myself

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Island Blog – So Who Am I?

Answering for myself, and honestly, I am reckless, spontaneous, loving, able to say sorry, aware, intuitive. I make endless mistakes, move too quick into situations, pull back too quick as well. I am naughty, looking always and everywhere for the chance of harmless mischief, wherein, I have noticed, only I ever get sent to the corner. How is it, I ask myself, that this still defines me at almost 72? I have no answer for that one. I think that, finally, I have come to terms with what seems to run like blood through my veins. I just can’t not be who I am.

Controlled, or so it seems, by these qualities, and as a youngster, I found myself often having to apologise for my, well, self, because in those days I heard, until it almost took me out, the rules by which it was acceptable to present oneself, and they just did not fit. Music began, my feet tapped into jig; someone said something and I was unable not to respond. I moved away from encounters, situations, circumstances feeling like a blue alien all the way up to when the rulebook annulled me. I remember that time, the compliance strangling me like a corset, and it was the same as a young wife. Oh, a lot of me was ‘acceptable’, until it wasn’t and the ‘wasn’t’ came from someone else. It was like living in a constant storm. Funny, is it not, that our past continues to trigger things in our present? However, and notwithstanding all that learning and behaving and feeling corseted on the way to strangulation, I now believe I have held on to me.

The wind is high tonight, red in the weather app, but that app isn’t promising 70mph gusts, as of last weekend, scary as hell. These gusts are coming in from the other direction, and at the most, 40mph. Piddling, really, in a land and history of a great deal of gusting. It thinks me. Sideswipes come at all of us throughout our lives, gusts which could, if we let them, take us down. I don’t like being down. So, what do we do to prepare for that which might come, and often does? Now that is a good question, a very good one. My belief is that we all have the power to stand, as a self, against any constrictive or blasting force outside of who we know we are. We cannot control the weather without, but we most definitely can control the weather within. No matter the corsetry constraints of youth and beyond, we know who we are. The hard part is stepping out in those boots. It’s worth it, I promise you, no matter the battle.

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Island Blog – The Trouble with Labels

I would say, and have said, how much I hate labels. Let me explain. The first time I met them, there were four, written down and explained by an author whose name escapes me. At first, it felt reassuring to discover I was thus labelled, at some big business meeting, somewhere, way back when. It was exciting, because it was as if I had finally discovered me, the who of me, and it explained a lot – why I never had my endless questions answered, why I was the LOUD in the room, how I could walk into any gathering like a new adventure just arrived, startling everyone, and, unfortunately, receiving glares and go-aways from those in the other three categories.

Over many long years, with that label pinned to my chest, I have spent time breaking it down, because it was so finite, and that sort of blockage is anathema to me. Life and people are a flow, ever changing and adapting, so that labels, fine on something you want to buy, are little short of irrelevant when it comes to human beings. When I look back at the definitions of each of the four tyrpes of human, I can see myself in every one of them, at times, when required. Let me list them, if you don’t know what I mean:-

Choleric – strong-willed, passionate, direct. Melancholic – introvert, sensitive, suspicious.

Phlegmatic – neat, diplomatic, reliable. Sanguine – extrovert, optimistic, talkative.

I am all of these, when I need to be. I believe we all are. How would we not be all of them at times? One label does not define any one of us. Take People Pleasers, for example. Does anyone want to be stuck in that set of chains? Of course not. I can happily relate to my passion for making sure others are happy. I am sensitive and observant and can make a room of mis-matched humans into a happening, a melding of unlike minded souls, just by choosing the right music, the right time to say something, the right time to say nothing and just to listen, the right time to move towards a soul alone and to engage with gentle questions. All this does not label me a people pleaser, and leave me there because I, like you, am moving on. Life is swerving us, compromising our decisions and choices, picking away at our incomes like seagulls on chips, and we are adapting because we are strong and resolute. We are passionate but suspicious. We turn out neat, can be diplomatic and reliable, as we can also be strong-willed, optimistic and sensitive.

What we are, if a label is ever required, is dynamic. I, and you, I’m guessing, have denied self in the interests of others and the situation. We have been determined and strong-willed when a situation requires a leader and we are that leader. We have been introvert at times, extrovert at others. We have flexed and moved, stopped and turned to stone, elevated another, then thought that one through and grown wings for ourselves. We are passerine.

This merry season is a challenge for so many, perhaps for us all. Moneyed up or not, there is pressure. Please remember how far you have come, through (very possibly) many ghastlies, and who you are now. Not one label, not two, not twenty two. No labels. We are extraordinary humans, able to twist in any storm, able to guide others to safe landing. We are quiet and we are the voice that saves the day. We are passionate but able to hear another’s opinion and to consider. We are neat but don’t judge those who are not. We are suspicious but not of everything and everyone. We are always reliable, doing every task whether someone is watching or not. We are talkative but can laugh when someone says Shut up. We are all of this.

Someone recently asked me my advice for the day. I could only think of one thing.

Keep moving, watching, listening and learning, and, above all, recognising and saying hallo to every single person you meet along the way. They just might need it.

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Island Blog – Equinoctial

When you find yourself, suddenly, as an author, as if you’ve suddenly elevated to some level above everyone else, with the looking down puff up that comes with so called fame, albeit momentary, it is not what you originally thought it might be. Told, as I was, that I need to blog to engage with Facebook, to put myself out there, no matter how much I might hate being the focus, how much I still hate my body, how little confidence I have when everyone is looking at me and waiting for something. For what? Oh I got that bit. People, my people, my could be friends are looking up at me and I don’t like it. I was down there with you, but yesterday, playing on the streets, hooling the hoop, laughing in the lunch queue, swapping stories of how frickin awful the weather was on wash day, and how much we hate Mondays. I remember, deciding, I had to move back home. Now, let me be clear. I did not, and never will, elevate myself because of what I have achieved. What I have achieved, what any other person has achieved, tells me absolutely nothing about who they are, who I am. Are we good to our partner, kids, family? Are we kind, always, understanding, always? Are we able to forget self in moments of stricture and irritation. Are we? That is how we are, in truth.

I felt the cold today, the nudge of Autumn. I have a few jerseys (jumpers in American) and I required a more substantial one today. And that, jumper, jersey thing brings me to a point. As I write, a blog, or read other stories, or listen to them, I hear a word I thought I knew well being ‘wrongly’ presented. I check it out. The Brits have one way of spelling this word and omg the Americans have moved a whole consonant. My musical mind, the heretofore understood mathematics of language rising up in me like Mozart in a mood, fights this. It was spelled this way, for ever! But not now. Now we flex, those of us who will. We become equinoctial even when being that close to any change is, at best, a right pain in the mental arse, at worst, a tsunami.

I felt the chill today. Actually, that is pants. I felt it a wee while ago, but did the whole pretend thing, and amn’t I great at that! It isn’t that I don’t want the equinoctial change, I love it, but there is a difference when we get older. I think of all those who are terrified of the long winter months without support, without food. I have never been there, but I see it and, as I write from a place of stone-build, a fire burning and food in my fridge, choices even, my humble stumbles. If writing could change anything, I would write it. Even as I say that, I know that brave journalists, brave writers have done exactly that. I bow to them.

We allow ourselves to become so caught up in our own stuff. I do it myself. But, but, and but again, when I notice I am all caught up in the sludge of ME, and it sickens me enough to march up the stairs, to dress myself, to pull on my boots and to step out even though that judge inside my head is urging Rest, Don’t Bother, Stay Home, Do Nothing, I push through and it is a push. Once outside the door, I breathe in the cold, hear the Robin, see the rain, feel it, watch the bowing of roses in the wind. I get in my car and I go. I’m not sure where, but the where of where I was is not the where I want. I want to embrace a change, not as a watcher, but as an integral part. I want to be equinoctial.

I have no idea how to do this, have no plans, but I reckon, am sure, that there are gazillions of people who will be right there, clueless, like me, wanting change, scared stiff, stuck, fed up, lonely.

Hallo You.

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Island Blog – Ouches

Ouches. I’m unsure there is a plural for an Ouch, but it can so feel like there is, or are, at times when one just doesn’t cut it. Well, it does ‘cut it’ but in multiple directions, like fissures. Too many esses in that word methinks. Backing to the point……

This morning he left, my big African son. He came to be with me after surgery and stayed just over two weeks of big son in doorways, that smile as wide as a continent, those big warm arms, that massive heart, that love in his eyes. We are so easy together. He worked with his coaching clients, stacked my load of wood, repaired a collapso chairo, went through the Spider Darkness of the dodgy understair cupboard, which, back in the yore of yore was a corridor, and they are always dodgy. I remember, as a little boots, on my tricycle, scooting a corridor in a big house/boy’s school and it was miles, and there were rats (yes, there were) and I was there pinging away on my bell and heading for Cook in the huge steamy kitchen with her buns and her smiles and her bosomy welcome. I pedalled like a dingblast. You never saw such footwork. It was darkling, old place, old lighting, possible rat attack, always a thingy. Parents were well into gins and fizz and nonsense and there was me, or I, on my tricycle. I was a brave one, even then, or was I just after Cook’s buns. They were spectacular, but you decide.

He left in the beginning. Morning was pushing Night away with her flaming torch, the sky flipping fire. I was in ma goonie and with coffee to hand. I am fine with this, I can do this, I can let him go off and up into his own life, I said to myself and she, as usual, did this folded arms thing and smirked. And, the daylight was light enough for me. I cleared old clothes, tidied the Spider Darkness and found a few things I had thought swallowed up by the Mouthie past. That chattering reminder of all we failed at, didn’t say, did say, wish we had done, wish we hadn’t done.

But as light concedes to dark, day to night, I miss him, our sundowners, flicking on the twinkly winkly lights, the jacking up of the wood burner, the shared tunes, the dances. And we did it all. And I am so thankful. Although there are many ouches, there is a fricken wealth of memories and I have them all, right here beside me, inside my heart. I can go there any time I feel an ouch.

As I walked today, knowing I would return to the alone of my life, I looked up at the leaves still falling from the beech trees, the caper of their float down, like dancers, a capricious play with the breeze, and I thought, there is so much pain in our broken world, and so much beauty, in loss, in struggle, in play, in dance, in moments shared, even in the ouches. We grow from all of it, even the shit of of it. Have a wonderful weekend. I will. There will be ouches. There always are.

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Island Blog – Hallo and Thank you

Today I woke too early, my head full of monsters. Will I have major or minor surgery? Will I be strong enough to deal with it all? What will be the treatment after? Will I forget my headphones? (locate my headphones), or miss the ferry because the milk lorry has capsized in the Glen? Will I arrive, as I did for the Nearly Dead hospital visit, with one nightie, no cardy and no tweezers? Tweezers? Seriously? Will my little beloved dog fall ill when I’m away, and how long will I be away? Will the chimney sweep come, will the garden go to riot because I’m not watching it? Okay, you get the monsters. They all say YES, to all of the above, of course they do, the negative bastards.

Right, you lot, I said, startling the small dog into barks and a leap from her bed. Right! No, Wrong! You is NOT getting me in a right fankle at 04.30 whilst still inside my nightie (take 3, maybe four, do I have four?) and with my eyes barely focussed, you is not. We all rose from the tangle of duvet and I did try to leave them upstairs but they had a different plan. We watched the early birds, the light spreading over the sea-loch, over my garden, over the land, like a new story. Heretofore, this has given me a new vision, a new day, a new dawn, but this morning, no. The damn monsters of fear and anxiety, of a still resident exhaustion in my battle to be undead, kept up their clatter-chatter. It is a longtime since I had to fight them in this way. I tell myself, it is okay to feel these feelings, but it isn’t okay at all because they give me indigestion and backache and a squiffy head and no inner peace. I tell myself that anyone else would feel this way, but that doesn’t help either.

Do I not appreciate the support and love from my family, friends and blog readers? Yes, I do very much. So, why isn’t that enough? It thinks me, a lot and those thinks lead me to the (possible) conclusion that, no matter how many are around us, surround us, we ultimately sail alone. We need to manage our own craft across all sorts of dodgy oceans. In the knowing of that, I managed the hours of today, just. I rested a lot, read a whole book, walked into Tapselteerie and met not one soul, something that would normally delight me, but not today. Today I wished for an encounter, just a wee hallo and a passing chat. I went to the shop for a few bits now that my ‘recovery’ and ‘preparation’ demands a whole load of dark green vegetables, pulses, seeds and probiotics. I didn’t even know what that meant before now. I just cooked and ate.

I have decided that this living alone thing is not much fun, not when you want a Resident Familiar to proffer balance in the face of inner monsters. That smile, that joke, that ‘come on, let’s go out for coffee’, or to the beach, or something. Although my Resident Familiar left the relationship a long time ago when dementia arrived to take up residence, he was still here, a sometimes warm, living Familiar. I don’t want him back, but that is not the point. When a girl is swept off her feet at just 18 when she still has no idea about life beyond the parental home, she can be forgiven for feeling somewhat lost after 50 bonkers years of marriage to a dominant male and on the adventure of a lifetime. Being alone means I have to instigate everything and others, who have a Resident Familiar, are, well, busy until next Tuesday. I get that. I was always busy till next Tuesday, and for decades. But, on the other side of that, being alone is marvellous, so freeing, so uplifting, so damn new. How bizarre.

I am not moaning. Tomorrow will come and will proffer a new set of ideas, new feelings. Today is just today. So why do I write a blog? Should I not, instead, keep all of this to myself so as to spare whoever reads these words? Possibly, but I have been a polite girl/woman for a very long time and right now I feel raw and bloody and honest and congruent. I don’t want phone chats, don’t want visitors, don’t want anything at all, in truth, other than for these feelings to melt away. I am effortlessly positive as a rule because that is how I see this gift of a life. Perhaps, then, I am simply in a place I do not recognise, one that upskittles me, tries to trip me right over. Yes, that’s it. I don’t know this terrain and it is hostile. Simples. And it really helps to write and to post. Really, it does. In writing out my feelings about whatever is going on, and to send it into the ether, whatever that is, my spirits lift into a reassurance, that no face to face contact can give me. I think of you all, in Canada, In the States, in Englandshire, in Scotland, on islands across the world, and I reach out, saying, through my own stories, Hallo and Thank you for being there, for clicking on the ‘follow’ link to my blog, for reading my words. I also imagine your lives, tough at times, maybe many many times, easy here and there, the infuriations, the lifts, the shocks, the abundance and the lack. The bones of a life, the flesh and the guts of an ordinary/extraordinary time on this goodly earth. Life, I love you. I truly do.

See? I feel better now, just writing this. Hallo you all. And Thankyou.

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Island Blog – An Interesting Day

Yesterday was interesting. My dad used to employ that word when I came downstairs in my going outfit for the night, if he just couldn’t find it in himself to say You Look Wonderful. I know there is a rather less than uplifting blessing that goes ‘May you live in interesting times’ so you get my drift. Not only did I wave off, through lashing rain and a fog of bleary tears, my beloved son and his family after 6 years of knowing they were home and just up the track from me offering chances to babysit, eat birthday cakes, share Sunday lunches, Christmas and Easter feasts or even just a pop to the shop after a wail for milk and bread, plus all ensuing echoes, but more. Two more mores, to be exact, thus far. I relax somewhat knowing the way the universe works, the cycle of life (Birth, Mid-life Crisis, Death), and other threesomes we all know well, but still my Fearty is alert. Allow me to expand on the thing of three:-

After the tear bleary, rain, farewell thingy, I turned back to Myself, resisting the urge to shove her out of my way, she with whom I am left. Suddenly a loud report. No, that is not enough. It was as if a rifle had gone off inside my home. I stilled like a rabbit in headlights. Checking the electricity meter for a trip, requiring the elevation of a chair, my glasses and a torch, I found all switches in the correct position. I dashed upstairs in search of loudly fallen things, the outside for what, a chimney pot, a fallen angel, I didn’t know. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Cautiously I advanced on the evening, or it advanced on me but I was jumpy, I am jumpy here alone. with just Myself and the dog and all responsibility for loud reports entirely on my old shoulders. I watched something, ate something, took myself to bed.

Next morning I went to clean the wood burner glass and AHA! After 18 years of soundless obedience, one pane of glass had split from left to right. That explained the rifle shot. Nothing dead after all. But, and here the rabbit freezes again, can I light the damn thing? Will the glass shatter when I am down the shop thus setting fire not only to my carpets but to those of my semi-detached neighbours? Am I to freeze this winter, me, Myself and the dog knowing that our only form of heating is this trusty and, till recently, obedient wood burner? I foundered on the rocks of this dilemma for some darkling hours this morning, until I shook my feathers, unruffled them and decided to put on a wash. I did as I always do, fill the belly of my trusty and obedient drum with bed sheets etc, add eco wash liquid and softener, set the dial for eco wash (28 minutes) and retired to sip coffee whilst watching the full moon and wishing it was 8 am and. not 6 am. I heard the water come in. Then, nothing. I won’t bore you with the whole try again, stop it, empty the drum, switch it off and on again, check the filter, sort the flood.

So, now (and it is still not 8 am) I am facing calls to my insurers for the washing machine and a further call for replacement glass for the woodburner. I almost can’t face it. More coffee and I can still see the bloody moon all big and round and beautiful up there in the last bit of sky she can inhabit before morning shoves her off his shoulders. It thinks me just as the Fearty calls up disaster mode. I could listen, I am tempted, but I am alone now and not only do I have to sort these myself but I also have a duty to fun and mischief. Ah! There I am, the me I have known ever since my dad wavered with his words. Whatever comes at me, whatever someone else thinks that might compromise my own thinks, I am me. Nobody else is me (and you want to be very grateful for that) and it reminds me of long ago. I remember it, I do, the way disaster hit (so perceived) and it would have been me who found a broomstick and leaped aboard with an invitation to join, for there is always a way to sort things. Perhaps not to completely fix the broken, but, then again, maybe that’s how it needs to be. Inventive thinking, light moving shift thinking, dynamic thinking, outside of the norm thinking, potential thinking, yes, yes and yes.

The world has a strong voice, not loud but nagging. You should. This is, you are, you shouldn’t, it is how it is, accept the rules, give up, conform, accept defeat.

No! that’s what I said, as I pushed aside Myself (she is a bit too conformist at times) and the Fearty, although I am kind to her – she is just momentarily scared, and I made those calls. In 45 minutes I traversed at least 4 continents and met with some delightful people. I hope I have a washing machine engineer coming. I ordered replacement glass for the wood burner and also established that I can still enjoy the warmth of a contained fire in the interim. I walked past the empty house and heard the echoes of children playing, the music, the doors open to let in the sun and found myself deeply thankful for all the memories.

An interesting day.

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Island Blog – All Things Possible

It’s the day today, the second anniversary of being dead, for him. I felt it looming for some time now, for days, weeks, even a month or two, like exam results. No matter how quickquick I was to brush away the bluebottles, they kept buzzing. I am not sentimental, I said. Firmly. I do not recognise dead anniversaries. Birthdays, yes. I always remember the loved dead because birthdays are happy days even if my father-in-law would be a walking fossil by now. I remember him upright and gentle, a gentleman, a man of few words but with a million of them behind his eyes and his silence. I see them, the dead who matter to me, in their smile state. Those times of throw back laughter and shared jokes, of kindnesses and all of them around my table, sharing turkey or cake. Their date with death was just for them, not for me, even if I was there when they slipped off into light, reconnections and peace.

But this day is a bit closer to home, both in time and relationship. He was my husband, my life partner, my Captain Impossible. He wasn’t always impossible but the impossibles began to show early on in our shared life. My own too, I have no doubt but we can never see our own impossibles now can we? I think back but cannot point my bent old poking digit to an exact date nor time. I just know the confusion began when I still had the right amount of hair in the right places, my limbs plump and strong, my mind agile and fleet as a deer. Perhaps he saw it too but he would never be drawn on such an Alice wander into the complex labyrinth of emotions. He did logic. He wandered one way, I another and we met now and then at a water hole. This is how it is and, I am discovering, for everyone, or almost everyone.

I didn’t go to the grave. He isn’t there, anyway and the very thought of leaving flowers is anathema to me. They would die, gasping for water and I won’t be the perp of that. Instead I went out to lunch with a friend, conscious of the time, the dying time, the very last breath issued through half smiling lips. It was important for me to inhabit the now of my life. That’s what I felt, even if the now is lonely and scary and confusing. I ask Myself (wait for it) what I remember feeling when Captain Impossible was here beside me, well, at the odd water hole, and she (yes) snorts and reminds me in a louder voice than is entirely necessary, that I also felt lonely, scared and confused when he lived and breathed. I sigh. She is right, but somehow this feels worse. Worse than what? she is rolling her eyes now. I wish you could see her all punchy and dynamic and in ridiculous heels. He is, sorry was, here and now he is not. But you are here, free, strong, able and mobile, almost straight, bar the bent old poking digit, and there are days ahead, rooms ahead, times ahead, your head ahead. I nod said head. She is right again.

So, after my stripping down and lifting up (how does she do that?) I move into the sunshine evening of the day I didn’t want to remember but did anyway. It is passing. and will be gone tomorrow. Tomorrow there will be music and cake and I don’t care if it rains or not because I will walk and watch the ebb or flood of a new tide, see the geese straggle-strong pump their wings above the sea-loch, watch the sparrow chatterboxes on my fence, wave at passing visitors, read good prose and remind myself of the man who stole my heart, my life, my everything and who is now, no doubt, steering heaven into a new orbit.

My nearly daughter stopped for a fence chinwag. I made some joke about my not being chosen by Jesus for a sunbeam yet. She said ‘I bet Popz is telling Him No, not yet, good heavens lord, not yet! She was enough trouble in life. Give me a break…..” She is probably right.

So this is for you today, you, Husband, Dad, Grandad, Popz, Fairbs, Richard. Captain Impossible who made all things Possible.

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Island Blog – A Feisty Queen

Waking after a good sleep to the moon, huge and bright, her mountains shadowy. She isn’t full yet but will be tonight. So long we island folk have missed sight of her, clouded thick and rained off as if dissolved completely. Funny how important it is to be able to see the moon (and the sun) and after many many weeks of a closed day/night sky, I can feel a joy run through me. It was midnight when we met. She lay heavy on my bed, waking me, her lemony gold light pushing around the blackout curtains, strong as a policeman’s torch. I got up to welcome her. She hung powerful in the black, throwing her light down into the sea-loch, lifting it into an eerie luminosity, rippled, soft, almost green. I heard oystercatchers up way too late and, in the distance, the scream of some creature calling out the last of its life. It didn’t last long.

Some days are full of fun and laughter like the lift of a kingfisher, all sudden and electric blue and unexpected, or the happy cries of children, or a kindly word from a friend or stranger. Other days can be quiet and unresponsive, seemingly tired of being ‘just’ a day. Little things can elevate a mind, blow away the closed sky, open it wide to the sun or the moon, bring a gasp. But these are not little things, not in my thinking. Little things are such as a household shop, taking out the bin, opening a bill, tidying a room, making a bed. Big things always involve people. People change everything. A chance encounter with a kingfisher is a wonderful thing but I want to share it. I want to point and say Look, There! It’s the same with the moon, or Father Sun when He finally battles his way through the endless cloud. I want to share it all.

Although Myself does, as you know, a lot of snorting, she is a mate. She is always here and I now recognise her value to me. Chances are she snorts at this too, but I am busy writing and she knows not to disturb me at such times. I also get that people talk to themselves. I am doing it all the time and it isn’t weird as is generally perceived. When there was another here, I didn’t need her. Now I do. And I am thankful. However, in the perception of the world, I might be seen as a weirdo. Well, no change there. I decide to fully engage. I still love people interactions, still need them, we all do or we end up in a silence that I’m not sure is healthy. But I do know that being alone and out of kilter with that alone-ness is just a state of being and I have gone through plenty of those, all those transitions, all those changes over so many years. And what I understood every time is that my full engagement with the uncomfortable process handed me the key. I must re-kilter. If I can accept and allow whatever life has thrown my way then I take control, not of it, but of me, and that is empowering.

I love a full moon these days because I have her number. Instead of allocating all blame to her, my mood swing, my lack of sleep etcetera, I welcome her. I ask her what she is teaching me about the bloody hoopla of womanhood, the lies that fetter a woman, the controls that imprison her. She doesn’t bother my sleep any more and I love to wake to her voice, to watch her fill the night with all her power. Controlling the tides, the women of the world, the weather, she is, indeed, a feisty queen, whether I can see her or not.

Feisty Queen. I wouldn’t mind that on my gravestone.

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Island Blog – A Glorious Freedom

I set myself a challenge. This day I will not say a single negative word about a single soul, and, if a negative thought comes in about any said soul, I will picture them happy, laughing, safe, peaceful. Easy Peasy from my breakfast table, easy indeed from the early hour within which I awoke to a new day. T’was a lovely soft morning, the moon still hovering, the sun rising pink across the over-by hills. No worries.

I set off on the alpine switchback road to the little harbour town to hook up with a friend for a bench picnic, feeling quite the thing, until I met a ‘toddler’. This is a car inhabited by, usually, two old folks, with no plans to hurry. However, the driver does have plans. Whilst he, usually a ‘he’, and his she are watching the sky for birds, the hills for a Wow, the sudden dips that show deep lochs all blue and fabulous, and causing them to slide to an almost stop mid road, I am about to be late for my bench picnic meet. I hold back, understanding, until my understanding muscle is a taught rope, and I, politely, move closer. No change. We swing around another 25 bends passing endless passing places, and still he will not let me pass. Incoming friendly suggests to me that he might now pause so that he and his she can watch the flowers grow without me in my sassy Mini Cooper hooking onto his old butt. No, he pulls out quick. He stays his course. I hear my inner talk. He is telling me I should not be in a rush. I consider this ‘rush’ thingy. Ah, maybe he is right. Maybe I, too, can watch the flowers grow for another 8 miles. I think on the past year when the only people I ever met on this single track were carriers, workers, carers, the postpeople. All of a sudden, the toddlers are back and I know, I know, we need them and they are welcome and I love all people ya-di-ya.

Eventually he lets me by and his face is turned away from my ebullient sunshine thank you smile. Okay, whatever. I collect my friend and I tell her of my personal challenge for the day. She chuckles. Ah, you may have invited in something there my friend. Ha! I say and we swing into the big harbour car park because I need fuel and this is where the garage is located. As I drive in, just as I have done for over 43 years towards the pumps, a big ass vehicle comes right at me, nose to nose. I stop, thinking no judgement, and reverse back. As he (!) comes forward he winds down his window. I smile. I think you will find that this is a one way system, he says. For a moment I am confounded. A lot goes through my head. I have been here 43 years. I know this is the way to the pumps, or one of two ways. I see no one way system sign. Then I feel outrage build. But I cannot allow it because of my stupid self challenge. My friend beside me snorts into her hands and the giggle rises in me. I didn’t say Why, Thank you Kind Sir For Guiding Me Right. Sadly. I wasn’t quick enough with myself. I just looked at him in amazement. I thought, gosh how sad your life is that you need to be aggressive on your holiday. And I binned that because I wasn’t seeing him happy, laughing, safe and peaceful. What shall we we do now? asked my friend. This was an easy answer. We, I replied, are going to drive all the way around the one way system that does exist, the wrong way. And we did.

The picnic was fab. We sat on a bench in the sunshine having bought quiches from the bakery and we laughed like girls. We are both heading for 70 but somehow nothing changes when girls/women get together. We laughed about the One Way Man and sent him whatever he needs which is probably quite a lot, and walked, talked and helped the Navy moor up their ships on the pontoon. What I learned from this, from my self challenge, is that irritation is human, hard not to buy in to. But not to buy into it feels like a glorious freedom.

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Island Blog – Conversation

I miss it. Conversation. Talking to myself is all very well but I know what is coming next, in the main. This morning, from 4 am, I soaked some sun-dried tomatoes in fragrant herby oil, washed spinach leaves for later, ironed my latest baby playmat and ate breakfast at 5. This means I feel like lunch by 11 so I asked the clock not to look at me like that and proceeded to fry 3 small slices of Hallumi cheese, adding salad, tomatoes and olives. Lunch done by 11.15. Now what? I’m bored of you, I tell myself. I can sense her behind me. She is a bit huffy at first but she is me and me stands her ground. We face each other. Look, I say, no offence but we have been stuck together since March 14th 2020 and apart from Himself #compromisedandsilent, carers, nurses and doctors, it has been just us. I think we have both aged ten years. It certainly looks like it in those mirrored reflections. We have just run out of interesting things to say to each other. Oh, we can jibber about what to eat for lunch, and jabber about timing for a dog walk or the rain or puddles or the mail arriving or if this tree will finally land on the house having threatened it, noisily, for days now, but it is just is not enough. Not any more. Our thrill today was two phone calls, one to call me in for a covid jag and the second to tell my my application for a postal vote is being considered. The excitement is deafening.

After we have talked awhile, she suggests, as we are both extremely tired, that we watch some TV. TV? Inside the daylight? You are so kidding me, no way. Aw, come on, she soothes. I know that tone and I bristle. We are weary and bored of each other, she reminds me. I feel a bit uncomfortable as I hadn’t considered she was bored of me too, but I got over that quickquick. Stand, ground etc. I capitulate. I don’t want to sew, nor clear the mess in the garden, nor lug in the logs, nor pretty much everything else. Ok, I concede and make tea. Call the Midwife, that will do nicely. I turn my back to the light, to the view, to the window and the rain and slump down in my horrible cream leather armchair with push button leg elevation thing. I bought these horrible cream leather sitapons for easy wiping down when Himself was dropping food like there was no tomorrowland. Anyway, once I have watched one, cried every time a baby was born and moved on to the next, I know she made the right decision for us both. It passed the time for starters and somehow calmed me. Now that thinks me.

Triggers. I was told and in no uncertain terms by my mother-in-law that sitting down in the daytime was unforgivable, as was buying myself flowers or a ring, definitely not that. Watching TV in the daylight was about the worst of them all. It was perfectly fine for men to do that, to watch cricket or football or Parliament in session but not for we women. Good god no. We should be ironing, washing, preparing food, preserving fruits, shelling peas, that sort of thing. We could read a book as long as it was a cookery book or one that guided us through the vast and imprisoning rulebook on wifedom, motherhood and active community engagement. It seems that trigger is alive and kicking for I feel it sharp-toothed and even have to check that my guide on How To Be The Perfect Woman isn’t standing right behind me with that look on her face. Ah. Let us take a look at this. It bizarres me in this considerably more freeing but not finished yet by a long chalk culture around what women should and should not do or be, that the voices of my past still hold sway.

I walk the dog, a bit wearily I must confess and she, the dog, was a tad miffed at the shortness of it, but it was raining and I was weary and just how much do you think I care about that? All over her face, yes, it was. Home, and some exercise for Henry who was surprisingly agile considering all that time he sits on his butt in the cupboard under the stairs with the spiders and the mice and the old photos of people nobody has a clue about. I am glad the gale has blown herself out. She was way too loud for me. I wonder where she is gone? Does a gale dissipate, fliffle away to nothing or does she hit another shore with the same ferocity she brought to bear here? I don’t know. I am just happy to have her gone. I see the branches, limbs, strewn across the track, in my garden. The bird seed is everywhere but on the table. But it is quiet now. There is peace now. And for that I am thankful.

The fire burns merrily. I am safe with myself and she’s a good egg to be honest. I suspect this marriage of minds is complex. We have never had so long together, never. There was always someone else, or someone elses to chip in comment, demand, decide, guide, lead and support. Now it is just us. It may take awhile to learn how to live together.