love

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Island Blog – Wild Choice and I’m In

Family here, so flipping chaos and a lot of noisy fun, all twinkle girls and good champagne and hilarity. Such times give me a good peek into the lives of my children, although they aren’t. Children I mean. They’re parents, scrabbling for a way ahead, just as me and himself did a long time ago. Now that himself is up there sorting God out, no, not him but hie mummy, I have the peaceful mind they all long for. It will come, I tell them, although nothing will be gentle nor easy en route to that peaceful place. Stuff and regrets and inner failures and other ridonculous and fabricated memories will see to that. Memories, I have long learned, grow brambles. They do. Twisting and suffocating and blanking out the light, they persist like imagined dragons. They are not real, but they feel real. We all have them and especially those who say they don’t. I have gone to free a blaring sheep, entwined like a stairway in said thorns, getting too close with my bramble freeing gloves on, only to watch the wooly eejit pull away with nothing but a dump of shit left behind. It thinked me then and it thinks me now. Choice, the need for recognition, the power within an helplessness. I’ve been there, done that in my time. Not no more, not now I see the lack of efficacy in such, the damn weakness.

The thing is that nobody is going to, nor is able to, save anybody. Just me. I got that and by golly (can you say that anymore?) I learned this, that the world owes me nothing, life owes me nothing, my spouse owes me nothing, nor my kids, nor my work, nor my longings. It is up to only me. Everything is. This, plus that, equals power because I get to choose. It doesn’t matter when I finally understood this, no matter the crash and burn I had gone through, the shame, guilt, regret. Time is, so they say, an illusion. What I do now, how I live now is with choice in my always head. I can choose my morning waking, slept well or not, my progress through my day, because it is mine, my response to news, messages, invitations or lack of them. I can choose to be spiky, fun, naughty, mischievous or a grumpy shit with a gloom cloak about my skinny shoulders. I can rise or I can fall.

Today my whacko son came for a coffee. I can hear many of you asking, genuinely, ‘Which whacko son?’ and I get that and feel so very lucky. I have four of them and all whacko, and a daughter who is the only whacko with girly bits. I have no idea where they learned this spontaneity, this ‘lets go’ thing but they have and I’m still up for lets go, so we did. We drove up a bit on Tapselteerie and parked. Then we headed to the shoreline which is definitely more tumble-stumble, wrinkly and sodden than in my memory. We laughed, slipped, negotiated through obviously very high and recent tides, the sprawls of bladderwrack, and other whitey, browny greeny and yellowy seaweeds proffering a wonderful opportunity for an arse crack all along the volcanic shoreline. He held onto me, helped me over and around and through the sink bogs, over the tumps and tumbles as we embraced the freesing blast of stories from the north. The spume and wave flight was white as snow, rising with the gulls, the clouds dark but moving fast with the wind, passing like thoughts which don’t deserve to last. The sea was so alive, the hail blasting at our grinning faces. And then the sun, a momentary lapse of reason, proud fire, until the clouds regained control. We loved it all, laughed through memories of his childhood and my motherhood with five whackos and their dad who thrived in the wild, the lunatic weather, broaching the thin places of an ancient island, spouting stories every time someone who is open comes along, someone who chooses to be tough, to find a way through, to let go, to find the mischief.

Always a choice. May 2026 fire a rocket through old thoughts, old ways. May the grey clouds get bored of hovering over the wildfire of someone who has grown tough through all the whatever shit, and who has chosen to be who they are, no matter the what, the who, the which, the when, the why. I’m in.

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Island Blog – A Gallus Vocabularian

I remember those who tried to scumper me with smart wordage. Not the individuals, just the slimy snake thing about them, as if they had swallowed the dictionary and spent hours, if not days, trying to sort that confusive vomit. I despised that tactic as it was only used to put me down enough pegs as to sag my personal washing line. I was a girl and a woman of my time, I know this, and the snakes were often men in those days, but not always. It is true, or was, that the biggest judges of females are usually other females. I am not sure that’s a ‘then’ thing. It allows itself yet, this upperhandedness, as if we still haven’t exhausted the desperate need to be better than another still feels old.

I didn’t know I would be a vocabularian. All I knew was that words and their usage fascinated me, drew me in, the way they can tip and bend a sentence into an entirely new meaning, with skill and a musicality. Words change their meaning all the time, becoming elastic, fluid, non PC, redundant, just worn out. And new ones come, across continents, through engagement with new languages, cultures, and colloquialisms, and I welcome them all. New ways of saying old things, old tired things, oft repeated around parental tables, invite new landings, new lands, new opportunities for the brave Worder.

When one of the last above does speak out new words, perhaps faltering and definitely feeling like Gulliver in Lilliput, there’s a big element of risk. But, and here’s my challenge, because if we don’t speak out just because we believe we sound ridonculous, what does anybody learn? I say my word. I am immediately corrected. What now? A sink back in my chair in defeat? Or, do I rise up and correct the Corrector. No, not that word but the one I already said. See, the thing about rebellion is about numbers. My Thesaurus is a tatterley old man, the wordage good enough, has been for decades but as I dive into the pages of it these days I find a lack, flack. I may be, as I indeed am, a Gallus vocabularian, t’is blood in my veins, but I am still wide open, wider, to listen to and to learn from new wordage, new words, new meanings to old words and to be okay watching the beginnings and endings of the longest words falling off the edge of the world. They need to go.

When I meet the arrogance of word ‘control’ the uppernance of entitled supremacy, I do two things. One is the overnaturally dissolution of self, that’s me in this, sinking back, folding, giving in, and then I remember who I am. I am not aggressive, no antagonist. But, if you’re asking, I’m holding my place right here, and peacefully. I won’t try to climb the ladder to your command of language. No. I am down here in the welcomes of new lands, new people, not having a clue what they’re saying, just knowing they hurt, they’re here, fearful and have lost everything and are bringing me a light into a new language. By goodness, we need it.

As a gallus vocabularian, I can almost feel my rebellion red beret.

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Island Blog – Inspiradiater

I watched the cloudal shift, the way a lemony sun blasted out at every chance, and it laughed me. I tipped my head towards it, and it was gone. I felt like a photograph. Is the sun looking at us as we look at him? As nobody can answer that, I’ll take it as a definite possibility. We know so little of everything beyond the acceptable colour of baby spinach and the fact that we are certain we will recognise our own children as they barrel through the door after school. Thing is I love the Mystery of life. Yes, there. are many givens, but also a continginous load of give-ins. One extra vowel, not by chance an ‘I’. Now there’s a think. Hyphens, just to say, arise like diving boards, differenting over Timelines and Thesauruses, and for one who does the best leap from the side of anywhere, that hyphen proves oftentimes to be an irritating restriction. I think I wanted me as an English Language tutor. What fun we would have had with all we angry, curious, unlimiters who just wanted to fly with words like birds, lifting sense and fixtures into a cloudal shift.

Visiting a beloved friend this morning, bursting in, flumping onto the sofa (so good) I settled to talk my head off and then to ask about her. We are 47 year old friends. Together we have gone through babies, teen angsty shite, hurts, losses, births, sadness and joy. We are easy with each other. When I left to drive through 400 potholes, aka half a mile if that, I remembered old times, the terror of being ‘Christmas’ for a big family plus blow ins. Everything had to be perfect and that meant I had to be perfect with timing, precisional cooking, a massive weight in itself, and never mind the arrival of the inlaw grandfolks who hosted grandventures effortlessly, or so it seemed in the telling. I was all itch. None of my clothes fit me as if I had morphed into Morph overnight, although it wasn’t overnight because I had been shapeshifting for weeks. I was so tense you could have lit a candle off my skin. I was the inspiradiater. Someone had to do the heavy lifting as those around felt fine about shuffling the slow waltz just because the cloudal shift means more rain and the ferry isn’t running and the turkey isn’t dead enough and arthritis has flared up again and it’s dark and cold and so bloody on.

But when you are born with more mischief in your veins than blood, there is a calling, and never more so than at Christmas. I am certain I was birthed in Faerie. Now that my mum is dead, I wish I could talk to her about that. Ach, she would have batted me away and said,….You were always weird, I have no idea where you came from, and many many more appearingly dismissive things, but she loved being with me, chuckled a lot. My beloved friend today talked of her. She was full of mischief, she said, and I stood a moment, laughed, yessed in my heart. For all the difficult times, she was an inspiradiater. And so am I. It’s a choice, tell you why. Many come to a Christmas gather, bring a wrapped gift or many, but once the wine flows and more, the welcome, warmth, the sharing thing, out comes the reality of a life yet unlived. It takes an inspiradiater to work that one. Not to dismiss nor deny but to hear and to listen. There are too many who feel unheard, unlistened to. It takes no study, no qualifications. It is just sitting with another, saying nothing, being there.

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Island Blog – A Fellow Human Being

I profess to being absolutely disinterested in any written rants, particularly on social media, although in my day I would have said by letter. I am almost as disinterested when standing a few feet away from a verbal rant. Now why is this? I have many thinks, but the one that sticks up like a pole in the desert is that this ranty person wasn’t listened to in childhood and the subsequent frustrational decades have taken root, like a tumour. Only one person can heal that deep wound.

A rant is a speech, really, and it goes on until the end. The ranter is fixed in his or her opinion, no matter any reasoning voice traversing the few feet. There is no solution, no turning, but only escalation if rebutted or at the suggestion of any level of understanding. It’s basically Don’t Bother. However, being completely in love with all people, I cannot just redact nor dismiss what someone is obviously in a right stooshie about. Conversational tactics are learned, usually as a result of noticing, observing through a singular and silent thought process. As I wander around the world, sorry, Island, reading books, hearing real life stories and really hearing them, eventually returning to the gentle tick tick of my wood burner munching old trees and the bashing crash of yet another night of an angry wind, I carry the arias of questions like a swirl of songbirds in my mind. (Way too long a sentence). I do wonder about my mind because it never rests, not even at night. It never did, so chances are we are stuck with each other at this late stage. I can wake amidships of the darkness, tossed and turned in some bajonkers seacrowd of sky-wipeout waves with a thought, an Aha, as if something wonderful happened whilst I sort of slept and I must needs grab my goonie and spiral down the stairs into the glorious pitch dark only wild places enjoy, and write it down. When dawn finally manages to push up the night, the heavyweight that she is, I read what I wrote and laugh out loud. It makes no sense at all and here’s why. This mind of mine, this extraordinary muscle, if that is what it is, has already moved on to another sphere and that means I got left behind. I remember this feeling as a young girl. A very high IQ is not necessarily helpful in life because unless it is gentled and respected and very carefully cared for, some ambitious parent will start pushing. Moving on……

I did digress there, I know. Back to where I began. Understanding people with different views to my own, with opinions and agonies and childhood wounds when in the shape of an adult is never easy. We like, we don’t like. We love, we hate. We want to be with this one but would run miles to avoid that one. Division. Exclusion. Judgement. Don’t like any of those. Saying Hallo and being open without bias, without sussing someone out from the way they present, isn’t easy. Our culture nowadays is so invasively critical, so knowledgeable on body language, on verbal dynamics, on fear and suspicion, thus not honest with ourselves, that we come to any new meet dressed in Kevlar.

I know we are fortunate here, despite the endless gales, because life is real. Rural places all over the two countries know what I mean. We learn to live with each other, even though, yes, we may tattle and maybe rant a bit, but so does any living creature who resides in a collective. Sparrows are a great example. If we want the end of war, we need to live that way. We know it even as we expect not to have to pay it forward ourselves. It takes one, two, consistently refusing to unfriend, to be open, welcoming in the spite of rejection, over and over and over again, listening to the angry, the ranters, those who are pinned to the wall of pain, just sharing time, gifting it, not as a fixer but as a fellow faltering human.

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Island Blog – Don’t Stop the Dance

So what, after death? Nobody can answer that because a whole load of shit blocks all doorways for the closest, the ones who, from now on will face down anger, regret, emptiness and a big dark. On the outside of them there’s another so what. No question there, just thinks. What we outsiders feel is the obvious, the wonderfully human impulse to make things better, which we cannot; the beautiful desire to bring something like a plant, or soup, or words which can be swords, trust me. The formers are well meant, lovely, kind and do very little because the dark is all invading. So what can we do? There are two answers to that question.

Bring light. Not the light we want to see but the light worked out through a lot of thinking. Too many times we have all given gifts that weren’t well received. The reason for that is simply because we didn’t bother to really find out what makes another tick. I’ve done it myself, we all have, until that is we decide to learn, and that learning guides only one way, in human contact, in calling, in asking, in gentle conversations over coffee. See, the problem we have, as we had pre the invasion of Covid when we were ‘forced’ into neighbourliness is that we have forgotten each other, all over again. It seems, from my friends who live in cities and environs where nobody really has a scooby doo about any of their neighbours, even when all 10 flats or more share an entrance, that nobody knows anybody. It saddens me but of course it does. Out here in the thwack of gales and skinny switchback roads, we have a strong community spirit, but don’t let that think you that it’s a breeze (scuse that) living an island life because it is tough and controlled firstly by weather and secondly by the ferry company, by product being landslides. We are volcanic and eruptible, although ages late on that one.

My point is this. Communication with others is our key to surviving. It is also our key to a happier life because no award, no amount of money, no rise over someone else, in work, in words, ever lasts beyond the initial feeling of superiority. We all still have to put out the bins, deal with bills, sort childcare, park our dreams, work hard, bring in food. All of us. However and but……each one of us have to find the fun, the dance in our lives. From the time the dance left our feet, when we got a baby, a mortgage, a demanding job, we stopped believing that we had a choice. And the years go on and when something takes over as acceptable, we let go of it, the dance. Until when? Every life is tough. But, and this is me talking about me as I face olding and don’t want it, as I have a few aches and hesitations and lacks of confidence, and as I, every day, tell myself Don’t stop the Dance, don’t, because all around you are falling into a grimace as if their legs have forgotten the steps, Don’t Give up. Someone has to keep bringing in the light and the tunes even as cancer takes hold, even as a beloved dies, even as a child is traumatised, even as those my age slip and dip into an acceptance I won’t accept.

This is my so what after death. I can’t beat it down, but I can still dance, still reach out to others, ask them about their lives, actually see them, and learn. And I can bring light, not a candle, nor an enlightened fixing, but just by sitting there, making eye contact, no mobile, no other agenda beyond that other broken human across the table talking with me.

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Island Blog – You Turned me

My Thesaurus is lacking, I confess. Granted, my copy dates from the early 70’s which probably explains itself. Language and the metamorphic elevation (or devaluation for some) of it has me quandarying somewhat. I’m looking for an intuitive alternative to the word Thankfulness and what I am finding is a definite slide into Obligation. Oh no. Definitely not that shit. I want to be wildly thankful. I don’t need a landing. I just want to send my gratitude out into the sky like a lift of birds, a whorl of butterflies because someone, somewhere, tilling their rice fields in a country I will never visit, might just sense something in the air, and smile for no reason.

Looking through old writings today, I found something. 2016. On to today. I had gone to a conjoined church service, sort of mid island, a good 90 minutes drive away, but the journey was fun, the low sun a complete block at times, spectacular but definitely a sudden stop as the road disappeared completely. We met in a village hall. We do this, we islanders, grabbing a venue for all sorts of things. The roads windy, the window views endless hills and what some may see as a lonely nothing, but there is way more than nothing out there, if you have eyes to see. All I felt, in the lulls of conversation, was thankfulness, and I live here. This is my beloved home and more, every single moment I learn something new, or anew, which is somehow better. The theme of the service touched me. What do you long for? Do you judge yourself harshly? Is that in your way? I may have got the wording wrong, but those questions almost cried me.

This is what I found, written June 2016. I know it was smack in the guts of dementia care, but I recollect nothing more. Here goes…

‘I am a brilliant and prolific writer.

To those who squashed my creative growth, who never wanted the best for me, who chained me up and pinned me down, who convinced me I was a show-off, too loud, too selfish, un-special, untalented, untrustworthy if set free, fluff-headed. Those who told me my duty lay in conformity and fed me daily guilt and self-doubt, who stole my life. I thank you. You turned me.

To those who encouraged me despite seeing clearly my handcuffs, ball and chain. You who brought me back to myself, asked me. something about Me, and listened with interest, who liked me for who I was, not what I could do, nor how well I could accommodate, or behave, or change shape. You helped me keep myfaltering light alight, you gave me hope. My first, a teacher in primary school, my second the mother of a widlfree family. The first looked me in the eye, said nothing, didn’t need to as her eyes said everything I had never seen before. The second spoke out. You are lovely, she said, as she whacked the bejabers out of newly gathered salad leave. Just be yourself. I was astonished to realise that it was an option at all.

There are many of you, many more than two and to you all, from my heart, I say this….

Thank you for telling me it’s not only ok to be me, It’s wonderful.”

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Island Blog – Hutzpah

Someone said to me once, “It must be exhausting to be so consistently positive.” This may be a misquote, but the sense is there. It spun me around when he said it, so clear, so observant. I could feel my legs jelly up. At first I leaped to defend (what, I wonder?) my state of being, as if my positivity wasn’t completely natural and effortless, as if I was faking it all and that he had clocked that. I wasn’t naked but I felt it as a nakedness way below skin and bone. His words have never left me even after well over 30 years. It thinks me even now. And there are times, many times at this end stage, or Autumn stage or whatever bright and nonsensical term is applied to we who are over 70 and alone, that I recall those words. They were sent over the Tapselteerie kitchen airspace, whilst children drove plastic tractors around and around, collies biting at the wheels, when those of us on a mission to serve a sumptuous meal to waiting guests lifted plates and feet high, ducking, diving for a chance to get through the door intact, laughing together at the lunacy of our collective life.

As children, all five of us, because I was a child once, as were they, we were taught hutzpah, not that that word came up. You don’t make a big Thing of the whatever that is big-thinging you. Well, you might be allowed 30 minutes but then you got up, brushed off,and got back in the game. Or else. It has served us all well. We got over the personal harshness of it. It becomes a way of being, with a caution nonetheless. This was our childhood, not one we might choose to perpetuate as parents, at least not in its initial shape. However when you learn something from birth, it sticks. My ma always showed positivity, not always behind closed doors, but most definitely when she was ‘out there’. And I, not necessarily recollecting that, as I downed the stairs, tripping over tractors and collies, made my choice. I was one woman in private moments and a veritable force of nature in the rest of the day which went on for hours and hours, for years and years.

I don’t think I am unusual. I believe every single everyone gets this. We either do or do not employ hutzpah and it isn’t falsehood, as I once thought, but deep inner strength. It’s a determination not only to survive but to fly. It isn’t a two-dynamic puzzle which confounds but instead an opportunity for a jinx, for fun, for the laughing with and at life, the chance to let go of control of the (may I venture) panic hold on the how I think it should be. Perhaps that’s what I did, coming down those stairs into another new long day. I can still see myself, young then, tired, wondering about the again and the again of the again, a baby in my arms, the toddlers already on tractors or frying bacon or letting the calf in to scourry the floor into a slide fest, and deciding just before the bottom step. And then through their teenage years, the turbulence of relationships, the wondering, the hoping, the grandchildren and all the way right up to the now of now.

A deep breath. Bring it on. I am a match for whatever comes and more than that. There is a dance in my step, a jinx in my eyes, a pixie, the fun rising. So, yes my old friend. It is exhausting but I can live no other way. I positively worked out, with oil on my face and at least 3 spanners, and a deal of self doubt, how to affix a new handle to my woodburner, the right way the screw worked, the springs and things and the twiddles and jeez the patience! T’is done. It took two upside down balasters, (new word) until I remembered how I can do any damn thing that challenges me.

We all can.

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Island Blog – Hoping So

I did Wordle today, got it in 3. Yesterday when Tuesday was actually Monday, in two. I tell you this because there’s a thing about olding, much of which, if not all, we who are indeed olding, know only too well. And here’s a thing. We wonder about ourselves. We do. Although we may be saggy, pouchy, floppy and wobbly at times, we still remember the dance, that one when we just dazzled, sliding effortlessly over acres of floor, so very confident. Many laughing mates gone, but that’s not the whole thing because there are the we of us who still have the fire. I do. Many do. And here’s the butt of a but. In this isolated life of this new life, new generation, the fire is there at times, yes, but not strong, or it seems so to me. So many work demands, the ownership of employees, the pressure of two working parents, the cost of childcare, the cost of everything. I have no idea how you all can. make this work in harmony. It must be super tough and you have my respect.

To be honest, I am glad I lived when I did. Oh yes, there was stricture and parental judgement and community blockings and school abusement and appalling selection processes and racial and class blindness but I didn’t know anything different. However, I did find myself at a red light at times, something not right here, I don’t like this, what is going on? But no voice as a girl, and absolutely no voice as a middle class girl. No power. When any of that shit happens now, I find the fire. I can’t change it for all, but I just might be able to say to one, Hey, hallo, I love your purple hair, your piercings really light you up, your smile at the bus stop just made my day, Thank you for the way you stopped and asked me about my coat, my smile, my short hair, my red boots. The way you showed me to my table and laughed with me when I said, Not there, maybe over there and the way you swished me lovely towards a window seat as if knowing me without knowing me at all.

This is new gro world. All of you living it. All of the constrictures we oldies knew are now yours. We were there, hippies, wars, Hendrix, Woodstock, Bob Marley, so much revolution and so much dance, so much fire, so much hope. I wonder, when I look at your lives, the protective, fear driven control to master it all and I wonder if anything has changed at all. I’m hoping so.

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Island Blog – Actually Tuesday

In deference to the olding of me, I get the flapdoodle assailment. I suspect it was always here but when I was dealing with immediate disasters, such as fire in the hold or a child dangling from a rope that fell three floors and yelling Mum in a screech beyond the beyond of sludgy sleep, his slippage a definite concern, my inner Dante could barely whisper. Ditto when there was disaster at lambing, or the horse was sinking in a freezing bog, or a guest was stuck in the bath in a locked bathroom requiring a deal of laddering and a lot of looking away. Nowadays with all of that a chuckle in my mind, when most survived, I have the silence of olding and widowing. I love a lot of it. It even funnies me at times, usually when someone I am talking to bursts into giggles. Life is ridiculous after all. No matter how we plan, how prudish, how strait-laced, how desperately we hang onto rules and restrictions for ourselves, our children, our husband, wife, partner, there comes a time when Life flips us like pankcakes without a safe landing. It always has and it always will. As we hold too tight, there is always slippage. The key is to teach that to our children, even as nobody does, holding on to the right of the times, the limitations, the fences and boundaries. I hope we learn one day. I really do. By the way the dangling son landed safe, the wee shite, after a deal of leaning over bannisters, proffering smoothing okays, being there to catch him.

Talking to my children, adults now, they tell me thank you for the crazy life, the wildness of it, the way they learned to accept life/death/life at an early age; the way you did this mum, sorted that, the way dad made us safe. We never doubted that. Pretty good, eh? I have all of this and so very much more, the convoluted vortex of it, not pulling us all down, but containing us in a swirling collective. The olding years show just me centre stage, and I have to confess, despite my siblings sniggering at my ballet moves, I feel proud. I make mistakes. Today, for example, I got all ready to go to the Library Coffee meet. It’s Tuesday here half way along the sea-loch, but not there in the village hall, I discovered. It’s Monday there, the hall’s wooden mouth clamped shut. I laughed at myself and drove home. I walked up into the woods just to say hallo and tripped over a willow root, apologised and rose again. I lit the woodburner and went to close the doors, the door closing handle breaking right off. I walked into the beyond of marvellous at 3 and met the hind and her calf, about 5 feet away from me. She looked up. Hallo Lady, I said, gentle and low. She looked a minute more, then ducked right back down to graze.

The clouds are umber grey just now, a bit shouty, pushing at each other’s backs, against a dying blue. Their tips are burnt umber, gold, rose madder, the hills below a silhouette. The day is leaving. I’m hoping tomorrow is actually Tuesday.

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Island Blog – Moody and Beautiful

I love to watch the headlights moving around the backside of the sea-loch. Where have they been and where are they going to? I love the bitey catch of coriander when I open the pack to snip it over a green salad. I love the fall of the dark, when my twinkly winkly lights show themselves, a string of golden positivity. I love the disappearance of my whole garden, the emptiness of birds at the feeders, the slink-silhouette of a cat on the track and the way it suddenly looks up at me, the movement of me, the momentary connection.

I love my shower, the way it changes me from one day and into a solace. I love to sort and prepare something interesting to eat. I love the window dark of my rooms, the blindness of looking out. I love the pop of a cork and the glass of red wine, the way my speaker bigs up my playlist. I love that I got through today, that I walked into the wild, noticed, stomped, trudged, faltered, filled in time, did some admin, all of that. I love that I assembled a tapestry frame, after many attempts, that I changed my bed, laundered bedding, cared enough to respect the linen.

I look around my warm and comfortable sitting room, see the fire licking flame, feel the pushed out warmth, hear the tunes, and it thinks me of the other side of this I love thing. It isn’t an ‘I hate’ no, because I don’t believe in black and white as parentheses. I believe there are many greys in between. So, (don’t ever begin a sentence with that word) Sorry, dad, but I am doing just that beginning…….If there is, and there is, an whole nother to an I love beginning, how does it begin?

Perhaps it is honesty and doubled; perhaps we find it hard, if not impossible, to allow the truth to spill. Because why? Judgement, tick. Failure,tick. You are young, made mistakes. You are menopausal and angry most of the time. You are a young man who was told at a vulnerable age to pull yourself together, to stop snivelling, to man-up. You are a young woman who doesn’t want to do what her parents think is ‘best’ for her. You are sure you don’t identify with the sex you were born with. You are olding and furious about the tiny and daily losses of sight, of movement, of where you put that important receipt, or of who will help you stack a ton of wood, your fingers gnarled and weakened. The Lonely in all of these can be black as an island night.

Perhaps it’s because I am old and doing this looking for receipts, or trying to work out a way to see better in winter craft work, that I can see the love in the lack. Living so long gives a person a ‘so long’ on the angst of things whilst holding tight to a tryst with life. I am still trying to rein in the Lonely, a really feisty and bloody-minded colt, all spurs and twists and moody and beautiful.