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Island Blog – Hallo You

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

This is one of those times for those I know.

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

Hallo you, darling you.

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Island Blog – To Be a Lighthouse

I love them. Lighthouses. My something grandfather was Keeper of the Lights around the Inner Hebrides and I didn’t know that until recently. I think of him and my something grandmother, living on Tiree, setting out with supplies and jokes, encouragement and connectivity, bringing food and light and weapons and seeds for the growing, books for the learning, candles for storm lights, patches for waterproofs, new wellies, whisky, tea, and more. In the days when people peopled the stone cylinders of hope and light, where all furniture had to have a rounded back, like old women, and the long days and nights felt like forever, the boat delivery was a glorious landing. In the between it was only us, only me, with my carrot seeds, my tangled beard, for it was a job for men, of course, being the stronger sex, the men who could cope with weeks of storm-blasted isolation, whereas women could never have managed such a thing. Women, who were never asked, might have loved such, and managed just fine had they ever had the chance. A personal trainer, less corsets, less parental control and muscle building excercises, would have proffered the actual chance to show how strong they could be, and which just might have upset the abacus, in a good way.

I hope I have been a lighthouse to my children, and not a boss. All I wanted was to be a light for their own chosen journeys. I want to save turtles on Zakynthos. Goodness! Ok. I want to go to a shaman centre in the Eastern Province of China. Goodness! Ok. I want to move to South Africa. Goodness! Ok. Just three of many. Other parents may have heard, I am gay, trans, I want to be known with another name. I want my baby, even if I am 15. I want to join the circus, I want to be a policeman, a trumpeter, a dancer, a market trader. I get the parental questions, of course I do. But, but, what about your degree in law, politics, medicine? We paid for it, it cost us! This was never our case, but I hear the disappointment. I honestly don’t think their dad, nor I ,ever felt that. This life is tough and tougher for the children of privilege. Expectations can stop easy breathing, so heavy, so limiting. I sincerely and fiercely believe that all those historical corsets have been burned on a bonfire, a red sunset preparing the dark for a sky-thrall, a gasp of freedom in that soft breeze.

To be a parent who really wants to be a lighthouse, who can say, when confounded by a stuttered revelation from a young thing, one who, and I quote, has no idea about life at all, is challenging. There will be sleepless nights and worrying days because we seem to think, wrongly, that we can control our children. Weren’t we children once, with dreams beyonding us from the corsetry of parents? Yes, we were. And what did we want? Acceptance, wisdom, help and a lighthouse.

Be a lighthouse.

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Island Blog – Paucity, Abundance, the Tallyman

It has now been just over four weeks since radiotherapy. Feels like four months, at times, so damn tired am I, and being tired is one hell of a pain in the aspidistra. If, when, I allow myself to indulge in self pity I wander into a day of paucity thinking. Not my thing at all. I don’t do paucity nor any other city, for that matter. I am an abundance thinker, dance being right up there for me. I have danced through apocalyptical landscapes over the years, moving purposefully along and crunching paucity underfoot, en route to heaven knew where, anywhere but there. I believed, and still believe, that moving onwards takes me to the beyond of, not only my skinny et collapso thinking, but also of the barren scape within which I appeared to be currently stuck. This tactic has worked well and still does. But the biggest bore seems to have roosted in my eaves. Tiredness, all day, and not just that neither, or is it either(?) for feeling consistently weary is not cheery, and although I have been told, oftentimes, to be patient, I am an impatient by nature.

Rising from another patchy night, I wheech myself out of bed, physically able still, and I command paucity to get-to-hec as I gather my abundance into a warm dressing gown as I descend the stairs for coffee and, hopefully, dawn. I know that dawn, bless her, will always come, eventually. As I sip the hot strong brew, black, no sugar, I call in the tallyman. Take a seat, I say, let’s count blessings, which we do, as I write them all down. I had breast cancer, which was discovered quite by chance; I had excellent surgery to remove the blight; I have been fully supported by the NHS, family, friends and others who know what cancer feels like, the shock of it, the concerns around it and the recovery therefrom; I live in the most beautiful place, on an island, alone and independent; I am loved by many; I can write, used to sing, can dance (a bit) and have full use of all my important extras; I have life, love life, live life. Now I need more coffee.

By the time dawn has risen with the birds and their glorious singing, my mind is full of abundance, the whining of paucity barely audible. Yes I am tired, yes I am impatient, yes I have lost a considerable portion of self-confidence, yes I am lonely at times, and scared of life, but who isn’t once over the cusp of 70? In other words, let these words float out into the big wide sky, to dissipate like steam. I say that out loud. Then I hear the door open and turn around. The tallyman winks at me as we both watch abundance holding it open for paucity to slink through. The door closes quietly and we all watch the slinker trudge down to the shore, and then disappear.

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Island Blog – The Bog and Lifting

Mostly, I am coloured up and cheerful as a chipmunk. Then comes a day when it is even a pain in the arse to get dressed. I don’t like these days, and they know it, because I can hear them grumbling and muttering each time I push myself on and up. And I do. I think it’s because I know about being in the bowels of a depression and how vicious and controlling it is. Thankfully this time is way back in my past, but the body holds the score and we both remember the control of it, the way invisible octopus arms smothered me, held me down and down some more until I forgot who I was, and why I was. The scars are there somewhere and when the past puts its finger on the trigger, I tense, I remember, and my inner fighter rises, stronger now, powerful, even if I am not. She will protect me but only because I call her up from sleep, and that is the key.

When someone has known the ghastly of a mental bog, the knowing never goes away. But, once lifted from said bog, something rises as a teacher. Do you want to learn, survive, bloom again? If, as in my case, the answer is yes-but, then out comes the sunshine of hope. Yes…..But….? Indeed. The but bit is important because you are up there, Oh Teacher and I am slimy and hopeless and full of self-hatred and remorse. How on earth will those beliefs change? Ah, says the Teacher. Just follow me. And I did, and I learned and I was a keen student. I remember faking cheerful, faking ‘sorted’ because in my day, depression was something to be ashamed of, something imagined. ‘This is all in her head’ they said, and they were right, but the dismissive way it was whispered in corridors, was not right at all. As if I had manufactured these days of darkness and fear, just for attention.

I am not depressed now. I have learned much over the years, discovered many wonderful inroads into intelligent and compassionate support, walked them, learned the routes to feeling worthwhile, important, valued. T’is a goodly map. I also know, and believe in, the tactics for arising from the bog. I understand that the bog is still there, but I have found footholds. I know where the Pull Grass grows, that which I can grab a hold of, should I slide down. I have learned the weather patterns around a possible slide, and to avoid going out at such times. And, avoidance tactics are pivotal. On days such as this, when I can’t be arsed et wotwot, I am careful to do exactly what I want to do. I may cancel a meeting if it insecures me. I may decide to stay behind my four stone walls, light a fire, read or listen to an audio book. After all, who is judging me for my hiding, my declining, my indulgence? Only me. The critics of my past are long dead, all of them, parents, teachers, husband, so those voices are just dust in the wind. I know this now.

But, when such days wake me, confabulate me, I cannot dismiss them. A day is a day, after all, hours of it. But I can cock a snook at it, swish my sword, say I Am Important, I Have a Choice, and, most importantly, I Am Me (and that’s just dandy). I may not do this or that, those things my imaginary ‘yous’ keep banging on about, and, even if it feels odd at first, the more I do this, the bigger I grow and the further I walk from that damn bog. And my judges.