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Island Blog – Family, time and A.I.

They barrelled in, the girls, all grown up now, or so they think. I remember barrelling in with just that belief, even though I was always dodging the parental thumb. They’re like butterflies, the really colourful ones, dipping and diving, fluttering, spinning bright sparkles around the room, any room, so vulnerable. I smile a big welcome, ask questions because these girls now think they are adults, autonomous, certain. They have opinions, strong ones, a surety that I have definitely lost over time. For now, they know the world. It’s round, and contained in space within a gravitational pull, but they’re not, with their piecings and tattoos and that certainty that the world is just waiting for them to cause a wow. A really big Wow. One is heading into performing arts, another to the science of human geography, another to animal whispering (it’s not called that, but she is definitely a student thereof, already). And there are more plans for futures. Forgive my forgetting. All these teens are alight like fireworks, grasping life, opportunities, fighting for space within the inevitable confines of peer judgement and parental disappointment. What the parents wanted and hoped for, even planned for, was not what this teen had even imagined. No, Dad. No, Mum. Teens can say that these days.

I am, at first, momentarily surprised at how short I am. They were babies, toddlers, kindergarten deposits, when…….a few months ago, weren’t they? Now they are tall, strong girls, all made up perfectly, in lycra, toned and svelte, excited, fit, adventurous, wild, aware. I don’t mind being short btw. It works, for a granny. They look after me, help me unscrew a wine bottle or a jar of pesto, open the door for me. I am loved and I can feel it. Actually, the surprise thing continues. My quad shoots by loaded with girls, all squealing. I know they have walked into the wild Atlantic from Calgary beach, swung on tree limbs, investigated deer tracks, not a moment of boredom. And they are doing all this right here. Although I may only see them in quad passing, I know they are here, and it thinks me about moments, which is really all we have. Although I am alone on the island, I am not alone at all. Family may not live here anymore, but they come back and those explosions of the familiar are welcome, so welcome. Even when they are here, they have their own agenda, their own plans, of course they do. Even their parents, my kids, move to a different beat from the one of their childhood.

I get this glimpse and then they are gone again, but I have watched every given moment, listened to hopes, dreams, plans. I have watched faces alight with hope and faith. II have given over my kitchen for cake-baking, have watched my quad roar by way too fast, loaded up with girls. And I think this……

Go girls. Make a difference. Be canny, aware, safe and, oh, another thing….Artificial Intelligence can never be human.

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Island Blog. – Present, Alone and Safe

Oh how I love my home, the warm, cozy, safe happiness of these four stone walls surrounding me and my wee dog. Since himself upped and died, I have not felt safe here, concerned about loneliness and boredom and the fact that those who needed me, every single minute of every day, every month, every year, no longer do. It has taken all this time to be comfortable with that. At first, it felt like abandonment, I was abandoned, and I was, abandoned. I remember thinking, as each child left home, that gut twisting ouch, like a punch, that one of my beloveds had chosen to leave me. It sounds mawdling, arrogant, even, but what loving mother feels it any other way? I dont know if himself felt it too, but I do know that he still had me and that was enough for him, but he wasn’t enough for me, and that’s my raw truth. When they left, I longed to go with them, even as I knew I never could, nor would. A young life must learn through living it out, and a mother in tow was never going to be me. I knew one of those, my mother-in-law, and much as I respected and needed her, I didn’t admire her hold on himself, not once he had a wife and family. However, reflecting, this was a two way need. I get that.

It rained today. No big deal. T’is the norm in this glorious place, the wettest in the whole of the country, and that is saying something. To be the Best Wet……. goodness, demands a medal, or, maybe several medals distributed among all of we islanders, not that you would ever see them beneath the layering of wools and waterproofs. The rain can be slanty or stick straight. The clouds must be exhausted, or perhaps not. Perhaps this place is the only one offering regular employment, and clouds are fantastic creatures, lifting, shifting, colouring, turning Colgate white, spreading out their arms to each other, conjoining, merging, changing, always changing. Clouds can teach us a thing or two, at the mercy of Nigel or whatever daft and ordinary name the weather folk have decided to give a force of nature that begs no name at all. It is just a gale, I want to tell them, just a wild creature of magnificence and power, and you want to what……turn it into a small thing, a something you can label and tidy away once it has moved on? It ridiculouses me.

I finished a jigsaw, started another one. No, that’s a big fat lie. I laid out the 1000 pieces, covering most of my big oak dining table, tiny pieces, god so bloody tiny and dark, darker than the bright picture on the box. I left them overnight, studied them this morning, these pellets of impossibility, and snorted. There is no way I will, would, want to, enjoy putting you together. In fact, you are a big fat chore and I don’t want one of those. I gathered all the pieces up and returned them to the box without a moment of guilt. I shall take this one to the library. And it thinks me.

As I move beyond the loneliness and the boredom, and the pointlessness of me, I find a strength, a new confidence. Had I been the old, bored, lonely and pointless me of just a few months ago, I might well have battled with that horrible jigsaw, out of a sense of duty and because it might, just might, have filled in an hour or two. But not now. Now I can feel the amazon (not the company, but the woman) awakening. I can, and will, choose what I will do and what I will not do. 50 years of not having much choice about anything much is becoming my past. I will put myself together in a new way, even if the pieces confound me at first, and it will be I who choose the picture. And my head is full of colour and light and clouds and skies and fairies and walks in the woods. I can feel the Atlantic swell in my heart, and she calls me, the minx that she is, and I find myself yearning for that wildness, the not knowing and not understanding, the turbulence, the storms, the sudden calms, the snow geese flight overhead, the swans coming in, the autumn bluster. It all chuckles me. I am woman. I am strong and, I am rising up to laugh at the days to come for I am made of cloud, woods, ocean, light and dark, and I am here, present, alone and safe.

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Island Blog – A Fricker

I confess to feeling nervous. Not about the more tests thingy on Friday, not about the outcome thereof, not even that I will be alone for said tests and said outcome, but of the travel. From here, leaving home, my safe and happy place, to my daughter’s house and then, the following day on a train to Edinburgh, to the hospital. I’ve travelled alone before. It isn’t a new thing, nor a big deal, because I’ve done it many times, the drive bit and, as for the train, well, I just catch it and sit do I not? I wonder why we ‘catch’ a mode of public transport, as if it might run right by us like a headlong horse, one we have to leap aboard, arms stretching, holding tight, legs fighting to swing on, to cling on, the wind punching us backwards, as the beast gallops on, careless of our existence. It’s like that in India, or so I hear, but not in Bridge of Allan. Not that I’ve ever witnessed.

It thinks me enough to talk about it to my counsellor, she who has more powers of reassurance than she has teeth. She manages to reassemble my thoughts and my unthought thoughts, settling my imaginary fears into a neat and orderly line. I look at them, standing there, arms by their sides, a slide of naughty schoolkids, chastened into silence. They are all small, pint sized, half my height, strength, experience. It helps to see them this way, in balance, in perspective. Even the strong feel fear, I tell myself and this is as it is. Fears come to everyone, after all. It is what we do with each one of them that matters. If I allow a fear to grow, it will kick the legs out from under me and that is not happening. So, the happening is all down to me. Again.

Each time I leave the safe place, I feel this anxiety. I feel it when leaving family or when family leave me. I feel it when my wee dog is sick or when a tyre on my car looks a bit low. I feel it when my woodpile looks a bit depleted, or when a gale slam dunks the island, making a hoor of a racket just to frighten us all, when the dark is complete and unforgiving. I feel fear often in the small of my back. Fear is real but small, I tell myself. Fear is only a big thing if I let it grow. However, I am not stupid about such feelings. I know they will not stay buried just by my turning away from them. I must allow them to come in, to sit for a while with me, and then to ask them, politely, to leave. You are not helpful to me right now. You are not real.

So what is real? I have my ticket for the ferry. I know the road of old. It’s a pretty drive and I will take it at my own speed which is gentle. I will sit behind a lorry if needs be. I will allow others to overtake and make it easy by slowing down for them. I will notice the autumnal changes and the ebulliance of heather and the wild expanse of land left to itself, the arc of an uncluttered sky and I will love it. I will sit on the ferry admiring dogs and saying hallo to everyone I meet. And, on the day I ‘catch’ the train to the hospital, I will watch people, smile and acknowledge them. I will smile in the Breast Waiting Room, all those women anxious, eyes searching the room for something, anything to take their minds off their fate. I will laugh with the nurses as I unbutton and bare myself, as I am squashed and poked; as the needles go in. And, then, somewhat beaten up, I will smile at and laugh with the nurse who is my companion through all of this, and I will try to understand and to take in whatever she tells me. And, if I don’t quite understand, I will ask for a repeat.

And, then, I will catch the headlong horse back to that tiny wee station with its flower baskets and a backing of solid hills, and I will arrive to a smiling collection, a load of questions I probably won’t be able to answer and to the celebration of my eldest granddaughter’s 16th birthday. I held her on the day she was born and now just look at her, tall, athletic, full of dreams and plans to travel the world. And, as I write this, remind myself of this, I smile, this time, for myself. Although I may feel a recurrence of anxiety, of fear, I know that what is fricking about with my mind is just that. A Fricker.

Small, pint sized, and absolutely no match for me.

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Island Blog – The Jist of the Dance

The New year’s Dance. I haven’t been for many years, wanting to but encouraged to scoff at the whole hogmanay hangover/hair of the dog thing. But I did go, lifted by my kindly young neighbours and thus chaperoned and only for the Children Bit, 7-9pm. The hall was buzzing with families and those, like me, who tend towards early experiences, finiting them when the big people arrive with a long night on their minds. It was wonderful. For a while the music was disco, minus DJ and I watched the children, all fined up and flutey, the girls with sparkles and sass, the boys stuck to the walls, eyes on their shoes, the odd flicker of uplooking. I smiled at the memory of my own children at such events, way back way way back. Now I am a granny on the dance floor and don’t let anyone police me off it, oh no. I am here to boogie, to ceilidh, to absorb every single wonderful moment of freedom, not just from covid restrictions, but from life, from wife, from my children leaving, from explanations. I am aware I may well have looked like a right narnia, barefoot, dancing, as I did with another granny, a dear friend, another creative, a woman who knows what it is to have experienced the joys of gain, the pains of loss, her heart, like mine, a mosaic of cracks and craiks and smoothed over and over by her own hand, the crafter of renewal, of necessity. To be such a woman, any woman, is to learn that heart breaking is not a final act but a daily one, perhaps hourly, but nonetheless inevitable.

So we danced, we grannies, a lot. And when the ceilidh band, young men, arrived on stage, I played man to her woman and we swung and spun and giggled and bumped and it was perfect. The lights twinkled and the young, soon to be dragged home by parents for the 9pm curfew, danced faster and with wild enthusiasm. I watched their faces, caught their sparkles, saw the boys unglue from the walls as if they knew it was now or never, their pressed shirts and shone shoes a waste of effort if they didn’t just go for it, now, quick.

And then I caught sight of a young man, a friend of my eldest, a wide smile on his face. He lives away with his family, but he was here and this was now and, like the curfew children, I was leaving soon. Dance? I asked and he smiled his warmth, reaching out his arms in welcome. What is this dance? he asked. No idea, I replied (so many complicated island dances). The dancers formed a ring. Shall we middle it? I asked. Yesss! he said, and we did and the joy of dancing without knowing a single step with a young man who only had the jist of the dance was glorious. We spun and jigged, bounced and twirled and all the time he held me safe as we middled the whole wheel with absolutely no clue as to the regulation dance steps. It has been very many years since I felt that safe.

I would say, even at this late stage that I have only ever caught the jist of life, of living, not understanding most of it, and I am glad of it for life is a deep thing, and wide and way too much for resolving. But to recklessly dive into the middle of the dance of it is a glorious sparkly thing. It may not sort out heartbreak nor last into the next day but if I know I can take that barefoot step once, even at almost 70, then I can do it again, and, if I cannot, at least I did and only yesterday.

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Island Blog 145 Standing on Wasps

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This is the time of year when our little home welcomes (not) a host of eejit flying things in search of food and warmth.  They find warmth sure enough, more than they bargain for as it happens thanks to our electrocution chamber, set high on the kitchen units.  It’s blue light bars are obviously very seductive and we often stop our daily round in response to the fizz and spark a fly creates when making contact with 100 volts.  We know when a wasp has made such a choice, because the fizzing and sparking goes on for yonks, backed by an appalling stink of burning flesh.  Sometimes the shock is enough to spin the fried creature to the floor and my bare feet must be careful not to walk on wasps.

I know this all sounds deeply cruel, but it is mostly pretty quick, although not for us with a good sense of smell.  Prior to the installation of this high voltage addition to the kitchen white goods, we were inundated with bluebottles, greenbottles and all other bottle-named egg-laying irritating summer visitors.  I could rarely leave any bit of food uncovered.  We don’t really understand why, as we don’t live next door to a chicken farm, nor are there horses in next door’s garden.  The house is kept reasonably, but not obsessively clean, and the kitchen bin is small and emptied often.

This morning, as I woke to the first frost of winter, white-laced fingers of cold stretched over Tommy’s field, I thought about making choices.  Yes, I know it’s a bit far-fetched to suggest that a fly with huge eyes and a very small brain could possibly say, with hindsight, that perhaps diving into the fire was not it’s finest decision, but, we could, for we have small eyes and a huge brain and thus decide our own fates, to a great degree.  I thought about all my poor decisions, and ran out of fingers.  Fortunately, I cannot remember them all, for there were many and will be more.  Thing is, we make choices based on not just the situation, but how we feel about it.  Sometimes it is mighty difficult to be objective in an assessment of those two uncomfortable bedfellows.  Assessing a situation, well, that’s okay, I can do that.  You may not see it the same way, but at least we both have something visual, something solid to poke at, to give shape and form and texture to.

But how we both feel about it, well that can change everything.  You might say I am wrong to feel the way I do, referring back to the situation, the physicality of it’s form.  Even if we both completely agree on how we see it, a different emotional response is inevitable, and those emotions are what guides our hearts.

Perhaps the key is to keep quiet and say nothing.  Perhaps this keeps us all safe from attack.  But surely, if I keep quiet and you keep quiet, how can we move on, with all those emtions racketing round our insides like trapped wind?  I don’t have an answer.  Many of my poor decisions involved speaking out, and thereafter spending whole days in regret, madly trying to pull the foot out of my mouth.

What we choose to say and choose not say is up to us each one.  Speaking out is an action.  I remember being urged by one son to ‘hear the words behind the words’ when I was raging at some comment aimed at me by Granny-at-the-gate.  She just said whatever she wanted to say, and I was sometimes in the cross hairs, but the real woman was a flaming marvel.  She was loyal, supportive, funny, creative.  A woman who taught me a great deal of things through her wisdom and experience.  He, my son, saw her words as one thing, I, with all my hang-ups and a deep sense of always slightly falling short of the mark, as another.  Without his view on things, I might have spent all week walking on wasps, whereas Granny-at-the-gate had forgotten it all by coffee time.

Back to the flying eejits.  Although I have killer white goods in my kitchen, I also have compassion.  If I see a flying insect caught in a spider’s web, I will leap up to free it.  I know, it’s ridiculous of me, especially as I am so fond of spiders.  I just hate to see anything trapped and struggling to escape.  I feel the same about humans, not that I see many of them caught in spider’s webs.

Compassion is the key here.  However differently we see a situation, however polar our emotional responses, if we have compassion, we can allow that difference.  The situation doesn’t change, but we do, and, in the wake of that change, we meet the peace of acceptance.

And then we can look up to the great wide sky of things once more, and move on.

unlike the flying eejits.

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Island Blog 100 – Life, Death and Other Animals

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I did wonder, as Island Blog 100 moved closer, what I would choose to write about – where my fingers would take me, what tale I would give life to. It seemed such a big number and worth due attention.

Then the subject chose itself and not in a way I would have guessed, nor wanted.

But, my dear, I tell myself, in that gentle motherly tone, such is life.

Or death.

One moment Sula is running along beside me, or, more likely, way out front, or miles behind and busy being her completely independent self, and the next, broken in the road.  I wasn’t sure if I would go into that bit, and yet, I cannot, nor will I, hide from the truth of anything.  As a……now, what’s that word they use to describe me in reviews of Island Wife…….?  ah, yes, ‘cosseted’……. young woman, I saw little of the nasty side of life or death, for my parents protected me, protected all of us from things unsightly, the stuff of nightmares.  I would have done the same for my own children, given half a chance and with no access to the blood and guts of hill farming, but that is not how it was for them, and, because I was there too, with eyes open for the looking, I saw it as well.

With hindsight, I am glad they did see it, for the alternative is not the truth, not balanced, not real and it just makes the inevitable, inevitable.  One day, they will see, we all do, and the earlier the circle of life and death and life again is accepted, the better our hearts and minds can deal with it.

The response to pictures and words about Sula on Facebook pages, the messages by card, letter and phone, words of compassion and genuine sadness – all those mouths full of memories spilling into our ears, are helping a great deal.  We don’t know until something crashes into our lives and breaks it, what any of it meant to those we meet on our journey.

This is the Life after the Death.

The first Life bit we take for granted.  However thankful we may be on a daily basis for the gifts we are given, the lovers, friends, partners, children, pets, we don’t spend a lot of time second-guessing their life span.  We just live it out, honestly, realistically, focusing on the little add-ons such as what to put in a child’s pack lunch and whether or not the gym kit is clean for Tuesday.  We can be careless with our goodbye’s and our hallos.  We can be snappy and regret it, but not say so.  We are caught up with concerns over our own footwork on the hamster wheel, and we can miss times we should never miss.  But, we are human.  We are frail.  We get it wrong, we get it right, but mostly we fall somewhere in the middle and we do okay, although it often takes someone else to remind us of that, so filled we are with self-doubt.

I know I looked after her that day, as I always did when the sailor went to sea, you see, and left her in my care.  Yes, at times I moaned about being tied.  Yes, I was raging with her when she climbed out the car window, because it was too hot, or took off in a different direction, costing me time and emptying me of puff;  when she refused to come to my whistle, and sat down in the middle of the road, her favourite place to sit.  Yes I snapped at her when she followed me around the house, up the stairs, down again, into the kitchen, out again, and all because a bluebottle had flown overhead.   One slight buzz and she was off, pushing through any number of garden barricades and out onto the road, where, oddly, she felt quite safe once more and all the drivers passing by had to stop because she would not step aside for any size of vehicle.

Then the inevitable happened.  I knew she was dead immediately and held her, talking softly, even though she could hear nothing by then.  I lifted her through the gate and cleaned up the road and the sun shone and nobody came, no drivers, no walkers as if everyone knew this was our time to be alone.  There was not a mark on her body, not even a graze.  I closed her eyes, and covered her with a sheet, and then I sat for a while looking out across the sea-loch, where the gulls wheeled and cried above a jagged line of spume and kelp, the markers of a new tide bringing new life.