mental health

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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 – I Rest There

It rained all day today, heavy stuff, non stop. Actually, no, it wasn’t always heavy. Just looked like it through my windows. And there’s a coolth in rainy days, even as it isn’t as cold as yesterday which was all slippy ice and still as a still thing. It just feels that way, all that wet and slam against windows and the wind pushing against the glass like a bully. It thinks me. Perception. Always a good thinkster. Let’s dance with this……

I see a rain day as an internal rain day as a VERY BIG RAIN DAY. Others not so. You, jolly old you who don’t give a rip snort about weather, skipping out on your skateboard, or heading off for a sea swim, or just happy in your life, or a kid who never sees anything as a stopping of fun and opportunities. See? Hence my thinks. If I awaken as I usually do thinking a couple of things, such as I am so thankful I have woken up at all, and in this beautiful cozy island home, or Oh dammit, I can hear the mice in the loft and it’s only 4 am and dark as hell out there, I have to decide how I feel about how I feel before I set foot on the bedroom carpet. If I don’t, the negative overtakes me, the fear, the alone, the self pity. I am crap at self pity and also very good at it. I read that two contradictory thoughts can be held in the brain, but nowhere have I discovered how to deal with that. No amount of googling. So, with lofty mice and gratitude diddling with my brain, I downstairs myself and into the day. It’s still dark and the rain drowns out my audio book and my thinks, until I settle. That’s when I stop to listen to what is actually going on right now around me, and I re-jig myself. I am Alice, I know it. Curious, adventurous, a bit wild, a lot wild, trusting, too trusting, saying Goodness! a lot, eyes bright and without fear, even if the Red Queen is just around the corner.

In this real life, I can see how damn tough it all is. We have made our families islands and there’s an understanding and a loss in that. We want control. We also want to make the change we want to see. I get it. Waaaay back we were the same. There’s no way there will be the restrictions on our kids, not yet even conceived, no way this patriarchal control will come into our plans, no way this, no way that. I’m smiling now, writing this. I’ve no idea if our plans worked, probably not, but I do know that, no matter the child, no matter the chaos he or she brings in, we just loved, floundered, got lost, spent nights without sleep, hoped, prayed, loved again, barely noticed if the broccoli was yellow, cooked something with gravy, baked bread, answered calls, washed clothes, hoped that school was ok and dreaded pick-up, barely noticed the day of the week, tidied bedrooms, thought thought thought of the best treat with the money and time available: on days of non stop rain, on days when the wind threatened to take out windows, days when I was late for pickup because the sheep got out and it was just me trying to negotiate with a dog who did not understand a thing of me, when the landrover broke down and I could do nothing about the damn thing with it’s huge tyres all fixed with a spanner thing that would defy a god strength. Or, when I am feeling so broken and don’t know why, and that’s why I just look blank at you as if I don’t know you at all, and there’s no treat and I’m sorry.

Basically we have no idea what we are doing, most of the time. The problem is we think we do, because admitting we don’t feels like a personal failure. It isn’t.

I rest there.

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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.

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Island Blog – Perceived Failure

Ach, well today was a bit of a trudge. It didn’t wake thus, and nor did I, jumping (I did) out of bed as the very first schist of morning framed my blackout curtains. When I wake, I’m like Alice, excited, down the stairs and into the fart of the sparrow all exuberant and ready for strong coffee. I call Alexa into Radio two and bring in the tunes and, despite the dark which will stay resolute for at least another 2.5 hours, I am there to welcome in the light. To be honest, I would like to be one of those who stravaigle into a morning, yawning, turning over, sleeping again until the last noisy minute, such as the arrival of the council bottle bin collectors, all twinkly winkly lights and big noise, arrives at my door. But I am not, and there’s a twister. My mum attributed her ability to hit the pillow asleep until morning, the actual morning, not the hour, when light beckoned breakfast and the whole world visible, ducks on the pond, all that, as an easy conscience. I did squirm at that, I confess. I think she probably said that to my dad, he who didn’t sleep, who caught me wandering all awake and in the dark of the landing and who told me stories, cooled my feet, stayed with me until I did drift away. I wonder if he did.

In the echoes of Remembrance, of those who went to war, some many times, and all who came back changed. The echoes continue, even now. How on earth does a soldier return to ordinary life, the caption of it, the captive, the superficiality, the expectation to adapt overnight? It wasn’t recognised in my dad’s day, nor before, the fallout, the agony of it, the loss of one for one, the strong bonds formed under immediate fire. the fear, the desert dark, the cold, the all of it – the refusal to tell out. It is now, I hope, although I’m guessing there is a lot of fallout, too many echoes, too many triggers, too much seen and not spoken out.

I’m shy now, once I see I have written this. My fingers do their own thing pretty much. So, I felt a trudge today, did I? I can see the judge front of me, all male and whigged. I planned to do this and didn’t. But I did sweep the floor, no, that’s a lie. I did walk, truth, I did do 100 rows on my row machine, I did check the canoes on the shore, see they’re tied right. Truth. I did walk, a bit. I did lose my specs and still haven’t located them. I didn’t attend a meeting, giving my notgoingness. I did bake a potato for supper, prep a salad, light the fire.

There is no competition. I know that. But I still compare myself against others. There is a learning there, and, as I work through this, I feel a tad less furious at my perceived failure.

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Island Blog – The Shelterbelt

I feel weird today, sort of in the in between of stasis and movement. I wound tangles of wool pretty much all morning, realising, once I just had to stand up, that I hadn’t made my bed, nor turned off the lights no longer required. It felt strange. I don’t miss things like that as a rule, but, as I stravaigled the stairs, a tad shame-faced, flipping switches and sorting my duvet, I allowed myself to courie in to a place where nobody waits to judge me. The shelterbelt. The place wherein there is hot cocoa, a butty, a warm bosomy mama with wide open arms. We all want this, if we are honest, particularly those of us who never experienced her in real life.

The morning expanded as I kept untangling wool. You know…..there are times when untangling wool can play a very important part in a person’s future. I just don’t know the how or the what of it right now. My mind scurried back, like a nibbley mouse, searching in the scurry of what might have thrawn me, thrown me into this stasis. Ah……the funeral, the two funerals this week. One, okay-ish, a long-term friend, tired of life. The other too young, a bit older than my own eldest, also tired of life. I reckon that’s the shaker. Perhaps the sudden dive into complete emptiness for the family, for friends, for me, spirals a landslide from some invisible and magnitudinal force. It’s a gasp, a stopping. And, a day or two away from that ‘stopping’ I wonder why everything just continues on, as if there’s polyfilla on tap, to cover the ripped cracks in the landscape of so many.

Remembrance time now. In church we celebrated all those who gave their lives, those who went to war, or who stayed with ‘war’ once they met it headlong. The brave, the courageous, the loving, the curious, the inventive, the ones who, in private times, cried the cries of the seabirds, the oceans, the losses, the flipping wild of this bajonkers life. I drove home, wondering about a pub visit, but didn’t. And that wonders me. I could have found a shelterbelt just for a wee glass, could have told myself this is ok, to connect, to talk and said where I’d been, shared my deep sadness and my even deeper respect, the confusion of it. The twist of loss and lift, of the fall of rise, and the rise of falI…..I just came home with it.

I think we may be all the same, dinging like pong balls at such times. We can still ping, but we also need that shelterbelt. Or, I do, anyway.

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Island Blog – Tapselteerie and Widdershins

I’m watching my money tree. I’m not sure it’s mine, actually. I have no recollection of growing the thing. It just arrived, not as a gift, I’m certain of that, but, more likely, a cast-off from someone leaving. It would have arrived in some young person’s arms, all apology and hope, because what were they going to do with this damn thing fighting for life, in a pot of earthy mess?

Anyways up,….she’s here, and for many years now, a veritable bonsai beauty. She arrived as a spindly twinkle of life, all floppy, over-watered or, more likely the reverse and required a mother touch. I gave that. I always do. Now she holds proud right in my sight, in the window above my writings. She thinks me.

We live in a following. We do. We follow signs, orders, expectations, protocol, regimes. We go with the flow. And I am all about going with the flow, until, and that word is one of my favourites, one or some of us pause, feeling that we don’t want to continue on. And that’s a tricky one. I thought much about it today as I walked into the fairy woods, now considerably less wooded after the last storm-fell. (new word…..soon to be stormfell). How would I turn on this ‘follow’ thing? How would I find the courage to go widdershins against the clock of ticking inevitability?

Methinks this as I wander on my walk today, as I feel connection with the lift, of life, of sinking death, of all around me, that there is much I can do. I can take in a money tree and give her life. I can challenge this and that and make something happen. I can push through the desire to hide and chide and then go to the pub to meet friends. I can commit to this, take that on, because both this and that in my tapselteerie thinking means I am widdershins. And I love both words.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.