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Island Blog – Feelings Left Behind

We can lose years of feelings, yet remember moments burgeoning with them. When someone died, or was born, we know the date, but have quite forgot the feelings around that event. We get a glimpse of joy, of sorrow, of relief, of anger, of being there, as a person, remembering, perhaps, what we wore and who was there. Feelings flitter away. The sense of presence, of engagement, of inclusion, seem, to me, to float into the already past of such events. It thinks me.

How many of us can accurately come up with a date, when asked, one which includes lockdowns? Not me for sure. I start off answering a question, one that requires a datal fix, and I founder. It was four years. No, that cannot be. ok, 6 years. No again. And. I trawl, literally trawl as through a whole expanse of ocean, sky, time. I can feel my arms reaching back, lifting as I try to gather in an answer, wanting so much to gain a hold on ‘that time’, but I cannot. Then, when some semblance of datal knowledge (did I just invent a word there) arrives between you and me, I find myself alien to the facts, because I cannot find the feelings. This happened. I know it did. You just told me it did. But i am not there without feelings, so, basically, I am not there at all, although I was. I did get a glimpse (stupid word btw) of a sudden rush of something, but it was gone in a second, and I couldn’t hold it back.

There are so many memories I want to haul in like a fisherman, to pull ( with my own strength) into the boat I am now captain of, and to spend time bobbing in the salt, the wind, the sun, the storm, picking through those times, feeling them in my fingers, remembering them as I was then, as everyone was then. A memory bank, like other ocean banks where living is visceral and immediate, and time is but an illusion.

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Island Blog – Tree Talk

The Poppygon days lead me on. Although I know I decided right, I question. Oh holy shit, I’ve done this question-self thing for as long as I could pull up my own socks, and it tires me. I take the lead on this. 

This is nearly Christmas. I so love Christmas. I hate, big time, the falseness that brings wide-eyed and believing little people before a “Santa” with a ghoulish beard (obviously stuck on) and a wrong voice. They have no way to process that. Just saying.

I waked today beneath trees which squewed off a branch or two in the gales of late. I looked at the twist of the break, had a look and was thankful I missed the fall.

I was going to family on Sunday. The wind is up. I go tomorrow. We, I, have always lived in this uncomfortable dynamic. Merry Christmas to you all, with my love. xxx

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Island Blog – Question the Surface

Life is lived on so many levels, or it can be. Mostly we stay on the surface, paddling madly to keep up, put down, move beyond, our horizon in sight. Above us is forever, below is fathom on fathom of a world most of us know little about. Many of us never dive down, and, apart from plane travel, the above is also an endless mystery. How high? How deep? What changes as we fly, as we dive? No, don’t go there. Let’s keep our eyes on who is putting something in our wheelie bin, who drives past, who walks the safety of the pavement or who parks in our space.

On the surface we see only what is. Above and below we cannot see nor understand, so we enjoy the thought of it but that is quite enough thank you. I don’t have the kit, the understanding, the courage to even let my mind go there, never mind my body. I’m too fat, too weird, too unloved, too plain, too beautiful, too something or other. And yet, within the restraints of this constraint we fail to really live. I know this because I remember my surface thinking. Safe, under my control, behind my locked door if I choose to lock it. Enter the Lonely. Oh hell, she or he is just waiting for such a time, such an opening. In ‘they’ come like a giant in a small room, smothering.

Been there. However, not now. And Why? Ah, Why is not a question. Why is an impertinence. Never ask anyone ‘why’. If you asked me differently I would tell you that I know and knew there is depth and width to this life, neither of which, or is it whom, I can either comprehend or explain. I just know. Somethings (plural) will happen if I just decide to acknowledge that fact. There is more than me in this living palaver and thank the holy grail for that! There is nothing lonely about a palaver because a palaver takes at least 5 influences. You cannot create a palaver alone. It just doesn’t work.

This morning, this ordinary morning, I had a plan. I would wake early, make coffee, eat something, sew something and then go to the shop at 9. All sorted. However I had a feeling there was a palaver in the brewing, not of my doing, but a palaver nonetheless. As I was talking to one of my boys on the phone a car pulled in. Rats, I thought. Go Away, I thought. You are NOT in my plan. Turning to see who it was, I recognised a friend. Ah, ok, all change, I thought. He might need coffee and a hug and a chat. I beckoned him in. Come, friend, and welcome. My ordinary plan had just dived deep or lifted into the sky. I smiled.

We spent the day together, walking, talking, noticing everything. We shared laughter and tears, wisdoms and tomfoolery, we just were. No agenda. I saw things through his eyes and, I think, he did through mine. We lifted up and we dived to the depths. The sun was warm, the wind soft and gentle, the larch emerald, the birds singing out Spring, the sea almost table flat. I would have seen none of this had I stayed on the surface, my agenda in my hands. Out of my hands I saw more than I could imagine. The connectivity of human friendship, however unexpected or initially inconvenient can make us question our surface.

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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 – The River and the Flow

It’s all about rivers here, these African days of heavy rain, unheard of they say, even those who have lived here since childhood. Times are a-changing and that’s for sure. I wonder how the river life is coping with this abundance. Crocs will have more room in which to pretend they are rocks with eyes and the hippos, well, they can go anywhere, land or water and I’m sure they do. The mudslide turns a river bank into a skitter and many a zebra, impala, bushbuck, eland, nyala, to name but a few of the deers, giraffe, wildebeest, buffalo, warthog, person is at more risk than usual, when the bank stopped at the edge of the river and the river stopped at the edge of the bank. Roads have been washed clean away, gardens too and yet the ebullience of flora and fauna, the sudden rainbow blooms along the way sing a glorious song, thanks to this rain. The birds above the floods are spectacular. Even the dull looking ones back home are flamboyantly coloured up like disco lights in the tree canopy. Waterholes are full to bursting. I have only ever seen them dry, staring red-eyed at the sky, offering no relief to those thirsty wild ones who may have walked miles for succour and hydration. In my minds eye, I watch elephants flumping in the swollen pools, squirting each other, the little ones scooting along the bank trumpeting, or, rather, tooting, for they have to learn the trumpeting technique as they grow, much as we humans do when learning to play an instrument. I, we, haven’t been able to get to the camp, the one beside the river, the one around which all of the big five and more wander without reservation just whenever they fancy, because all the tracks have become, let’s say, rearranged over the past week. Ridgebacked and sluiced by deep rivulets, vast quantities of red sand washed down or pushed to one side, the track becomes trackless and most certainly does not allow traverse for a vehicle. So, the water controls the land, it seems and that makes sense to me. We can build all we like, the best house, the best road, fixing our human flags into a tract of land we call our own, and then the sky opens her maw and vomits for days, for nights until she is quite emptied out. Another week, they say. But, in between the thunderstorms and the deluge of rain, the sun is afire. Sitting in the sun lasts about 4 minutes, for the burn is ferocious. You don’t sunbathe in Africa unless you want to turn into brindle at best, biltong at worst, which I do not. I wander about in the garden doing this and almost can’t bear to stay for ‘that’, so hot is it out there.

Back to the river I have yet to see for real. Water is my element be it a river, the sea, ponds, lakes, tarns and puddles. I am drawn to them all in fascination, feeling the pull, loving the connection as if they are my birth mother. In the turbulence of my adolescence, wherein I felt like a zebra surrounded by lions, I imagined a river and saw it clearly in my imagination, watched all those fish going with the flow without independent thought and I could feel the disappointment. Why are you all following each other? Don’t you know we are all as unique as snowflakes or the stripes on a zebra’s back? It’s hard going against the flow, they burbled, and we feel better going with it. Pshaw! I snorted. Not me. Each time I was upbraided I was going against the flow. At times it was dreadful and I longed to be like Penny and Marion and all those other fish I met inside a school uniform or in the work place or later as a mother and wife. I even changed my writing to look like Penny’s and Marion’s, following them, following the flow. Yes, it did make life peaceful but the schisms in my mind, my heart, my soul had voices loud and demanding. In fact they were disappointed in me and that is the very worst thing, to be the disappointee. Certain I was born into the wrong family, a stork off course thing, I couldn’t not swim against the flow, not all of the time for real but all of the time inside my vulnerable heart. Instinctual behaviour was not encouraged and that’s the only way I could be. That way, they said, may lead to madness, at worst, a reform home at least. Well, I managed to dodge both thus far but it thinks me a lot when I consider this fitting in thing as if it is an essential requirement for life.

The ones I relate to now in my older life are always the ones with a twinkle in their eyes. Oh, Hallo You! You have run amok at least once in your life and you enjoyed it, didn’t you? Yes you aged and yes you learned how to balance the imbalance in your heart, your soul, your mind in order to fit in, I get that. Otherwise you would be either mad or in a reform home or worse, but tell me about those times. How did you get there at all when so many, constrained and for-your-own-good fettered folk just give up on their inner voice, their intuition. and have to spend a fortune and a zillion hours in later life re-learning that which came naturally at birth? I see the others, the conformers, in the river, conforming, going with the flow, going nowhere at all and it is all I can do not to scoop some of them up for a time of Q and A because they have not challenged what appears inevitable. So many, stuck in silent desperation, going to work and back again and loathing it, wondering Is This IT? Well, yes it is if you keep on keeping on with the same old routine. So turn around. Try it. It is definitely tougher but there are only a few of us and there’s so much light, so much to feed on, so many empty coorie-holes to safety in, and such a thrilling rush as the river pushes by and my goodness you’ll grow so strong.

I recommend at least a try. I also know and can see how incredibly hard it is to call a stop. There are others to consider, they depend on me, this is the shape we discussed and agreed upon and what would I do instead? An understandable dilemma but with one life, isn’t it worth deep consideration, a turn around in the river just to see things differently?

The river flows in one direction, always moving towards the ocean, always claiming land back along the way. Underground, overground the river flows. Think of the river as life. And then decide whether or not you want to remain with the flow.

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Island Blog – Wordage, Fun and Mischief

I am noticing the words that leap from my mouth sans aforethought. What I am recognising is that we women seem to feel that details are always needed, descriptions the concise and careful constructivation of a picture. This, to men, in my observation, is enough to fall them asleep where they stand, or, if they can internally justify escape, they escape. We allow it without question. It thinks me. If the question is ‘Did Sally actually meet up with Melanie that day?’ A man might respond with a Yes or a No, then sit back in his chair because his job is done. If a woman is asked that question, you are going to know what both women were wearing, what perfume they do or don’t use, the state of their nails, hair, choice of clothing, their lipstick colour, the quality of their home life, the names of all 15 kids, oh, and grandkids, the colour of their hair, teeth, front room curtains etc, their relationship with their neighbours, mother-in-law, where they live, their diet, the colour of their car if they drive one, the weather, and finally coming into land with many opinions on all of the above. Meanwhile the listener has missed the shop, her birthday and is busting for the loo. It seems we can’t help it. In fact, without we women, there would be a minimalistic view of the world. It is raining or not raining. There are sausages or not, for supper. The radio is on or off. The mother-in-law is dead or alive. The people of the world, in short, are naked, mindless and quite without character, sometimes even a name.

However, to be a member of the woman clan can mean she is drowning in words, the need to tell it all a cumbersome weight. Unless she notices and refines her innate need to ‘babble’, she is unlikely to feel silent and deadly and I am keen to learn silent and deadly. But this learning thingy takes considerable mental work and a honed focus on the lips and teeth. It also begs something we women might find tricky, the pause for thought. I was not born with that particular talent but nor was I born with piano fingers. I had to learn and I am curious enough to become a student in wordage. Although it might take me the rest of my days to answer a simple yes or simple no, I do love to refine and hone. Breath is of essential value in this refine and hone palaver. Just one or two slow breaths when someone asks if Sally did actually meet up with Melanie that day can result, not in a simple yes or no because I am a newbie in this study course, but it does give me time to slough off the fact that I know Melanie can barely breathe in those support knickers or that Sally’s secret passion is to work with elephants in South Africa, or that those two women have loathed each other since primary school. All irrelephant. However, it does seem to me that the less I explain, or justify or whatever, the more powerful I feel, not over another but over my own babbling self and I like that feeling a lot.

Saying sorry is another loose lipped load of tiddleypom. Not when there is a definite culpability but all those other times, like when someone bumps into us. There is no sense in that but we do it endlessly, such as stepping into a taxi with a suitcase too heavy, in the rain and without assistance, thus keeping the lazy arse of a taxi driver waiting; asking a waiter for more water in a busy restaurant; changing an order in a bakery when the queue behind us is champing to be served; taking too long to pull out a pound coin or 3 for a bus trip with cold arthritic fingers. I have even watched a woman lift herself from a park bench with a sorry on her lips because she knew a whole family were eyeing that very bench, her own need for the whole of it a nothing much and clearly stating that she is a downright sinner for lowering her butt onto said bench in the first place.

Suspecting, as I do, that in my new land of weirdohood I think a lot more about things that never crossed my mind before, when external demands yelled for immediate attention. I am curious about behaviour, choices, patterns of old and the fractal un-patterns of the new, my creation of self now un-boundaried or even influenced by a.n.other. Sometimes questions arise that might have come from the mouth of a babe, questions deep and wandering as if I am just a little outside of everything I thought was a fact. In fact, I will question facts the most and there is a skip of mischief in my doing so. Someone says something that comes with a backdrop of irrefutable evidence. It’s even printed in a book as words are printed within the dense pages of a dictionary, their definitions set in ancient stone. And that, my friends, is where mischief finds her playground because language is always changing, developing or falling off the edge altogether. Basically I am having fun and at no-one’s expense. I am Mrs Malaprop intentionally and playing with words, turning a verb into a noun or talking like Yoda whilst still communicating the sense of my words. I am only sorry there isn’t an online course on imaginative speaking, on having fun with sentences or of finding new ways to illustrate what I want to say. Perhaps I’ll constructicate one. Sentences have rhythm, a beat, phrasing just like music and there is a wonderful freedom in playing games with what is supposedly the Right Way to Speak. The other good thing about jumbling up sentences is that my mind must be very quick indeed, well ahead in the race with my mouth, and one of the first lessons I wish to mistress is ‘Don’t say ‘sorry’ for every damn thing’. Instead I might say ‘oopsadaisy’ thus immediately bringing flowers into the situation and that is always a good thing.

I guess those diehards will be rolling their eyes at such subversion but taking life and language and a million other challengeable and changeable things too seriously just ends a face up in wrinkles. Laughter and a light touch lift mountains.

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Island Blog – From Four Stone Walls to Wild Places

I have been too scared to go anywhere beyond the safe confines of the little village. Most days I spend right here within my four stone walls (best song ever, in my opinion, by Capercaillie) or out there in the out there-ness of a wild place. I can walk a whole walk and meet nobody. Well, nobody with two legs and coated in either lycra, weather permitting, or waterproofs. I meet plenty of other-legged creatures of course. Spiders spinning, deer bolting, rabbits wiggling noses, an otter or two and plenty seabirds. I chat with the trees, imagine their long strong roots and know they help keep each other up, much as we humans could do if we just understood the power of it, instead of jousting at windmills.

I am mostly content with my life, the island wife without a husband. Mostly. Some days are black as the soot in my flue, some days bright as a lighthouse and I never know what will be which. It doesn’t matter what I do or do not do the day before the soot day, it dogs me like the shadow of a giant and no matter how fast I move, I am always in the dark of it. I have spent over a year searching for an answer to this upsy-downsy nonsense and find no answer at all and this is why. It is not a question with one answer at the other end of it. ‘Why’ is never a good question. ‘Why’ is a journey within, a quiet and solo traipse across a mind, not one to be voiced because any answer will fall short of the mark. The voiced question invites opinions. The one who receives this Why question can never respond with a solution. Not never. No other person in the whole wide world, across a zillion continents across all those wild oceans tossing stories and songs into the air, through the air that blows around the globe, can ever know the answer for someone else, because each one of us, like snowflakes and zebra stripes, is unique and therefore alone. So don’t bother with a ‘Why.’

I digress.

I am fearful, yes we got that. I am mostly content, yes, yes. Where is this leading? Ah, thank you. It leads to a phone call from one of my marvellous sons, one of the skippers, the skipper who skippers right here. Would you come on a cruise mama, a loch cruise for four nights on board? We have had a cancellation. My heart takes off but I catch it before it makes a hole in the conservatory roof. I hesitate, visualising massive waves, those ones I remember in a small bouncy thing of a boat crossing to Coll in a hooligan, the ones that, when they rose up like my swimming teacher in a furious mood with her eyes on me, blocked out the light. Then the fall, the slow slip down the other side in the sure knowledge that we would just keep on going down all the way to Atlantis. Or Hell. I breathe. Yes, I say. Yes. And then I twist to look at myself in horror.

I have days to organise things. How many things, I ask myself, noticing my endless pacing and the 2 pages of A4 lists. Well, not much in truth. Just some loving person to look after Poppy dog and my four stone walls. At short notice. A text to friends, a link, a number and she is found. Yes she can come, yes no worries, yes yes and yes. Committed now and planning my approaches, my frockstock, my beanie, socks (never wear socks) my underpinnings, enough for 4 nights. I wait for the fear to giant-shadow me. Nothing. I wait for indigestion, doubt, sheer terror, nights dense with 40ft waves and not a mermaid in sight. Nothing. Momentarily I wonder if I am finally going the way of the senile, that time I remember with Himself when nothing really mattered beyond his clear traverse up to bed. No, I am not there yet. But this is odd, this is strange, strange and rather wonderful.

On the day, Susie arrives, Sunshine Susie and she beams just like the sun which is a timely reminder that there is one at all, a sun I mean. I had quite forgot inside all these days of endless rain and cloud cover. I depart and manage the ferry thing just fine, staying outside the minute I board and arriving on familiar concrete, knowing my way. I keep my new mask firmly affixed to my face but find I am struggling to breathe, so efficient is it in keeping out all breaths, coughs and sneezes including my own. I walk around the harbour, among the visitors, along to the North Pier where the boats will meet and greet us. There are two boats ready for us this wet afternoon. The company is Hebrides Cruises and I recommend an online check. We, the guests, gather atop the pontoon and begin to introduce ourselves to each other. Some have travelled the length of the country for this cruise and me? Oh, me. Well I live over there, I tell them, waving my arm towards the island. I can tell they are amused, interested and disappointed all at the same time. I notice this and turn the conversation back to them, their tales of train changes, delays and clogs on the motorway. I just stepped on and off the ferry after all, did I not? They, on the other hand have much to say and much to share and I listen in pleasure because other peoples’ stories are always a fascination to me. They live a life I just don’t remember, one of limitations, of traffic, of timelines, of restrictions and rules whereas I am always free. Leaning against some metal thing that appears to have no reason to be there, I listen and watch and wonder. These lives, a glimpse. Just a glimpse. Faces, eyes, body language, baggage, all of it a wonderment to me.

Then the metal walkway rattles and we all turn. The skippers are rising like gods from the pontoon, together with the guides and the squeaky baggage trolleys that nobody ever bothers to oil. Relieved of our cases, we walk down the narrow ramps, back in our own thoughts, moving ever closer to the shining bellies of the boats that will be our home for the next 4 nights. They gleam, the superstructure white and all aglow. Our confidence rises yet again although it did already once we met the skippers. This one for you, that one for me. We separate on the floating pontoon and turn to the steps that will lead us all in to an adventure. I don’t know who is scared, who is dealing with something sad, who is hoping that this time will teach them something new, open a new window, show an escape. But as I wave goodbye to those on the other ship and move into the arms and the safety of my son, I know I made the right decision. To go or not to go? Always, always go.

Welcomed with pink champagne, cake and introductions, we heave-ho as the skipper turns the snout of the ship seawards. Into a pink cloudlight, into a blueing sky we move smooth as melting chocolate. Everyone is on the fly deck, binoculars at the ready, looking, searching, hoping for the wonderful.

And so it begins.

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Island Blog – On Being Vulnerable

I watch the far shore disappear behind the rain. It’s a little warmer this afternoon although it was a mere 5 degrees earlier. Going out to collect the wood required a few warm layers, but the burner is strong and cheery and lights like a firework every time I spin a match. I don’t mind the cold, nor the crazy west coastal weather. I am well used to it and still wear my frocks, my legs bare, my boots sheepskin lined. I walk in the early hours when most others are making tea or accepting a warm cup from a proffered and loving hand. When we get warm here, we get rain, and an islander or someone who knows this place well through regular visits, accepts and accepts again. I remember a visit to Iceland where the cold is frightening unless you have sheepskin knickers, or, as nowadays, thermals. I am pre thermals. I also have never worn sheepskin knickers but that is by the way. And Iceland is so beautiful.

I see the birds shelter and then flit when there is a wee break in the rain. I watch them, think I want to live this way and then remind myself that I already do. For long years I have dived out into such a break, grabbing with open arms the light and the bright of it and, sometimes caught on the other side. Sometimes. But not often. I have rarely found myself right out there in among the ancient rocks, the wild open space, and realised my poor timing, my poor understanding of how Nature works. Perhaps, I tell myself, after 43 years of living this wild place, of breathing in her breath, of hearing her voice, I am able to notice her offerings of sudden space to live, to really get out there into a language I am only just learning to speak. Sometimes I will say, let’s go, but by the time the ‘let’s go’ team have coated and booted up, the clouds are downing once more, the wind rising, the weather talking, saying, uhh, too late mate. Maybe this is why and this is how I am beginning to love being alone, because a wee Poppy dog needs no coating or booting. She just needs a wheech off her resting place, a touch that tells her something is afoot and that something is us and right now. It thinks me.

Being vulnerable is a very present thing. I know that being vulnerable can be seen as a weakness. What? There is nothing wrong with me. I am fine thank you. And, sadly, I am happy (not) to be seen as doing ok. When I am not. There is a distinct lack of congruence here, of authenticity and yet we persist in keeping the game going. Well, not me. I know who I am and I know my vulnerability. I know where I am weak and where I am super strong. I know that my mind, the dizziest broad you will ever meet is a part of me. I know I have black spells, I know shame and I know regret. I know I am a woman, long lived who still fights demons, her own, and I know how consuming they can be, given space enough to develop.

The hills that disappear when rain sheets them over are vulnerable. Are they really there when I can see nothing of them? The birds, the wildlife are vulnerable when unexpected cold continues as they work to fledge their young. I see young birds, tails short, flight a whole new thing to them and sorely compromised under sheets of rain, lift and fall, moving just a few feet to land again, puffing like bellows. The trees that trusted the early warmth are pushing out blossoms, only to find petals at their feet. They are vulnerable too, for without the bees and other flighty things, they risk their future. And, yet, it is how it is, how it always was and how it will be again. This is vulnerable living and we are all in this living thingy. Together.

Unlike the trees, birds and insects, we have an intelligent choice. To seek help. I get that it is super difficult to reach out to someone who has the experience we lack. The internet is full of quacks and crooks. But, if you want to heal then I say Keep Looking, because every single one of us knows how it feels at any age or stage to be sick of being sick. I am one. Aged 68, a grandmother, a woman of great experience, a woman who has gone through many hurdles. I like saying I am vulnerable because I always want to learn a better way for me. There is one out there and I know it. There are many of us, particularly now, who seek help, who want change. But, first off, we must admit we are vulnerable to whatever haunts us. There is talk of Mental Awareness as if it was a new thing. I scoff. It has always been a ‘thing’, but only now is it noticed. I hate the label. I hate all labels. But, if it is, at the least, being accepted as something that will eventually become accepted then I can go with it. I had a dad who came back from the war with obvious issues that he ignored, pushed down and which only came out in anger and excess. He was a wonderful man but broken and not least because being vulnerable and admitting ‘fault lines’ was not acceptable. Now things are different and yet not. Still the question comes. So, what is wrong? Well, nothing and everything and where does anyone start with that almost judgmental question? I never got it and always reverted to silence.

So, I will continue to be vulnerable, and yes, I know it is easier for women #flakes to speak out. For men even now it takes balls (sorry) to admit such a thing. But it is key and there are going to be young men out there who will fly the flag, who will push through the What is Wrong nonsense and who will broad the walk for those to come. Because we all know it. All of us. At some time in our lives.

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Island Blog – Independent Christmas

Well, this is a fine kettle of fish indeed! We can meet up for Christmas, no we can’t, yes we possibly might be able to, no we cannot, absolutely not, unless we…………. It’s a wonder any of us know which way is up these days. However, it seems clear enough to me, as the fog of confusion dissipates, that each one of us is required to employ a great measure of common sense. As we all know, this ‘common sense’ is anything but common inside a society that waits for Someone Else to tell us what to do. Independent thinking has slowly been erased from our brains until we become almost robotic. Or that is how it looks to me. Even when a goodly person ferrets about for an answer to that tricky question “How do you feel about this situation?’ and even more alarmingly “What do you plan to do about it?’ these two simple questions can create chaos inside a mind. I know it myself. First, I pull back; then I begin a sort of dervish twirl that can take my frock skirts over my head and leave me mighty nauseous; this swirl thing can go on for days, weeks even, as I repeat the questions to myself and find answers none.

I have now worked it out. Making an independent decision in the face of a national, nay global dilemma, is a big ask of a small woman, of all of us. Listening to the news, the rising numbers of those falling prey to the virus, alarms me greatly. The rise, it seems, is directly connected to ‘gatherings’ such as shopping for gifts and supples, or meeting together in pubs etc. Well, if that isn’t a ‘duh!’ I don’t know what is. Obviously, when folk gather under such a cloud of mean-spirited virus, that virus will spread. It is silent. It is lethal. It is not going anywhere with all these willing subjects just ignoring the danger. Who would? If I was a virus I’d be laughing my head off right now. So now, when I ask those two questions, the answers are simple. I feel alarmed and because I feel alarmed, I am not travelling anywhere, nor inviting all my friends in for a hoolie. Simples.

Yes, it is Christmas time and yes we have been locked down since March, afraid and isolated. Some of us have seen death in that time; some of us have, thankfully, not. The good news is that Christmas is an annual event, not a once in a lifetime thing. It will come next year, as many good things will. When we look back over this last year what will we say? Will we bang on about how tough it was, forgetting all the myriad and unexpected things wonderful that came our way, or will we be deeply thankful that we got through it, and together. I have never known such a unity in the world, seen or heard of so many random acts of kindness or learned of so many heroes and heroines who snuck out of the woodwork of their ordinary lives and became extraordinary. And all this because why? Because of the virus, that’s why. In times of peace we get complacent and idle. In times of war, such as this time in which we live right now, we find an inner strength and resourcefulness we never knew was inside us at all.

Whittling down the stick I find the wooden heart. If I do the same to the swirling dervish of confusion I find my own heart, the mind of my heart, the true voice of independent thinking. We may be advised not to travel. This is not a rule and there are no road blocks out there, after all. However, when I consider my part in the healing process of a whole nation or two, it is obvious to me that travel is a risk, so I won’t be doing that. It won’t be easy, seeing no family on this, my first ever Christmas alone, but I can do this. Anyone can do this. It is just a matter of independent thinking, of having a deep love and respect for life itself, and vision for a collective future. Once an independent decision is made, it is surprisingly freeing. The swirl and confusion slows to a stop. Try it.

And the chance to share Christmas with those we love will come again next year as long as we get our thinking straight for this one.

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Island Blog – Tribute

I always feel better after writing a blog. Is it, I ask myself, to offload, to teach, to preach, to, in other words, misuse my public forum? It’s a goodly question to ask myself. Once I have ferreted around in the cellars of myself, once I have come up feeling strong in my purpose, sure that it is not about me but about anyone else who may click with something I write, I write. This is one of those well-ferreted writes.

Today was troubled. The way it works for a full-time carer is this:- Day begins hopeful, trusting and light. Then one becomes two as the one in care descends the stairs, floating on metal poles and thanks to Major Tom, aka the chairlift. This is when the mode and mood of the day is proffered as IT. Now I have a choice and a decision to make. If the gloom descends with him, then I must attend to said gloom. I can resist it, but we all know resistance is futile. I can poke at it, ask questions, play bright, but I can hear my voice, in a slightly higher key, sounding sharp as badly cut tin. This won’t work. I lift my ass from my seat, round to the kitchen, make coffee, hot strong and black. Not enough. This gloom is following me, I can see it, smell it, feel its touch on my back. I swing about. Go Away! I hiss, but hissing works no better than resistance. I can feel it pulling at my skin, seeping in, changing me.

The day rolls slow. At 10 am I bake a cake, thinking, this will do it. It’s my usual flat pancake but with cherries which makes flat okay. Taste is everything, after all. We wander through the morning, him restless, moving moving moving all the time, the click and whir of the wheelchair setting my teeth on fire. Ears, I say, stop listening! I have always believed, and proved, that ears are obedient souls, if you organise them right. Pulling birdsong forward and pushing clicks whirs and other unpleasant noises back works well, for a while, but I must be vigilant. One relax and the click whirs are wild in my head whilst my teeth could burn down Rome, even from here. I read the affirmations on my kitchen wall. You can do this. I’m doing great. I believe in my dreams. This too shall pass. Those sorts of affirmations. Ya di ya I tell them today, but I don’t rip them down as I have in the past because that is resigning myself to the gloom. I cook, walk, feed birds, watch the clouds, berate Lady Moon for not showing me herself at 4 am and keep going, keep going, keep going.

It’s like holding up a bridge every single day. Just me (or just you). Mostly I can do this (so can you). Mostly. But it is exhausting, endless and with no end in sight. I have to be cheerful for two every single minute of every single day (so do you). I have to think ahead, plan, make sure the way is clear, be kind, laugh, smile, show up no matter how I feel or what I want. I could go a bit further for a walk. Easy. Not. I still could, but I don’t. On Gloom days I am fearful. What if he falls, gets more muddled about this or that, what if he just feels scared and needs me to hold that heavy bridge up?

This is caring. You who do it, already know. Outside of our lives are many who support us and show great compassion. We need it, oh boy we do, but they haven’t a scooby about what it’s like for us, minute by minute, day by endless day and I hope they never do. Holding up a bridge, alone, scared, ageing, tired, exhausted, doubting, weak and sleepless is something we have fallen in to. We won’t abandon our post but the ask is great.

I salute all of you who care enough to be caring. This is my tribute to you.