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Island Blog – A Wasp, a Wander and a Whole new Rhythm

Hot it is and sunny, too hot to sit for more than a few minutes in the full glare of heat and light. I find myself a chair beside the pool shaded by a lovely tree with dangly fruit, the name of which escapes me, if, indeed, I ever knew. The dapples lift and sway in the breeze as if shading me with a pencil as well as with their limbs. I watch the dragonflies rainbow across the surface of the water, no bumping into each other, no animosity. Does animosity only exist among animals, humans too because we are, aren’t we, animals? A queen wasp who looks more like an exotic kite, pushes her way through a tiny hole in the masonry. I must remember to tell my African son about that, because one queen means a gazillion eggs, means a whole lot of aggressive fliers after hatching, and right above the stoep. Swatting is no fun over cocktails, not when the number of swattees far outnumber the hands of the swatters, and besides, these wasps can jig and spin away, return almost silently with a sting in mind on that wide open neckline or that bare arm. I was stung by an ordinary English wasp once on a Norfolk beach. I suspect the sting was a quick reaction to its shooting full speed into my ear, for I had just stood up to fold my towel for the homeward trudge. Get up child, now and fold your towel! I blamed my mother for the ensuing pain and swelling, the sleepless night throughout which I had that wasp pulled apart slowly by wasp haters, to be tossed into the sea, preferably 2 miles out. The African wasps are rather beautiful, lighter in body and spreadier of wings, ones with little peacock eyes at the ends that flutter charmingly. However, I am not fooled by this fluttering beauty. A wasp is a wasp and that’s a fact.

I have read four books since arriving and that happies me as reading is my second favourite pastime, writing being the first. I had wandered through the garden centre under that ferocious sun to find the little second hand bookshop. I chatted with the owner and then browsed a pleasant browse in the cool of fans as the power was off, again. The power cuts, or load sheddings, come 3 or 4 times every 24 hours including during the night when even the deepest slumber is sweated awake for a while of tossing and unsticking. I get used to it and many folk have generators which thinks me of the sound of stopping. The sound of stopping is the sound of a generator, many generators, all humming and chugging, thrumming and backfiring so that the whole town changes its beat. It is also the sound of other stops, other stoppage, other stopping. When I stop, at the kerb, say, I stop the beat of my feet. When I stop the music, there is the sound of silence. When snow falls or the wind drops, or someone runs out of words, there is a new sound as if I enter a new space completely.

As the power is returned to us, the sound is of sighs or relief, of a yay lifting into the air, perhaps startling it into fractal lines, a mosaic only noticed by those who notice. Watch it lift away to allow the new beat, the old beat, the rhythm of electric power. See how the mosaic becomes air once more, the delight in that ‘yay’ breaking up and separating to create space, no bumping, no animosity, whereas most of us down below, grounded, irritated, hot and stressed can only think of internet connection and the frustration at being ‘stopped’, jagged punchlines and a lot of grumbles. I drink coffee at a table beneath a huge jacaranda, its trunk age old and lost beneath the wooden decking, growing and rooting without interference, and offering in return, plenty shade for wanderers like me. I watch others go by on their own business, busy with agenda perhaps, time constraints, a list to complete and in time. I notice the change as the power returns, the dance in passing feet, the smile on faces and I smile to myself. The down here world has a lot of opportunities for bumping, confines, restraints, shouty bosses, deadlines and my favourite not favourite, companies who value profit over the well-being of their employees. Is it all that space in the sky that allows for a gentle symbiosis I wonder or do they, the dragonflies, wasps, bees, and other flying things, also struggle for space to beat their own beat? Are we so far behind in our learning on how to live together that we are in danger of a whole load of bumping or are we really good at living a grounded life? I don’t know the answer to any such questions, but I do know that, by looking up, by noticing and watching, through questioning and wondering, we stop our daily thoughtless trudge. And there’s a whole new rhythm there. Just listen. You’ll hear it. (Not the wasp)

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Island Blog – There is old and there is laughter

I notice a thing or two these days, well, maybe a thing or three. Although I am young inside, my thoughts still girlish, I cannot dash as I once did, dammit. The way I could spin and jump, run and skip are now a memory. I could even catch an escaping child once, and although I accept the hilarities of growing older, there are times when the whole thing bugs the bejabers out of me. It makes me snort and stomp and then, as if snorting and stomping were big deals, I have to sit down. I don’t remember when this all began. In my short term memory I remember being able to lift a fallen husband from the floor. I could dash here and there, had to be able to dash here and there what with all the calling out of my name, the cries for help. Perhaps, since he died and with my to-do list barely covering the back of a postcard, I am allowing sedentariness. This does not sound good, not to me. I also notice that with an armful of bedding en route to the washing machine, I am very cautious as I descend stairs I used to hurtle down, arms full. I am more chary about where my feet land as if they’ve forgotten the way.

I still walk daily, move any time I feel a bit stiff from sewing. I still keep up an active and mobile life, although not to the same degree because there is no need, no name calling to react to, and more, no real requirement for that morning planning. Prioritising tasks is unnecessary now. I can take all day to one thing and sometimes I confess I do. I eke out the task, moving slowly, simply to fill in the hours. Oh, I know I am not alone in this limbo of puzzlement. Many of my age feel the same. How did old age creep up so quickly? When I do recount my own experience of this unfortunate process to others, we very quickly turn to the funny side and this is the blessing of it all. We regale each other with experiences, errors of judgement and our mild to horrific encounters with embarrassment. We throw back our heads and laugh, showing what teeth we have left to the sky. The magnifying mirror is now required to check we have our face on the right up and around, the dress not inside out, the shoes match, the car keys and sometimes the whole car are not lost. The way we might paint on eyebrows only to discover we have two sets having forgotten the job is already done. The discovery of hair in places that were hair free just last week, or so it seems. The way a younger person studies our faces just a beat too long so that we just know we are out there in public and impersonating a Belisha beacon. We write Washing Up Liquid four times on the shopping list because we remembered it four times, even if we only need it once. And the way we tell ourselves over and over again that we are not in danger of any marble loss, we are fine, this is normal.

Although I have no issues at all with the natural circle of life and death, I honestly never thought it would come to me. I have been one of those laughing at an orange face or two sets of drawn on eyebrows in my time. I have rolled my eyes from behind a dithery old woman in a shop queue whilst she counted out £30 in two pence pieces. I have scooted past the slow movers, been impatient at those who take two days to ease into a car, travelled behind that car on my hurrying way into town, swearing and flashing my lights for her or him to pull over and let me by. Old is hilarious until Old arrives with a lot more than overnight luggage.

I walk, along with my peers, through a limbo of opposites. If I decide to hate it, which I do, then I lose because this pugilist is way stronger than me and besides, hating anything never brings peace. But and but there are ways to accept whilst always seeking the funny side of this aging thingy. It is all, as it always is, up to me to choose how I respond. In my case, the red rebel fire still burns. I will still adventure, still walk in curiosity and gratitude, in humour. So what if my teeth are falling out. So what if I must needs take my time in rising my body up and out from my low slung Mini Cooper, whom I adore as she resembles my final freedom from having to accommodate, well, anyone else. So what! If I ever think wistfully of the days long gone, I quickly remind myself of how raggedy they could be, how little time there ever was for myself, how tired I could feel and how defeated by the endless demands on my time and my skills.

They say, whoever ‘they’ are, that we women should glow red and gold in the Autumn of our lives, how we should continue to walk sassy, to speak with confidence and with a truth reserved only for the over 65s, the grannies of the world, wise, hairy and albeit cautious as we descend the stairs. We should continue to shake our booty, to swing our creaky hips as best we can, to take care with our dress, checking for food stains which now invite an ‘Oh dear’ from anyone with younger eyes. I get it and I do practice this booty shaking thingy no matter how old I feel on any given day, but I shake with caution, sass with my eyes on the ground in case of trip alerts always hoping against hope that I don’t fall over, a laugh held in my mouth just in case I do.

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Island Blog – You have to want to dance

There is a scowl in the sky this evening. The grey pushdown clouds point fingers. The Blue Ben bothers not and why would he, standing there all granite push-up shoulders and for centuries? It doesn’t mean he doesn’t notice. What we eejit humans don’t understand is the natural communication between the elements. Earth, Wind, Fire, Water. They were here and talking long before our ancestors arrived, whether from the sea or from Adam. It matters not.

There are times I feel very small as an eejit human, as a sudden ‘insider’, in such a huge story that tells of life so long before me that it means nothing beyond its echoes. And, to be honest, they are easily ironed or washed or swept away along with the dust and the creases. However, I am very busy noticing myself. Not in the mirror, no. But in my responses to whatever comes in, including my thoughts and my ditherments and my hesitations. I have to say that once I step into those footprints of acceptance I feel engaged with the oldness in me and with all the ridiculous crap that goes with oldness. I won’t say it is a fear-thinking thing because it is so very not. It’s in the bones, the creaks, the inevitable inability to lob a fence as I used to be able to do. It also isn’t about striving for that agility. No. I get my limitations, but I will not accept without challenge. Again, No. I just step up. I acknowledge that I will not be young again. I say that I know where I am and who I am and I will (don’t do this) always accept a challenge. I will dance the rest of my life. I am under nobody’s control, only my own.

There are scowls. There are fabulous starlit nights. There are cold wet mornings and sunshine afternoons. There is that moment when the sunset blows poppy red, and suddenly in a dawn when a new daffodil takes the breath from me. I am watching myself. I say that because it is so easy to keep flopping onwards without noticing ourselves. I know because I have done just that until I clocked my flopping and turned around to question why. It whirled me around and back till I looked at the old thinking and saw it cobwebbed dark and without the spin of a live spider. It takes mindful thought. You have to notice and to question. You have to want to dance.

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Island Blog – Thoughts, Red Speeders and Me

Thoughts are always busy I find. My head is a freeway for them. Sometimes I fly above the chaos and stare down, mystified. How can one small head allow such mayhem? I mean, I am watching speeding, overtaking on the inside, collisions and fatal hesitations. It seems to me that all of these rushing thoughts want to get my attention, regardless of how much damage each one does in order to achieve it. If I focus on one, that red speeding one, the one that tells me about yet another failure or shortfall for which I am solely responsible while the rest blur into a rainbow mist. The red one won. I no longer notice the well behaved thoughts, the kindly ones, those driving carefully and with no intention of upsetting anyone else, especially me. Why are they so well behaved, enough that I don’t notice them much, if at all? They are the ones who are not out to pull me down but instead to build me up. Is it that I think them boring? Is it that I have not heard enough uplifting encouragement from the older humans in my life that I think it is ok to ignore these guys? Well, maybe but that is no authentic reason to be stuck in that belief, be it true or imagined. Hell no. I am a radiant, powerful human being who chooses to live life with joy and pleasure and I have met Joy. She’s a keeper.

I flick the red speeder away and decide to notice the good thoughts, the ones down there running on kindness and consideration, joy and pleasure, love and happiness. I watch them change gear a lot, slowing to allow another to overtake, pulling over for a big truck to pass, stopping often to allow a break for anyone else involved. There are many of them now that I look closely, as many as the speeders, the takers and the critics. It seems that what I choose to pay attention to is up to me and my vigilant looking, the picture below me, around me, within my head. Hush! I hiss, suddenly overwhelmed, and there is a slowing down, a hold up, a line of thoughts stuck bumper to bumper with no chance of moving ahead until I clear the blockage. The kindly thoughts just wait patiently, turning to make sure others are not scared or stressed. The red ones shout and yell, hit the wheel, swear and stomp about like fools achieving nothing and yet, and yet, these are the ones I believed in just a few moments ago; the pretenders, the nothings, the past voices that have been dead and therefore no threat for a long time now. Was I giving them the kiss of life? Eeuch! I am so stopping that and right now.

So how do I do that? Well, sadly it is not a one stop decision, although it is at the one stop part, but thereonafter it is a daily watchdog thingy. Whenever I notice a red speeding thought, one that tells me about my failings and my mistakes as if they define me and confine me and align me with hopelessness and haplessness, I will not give them focus, no matter how pretty they are, how alluring. It amazeballs me that I am so ready to tell myself how much I have failed and fail still, but I read that it is a common human condition, as common as the cold. Our brains are the most powerful thing known to man, more so than any amount of technology we know about now and any of it we will discover and develop in the future. We are so incredibly powerful. My doctor once said to me that physical disease is not our killer. Our brains are, or, rather, the way we let them control us instead of us controlling them. I think her wise even if the whole thingumajig of daily noticing of red speeders makes me yawn because, like everyone else, I want lovely things to happen to me just because I am a magnet for good and because I care about others and la la la. Nonetheless, we all have a job to do and never more than now as we tire of isolation and fear, of what the hell and where do we go now even if we are brave enough to do the ‘go’ thing?

I piddle about with upbeat courses, affirmations, mirilations and striations. I swither and dither on the edge of wastelands, of brokenness and lack looking out at the pretty lights in the distance, ones I haven’t walked towards for years. I swale and fail, I rise and fail, I falter and halter but by heck if by noticing my thoughts and taking over my lunatic brain until it gets my message, until it sees me standing on the dust path with my stop hand up, my focus on the kindly thoughts, the uplifting ones, the beige ones, then, I am going to stand. If I do it every day, every time I feel myself louded out by the naysayers then just maybe, the red speeders, the bully thoughts will see a radiant, powerful human being who chooses to live life with joy and pleasure, and will eventually feel lonely enough to book in for a respray.

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Island Blog – Shape Shift, Jump and Dream

I woke this morning with thoughts of a lowly nature, aka, negative. Although I find the way our culture always veers from one extreme to another, from superb to ghastly, from white to black without any noticement of the myriad greys betwixt and between, infuriating, I cannot easily find said greys between negative and positive. Perhaps it is something to do with the fact that your light is either on or it’s off and were you to affix your wires wrongly, you might explode.

So, back to the negative thoughts. I am unworthy of joy, of any good thing coming to me; I am not God’s favourite wee girl; I do not deserve to be happy. That sort of negativity. On rising into my frocks and warm woolly jumper (positive word, for one cannot jump much when feeling un-jumpworthy), I considered my thinking. We humans have approximately 6000 thoughts each day. If, I mused, each thought was worth, say, £1, then by close of play this night, I will have earned myself £6,000, whether negative or positive in construction. It is quite a thought, and that’s another £1 in the bag. However, this amount of cash in my mental bank account does not determine my level of happiness nor my sense of well-being (another phrase I detest). So, how might I both earn the cash and update my bank of happiness? Let’s break it down.

I have one egg left. Negatively speaking. But at least I have one egg left. Positive update. My pile of logs is outside and it’s raining. But I have logs and a waterproof jacket. I am not feeling like sewing today. I have sewing to occupy my hours. My audio book is about to finish and I have used my free credit for this month. I have access to many more, some of them free.

I am sure you are getting this. As I turn around my thinking, I begin to feel much better. Just look at how lucky I am, how blest, how filled with abundance in my life! I even feel like a wee jump or two, and all I have done is to re-arrange my thoughts, to shape shift them. It is the easiest thing in the world to do, this inner flipping, but I must be vigilant and diligent and on the ball with myself in order to avoid the claggy bog. And I want to avoid it. Life is short (another detestable cliche) and I wish my own life to mean something to me, not just to other people. For most of this short life I have made others my priority. Now there is just me and it would be so easy to fall into despair and pointlessness. I will not do it. It becomes a game. A thought comes in, earning me cash. I look it straight in the eye. You do not serve me, I say out loud to no-one there. I shall flip you. And, thus I earn another £1.

Today I plan to apply for a renewal on my passport. On reading the instructions online, I discover that the photo of this old girl must be taken with no background at all, no pictures, plants or shadows. A cursory glance around my rooms tells me the photo won’t be taken here. And, there’s another thing. My photo must be captured from 5 feet away. Now even I will find it hard to be 5 feet away from myself. Well, dammit, she says, negatively. So, plan B must involve another person who could easily stand 5 feet away from me. I can remove pictures from a blank wall, not smile, not look away, stand absolutely still and wait for the click. However miserable I look in this stand-still-don’t-smile photo, the image will not stop my thinking. All the while I will be adding cash to my inner bank as I travel back to Africa, or to Spain, or to wherever the heck I choose. I will be walking on board, showing my blank face to some official, endeavouring, as I always do, to make him or her smile and failing as I always do. I will come through passport control with anticipation butterflying beneath my ribcage, my eyes searching for that well-loved face, anticipating that bear hug. This time will come again, one day, and I just earned myself another bunch of cash.

Meanwhile, I will continue to shape-shift my thoughts. I will listen to audio books whilst I sew and jump and dream of the lands of Faraway where we can all be our own selves once again, when we can look up into the wide open sky and know we got through this, not by doing nothing, but by doing absolutely everything we could possibly do in the most positive of ways.

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Island Blog – Ma, Him and the Canyons of my Mind

Ok so yesterday was yesterday. In looking back I always ask myself, What do I learn from the day before? I am quite unable to just let it go without a considered and mindful consideration. It has come to me, puzzled me in its intensity and thus has a message. I won’t miss that message. Although the terrain through which I inched my snail-like hours swung between a tricky wade through old porridge, a vast empty desert that scalded my skin and burned my toes and an endless stretch of bog with pummets of strong grass and sinkholes to trip me, I knew I had something to learn, to understand.

It has only been 12 weeks since he abandoned me to me; since he fled the nest and left me with a thousand words in my mouth and as many questions. Although I can now choose white lights over those miles of coloured ones, choose where I put this chair or that little table, choose when I walk the dog and where I walk her without having to say where I am going, I find such a freedom both heady and terrifying. All those little things we said, like Look at that! or It’s our granddaughters birthday on Monday, or Shall we play scrabble? Maybe it was Do I feed the orange tree or shall I wait till next weekend? Now there is no him to say it to, even if, latterly, I got little response. The warm being that was there and not there was still there, was here. I remember my old ma saying to me when I furioused at her for his lack of interest in me ‘At least you know he is there.’ I didn’t get it. Dad had died a long time ago. But I get it now.

Today, this day, the day after porridge, desert, bog day, I feel an acceptance. I know that I spend a lot of time in the canyons of my mind, wandering like Alice sometimes and like a refugee on the run at others. I am looking for a new land, after all. I know it will be there one day and that this ‘wandering’ is very important. I will not stay fixed like one of those old Scottish stone markers still planted and dating back to the days of Rob Roy, my forebear. One says 25 miles to Oban. In a car it is half that. Walking the ups and downs, traversing the bogs and avoiding musket fire en route meant more miles on foot. It meant something once, a reassuring marker and guide but nowadays it is obsolete and I know this is important to ‘get’. Fears nowadays are not of musket fire, nor of sudden ambush from the reevers or royal soldiers, loyal to the king, but of the inner enemies that live inside a mind. I work to challenge my mind, to stop as I wander through its canyons and to notice, to notice. Birds of prey flying high means something is dead beneath. A song bird means trees and fruit are not so far away. A scampering rat means there is a predator around, something with a higher shelf life. Geese, swans and ducks mean water. Distant laughter means humans.

This may sound a bit weird but I have know since childhood that I live in many worlds. It compromised my dreams and confounded me as a young girl. Now, in my evening life, I get it. And in that knowing comes responsibility. I need to pay attention and to learn, even when I sometimes feel fed up with all these learning requirements. I never know what any day will bring but I have chosen to notice and to pay attention. Sometimes, when I meet someone and look into their eyes (not in a weird way) I can see they also live in many worlds. I also see that this world has managed to tame them and I am sad. My ma always said, after we chatted about the fact that I was born in Westmoreland which has now become North Yorkshire at some human’s whimsy hand, that I would have been burned at the stake had I lived in an earlier time. She didn’t really get me and no more did I, but latterly when we had time together she was open to my ‘nonsense’ in the fondest of ways.

So I walk on through the canyons. They do not meet my eyes as I look out of my window. They are not in the conversations I have with friends or passers-by. They are not in legal documents nor in the discussion about what grave stone we should erect for himself who fled the nest and left me to me. But, and this still astounds me, he ‘got’ me. It infuriated the bejabers out of him often when the worldly requirements were required, but he did say I was his spiritual guide and that I was the one he came to when, on rare occasions, he could speak of his own porridge, deserts and bogs. And sometimes he would walk the canyons with me.

I’ll rest with that.

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Island Blog – Alice and Me

I have noticed this. In the morning, when I awaken, could be 4, could be 5 and sometimes a glorious sixer, I think new thoughts, like a child, and all those thoughts are interrupted by questions. What is the morning like beyond those blackout curtains? What will the weather do, what will I do? What shall I wear? Do I smell coffee #obviously not? Where’s the dog? That sort of thing. All fresh and spontaneous and floaty, newish, new, light as air. These Alice questions follow me to the bathroom as I wash and brush and take a look in the mirror. That grounds me. Oh, hallo Old Wise Fool, I whisper with fondness. I have no idea why I still whisper, but I do. Decades of early whispering gets stuck in a woman’s DNA.

I descend the stairs, avoiding the stairlift chair. Let me tell you about that. A week or so ago, my little grand girl was chair-lifting herself up and down. All the grand girls know the rules. One at a time. Ask permission first. She had gone through that process. I, on the other hand, being Wise and Foolish, had not checked that the duvet cover, draped over the bannisters, was clear of the workings. She ground to a halt, my little grand girl. Oh, Gaga, she said. I’m stuck. I should let you know that when they call me thus, they refer to Lady Gaga and not the alternative meaning. When I called the engineer of chairlifts, he was most kind and said he would pop over shortly to sort the twist of thick material now almost a part of the cog mechanism, so melded it was, and is, still.

As I descend those same stairs, I notice that early thoughts don’t all come with me as if they know they are dream thoughts and know their place. The Alice in me meets the day about half way down. The day before has its own residue, and rising. We meet for conversation. It’s like I grow up every morning, from dream child to sensible old woman. Sometimes there is a collision. Other times, a collusion. Either way, it is new each morning.

As the day grows and develops, bringing with it a list of things to fill in, such as lawyer’s letters requiring originals of every important document, plus my own ID, for goodness sake, as if nobody knew I had stuck with this man for almost 50 years, and, as if I might be a sudden nobody, I drink coffee and move on. Each day brings its accompanying thoughts and fears and doubts. Overwhelmed, often, I remember the Alice on the mid-stairs and breathe. I can meet her there anytime I choose, and I do. It thinks me, about thoughts. They tend to gather as the ordinariness of a day crowd in like a noisy rabble, set to confound and dissemble. I go half way up those stairs, just below the strangled chairlift and sit. Hallo world, I say (not whisper). I am strong, wise and paying attention. I can do this. I’ve got this. It will pass. I’m not sure the world likes that much.

When I go to bed, I pass Alice mid-way and crook her in my arms. My thoughts are a circus. In my thinking I bring her, fresh young child, upstairs as a gift to my night. Even if my head is thringing with a million thoughts, she, on the stairs, half way down and half way up, is still fresh as a daisy, that beauty that rises with the sun and closes as it sets. So simple, so fresh, so free. I have dealt with lawyers, probate, funeral expenses, ID requirements and also ran. I am ancient by the time I trudge to bed. But she is not.

And she is me.

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Island Blog – Tuning, Turning and Today

I awake this morning knowing that I have been out of tune with life for a bit. I know it because, on awakening, I feel in tune once more. Instead of a night of mares and violent interlopers and slugging through the days quite certain that my internal cheerleaders have downed their pompoms and left for Ibiza, I floated inside the arms of sleep all the way up to 3.30 am. Going quietly downstairs to make a cup of tea, I noticed how dark it now is. Only last week, it seems, it was light enough to show me the way. Perhaps, I say to myself, it is the turning of the seasons that has set me at a discord; perhaps it is the unwinding of lockdown and the threat of incoming, be it friendly or hostile. This bubble has lived us pleasantly since March 16th, weeks passing like minutes, moons waxing, waning and all days are Today. We needed nothing more.

Of course, the current subject matter of care home, separation, guilt, grief, loss and fear may also have colluded in my needing a re-tune. Time is the best one for that, but we are impatient; I am impatient. When I might expect to back on my feet instantly, life is telling me Stay Down Awhile, you ridiculous woman, but I don’t take kindly to being told. I battle on, expecting my mood to lift with my feet as I troughle round the daily do’s and grow furious when it stays limp as old lettuce.

Trusting, however, as I do, in the spirit world, the one I cannot see, touch or control, softens my wires and loosens keys that have gone rigid of late. The tunes I played sounded like a mess of angry cats; hurtful even to my own ears, going nowhere, no cadence, no major lift or minor bend, just a racket. From this morning, I can hear the lilt once more of harmony, melody, flow and the relief runs through me like warm honey. Nothing has changed. All will go ahead, in its own time, at its own speed and all will be well. I know this now, even as I know that discordant days will come again as we make the journey to a new place and time. However, knowing this doesn’t disturb the melody for I have learned that life is not a set piece of music, but, instead, one that changes over and over again. All I need to do is allow it all to happen, to accept the sad times, to sit with them, say Hallo, and wait for them to move away.

Times like these we learn from, if we notice, stop, say Hallo and wait in trust. I wish I had understood this as a young woman instead of turning from the darkness, fighting the demons with sickeningly inadequate weapons, thinking that if I sang loud enough the melody would find me once again. So much time wasted in ignorance. But I am thankful to understand it now because I do not believe in the bad press; I know the nightmares are just unpleasant dreams and that all days are, simply, today.

Which, I am reminded, is Winnie the Pooh’s favourite day of all.

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Island Blog – Three Keys in My Hand

I have one, no, two meetings this week. One on Tuesday, a zoom with a writer friend, and one on Wednesday with my counsellor. In my opinion, many of us need to find someone just a bit more above things than we are. I have always found that a hand reaching down is a huge help, despite the initial shame I felt at asking for it. And there’s a thing. As this lockdown keeps us stuck/imprisoned/safe, there are many who are finding it super tough, whose mental stability is being seriously challenged. I get it. As one who has always been mentally turmoiled to a degree, and who sees that last week was Mental Health Week (as if one week would ever be enough) I am more than happy that the world is getting it, or, at least, the slowmovingrulemakers are thinking wider, perhaps. In my life I have met many who could flower but cannot flower within the confines of stigmatism and of what is socially acceptable. Hence the hidden pain. And the most destructive judge of all lives within. We are all flawed, broken to varying degrees, doing out very best to fit in without sticking out in ways that might draw attention to our faults.

Looking out upon the natural world is key, but we must also look within. As I have been a student of self-improvement for decades, I have absorbed a million positive phrases and still found myself not quite at home with myself, no matter how bright the epiphany. However, I am finally beginning to understand that time holds the second key and time requires my patience, my faith in the strength of a human spirit and my trust that the goodly gods are working for me, and not against me. When the world demands something I do not want or cannot give, I need this trust. If we were all meant to be the same we would be mere automatons. We are far from that, thank goodness. Although we are currently required to live as such, it will pass eventually. Confined to home, required to wash our hands a hundred times a day, separated from loved ones, stuck in the wrong country and so on, we have this time to reflect on who we are and on the life we want for ourselves once we are freed from the chains that bind. Think on that.

I watch the young birds fly through my little garden, feathers awry, all ruffly spot and unsure of where to land. New life learning old ways. For them, survival is the teacher. They cannot suddenly square up to a cat or challenge the dive of a sparrow hawk without almost certainly turning into lunch. But we can. If we consider our predators, our demons, our self-doubts and our fears to be in control of our lives, then they will be. Noticing every thought and questioning it is key number three. Even if I am uncertain of my path, my voice, the strength, or lack of it, of my own human spirit, if I decide to turn this thing around, to turn myself around, then wonderful things begin to happen. I don’t need to run from my doubts and fears, my thoughts and worries, I just need to about face and question. Do I really think this or is this thought thinking me? Then, if it isn’t useful, I say cheerio. I don’t need you. Every time I do this, I empower my true self. I am not controlled by my thoughts. I control them, and in this uncertain life when a single day can throw a tidal wave over my carefully constructed sandcastle, my thoughts are the only thing I can control.

I know what it is like to be in the darkness of depression. I know how overwhelming life can be. I also know how to rebuild my spirit and I am thankful for all my guides over the years. Not everyone finds their way. Some souls are lost. Most of our illnesses come from inner stress, manifesting in the physical body, sometimes destroying it. This time of reflection is a gift to us all, not only to make new ways to live for ourselves by taking a long hard look at our core values, our life choices, our work and our families, but to look and to see others who may need our clear and open friendship. Those, whom we might have dismissed before as misery guts or gloomy or bad tempered. Nobody wants to live like that. Nobody. But everybody needs somebody to lift them at some point in their lives.

There are less of us still breathing in the world today. This virus is greedy and it isn’t done with us yet. Let us make sure that the ones who will emerge back into the light of ‘normality’ even more broken, even more damaged and even more fearful of their futures, do not have to walk alone.

by

Island Wife – Hallo Happiness

Today the temperature stands at 36 degrees and feels like 40. I know this because, by this time I have got the hang of 40 and I recognise the colour of it and the weight. Add to that baggy-bellied air a humidity count of twice that and you just know I am melting. The pool, to date a pleasant cooling aid, is hot enough to make tea and the bobbing thingy full of chlorine has a sun-twisted top. As makes perfect sense in the aforesaid scenario, my son has just lit the braai and the smell of the wood shoots up my nose, propelled by a lot of over-excited flames. We will feast on chicken joints, butternut squash brushed with rosemary olive oil, a crushed garlic clove au centre, roasted peppers and maybe a corn or two on the cob. From time to time we all dive inside for the blessed coolth of the aircons which never go silent out here. I cannot imagine what it must be like for the shanty dwellers in the townships and, in remembering them, I know I am very fortunate indeed.

This being fortunate indeed way of being constitutes my library of inner thinks. Despite the truth of getting older or feeling scared about pretty much everything or, perhaps, looking back over my 67 years with a critical eye and with a resident judge to pluck at my vocal chords, I focus on things that make me happy. I know that many of us set orf to India in search of this holy grail but I have never needed to do that, not least because I discovered some 30 years back that although Happiness may well reside in India, she also lives with me, and with you and with everyone else to cares to notice her. Although life at times may deal cruel blows or bore the bejabers out of me or trip me up so I fall and break my spirit, Happiness doesn’t go away. She is there at the end of a whisper. She shows herself in moments with a loved one (Oh……why couldn’t it have been longer…?) or on spotting a bright blue dragonfly on a flower (Oh, NO, I forgot my camera) or even in that moment when a stranger smiles at me (weirdo..) but it is entirely up and down to me to notice and to keep the moment without blemish. I could miss all of her visitations if I allowed the negative responses to her beauty. In short, nothing of her is kept and I have not changed for she has not changed me. I need to control my mind not the other way around. Even if life is tough, even if I am hurting or afraid, full of doubts and delusions, my mind is under my control alone. Will I let it keep Happiness moments from me?

Okay, now back to the library. I cannot sort this dichotomy out by myself. I have always known that the only way to learn and to understand a hidden depth is to pull up someone who has already plunged it. I find these sages in books. Only a fool with an over-active ego thinks she can move on without guidance and I am no fool. I know how noisy and compelling the shouty world is. I know how easy it is to believe that this world is all there is and how much disillusion lies in that belief. I know about getting lost and going hungry for something to change. I know about disappointments and sadness, grief and rage but so does everyone else. This is the human state and when I last looked we are all humans. What makes the eternal student stand out is their decision to control their mind. To practice noticing everything that lifts a heart. To stand in Nature and to watch light move across the hills, or to study (as I did this early morning) a single dung beetle pushing a huge giraffe poo along the sand track. I watched it succeed for a bit and then topple over and get stuck underneath . I saw it push its way out from under, only to see the prize roll back down the incline. I watched it go back and start again. I had no camera to hand. I just watched, holding my breath, willing this brave soldier on. And I was happy.

The practice of Happiness costs nothing. It requires no level of education (in fact, academia can present a big stumbling block) no required apparel or status. It doesn’t mind what colour your skin is, nor how old you are when you decide to whisper Happiness in. The only thing she needs, in order to blossom and flourish, is for a person to decide to notice everything that lifts his heart – the polar opposite to the way the world thinks. Instead of grumbling about someone’s rudeness, look elsewhere in search of beauty. It could lie anywhere so look up, down, ahead, behind you. I promise you will find something that lifts, and, when you do that as a daily practice you will find that when someone is next rude to you, you will see their hurting spirit and be gentle with your thoughts on them, because your core thought control is on Happiness – and not just for you – because once Happiness is a choice, you want it for every living soul.

And then the magic begins. No matter what turns Life takes, if I am in control of my thoughts, every part of me is filled with something I have yet to find a name for. All I do know is that this nameless thing has stopped my acid reflux, calmed my heart, grounded me and shown me the great wide sky. Something has changed because I decided to change and that something is showing me how, in seeking Happiness, I have no need to travel further than my library of books; no qualifications beyond my desire to learn; no appropriate clothing, footwear, status, colour, creed, religion or history.

I only need to be open to new learning and willing to make it my daily practice.