sounds

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Island Blog – To Disturb Gravity

There’s still a hooligan outside which is a damn sight better than one inside. At Tapselteerie one was the other but making different sounds. Outside it was all crashes and bangs and thumps, whumps and with a refusal to own up to any of them, whereas inside the whistles and toots, the rattles and shakes seemed quite happy to locate themselves. Many newspapers gave their lives for a gap filling, holes in the walls, gaps in the window panes, cavernous splits in outer doors, the underneath of which had never touched ground for decades. Rain found its way in, under, through and over. Even my children were damp of a morning, wondering, as they did, if they had wet the bed. Even I wondered that.

Nowadays, as the hooligan refuses to let go of it’s fury, my home is better protected, even though it is as old as Tapselteerie. Yes, there is the odd leak, and it isn’t wise to open a wind facing door to greet the exhausted postie unless I close it smartly behind me. The ferry didn’t run so. he had to wait for the possible next one, which wasn’t possible, thus demanding another two hour wait. Hey ho, island life. The disturbing of gravity is quite the thing up here. Lord knows what it must be like further north. Today I returned 8 wheelies to their upstandment, wheeched over and obviously nauseous judging from the mouthal eruptions littering the track. Interesting, nonetheless to see the food choices and waste of others. A load of plastic wrapped somethings, dog poo bags and a ton of wine bottles. Moving on.

Disturbing gravity, according to my ancient Thesaurus, refers to ‘being ridiculous’. I immediately jumped on that one as a brilliant interpretation. It thinks me, as I was talking just this lovely morning with a very dear friend about the importance of fun, of being, I suppose, ridiculous. We take too much seriously, especially ourselves when all we really want is to have fun. And it is entirely possible. In me it is natural. I can be in the most ‘serious’ situation, with everyone being ‘serious’ all I want to do is to play the fool because I can see the ridiculous. Not to hurt anyone, of course, but just to remind these wonderful doing-their-best humans that it is so much easier to let go of pretence and to be honest and thus, individual. I remember this in my younger days, but, like most, keen to be accepted as one-of-the Ones, I spent hours dressing myself up as someone who would fit. In short, it was not good enough to be who I was.

Now, over 70 I will be who I am and give diddly squat about trying to be someone else. However, I do acknowledge the young now, the ones still stiffing themselves into the wrong clothing, employing an almost alien language, a new shape, just to fit in. I. look, hopefully, towards the wise parents who probably suffered those restrictive chains themselves and who will now look carefully at the young of our future and get to understand them, to listen and to learn and to ask them the questions most of us have never been asked.

Who do you want to be?

What would you like your life to look like?

And then, and then, to sit and listen.

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Island Blog – A Peppering of Sleep

There’s a spicy dance in that, in a peppering, and the dance is my decision. When others hit the pillow and soon are lifted into the warm embrace of many hours of forgetfulness and refreshment, I soldier on. Well, I am no soldier, btw, but there are times I can imagine myself one, although, and this must be said, I would have baulked at the confinement of that ridonculous uniform with its guttural limitations and the inability to bend at the knee and the fact that nobody ever imagined a real soldier would need to move light-quick. Which they do.

Anyway, I am in a nightdress, a long tee-shirt to be precise, and why am I spilling this irrelevance?

I go to bed at an early hour, one I remember, way back, as a Let’s Go Out time. Not now. I have my herbal tea, my book. I close the curtains on the summerlight, apologising and thanking. So far so good. I read awhile, feel my eyelids and concentration shutting down, and courrie in to the feather down warmth, the comfort of a solo bed, the space, the peace, the quiet. An hour or two later I burst up, wide awake, completely ready for a new day. I kid you not. I am raring to go. I listen to the love-call of a Tawny Owl (actually, it’s deafening, but delightful). Mother moon has thankfully chilled her pants now and is a wee Fadie in the star-crisp sky, clouds banished, or just tired of clouding for a while. No human sounds. No outlights beyond those daft mason jars full of solar beads outside my own door. You might think the world has gone out, but no. Geese mumble and croon to each other, to the gathering of vulnerable chicks, who, had they been mine own chicks, would have required a load of gathering and a ‘Muchlouder’ than any mumble or croon. Oystercatchers, always freaking out about something, trillett and dive about around the rocks. I catch them in the moonlight. A plane flows overhead, a dart, heading north. I make another herbal tea. I watch and I see.

Sleep is important, yes. But, and but, there are those of us who don’t sleep to order, and never did. There is a fear mongering around lack of sleep, a feeding of nonsense from the ‘higher-ups’ who might tell us we must have 8 hours sleep. In the times I have known and learned about, the people who determined to make a good life, may have done so with little sleep but with a brilliant attitude. I can dance, no matter, I can laugh, no matter, work, no matter, rise and rise, no matter. My heroes. There are too many lovely folk caught up in tired, in lack of sleep, and I was there, a lot, and for years, until I got sick of myself and the whining. I realised I was looking at the lack of things, of me, of life. Well, that’s only going one way! I asked, instead, What Can I Do?

No matter the tired. What can I do for someone else this new morning?

Ok, morning is a stretch. I’ll ask again once you light-lift my looking, when the owls, geese and oystercatchers shut their wheesht, giving way to a blackbird, a thrush, the dive-dart of a woodpecker, the flutter of siskins and goldfinch. A new beginning. Another one. Lucky, lucky me.

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Island Blog – Inspiradiation and a Zap Map

Many things inspire me, people too. Something said out loud or communicated through eyes, and in silence, but received, nonetheless. Moments, sounds, lyrics, intuitions, experiences, and many more besides. If I catch these inspirations, like butterflies in a net, they all hold a beauty and intensity, a teaching. But, only if I catch them. I know how it is to barge on through doorways and over sills or along pathways with only a to-do list. Chased by Time, and always just this side of utterly exhausted, it is easy to miss much. When focus is on the familiar, the to-do list, the endless corridors leading to yet another bloody doorway that opens on to more tasks only I can complete, intuition and the chance of inspiration getting so much as a look-in, is unlikely at best. Not now, however, now that I am old and alone and when I have endless time to catch butterflies in the net of my mind. Beautiful things, butterflies, although sometimes I might catch an earwig or a toad, so broad is my sweep. But those critters also bring opportunities for reflection. Perhaps that throwaway comment or that too-quick turn-away upset someone, and this earwig or this toad also have something for me to take in and to consider.  Not all catchings are pleasant, at first. Of course, the key with anything I catch is to eventually release it, be it the beautiful butterfly of epiphany, or the unattractive and dully coloured body of a uncomfortable realisation. One which demands humble action. 

Soon, I am offski to the cancer clinic for a ‘planning CT scan’, where the professionals will create their Zap Map. Through the wonders of technology, they will see precisely where to point the radiotherapeutic laser, ensuring, so they tell me, that all trace of cancer, if any is lurking, will be zapped unto death. Five days is all, and not even the whole of those five days, but a few minutes. Although unpleasant reactions can list bigly horrors, not one of them will affect me, because nothing ever has before. I am blest with ridonculous health, and a big inspiration net, always to hand. I will pay attention to everything and everyone, sweeping a wide catchment area wherever I go. Across the road, in a bus queue, in the hospital amongst others being zapped, the nurses, the doctors. Inside the hotel, the lift, on the stairs, through a window, along the street, butterflies abound. I just know it. And I will return, as I always do, humbled at what I see. A homeless girl, a weary bus driver, someone I meet in a doorway, a harrassed business man in a big rush, a fraught mother weighed down by a cling of children. I will hear sounds I never hear in this wild place. The chatter of a train on the tracks, a colourful hue of voices in languages I cannot speak, the cut of someone’s jib, the smell of exhaust fumes, of perfume, takeaway food and so on. And I will sweep it all in, catch it in my net.

Even the radiation will inspire me, for I am always curious like Alice, eager to learn, not facts but what is really means to be human, to be wonderful, lost, broken, keen, kind, and an integral part of all those ties, colours and stories that bind us together.  

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Island Blog 108 Left Over Right

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Last night we had Leftovers for supper.  Actually, to be honest, we often do.  I have never been that sort of a cook who follows recipes, noting down what I might need in order to cook a certain dish and then trotting off to buy it.

Is this, I wonder, because I am too lazy/impatient to don my prescription specs and follow a recipe?

Could be.  I remember once thinking I was dutifully following one cake recipe when I was,in fact, following two.  I did wonder at the imbalance and curio-factor of blending two unlikely bed mates into one cake, but the wild and colourful in me rose to the occasion with a skip of excitment.  The cake, or cakes, arrived as one rather wonky lump, listing dangerously to one side and quite impossible to present on any level surface. I make up my own recipes now.

Back to last night.  Well, first I must open the fridge.  I creep up on the door and swoosh it open suddenly.  This is an old tactic and can often prevent anything escaping.

Aha!  I say with a cook’s gleam in my eye.  Opportunity presents itself and I grab it quick and hold on tight.

Next, onions.  I always need onions and garlic and I rarely run out of them because they lie artfully arranged in a nice basket from Portugal and in full view.  Any old vegetables, chopped, julienned, grated, diced, depending on what lies floppily inside the salad drawers.  Olive oil, infused with whatever I can more-or-less identify as herbs in the herb garden.  I know I should know which is which, but the voles have shifted the labels around.  Big pan, light on, favourite wooden spoon ( I never cook with metal weapons) and off we go, but to where is quite another thing.

As each ingredient is added, the house fills with tempting aromas that  join together in a rising sound wave until I turn down the heat.  As one animal now, it simmers and softens into a harmonious chorus.  Now, what would lift this dish?  I taste a little and let my instinct guide me.

What?  Mint you say, and dark chocolate and fresh nutmeg?

Never doubt that voice.  It’s not a left brain thing.  This could be casserole or cake.  Just don’t argue.

I comply and taste again.  Delicious.

I notice 3 old bananas hanging on the banana hook, all in a big brown huff.  What can I do with you I wonder?  I check the fridge – a tub of elderly natural yoghourt, lemon juice, and in the drinks cupboard which is still called that even though it isn’t any more, I find a teaspoonful of banana liqueur.

I chop the bananas and fry them in butter, adding a spoonful of wild honey and the liquer.  Whizzed up in the whizzer to a fine  puree, I add three serving spoons of yoghourt.  Meanwhile some almonds have been toasting in the oven.  I pour the mixture into two glasses, top with toasted almonds and pop them in the fridge, which is empty again.

Or is it?  One woman’s empty fridge is that same woman’s chance to shine. It’s all about self belief and no 24 hour shop down the road.

In that famous parting line from Fanny Cradock’s tv series, spoken with such confidence and encouragement into a thousand homes by her husband and assistant, Johnnie…..

May all your doughnuts look like Fanny’s.