people

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Island Blog – Homecoming

Oh I did not want to come home! The heat, the sunshine (dodging it a lot) at upwards of 30 degrees from sun up, the red sand, the bush, the Africa of Africa, the music, rhythm, even the mosquitos, all of it had become my familiar. After two months, that is understandable if you’re loving every minute. Washing dried in minutes, the dog was too hot to walk after 9 am, and my bare feet on the wooden stoep burned like there was a fire beneath them as I oiled, sanded, varnished and painted. I wanted to help. Don’t tell me to sit down. I can do ‘sit down’ for a while, and longer than a while indoors with the aircon blasting, but I will always choose to be involved and that whole involved thingy thinks me. I knew I was coming back to just me.

The life out there, three long long flights away, plus a train and a ferry, is a whole different life. It has its disadvantages, for sure, the usual irritations, the added falafel of dodgy drivers, slow responses, (a lot of shoulder shrugging at any confrontation, plus a wide toothy smile), the heat day after day, the impossibility of finding parts for your car, the lack of Helmans Mayonnaise. I was a visitor. Visitors have no say at all in a place of lives being lived. They, we, I, have no clue as to the reality of the it of it. Just saying. I know, for example, how visitors here on the island for a sunshine week #rare, wax lyrical on the benefits I enjoy living here. I have no right to complain. My eyeballs roll every time. And it thinks me. On the way we perceive what we see, the snapshot of it, the processing, the decision made. Fumph. T’is thus. No. T’isn’t.

Anyroad, I take three flights, the first most pleasant, a slight rise in a half empty plane with comfortable seats, an old girl for sure but sassy and just for an hour. I am still in slight clothing. Then I get lost in Jo’burg airport. Possibly not easy to do but I manage it, finding myself in Baggage Collection when I should be (and soon) in Connections. I right myself, and speed up. It is only a short about turn and march and then another 3 miles to the gate. Which gate? The signs are now and then and mostly then so I, not worried at all, ask someone. He, an official with a badge, is super kind and walks with me to the appropriate corridor. he smiles, all black and wonderful and really cares. My strength of spirit returns. I arrive at Gate 10. I sit. Gradually, a lot more passengers arrive, all muslim robed. Because it is now 5 pm, they lay out their mats and bow to Mecca. I watch them praying, their devotion. It warms me. Not my thing but I still admire anyone with deep faith. More arrive, and more and suddenly I am unsure about my choice of gate. I rise and ask a sharpshooting black woman, official. She tells me, smiling, this is Emirates Gate. Oops.

I set off again. Good heavens this airport is huge, but I am not stupid. These muslims are heading the same way as I am, to London, so I must be in the right zone. I totter, yes, I am weary now, to Gate 14 and I find my people, I can hear the Glasgow accent, the banter, the tired voices, the helping of each other. I sit once more. We are called and because I am seat 20, I am almost first on. But as we queue and queue and queue on the ramp, I realise we are not the first. No, First is first, then Business Class, then us, lower case.

We walk by Business, seeing the beds, knowing they can stretch out for the 11 hours in the air, will have the taster menu, champagne et lala. And we take our seats. I am at the emergency exit. I ask the little lady near the window if she knows how to work it. She says she hasn’t a clue. Nor do I. And then he arrives, built like a cathedral, a professional golfer with tree trunks for legs and muscles that might challenge his flankers. She at the window sleeps the whole night. He, fitfully but so polite with his body. Me, not a minute. However, we didn’t have to employ his strength as we arrived safely in Heathrow. An unsteady walk to the next gate for Glasgow and into oh my goodness, the cold. From over 30 degrees to 6? However, there was a warm daughter to hug me warm again, a hot bath and a warm sleep. Home now on the island and so very thankful for the whole shebang. All of it. I learned so much, and I am thankful and curious and, do you know what, if you do nothing else to shape up a change in your life, just be curious. She, Curiosity, is a wonderful leader.

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Island Blog – It Is Enough

I am awake, early, before the sun is fully up, and I have slept enough. This day is my last in Africa and there is much to do. First off, I must needs park the panics, those fussy itchy thoughts as spikey as porcupines, the ones that demand an active hands-on riffle through and a smart shove into perspective. Will my hold luggage weigh too much? Should I find a tote bag for my hand luggage? How many underlayers should I have ready and about me for my arrival into a 30 degree temperature drop? What about liquids and such, which do I pack and which do I have ready for inspection in a clear plastic bag? And there are many more such flapdoodles to un-flap about, all easily sorted. I clear my mind of the swirling chaos, remind myself to inhabit the present moment and make coffee. I sit outside on the stoep and watch the sky, the rising of the sun, a warm pink backlight for a silhouette of trees. Birds call out, sounds I will not hear back on the island, African birds, coloured up like rainbows and speaking a language I don’t understand. A flash of electric blue, a wide span of ruby tail feathers, a butter yellow head, they cut the sky in two, these glorious creatures, an imprint on my memory.

I will love the change of things as I will remember the colours of Africa. Returning home to the island with its skinny roads and warm people almost happens without me. I step on a plane, three in fact, although not all at the same time, take my seat and up I go to cut other skies in two, many skies and one sky, crossing over continents and oceans, countries, deserts, mountains and rivers. A magical thought indeed. Someone might look up to watch the metal bird, heavy laden with precious cargo and, hopefully, my un-heavy hold luggage, as sunlight flashes off its belly, a pink contrail weaving a cloudline. As I doze or eat or read way up in the sky, life continues way down there, families together and apart, discussions on what to do or where to go. Dogs bark away the night or bark it back in again. Meals are prepared, lists are made, fights are fought, losses are grieved and new life is welcomed in. So much life everywhere, so much living to be lived.

For now, for today, I will take in every moment. I will pack, unpack and repack. This is irritating but a part of the procedure, a sort of resistance to change, to leaving what has become the familiar. However, I know of old that we people can quickly establish a new familiar in a surprisingly short time, so capable are we, so adaptable, despite all those hours of flapdoodle. Imagining the worst always first. Lord knows why we do this but I decide it is a perfectly natural amygdala thing, a sorting service provided by our big brains, processing fearful stimuli, a nudge to encourage intelligent preparation before entering a state of change. From there we decide whether or not the fear is real, such as a truck or a leopard coming at us fast. Needless to say, my fear is a bundle of nonsense – do I have the right clothes, yes, adequate sustenance, yes, the right footwear, mindset, passport etc. The way we can muddle ourselves with fear is daft but we all do it at times. I chuckle at myself. All is well you flappy old woman. Just prepare, calmly, and then set your sights on the moment ahead because you are playing a vital and important part in that moment, and the next, and the next and the next. All you have to do is show up. And I will do just that but not today. Today will be itself and I will be entirely and wholly present as the gift of living lights me up like sunshine. And it is enough.

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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. – Raindrops, Curiosity and Change

I watch the rain. At first I might say it is cascading down the thatched roof, falling differently according to the turns and flats of a house with corners, and I am right, at first. When I study closer, I notice that the fall begins with individual drops, a whole line of them just at the point of falling. This is when they conjoin with other drops and become a straight line of water as they had in the moment they landed on the roof, way up there, where one slide of thatch joins the other, one this way, one that way, a steeple of fingers, protecting, sealing, a cooked snook at the sky. At first, individuals, these drops, then, it seems, merrily and inevitably becoming one body of water. They were singular as they fell from the clouds, for a long time and over a far distance, and then they met the roof, the apex and sighed into one. But did they sigh or did they happily connect with all those other solo drops, chattering and sharing space, knowing they would find themselves once again at the next fall, the one under which I stand, my fingers feeling their cool and somewhat dismissive diffidence to my skin, my palm unable to contain more than a few of them. Tipping my palm, they fall again as drips, as drops, individuals once again. Perhaps they are changed by their encounter with others and maybe more than once on their journey. It thinks me.

Although an individual’s journey through life cannot be defined as a fall, no matter how many falls may be encountered, the business of connection and, therefore, change, is true for us all. Whether a bonus or a pain in the arse, each encounter holds possibilities, for friendship, for fury, for joy, for outrage, a mind change or a mind set confirmed. Any which way, if taken seriously and with an open heart, these encounters may throw us together for a while, happily or not. When I find myself in a crowd of people, say in a busy market, inside a lift, a bus, train or plane, I have little choice beyond where I sit or stand. I have felt the irritation of bumping people unaware or uncaring about the amount of space they take up or the toes they squash and felt a rise of outrage. I have also, in those situations, felt glad I am not a bumper, not intentionally, being ever ready to flatten myself into a pencil, to take care not to invade another’s space, if space is even possible in such confinements. From my corner I have watched faces, read body language, agreed with myself that every one of us is not enjoying this one bit and then the outrage gentles into compassion. I know that soon we will become individuals once again and no longer a rush of people joined for a short time, not condemned to it forever, but what have we learned from this? Is it just something we have to bear, to re-story as a horrible experience, or did we really take in those around us and learn something from the whole experience beyond the perceived ‘nightmare?’ On looking back there were endless chances to make someone else feel better, a smile, a stepping back, an unspoken forgiveness offered, going possibly unnoticed, when a backpack thwacks a shoulder, or when an old person needs a seat and you give your own even though the young person next to you stares pointedly out at nothing. They know what they might offer, but they don’t. I get it. To be young is to fear rejection and it would take courage to proffer a seat in a public place with everyone silent and awfully busy just ‘getting through’ the so called nightmare, intact including toes.

We all need space. I certainly do. However in these times of squash, rush and bash we must all find ourselves at times. If we step into or onto them with curious interest, the whole situation is softened. A traffic jam can see us furious, finger tapping the wheel, crabby with others in the car, furious at life herself, or it can have us out of the car and walking up to the next equally compromised driver for a chat. We can observe the wildflowers on the banks, wonder at the magnitude of designing and constructing this highway, consider and reflect on our own lives, what we might change or develop. We can pick up a pen and a journal to write down some thoughts or read a book, or think hard about what this must feel like for all the other drivers and their passengers thus imprisoned. Endless, as I have said, opportunities that lift us out of our piddling little problematic world where we think we are the lead actor, the stage set just for us.

The raindrops drop, join to run a race, then divide again, into the same body of water, or forever changed because they were, just for a short while, a part of something bigger and way more powerful.

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Island Blog – Machines and People

So there I was, and still am, tiddling about with a replacement washing machine thingy. It has been in my head and at the end of my dialling digits and a rumble in my tumbly for two weeks. The whole online deal appears clear and simple but it is anything but. The baseline is this. My washing machine crossed her arms across her barrel chest and shut down like a judgmental matron and I have known a few of them in my time. She would receive water but would not slosh, nor allow her belly to rotate, nor would she spit out the water taken in. A couple of floor floods later plus a heap of sodden towels, I gave in and hunkered back on my heels. Right! I said. Damn You! I said. And then I mellowed, not least because hunkering on my hunkers was fun once but not so much these days. I could feel my big toes shrinking. Okay, I get it, you are gone. RIP my faithful friend of years. She loosened her arms and I could feel a mellow fill the little room. I rose into action.

My washing machine is insured with full and complete and absolute promise that, if an engineer cannot be found, or one is but he decides my machine a write-off, I will receive a free replacement. When I took this insurance out, I did inform the company that, a) I live on an island, b) there is no such engineer here and c) no washing machine company will deliver to the island, never mind recycle the old one. They, the company, assured me (from Bedford or Manchester, Dubai or India) that all of that isn’t true. I find it is. I order a free replacement and am promised installation and recycling of the old one, but I am canny so I call often to find out wotwot. Twice, my order was not acknowledged even thought I had confirmation delivery emails both times. Third time I asked deeper questions and discovered astonishment. I could hear in their helpful voices they had never encountered island shenanigans before. Quite an excitement for them I thought. I was not angry, nor challenging. All voices came from the throats of genuine warm people who just wanted to help.

Today, I hope, and after some time, I believe my replacement machine is on its way, due for delivery tomorrow. Ah, I thought, I doubt that, so I called and spoke to yet another delightful and puzzled person. She clocked (finally) that island delivery will never be straight from the original courier. So, my machine will not arrive tomorrow. I laughed with her, said I know this place and did she know the name of the courier? She did. Two in fact. I had never heard of either but she said one was Glasgow, one Inverness. I laughed out loud. Days away, I said. Oh, she said, really? hell yeah lady. She gave the number of one and that’s my work tomorrow. It, my machine, will be taken to another courier in Oban (I know them all) and then eventually, come to me. T’wont be here before I leave for Africa but I have neighbours with machines. All is well in this island world and in this exhausting process of calls and holds and so on and so fourth and fifth and sixth, and even though I absolutely know I won’t get installation nor recycling, I have met some lovely warm helpful people.

And, for that I am very thankful. You can have such fun on the phone if you decide to get to know, a little, the warm human on the other end of the line just doing their job.

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Island Blog – Lilliput and Gulliver

I stand beneath an eagle. It hovers, canting on the high wind, still as anything can be up there in the blow. Wings spread 8, 9 foot wide, only its tail to adjust balance. It ticks, the tail, this way, that way, sensing the windshift, balancing. My mouth is open I realise as I watch the flick flick of white beneath its tail feathers. It sees me, I know it does, but I am of little interest being not prey to this predator. Its eyes scan miles whereas all I can see is what I can see from my pinprick of limiting ground. Up there, if I was up there, mountain high and just beneath the clouds (or so I imagine) what might I see, how wide might be my vision? People, roll the eagle eyes, ach People, those straight up and down groundlings, a mass of useless cells, no flight, no feathers, no ability for lift: rabbits, plentiful and foolish, grazing, earthlings: other creatures I could snatch if hungry enough, determined enough, desperate enough. But what might I think if I was up there? Not thoughts of prey. Then, of what? If I could look down on an eagle, a kestrel, merlin, goshawk, buzzard floating on thermals, its entire body line flattened like the pinned down body of a collectors butterfly on a board, would I feel something?

I would. Awe and reverence come to mind and more, the way things, creatures, situations look from the antithesistic viewpoint. When facing a situation, a set of old beliefs, a family tradition or condition from the ground, not much is changeable even if that is what I want and I very oftentimes do want. I must climb higher. The higher I climb the better. So what am I climbing from or to? I don’t know the answer but I do know that, in the process of climb from all the aforementioned limitations not only the view changes. I begin to see things differently as new ideas roll in on the backs of the clouds. Hope rises on the thermals and opportunities I never imagined from ground level lift into my mind. I grab at new breaths as the air thins, my lungs inflating like bellows, igniting new fire. I can feel it in my belly, the endorphins that think me of dolphins, play before me, delighting in the bow wave I create as I push on up and up and up and there it is! I am here, looking down on a flight bird, on groundlings, on chimneys blowing smoke, on skinny snaking roads, on dark valleys that, heretofore, rendered my circular thinking to nothing but a swirl of leaves on the forest floor, so easily twisted away underfoot.

It isn’t always possible to climb a hill. I get that, but an imagination can lift you anywhere, into the sky, onto a mountain top, even into flight. The best adventures of all are played out in a mind, everyone knows that. The point is not of physical but of mental prowess #courage in battle and most battles are played out in an internal theatre. How would you direct such a play, your play? My choice is to remove myself from centre stage, the super trooper blinding me as I stumble, forget my lines, fall of the limiting boards of my life and to step elegantly down and into the front row, and to observe. How different the whole looks once I remove my fretting, fretful and irritating self! Now I see and not through a glass darkly. No, I can see all the flaws, most of which I brought with me. Perspective is powerful and illuminating.

And so, and and so. So. What do I do on my descent? I am just finding my way down after all. I have looked down on an eagle, on life, taking in the Lilliputian life I had considered so very Gulliver. Truth is, I do nothing because my inner mind is way more powerful than I give her credit for and she never sleeps. If I banish (off you f**k!) my groundling interferer and just allow my experiential change to, well, change the whole of me, it will. All I have to do is trust and wait and, after all, I have looked down on an eagle.

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Island Blog – The I and the We of it

I listen to how people talk, their use or misuse of grammar (thanks Dad) and how confusulating the whole thing is these years. I suspect the rebellion against the structure that began in my childhood, now a very distant memory, those days when syntax, sentence construction and punctuation moved like a rainbow over the settled earth of academia, causing a grandiose upset. It was needed, even if I am oftentimes huffing like Hogwarts train over the rickety bridges now connecting the old acceptable to the new ‘anything gose, or is it goes’? Mostly I love it, even though I find my old fingers snatching for words that nobody ever uses anymore. The rhythm and beat of new language is, if we choose to engage with such a ‘new’, both exciting and inevitable. At least, I tell myself in my huffing days, at least I knew the beauty of fine language, well placed commas and how to spell Chiaroscurist.

However it has always been the pronouns that bothered me. In my young recalcitrant days of frustrated rebellion, listening to the Beatles singing about the Sun and Here it Comes, I was reliably informed that to say, ‘I’, was arrogant, challenging, selfish. ‘We’ is how it’s done. It was perfectly fine to say They, We, Them, (although here I confuse pronouns) Us (ditto) and You. Don’t even go there with that one. It is often considered aggressive. There was, and still is, a warm hot milk thing about hiding behind backstage pronouns. Employing them allows our deodorant to remain effective. Moving on.

I hear couples use the We. A lot. We go here, we go there. I get that. But when I hear that We like this and don’t like that, my ears get indigestion. I can hear the gurgle of rebellion and the acid of warning. As long as the strong ‘I’ is lost in the ‘We’ a trumpet should sound in the soul, loud and acid, because one day the ‘I’ will struggle for breath.

Keep your ‘I’. No matter parental teaching, no matter the warm, honeyed, seduction of the ‘We’. I know it well, loved it, was warmed and honeyed by it and I am not saying it did me wrong. (sorry Dad) But, had I known, had I been taught, that the ‘I’ is powerful, beautiful, important, back in my youth, I believe the rebellion might have been better informed, better educated in a kindly and more gentle way. I hope our children learn how to see the one as a valuable person, no agenda no gender judge, just who they are. My prayer. Don’t wake thinking ‘we’. Think ‘I’ and then study and learn and listen.

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Island Blog – Nothing Else Matters

Well hallo! I have, as you may realise, been awol for a time on two very different holidays, both set in place with purpose in mind. I had become reclusive, my confidence shot and with a strong need to hide at home. I understood the feelings, owned them as an integral part of grieving. I gave myself two years which felt like a big chunk of life at the outset, an empty swathe of minutes, hours, days and uncomfortable months during which I determined to heal. Gradually I progressed from distractive actions, sweeping the floor being my only achievement for one long and empty day, into the dance I now live as a completely new woman. Now I can sweep all the floors before breakfast or not at all if the very thought sets my eyes a-rolling. I have choices now and I like choices whereas they scared me not so long ago.

So, off I pop, over on the ferry and onto the bus for Glasgow airport. Prior to boarding said bus I met a smiley woman in the waiting zone (used to be called a bus shelter) who proffered a cheery ‘Ola’. Ola, I smiled back. Espagnol? Si, she said and then walloped into at least 3 paragraphs of Spanish chat. I indicated that I spoke almost no Spanish as she spoke almost no English. Nonetheless we managed a lively exchange of words, employing much theatre. I discovered she was moving home to Madrid and she discovered I was heading for Mallorca to visit one of my sons. She asked, in Spanish, how many ‘Ninos’ I had. I proudly announced that I had ‘cinquecento’. Her eyes grew wide along with her smile and she punched the air. I was obviously quite remarkable, not least because ‘cinquecento’ means 500. As we boarded the bus, she indicated that I had left my suitcase, mobile phone and purse on the pavement. I had done the same outside the island booking office and on the ferry which might have wobbled me had I not an innate sense of fun plus an excellent and random support team to keep me connected to my luggage. I realise these helpful folk were watching me and probably clocking that I was, at best, bonkers, at worst mildly dangerous. I made a note to keep a close eye on both myself and my luggage thereafter.

The journey was easy and pleasant and the welcome delightful. A week in the sunshine with family, in and out of the sea, up and down on school runs, garden games and a lot of happy chatter has left me with the warmest of memories. Sun hot on my back, the blue sky, warm sea and skittering children, the taste of salt on my skin, all so uplifting. Home again, complete with luggage, and I had two days to turn around before the next adventure, a 6 night cruise from Oban to Inverness through the Caledonian Canal with another son as captain. Very different frock assemblages required plus socks and a beanie and boots and leggings for the crispy autumn chill which I would obviously feel more sharply after the 32 degree heat of late. It was a wonderful time. http://www.hebridescruises.co.uk provide an exceptional standard of comfort and luxury. The crew are tight knit, full of fun and chuckles whilst working very hard to make sure every detail is attended to. Needless to say I became the clown on board. It is my gift to give, my love of people and my greatest pleasure is to make everyone smile and laugh. We were a happy team, adventuring on shore for guided walks, sharing the hot tub late in the afternoon with a glass of Prosecco, dining on exquisite meals, sharing stories and experiences and little glimpses into our ordinary lives.

And now I am home again, refuelled, renewed, ready for anything, even the irritating things, the sad times, the moments of deflation, the days of rain, the season turning into a taste of winter. Funny how stepping out, getting away and hearing other stories of other and very different lives can change perception, even a whole outlook on life. I know now that I can travel solo and return solo. I know that my home will still be here, my little dog happy and loved, my opportunities for adventure just waiting to be noticed and brought into the light of a new life. I am changed by change, by the experiences, the people, their voices, smiles, eye light and stories. I will remember it all, them all, catching a single moment in my mind, something said, something gifted, perhaps something sad or sore, and I will know that each time I step out and away, no matter where or when, I will return with my luggage, yes, hopefully, but with much more and none of the latter weighs a damn thing, yet it is more precious than anything I ever bought or owned. These encounters are free. These encounters are with people and people are the only ones who can touch a heart. In fact, had I succeeded in leaving my luggage on some random pavement, I would have laughed, probably out loud, because the adventure would still have lifted me high above myself, my worries and frustrations, my grieving boo-hoos, returning me home lighter and brighter and all because of people.

In short, nothing else matters.

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Island Blog – Catch the Magic

This day, not an almost day, I walked the runbone of this place, at times ferocious and wild, at times soft-mothering and with arms wide in welcome. Scrunch leaves fell, some held on, many upped their noses at any thought of this falling thing. Not yet, they whispered, not yet, not me. And I smile at their defiance because it echoes my own. The sun shines warm and the cold wind has gone elsewhere and that makes me wonder about all the troubles Elsewhere has to deal with, for it seems that a load of things go there whilst we turn away from them in happy dismissal, back to the life that was just fine before. Maybe there are people living in Elsewhere? Ok, I won’t develop that just now.

To be honest, the flat sky was blanket thick for most of the morning, but warm, and warm is something we could not depend on for a whole summer. I watched a spider swing from one tree to another, the web shining bright in a catch of sun. I saw an otter fish in the sea-loch, oblivious of my presence, silent I was and upwind. I noticed the brave new flowers pushing through crunch-space, the track (doomed) a drystone wall, the gravel on my drive. I said hallo to them all. I never underestimate the need for acknowledgment, not in the human world, the animal kingdom (why isn’t it a human kingdom? Human arrogance?)not in the plant world. Everyone, all ones, have a voice that longs to be heard. Another digression.

Later I get to see my son when his boat docks in the town. I find myself zipping through like a teen in my sassy mini, thrilled even to share a cup of tea with him on deck before his guests return. I see his wonderful children, those lives I have watched from birth and now see at secondary school. I have to reach on tippytoe for a hug. Where did time go? Although hours drag, years are fleet as foxes. Bizarre.

Home and the sun is still warm. I sit on my bench in the sunshine with a glass of red. A spider works the beautifully crafted rail that once enabled my husband access to the garden. As it spins and shifts, a rainbow, a tiny rainbow is reflected in each silk of the web. I hunker down, lift up as light shifts and splits and I catch the magic on this day.

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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.