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Island Blog – Random, Fun, Chance,Respect

Thing is, we seem to forget these, as if they belong, belonged, in youth, something we have left behind with apologies. My ‘recalcitrant’ youth. My ‘misspent’ youth. And that wild and exciting persona is dumped in the past, trampled over in the obscene rush for success, ‘success’ because that word tastes different in a million mouths, in generational expectation, in the midden, and madden of thixotropic stultification. I know it, felt it. What is it you want? Well, who the hell ever asked that question (Im dithering between a question mark and an exclamation here). I do remember feeling lost in a swirl of long hair and crazy outfits and the need to be noticed, the danger in that, I remember. But, and more buts, how come it all gets chucked out with the garbage of what always comes next, the work, the deadlines, the trials of any union, particularly when a babe bursts into what was, heretofore, reasonably orderly?

What I see, out there, and not everywhere, is a dulling. Not here, not on this dynamic island where fun rises from the potholes and with the lift of wee new flight birds winkling right in your drive path to an appointment. They didn’t get the memo, obviously, because the winkle thing can take a while. But I hear of it, read it, in cities in confines of many sorts, the dulling. As if Fun is for someone else, but not me. I know shortage of earning is tricky. I know that there is almost no hope for an island home purchase. But, what I have learned over almost half a decade here, or, indeed on any island, and trust me, is that we need new blood, new ideas, we really do, to come, to engage with the recalcitrants, the pub, the local shop, those who will still hold tight to the place they value above all, bar their mother, and to ask, to befriend, to engage. And not to give up.

The islands are very happy as they are. But in the future, the economy will need any of you who bring random dance, fun, the chance to learn from you and you from us. I’m a passionate islander. I am brung (new word) up short as I watch a searing of a hillside in the creation of a new home, well, hopefully home. I see the changes, the invasion, as it might feel on first encounter, but I know we need those who want to live here to engage with the communities, to bring new hope but….. be cautious and respectful to a gazillion years of knowledge and a working understanding.

I just went to the pub. I laughed and shared and learned, and I would not live anywhere else out of choice.

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Island Blog – To Risk

This distraction thing…….well, this one is a wonderful one. No, I’m not telling, nor spelling it out, but it is far beyond cancer or insect bites, has nothing to do with hospitals nor scary journeys with too many questions in my mind, too many fears. This one is magical and hopeful and exciting and I feel wilder, free-er and it just looks as if the being of 71 is suddenly not the slow slide into an ending. Of course, there will always be that ending wotwot, we can’t avoid that, but if it’s possible to shout Wahooo on that slide, I am in. I didn’t think it was mine, however, just a short 3 weeks ago. No. I sat with coffee and my spectacular view and the birds dafting away around the feeders, watching other people living out their lives in a snapshot as they careened by (young) or wandered (older) and I reconciled, reluctantly to what seemed inevitable. In my experience, from what I can remember of those long ago days when my reddish chestnut hair was long enough to sit on and my body obeyed me and my eyes were light bright, twinkly and challenging, the next generation up seemed ancient. Perms and blue rinses (good god) and with shoes matching handbags, and the men, jowly and rotund, not that there is anything wrong with any of that, but I confess to thinking, oh very dear. Please not me. I said (I did) please take me around 60 when I still have control of my bladder and my footsteps. Obviously that fell on deaf ears! And now I am where I am, and, by the way, I still challenge anyone to stay longer than me on the dance floor, with breaks now and then, of course.

Do you remember a time when something, or someone happened, and that connection, so random, so unexpected, made a deep shift in everything, when thoughts, confused by this happenstance, swirled like a whole frickin twister as it just ran right through you? Sensibilities are unsensibled in a moment, and it takes some time to settle the unsettlers. But it seems to be a good thing, after decades of self-protection, fuelled by fear and doubt. We immediately doubt and question, after a lifetime of caution and routines that uphold, define and confine, until this normal is normal, even if we don’t like it one bit. We accept and perform as we are expected to, and, to a degree, that’s a good thing, until the roots go miles down like blades, cutting through the fragile connections to self.

And then something or someone walks into my vision, yours too. How wonderful is that! Even if it is just a snapshot, it came to me, came to you, a shift in a personal tectonic plate, the underground split into a new geology. That’s something, for sure. It proffers a chance, a wild step into the unknown. If we are to live with joy, fun, light and energy, it is up to each one of us to risk.

My favourite word.

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Island Blog – Sharing love on a Train

After a wonderful few nights with my grand girls, I stepped onto the train for a CT scan at the Beatson Cancer Clinic. I like the name. It has Beat in its construct. And, the evening before, I was teaching my grand girls beatboxing. At least, I think that’s the term. They, like all the other grandlings in my big family, in some way or other, are into music and beat. We played with mouth sounds, many of which, in ordinary life, are advisably contained. A hiss, a growl, a guttural whaaaa, etc, but as beat, anything, pretty much, goes. We walked beneath a closed sky, watched what we could see of the filming of Outlander at Doune Castle, squelched through mud, passed horses and actors and a medieval film set. It was exciting just to be there.

Then The train. My lovelies sent me off with kisses and promises through windows long needing a clean, but, I’m guessing, it has rained for yonks, the tracks luffing up mud and whatnot for some weeks, months. Nonetheless, within the confines of this efficient tube of transport, I made friends, not least because my short hair is electric blue. It’s like an invitation to conversation, and, I understand, it’s not for everyone, but it is just that for me. A lovely woman up-beat from me (in other words, the next set of seats) eye-glanced me, and I smiled. When she came up to me, just before her stop, I knew she felt safe, and I knew it was my smile that invited her in. She could have been going to divorce proceedings, a difficult meet, or to a wonderful job, but she came in. I love your hair, she said, stranger to stranger. It tells me something I may have forgotten in the crazy of my life. I smiled again, and nodded. She’ll do the rest. Then, in slid a young man. He was polite, respectful and we did the smile thing. He worked on something, paper and pen. Then, from a tap behind, he responded to a woman who couldn’t make her mobile do something she wanted. He respectfully helped her, and after this was done, he turned back to me and I said, That was a gift?

He said, no, and yes. I love to help. He asked about me. I said I was heading for a CT scan pre radiotherapy. He said nothing, but his eyes said everything. When he left, he bowed and took my hand, his young brown one in my old white one. A moment I will remember, even if I never got his name.

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Island Blog – Thinksmith. She

Been thinking about thinking. We all have a gazillion thinks every day, but it’s the sorting of them that fascinates me, draws me in to the frickin web of itself. I can get stuck. Did you know that a spider web is the strongest of all ‘materials”? It can hold a floating astronaut, once duly bigged up, or so I read. So, these thinks, these random trollops (can I still pen that word?) invade a brain, invited or not, and, mostly so NOT. Howeversoever, they come from the moment we wake. The What To Do List is immediately available, the flat surface visible, and, in theory, doable. Doable? Is that a word now?

Back to Thinks. I wake with all of them and I watch them fly about my mind, then, on lifting into the morning light, into a new day. It’s noisy, the think party, yes, but as my body moves from the dream world, where everything is transient, falling, scary, I grab my huge man-jumper, a gift from an old and gone friend for whom I cooked and cleaned. sling it on and take my legs to the floor. Oh, pause on that. There are those, many thoses who can not do this, and never will. I take the stairs down for coffee, knowing there is warmth and power for the kettle. I flick on the fairy lights because it is so not dawn, yet, but the moon is owning the sky and she smiles me. Salut, Lady Moon. May you live long and prosper.

But, and there is always one of those, or, if not, it’s a bloody However. Another think. How else can a writer break from one statement to another, without a but or a however, or a coach or counsellor, or a friend who cares? We don’t talk right these days. We fire statements like rockets. We don’t invite and accept, on the streets of our lives. Now, I know I am an old island woman, so am not in the hub or hug of today’s thinks, but it seems to me that there is almost more fight for survival in the world of greed and success over others, than ever there was. And that thinks me more, even though I have no inside information on how the hellikins this world works now. Just this very day, I heard a young man tell me he no longer seeks money as his goal. Yes, he wants money for his own lifestyle but not for its own sake. He wants wealth in order to share it, to help someone else, to be random, to be wild with it. It thinked me good.

I can play with words, phrases, terminology, wordology, big thinks, random tiddleypom, the thinksmith, always, she.

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Island Blog – A Gentle Circle

When I write I feel better than I did with all those words and feelings and observations twinging about in my head. They circle like planets, a circumcircle within triangular sharps. As I move to sit here at my desk and lift my fingers to the qwerty keyboard, I sense freedom. From here I can fly my words , no, not fly, because flying is random and words must needs sentence up, find rhythm and then there’s grammar and punctuation and la la tiddly pom, all sharping their own sense of self, of importance, of an importance to the whole and quite right too. The one who drives the forward beast, horse, bus, train, plane is no good on his or her team. Every other who takes a part takes a vital part. I mean, just imagine the world without full stops or question marks or spellcheck? Well, I can, actually. Many and I mean ‘many’ letters (did I sound old fashioned there?) or emails astonish me with their obviously random dance into the world of grammar, spelling, sentence building, the verb in the right place, ditto the noun. For me this is basic material but, and but again, I am one who believes that language moves on and changes and so should we, even as I squeak at grammar ghastlies. But I am not a grammarphobe. Jeez no. Life needs to move on and btw She is not moving on without me.

No matter the day or the previous night. No matter the weather or the to-do list, or lack of one, I find joy in so many things. No, not things, although the things are things. Like the rose bush outside my window. I watch it. I see the blooms bud, open and fall in just 3 or 4 days. Something I could miss if I wasn’t watching. I go out barefoot (it is essential to feel the wet grass under my feet) and smell the fragrance. I know is isn’t perfect for these sentient plants, they know the climate is changing and that they need to burgeon quickquick before another and unseasonal gale wheechs their beauty into nevernever. I walk and see 3 bullfinch, such a gasp of beauty, lift from the undergrowth, chirping danger and warning to their one chick. They are teaching it to fly. I knew it. I hear gulls in a frenzy and know I will find a big bird somewhere out there, a sea-eagle, a buzzard, maybe a kite. The dingdong goes on until they wild into the sky, the big bird and the hecklers, white white against a grey skyfold. And then I write. Not about the missing, about the emptiness or the triangular sharps, for within is a gentle circle.

Like grammar. I must move on.

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Island Blog – Enough for me

I’ve been thinking. Thinking can be quite a full time job I find, have found. Sometimes it can be destructive, sometimes instructive, sometimes pointless, sometimes pointful. Because a gazillion thoughts crowd our minds from the minute we wake up and all the way up to whenever we manage to fall asleep, we must learn how to handle them. It’s like all your children, plus their friends and their friends friends and cousins are all around you shouting demands at the same moment. Their little fingers pluck at your clothes, their voices screech like jays and you, only you can sort out this mess. You rear back, try to find some place of quiet in which to find a solution, or many solutions, often without success. But you can actively get away from all those children by leaving the room and closing the door, running upstairs to lock yourself in the loo whilst you unwind the mental tangle, calming it into a good idea, a distraction, where with thoughts you cannot. You have to manage them internally and there is no upstairs loo available.

In times of long moments which can feel like hours, thoughts cluster, conjoin, form fat shapes like dumplings, weighing heavy and so amalgamated that it is nigh on impossible to sort the wheat from the chaff. They dumple in my head, that’s what they do. What was it, that last fleeting thought? I don’t know, don’t recognise it, not as it is in this state of dumple. Who would? So what to do? I am pulling on my mental boots as I acknowledge the complete irreverence and lack of respect from these thoughts. How dare they assault me this way, tell me, or infer, that I am less than I might be, have failed too many times in the past and HaHa you can do nothing about that now you fool! I swipe them away like bluebottles. I’m going out, I tell them. Without you. I slam the door, truss the dog and begin to walk.

Immediately I am aware of stepping into the real world, my spiralling thoughts silenced. Now I am looking with my eyes facing out and not in. Left behind is the familiar, the four stone walls, the paintings, the photographs, the dust on the floor and the to-do list. I am alone but not alone, a body moving into a world not under my control, the random chaos of pure Nature. It isn’t random at all, nor chaotic but to me with my stays tightened in a back-home mode, my memories contorted into a twist of nonsense and untruth, this outside world seems just that. Birds flitter back and forth, butterflies butterfly and windshift troubles early greening limbs. Bumble bees claim the soundbite, hesitate me beneath willow catkins and I stand to watch their fat little bodies claim the sweet. Yellow, white, with round arses and pointy ones, tiny miner bees, even bluebottles tap the nectar. Percussion, timpani, glorious. Two paces beyond the willow and I hear nothing at all. Their sound is just for them and not for me but I hear it and it fills my head with hope. Life will always want to live.

Further, and I stop to welcome wee wind battered primroses, their butter faces reaching for a sun they will not meet this day. Star moss leaps out from stand-water, even from the crook of a tree where limbs have split for their own reasons and who have now offered a place of safety for some other leap for life. The wind today is kinder. The iceslice punch softened. I duck beneath a larch bough, heavy now with spindle green and with the hope that no unthinking walker will cut it back as I have seen before, as if this limb didn’t own its space and as if folk have forgotten how to duck. The latter I decide. Humans are so very arrogant and so very mistaken in their arrogance. Just saying.

I return soaked and thankful to my outer clothing and my boots. But more, I return changed. As I tentatively open the door to my four stone walls, I hear nothing. No thoughts loud my thinking. I am zinging on what I have just walked through and which welcomed me. Life will always want to live.

And that is more than enough for me.

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Island Blog – Mountain, Tomorrow and Me

Not every day can be positively thinked. Some days, randomly, it seems, come slam dunk, presenting little positive, no matter the incoming. Could be a card through the post, a gift, some encouraging words in a text or just a lift of light in a dark place. On those days these gifts mean little or nothing at all. The sun might be doing his best, huffing up to the top of the sky and beaming like a beatific parent but all he does is blind me and I blink or shade him away. I am impervious to positive on those days. I read that I am supposed to accept such times in such times and to ‘allow’ myself to do whatever I can and to not do whatever I can’t. Enter my ingrained teaching. You do not give in my girl. You get on with it, whatever it is. You present as positive and not only to the outside world but to your own self. I am up and down on those days, battling with guilt and shame. I am lazy. I am giving in. I am not presenting the positive. I avoid speaks. I avoid texts that ask direct questions about how I am. My finger hovers over the answer bit and slides away. I put the phone on silent and avoid mobile calls.

Tomorrow will be different, I tell myself and together, me and tomorrow, will deny and forget this day. We will. But a part of me knows another will come slam dunk and both tomorrow and I will flounder like goldfish outside our bowl. We will gasp for an air that is denied us and we will both think back. Could we have prevented this unpleasant situation, this day of nothing, of no purpose of no point at all, with an ending that doesn’t bear thinking about? I say no. I have worked through this before, many times. The days of nil point are just that. All we can do, me and tomorrow, is to really celebrate those random gifts of words, texts, flowers and smiles and make them bigger, in order just to get through the very long hours of pointless. Because that is how we feel. Pointless. Our purpose, our plan of action, our very raison d’être has died, is gone and with this gone thing, he took us too. We don’t want to believe it. We don’t want it to be this way, but this way it is. For now. That’s what tomorrow tells me. But it feels like a life sentence. These gifts that come are lifts for sure. They move my heart, jig me into thankfulness and light but they don’t last long, not on those days. I see them as hold points on the mountain I am climbing. That rock that juts out just enough for a foothold, that sturdy branch, that ledge. But they are not enough, never enough because I have to climb this flipping mountain and it looks to me like it touches the sky. I go through cloud, ice, snow and darkness, through fear, loneliness and loss. It is just me up here. Tomorrow stayed at base camp, wisely.

I know I have to keep climbing, accepting the giftly footholds, resting on safe ledges and then going again the next time dawn shows her light. I know this. But in my wildest dreams I never thought me on the flank of a mountain and certainly not one that is in collusion with the sky. Cloud covers me wet. Cold. Then the sun warms. This is how it is. One day at a time. Nothing I expect is what I get. I used to know who I was and where. Now?

No clue.

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Island Blog – Anything I Want and Magic

Out walking this morning, something came to me. It made me laugh out loud, which thoroughly startled the air around me, sent little birds bursting up like fireworks and caused two doe-eyed rabbits to hurtle into the underpinnings of the wood. It was this. I can do anything I want in this lockdown time. There are no checkers with opinions popping their heads around doors at random times of the day. I don’t need to close the loo door when going for a pee. I can wear my frocks inside out, put my pants on my head, cook in just a pinny, drink 3 bottles of wine with lunch and sleep in the same sheets for a month. This freedom is a chuckling thought and my imagination is already running wild.

So, what did it mean before this, before all checkers with opinions were checked out, and for some time to come? Well, I reckon I may well have kept my standards high precisely because of their startlement tactics. If I thought someone might catch me cooking in just a pinny, or appear as the third bottle of wine sank to the dregs, it would think me, and more than once. This structure is/was a good thing, and it will be again, once we are all free to check on each other once more. In fact, I could feel rather unhinged if I considered the possibility that I might never be checked on again. Being checked on created me a discipline, a structure, a blue print by which to navigate my daily life. It kept me upright and moderately sane, grounded and with a strong idea of how things should be on any given day. Does this mean I am now running rampant like a rebellious teenager? No, thankfully. I did that once and it brought me no end of bother, not least because I had no idea of where I was running to, and had I kept on running I would have fallen off the edge of the world. Eventually.

But considering this thought is leading me to all sorts of things. What I am doing these lockdown days is pretty much what I always did. How encouraging that is. For a woman like me who is prone to fantasies of flight on a broomstick it is hugely reassuring to learn that I am grounded in an ungrounded sort of way, but grounded enough to be continuing my standard of living. In truth, it is an elevated one. Now that all the caring is down to me and I am well occupied with an endless list of exciting tasks, I find I have raised the bar. My husband, the sheets, the floors and dishes within this island home are all polished to a shine. Does this mean that I don’t need to feel answerable to anyone but myself? Absolutely. Why didn’t I realise that when checkers with opinions lurked around my peripheries? I cannot answer that, but to understand in the mind of my heart that I am complete, that my conscience is my true guide and that it is I who can give me all the answers, is very refreshing. It means I can talk to myself, always a delightful interaction and most revealing in that I know how me thinks, what irritates me and which way the pair of us want to go.

I am not saying I don’t miss the chance of new light being thrown on an old absolute from the mouth of a friend, but I can still source that via the phone. What I am saying is that this morning I understood something I have preached to both myself and others for years, the fact that I have all that I need for me right here inside this brain, this body, this place, this situation. I just need to go within to look for the answers. They have possibly been waiting for ages, patiently, rolling their eyes every time I expected someone else to bring me the magic I needed. Now I know its inside me and that is a wonderful thought.

We are all enough for ourselves. No, not just enough. More than that. We are completely complete just where we stand right now. And we are the Magic.