened to, accepted, befriended, our injuries noticed and respected, and only then can we decide to lift our heads from the ground. It is not easy to find such support outside of a counsellor’s cocoon, because, bizarrely, we all feel the need to elevate a ‘fallen’ one, seeing it as encouragement and inspiration when, in truth, it only serves to highlight the state they are currently in, stuck in mud, pale and lost, beaten down by life.

When I, rarely, flip through social media, I notice there are a gazillion ways to lift my spirits, wisely worded, some ancient, some contemporary, and they all make perfect sense. To my mind, that is. But this is for others, surely, not for me down here in the oubliette. I can see the daylight, yes, long for it to surround me as it seems to surround everyone else in this whole coloured-up world, but I cannot reach it. I am unworthy of this light, obviously. The platitudes and uplifting phrases are as irritating as bluebottles around my head, buzzing out my failure to keep above ground. Until, that is, my eyes adjust to the dark, until I can smell my own decay. I might look back on my life already lived and recall a flash of rainbow, a shift of perspective, and remind myself that I played a leading part, and I played it to the very best of my ability. It was I who made that choice, that decision, took that first step, activated a change. Nobody else did. It was all mine, and still is. Yes, I made mistakes, some ghastly, but I made something happen from nothing. My head lifts as the sun glides overhead and I feel the warmth brush my face. My shoulders soften, my mind gentles, the tanglewire now compromised. Yes, I have been weakened by this decline, but I am stronger too, because I am done with this darkness, and it is I who found my way here, and I who will raise myself up again, with new thoughts, a new energy, singular and vital.

It is precisely because I have become lost in this lacuna, that I have learned just how strong I am, how resilient, how much I want this one life to be all it can be. Others’ lives impact on my own, of course they do, and some have taken all I can possibly give, too much in fact, I gave too much. What was it that led me to give myself away, to believe that, in doing so, I could ‘fix’ all their manifold human problems? We are taught to give, are we not, that to be ‘selfish’ is to be a ‘bad’ person? We are also taught that everything healthy grows from self-love, without which we cannot effectively and wisely love others exactly as they are. If, however, we build ourselves from the amount of love we are given, and that is often lacking, we tell ourselves we don’t deserve it, anyway. We are easily hurt, put down, can feel judged and misunderstood, awkward, unseen, unimportant, invisible. Just as in the oubliette.

I see a rope, one I hadn’t noticed heretofore. The spangle-light dances off rocks, footholds. I rise and stretch my limbs, turn my face to the sky, and begin to climb.

by

Island Blog – Fiddling Sticks

My favourite music, the fiddle. The word alone lifts my feet into dance. Fiddle, rhymes with diddle, piddle, widdle, skiddle, and I could add a few more. All of them traverse me into lift, laughter my aide de buoyant. That might be French, might not. I’m not for caring much right now about semantical language shifts, nor their accuracy. Actually, fiddling is rarely an accurate science. I know because I had stood standing (a rare thing for me) at a ceilidh, just to watch the wild crazy sawing of that bow across four strings, the bow and bend as the fiddle and the player become one with the dance. I hear more beats to the bar, more sudden shifts into minor, into major, I hear it and it wilds me too. Even if others don’t get the musical seasonal shift, I can sense their excitement as it happens. Needless to say, there is often chaos in the field, a lot of crashing into each other, laughter lifting like spice and sugar into the over-breathed air above our heads, and we forgive, as our toes sting like hell. We just dance, we just move, we just collide and apologise and move on. We have to or we might end up as part of the single track road.

Sticks. After all the winds we have buffeted against this summer season, we find sticks every which where, spun off from big limbs, like they are no longer useful. And, on the picking up of them, I get it. It’s a bit like clearing out a wardrobe (such an ancient name) and shucking away those dodgy frocks and blouses (another ancient word) for the moving along. That’s a season in a word. Move it along. It seems to me that nature is much better at this than we are, we daft humans who hang on to what was fine in the past, and is no longer. Nature just spits out. Maybe there’s a lesson there. However, and notwithstanding, (sorry, indulgence there) it is not easy, because we have this propensity to hold on to our past. I was young, looked good in this, once, thing. It wonders me, even as I know the feeling. And not just in bodily coverings, but in mindal (my word) acceptance. If we could, can, spit out the dead sticks in our lives, just like that, how might we free ourselves? From past pain, from regrets, from the feeling of pointlessness (way too many esses in that), how might we be able to enjoy the seasonal changes in our own lives? And our lives are seasonal, not as an accurate science, no way, but as a random crazy unknown thingy. Which it is.

In our turbulent times, as we try to navigate the yet unknown, who the frick are we? We have seen Sea take Land which seemed solid. We have been there when the light died and the black came in and held. We have danced with the reckless and longed to stay in that moment. We have loved, we have lost, we have done bloody well by the way. So what now? Who is caring, who is in charge, and what is it about that which tells us we need a leader anyways, beyond our own ability to flick and flex with a new dynamic dance? I say we need only ourselves, and that might need inner work, but that is where our power lies, not over anyone else, no way, no, no no, but over our own selves.

It’s a fiddlesticks sort of desert, seasons shifting like waves in a menace, sudden, unexpected, wild and infuriating, much as life is now. Meet you there.

by

Island Wife – Lift and Slideways

I love the way they lift. Birds. It gasps me every time, the sudden sight of a life that can do that lift thing, all feathers and aerodynamics and who the eff cares, thing. I’m behind the wheel of my sassy mini, one, bless her, whose brake pads are skinnyrink. Not her fault, of course. It’s those tourists who have no clue about passing places, reversing, spacial awareness, nor a care in the world for the big ass drop on my side of the single track road. I digress. Back to the lift.

As I watch the Little Gull lift without any sign of a run-up, just an effortless rise from Terra Firma, I not only feel my own body lift, even from within the clutches of Matron of Seatbelts but I also sense a deep longing in me. To fly like that through a whole life, to lift from standing when something bothers or threatens, or just from boredom, must be truly wonderful. I watch the white and grey touch the sky, slide sideways, cutting a line, a definite line, then scooping up again, and around, and all of it in silence. It thinks me.

I can do that, I whisper to my home. I can live that way, just not exactly that way, being featherless and weighing a few stones more than that wee body of lift and slide. But, in my mind, my attitude, my chosen direction, I can. Yes, it is a damn pain in the arse being a thinker, I agree. These beautiful elevators, and the animals grounded, don’t think at all. They respond to instinct, our own fight or flight part of the brain. They just respond to an outside stimulus, and they are always on the alert for danger. That part must be exhausting, although, and this thinks me too, how many of us live that way, feeling so under the power of ‘someone else’ that their innate sense of independence and choice is quashed into mud? I suspect too many beautiful souls.

Every single morning, and through each day, I self-correct. The Terra Firma of my thinks, could sink me in that mud. I kid you not, and here’s another thing……those of us who really feel, Really Feel, for others, for the world, for our future, for our even now, for our self image, and that’s the biggest pull to ground, feel bloody everything, question everything, are consumed by everything. We need to remember our feathers, even if those around us just don’t get it. My advice? Don’t bother to explain. If you are a creative, recognised and acknowledged or not, know this…….you will find your place among others who recognise you, even if they never met you before. Trust in this, through all those awful lonely times, those dark places, those rejections and mockings and nightmares. I have no idea why I went there, but perhaps someone needed to hear the hope in my words.

Back to the lift and slide. In this ridonculous world of rules and behaviour parameters which seem to close in like jaws at times, there is, for the brave who just say, Enough, just once, and stick with it, a new flight. Yes, it will be tough, dangerous, all of that stuff, but who wants to live the one life under another’s control? I watched a big predator lift from the sea-loch, all 8 foot wings, big ass, confident, the queen of the sky. She rose up and up and frickin up until even a cloud gave in with a sigh and a divide, so intent was this big lady on full exposure. Then I saw the Little Gulls, wee smouts (look it up) in an immense sky, skinny wee things, intent on moving this big lady on and away. I heard them talking to each other, You go this way, You round on her, You tackle her, You deafen her with that dreadful squawk of yours, and so on. The Whitetail lifted, slid, lazy, like I’m in charge here. But the gulls, the small people, were having none of that shit. Persisting for a whole skyline, they moved her on. I’ve seen it many times, and have always wished that the ‘small people’ in business, in the world, could band together like Little Gulls, and not just in business. I think of a book I have with me always. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, by Richard Bach, a slim book with fat wisdom. One gull decides things are not right. Just one.

Please never believe the shit inside your head. It isn’t you. It’s learned lies. You, too, can fly.

by

Island Blog – To Head for the Stars

As I move forward, always forward, even if it feels like I’m moving back, I know that we all are. When someone says ‘I am going back to work, back home, back to school, back to the ordinary’ I will gently question. How can you be going back when you have experienced so much since last you were in those places? I believe you are going forward to them all, or to whichever one applies. Think on it. You possibly made a new friend, learned a new thing, experienced a change, noticed something you hadn’t noticed before. We are always moving forward, always, even, and I repeat myself here, if it feels like we are moving ‘back’.

We may, agreed, be returning to familiar circumstances, be it a job we hate, a relationship that no longer works, or a a school that doesn’t respect us in the way we need. There are many such scenarios. But we have, even if only in our minds, left those places in our understanding. So what do we need right now? Will we continue on the old and comfortably uncomfortable treadmill, or will we find the courage to say No. Enough. In other words to speak out our own truth. And that is a tough ask, I know it, but if we don’t, then nothing, nothing, nothing changes and everyone thinks we are ok about the totally not ok of our lives. We always know when we are unhappy or unfulfilled. The feeling has grown for weeks, months, years, but we seem unable to rise up and shout, unwilling to cause a stir, to rock the boat, to make a ghastly mess. And Life trudges on without us, when what she really wants is to spread her wings, to hunker down for us to climb aboard and thence to lift us both into a sky of hope, adventure and stars.

The reasons for staying stuck lie, mostly, in the old voices, the old judges, the ones we have held on to for years, even when those voices are stilled in death. We take them on like clothing, wear them, quote them, live by their rulings, even though those rulings confined and defined us, squashing us into shapes we could never, ever, sustain, because we are not they, or is it them? We are absolute and unique and there is no copy, not even in a twin. When we are caught up in appearances, we will always be a shadow of what we can be, always, because we are an I. A single I, and this I is not part of a We, not in design, not in mind, nor body, nor experience. I am unique, and if my uniqueness bothers you then it may, respectfully, be your problem, and not mine.

The past and our present are separated by a divide. It is, initially, once we choose to work on discovering our own self,a narrow one, like a slight tectonic shift. The crack is not threatening, as yet, but because of this weakness revealed in the earth’s structure, we know it will widen. And, in the story of our past and our present, this is a good thing. Initially, we can easily leap from present to past, for reassurance, perhaps, validation, if we’re lucky, but it will widen, leaving us one day orphaned and feeling very alone. We are I now, aren’t we? I know that can be scary if the scared ‘I’ has been a significant part of We for longtime, but take courage, and really take notice of your gut, your inner voice of wisdom, because there lies the truth. What any of us were required to be as children, teens, partners or in the workplace does not define the I in any of us. I stands tall and alone. It begins a sentence. It takes back the power from We. And, as you probably all know, someone inside the We is just the one who is determined to retain the status quo and therefore to control.

I have no idea where all that came from, or maybe I do. I watch too many talented beautiful people remain inside the We for safety, protection and appearances, including myself. But I know, now, as I head for 71 as a determined I, that Life is still waiting for that chance to hunker down, to lift you on her back and thence to head for the stars.

by

Island Blog – The Bog and Lifting

Mostly, I am coloured up and cheerful as a chipmunk. Then comes a day when it is even a pain in the arse to get dressed. I don’t like these days, and they know it, because I can hear them grumbling and muttering each time I push myself on and up. And I do. I think it’s because I know about being in the bowels of a depression and how vicious and controlling it is. Thankfully this time is way back in my past, but the body holds the score and we both remember the control of it, the way invisible octopus arms smothered me, held me down and down some more until I forgot who I was, and why I was. The scars are there somewhere and when the past puts its finger on the trigger, I tense, I remember, and my inner fighter rises, stronger now, powerful, even if I am not. She will protect me but only because I call her up from sleep, and that is the key.

When someone has known the ghastly of a mental bog, the knowing never goes away. But, once lifted from said bog, something rises as a teacher. Do you want to learn, survive, bloom again? If, as in my case, the answer is yes-but, then out comes the sunshine of hope. Yes…..But….? Indeed. The but bit is important because you are up there, Oh Teacher and I am slimy and hopeless and full of self-hatred and remorse. How on earth will those beliefs change? Ah, says the Teacher. Just follow me. And I did, and I learned and I was a keen student. I remember faking cheerful, faking ‘sorted’ because in my day, depression was something to be ashamed of, something imagined. ‘This is all in her head’ they said, and they were right, but the dismissive way it was whispered in corridors, was not right at all. As if I had manufactured these days of darkness and fear, just for attention.

I am not depressed now. I have learned much over the years, discovered many wonderful inroads into intelligent and compassionate support, walked them, learned the routes to feeling worthwhile, important, valued. T’is a goodly map. I also know, and believe in, the tactics for arising from the bog. I understand that the bog is still there, but I have found footholds. I know where the Pull Grass grows, that which I can grab a hold of, should I slide down. I have learned the weather patterns around a possible slide, and to avoid going out at such times. And, avoidance tactics are pivotal. On days such as this, when I can’t be arsed et wotwot, I am careful to do exactly what I want to do. I may cancel a meeting if it insecures me. I may decide to stay behind my four stone walls, light a fire, read or listen to an audio book. After all, who is judging me for my hiding, my declining, my indulgence? Only me. The critics of my past are long dead, all of them, parents, teachers, husband, so those voices are just dust in the wind. I know this now.

But, when such days wake me, confabulate me, I cannot dismiss them. A day is a day, after all, hours of it. But I can cock a snook at it, swish my sword, say I Am Important, I Have a Choice, and, most importantly, I Am Me (and that’s just dandy). I may not do this or that, those things my imaginary ‘yous’ keep banging on about, and, even if it feels odd at first, the more I do this, the bigger I grow and the further I walk from that damn bog. And my judges.

by

Island Blog – Upright

Although I am loving these crisp cold days, the starry starry nights and that skinny moon, I find myself seeking for light, almost starved of it, and when there are many darkling weeks yet to come. I feast on the tiny upshoots of snowdrops, daffodils and tulips, down on my hunkers and peering like a mole. This morning I was almost upturned as I cautiously moved like a russian dancer, keeping my body solidly above my feets in the sure knowledge that, at my age and alone, I could crash to my arse and not be noticed for days.  I thinked about that. Tomorrow morning I would be softly iced, like a carrot cake, sparkles on my eyelashes and lips, my fingers gnarled white and probably sticking out rudely, knowing me. By the next day, there would be crows, oh that’s it, they’d find me then, but let’s not go there. This is not the right direction. I fed the birds, from my really upright position, schmoozing them so that the daft Jackbird hopped and peeped at me from afar, and his potential missus, brazen and capered with white (an anomaly) shouted at him and came close. She’s no fool that one, and if I can possible save her from Madam Sparrowhawk, I will, although my pounce has never been that accurate, that fast. A robin dunts and dips almost in touching distance, but I make no eye contact, just keep my voice low and musical, soft as a doughnut and as jammy, because I love this engagement of a slippery morning. 

Birds fed and feeding, I watch them twist and spin, the lift and dance of them all entrancing me, so fragile and light. I remember feeling this for myself, sans flight, obviously, feeling as if I could flip any flop and jump any boundary. Perhaps this is how it is when oldness takes over, but I never saw it coming, not ever. And, now, it is here, the wobble and ungait of gait, an unsureness of the space t’ween earth and heaven, and then how to fill it with my spirit as my body becomes my prison. What? No! Bollix to that load of shite, no, no way. What drivel, shrivel, bevel up you old twit and point these thoughts to the recycling bin which, to our villageing delight has finally been collected after weeks of yet another lorry breakdown.

Today I confess I was victim (loathe that word, will NOT be one) to vapid thinks. I resurrected myself, threw up a prayer or two and made ready for the wotwot that comes after I have dripped myself into a cone of tumbeltwist, someone, me, who absolutely WILL spiral out from less than queenly thinks and up, up, up, into the stratosphere, the thinkosphere, the absolute, the wild, the impossible. I’m ready, boots on, earth beneath their tread. Upright.

by

Island Blog – A Wasp, a Wander and a Whole new Rhythm

Hot it is and sunny, too hot to sit for more than a few minutes in the full glare of heat and light. I find myself a chair beside the pool shaded by a lovely tree with dangly fruit, the name of which escapes me, if, indeed, I ever knew. The dapples lift and sway in the breeze as if shading me with a pencil as well as with their limbs. I watch the dragonflies rainbow across the surface of the water, no bumping into each other, no animosity. Does animosity only exist among animals, humans too because we are, aren’t we, animals? A queen wasp who looks more like an exotic kite, pushes her way through a tiny hole in the masonry. I must remember to tell my African son about that, because one queen means a gazillion eggs, means a whole lot of aggressive fliers after hatching, and right above the stoep. Swatting is no fun over cocktails, not when the number of swattees far outnumber the hands of the swatters, and besides, these wasps can jig and spin away, return almost silently with a sting in mind on that wide open neckline or that bare arm. I was stung by an ordinary English wasp once on a Norfolk beach. I suspect the sting was a quick reaction to its shooting full speed into my ear, for I had just stood up to fold my towel for the homeward trudge. Get up child, now and fold your towel! I blamed my mother for the ensuing pain and swelling, the sleepless night throughout which I had that wasp pulled apart slowly by wasp haters, to be tossed into the sea, preferably 2 miles out. The African wasps are rather beautiful, lighter in body and spreadier of wings, ones with little peacock eyes at the ends that flutter charmingly. However, I am not fooled by this fluttering beauty. A wasp is a wasp and that’s a fact.

I have read four books since arriving and that happies me as reading is my second favourite pastime, writing being the first. I had wandered through the garden centre under that ferocious sun to find the little second hand bookshop. I chatted with the owner and then browsed a pleasant browse in the cool of fans as the power was off, again. The power cuts, or load sheddings, come 3 or 4 times every 24 hours including during the night when even the deepest slumber is sweated awake for a while of tossing and unsticking. I get used to it and many folk have generators which thinks me of the sound of stopping. The sound of stopping is the sound of a generator, many generators, all humming and chugging, thrumming and backfiring so that the whole town changes its beat. It is also the sound of other stops, other stoppage, other stopping. When I stop, at the kerb, say, I stop the beat of my feet. When I stop the music, there is the sound of silence. When snow falls or the wind drops, or someone runs out of words, there is a new sound as if I enter a new space completely.

As the power is returned to us, the sound is of sighs or relief, of a yay lifting into the air, perhaps startling it into fractal lines, a mosaic only noticed by those who notice. Watch it lift away to allow the new beat, the old beat, the rhythm of electric power. See how the mosaic becomes air once more, the delight in that ‘yay’ breaking up and separating to create space, no bumping, no animosity, whereas most of us down below, grounded, irritated, hot and stressed can only think of internet connection and the frustration at being ‘stopped’, jagged punchlines and a lot of grumbles. I drink coffee at a table beneath a huge jacaranda, its trunk age old and lost beneath the wooden decking, growing and rooting without interference, and offering in return, plenty shade for wanderers like me. I watch others go by on their own business, busy with agenda perhaps, time constraints, a list to complete and in time. I notice the change as the power returns, the dance in passing feet, the smile on faces and I smile to myself. The down here world has a lot of opportunities for bumping, confines, restraints, shouty bosses, deadlines and my favourite not favourite, companies who value profit over the well-being of their employees. Is it all that space in the sky that allows for a gentle symbiosis I wonder or do they, the dragonflies, wasps, bees, and other flying things, also struggle for space to beat their own beat? Are we so far behind in our learning on how to live together that we are in danger of a whole load of bumping or are we really good at living a grounded life? I don’t know the answer to any such questions, but I do know that, by looking up, by noticing and watching, through questioning and wondering, we stop our daily thoughtless trudge. And there’s a whole new rhythm there. Just listen. You’ll hear it. (Not the wasp)

by

Island Blog – Forward to go

Today I drove the hill road into the harbour town to meet a friend. I was early and picked the sofa and the comfy armchair beside a warm open fire. The buzz was…..theatrical. I think I say this because the welcoming staff were all dressed in colours, with rings and tattoos and artistically coloured hair. Smiles wide, looking at me. I get it. An old woman in a big frock with bare legs and short boots and a home-fashioned jacket, seeded once in an old cardigan that freaked out when I washed it on ‘Too Warm’. I had thought at first, dog blanket, then I heard the story in it. My feisty impossible mother-in-law had knitted this thing, and for me. That had to have been days of knitting; days of love and commitment. No, I will lift this hunched and crunched woollen thing into my life, breathe my breath into it. Okay, great big respect. Now what? It thought me. I decide to wheech out the material drawer. I find velvet, or something that thinks it’s velvet and it is not for me to disappoint it as I finger the hold of it, the depth and then bring my own knowing into this I am Velvet thing. I am quiet on the subject, lifting out the deep colours, just knowing that this Not Velvet will be a right bugger to shape. It won’t shape. It yawls like sails in a slack-flack wind somewhere off Cherbourg. Hmmm.

I brought down my ridiculously pink tailors dummy on a white stick. I laid the compromised cardigan around her perfect pink shoulders, marvelling, with a snort, at her perfect pink breasts. I tell her this. I am amazed that anything I make for me, knowing my own body and using you as a caption of what I never was can ever fit, not with those pointy things almost taking my eye out each time I move around to pin or tuck, or wheech. But I, we, move on. She stands quiet whilst I pin and sew, pin and sew and then it is done, this bejewelled jacket that can only come out for air on dry winter days. Two, maybe three. Today was one so there won’t be many more.

We ordered soup. It’s always home made and so is the bread, so are the scones and the sweet baking. The fire was tended by a smiling young man. I hailed an artist I know well, one who has got his work into the online Saatchi gallery, and congratulated him as he passed by. There was a writing group just finishing up on a table nearby and I hailed the leader and signed myself up. So cosy in there, so easy, so fine-art. After lunch we visited the new exhibition, all local artists. I was enthralled at the work. I knew most of the artists just from their work. Many had sold and I was not surprised. I talked with my friend, an art therapist working with textiles, and we laughed and shared and quite forgot our old caring roles as we became two women in a space, with nothing but forward to go.