precious

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Island Blog – A Precious Island Life

The mist is definitely on a mission to smudge. I saw it first around 4 am, woken as I often am when the circus of the skies, the cosmos, opens for business. I know there are conversations going on up there, ones we need to hear and to understand, but, sadly, I only talk human, child and dog. I feel it nonetheless, and there is a freedom in that itch, that discomfort, because it connects me to more than me, to more than the solo and the loneliness, to more than ridondulous concerns about which wheelie to put out.

Work today was busy, wild at times, and tiring, until I approached my own tiring nonsense and sharpened it into a soft lead pencil. I can write my own next sentence. I always can. It felt a bit limpy, nothing for a while and then a big invasion of lovely customers, so smiley, wanting soup, quiche, cake, hot chocolate, iced latte, extra bread, focaccia sandwiches, and yet, do you know what all of them really wanted? A welcome, a recognition, a pull to forward, an invitation and a hallo and we are so happy you came, thing. Chances are, not one of them will get that, but I do, and so do the owners of this welcome cafe. They, the visitors, are spinning through life, escapees from huge pressure jobs and lives and here they are under the mist mission with a chance of blue. It must take time to process. Actually I hate that word as I have never consciously, nor knowledgeably, processed a damn thing in my 70 years. And then, these big and possibly powerful folk are gone back to the whatever of possibly powerful lives, leaving us with the mystery of mist mission, the lift of sky birds, the wild of spatter rain, the thrum of maybe thunder, the friendship in the pub, the people long here, grown wild from the nonsense and fun and hard work and deprivation of a precious island life.

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Island Blog – The Mary Thing

I’m home and back into a precious silence, just the birds, the gulls screeching like a mother who is way past tolerance, urgent, a call that cuts like glass. I’m watching the shift-light, the white skinny, almost saying something. Blue sits fat and patchy, here and there, confident in its canopy control. I am always here, but playing hide and seek and damn good at it. I’ve been hours away this day, caught and captured into a gathering. That’s what we call it here. A gathering can occur on a hillside, within the walls of a completely unprepared cottage in the middle of nowhere, a sudden thing. But, this one was ready for itself. We all knew it was coming, the date set.

I was unsure about what to wear as all of my clothing fits a rainbow and this was a sad gathering, no matter the celebration of life thing. A very long life lived, a load of children, a big team of grandkids and a football stadium of great grandlings. 97 or so years of twinkling and working like not many women would these days. I knew her, a bit, but in talking with one of her grandsons (so handsome, as they all are) about body language and the words we say without saying a single word, I felt I suddenly knew her better. She was a generation above me, ahead of me, but she was so approachable, so welcoming, so naughty, perhaps not all by herself, but there was that sparkle in her eyes that told me she was up for anything. A very gracious lady, and I mean Lady.

We laid her to rest this day in the old graveyard, her beloveds, spanning generations, lowering her into the ground beside the love of her life, gone some years before, above the bay, with cloud dip, slight rain (very polite and thank you) and a lot of old, young, very young, all there for her. She leaves with them, her inspiration, her encouragement and acceptance and a lot of tears and laughter. And Billy, who brought her home was as he has always been, respectful, working with whatever a family chooses, so compassionate, so professional.

What a legacy Mary. You leave that with them, with me, with all of us who remember you now, and who will talk about you for frickin ages.

Thank you.

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Island Blog – All Queens

Facial needling. Heard of it? I certainly had not and required the process to be thoroughly explained before I ventured near. The clinic welcomes me with lovely and uplifting messages, discreetly placed, phrases that tell every woman she is beautiful, with which I whole-heartedly agree. Beyond the weatherings of skin and body, lies a woman with goodness and love in her heart. Just look into her eyes and you will find her no matter the harshness she has survived, no matter how strong her armour and her need to hide within it. Not one of us finds life perfect all of the time. Not one.

I digress. Soft pastels cover the walls and the welcome is warm and genuine. I am guided to a flat bed and asked to remove jewellery and upper clothing and to lie down beneath the coverlet. My clinician is young and, yes, beautiful, and she explains the process. I am no fearty around needles, not me with all my tattoos, my five babies wombed and delivered au naturelle, various minor ops and various minor accidents. Needle away, I say and she begins, having first cleansed my face and neck with her gentle fingers. It feels like a sharpish massage and I wince, once, only once, settling quickly into acceptance. I relax and close my eyes listening to the buzz of the instrument and mentally following it over my face, marking out the rise of nose and dip of chin, the soft plump of cheeks, the wood of my forehead. I feel the bones beneath, the way they are perfectly fashioned to fit my skin, the precious brain they protect and have protected for 70 years, or nearly. No sell-by date for bone structure, not if you’re blessed with a good dose of bloody-mindedness and a further dose of luck. She works on my worry line, that damn thing between my startlingly dyed eyebrows which appeared when I was about fifteen and is now like a dried up river bed, deep and permanent. Or so I thought. This will tighten up all the lines and wrinkles, she tells me with a smile which I can hear, but not see. Yeah, yeah, I think. I’ve read such drivel on the backs of endless potion bottles promising youth after a few applications, and bought not one.

Process completed, advice on not using abrasive face washes etc gifted, I return home feeling as though a million prickly things are trying to get out of my face. Not unpleasant, more tingly and exciting. I have no worry line now, although I do realise this is not a long term magical fix and that I, from this day forth, fifth and. sixth will need to not worry, not invite the return of dried up river bed. I must keep my eyes wide, remain curious, laugh a lot, particularly at my worries and remind myself that I am beautiful, I am a queen. It thinks me about playing cards. What does each queen represent? I google and find that, although each one holds specific values, all four are really one queen. The queen of hearts brings love, fertility and creativity. She also tells of upheaval and change, understandably because love is heart-breaking at times, fertility never a given and creativity can be stifled by herself, by others, by the demands laid upon her. The queen of clubs gifts new beginnings, transition and opportunities. We all know all about those, even if the last has felt as far away as Pluto. Diamonds, well, she’s sharp that one. The queen of swords, intellectual, quick-witted, able to think on her feet, change, evolution. The Joan d’Arc within each one of us. HRH spades brings female intelligence, judgement that is practical, logical and intuitive.

So my thinking is that we all host all four queens, finding at the right time, whatever skills we need to make our lives the best they can be in any set of circumstances. Easily said. There’s no mention of all that sobbing in the dark, the longings for escape whilst trapped, nor the sacrifice of our dreams in order to play a bit part in someone else’s life. We all know those times. However if we can hold on, albeit with exhausted fingers, to the knowledge that we are all queens minus thrones, that tiny flicker of flame kept alive can take us through things we never asked for but which came our way regardless. What did we. expect, after all? A happy ever after, a magical and perfect life? There is no such thing and that is the harshest of truths to accept. But if we can accept it, without rancour or bitterness, we become the queens simply because we, in the silence of our hearts, beneath the armour, inside that beloved brain, believe it, even if it is never acknowledged.

At fifteen, when the worry line began to make itself known, I wrote down my dream. I want to marry a man of adventure, have lots of children and to live in a wild place. And that is exactly what came about. The queen bit had to come from within, yes, there was no encouragement on that score, but it didn’t stop me. I have no throne, no wish to queen myself over others, no interest in that. All I will ever do is encourage other women to find their own majesty and to clothe her in dignity and grace, to learn all queenly skills and to never let the world or anyone in it bring her down.

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Island Blog – Blow Back

As I write of the years, the caring years for me, the demise years for my husband, immediately a contradiction in perspective, I find my belly shouting in response, as if this old belly is hearing things anew. Did I feel the same reaction whilst caring? Perhaps, but I was too busy being whom I needed to be at any given moment, so, possibly, I flipped any belly talk away.

But now that he is gone, he is dead, he is buried up there on that wild hill where gulls wheel, eagles cant the wind and where sheep shit all over the grass, I see through a different lens. I spider-web connect with memories and moments. I can’t follow the strands, not now. They are the ones, blackened and dust-heavy I will point my Henry Hoover nozzle at just to know they’re all gone. But they are not gone, for they web again, catching me like a fly, and, I concede. And, in that concession, I find peace. It is as it is. What was, was.

Standing firmly in the present, with a strong connection to the past and to a ditherswither faltering reach out to the future, I welcome what comes at me. Sort of. I will resist but that’s my thing. Resist. Then I think. Then hmmmm, that Maybe. I love change until Change comes to me. I love Strength until it is required of me. I love an Upset to my timeline, my plan for the day until it swacks me in my ordinary.

In these days beyond him, I clear cobwebs, sell furniture I wanted to see gone for decades, old dark stuff, old dark memories that nobody ever visited, and that was weird to me. I visit them. I turn the leaves of ancient books, beautiful writings, precious memories in photo albums I can never explain to my, to our, children.

I’m blowing back, in case someone will want to catch my breath,