mental health

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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 – 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 – 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.

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Island Blog – Middlemoon Smile and a Skinny Life

I love the middlemoon, the calm of waters and the gentling of skies, the chiaroscuro, the huge pines on the shore standing tall and unskittered. Birds can fly wing forward, scooping the air into helpful bundles of energy instead of backflipping onto bird feeders, thus sending them way beyond pendulum security. In short there’s a lot of wheeching going on when the full and new moon takes control. Life is just like this, I tell Jock the Blackbird as he flips and holds onto the seed tray, skidding somewhat and sending a shower of seed into the ether. There’ll be a few unsterilised seeds. grabbing the chance to root and grow and I’ll not be knowing what the hec this green thing is, come late Spring, and I will suddenly know and smile at this tiny opportunist. Again, this is life. The storms come, the dark holds like being inside a dustbin bag but someone, one someone is patient. A random thing happens, a blackbird skid, something, and that someone grabs at skinny life, no promise of success nor growth. So what is that energy, coming from nowhere, from somewhere?

My belief is that it isn’t planned. There is an extraordinary strength in all living things, not just fight or flight, and not calculated as some do, watching the stock market, pursuing business ideas, believing that to be financially wealthy will bring comfort and security. Live long enough and know that there is neither in the accumulation of money. It helps, yes, but never will it fill the human void. The random catch of opportunity, being open and aware and ready for the upset of moons will always bring growth, the ask to be spontaneous, to listen to hunches and random thoughts, to not explain them away,but to just go and to risk the wrong direction and then to try another one. Laughter and fun, work and focus, family and friends, food and sharing, listening and hearing, supporting and making hard choices. These are life skills and sustainable. I say ‘skills’ because they need honing and they need a ‘becoming’. They make us feel whole and a part of somethings and someones.

The birds fed in calm today, no skidding. There was rain, of course, but the land was at ease, the trees unskittled. There is no visible moon so the cloudal shift is light-blown and soft as wool, grey and light grey and white and off white and barely moving. That’s a rare for them. I can hear them snoring. This middling is short term. It won’t last and nor it should because that is life. If it was always easy on us we would never appreciate anything. We need the beginnings, middles and ends in order to grow into ourselves. It isn’t always pleasant but when I remember the rocks and the climbs and the falls and the fails and the sharps and the joys and the sunlight and the soft and the way I learned to grab opportunity, I smile.

I unloaded and stacked a ton of firewood today, aware as I always am of fumbly fingers, the way I can no longer grab as I once did and accepting, once I get through the fury of such a decline. After all, I want to do this for myself, not giving in to the dark thoughts. I listen to an uplifting audio story. as I climb onto the window seat to re-hang a heavy curtain. I check something on my car computer which tells me my engine is in trouble and here I meet a temptation. I could ignore it but I won’t ignore it because my wonderful Pixty Forkov is my freedom, my independence. Still, for seconds, the ‘Oh Whatever’ in me is loud in my ears because the complications of life are more tiring now. But NO, NO, I will not listen. I contact the garage and I get this response. ‘Hi Judy, we can fit you in on Wednesday next (tricky as I have commitments, but wait…) and someone can pick up your car early, delivering it back in the late afternoon. That ok? Hell Yes. My life is not skinny, even if I am. My life is my community, support, friendship and warmth.

I had my beginning, or so I thought but these beginnings keep beginning. I am not sequestered, not excluded, not abandoned, not that I ever really thought I was, but so many do. Thing is to keep moving on, or keep buggering on, in love and giving and being seen and dressing up and showing up and arriving alltimes in fun and playfulness. Maybe that;s how the moon feels at times.

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Island Blog – How to look Wandered

As I walk today in sunlight and through the surprise of too much hat, scarf/gloves because the air is light and kind, I slow my pace. When I walk with some others I have noticed a march thing going on with them. Now that I am older and with a far greater hold on self confidence, I question the rush. Look at that stone, I say, pointing. I wonder how old it is, how it got here, who lifted it, who placed it? A high tide, the fall of a huge pine, the aggressive and thoughtless shove from a digger bucket? How does it feel sitting here? By this time, as you might imagine, I am paper-clipped over said stone and they are already well into next week. But my curiosity does halt them and that is enough. Their much younger lives are driven after all, and time is short and this stone is just this stone. As I unbend myself I do remember that, initially, I had to decide to slow my pace, so ingrained in me, in us all perhaps, is the need to move along and fast because the early bird, the front runner, the winner, the best are always the ones who get the prize, who hold the rosette, the cup, the shield and the love of endless unknown others. It is no surprise to me that half the frickin world is lost in transit.

I am lucky, I know, priveleged, fortunate, pick your own definition of the same thing. Through all I have learned in a long life, the strubbles and pixellations, the divides, whole maps burned like witches, no visible paths in sight, I know who I am and that’s a big thing. However, a far bigger thing is to be happy with that. It demands to be lived out. Decisions and deliberations are required, new ones, fences built and taken down, timings altered not faltered, responses re-enacted, twirled into coils and pulled into different shapes. An outside reaction is not important, nor relevant, not if a soul wants identity. Work is a daily whatnot, and there, I did it, introducing fun. Everything, and everyone, is so serious now and it shows in faces, in eyes and droops and stoops and with a complete lack of whoops. When does someone stop whooping? I can whoop over a plate of strangled eggs. (family word) and maybe there’s another thing. In my family, as my bajonkers feral children blundered their way through their ‘formative’ years, we played, with words, with moments, with opportunities. I found it exhausting, even though I was a co-initiator in the chaotic nonsense of a wild life on the tip of forever or nowhere and in the storm face of the great Atlantic but I could be no other way and nor could he, well mostly, and I am glad of it. There was always a jump and frisk in my head, still is, more so now, now that I am free to decide my way.

I didn’t wander in those days. Who ever does when bills need paying, work demands its daily tuppence? I marched, I did, saw nothing, noticed no stones, never heard the stories from the ancient rocks, the pine trees, nothing beyond the need to get to school on time and back again on time to prep for a 16 dinner sitting plus collies to feed, five kids and various other helpers, fires to light, and the so on kept this so on thing endlessly. I could lose my funthink, and did. Now, with all those incredible memories flying about me like birds, I can wander. I know who I am now. No, that’s not true. I always knew but was waiting for permission to consolidate my knowing . Never going to happen. How to look wandered describes a person who knows who they are and who is still curious about the next bit.

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Island Blog – Nomatters and a Skilpperdoo

I feel a bit sorry for ‘and’. Always a small letter, lower case. It thinks me. It’s important, after all. Imagine a sentence without an and? We’d be frickin lost.

Moving on. I dilly about of a sunset, lighting candles, wheeching out the old and bringing in the new yet unburned. Oh, that just jolted me, the unburned thing as opposed to unburnt which has a different meaning, or it did in my English language days. I loved those wordish contras, curious as I was about how words work, how they do, or do absolutely not work even as they sound the same or similar. To be honest, this difference is mist now and although I know so well the structure of english language, it has had its time and, most definitely, its rather judgemental control. I love the sway and shift of language, the infused grandeur of new words from other cultures, the way they absorb into mostly young culture, and then, before you know it, the after school kitchen talk with teens scoots us out of a controllingly British dictionary and thus contests the rigid structure of the pages. I do confess to the miss of that structure. It was my catwalk, my scaffolding, lifting me, never into an ‘I’m so smart’ but more into a higher level of conversation and understanding. But and, ‘and’ I love the now of bonkers grammar and too many commas and exclamation marks.

This is so not my point. I seem really good at a wide traverse. Back to candles.

No matter the day, as the sun is tired of shining, I am candling. They are everywhere, lit and loved. The dark falls fast and yet the light is such an offer. We had loads of rain, nothing new there and yet today there was enough time to quirk out there, to don boots, hats, attitude and to just go, go and go. The Nomatters matter. Sprinkled on, puddled, we walked. I lost the back of an earring, it so didn’t matter because what mattered was the conversation between us and the two beautiful blonde labradors, the mud and squelch the fire and the fry in our collective heads and minds, the sputter of candles and the proffer of a matchstick later on. I walked up the track looking for the earring back, a tiny thing, might have sparkled at me. I employed two sets of specatcles for this looking thing, one short look, one long look. To be honest I lost interest quickly, the mud, the dimming light, the chance of a gold sparkle and do I actually care? But I did have fun beyond my initial seeking thing because I met an estate worker planting trees and then a young friend bringing her little girls home from school and (and, again) these two encounters, the exchange of hallos and a few questions on the safe ‘How Are You’ level kicked my boots into a skipperdoo as I walked back home to my candles and my woodburner and the warmth of my blessed life here on this island.

I

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Island Blog – Words

I light my candles. I light them every evening, no, before evening because the light dims long before the time when someone might say ‘Good Evening’ and doff their cap. Light dims early here. The sun does a collapso thing behind the hills on the other side of the. sea-loch about half three. I know, I know, that my islander friends who live t’other side of that hill are still out there sorting chickens or digging flowerbeds or bouncing children and footballs. But my life is here and not there, and my time clock knows it. I get dawn early, ridonculously so. It thinks me. I am boiling an egg here, all dressed, showered and sharp as a new pin here, when those beyond the hill are still in the dark of sleep. I wonder what the birds think.

I spend a lot of time working my wondering muscle, always curious, always Alice. She has been my guiding light since I was knee high, although that was mostly looking up tweed skirts and hairy noses which only took me into the vast expanse of almost-white containerpants, or, almost worse, into an olfactory forest with drips. I was glad when I grew a bit, learned a lot, and determined I would only wear the skinniest of knickers, never wear tweed skirts, nor hug small people who looked up. I knew I had words even then, even though they gambolled about in my mind, refusing control. Just like me, I thought, which was in no way an okay thing. No resolution, no aha, just words, the love of words, the passion for learning new ones and with nowhere for them to go. I couldn’t just speak out a word, such as ‘evanescence’ without the warm blanket of a sentence enwrapped about it, never mind context, never mind it’s irrelevance in the tsunami of nail work comparisons.

New words got lost in committee. I can remember too much in my mouth, clenching my teeth. Sometimes words would bite out like sharks and all I got was trouble because, in my day, nice girls just didn’t. There was a whole load of ‘didn’t’ and ‘don’t. But here’s a thing. I can speak out now because I can sentence up. I can admit to being vulnerable. I can admit to mistakes and agree to any redress or accusation. I own my past. All those times I got it wrong; all. those times I wish I hadn’t and the ones when I wish i had. All of them me, all of them mine. In my olding years, still ‘with it’ I am proud of all that I have achieved, all I have overcome, taken in, all I have learned and adapted to, all the times I changed tack in a nanosecond for the greater good, all those nights wandering with troubled babies, all those plasters and icepacks I applied, all those cold nights of lonely vigil, all those times I cheered, supported, admired, drove here and there, all those meals extended for drop-ins, all those hugs and cups of tea, those hunkers by the fire at latelate as candles guttered and died.

And still words come. they drop like stars. I write them down. Revolvulence.

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Island Blog – Frippit and Thinks

I move among oldings , or those who look after oldings. I hear the talk. The formers are all still frippits, dancing out, moving dynamically, finding (and this the truth) life stuff easy. Such as……

lifting in the wood from the outside stack.

Finding a way to the outside stack.

Knowing how to jimmy the gas turn on/off thing after yonks of none of that turning threat, all rusted up.

Someone to help lift a heavy bag of compost, to cope it into a border.

The ability to bend low and then to be able to rise from that bend.

To be able to tie down the wheelies when yet another gale threatens, to notice the warning.

To have the confidence.

And then there’s us. Wondering how long we can do this. I hear the talk, watch the demise. I’ve seen this, done this, watched the slow fall of a strong man. I know nobody wants to acknowledge it, but it is here.

I remember taking hold of the dance floor, all shimmy and low-skimmed, all bright lights and the beams on me. I was incautious, I was. I had no thought on what is now the might become, the becould be. I absolutely lived that life, parties dancing on tables, right out there on the spritz of life, wild, electric, bonkers. I regret none of those times. I miss them, even as I can bring back the moments, the memories. What I am saying is that nobody wants to talk about the olding. If you ask your old ma/pa/grandma/grandpa how they are, you very likely text, Are You Ok?

A questioned contained. The answer is “yes”. What else can it be? If the question actually asked a question, then this ‘old’ person could find a way to answer, and let me say that that the “are you ok” question is not interest, not caring. It feels like I’m too busy but just checking in, thing.

Now there’s a think for you.

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Island Blog – It’s All About The Hunny

I haven’t cried for decades, except that’s a lie. When Piglet almost got blown away in the Hundred Acre Wood, I did shed a few tears. It wonders me, as I watch everyone else leak a lot when shit hits. I sort of envy them that release. I know I am far from cold, feeling everything about everything and for everyone, but maybe I have some sort of cold in me, a woman in a life, one who wants no pity, no fixing, and one who has grown tendons and sinews like steel props. I just made that up. It’s probably ridiculous. But it does think me. Those of us who have pixillated themselves into another’s world out of choice, willingly at first and then through sheer stickability, find sinew and tendon strength. I don’t think it resolutes us, not all of us. Some grow bitter as old wine, vinegar, loose teeth and joy. Others choose the yellow brick road, the tricky walk towards a truth full of wonder and hope. Life is not a dream. Life is a dream. The Bothers, the Both-ers. We seek another and then that other just isn’t enough, nor are we for them. Two separates with too much of a gap for the mending, the amending. A sadling for sure, but a reality. We change, we learn differently, we choose what comes to us through a learning. And, we divide. And I know this, I see this, and I also see that the ‘stickability’ of the old pioneers has had its time, because in those times, nobody was their true self, not could ever, ever, admit to such. I lived there, so I know, albeit at the arse end of that limitation.

What we all long for is to be who we are, without fear, safe, recognised, welcomed. We may be years off that but I hope it is coming because for too long the world, often the religious world, has controlled and ruled through fear. The people believed and walked in blind deference, superiority and damning, like they had no independent thinking. Independent thinking got you hanged, subdued, dismissed. We don’t have that fear now and yet we still can’t be sure of who we are without labels. I am seriously hoping that for the next year, those with the courage to gently voice, with the courage to step out, to come out, to be who they really are, will find the strength to rise, to pioneer us into a truth which just might kill off the lies of centuries.

In all, in everything, in the daily grind, in the knocks and batters, in the sudden joys, the falls the resists, the hidings, the resists, the falters, there is choice. Always is, always, no matter the stricklies. New word. For me it is all yellow brick road and the hope and the courage and the determination and the honey. That choice is no nonsense. Try it.

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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.