Living

by

Island Blog – Did You?

Love someone to the bitter end? I don’t mean death. There is an end in a relationship, one we really wan’t to ignore, wishing it away, and, yet not. We know our hearts. We know this. What we find wanting is courage, and, in my experience, it will lack, be wanting, unless just one bigger, more confident and older person, one we trust, has told us we have courage, and, more, that it is ours and that we can pull it up as a new employee. That was a long sentence, I know. However, according to my English language tutor, I am alowed this dance across the floor of regimental grammar, but only if there are well placed commas, hyphons, apostrophies, colons and semicolons and wotwot. Sounds like surgery.

So, did you? I did. When love breaks into shards of itself, at the time when we are placed in a home, placed in a role, sugged down in routine, money worries, debts, fears, routines, over many years, we may become a sludge of ourselves. We used to dance to Footloose, did we not, like yesterday? We grabbed chances, opportunities, we laughed loudly and wild. All this does not end in a Full Stop. No Way. Living life to the full is not only for the young, in fact, the young just do that living thing without many thinks, when the biggest chafe may be from parental jurisdiction. The next bit is supposed to set itself in place, which probably means this young person with Footloose dancing in their hearts has to ‘settle’. Hmmmm

I didn’t. I did try, honestly, but I am a wild card. It is not a comfortable persona. So, I loved him, until not. However, there was a strong historical build of companionship, and it worked. Much as I would have loved one of those big loves I see in my sisters, it wasn’t for me. And, there is a learning in that. My children (I can say that now without a reminder that they are ‘ours’, which, for me was a given) are strong, loving, kind, giving, astute, intelligent people. I have no idea how they burst from the turbulence of their parent’s breaks, but they did and I am so proud of them, just the surviving bit, never mind the rest.

So, are you at the bitter end? I’m saying nothing. You know your heart, Scary, yes, (another bloody comma) but this is the one life. Relationship, work, something. Could be neighbourhood (ridiculously long word btw) could be any connection that is fighting your heart. Courage. We don’t feel it, do we, nor know it for we don’t remember who taught it to us? In our childlife we watched compliance, obeisance, bowed shoulders, quiet voices, servitude. But we can change that, and not just for us, for our children and their children.

That’s a whole load of thinks. Happy Friday my friends.

by

Island Blog – There you go

Spring is here. Let me feel it one my skin, beneath my bare feet. Let me hear it, the birdsong, the rustling inside the branches, the dart and dash of new life. Let me watch the creatures return, the gathering of nesting softness, and let me know the fear and the joy of finding a home, one in which to birth and protect the next generation. Let me take it all in, no dash and hurry, no missing any of it. I wander a track squelched by winter cold and rain, the mud ridges trying so hard to firm up and sinking me nonetheless. Last years leaves mulch beneath my boots, pushed ever down into the ground and it smiles me. We are born, we live, we die, but in that inevitable cycle we leave something of ourselves behind, something that can become the ground for a new beginning, one we will not experience. There is a song in that, harmonious, melodious, lilting-sad but a powerful legacy indeed. Our own song may be sung out, but we can bring a new baseline for another generation to stand on in their own times, times of feeling lost, times perhaps of fear or confusion, saying I am here, beneath your feet and you can do this because I did it too, feeling just like you feel now.

The sea-loch is quiet this morning, a late frost ghosting the grasses that run down to where land meets tide. The ancient rocks shine in morning sunshine and the old trees along the shoreline, still winter brown, will soon rise into green. Migrant birds return to sparkle my garden with their impossible colours, goldfinch, siskin, whilst those who stayed home line the fence awaiting breakfast. Birdmusic fills the air, lifting melodies into a soft blue sky, melodies no composer ever really captured. On days like these, hope comes calling. Everything is possible. On days like these, a morning like this, I remember waking to work with a smile, a gasp at the sudden beauty, one in which I played no part. And, yet, my part begins now, not just as witness to a morning like this, but in an active role. Guests at Tapselteerie need breakfast, children need winding out of bed sheets and into school clothing. Packed lunches need to be prepared, wrapped and delivered. A whale-watching trip lies ahead, the boat impatient and bobbing. Get me fired up, get me out there among the sea-birds, the dolphins, porpoise, otters, seals, whales, the wild wide ocean calls, can’t you hear her? Yes, we can hear and we are on our way, human time. There is, I tell the ocean, a process to a morning for our part. We need the right clothing, the breakfast in our bellies, a packed lunch in our knapsack, binoculars, waterproofs, boots for the island landing, our bird books, cetacean books, our cameras, water bottles, an extra jersey, hats, gloves………Good Lord what a ridiculous list, sighs the ocean, lapping faster against the stone jetty. She needs none of those add-ons after all.

It may be a boat trip, it may be a walk or drive to work. It may be a day in school, or there may be no plan at all. It matters not. What does matter is how we do whatever we need to do in a day, our attitude. Are we thankful for this day, this hour, this moment and do we say so? Do we notice every detail with humility and gratitude and say so? I know, having learned how life can be snuffed out in a single breath un-breathed, how important it is to be present in every living moment, to appreciate it and to say so. And, more, how that outspoken presence leaves a legacy for a new young life, as yet un-lived. We come, we go. What we do in between, who we are and how we do what we do is remembered, either as encouragement, nourishment, an example to follow, or not. None of us can change all our circumstances but we can, with grace and our eyes on each moment, each encounter, leave not just our own story, but a lot of invisible threads that conjoin with others, leave kisses on a stranger’s heart. And, the legacy of that is endless.

This day, we walked onto a wide white sandy beach to send ashes back to the sea. This place she loved, he loved, this curve of powdered shells over many many years, where the sea comes in and goes out twice a day and every day; where the sky goes on forever and where we stand looking out to sea, to the great beyond, thoughts lifting, memories, moments, pictures of a lifetime well and truly lived. Through heartache, troubles, joys and laughter, through birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and ordinary days, these two held the line. I hear their laughter as I watch the wavelets lap at the shore, claiming ground. I watch those times they flew above their troubles in the cant and tilt of a seagull, a raven. They walked here once, no, more than once. I see them still, on this beach, distant but there. As I walk back up to my car with my little dog, sand in my boots and shells in my pocket, I know I will not forget this sunshine day, the words spoken, the sight of ashes floating away, the flute melody, the poem, the song, the prayers, the being a part of it all.

Back among ice cream eaters and picnickers I look up. An eagle flies. I wave. There you are my lovelies. There you go.

by

Island Blog – Roots

The first time I set foot on this island and I knew I was home, not because of his story but because of my story, yet to reveal itself to me. How very far we can wander in this life, our roots keeping faithful track. We will not let you go, they say from deep deep down in the ancestral core. I had no reason to know any of this, not at first footfall. It was simply that something seemed to rise from the rocks and the muir through my feet, into my legs and on up into my heart, my soul, as if the roots had been waiting for me a very long time, longer by far than my own time. Although it took a while for me to find my place, although life was sometimes just too hard, nothing changed my knowing. I was home. I am home, among my own people, their stories, their lives, even as I knew nothing at all about any of it. The cold, the wet, the slap and fret, the endless winter, mould growth, frozen pipes, chilblains on chilblains, hot tears, wild fears, none of these made me doubt, made me hanker for somewhere else. Guests are coming, must be Spring despite the snow still falling. But I cannot. Fall.

No hardship born, imagined or played out could change my mind. I am home. Breathe it in, suck it up, breathe, wait inside the wildness, the raw bloody wildness, fickle weather, my damaged plans, my lunatic fantasies of escape that turned to dust as quickly as they formed, all melted away by a merry lick of fire, a babble of feral children, a few of them I don’t recognise as my own. In this place my heart beats along to the rhythm of the stones, the shush of the sea, the scream of the storms, the sight of swans overhead, a whisper of wings in the sky. I dance to it, sing along to its melody, an integral part of something old, something new, something ancient. I catch the stories of lives long done, the bones buried deep in the island’s heart, never to be forgotten, held safe. Where grows the heather old feet have walked. There is old laughter in the sky and old tears rushing the burns into spate. On it goes and on and I am proud to find my forbears lived and walked the islands, knew what I know now, made the wraparound Atlantic their protector, provider and sometimes their cradle unto death.

Even as I never knew way back then, I know something now. I didn’t find this place, this home. It found me.

by

Island Blog – Call on Pooh

Although I always awaken with Tigger bouncing in my head, even that striped loon can change shape as the morning unfolds. I never know how it will be until it decides for itself. It isn’t to do with what I do nor what I don’t. It isn’t about the weather, the season or my best laid plans. I can continue to bounce until even I get tired of the bounce thing, all the way up to evening, or I can feel myself turning grey. On the outside of me, I laugh at this. It’s the same for everyone else isn’t it you daft old eejit? Your grey slump is not new, nor is it original enough to warrant a voice. No, it is just a grey slump. Get on with it. You could, if you subscribed to self-pity, find a load of reasons to explain this. Or you can try to outrun it by attaching yourself to Blue (the marvellous hoover) or a bucket and mop or the iron or a pen. Third option. You could just stop running, stop searching for the reasons for grey, and let go. It is allowed.

I paragraphically distance myself from this conversation, as you can see. I have never been good at allowing myself such an indulgence, as I see it. Oh, I am really good at this allowing thingy with everyone else. It thinks me. Am I perfectionist? Well, maybe, because my standards for myself are as high as the sky and equally unreachable. I look up. Everything up there is doing what it does, naturally and adaptively. Clouds move because the wind moves them. Sun rises and falls, ditto the moon, all naturally. Down here it’s not so easy to adaptively flow. Our wonderful brains make mince of us if we are not in charge of them. We are also impatient and expectant and judgemental, often and mostly of our own selves. I find it reassuring to know that the grey hits each one of us, not that I wish it on a single living soul.

Today began with Tigger and became Eeyore by 0800. He’s a sad old sausage, tail gone plus other losses. Imagined? Possibly. Then I considered the stories lived out in the 100 acre wood. That is quite a wood by the way, and an opportunity to be lost for days. Moving on. Each of the friends find each other, seek each other out so that no distress remains thus for long. They are a team.

I believe that the writer fashioned each creature on the moods of a human. Winnie the Pooh, happy with everything in life, every opportunity a gift; Piglet, scared and lacking in confidence; Eeyore believing that life itself worked against him; Rabbit, tense, anxious and fearful; Kanga the mother, the carer, the soother of troubles; Roo, well, Roo is just Roo; Old Brown trying so hard to control whatever comes his way and failing and Tigger the jester. We all know all of them. We experience them all. What might trouble us, and troubles me is that I want to be always Tigger or Pooh but I cannot control that (Old Brown). Life has a life of its own and all we can do is to be okay about cloud thinking in the face of whatever wind decides to luff into power. Yes we must plan, yes we must take action, yes and yes. But when Tigger turns into Eeyore before the school run, then we might consider leaning into the grey, which, by the way, takes forever to create on the palette, more than 7 colours and in such cautious amounts that it is very easy to turn it into slump mud if distracted.

So when Tigger becomes Eeyore, call on Pooh. Always works for me.

by

Island Blog – The Nothing

It rained today. A lot. The track is more like a little stream despite the culverts, now all clogged with copper leaves, hesitating the flowaway. I stop to watch the trickle that should be a steady flow. This rock, this island, is good at sloughing off water and it needs to be for we would all drown otherwise. There is enough height, enough of the waters need to return to Mother Sea, to ensure we just require wellies and macs and a good attitude. Our skin is good up here, less drying wrinkles, more flow and adjust, much like the land upon which we live. I skim the puddles where the land lifts like a shrug, just enough to allow a sort of dry footfall. My old boots, my beloved boots, are more than happy to share the wet with the wet and I can often squelch homewards. No matter. Things can always dry unlike sad hearts, hearts that just recently have filled with salt tears with nowhere to go. Not my heart. Mine is dry as a desert and there may be a problem there, but this is not about me. This is about them, the ones who cannot see beyond the rain, cannot see the bright light in between clouds, the geese flying black against the darkling sky, the swing and waggle of some shrub grown way beyond its boots and needing a cutting reminder of its place in the garden.

I see the old pines out back, quiet now that the stripping wind has exhausted itself. Larch and pine needles thicken the steps up to the compost bin as I walk them today. The burn is loud and wild with peatwater, brown and luscious and thinks me of whisky. So fast it falls, crashing down into pools and slowing like a slug as it builds and bubbles golden froth in the waiting time. I hear it at night as I try to sleep, listen to its song. I love to hear living water, I love the tidal crash. I love the argument between land and sea and I love the way they work it all out. But it does think me of where something stops and another something begins, such as a life, a death.

As I diddle about with should I, shouldn’t I in the confines of Covid fear I think of those who are in the place I was over a year ago. They are there right now and I can do nothing to ease their pain. They will be feeling everything and nothing at the same time. They will be numb and practical, baking, cooking, serving, anything to fill in their moments, anything to keep their feet moving, their smiles bright. I know this place but I know nothing about their place. It confounds me, thinks me of the crash of the burn as it falls into a pool, almost a relief, about the slug in the waiting time. It is, in a word, tapselteerie and yet they will be fighting to hold on to normal because for decades normal was normal. Effortless. She knew who she was and he knew who he was. Now that he is gone, who the heck is she? What is normal?

And Nothing is waiting at the door. Nothing is but a bit player on this stage. But, for some time she will give him the limelight. As I did. As I still do at slug-froth times. My respect to her, to any of you who know what the heck I am talking about.

by

Island Blog – To Fathers

I am not a father. Never will be and there’s somewhat of a relief in that secure bit of knowledge. I don’t think I realised just how much of a weight a wife and children were, and still are, on a father’s shoulders. He mustn’t cry, of course, no matter how lost or useless he might feel. At least, not in public and most of his life is in public, wife demanding, children requiring clothing, adequate food, toys, space, tuition, guidance and a massive Christmas gift. Never mind that there are five all expecting a massive Christmas gift, whilst taking all the rest for granted. I did too. I took him for granted and that is what we do until we notice something, or look back and join the dots because unless you have experienced living life as a father, you, like me, haven’t a scooby. Not a clue.

On raising children in the most humanly perfect of ways, which, naturally, was our plan, fathers have to take the buck, one that always stops with them. Fathers, if they are the main breadwinner, must leap out of bed every morning for decades in order to be whoever they are required to be on any given day. If it is an off-to-work day, then the mental suit is on and the tie tied right. All the way there, he must leave behind the father role for a few hours and immerse himself in whatever business or job lies ahead of him with all its associated demands. Then, knackered and possibly fed up, he must come through that front door and become husband and father with enthusiasm and wisdom. Blimey. That is quite a lot of requiring.

If, like me, a mother is exhausted herself by end of day, she may nip and criticise, demand and wheedle. She may offload her worries, fears and reports on the children as she might empty a dumper truck full of multiple flotsam, jetsam and other random things right into his lap. He may have only just sat down, but she hasn’t had that pleasure since he left at 07.30 so why should he be allowed now, now that she has to cook dinner, clear toys, bath the unwashed, read stories and all in the secure knowledge that Groundhog Day will come tomorrow and all the tomorrows until the children become adults and fledge? Blimey. That is quite a thixotropic thought.

Good fathers are often judged by the memories they make. Bad fathers, ditto. Of course, the same applies to mothers but this blog is not about them. I doubt there is a single father anywhere in the world, one that wants to be one, that is, who doesn’t take great care to be the best he can be, all the way up to the end. Then Life kicks in, a rogue player on the field, one with tremendous tackling skills and a complete disregard for empathy. Demands overwhelm, families get noisier, cost more money every year and never seem quite as happy as this father saw in his mind’s eye. The happy toddler becomes the door-slamming child who refuses broccoli and ignores all pleas for a stable conversation. Blimey. This is the truth and then some.

So, please raise a toast to all fathers, to yourself if you are one, to your dad, your work colleagues, your neighbours, your friends and your extended family. Consider, and remind yourself of the sacrifices these fathers have had to make in their lives. Fathers…..remember the times when everything swam along like happy fish and then remember the times when storms lashed your shores and terrified you. I salute and celebrate you. All of you excellent, strong and resilient men.

To Fathers.

by

Island Blog – Fly Right

The sealoch is flat, mirror flat, holding the sky in its belly. A lone gull skims across the surface, its wings never touching the water. How does it manage that? If I was that gull, there would undoubtedly be an error of judgement and I would tumble, wonky chops, into the brine. High overhead a young buzzard cuts the blue, chased and mocked by two gulls. I watch the slide and rise of them, the sunglow through their wing feathers, the way they tumble and flip. So free up there, it seems, but I know that’s not the truth, even if it does look glorious from where I am, stuck to the gravitous ground, pulled to the earth and destined never to fly unless inside the guts of a plane. Which won’t be happening for a long time to come. But, to watch these dalliances, these moments of sublime grace and wonder is to inhabit, just for a while, the world that is theirs, the world above my head, the world all around me, the world of nature, survival and imagined freedom.

As the day unfolds, so do I. In a good way, naturally. The thoughts I had yesterday, the things that happened, the word exchanges, the moments of understanding, release and acceptance unfurl like petals to let in the sun. I am wholly delighted to be one with faith in my higher self. Despite sinking at times into the cold watery darkness of a sea-loch, I always hold fast to the belief that all will be well in the end, and, if it isn’t well, then it isn’t the end. Not because I am so damn smart at living, but because the invisible beneficent powers of goodness are always working for me, for all of us. It isn’t down to just me, the one who could misjudge my wing flaps and tumble into the brine, and thank goodness for that. I have no illusions concerning my ability to straighten up and fly right all of the time.

When I got the call yesterday to say that we are now to ‘shield’ for another 12 weeks because of the high risk factors in this house, I sank a bit. Another 12 weeks? That’s end August. Not only that, but my weekly escape to the shop is now cancelled. Further, we are asked to separate within the home. Now that bit is impossible. Not only is this a mouse house, but I am primary carer and contact with my husband is required regularly. So, the requirement is that I go nowhere apart from my solitary walk for fresh air and exercise. Enter fear. I already knew that self-isolation is going to continue for a while yet, because my husband is very vulnerable and needs superhuman protection. But hearing it spoken out gave it gravitas and heavy boots. It was a wonky chops moment, the chance opening of a doorway allowing fear to slide in.

And then comes a new morning. The pines stand as tall as they did yesterday, backlit sunrise pink, the colour of a smile. The air show lifts my spirits and I know that fear will not survive on my watch. No matter how long this confinement, we can get through it with sparkle and laughter. The sign is outside the gate. ‘Please don’t come in’. It felt weird writing those words. I am more known for a Welcome sign, but in this time when the best I can possibly do is required on an hourly basis, I know I am not alone. I know there will be hundreds, if not thousands of people facing an extension of lockdown in order to protect someone vulnerable.

And if they can do it. Then so can I. All I need to do is fly right, most of the time.

by

Island Blog – A Dalliance with the Dark

In spite of a strong ability to focus on the light in everything and everyone, there are times when the shadows band together, creating dark. I can see it coming, feel my arms begin to flail and my happy heart turn tearful. The inevitable is coming and I know it will pass, as everything always does, but my own core strength is no match for it. At first, I feel irritation at things I had thought were completely accepted, in a state of order like soldiers, rank and file, and under my command. Then I might react, verbally or with tuts and sighs to those irritations, my cheerful voice dulled, silenced or delivered in a minor key. Dammit, this shouldn’t be happening. I have been in control of me for so long now. I must be falling back, losing my grip on things. I search for reasons. It’s because I am weary of this, of all of it; of the endlessness of caring, the fight against a strong desire to run for the hills; Groundhog Day, over and over and over and, by the way, there is no sign of it ever being truly over; The domestic round, the isolation, the fear of Covid 19, the washing, the cleaning, the lack of excursions, meals out, coffee with friends or the chance to jump in muddy cuddles with my grandchildren. A collusion of reasons to fall into darkness.

But I don’t want to. However, at the point, ie now, that I accept such times as perfectly normal, as times other people go through just like me, that it is not my sins finding me out and the Great Judge is not jabbing a finger of blame in my direction, I can begin to relocate the light that never really left. In accepting such times as understandable, as reasonable, as justifiable, I stop beating myself up. Although the days roll on ad infinitum, it is fair to say that only Mary Poppins could sing through such interminability. An ordinary human will falter, the inner tantrum will rise from time to time because we are not fictitious characters nor are we robots. We are remarkable, indeed we are, living through this with our best attitudes and most inventive brains, but we must also allow ourselves to grow weary of the drudge, sad at the lack of ‘out there’ opportunities and picnics on the beach, fed up of the same four walls, the same encounters in doorways, the brain-numbing battles of will over the same issues over and over again. Without external encounters our thinking remains just that. Our own thinking. Sharing tales, stories, ideas, laughter and recipes in a sociable situation will always lift a flagging spirit. We miss that and sometimes, very much indeed, no matter how positively we are living through this strange time.

So I am not failing, nor falling. I am still a sunshine me. I choose not to be the Great Judge. Instead, I will settle the stooshie inside my heart with kindness and empathy, stepping as lightly as I can into yet another day.

by

Island Blog – A Mouse, A Monday and a Child

It’s Monday, but it could be Sunday for all the quiet out there. On the island we are taking this Covid 19 virus very seriously indeed, unlike other places, or so I am told. We plan to survive this siege and although our drawbridge is now firmly up, we have found a way to keep in touch. I get funny videos and cheery texts and FaceTime calls often and I am very grateful for them. Being a natural hugger I now have to stand far away from anyone I meet, washing my hands before touching anything they have touched, and it feels deeply weird. We are looking in now, finding things for entertainment, edutainment and upliftment. All those ‘ments’ are forcing us to use our big brains, and inventiveness is the key.

So, this morning, I decide to print out photos of my hundreds of grandchildren and their parents, captured moments of fun, in wild places, doing crazy things. I know where my Picturemate printer is. It’s on a shelf in the Land of Mouse, a dark cupboard underneath the stairs. The space is like a mini fairyland, draped exquisitely with cobwebs, the many shelves holding ancient nonsense. There are photo albums that date back to slavery, old recording equipment, wires for nothing we still employ and, in the nighttime bit, the big fat darkness, lie the Christmas decorations, silenced for another year in the belly of an old school trunk circa 1820. I can see where the mouse has made a nest or two, chewed through some obsolete wires, nibbled at the edges of this album or that cardboard box, and I whisper Good Luck Mate. I don’t mind living with you as long as you respect my Importants. Eventually, I find the printer and haul it out through the cobwebs. Now to affix it to my laptop with the right plug. So far so good. I find the downloaded photos and begin.

And that is where I stop. All I manage to achieve, in spite of double and triple checking the settings is one leg of one child on one spit of paper and the other leg on the next. At this rate I will have to assemble 12 photo sized cards in order to make one whole child. And there are 3 of them in this picture. It makes no sense to me, but even though I apply my finest and calmest logic to the matter, I make no headway, much like in the printing process, for the head of child number one never printed at all. I unplug the printer, save the photos in my gallery (I think) and return the box to fairyland. I think the mouse has jinxed it.

In the bigger picture, this little pictorial upset is nothing. But, we must be careful not to let such small things grow. And we must help each other to do the same, to see wide and free and the drawbridge down once more. It will come. And this time will have thinked us all. We will have found strengths we never knew we had, friends we never thought cared that much, ideas that come, that only ever come in times of extreme fear and deprivation. The human spirit marvels me.

I just wish mine could work out how to print a whole child.

by

Island Blog 150 Space and Time

 

 

 

Space station 1Space station

 

 

Last night I watched the International Space Station move across the starry sky. A golden orb it was, arcing overhead, just a tiny dot. Six atronauts are aboard. I waved. I know, sad really, but you never know what a welcome wave can impart across space and time. I’m thinking ‘butterfly wings. The illusion of ‘just a dot’ in the wide sky of a sparsely inhabited island would be no less to anyone who glimpsed it last night between high rise buildings in a big city. And, yet, six whole living people are aboard. To them, we, the whole WE, that is, the Earth, is also illusive. They know we are millions, we are legion, and yet, all they see is a rolling ball of mountains, plains and seas. They don’t see us and we don’t see them, but because of our vast technology, we know we are all where we are.

Let’s look closer.

Up there, last night, NASA emailed a racheting socket wrench. Well, not quite the actual wrench, but a 3D image via a 3D printer that guided the Commander to fashion one himself. It would have taken months for supply vessel to deliver one. Months.

When we look up, we imagine stars to be small sparkly lights dinging about when the clouds are away bothering someone else, even though we know that some of them are much bigger than our own world.  Still, as we point them out to a little one, to gaze up in wonder, we don’t think of great lumbering planets, already dying, but of diamonds in the night.

The International Space Station travels at 27,000 km per hour at an orbit height of 431 km, and here I am wondering how long it will take to drive to Doune for Christmas with all that festive traffic.  But, my place is down here, not up there, and here is where I need to remember the illusions of time and of space.  We know both are always with us, always influencing our decisions, our routines, our days and our nights, but because we cannot control either of them, tame either of them, rule over either of them, we just have to let them be.  We must walk with them, through them and around them as fellow miracles.

Now, we may not think of others as fellow miracles.  In fact, some are way off miracle grade, in our opinion.  But again, this is an illusion.  I know that, at this time of year, everyone is ‘goodwilling’ themselves to death, smiling when before there was no smile, giving when we only take for the rest of the year, lifting our care-worn spirits  and tired bodies in frightful jumpers and paper hats and telling ourselves it’s fun, and I never did understand why January is all about diets and New Year’s Resolutions.  Why don’t we eat sensibly and employ self-control all through the year?  Why can’t we give to those who need something we have, and they don’t, every single month? It seems we turn back to ourselves after this crazy happy festive season to face the big black hole inside every one of us all over again.

Black holes.  They’re in space too, and in time.  Those who are lonely are often closer by than we might like, often in the family.  In space, they eat you.  As they do down here.  For all the technology, the space research, the developments in education, social media, lifestyle (for some) and health care, we are still lost.

And yet, we are found too.  If every one of us chose not to turn back in, to scrabble around in the illusion that we are not enough, not clever, not destined for greatness, not important, we might learn, bit by bit, to look out, to see other walking miracles, to learn from them.  It isn’t easy for any of us.  We all have black holes, black illusions.  But those who do make a difference, who do become important, who are clever and definitely more than enough, are those little people who choose not to be consumed by self-pity, guilt and regret. Not one of them was born with anything more than the rest of us.  There’s no magic here.  Every single one of us grows a black hole.  Once we acknowledge that, we can move on beyond it, whether we have ‘everything’ or ‘nothing’.

Another human illusion.

The people who have chosen not to turn back in are the heroes, the warriors, the fighters for life. And they began right here, taking one step at a time, one day at a time.

It’s a new day today.  Christmas is coming.  But Christmas will also go, leaving us behind.

What will you make of yourself when it does?