seasons

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Island Blog – Leave it Out

I notice, as I ding about the island, that folk tend to spread in the Summer, much like the shrubs, although shrubs tend to spread from a single point, whereas humans sprachle. You can look that up. Chaotically, as if in a wild abandonment, the controlled collation of tools, wellies, toys which could be the first landers on Mars, considering our winter storms, just sit out there, all confident and cocky. The weather is kind, or was once, and we still behave Summerly. I know, I know, that the cold winds have dampened our spirits somewhat, if not a lot of what, but we still jump to it whenever there is the chance of light and the length of days. Even beneath clouding, we grab our teeshirts and flowery whatevers, our sandals and flip-flops, our pretty bags and tags, our summerwear. We may love the seasonal changes, but we do, absolutely, need the seasons to remember themselves, instead of becoming a gloop of grey. We want to know where we are with the changes. We allow the endlessly slow shift of the Winter King, him with his frozen jaws and his refusal to release the earth from his grip, but not this long. The man needs therapy.

On the island, we don’t risk leaving much out, beyond cows or sheep, because, out here in the strut of the wild Atlantic, we know what we know. The weather can change in minutes, clouds gathering as if nobody has paid them attention for ages, the mountain and hills colluding, and we can hang washing out at 9 and regret that by 11 as our underpinnings head down the village. However, I do notice a leaving out thing going on, like a challenge. Folk still sport their summer colours, but underneath warm cardies and fleeces. T’is a weird old time. However, and this thinks me somewhat, are we, out here, living with cloud collapso, with cloud sneezes, with winds quite unsure of their origins, North colliding with West, East with South, and all in a dayo , more ready for this particularly weird Summer? Maybe.

And does that mean we are cocky? Oh no. We still want seasons to change in an orderly manner. We still want to sit out on a rock in a flowery frock (and fleece) to eat a seafood bun, or whatever and to watch the sun sink into the sea; to walk to the pub and join friends of an evening, to leave things out, and not just wellies, cows, sheep, toys and so on, but the verbal stuff that serves no purpose. Just to connect no matter what the weather, the politics, the troubles out there. To laugh, to share, to show strong no matter the changes in our world.

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Island Blog – Chiaroscuro

To be honest, all I think about is cancer, the lurk of it, the silent creep. At the back of my mind, of course. because the front is dead busy being marvellous and shiny and cheerful and wotwot. I still frock up, dye my old boots crazy colours, just because. I go here, go there, do this, do that, but the murmur of it is still there, murmuring. A conversation, in fact, and, I confess to no engagement at times. I want to say Go Away and be heard, and obeyed, as if I was the school marm in this classroom tangle. Which I am, obviously, not.

What are you doing, cancer, whilst I put together a jigsaw, drive to the shop, meet a friend for lunch, as I did today? I watch her face, her mouth as she speaks, the love in her eyes, and the murmur mumbles on. Another friend, all crazy and theatre and hugs, arrives and we share a few moments of chat. Her life is not a straight line. In fact it is so wonkychops right now that I want to be there for her, but this damn murmur holds me to my chair, a grounding, four legs, no, six, beneath me, support, I suppose, but I cannot move. I am bland. Words dont even stick in my throat. They don’t rise at all. The rain blatters the windows as soup arrives. A smiling deliverer explains the what of the soup, beautifully presented. I sit across from my old friend. She is not old and neither am I, but we have known each other for decades, so ‘old’ works. Hurricane Nigel is slam-dunking the island with his (her) stormy tantrum, punching muscled fist punches of wind that suddenly tips bins, (I cleared three wheelies off the road home), tree limbs, frail people. I love this time of year. Not because of the tipping thing but because of the thrill of it. The sky is as dark as the cancer growing within me and then, in a single moment, lifted into light, the chiaroscuro a perfect delight, is a gasp in my throat.

I notice the hold a retreating season has on it’s own, as the ‘invader’ nudges, or, in this case, bludgeons in fighting, gloves up, strong after a long rest. They’ve done this changeover thing for decades, for goodness sake, but still they hold on to their moment, their time of power, of confidence and, yes, control. I get it. If a life can be divided into seasons, birth, childhood, youth, parenthood, middle age, oldness, then I want oldness again, jaunty, a dancing old woman, upsetting nobody (mostly), happy to spend hours reading, battling 1000 piece jigsaws, god help me, wandering calmly through the woods, remembering fairies, little ones cavorting like loons, sudden capture moments, the light on raindrops, the dart of a butterfly, the hum of the bees, the wild of a storm, the ebony and ivory of my piano, the flicker light of my candles, the wave and warmth of my neighbours, my home, my dog, my view of tidal flow and my watch of migration, of arriving, of leaving, of it all. In truth, I want to hold on to the season when I thought I was well and free and well.

It lurks, the cancer. I see it as darkness inside the light of me. Chiaroscuro.

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Island Blog – About Packing

I’m packing, unpacking, packing, unpacking. What is this insecurity when it comes to packing? I know #sensiblehead that I always travel light, cannot be lugging a heavy suitcase, just will not. All I need for this trip are the basics, but which of the basics should I take? What ‘frock’ mood will I be in? Will I feel chilly away from home pre hospital consultation, thus requiring a warm jumper, and which warm jumper? Needless to say this is a ridiculous load of valdaree. My sister will lend. I am away for a few days, not for months. The space between consultation, and whatever surgery is agreed upon, is likely to be weeks, if not months. I can borrow a warm jumper. It thinks me. When I pack for Africa, I barely bother about what to take. This, I decide, is because I am going to a wonderful hot place and for a holiday. Perhaps that’s it, the nail hit on the head. My insecurity may well be more related to the reason for this island parting than it is to the articles of clothing I eventually decide to put into my small suitcase. I decide to walk.

Nature has a way about her, a sort of head clearing re-jig into perspective. She laughs at me, or the trees do as they sway and dance in this big wind. It’s from the South East, I think, and yet warm. The heavy rains of the morning have lowered the boughs and I need to duck my way along the narrow track. I listen to the swish of movement, tut as I notice some fool has hacked off a living branch that bows overhead. Not, obviously, over their head. Hack it off! Why? Just bend your knees and do your body a big favour instead. That’s what I say. The whole shape of this beautiful beech tree is now out of shape, those flowing limbs, the skirt of her frock, perfectly formed like a brilliant green ball gown, now damaged. I harrumph. She, however, still dances on to the melody of the wind and it thinks me, again.

The fairy woods are quiet in between the showers, and the woodland floor, a carpet of needles and fallen leaves, is almost dry, such is the protection of the canopy. Three oak seedlings nestle at the foot of a huge fir tree, over two hundred years of huge fir tree, its girth one I am happy not to have myself. I doubt the oaks will grow much, not in that shade, not without some life-giving light. I look up through the boughs to see speckles of sky, a bit of blue, yes, but mostly careening clouds that don’t stay long enough to give me their shape. The oaks will have passed through a Jay. I didn’t know that until I did. A Jay will bury an acorn in a safe place, aka, in the lap of a huge fir tree, and inside the fairy woods, and then forget where it hid said acorn. Thus, the acorn grows in quite the wrong place. I decide that I am allowing the insecurity in me to grow in quite the wrong place. I move it to the light on the other side of the woods and watch it whipped away by the wind.

All the trees are waving, shedding leaves already, for Autumn begins early on the island. I crush sycamore leaves underfoot and think of seasons, how they keep coming, and going, allowing each other to take the stage, sometimes after strong resistance. Winter is the best at resistance, the grumpy sh*t, holding tight with an icy grip, thwacking us with the blast of a wind that obviously got expelled for bad behaviour and which now sells its strength to the highest bidder, like a vigilante. But we are not there yet and Winter is asleep so don’t make a noise in case you stir it from slumber. For now, it is tempest and calm, suddenly hot and suddenly cold, soaking wet or burning dry, an island usual. And there is something so real about it, the changes we humans need to adapt to, and quickquick, because our world is changing faster than many of us are prepared to accept. Turbulence is to be expected.

Makes me feel a whole lot better about packing.

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Island Blog – A Story for the Bridge

The birds wake me, for there is no other disturbance here. I know, I know, many hear the bin lorry, early traffic, noisy neighbours, those heading for work or those heading home from work, but not here, here where the biggest sounds are from Nature. And I am glad I live here. However, it is not always a treat. The sun doesn’t always shine big, bright and warm and oftentimes the birds are punched backwards by the gales that can rise in Spring, Autumn, and definitely in Winter, and Winter stays way too long. Always has. But we who have lived here longtime, have learned to love the whole of island life. We might turn blue in the endless months of rain and chill, but we know that our weather, an unique weather pattern, will, in time, turn on the sun to warm us. And we have learned how to bring a smile into any day, even if it takes a lot of physical strength to remain upright when moving from car to shop.

The garden is dry, the island is dry. A rare thing, and not so rare, historically. There is talk of a water ban. I remember one, way back in Tapselteerie days, when bowsers came over on the ferry, their big rotund bellies full of someone else’s water. Not for us, though, with our independent flow of spring water, but for others on the mains. Holiday cottages, bed and breakfasts, hotels, all flapdoodled without water. Water. The {almost} only thing we need to survive.

I am watching weeds thrive in this mini drought. It thinks me. If I had to come back as a plant I would come as a weed, a pretty one, mind, but a weed, nonetheless. These creatures are tough, survivors, invasive, yes, but they survive. What does that say about me, I wonder? I believe I am hot-wired for survival, and not just a wimpy sort of almost there sort of survival, but a pushy, strong and flowering one. I meet many of my age and on into their 70’s, and see myself as fortunate, indeed. Others have not been so lucky, as weedy me, I see, walking with sticks and supports, with hair that hasn’t seen a hairdresser for some time, who are out of breath and melting in this heat. I put up a big thank you, and pull down a blessing for each one of them. These folk are my folk. We danced in village halls together, not so very long ago, but there will be no more dancing for them.

There is a bridge over our lives, one we all must traverse, at some point. It’s a swing bridge, one we don’t really trust. Half-way across, exactly, is the keystone. It lies in the middle ride, and without this keystone, we would all end up in the water. I am on it, we all are, once we hit our three score years and ten, and, because I can still dance, i can help, encourage and support others around me. Together we can laugh at the inevitable, remember our younger days and lift our long memories into play, batting them back and forth between us like shuttlecocks, because we have shared a history on this island, through all the difficult days and through all the happy ones. Only our circumstances are different. Our sense of fun is the same.

I just went to the shop to buy compost for the dry earth, readying it for a sluice of goodness. Prior to this, I had walked the hotdog to the shore for some coolth and a tiddle about on the rocks. I found a tiny shell, a twizzley one, like a minute snail. I also picked up wire, plastics, rope and twine, which would, had I left it, have rejoined the ocean at high tide. Having only two hands, I pushed the tiny sea-snail shell down my front. I would find it again, eventually. Forgetting it completely, I drove to the shop, smiled everyone up and lugged my compost into the boot. Once home, something caught my attention and I burst out laughing. This snail shell had migrated into just the wrong place, so that it looked like one nipple stood out and proud. I thought the shopkeeper had looked at me, a tad abashed.

I wish I’d had that story for the bridge.

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Island Blog – Cusp

I like being on the cusp of change, even as I sometimes am a fearty. This day I walked beneath a billow of grey clouds and thought, well, at least the sky isn’t flat. I’m not great at flat, unless it refers to my midriff, in which case I am delighted. The sun is closed and already lowering in our skies which brings a change of light. Another cusp. As Summer concedes to Autumn, I wonder if they discuss when and how and if there is any resistance or if all the seasons are good students and just know their places. You go, no, You go, No you, or something, or is it silent, peaceful and are the four of them friends? I have met Autumn in the mornings, a thrill of chill, a shiver, a rush to light the wood burner, only to end up with burned skin in the afternoon. In the laze of Spring, for she is lazy up here, I can dress in thunder resistant woollens, mighty leggings and at least four frocks plus jumper and be trounced and bounced into stripping off by lunchtime, only to fall back into shivers by wine O’clock. The seasons are capricious.

It can frazzle me. And then it thinks me. Perhaps the seasons are like us, ditzy and unpredictable. Perhaps they too are unsure of their roles, of who they are are in the now-now of now. Old people in my young days and in my middle age could bore my tonsils loose going on about how long the summers were, how on time the snow fell for Christmas, how floods never flooded and how we never knew what a hosepipe ban was. I can hear myself now, telling a young granddaughter about the ‘simple’ days but I notice and pause and erase and laugh for this is memorical nonsense and so very flat sky.

I walk the same track, the Tapselteerie track and it never bores me for it is always changing as the seasons change. Today beneath the yellow, umber, Payne’s grey and white of the bumpy clouds, the scabious lights up. Peacock butterflies show me wild strong colours and sea-dandelions are so yellow I want to spread their buttery gold on my toast. I peer into the woods and see the green slowly change from lemony lime to deep wine bottle. Summer in there is moving out. The grasses are dying and so they should for we will need them next year. Nonetheless it is a gasp, the watching of it, of their turning. Where sunlight lifted and tousled, danced and elevated these emerald fronds, he is abandoning them now for he cannot reach from his louring face in the western sky. And it is right and it is time and it is preparing us if we just care to notice. Bracken stems copper and begin to fall, to fail. Different birds fly over, birds that will leave us soon for the north, for the south. Go safe, I call out. Come back to us.

Mushrooms and toadstools stand like sentries along the track, big-chested, bullish, almost scary, some tempting and beautiful. I touch nothing. A choir of temptresses, all perfect and come-eat-me have erupted overnight on a tree stump. Hallo, I say. Not interested, I say, and not because I don’t eat mushrooms but because I have no knowledge of the safe and of the deadly. I do look back. They are beautiful. I walk to the old pier and sit a while. The wind is snappy, cooler but the tide is gentle, ebbing but softly. Two herons screech at each other like women at a WI cake sale and I smile, rest on a basalt rock and look out while someone across the sea-loch pushes out a dingy and heads for his fishing boat. I stay as they spin by and wave, heading out to catch dinner perhaps. The coolth lifts me from my rock and I wander back home. I check the fire, bring in logs, close a window. I slide down the cusp and go in search of my boots.

Hallo Autumn. Welcome. In you come.

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Island Blog – A Letter

Ten days since you died my husband. One week till your hillside funeral. All of your family think of you every minute, probably more often than even that. Memories come back, moments resurrect and stand tall, blocking our path. And yet we move on, doing normal things with an abnormal head on and a heart all flapdoodle but still beating. Mine feels like wings, as if there’s a bird trapped behind my ribcage unable to escape.

This morning I cleaned your room, now that all the hospital kit has gone. I took my palette knife and some white filler for all the many holes left in the walls, holes that remind me of hand rails and other attractive supports, no longer needed. Neither are the holes. There is a big enough one in me and in our little island home, even if I can move about more freely. The furniture is not pinned to the edges any more for easier wheelchair access. Actually, I did think you were a bit over the top in that particular demand. A wheelchair isn’t that wide, after all. Then I realised you had lost your innate spacial awareness and the evidence of that loss is scraped along doors and lintels and walls. You were pretty nippy in that chair, nonetheless, turning on a sixpence, making U turns and scoots forward when space allowed, and even lurching at great speed down the ghastly yellow ramp which is now looking for a new home.

The leaves are beginning to turn now. Conkers (we always looked for them didn’t we?) are landing on the track but I haven’t found a big one yet. You told me you always won conker battles and you also told me that you soaked them in vinegar overnight, making them like concrete. Scabious peppers the grassy banks finding the best sunshine spots. I saw 6 kittiwakes the other day, your favourite bird, flying seaward up the loch. I don’t think I have ever seen them here before. They came just for you.

The garden is looking a tad tatterlicious and the sweet peas gave up fighting the last big wind, but even broke-backed they bloom and their scent keeps wafting indoors, reminding me how much you loved them. I pick them for the house but soon they will be over for the year. Season rolls into season. You knew the sound of each one, its taste, its demands and its gifts. As one thing dies, another begins to live and that is how you saw life and death – the same circle, a never-ending story.

I am so happy that your dying was peaceful. No fight at all, no panic, no fear, just a soft leaving. And you wanted to go, you said so, to anybody who was listening. And so it is and was and ever will be when someone who cherished every second of a long adventurous life finds the living just too much. We didn’t want you to go but knew you did. We also knew that your living state was very compromised. But even at the last, your humour shone through those cloudy old eyes. Even knowing that the Great Beyond was calling you, hands held out in welcome, you whispered to me ‘ I don’t want to leave you.’

And then, you did.