mental health

by

Island Blog – The conundrum of calm

Just last week the island was in turmoil, the noise deafening, the whole house groaning as massive trees fell like skittles in a bowling alley but without the cheering and the burgers and cokes. It was a gasp of breath, a sudden, with fear at its back, and dark, and long, and with a whole lot of looking out, of revving up a belief in hope. They’ll fix it, I thought/hoped, whoever ‘they’ are.

And they did. For now. Till the next time, and here’s a thing. Up here, in my very long experience of uphere-ness, none of us can forget nor deny the change in weather. I’m guessing and without a clue, that up here might be something to look at. We are way out there in the Atlantic. Because we stick out as we do, all sassy and I’m ok, we do seem to invite wind stuff. We also get the best sunsets, the wider skies, the thrill of being that close to a storm and a calm. I love it. It’s life to me, even if I can be terrified. I still love it. Even if massive trees fall, even if roads are closed, even if the local shop cannot open as their freezers thaw with tons of food, even if just walking out into the woods is a risk, I still love it. It’s like a skin over my own, a knowing, a melody I sing or hear, a something way more than anything the out-there world could ever offer me.

And then in comes the calm. A conundrum. I was scared, nay terrified as a wee nothing in the big something of that storm, of four days silence, no fridge hum, no power, no pings on my phone. Just me and candles, birdsong. When nothing moved as expected. Everything stilled. The fear a nudge. This will go on. No hope. Too much damage. All of that stupid shit. And then, freedom. Was it? Well, yes, power back was lovely; lights on, yes lovely. Wifi and connection to my kids, yes lovely. But here’s a thing, here’s the conundrum. That time, on reflection was a calm I hadn’t expected. I remember candle lighting my rise to bed. I recall reading my book by candlelight until my eyes were tired enough for sleep. I remember waking in dawn light, padding downstairs, boiling water on the gas flame for strong coffee. I remember watching the day lift. No radio, no noise, just birds and sky watch. And me. Just me in the turmoil of it all, as if I was the calm.

by

Island Blog – I Love This

When my life get’s tricky, bad news, no news, the lonely, the what now, the what if of it all, the olding with all its tired and broken bits, the hurtings, the way my fingers gnarl and bend without my permission, I think this thing and get that think to roll through me, to take over from toes up until it lifts my mouth into a real smile, one which reaches my eyes……..

I love my home, black coffee, red wine and a wave from a passing stranger. I love the sound of giggles from a child, the feel of a dog’s wet nose against my fingers. I love sudden encounters, shared smiles, the warm voice of a friend telling me without words that I can do this living on thing. I love the birds at my feeders, the finches, gold, green, ‘common’ not in the way I learned that word from my old ma……’common’ was basically ‘trash’…….the sparrows, blackbirds, starlings, robins, the way they fly in, watching for skyborn attack, dense aflutter, then scattering, grabbing a morsel and gone into the wind. I love that when I need help I can ask for it and not feel needy. I love tweaking my geraniums, the warmth underfoot of my heated sunroom. I love doorways and windows, my faithful car, my work, my gift of writing, my ancestors, seamen and women, out here in the wilding islands, the way they handed down such inner strength to me.

I love noisy pubs, scampi and chips, Atlantic salt on my face, the bite of winter and my ability to light a good fire. I love to welcome. I love cosy. I love sharing. I love gaps in conversation, the wait, the light and the chance in that wait. I love random smiles in unexpected places. I love boots that lace well, soles that grip. I love the West Coasters, the Island folk for their humour, their strength, their ability to turn any talk of trouble into opportunity and then take action. I love my laptop, the way she works with me, the lightness of her body, the way she can go quiet for two days when I fly to Africa and never give me grief. I love my children and theirs even if I only see them now and again. I love my sisters, my brother, my memories, my lifestory.

Then, as I turn back to the tricky, which has visibly diminished, I say (and I do out loud) I say, Hey, I see you.

I also see this.

by

Island Blog – Sleeping with Myself

And Living.

In my head, there are people I want to save. I cannot. For those in my family, immediate or a bit out there. I still care. If they suffer, I feel it. But I am impotent in the streams and reams of their lives, the high rise troubles, the ways they will work their way towards a sorting of sorts. Mostly, all I can do is to send messages of support (god I hate that word). There are many words I hate now I know about ‘support’ about ‘caring’ about the nascence of new words to describe old things, and about the okay of this splendorous birthing, on paper, in the mouths of deliverers. I know it follows a remit, a new presentation, but it laughs me now. So very trite, and so not enough, and it has followers. They’re all over Facebook and all the other social mediacs, up and down lifters.

Where are we on all this?

I’ll tell you where I am. On the ground, in the grit, watching the sparrows feed, watching the fliptalk of clouds bashing, the tide high as a sassy woman rising to speak, or sing in a bar, when she hasn’t been invited, the night coming, the wind feisty as a loud 2 year old and no taxis home. That’s me on the outside. Inside I hold my family in my gut, my whole body. I can feel them in my limbs, my fingers, my toes, my everywhere. You have pain, you are waiting, you are shrunk, closed, lifting, falling.

I sleep alone, but I don’t. My bed is my own, warm, safe, mine. And in the soft and gloriously uninterrupted dark of the night, in they come. My beloveds. They wake me. I can hear curlews, oystercatchers, always up too late, or too early. I turn for the light. There’s none. I turn back to the recognition of ‘not enough sleep’. and then I think this……you came to me in this moment, woke me and I thank you for that. Let’s meet here. Of course, it’s only me, but maybe not, maybe we just connected, you in your awful pain and me opening that door on connection.

Maybe.

by

Island Blog – Look like Ballet

Another busy week in the Best Cafe Ever, and it isn’t just me who says this. In between the days, family stuff, although ‘stuff’ is the wrong word come to think of it. In other’s lives, there are happenings, not great ones, in fact not great at all, but wait. See that ‘wait’ word? Always bugged me. What is immediate and all consuming spirals a mind, every time. The encouragement to wait is, from my experience, very Buddha, and I like it, just don’t always know how to buy into it. The urge to run, to travel, to support, is strong, very strong. But……wait. It thinks me. As I’m faffing about with thinks, all blind in the clouds of it all, I do get it. There is a time to go and a time to not go, although not going sits like a burr under my arse. Ah, bless the olding times. We seem to get better at knee jerk, even if we can knee jerk like the best when required. So I feed the birds, tend the plants, scoot off to to the Washeroo and work, notice my thinks, notice how my team mates are dealing with their own lives, retain a strong hold on the present whilst sending prayers and great visuals to those who can do with them, big time.

I am open, wide open, and I know it. It has taken many decades to arrive at this point. I believe in equality, in inclusivity, in compassion, kindness, friendship, in action. And the last is important to me. It is wonderful to spout the prior beliefs, but without action, they’re just pointless words. Would I stand against injustice, my voice clear? Would I move forward, or against, something or someone who didn’t? Do I remember old Sally’s needs as she pines for her long dead husband, her dog, her cat, her rabbit? Am I so busy with my own agenda that it’s as if these ‘poor’ people are as of nothing? Or have I trained my mind to be aware, way beyond my own thixotropic ‘stuff’? As I notice something that bothers me, in any situation, do I shake my head and continue my dash for last minute food and the bus, or the train, or the whatever that consumes my thinking? Do I?

Back home from work and a pecan coriander pesto to make. A shower to be had. A list for tomorrow to be made. A twisty cloud sky to watch. From full moon, the half moon is sudden. In the full, there is turbulence, big winds, huge tides, a load of show-off in my opinion, not to mention all those who get no sleep while this showing off is going on. Talking to my African son, suddenly, and jerkily, a red deer hind and her very young calf walked by my window, all unsure, alert, their skins healthy and their legs long and strong. They looked at me, I looked at them. Go safe you beauties. Go safe. You look like ballet.

by

Island Blog – Just a Belief Away

You know that thing, when some thing happens about which you feel you can do no thing? The ordinary path, walked each day, a surety underfoot, possibly a foolish surety, suddenly twists into a knot you can’t undo and you’re down there looking up at the frickin hooha of it, with only the sky as guidance and in the wrong boots for a tricky climb. It can appear as if the world has got herself into that now because this situation (a peelywally name for it) means I can’t see beyond the knot. It’s huge and a definite halt in the skinny path, a blocking out of light, an earthly gasp.

Then, as hours go slowly by, each day like a foot-dragging teenager who doesn’t want to return to school, each night a tumble of sheets, the unwelcome dreams flensing skin, infecting thoughts which, so they tell me, just want a rest from this whole thinking thing, a little hope pirouettes in. Then a little more. Never have hours felt so bloody minded. They trudge like prisoners in chains, exhausted. I watch the raindrops, listen to the soft wind, walk through it, bat away sluggish flies, see the windburn on our trees, smell Autumn and there’s a welcome in this place and a lift. Autumn is here, a bit early, yes, but here nonetheless. The swing between that knot and the open sky proffering a higher view uplifts me, even if I am well stuck on the ground of it all.

I know all the platitudes. In my opinion, the lot of them should be removed from every voice. When disaster slam-dunks a person, any platitude, bar none, is offensive, and why? because the one who delivers has not taken time to think before speaking. Just saying.

So, although we are in the thicktwist of the thing, there is always the power of choice, and choice is a power. to decide to focus on hope, on a positive outcome, to visualise it, every damn minute. All a choice. I have met too many sinking souls who decide to sink. No matter the matter, no old creed residing, no matter the odds, nor the ends, Hope, God bless her, is just a belief away. Always.

And she is mine.

by

Island Blog – When a Big Thing and the Oldish

Happens, in a family, suddenly, all are thrown into outer space. For a bit. It’s a few days in, now. And all of us are coming back down, thanking the whoevers for parachutes…..and they were there. It all suddened me, although I was on the outside of it all, as in not right there, but the shock waves on, way on, and not just throwing me into a right spin, but all of us, many of us, and we are many.

Once we land back down into the ordinary of our own lives, all we can do is think, wonder, pray, hope, and keep getting up, getting dressed, emptying the bins, cooking something for supper, make soup, walk the dog, clean the bathroom, that sort of ordinary, as we imagine, pushing unhelpful thoughts away.

In the trying to sort out some sort of regulation in our thoughts, which, by the way, still haven’t landed, we can founder on the rocks of the thing. It is a strange time. I know that I come back downstairs and then realise I am unclothed, not that it matters here in this wild place, but nonetheless, t’is an oops. I have to think before driving out in my wee mini, bless her fearless and loyal heart, who now, since the bump, is showing more signs of trouble. It thinks me.

An initial shock, a crash, a bump, a stopping, will not just be itself, or, at least, its first self. The future of the first smack has a voice. In the immediacy of our culture these days, I’m not sure this is fully understood, nor allowed. I know about the throwaway now. But I also know of the oldish, the way they could sit back after a massive crisis, eventually and obviously, and let go. We have done what we can, what we ever could, and now, we have no control. I like that way of being, of thinking.

Thank you, Oldish.

by

Island Blog – Faith

I wake into a ‘meh’. Most unlike me, but I can feel it trail my feet, sludge my steps, halt me in my walk to the bathroom. Actually, no, stop, it bothered my sleep too, waking me with anxious nonsense. Anxiety is always nonsense, I know this, because the images are those of fear, of what hasn’t, and probably will never, happen. I do remember, inside one of those nonsense moments, actively rising in the very dark, and walking around my bed like some circling eejit in the hope that I would lose the damn thing. I didn’t. These things are sticky. I also remember lying there, staring up at nothing, seeing nothing and wondering why it isn’t possible to take off a head, mine, lay it on a chair, preferably in another room and behind closed doors, maybe even locked, and then sleep headless, just body resting without the interminable nonsense of a rollocking mind. I don’t know about you, nor your mind, but mine is a terrorist, or can be, a rebel with no specific cause, a vandal, a schemer, a troublemaker. I do not recall requesting this as a child. Is it a punishment? And yet, the other side of this grubby coin is a brilliant thinker and I am she. It seems, she sighs inwardly, that the light requires a similar dosage of darkness.

And so, and so, I am living still as one who must (never should, never ought) work with the palaver of my mind because this damn thing is of use to me in a million ways. I can write. I can speak. I can influence. I can encourage, facilitate, lead. I am fearless on behalf of others. I can stop to sit on pavements without embarrassment, to talk with someone else held in that place. I do not bother about comments, will not judge, will sing in a toy shop if a song comes to mind, even dance with an ambulance driver out for a smoke when someone begins a fiddle tune. My mind is my friend, and my not friend. I remember ‘not friends’, at school, at work (although I only lasted a few weeks in that job) and I took myself off. I did. But when my ‘not friend’ is my own mind, without heading (sorry) into the impossible, I am stuck with her.

We moved through the day, me distracting with music, an audio book, a load of looking out, even more ‘noticing’ until we were all exhausted with the whole thing, me, my mind, my body. There are three of us in this thing. We shopped, snoozed ready for the four day work shift ahead, listened to a story, moved a few cobwebs aside, cautiously, checking for the mama house spiders (I won’t hurt) and felt alternately shit and okay. But I think my bonus ball is that I have faith. That tomorrow will show me a difference, that my eejit mind is exhausted and will shut the eff up tonight, that the roses still bloom, that day will dawn, that the sun will rise and dip, that my children will continue to fly.

T’is more than many can say.

by

Island Blog – Clockwise and Widdershins

I’m aware that July is easing out of view, note, calendar. To be honest, I feel she only just arrived. How the wheel turns! I thought this as I watched my washing machine do it’s thingy. It swished clockwise, paused, and then went widdershins. Ah! I said, I did and out loud, this is life. You think it’s going one way and then it flaming well doesn’t. I can’t blame July. All the months do this. And what surprises me, now I consider the whole wheel turn backforth confusative is why are we surprised at all? I find no answerers. These questions are mostly thrown into the void, where, which is rather alarming, there is nobody with an answer. It wonders me. Are these questions more a boomerang?

Ah, yes, they are. Although it feds me up a whole lot, I know it’s true. We answer our own questions. We think we can’t, that we need someone else to do this, and, sometimes, when deeply compromised, deeply lost, we do. I know that. I do. But what I know and notice is that so many of us, strong us, confident us, forget ourselves. Life will swipe clockwise and widdershins. Always did, always will. I ask myself, who do I want to be in this new month, new age, new moment?

And then, I remember. It takes a big re-jig, or it does for me. Times I know I am old, feeling it, pushing on when thumbs and hips hurt, because……and what is my because? No idea.

I know me, the who of me. Not one single other person in the whole of everything will ever know the me of me, the I of I. Nobody, not ever. Only me. So this flipshake of clockwise and widdershins, this whole July departure, and the next month and the next, the expectations of those cemented in some man-made control programme, not one of them can decide me.

I turn off the washing machine, hang my clothes on the pulley. Nobody has them anymore, not in the new world of everything aesthetic and clueless. I watch them dangle. They’ll be dry the morra.

by

Island Blog – Thinks and Inner Talk

Goodness but this humidity is something else! That, and the Cosmic Shenanigans, the Seven Sisters lining up a gazillion miles above our heads, the Moon playing Quidditch with them. Big Game in the sky. And, that’s enough capitals for now. Moving beyond……

I feel as if I am carrying said sky on my head, the biggest cloud-hat ever, but it doesn’t stop there, with just me. I see faces sweat lined, a stoop in shoulders, a trudge in steps, an Aah in voices. It thinks me. We on this westerly island are more used to slam and crash and wheelies taking off into another’s garden; or sun straight and clear, air fresh with clarity, helping our minds to scurry like mice, busy, productive, enterprising, aware. These few days of cosmic hoo-ha and all those sisters doing their aligning thing as if they plan to dance the merengue which will probably result in a load of noise we cannot hear, but can feel, has been daunting. Add mother moon and, well, I can’t go there. I just feel tired and here’s where inner talk makes an entrance.

If I say, out loud, that I am tired, it isn’t just the other person who hears my words, and, because I have spoken it out, he or she now needs to respond, hence commencing a conversation about the whys and whats and hows and whatnots of my particular type of tiredness. My computer brain has heard my voice and has recognised it as familiar. Good lord, I have started something, no, two somethings, neither one of which I want. Apart from a complete waste of precious time with a friend who now has the tired word blanching the storyline balance of his or her own life into a softness which is not quite edible, my own computer is going bajonkers on a ‘fix’ and coming up with endless plasters to stick over the ‘wound’, one I have just announced as a problem. All completely useless, what my friend says and the plaster. So, my question is, why do I speak it out, even to myself?

I know why I am tired. I work 4 days a week in the Best Cafe Ever (sorry, caps will come in) and I am not young anymore. I love it, you know that. but the number of days takes a toll. I remember Old Katy in Tapselteerie days telling me her bones were sore. I was decades her junior, made kindly adaptions to her work load, but didn’t understand it at all. I do now. Next thing on the tiredness thing. Over a few nights, all my smoke alarms have erupted into song. You knew about the first, I think. I binned that one, but the others shriek, and it is a shriek, picking the deathwatch (sailor’s term) hours to make a point, one which still confuses me. There is no fire, no gas escape, nothing. I ping out the batteries and try again to sleep. The batteries, just fyi, are new. I think this is all to do with cosmic hooha.

Back to inner talk. I believe that we are all hard on ourselves, no matter our history, and I say that because we blame too quickly, thus allowing ourselves a wee freedom. I have learned, am still learning, to take responsibility for the moment, for everything, actually, each step, every choice, regardless of bloodline or memories, or of what lies in our paths. Inner talk plays a huge role in this dance, this delusion, this rise or this descent. So, when I say to myself ‘I am tired,’ this brain of mine, devoid of emotive action, merely a mathematical robot, agrees. I stoop, I trudge, I tell someone, poor little me.

Well blow that right out of the water. I saw a young otter today on the Tapselteerie track; I went to church and found perspective; I watched a Peacock Butterfly on a flower, knelt down to see the sun through the backside of a Himalayan Poppy, lifted a Carder bee out of the sunroom, smiled with friends, drove past healthy black sheep, watched a toad pull itself through the green and saw the smallest moth perk atop my laptop.

Looking only at the beauty of whatever life anyone lives in, is not a plaster. It’s a re-jig of inner thinks. Every time.

by

Island Blog – The Leapist

As life twiddles on, all contours and corners, some parts expected, many not, the old roads rising up like snakes, or a beckoning, clear and flowered, I, and my curious Alice mind, notice it all. Actually, this Alice noticing thing can be a pain in the ass, a lot of the time, but, and but again, I have the Alice mind and it is my mind and I am always curious. I stop, a lot, see a little ‘weed’, see a butterfly on a bloom, and I question. I see huge invasive flattening in the mud where careless cars have quashed a whole story, a whole tiny life story, now just tyre marks and unfertile ridges. However I bemoan nothing beyond an initial gasp at the uneducated. It is as it is, and, beyond the well-known fact that Nature will survive and revive way after we eejits are dust, I don’t want to carry judgement. It’s like wearing lead boots. I do wish, nonetheless, that more of us understood the precious gift of our lives, our responsibilities, even our place in this time, this Now. I wish, too, that everyone would be curious, ask questions, be open to learning. But, it isn’t like that now. I know, I know. There is an expectation that beyonds me. We want, I want, this, no, not that this, this this, and now. I know not the language to engage in that conversation, were it one beyond observation, nor would I.

I didn’t have work today, although I did delight in collecting and delivering the bread, the croissants, and the pain au chocolat to the Best Cafe Ever. I wound my merry way along the complete wiggle and turn, cornering, rising in speed, slowing because the bracken is frickin and holds the view in completous. (my latin coming out there) and I did meet a few eejits who cannot reverse, but we worked it between us. Driving home in the sunshine, the heat and still smelling the glory of newly baked sourdough and the fresh pastries, I had a think. I am listening to a beautiful audio book. I should probably name it. Harry Potter and the History of Magic. It’s all about the making of the books, including in detail all the research Rowling immersed herself in. It is way more than my initial assessment of her, to my shame. As revelations arose going back centuries, to beasts, beliefs, to christian evolutive paths, her research brought together magic and belief, unbelief and choice. It thinks me, a lot.

Church today, a few of us. These days folk come because they want to, not because they ought, or should, or are told to. The theme was about stepping up to genuinely bring good. I used to wonder. about the consistence of that ‘good’. You can be one person in your good giving and then you. come back home as mum or dad in very bad moods, and ‘what changed?’ So confusing. I get it. However, I am a Leapist. I can understand magic and faith. I disagree with a lot on both sides, but I am open, curious and always learning. What I do learn is about the stops. No, this, No, that, on both sides. Perception on both can be sqewed, cultures are BIG on tidelines, on either or. In between there is the chance to leap through. I’m there.