Music

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Island Blog – Fiddleplay and Deep Time

A beautiful day, all sunshine and squawks from gulls mobbing eagles over the tidal loch. Everything clear, sky wide and still, garden flowers heads up to the light giver, safe from wilderley gales. Still. I wasn’t and that’s me all over. I say I am not a busy flicktwit, fussing about dust nor to-do lists, but I am, I confess, a woman who was a mother at 20 and birthed 5 children and who outlived a husband and who now has no idea who she is. I was somebody once, I remember that, the buzz of it, the exhaustive demands, the have-to go here or there, the suddenness of immediacy. A boat in trouble, a guest overboard, another 4 for dinner, a crying mother from a cottage because it had rained all week and everything and everyone was cold and wet. I warmed her obviously, tumbled dried her towels and clothes and Himself went up there, into the hills and sorted the dodgy fire. All fires were dodgy on Tapselteerie. I have no idea how we got away with that, but I do remember many fine folk, mostly women (no surprise there) who knocked on my kitchen door with faces. I can see those faces now. And here’s my thought. They came, they asked, they were brave and they were pulled in to the warm and fed and watered.

One of them said she played the fiddle. She was beautiful, Irish, four kids. I asked her, bring your fiddle, and she did, and we danced a story from her past, one I recognised. The fiddle captured me in that moment because it is the voice of stories, of history, of deep time. And that thinks me. In my olding, many memories scoot back, slowered, rainbowed, probably nonsense, but I get glimpses of someone bringing in wild salmon, the fish caught on it’s way up to spawning, full fat and strong. I remember receiving this huge fish, welcoming in the fishermen, whisky poured, the laugh around us in that kitchen, the fiddleplay. Even in times when no fiddle played, the fiddle played. Deep time. Those fishers long gone. The wild salmon too. They were then and this is now.

I’m not so sure about now, but, then, I am guessing that in deep time, not many felt sure about their now. Olding is not fun. I should qualify that. It still isn’t fun but there are options and choices. Things hurt, bones mostly, but could be more. Thoughts slow, take time to land. Hearing might grow cloudy. Concentration striates, shifting all over the place, like a seconda on a harley with no map. I meet many of us, all bright and brittle all can do and all doing this olding thing, feeling sore and tired and bloody determined.

One young woman, younger than my youngest, said to me yesterday this…..You inspire me. You are so ……

That was just what I needed to hear. On i go, fiddleplay lead on.

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Island Blog – Make your own kind of Music

I look for the harmonies in everything. I say ‘everything’ because that is exactly what I mean. In music, I can hear all levels, and way below the melody. I can hear above too, but could never reach those notes without a long ladder. I was never a descanter, unlike my sister whoes vocal chords are wired to the moon. In any music situation I find myself following the supporting chords, finding them, latching on and, eventually, finding my way. Even hymns in church offer me opportunities, even as I feel for my pew fellows as I duck down into the melle of the many lower levels of any good music. I remember, as a child, knowing exactly when any piece of music was about to find resolution. I knew, still do, when a modern song will end, and you might laugh at that because if you are in the know, pretty much everything is 8 to the bar, 8 counts, unless you challenge that, and writers do. I laugh when I meet it, in music, in prose, even on the street or in the bar. With confidence, someone just stops and goes, having said something profound and without a single cap-tap to propriety, leaving the rest of us with vacant faces and puzzlement. Composers and good writers have done this many times and I see it in musical score, in good books and there is something fizzy about them, like the best champagne. Intriguing. I love rebels.

I made myself walk today, along Tapselteerie tracks. I haven’t walked since my daily sunshine ones in Africa. Every morning we set off, about 8 or earlier, to avoid the sun heat. Sometimes we left it too late and it wasn’t only the golden retriever who found it too much. That sun is careless of his power, blazing down, no breaks, relentless. I loved it. As we found rivers, water holes, ditches, anything water-logged for the hotdog to find relief, I stood on the bank, watching him courie down through scrub and boulders to the water flow, the cool base note. It thought me. I stand here, like the top note and in between you and me there are so many levels, tricky to contour. The base note is the river flow. So much opportunity between us. If I could cant the in-between, make it fit, sing it out, give it instruments, the flute perhaps, then violin, maybe two, then viola, then cello, then, if really brave, double bass. Such depth.

When I was there, in Africa, we went to a candlelit concert. Vivaldi, Four Seasons. It was wonderful. The (unusually) quartet sat among 200 candles on stage. It was a beautiful show. However we came away a little questioning. I had seen this performed before but with the Basso Continuo as fifth instrument and it was definitely missing, the base, the low voice, the resolution. Stu felt the same but without my musical training and having never seen such before. It was a feeling of lack. But this is not about music.

In a life, in any life, however ‘small’ or ‘big’ the whole dynamic is essential, and when the melody is lost or the baseline, then there is a void. In my experience, over years of providing harmonies to visiting bands, I knew about the middle bit. Nobody wants it because why? Well, nobody honours the viola, the chorus, the second violin, the timpani, nobody. They are just support, but woe betide them if they fail to perfectly perform. I honour the middle instruments.

The wives who keep onkeeping on, finding food, walking miles, working from below dawn to above sunset.

I honour the men who work hard in jobs they hate just to provide for their families.

I honour the ones who lost their place because nobody showed them how to find it.

I honour those who believe that they will only ever live in the middle of musical score, or in the worlds of prose.

In those who believe they will never make an impact.

Tell you this, all of you. Believe in yourself and take that self forward. You are so much more than you think.

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Island Blog. – That’s my guess

There’s a time and it comes as the night pushes down the day and takes over. Before, when they argue with each other, the clouds tangle and squish, bumping against each other like school kids in a lunch queue. Inevitably the dark wins. How could it not, pushing down like that, an easy pressure, whereas, just saying, the light has far harder work? Dawn has to push up, after all. I think of Dawn with strong shoulders, her determination strong. She’s been doing this for millennia. Let’s hope she doesn’t get tired of the whole pushing night away thing.

Once night has squashed all of the light, I move me towards music and candles. It isn’t a stoop of my shoulders, more an invite to a new dance. The fire is fiery, licky flames thankful for the island timber, those old trees felled, usually by some storm with a dinky name. Eish the nonsense in that! A storm is a storm is all. I will never understand why there are pet names for such as storms, those massive and upwrenching take-out blasts of gargantuan force. We are, in my opinion, both foolish and blind to the truth of what is true. Nature will always win. We are almost irrelevant in that truth, but not quite, not those of us who learn, who are as prepared as anyone can be. It’s those who pretend it isn’t happening who concern me.

I went off on one there. I am not a worrier, not a fearty. I turn on the tunes, light the candles, begin to write. In this simple island life where roads may be passable in icy conditions, when a ferry may run, where rain falls a lot, when there are parking spaces in the harbour town, when everyone sees everyone else as an islander even if most of us are blow-ins, white settlers, whatever, even as we did choose to actually live here, to work here, to join the community and there is a strength in that. I think on that, as tunes play through my speaker, as my twinkly winkly lights twinkle and winkle. So simple. Enough, yes, enough. I walked today, twice, once with. a friend who laughed me a lot. We met muddy dogs, squelched through mud and the sharp stones of puddle refills. We talked of life and hope and christmas trees and future plans as we listened to the plop of raindrops on rhodie leaves, or from the ridonculous highs of Cyprus, Caledonian Pines, the Oldies in this place. The music of it, the beat, the laughter it brings, the musicality of Nature. Who hears it anymore with headphones on?

Community life is simple, bloody hard, difficult, awkward, challenging, slow moving, and wonderful. What else is real life but this? A confusion, an out of self. That’s my guess.

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Island Blog – But the Brave

I’m listening to a song that a famous someone is completely turning into a complete personal indulgence, but I am sat sitting as they say and so I, not you, am going through the excrutiate. I do wonder why those who once were so brilliant, return obviously compromised. It’s a Judy Collins number and she, for certain, was the only one to sing her songs. Moving on. Where was I?

Today felt like a bit of a sladge, my word. It’s sludge with an A and that’s a bit of an uplift in itself, A being the firstborn, the Alpha. I rose, ate, sorted, cleared a thing or two, brought in wood, watched the moon the cantankerous madam slip behind the hills. I washed up, prepped for my trip into town (it isn’t a town btw) which takes many manoeuvres and swingtwiddles to get through because it’s single track and that whole single track is always compromised by the Parkings. The Parkings on this island almost define us, or they do in the summer months, mostly because there are none. This is due to the crap knowledge of Parking. I have known some who take over too much for their parking thing and then head off for the day. Often. I could have got two minis in there. Two locals.

Back to the point. A sladge, yes I said that already. I tramped in the rain, I did, and the waterproof coat failed me. I could feel the sky invading my skin. I waited for my mini to be fixed, dripping and cold. I had gone to no shops and why was that? My damp tramp sladge. I admit. The shops are alight and bright and welcoming. Oh. so it’s me and my self pity, my angst and sladge? what happened to the frolics in me, the wild and inspire, the fun, the mischief? Good question. It seems that we have learning, And we have turnaround. Oh we can’t do anything much now, to save the world, the ones we love but we can do something for ourselves and more for the young who want to know, who are listening, and there’s another think. Whom of us have been honest with our own children? When have we sat to talk with an emerging adult and hung our heads, opened our hands, admitted we have no idea, being completely vulnerable? Not many but the Brave.

That’s me. And you.

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Island Blog – Explosical

I just made that word up by the way, but it fits. In that word is Ex, meaning gone. Plose, as in ‘Boom’ and Sical as the arse end of Musical. Well, if Latin/ Greek scholars can derivativise words into minute parts, then so can I. Much as I respect the past of historical learning and memories, even remembles, it is high time we caught, grasped onto, and learned from the way language has changed flipping ages ago. We all have many new neighbours, new work colleagues, new dialects on our streets, among our new-met friends, in all social gatherings. And it isn’t just the pronunciation of a word, the tilt and lift and shift of the musicality of a well-established word. I know this, I have been confounded, felt the hesitation and the embarrassment as I tried to understand what the person across from me just said. I got the drift, but not the fulcrum. Even in my long ago youth, I remember that sweaty awkwardness, the wishing I was anywhere but there, trapped in a chair, sweating anxiety. Not now. Now I will respectfully admit to my own lack of understanding.

There is musicality in all languages, in the way they emerge from the iodine of whatever the familiar is to us, the old tunes, the stuck of it. It seems to me that the English, the British, are more stuck than they might want to be, perhaps with the legacy of owning half the world thick in aging throats, perhaps. But to lift into a welcome …..How about that? I am my father’s daughter and thus fixillated in entrenched wordage, but, and I do believe this, if he was still with me, and could still pontificate enough for me to bring him down to a whisky and a courie-in, he would get that, no matter the dictionary, which, by the way I have added to twice. Language is explosive and musical, and if we want to dance with it, well, we need to get out there and do just that.

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Island Blog – The One of Two

He leaves two strong wonderful men, his sons. I know them so I know.

I knew him too, held him tight a few months ago at the death of his beloved wife, my longtime friend.

Now he is gone. The music man, the gatherer of voices, the conductor, the shy man, quiet, gentle, loving, the nothing left of the something he once was. A tryst. A perfect melody. I hope he finds her out there somewhere. Actually, I know he will.

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Island Blog – Fiddle Work

I was thinking about fiddling today. I was. We do fiddle about, do we not, with fingers, with ideas, with olding, with blockades, with the constant push against the barriers we meet on a daily basis. Should there be a question mark here? Honestly, the whole ‘how you do grammar’ thing was once my absolut. Don’t mess with me on that word. It doesn’t need an ‘e’. There are kids this day bothering about results on where the eff they place their ees, never mind their hyphens and dashes and please don’t bring up exclamation marks, which, btw, were just fine a few years ago, and which have now become a yawn. Turmoil at worst. Fiddling at best.

Let’s fiddle. Fiddling requires finger movement, dynamic finger movement, in the fingers, that is. Limited, yes, unless you have learned how to. In the mind, different. There’s a wildscape in that head which (not ‘that’,….never ‘that’.. #grammarqueen) can spiral the brightest mind. You might go low one day and all the old stuff rushes in as if a tide has suddenly turned on you. It stutters, physical momentum, there are stumbles, hesitations, pauses, a want for hiding. Other days, and for no particular reason, the fiddle mind plays a wonderfully dynamic tune, and your heart is light, your clothes feel right, your make-up worked, the path ahead clears like a walk into bright opportunities and surprising serendipities. What you expect, you will attract. I know this. It is a fact and proven. So what is the thing about days when your fingers tangle-damage your scarf, when, in irritation at said tangle-damage, you wheech off a precious gold chain, breaking it; when you forget your keys, can’t decide what to wear for an important something or someone or when your ego is way below knicker level, in fact it’s ankle deep and asleep? There’ll be days like these. Mama said.

I had one today. I know these days of old. They’re trying to be the seventh wave, and maybe they are. They do piss me off, nonetheless, because I never gave them permission to diffuse me into a spread I feel incapable of. I wanted focus, a strong light ahead, a clear path, and now you straggle me into a general illuminator. I don’t care who else can see. I just want light for myself. Ah! there it is, the conundrum. So I don’t appear to be the master of my own days. Instead there is a force I cannot see which confabulates my story, my plan, me.

When I arrived at work, I felt as if my outside, all uniformed up, didn’t belong to me. At the door, I pulled up, said some stern words to myself, got to it. But it didn’t shift. I listened to the laughter from my delicious co-workers, chatted, heard their news, cleared tables, engaged with customers, laughed with them, loved their dogs, filled water jugs, cleaned endless kitchen equipment (inventively), but I still felt I was limpish . I thought ‘tired.’ I thought ‘old.’ I watch my fingers type this out and I laugh. Tired, yes. Old yes.

Ach, wheesht! Fiddle on. Always fiddle on.

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1sland Blog – Breath

I hold it, my breath, at times, sudden times. Perhaps at a moment that confounds me, as if a rock has tripped me. It might be a word-spout from another’s mouth, of judgement, finite, challenging, and there’s a momentary confusion, like the after blast from an explosion, even though I have no idea what that feels like. The silence at first, then the thunder and roiling in my ears, the deafening to all else around me. We’ve all been there, and when I have, I always wished I had said something, stood up for someone, answered with confidence, not that the finite ever begs a question. I still wished. I also, to my womanly and well-trained second fiddler position shame, deferred to the height of the voice, the learned-ness, the confidence of delivery, the surety that no-one in this (now self-assumed as piddling and inferior) gathering would dream of cutting down this particular invasive species, of which he is a member. No matter his derisive comments, his freedom to dominate, take advantage, to touch, to control. Ok, that’s my stuff, my history, the deferment to men. I have no issues with men in general. I love men, in general. Let’s move on.

I hold my breath when a bird slams against my window. I hear the slam, the ouch of it and it sharps my lungs. They stop, as if they have seen and heard what I did. We go out into the garden, my lungs and I, to check. Mostly these birds slam wing first. They sit a bit, we talk a bit, I crouch on the steps. Little heads turn to me and away, always watching for the hawks, the predators. Not while I’m here with you, I soothe. Sometimes I can pick them up, the wing-slammers, and they clutch onto my fingers, settle in my palm. I can feel their heartbeat through my fingers, daring to, longing to live on. I can run a soft finger down their spine, from head to tail, encouraging blood flow, offering peace, renewal. They take their time, enjoying the connection perhaps, and then fly off. The head-butters don’t rise again, and again there’s a breath stop when I find them crashed on the concrete. Such beauty, so many colours, a pitch for life downed.

Music can hold my breath. I don’t know why. Who does? A superb lift of harmony, melody, a spectacular change of key, from major to minor and back again, the words clear to me in the agony, the joy, the wild, the wild of music. Could be classical, could be the music and lyrics I listened to through angsty teen years, could be songs of longing, of loss, of fury, of celebration panning decades. Something will suddenly touch me, even if I am caught up in a recipe or a to-do list and my breath will stop, just for a catch, just for a moment.

Could be something someone says, a compliment, a line of words that tell me a person has actually seen me, got me. Now that’s a rare breath catch, and no mistake.

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Island Blog – Dividing Walls, Yesterday People

Today was a strange wandering. I’ve been here before, in this strange wandering thing. Dreams are interrupticating, waking me in a surety, which becomes a questioning, which then becomes a cold reality. What I left behind as I fell asleep, is there to greet me on waking. It’s as if I have wandered through many doorways, many dividing walls, meeting, as I do, those who no longer need shoes, nor do an earthly walking, the yesterday people. I rose, as ever, made coffee, triangulated my thoughts, pulling them into a shape I could manage, although I was never good at triangulation to be honest, even as I completely got it. However, I knew this day would be a day of challenge. I am up for this, I said, out loud, as I sipped coffee and looked out on Venus and heard the rise of another hooligan. that’s island speke for a big gale, btw.

I touch my skin, my throat. I know I still have voice, still am upstanding, still competent, still strong. Looking out into the darkling and recalcitrant sunrise, I begin to release the night, the dreams. I am here. Many are not, and I won’t be some day. However, I know how important it is to acknowledge these dividing walls, t’ween the dead and the living. I still meet my husband in doorways. I still find what I’ve lost in doorways, I remember things in doorways. The symbol of a doorway transects worlds. Have you ever walked through a doorway and felt an immediate desire to run? I certainly have.

I remember music in doorways, no matter the noise within the house, music which impacted me way back, a cathedral perhaps, the entrance to a theatre, the turn through an arch and the switch left to see African dancers on a street, the duck under an arch to find candles and a warm fire in a welcoming cottage. I remember. I know that, every single time, I walk in other’s footsteps, many thousands in some cases, a few in others, but. I feel it.

Today, as I went out, as I always do, to greet walkers with a dog or two, I was barefoot and stood on a thorn. The wind was a slam dunk, the rain cold, slicing. We laughed, talked, and I turned back to the same doorway that brought me all those smiles, that dogfest, minus the thorn.

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Island Blog – Hallo You

I’m watching high-flying gulls cant in the wind. The gusts are punching down here, pushing over open-mouthed wheelies or sending them into a scuttle down the track. Trees bow and bend, whipping around as if to protect themselves as they feint and duck as best they can. Unlike gulls, eagles, anybirds, they, like us, are somewhat pinned to the earth. It thinks me, as I look up at the majesty of soaring. Even the clouds look bonkers, scudding like ducks, splitting from cumulus into wisps of rejection, only to disappear into the white light. What thinks me is this. How strong we are. How tough, how resilient, and how we can rise from any threat to our lives. Even loss. Even bereavement. Even the darkest of times.

This is one of those times for those I know.

I know we aren’t birds, we can’t fly, we can’t lift nor dynamically rise as if not caring a jot, nor would that ever be a human thing. We are grounded, thus we care. We are rooted, thus we care. Enter confusion. Sorry….Confusion. Someone precious was just there, weren’t they? Wasn’t she? Well, hell yes, all loud and bubbling over with music and energy and fabulous clothes and a feisty mouth and the look of a pixie with mischief on her mind. And, now, she has lifted away. I doubt she is flying with gulls, although she may be, but she is definitely a flyer. Where might she be? Over forest, mountain cold, desert hot, or skimming down an ordinary street somewhere, juking, diving, canting, lifting? She leaves so much love down here, a rising warmth to lift her into the whatever. I don’t know what I believe about the next bit, but the big shut-off idea does nothing for me. I’m a hoper. And, as the sun pushes the damn wind away, for now, shining my windows into a murky embarrassment, I smile.

Hallo you, darling you.