March 5, 2015 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 153 On Good Men and Unicorns

I have heard said, that good men are like unicorns. Everyone talks about them but nobody ever sees one.

To compare a man with a unicorn, is, indeed, a strange thing to be sure. Unicorns may be ‘fictitious’ creatures, but they are very real in fairy stories, folklore and even in Harry Potter’s world, which is one I almost believe in. Many times I have faced down a pillar on some bleak and windy station, thinking positively about rushing towards it in search of Platform Nine and Three Quarters. I don’t, of course, being ever so slightly aware that I may, indeed, be a Muggle after all, and, thus both bitterly disappointed, and in need of cosmetic surgery.

The other thing that stranges me about a comparison between unicorns and good men, is that men, in my experience, couldn’t be more earthed. I may attempt, for example, to unfold my feelings about some aspect of my life only to be asked scientific questions. What shape, when, why and how. I may float (just a bit) around concepts of life, love and marmelade and be yanked back down to earth with a sensible ‘fix’ to the situation, one that completely misses my point, not that I have had one of those in a long time. In fact, my being afflated about some other-worldly issue very possibly negates the need for a point, as there are many and none in the mackle mind of a woman at such times.

Now, I know, like you do, that unicorns have hooves and must, therefore, do things like walk, trot, canter and gallop, and for all of these activities, they require some sort of stable terrain, one with depth and structure, one they can see and expect to see whilst they do all of these things. In this, they are very like men, I agree. But, and this ‘but’ divides and separates, they can fly, of float, or elevate and there are few, if any, good men who can do that.

But is there a difference between Men and Good Men? I wonder if this is simply an act of perception. I say ‘act’ because it is a doing word and not a being word and there’s my point. And I have another. Does the perception of a man make him good? If I imagine him to be like a unicorn, powerful, there when you need a lift out of danger, able to move fast over ground or through the air, beautiful, intelligent, magical and interesting, might he not become so? Whereas, if I imagine him stupid and blunt, strong-like-bull but dimwitted and messy and thoughtless, might I not be fashioning him that way?

I know this is a chicken and egg question, but it has thinked me for a while and made me watch folk and consider. We can divide our lives into little controllable units, and, in many ways, this is a good thing. I want my day planned, to a degree, to the degree that is important to me, that is. I want to know when this or that is needed by my family, and what my role is in making it right for them. But, if I have forgotten what it was like when first we met, then, chances are, so has he. Life and the gravity of it has pulled us all down. It happens, but the clever ones among us notice this. If I stopped the car suddenly and said to you, Look There Goes a Unicorn, even if you were the biggest domesticated woman cynic ever, you would look, you would ask Where? But if I said There Goes Your Husband, you might look, you might, but, if it was somewhere you didn’t expect him to be you might say…..well you might say all sorts of things but you would not have the same look on your face as you did when I called him a Unicorn.

June 6, 2014 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 134 Reality Check

This morning the air is still on the island. Nobody is about, except for the birds playing out their dramas. The doves, including Dave, whose mate was nabbed by a sparrowhawk a couple of years back, and who will always be a gooseberry, turn up to feed, their beaks tapping out a syncopated rythm on the wooden base of the bird table. We found the remains of the kill on the track outside the house, and Dave stumbling about lopsided and scared. Not a lucky dove, we said. After a week or so inside a box, fed and watered each day, he managed a wonky lift from the ground, straightened up and flew right onto the telephone wire. We hadn’t fixed anything, weren’t sure how to, but perhaps the combination of love and his own will to survive did their work. Now, however many pairs line the wire, sometimes up to 15 in the winter months, he is the uneven number, but always faithful, staying close to home, when the others loop away across the hills to build nests, raise young, complete the yearly circle once again.

A pair of swallows have taken the nest we fixed at the back of the garage years ago. Each spring, they check it out, and each spring, they reject it. Perhaps this is because we are constantly in and out of the garage, for it offers the only access to the hill garden at the back, where the bee hives nestle in the wild grass, their faces towards the sun. Every day each community, numbering thousands apiece, fly out to find pollen. The scouts communicate directions to the others in waggle dances, performed on the front step and taken seriously by the other worker bees, all women of course, who might be dithering about which way to go. The hive mind is an extraordinary thing and one that never sleeps, for even when the bees don’t fly, we know that if we lifted the lid (which is not for the faint-hearted) we would not see one single bee loafing about with a vacant look in her eye. Every single one is busily employed, going about her business mindfully, intelligently, continuously. Any loafers would be thrown out.

Trouble is, the swallows number three. I don’t suppose this works, a menage a trois, in the swallow world, but the three of them dive in and out of the garage each early morning and evening. On the wire, they have words. No violence is employed, but you can tell, from the tone, that it’s not friendly. Perhaps, like doves, and swans, swallows mate for life. Perhaps this lone one lost its mate on that huge journey back from Africa. We watched them gathering on wires, rooftops, swirling like a dark cloud over Capetown, when we were there in March, preparing for their flight across the globe, and we marvelled. How they manage to find their old nest sites year after year beggars belief. We would need maps, charts, radar, provisions, a transport vehicle, confidence, determination and periodic rests in soft beds with cotton sheets and a spacious en suite. They just fly.

In honour of their unusual tryst, together with the excitement at their final acceptance of the Garden Centre nest, (buy one, get a House Martin one free) I have fixed signs, one on the inside of the door, so we remember not to dive out and head butt a swallow, and one for anyone coming through the little gate who needs guiding to the other door. If we need to access the hill garden, we must open the garage door slowly, peeking gingerly out, to see if our new friends are around. Sometimes they wobble on the inside washing line. We need an inside washing line on the island, as the outside one is often long-term unemployed. The concrete floor is already guano-ed up and this situation won’t change, as long as they decide, finally, to lay their eggs, which they still may not, given the human comings and goings.

As I walked Miss Poppy around Tapselteerie yesterday, she made me laugh at some antic and, in response to my voice breaking the silence of the afternoon, a well-hidden nest of young tits leapt into action, their collective cheeping floating out from one of the dark holes in the old dry stone wall. The mother, behind me on a branch, yelled at them to shutup, but they were having none of it. I didn’t stay around to worry her, but the experience lifted my heart, just to have been allowed to witness that moment, and to fix the knowledge of it into my ordinary day. I call that an ‘internal shunt’, for It changes me, even though nothing has changed. My usual list of miniature disasters is still there; the demands on my time, my patience, my purse, stay in place; nothing is certain, nothing really safe and nothing I can do to make it any different. I could lose a loved one in a nanosecond and there is little I can do to stop it happening. I can fall ill, a silent enemy moving in to establish victory whilst I dash through my daily list, unaware until too late. But it does me no good to focus on what may or may not happen, in fact, it will falter my step, weaken me, make me dull at parties. What I need to do, mindfully and intelligently, is to learn from the birds, from the natural world, of which I am a part. I am at the top of the food chain, yes. I can think and reason, yes. And these gifts are not given to be wasted. They are gifts of sight, gifts of power, not over others as we seem to believe, but over myself, the choice to get real, like the birds.

How does that song go………oh yes…..

‘Hey, you know what paradise is? It’s a lie
A fantasy we create about people and places as we’d like them to be
But you know what truth is?
It’s that little baby you’re holding, and it’s that man you fought with this morning
The same one you’re going to make love with tonight. That’s truth, that’s love.

I’ve been to paradise, but I’ve never been to me.’

November 20, 2013 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 112 Chrispepsia

Still on the subject of Love, I find myself in a wee panic as I suddenly realise how close we have come to Christmas. In the olden days when all my chicks lived under the same roof, it was comparatively simple in that I knew exactly what they wanted and did my best to find it. Christmas lists were read and laid to one side as they usually contained expensive new toys, noticed in other’s homes or found in television adverts, and quite out of the pocket-question for us. Now they are grown and gone, parents most of them, and I have no idea what they want. Even buying for their little ones throws me. I know them, in that I would indentify them in in a crowd, but what little ones want and like and, most importantly, what their parents will accept or allow leaves me standing quite still and staring out the window, my mind a scummy blank.

Clothes. They all have a zillion clothes, from chic inter-familial hand-me-downs to outfits bought by a parent who knows that this one can’t wear nylon mix, another goes red in the face above a tight polo neck, yet another adores Peppa Pig, Lightning McQueen or Angry Birds and that’s three different little ones. And which has just lengthened by a few inches, or grown larger feet? Toys, from my recent check online at either incredibly expensive six times over or offering total rubbish that needs batteries they don’t even bother to supply.

What I find now, as I have always found, is that strange arisal of guilt inside me. It is called Chrispepsia, a word sandwich merging Christmas and Dyspepsia. I want to give…….. no, to show by my gift, that nobody is more important than another. I have never succeeded, not once. Somebody is always disappointed.

When I buy a gift, I buy what I think they would absolutely adore and am surprised when they don’t adore it at all, never mind absolutely. Hence, a list. But there is a part of me that doesn’t want to be given a list, but who wants to surprise. When I overhear an adult asking a child ‘So what is Santa bringing you this Christmas’, I inwardly tut, especially when the answer is An X Box, or a Mountain Bike. Don’t they know there is only one Santa and a vast world-full of children? We surely don’t expect the old chap to set off multiple times because he cannot fit onto his sleigh more than one or two bikes at a time, do we? And how does a mother explain to her child who only got a few trinkets, some nuts and a tangerine in his stocking, that Santa doesn’t have favourites, when one schoolmate got an X Box and another, a Mountain Bike?

I have said, until the room falls asleep yawning, that Christmas is a time for giving, not getting, but it is clear to me that nobody paid the slightest attention. So, back to Chrispepsia. I’m right in the thick of it now and as lost as ever I was. In the past I have made things, things that undoubtedly fell apart by February, but nobody said. This year I haven’t made a thing, other than an impact on a lot of readers of Island Wife which doesn’t get me out of Chrispepsia.

There are forward looking folk who will already have wrapped and labelled all their gifts, planned their festive dinner, and may well be considering erecting their Christmas Tree. These goodly people have a clear head, strong decision-making powers. They don’t fanny about with the ditherers, whereas I am right in their midst. And, even when I have decided, bought and labelled each gift, I still feel unsure. On the day, as they begin to open it, I want a big hole to swallow me up. I don’t think they feel any concerns at all. It is just me and my Chrispepsia.

I have worked out, after a bunch of hours staring through windows, that I must measure my love in a material gift. The fact that I give in so many other ways during the year before, and after this great day, disappears like smoke in a westerly gale. And yet, my chicks and their chicks know how I show my love. I show it in actions, in written words at times of trouble, in spontaneous acts of random kindness, in patience, understanding, acceptance. I walk it. Any distance, any time. And I always always will.

So, you big twit, what’s the problem? You can just turn up, bring wine and cake, plasters and patience, fun and nonsense, ideas and iodine. Bring your hands for holding, for easing pain, for cooking supper. Bring your voice to encourage, sing, talk things through; your imagination for games or to develop a conversation; your skills to help, to share a burden, to celebrate another, to lift spirits.

Ok so I’m the gift for Christmas then?

Yes you are……..we all are…….plus the odd trinket of course.

November 12, 2013 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 111 Love Defiant

‘Love is giving someone the power to break your heart, and trusting them not to’. Some wise soul said that, and I pinched it.

When we fall in love, we fall into infatuation at first. We can think of nobody else all day. Their face and voice lift us up to heights we never knew before. Every time.

When I looked up Love on the interweb as my old ma calls it, every link on the first page and beyond guided me towards young love. Now, young love is not just for the young. The ‘young’ adjective describes Love, not the people feeling it. We can fall in love at any age, and thankfully, we do or the world would be chock full of lonely old people, who have loved and lost and find they can love again. But love is not just a feeling. It’s a verb. In order to maintain a love between two people, both have to work, sometimes, very hard and over long periods of time.

So what is love, the verb?

Well, after the first overwhelment of love, hitting us right in the heart like a meteor has landed there, things slowly change. Is this, we ask ourselves, the death of love? Did I make a huge mistake? Is the ‘honeymoon’ period over? Hopefully, yes. Now we are getting real.

You may have made a mistake in your choice of lover, but you also may not, for at this point comes commitment, a cementing of a love, a choice to grow it into something long term, something that will sustain both people for the rest of their lives. Ok, so we ‘commit’ whatever shape that takes and on we go. At first we can allow things to irritate, because we are still floating on cloud nine and, as we know Love is blind. But, when those things that irritate don’t disappear, we begin to wonder, because our initial plan to make the other person into a carbon copy of ourselves, isn’t working.

This is the uncomfortable bit.

‘Vive la Difference!’ is something we can laugh about and nod our heads to, but can we actually live with it?

There is another saying, that ‘Love means never having to say you’re sorry’. Well bin that one. I believe that saying sorry and taking appropriate action thereafter is precisely what Love is. Otherwise we can just go on with our irritating habits, expecting the other person to get over themselves without considering their feelings and that is not ‘love’.

‘Don’t sweat the small stuff’ is another. However, the small stuff grows into big stuff if left unattended and, by the way, the small stuff is in the way every hour of every day is it not? Dropping socks on the floor, nagging about who does what, harping on about slamming the car door, not helping with the shopping/kids/accounts etc.

So how do we un-sweat it?

Honestly, I can’t answer any of it, for this subject is one discussed to death all over the world in many languages. What I can say is that Love is a journey, not just a feeling. Beyond the chemstry, the longing to get home to a loved one, the daily joy, is a great depth of other things, essential things that, if applied with patience, will grow into a lifetime love.

But what about all that small stuff? Does he/she get away with it all? Hmmmm. Jury is out on that. I have made all the mistakes, harping, nagging, moaning about my lot, and you already know that, if you’ve read Island Wife. But, what I have learned, thankfully, is that love is not about getting my own way in everything. It is not about a clear stage, just for me, with himself prancing about like a dancer in tights, to lift me up every time I feel like a pirouette.

No, love is about Compassion. Kindness. Loyalty. Friendship. Affection. And each one of these is a choice, NOT a feeling. In fact, feeling them is unlikely at first, given the small stuff sweats. These depths of love are something to do, to work on, to write down as reminders. It’s like going back to school.

Goodness…… that sounds old and boring, even to me who knows all this first hand. But, as nobody can explain the truest, deepest meaning of Love, its high price and its long term rewards, then we just have to believe in it, even though, as a rule, we really only believe in that which we can explain through logic.

Love is not just about those first fiery weeks/months or even years. It’s not about agreeing on everything (which is fortunate as we hardly agree on anything)……nor is it something to be taken lightly, thrown away without deep consideration and every effort made to find it again should it appear lost. It’s not real in movies or romance novels. It’s not just for Christmas or for days when I feel good about myself. You won’t find it winning the lottery, or being promoted or writing a bestseller. You find it by making daily commitment to it’s development and growth.

And my last word, learned through experience, is this.

Forgive, even if nobody says sorry.

August 13, 2013 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 92 On Writing

As you may know, it is essential to read, especially if you are a writer. I read avidly, even during the day sometimes, which would have had me thoroughly tutted at by Granny-at-the-gate. Reading is for pleasure and wifeys don’t do pleasure inside of working hours which numbered, in my recollection about 22 per day. But now I have less demands on my time by little or big people, although sometimes, just before collecting my book and settling into a chair, I do check the clock and feel a frisson of minor guilt. It is so much easier to busy up with faffing jobs that lift the dirt or fill the larder with goodly smells, leaving the me part of me just a bit skinnier.

When I am writing, I become lost in the story, as I am now. Nights are broken as I weave my web, and ideas come at the most inconvenient of times, when the night is dark as a cave and I know I should fight on to achieve my 6 hours of rest, but once the next idea comes, the something that might happen to someone, the how of it and its consequences gets a hold of me, then Lady Sleep leaves the room. Over the years I have worked with various top tips.

Get up and start writing. No thanks, its too cold downstairs.

Keep a pad beside the bed and write down your idea. Yes I do that sometimes, if the story is just a foetus without a name, but if I am well on with the tale and the tellers of it, I can just lie there and follow the thread. Often, almost always, a character takes me in a direction I never mapped out for them, and that aspect of story-telling has always surprised and delighted me. It is, as if, once named on a page, each character accepts an initial structure, quite quietly it seems, until he or she decides I’ve got it all wrong and should listen to what they have to say about themselves.

Yesterday, a woman took an action I would never have expected of her, with a confidence that never came from me. That action changed the whole course of the story and I sat back in my chair, fingers hovering over keys that had just become a jumble of confused letters. A moment or so earlier, I knew just how to write a sentence. I knew where he was going, what she would say, what they would do as a result. Now I stare down at a keyboard that is singing me, not the other way around. I have become a player in the greater game.

Some writers don’t like this state of affairs. Some painters, musicians, song-writers too. But for me, it is the time when I can, to a degree, let go of control, and enjoy learning about each character by listening to their guidance. I move wholly and completely into their world. I work to understand their feelings, often not my own, about what has happened to them. I endeavour to find empathy with choices I would never make, have never made, although I do wonder if that bit is quite true. If I have considered, even for one minute a choice of action not in sync with how I see myself, might that mean that I could do that thing in different circumstances?

When I am writing a story, I move into it. I have to, or nobody would believe in it and the book would be closed and sent to a charity shop, un-read. Good drama draws us in, involves us and we can emerge from a book feeling angry, upset or filled with a happiness that never came from the outside. We can love a character, or hate them, wish them joys or want to punch them in the tonsils, but we can never find them dull, for if we do, we won’t bother to read on because we just don’t care.

Once I have found my characters, and, believe me, I do find them, or they find me, more truthfully. These characters came to me in an ordinary moment when I wasn’t looking for them at all. Two people sharing lunch in a café, and the dynamic between them. It captivated me and the story began to tell me how it wanted to be written. I made notes, kept looking at it as I walked, worked, cooked, cleaned and gradually the protagonists revealed themselves. How they dress, laugh, eat. How they love, how they live, and how they wrote their past.

Then, one day, I know it is time to begin and not long after I do, there is a knock at the door and in they all come.

July 4, 2013 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 73 – To Give or not to Give

I learned recently of a man who gave his wife a lovely piece of jewellery.

And then left her.

She kept it for some years, eventually making the decision to sell it.

Of course, any beauty it ever had was lost way back when it no longer spoke of love and giving, but more, perhaps of duty and guilt.

It made me think of what really is beautiful to our eyes, and not for a moment, but for always, and the answer is that it has little to do with eyes and everything to do with heart.

Gifts are often given to alleviate guilt, to fill in that huge empty void, so often an unwelcome part of a relationship, the place where communication forgot to settle and make into a home.

I don’t know how to love you the way you want, so I will buy you this, once I’ve checked the price tag and been suitably impressed. I won’t even be sure you will like the gift, but you won’t be able to show anything other than delight, once you realise how much it cost me. After that, I can go back to not communicating with you for another year.

Phew!

Lovely gifts are always free. We never remember the gifts that were bought and paid for, unless they directly reflect the level of communicated love we receive from the giver. If this giver always criticises and grumbles at us, then suddenly presents us with a pretty gift they just know we will love to wear, but have never worn before, what on earth do we believe of them?

Confused, no dot or com.

So each time I put it on it feels awkward for it is not something I ever wear nor ever have worn so why…….

Aha! I get it. This is what you would like me to like, so that you can like me better, because, then, I’ll be more like you, not me!

No longer confused, although I do wonder if I’m really here at all.

The giving of gifts is a free offering, without expectation of anything. Not even a thank you letter.

Otherwise, it is just control. Of course, I am excited to give whatever it is I am giving you. It could be my time, my smile, my kind words, my whole life, but I must remind myself that, unless I give these and many more similar gifts, freely, I am not giving at all, but taking.

So what do I do when my giving is not received as such? When it is, at best, unnoticed, at worst, rejected? Do I keep giving, fighting back the hurt and resentment that curdles my belly, or do I stop altogether and be true to myself?

Many have pondered this one but only a handful ever managed to get it right. I don’t mean a handful this year or even this century, but ever in the whole history of time. A handful.

For those who seek this blissful state of giving without expectation, there is a huge and lucrative business out there just waiting to welcome us in. There are ‘Find Yourself’ workshops, group therapy sessions, counsellors and psychiatrists all trained and qualified in this method and that method and many, including myself, have benefited from their wisdom and guidance. But there is no quick fix answer that works across the board.

I think it is a daily journey, as long as we are seeking a better way to love. And never giving up.

June 19, 2013 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 68 – Songs for the Girls

fig via: futureengagedeliver.com

I wrote a song for Jenny and one day I will sing it out, perhaps after the funeral. And then I wrote another for my little grand-daughter, the youngest thus far whose naming ceremony is being celebrated the weekend after.

How life organises these things I cannot say, but she always does and it makes a sort of sense. It’s not about one life replacing another, but more that the sharp-edged void created in a heart, when someone dies can be softened by a new life. These two girls will never know each other; will never come together except in my heart, and that is something rather wonderful and quite uniquely precious.

When I write my songs, or create my paintings, or lampshades or cushions or whatever, I work for one person. I think of who they are and what colours they wear and what stories lie in their eyes, and I work to honour and recognise them all. This is why I won’t create a production line, nor paint the same, but in blue, to match the furnishings. Every single piece of work is a one-off.

Much like a life.

The song for Jenny celebrates her as a woman of the sea, of the world and now, of the beyond, wherever that is. The words are taken from a well-known poem and personalised, and I don’t suppose anyone will mind, because they will hear what they want to hear and think what they want to think about Jenny as they take it all in. The music will lift them and pull on their heart strings and someone may well recognise parts of other melodies and other phrasing from a different song for there is nothing new under the sun.

And yet, everything is always new when someone catches a thing and forges it again in the fires of their heart.

The song for my granddaughter is different in that the words are all mine, and the melody pinched from a couple of other musicians who won’t know and wouldn’t mind anyway. We are not talking chart topper here. The words had to be bespoke, just for her, and with respect paid to her mum and her dad and the fabulous crazy wild people they are, and all those attributes now handed on to one little girl. It’s light-hearted and fun and will bring smiles to all the faces watching me stand and deliver.

We are all unique, but it is a rare bird that can fly alone into a busy sky, with its own song to sing, certain that just by singing it, everything is new.

June 10, 2013 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 65 – Follow me follow

Yesterday, the Bee Father decided to investigate all his hives. It’s the time for swarming, he tells me and I remember one of those not so long ago; a great blackening of the back garden and the Sun quite peely-wally behind a thousand whizzing bees. I heard the noise first and went up the garden stets, well, two of them, or maybe just one. It was mightily clear to me that the cup of coffee awaiting me on the table was going to go lonely cold for I, sure as hector, was not taking one more step into that melee. I could have disappeared completely and would likely have swatted and begun a war. The swarm finally cuddled up with the New Queen on a bough of larch, bringing it at least two foot closer to the ground. The solid ball hung there in a perfect shape until the BF climbed up to unhook the ball and drop it into a cardboard box and covering it with a piece of white cotton.

Whilst he worked high above me among the lofty Soldier Pines, where the sun dapples the wild orchids and the bees live in harmony and peace, I could hear a marked rise in the tonal buzz.

We are not enjoying this, all of us, it tells me, for we buzz as one.

After the BF had gone right through 3 hives, discovering all was well, that there were not too many queen cells growing new queens to generate a swarm or two, down he came, quite bridal in his white and veil, to sit and eat a quiet lunch with me. I had carried up an array of dishes, bits of this leftover and that leftover with salad. For a few moments, all was peaceful munching, until She appeared.

She is a Follower, one of those female worker bees, set the task of making sure any unwelcome visitor goes a very long way away. Whilst he sat quite still, she bumped against his face and his head, never landing. After a few minutes, he got up and walked slowly down to the cool of the garage, thus planning to let her know he was leaving. He came back without her but it was only minutes later and she was back, bumping her warning against his face, head and neck. She came nowhere near me and I was right beside him. I watched him never swat (fatal) and sit calmly, waiting for her to get bored or decide her point is made or whatever it was she wanted to tell him in no uncertain terms.

3 more times he walked away, waited a little and returned. 3 more times she found him. By now I’d had enough of this lurching lunch and removed myself indoors. The little bee had popped over to check me out, but I was spooked by her right in my face. I don’t mind once or twice, but she was just too persistent.

Much later in the day, after another hive was checked, the dog walked, church over and thoughts of supper in my mind, we went back up to sip a glass of wine in the warm evening sun.

Within seconds she was back and bumping round and round his head.

I think it’s that aftershave I put on this morning, he said, as we re-settled inside, but we both know the real truth.

Charisma.

May 1, 2013 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 53 – The Colour of Children

In the night I listen to the wind rising up like an angry woman. By 3 am she has bullied the curtains into a right state. The snapping of upset floral chintz wakes me with a start.

Gunshot, I tell myself as I burst up from another of my apocalyptic dreams. I had just been wandering across a dead grey wasteland, somewhere beyond Thunderdome, and looking for my children. I can’t go back to sleep to find them once I’ve left the dream.

The curtains lift out into the room exposing the window glass, but no light falls in, for this night is just plain black. The only light, if I can name it such, sneaks up the stairs from its source- that disco ball of a mouse.

You would think, wouldn’t you, that shutting down my laptop would shut the rodent down too? But nothing will persuade it into sleep and on it glows, red and blue, all night long, but irritating me a little less tonight, as it lights my way down the stairs and all the way to the kettle.

During the day we had visited a little school over the hill. The sun was warm and yellow (well, maybe not warm) and the sky ice blue with scuds of snowy clouds as we climbed our way up, over and down the hill. The little isles were still where we remembered them to be, but faded a little inside a veil of mist. Ewes with their bright white lambs, peppered the roadside and, behind a wonky fence, slow cows peered at us through long russet fringes.

Neither the island husband nor I had remembered to make packed lunch.

We spent an hour in the light bright classroom on little plastic chairs, discussing her plans to decorate a school shed with beach gatherings; bits of fishing net, bits of rope, colourful plastic, shells and so on. The children do many beach cleans during the summer and after a big tide, pickings are treasure for those who care to think so. Ideas flew like swallows around that little classroom and we could just see how wonderful it would be, once we got beyond talking about it, of course.

The children came back from some outside adventure just as we were leaving, all breathless and excited, their cheeks rosy and their mouths full of chatter. We watched them settle in their places around the wide tables. The teacher introduced us, and explained the hut project, the abstract design ideas, the use of shape and texture and lots of colour. I wondered if those little heads could imagine what we had imagined.

I burped ten times. said one little girl a propos of nothing.

Green burps, she continued, then furrowed her brow.

No, not green………what’s that big colour Mrs Eden?

The big colour? We were all wondering.

Big as your dad? asked a little tousle-headed boy.

No, silly, she replied. Nothing’s big as that.

As we drove back along the little winding road, sucking toffees to quiet our growling stomachs, we considered big colours a bit smaller than a dad, and we felt the awe of it.

April 18, 2013 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 49 – Flight

Sometimes a story unwraps like a ribbon. The words just tumble out in the right order and, better still, reflect what I want them to reflect. But not today it seems.

I blame last night and that whistling wind and the clack of the plastic air vents and the scritch- scratch of Virginia creeper, not yet softened with leaves, sounding like the bony fingers of a witch against the window glass. Today is a big day.

It’s launch day for Island Wife, my book published by Two Roads. Actually, to be correct it is Launch Number Two. We already held one on the island, for the folk who see me often and I them for over 35 years now.

The people, who will come this evening to Jarrold’s Book Department in Norwich, will wear faces I haven’t set eyes on for 3 decades.

I guess, like me, they will look older, a bit worn, a bit broken too, but we will know each other in a heartbeat. Faces, hair colour, shapes may have altered dramatically or barely at all, but voices stay the same. I could close my eyes all evening and still know exactly who speaks, even if I have to dig deep into my memory bank.

So many voices and no two the same. There won’t be time to hear the stories, the tales of joy and sadness, the lost and the found in that short 90 minutes, but when it is done and books are signed and drinks are drained, I will walk out with those voices darting around inside my head like swallows just back from Africa. And they?

Well, they will drive or walk or catch a train back into their own lives with a new book in their hands. I may never know their stories, but from tonight, they will all know mine, perhaps hearing my voice for the very first time.