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Island Blog – Reasons to Celebrate

There are, approximately 9450 words beginning with ‘C’. Well, damnit, I can never find any of them when playing scrabble, or, maybe, I don’t have the insiders like the flipping vowels, or, maybe, the other player has stuck the damn ‘C’ at the top of an Eiffel Tower from which there is no escape. It’s a pinnacle, and if, if, there is a Z or another impossible consonant affixed way too close to said ‘C’ then, basically, I am f**ked. However, that C challenges me, makes me both furious and determined to like it at all. I don’t mind it in ‘nice’ or spice’ or priced, or all those other words which seem to employ the C as a follow on. I like it in Niece, for example, although the I before E except after C thing in English Language lessons almost grew me wings. The rules of grammar are absolute and infuriating. I know that all that I have learned is not important now, and I accept that, whilst feeling a tingle of sadness for the beauty of what is lost.

I look for the C beginnings. Caring I know that one, the way of it. How about champagne? Ah, now that gives me tingle. Even though chairlift, coercion, confinement and control rise into my head, I know how it is to celebrate. No matter the years of awful, for anyone, if celebration is a sparkler within, then celebration will out. However and however, I wonder if folk darken, lose their hold on the fun of life, deny themselves the grabbing of moments when the sun.suddenly shines after months of darkness and rain? Noteveryone. Not me.

As a family we celebrated everything, every achievement, every brave move, every birthday, everything. Through tough times, through loneliness and exclusion, through self-doubt and sibling rivalry, through all of it, there snuckles a smidge of hope and if grasped, barely breathing, this snuckle can bring the C back three paces.

Celebration. Such a wonderful word and, just to say, I am proud of C getting to the front of a very big word. Celebrate everything, every moment, everyone. I know life is damn tough right now, but bring the damn C to the front.

Celebrate, Celandine, Collective, Creedence, Cherish, Community, Charisma, Co-ordination, Collusion, Co-piloting.

Let’s go with this, plus Champagne of course!

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Island Blog – Power, a Reset

Back home from work at the Best Cafe Ever I always arrive to a turbulence of birds. Even in this rain, they sit along the wires and I swear they welcome me. I say Hallo Friends, but just to let you know that I will stop feeding you from May 1st, whatever the weather. They will miss me, and I will miss them very much, the dip and dive, the rise and flutter just outside my window, but what I know, and they don’t, is that a ferocious disease is coming back and will kill them and their young, if I persist in my desire to watch them feed. It thinks me.

When my children were too young to know what I didn’t want to know, I had to be the responsible one. I had to say no when that ‘no’ word set up a load of trouble. No, you cannot go to a disco at 14; no you cannot borrow the car; no you will not get flashing trainers, a TV in your bedroom, a pet snake. It was years of ‘not easy’ but that is intelligent parenting and not one of us wants it. But time passes and then they become parents and then they say ‘Ah, I get it”. It’s such a long wait to hear that, if indeed we ever do. Nobody knows a life until they live it, after all.

In the BCE, there is a young girl, new to the tasks, mid early exams, on the brink of womanhood and still under strong protection against which, I imagine, she rebels. I have watched her, listened to her, engaged with her and she is one fine early woman. I have met such in my granddaughters. Strong, clear on what they will and won’t accept. I resist the words that rise in me, the cautionary tale, and I just say, as I said to her today. Remember one thing. Do everything to make sure of your independence. Do the work towards that independence, no matter. how hard, how much you yawn at the thought of it, because if you don’t, you will end up being convinced. that a different way to yours is brighter, like the flashing trainers were once to my kids. Flash and diamond lights and promises of gold and magic is a load of shite. Always.

I wish I had known who I was at that age. I didn’t. I was, then, a follower and the leader was a man, everytime. I have nothing against men, I love them. When they come into the cafe, the bikers, the fit cyclists, and, even though they are young enough to be my sons, if there’s a sparkle, I play. This the fun of life and I love it. But I do think of those long ago days when I had no idea of my beauty and I can see ithe truth of that now in old photos. All I had was a need to escape. Thank goodness I did, and into safe arms.

My beautiful granddaughter turns 16 in a few days. I was almost married at 18, I told her recently. She, beautiful and talented she, laughed. Never me, Granny, never me. I want to focus on my exams and my piping (she is a brilliant piper) and then I laughed too. Of course my clever and beautiful girl. Of course.

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Island Blog – Bumble, Soup and Times Ahead

I wake in my old thoughts a few times in the night for no good reason beyond the immense shackalackle of fat rain crashing down and making a noise I might have reported to the Noise Police had I not realised what it was and therefore controlled my inner fishwife. The thoughts were weird, random, old stuff. I did the ‘wheesht’ thing with my hands, both of them. Thoughts are uncontrollable. It thinks me of those teachers who go into schools and who, though strong on their subject, just cannot hold the room and are thus vulnerable to the jokesters. I am trying, over decades, to teach my thoughts, and they are pupils even now. I can brandish my wand until I become the catherine wheel, but they won’t, don’t listen to me, no matter how many sparks I spiral out into the night, any night. I must befriend them. Much like teachers, I guess.

As I drove the skinny road to work this morning, I felt so excited. I mean something here. I am someone. I am the Washeroo. Others can do it all, with eloquence and majesty but I love that place. It used to be about hiding and I could. nobody could see me there. I love the change that the Calgary Cafe has wrought in me. It was an invitation and, I am sure, a risk, but here I am again and who knew how many dancing staff could shimmy around each other with dozens of lunch orders and with tunes on, and with changes and skedaddles on table shifts and others suddenly joining and the joy in it all.

My break. I grabbed a courgette, pea and mint soup in a big cup and took myself off to Pixty. As I opened the door, I tipped the hot soup, not much but enough to singe fingers. I did laugh and opened my windows to the warm sun. A bumble flew in, beautiful, sharp arse, conifer stripe. Hey, I said, quietly. I got the trapped thing in its buzz. I held my fingers up and it landed there. Then, window open gone.

New Times ahead.

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Island Blog – It takes Time

I used to be lonely, and for years, not just after himself took off to the stars, although that sideswiped. me a ton truck more than I had expected. When you care for a partner, and for so very long, you can find yourself wanting it to end.

I used to envy oldies like me walking past my island home holding hands and actually talking happily together. I used to slow down, to tackle any task wounting my steps, pausing a lot. Any task would have taken me five minutes plus a bit in the past. But the past is gone and I am very changed. Most of that change is olding, and we all face that, in time, but there is a lift and lift of responsive changeability, which kind of implies I did the changing myself. I did. I knew I didn’t want to hover over the past, wishing a load of shit away. I knew, instead, that I wanted to be someone, be something, no matter any demise, any trauma, any loss. And, the answer was/is simple. I hate that because it isn’t. However, over the last six odd years, suddenly alone and not just in the death of himself, but of my family leaving the island, I have learned much. Actually this learning thing has surprised me with its results. It seems to me that, by just a gentle daily practice with intention, a whole. way of seeing and believing shifts like something underwater and unseen.

I. wanted. to decide I was perfectly okay with all those happy lives around me. I wanted not to feel lonely and. definitely not needy., but a decision like that has. no legs because it’s all about willpower, and mine is floppy. I don’t know when I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself, to question my going out there among friends with a rictus smile, the great pretender. But I do. remember. hiding, facing nothing, living in minutes, filling in hours, drudging my days. And at some point I found light, just a twinkle, a tiny something that lifted my. heart, made me smile. Could. have been a. hug that was real, a hold. Could have been the stranger who wanted to chat in the veg. section of Dugie’s. Could have. been a kindness on the road to a dentist appointment. I don’t remember.

When the whatever began it showed as faith in humanity. I felt seen and heard. I mattered, and that made me ‘matter’ up. I began. to appear, to rock up, to step up. Now I work, now I walk, now I see couples go by hand in hand and wave and smile and wish them a wonderful evening. Now I feel that I miss nothing at all. I can embrace those slow minutes and, when I put on tunes, can dance through rooms that hold only happy memories. I remember so much now that my mind is rid of all that angst. The key for me is thankfulness. When I wake, whatever the striations of the night, I greet the dawn with a thankyou. As I go through my day I thank and allow. The things that irritate are only there when we feel like confronting. If we don’t, if we just back up, back down. then I recommend the peace that comes from that decision. Everyone has a tough life.

This takes a decision and practice and a lot ot Time. They say Time is an illusion. I like them.

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Island Blog – Thoughts and Feelings

It is so good to be home, and. that thinks me. Learning as I have from others, wiser than I, I make my mind go deep on them. It is too easy to think a thought or to feel a feeling and for either to skitter off like kangaroos. I want to grab them and to hold either and for us, together, to burrow deeper. What is it about coming home that really makes it so wonderful? What is it about that feeling that so caught me by surprise? It can be catch in breath, a skitter in the belly, a wildflower in the mind, or a sudden desire to run. It can be so many things, but without deep thought it can decide itself and that is usually a mistake. As long as we surface glide over feelings and thoughts we can make wrong decisions, ones we later regret. However, it is understandable that we do this surface gliding thing because nobody ever taught us how to hold, to allow, to let a reaction breathe for itself. Instead, we react. I have reacted so often in my life that I have learned the inefficacy of it. Not always, of course, not when a situation requires it in order to save someone from falling into the beyond of themselves, but often when there was nobody nor nothing in danger beyond my pride or the invasion of my personal space or my crappy decision to go inside when I knew that inside was a trap.

Situations mellow me for sure, people, friends, community, a safe place, home. This is a truth, although even this will never stop the budgie flutters of awkward encounters and situations, most of which happen in my beautiful island home and when I am all alone and in my own mind. Thinks and feelings have, as it seems, no boundaries. And I love the challenge. In my youth, nobody mentioned feelings. In fact I do recall being remonstrated with for the abundance of my own as if. I was somehow poisoned and potentially a dange. to others. I was, I know it. Without. a clue and in my youth I just know I ‘infected’ others. Who in my days ever ever spoke of feelings. or developed thoughts? Answer…..Nobody.

Thus my feelings about being home list thus….. warmed, welcomed, safe, protected. My thoughts are scattermagic. They will settle as I let them breathe. Half of them are still in Africa after all. The key is to allow, to give thoughts and feelings time because they are up against all the fears, anxieties, imaginary demons, realtime horribles and more, already swirling like crows inside any of us, and they will wait for a clearer sky in which to unfold.

I am home and that is more than enough.

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Island Blog – GR Attitude

My kids have left for their anniversary celebration. 12 years, years of bumps and scratches, hatch plans, falls, lifts and a growing commitment. I hear it in their interactions, the way they share, the way they know each other, feel each other. 12 years, a beginning and a good one. It thinks me about beginnings because they come at us all the way through life. I hear conversations about perimenopause. Such a strange word and an even stranger beginning. I can hear that it feels like an ending which, I guess, it is, but it is also a beginning. To be free of all that monthly stuff, albeit eventually, sounds like a relief to me. I see skin smooth on beautiful faces, legs and arms and hear the whimper in the revelation of a few lines around the eyes. Later, in private, I see my own wrinkles, flipping tons of them, face, lips, arms and more, and I laugh. I have taught myself to see this aging process as a funny thing, because, let’s face it, it is funny. As gravity claims a body, and I speak as a woman who once was firm, who once could be certain that, with each step forward, the whole of her would land on the next. And that laughs me too, as I swither and caution myself, or is it ‘selfs,’ down hillsides, up high steps, across dips on the track. I am olding but I am not done yet, for there is beauty in this beginning, this olding, and the one who really needs to see that is me.

My eyebrows have all but disappeared. I used to colour them in, but just looked like a clown. It is impossible to get them both perfect. One is, the other looks like a starving caterpillar no matter what I do with my brush or pencil. And so, I stop. I know I have eyebrows and others who frankly give a damn will also know this and can probably see them, unlike me, even through bottle-glass specs. My face is still my face but now eyes are a bit sunk and my mouth is a thin line, no canvas for lipstick. And, I really don’t mind any of it, because here’s the thing. I am mobile, lithe, able and I have marbles aplenty. What is not to be grateful for? And that is my daily thankyou. I have what many don’t have, health, strength, determination, attitude, family, friends, community. I have my home, security, warmth, choices, laughter in my eyes and heart, a sense of fun, a love of people and moments. In all of these I forget completely how I look, whether or not I stumble or what mistakes I have made, the things I forgot, the way I tell the story again and to the same person.

I decide to be thankful and, more, to show, to live out daily gratitude for who I am, the life I have lived, the gains and the losses, the failures, successes and joys, the mistakes which learned me, the awful clothes I bought online and couldn’t send back because they came, way too late, from China, and so much more. When I live this way, very little phases me because none of it is about me, but only my attitude to it all. I may growl, I may, but the laugh comes in super quick. We have one life, that we know of. And every single day is a beginning.

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Island Blog – Skinny Bathroom, Piddle, Little Things

After the rains, the air is fresh and smelling of citrus and sunshine. Last evening friends came to share a delicious lamb shank tagine, plenty wine and a load of laughter. We talked news of our week as many and diverse subjects flew about the table. Faces glowed in candlelight and the embers of an equally merry fire. It’s always the little things which uplift us most, even though they aren’t little at all. In this troubled old world it is what people can do for each other that truly counts, leaving legacies, memories and glimpses of how life can be when those who plan for war finally understand that they plan for the wrong thing.

Looking far out, beyond the garden, the huge eucalypts, oaks and other green-leaved old guys, across the huge expanse of grass and towards the lines of vines, now all harvested for the year, I can feel hope. I think we have to look for it and then see it, a wide open offering of beyondness, beyond ourselves, our own little prison walls, our own prickly thoughts and perceived ideas of ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts’. Beyond the line of slow-moving traffic when we are in a hurry, the things she said, he said, the way someone looked at me in disdain, the deadly daily headlines, the neighbour’s barking dog. All of it, piddle, and about as useful, but, like piddle, it is there whether we like it or not. Our choices gives us voices, over which we have complete control, unlike most other things out there. It all begins with that choice, a cerebral decision not to drown in piddle. No special talent required. We all are gifted with that choice.

My little home away is in a different building. Across a lumpy brick-laid courtyard, where the earth refused to be accepting of all those bricks on her back, is an interesting journey, particularly after dinner and wine and hilarity and in the glorious pitch dark of an African night. I have the hang of it now, my feet have learned the ups and downs of this short traverse, and that makes me smile, because I love to know how connected I am with the vagiaries of Nature. My mind may be full of piddle, but my body knows the way and the way is not always a literal body walk. Oftentimes the traverse is more neural pathways with signposts as I navigate my way from complicated to simple.

In my skinny bathroom I have the usual equipment and a very efficient shower. However……..If I close the slide door which affords me privacy whilst naked, it is impossible to squeeze myself between basin and said door, en route to the very efficient shower. Impossible. So I gingerly de-slide, peek around the corner to ensure no unfortunate farm worker gets a scary shock, and dive into the shower, re-sliding it. Afterwards this performance is repeated in reverse. It has become a daily nonsense and no two days are the same. I am quite certain I have been glimpsed on occasions, and this smiles me too. After all, I am hardly ever going to hear “Morning Ma’am, I saw you butt naked yesterday’, now am I?

Last evening, pre lamb tagine and vibrant people, there was a tiny frog, obviously not of the voyeur variety, if, indeed, such a frog exists, which I doubt. I was already partially un-clad. I stooped to wonder at the spectacular markings on its tiny back, so intricate, so perfect and so not ‘just’ a frog. How extraordinary this big life is, for those who stop to notice. I bunched a bath towel around myself, picked it up, cold in my palm, soft, gentle, and opened my door without a single thought of farm workers nor maids with bundles of washing and wide smiles. I opened my hand among the pretty ground-creeping thingy with orange flowers and felt the frog leaving my skin, my palm empty yet still echoing that connection again, to all things, all people and all of Nature.

It’s always the ‘little’ things.

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Island Blog – Rain, Change and Artistic Spike

They’re coming, well the first two are. Rain in Africa is a celebration and getting soaked is a joy. I have watched ordinary people dancing in the streets as rain falls and when rain falls here it is more like being under a waterfall. I know, of course I do, that such a belter of water feels very different when both the temperature and the rainfall is warm. Back home where the air is cold enough to bite your teeth off, a heavy rain is an insult, or feels like it. Slamming at your face, body, mind, thoughts, it can feel as if you are a nothing much, a thing in the way, a pain in the backside of nature. And yet we who accept the change of seasons, the way life is on a west coast island planted head on to the capricious control of the Atlantic, which, by the way is an extremely huge and over itself ocean, flanking endless countries and upsetting even more shores and livelihoods, accept it all. We live within the change. But not just there, here too. This morning, early, we moved by vineyard workers working fast to gather the last of the grapes. The road was honking with tractors, loaded, the mouthy shouts from workers spilling through the open windows of the car, the smell of grape must redolent in the humid air. Adapting to change when it is mostly inconsiderate, is a mighty skill. I am glad I learned that adaptation thing early on having married a man who thought change was part of his clothing and who definitely wondered why nobody else felt the same way.

I am almost 3 weeks in to my stay here. My children work at their work. We move easily together, and respectfully, There are changes all the time with both of them, lifts, downs, challenges and celebrations. I walk quietly in between, moving out to the stoep to watch the birds, the mountains, the change in the sky. I read, write, make a lunch or late breakfast, always happy to serve. I thought about my happy place, thought about asking anyone, what is yours? Always a hesitation as if they never asked themselves that basic question. I get it. These are young folks, fighting for survival in an uncomfortable world, so demanding, so Disney, so unrealistic, so empty of individuality. It will take strength to rise up, to shout I Am Not A Number, or something like that. I believe it will happen because change brings gifts with her. Change proffers opportunity and a stepladder, a wee one, yes, but still. I believe that this time is their time and no matter the damn ceiling, someone will break through. It’s happened before and it will happen again.

This morning I booked an appointment for a hair change. I knew nothing of the salon beyond the rave reviews for this particular artist. We met, talked and together, decided. I felt so important, so welcomed. She said I had beautiful hair and there’s me thinking, old, white. We worked together for an hour or so, like a beautiful dynamic. I came in frowsy, molten lava head, shapeless. Change required. In the hands of an artist, I am revealed. Funny how so many allow the frowse. I’m having none of that. If you’re dynamically spiked, then spike. Age means nothing.

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Island Blog – Encounters and Cats

Waking into a sunshine dawn, I welcome the criss-cross of light through the blinds, stripes of gold on the flagstone floor. Without thinking, I step over them. Of course I know they won’t trip me up but it feels polite not to squash them underfoot. Dressed in shorts and a tee-shirt, I make my way to the main house and coffee. My little room, not far away gives me all I need, a comfortable bed, a tiny shower room and privacy. There are other such rooms and homes on this wine farm but I rarely hear or see the occupants. As is the custom in Africa, a maid will come in daily to clean. It felt odd, once, but not now, not now I know how proud these women are to have work enough to support their own families in the township. Their hair is a mass of black braids, their faces bright and smiley, their characters loaded with sass. Despite their history of ‘domination’ by the white people, they are openly friendly and respectful, and I have yet to encounter a worker in any field, street or shop who doesn’t turn to greet with a ‘Morning Ma, how are you today?’ It feels mellow and right with a sense of togetherness. We move in completely different worlds and yet conjoin in one of mutual respect and genuine affection, often as complete strangers who may never meet again. It thinks me as I remember how comparatively unfriendly the streets and lives of back home can be. We have lost the art of teamwork and become lonely islands. Well, some of us have.

The cats greet me with morning miaows, pushing their soft heads into my legs, curling around them. The big retriever huffs a welcome, a soft toy in his mouth, his eyes asking for play. When I first arrived, the cats looked at me as if I had landed from another planet, scooting away, a get-lost glare in their wake, but now, as they remember me, we can share a space in peace. We respect each other just as it ought to be, could be, can be among humans. When something shifts, a comment is made or opinions differ, we can take it personally, responding thus or not responding at all, slinking away with a head full of furballs, hurting, a spit of questions on our lips. I know this because I have been there, many times, but now that I have learned to separate what I can control from what I cannot, I tend to take a good look inside myself. Not in the search for either self-blame or a cutting response to what I perceived as an attack, but more to read the bones of what just happened, which is where the nugget of truth will lie. And the reason I do this is because I am not a child anymore; I am not controlled by old triggers; I am not under any control save my own over me, and I want to allow, accept and let go. The alternative is a dark tunnel, a very long one.

If I was a cat and didn’t like what another cat did or said, I would spit, yowl and take myself away. This is honest cat behaviour. However, it isn’t quite the same for me. Such a response might get me arrested. In recognising this simple truth, I have human choices, me with my big and clever brain, my heart genuinely loving, my letting go of childhood issues and triggers, my experiential wisdom and my understanding that my perception is not unilateral. However, I do know that it takes vulnerability and courage in situations of discomfort such as a big difference of opinions on a subject we both feel strongly about. It doesn’t mean I concur or demur, not at all because I still feel the way I feel, but in order for anything to move forward we need to team up or the anything gets stuck in a bog. It also doesn’t mean that my only option is to be passive aggressive, defensive, repetitive or opinion-fixed. So, am I open to both opinions sitting beside one another like Tweedledum and Tweedledee? Can we smile over the chasm of our differences and keep moving, stronger together?

Well, if we don’t, then nothing goes nowhere, nor anywhere and we are both lonely.

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Island Blog – The Road to Somewhere

6000 miles and 6 days later, I am wrapped in African heat. One very long flight has carried me, and a gazillion others, over deserts and oceans, well, one ocean, depositing me into new sounds, new songs, stories and landscape. I left muddy puddles and pale faces, bodies so wrapped up as to become almost unrecognisable, and walk now among bright colours, new languages, unfamiliar birds and wide African smiles. It is so much easier to smile when the sun shines bright and hot.

On this wine farm, one of many, we seek the shade of massive trees, gum, fever, oak, palms and many more. We walk alongside well-established vines, heavy with fruit for the second picking. The staff here are always at work, strimming grass that doubles in size almost overnight, and particularly so after the big thunderstorm and heavy rains of yesterday. When it rains here it’s as if the whole sky is coming down, but, unlike the West Coast of Scotland, it is warm and refreshing. Nobody dives for cover, but instead stands beneath the waterfall wearing wide smiles. Rain is so very precious here.

The house I stay in offers a wide and open view all the way up to the mountains where, two nights ago, a huge fire lit the night sky. We saw it first as a golden cloud above a blue and distant peak and those who knew recognised it at once. As day gave way to night, the blaze was clear, crimson, poppy, scarlet, orange, yellow and frighteningly hot. We watched it from miles away, and there was a gasp and a beauty in its devastation as it moved down the mountain, consuming all in its path. Thankfully, and after two days and nights, the fire-fighters, from the sky and on the ground, managed to quell the burn and no homes were destroyed. It thinks me, the beauty in destruction and the chance for new growth. Twins.

When something appears as destruction in a life, it will always proffer the opportunity for new growth, even though at first all you see is charred earth where once there was vibrant life. When such an event has evented me, and on looking back, I can see that it’s all about attitude and letting go, two tricky buggers for sure. I invested every part of me in preparing the ground, planting seeds, growing a sense of both ownership and control. I had made myself more important than the far stronger forces around me. This is mine and I build me a fence to protect what has now become my ‘familiar’. Of course I am upset when my castle is toppled and it is understable and acceptable to wallow a bit in the loss. But is it a loss? I ask this of myself because, just perhaps, I had made my life smaller with this fence thing. Perhaps I am far more enterprising that I believed.

I stand up to look over the wasteland of an old dream, and I just let go. I won’t build this way again because that familiar is gone. Instead I will step lightly into my imagination, tell myself that I am merely a part of the next adventure and must remind myself of this daily. In the uncertainty of our lives nowadays swirl a billion opportunities for new growth as long as we let go of holding on too tight to what was. With open eyes, ears and heart, we are magnificent creatures, capable of so very much. Does any one of us know what step to take first? Nope. Does anyone see the completed dream? Nope. It is always a case of stepping out, left, then right, then left again, holding the dream lightly, ready and willing and open to every new encounter. Yes, it takes courage.

I’ll meet you on the road to Somewhere.