storm

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Island Blog. – That’s my guess

There’s a time and it comes as the night pushes down the day and takes over. Before, when they argue with each other, the clouds tangle and squish, bumping against each other like school kids in a lunch queue. Inevitably the dark wins. How could it not, pushing down like that, an easy pressure, whereas, just saying, the light has far harder work? Dawn has to push up, after all. I think of Dawn with strong shoulders, her determination strong. She’s been doing this for millennia. Let’s hope she doesn’t get tired of the whole pushing night away thing.

Once night has squashed all of the light, I move me towards music and candles. It isn’t a stoop of my shoulders, more an invite to a new dance. The fire is fiery, licky flames thankful for the island timber, those old trees felled, usually by some storm with a dinky name. Eish the nonsense in that! A storm is a storm is all. I will never understand why there are pet names for such as storms, those massive and upwrenching take-out blasts of gargantuan force. We are, in my opinion, both foolish and blind to the truth of what is true. Nature will always win. We are almost irrelevant in that truth, but not quite, not those of us who learn, who are as prepared as anyone can be. It’s those who pretend it isn’t happening who concern me.

I went off on one there. I am not a worrier, not a fearty. I turn on the tunes, light the candles, begin to write. In this simple island life where roads may be passable in icy conditions, when a ferry may run, where rain falls a lot, when there are parking spaces in the harbour town, when everyone sees everyone else as an islander even if most of us are blow-ins, white settlers, whatever, even as we did choose to actually live here, to work here, to join the community and there is a strength in that. I think on that, as tunes play through my speaker, as my twinkly winkly lights twinkle and winkle. So simple. Enough, yes, enough. I walked today, twice, once with. a friend who laughed me a lot. We met muddy dogs, squelched through mud and the sharp stones of puddle refills. We talked of life and hope and christmas trees and future plans as we listened to the plop of raindrops on rhodie leaves, or from the ridonculous highs of Cyprus, Caledonian Pines, the Oldies in this place. The music of it, the beat, the laughter it brings, the musicality of Nature. Who hears it anymore with headphones on?

Community life is simple, bloody hard, difficult, awkward, challenging, slow moving, and wonderful. What else is real life but this? A confusion, an out of self. That’s my guess.

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Island Blog – The conundrum of calm

Just last week the island was in turmoil, the noise deafening, the whole house groaning as massive trees fell like skittles in a bowling alley but without the cheering and the burgers and cokes. It was a gasp of breath, a sudden, with fear at its back, and dark, and long, and with a whole lot of looking out, of revving up a belief in hope. They’ll fix it, I thought/hoped, whoever ‘they’ are.

And they did. For now. Till the next time, and here’s a thing. Up here, in my very long experience of uphere-ness, none of us can forget nor deny the change in weather. I’m guessing and without a clue, that up here might be something to look at. We are way out there in the Atlantic. Because we stick out as we do, all sassy and I’m ok, we do seem to invite wind stuff. We also get the best sunsets, the wider skies, the thrill of being that close to a storm and a calm. I love it. It’s life to me, even if I can be terrified. I still love it. Even if massive trees fall, even if roads are closed, even if the local shop cannot open as their freezers thaw with tons of food, even if just walking out into the woods is a risk, I still love it. It’s like a skin over my own, a knowing, a melody I sing or hear, a something way more than anything the out-there world could ever offer me.

And then in comes the calm. A conundrum. I was scared, nay terrified as a wee nothing in the big something of that storm, of four days silence, no fridge hum, no power, no pings on my phone. Just me and candles, birdsong. When nothing moved as expected. Everything stilled. The fear a nudge. This will go on. No hope. Too much damage. All of that stupid shit. And then, freedom. Was it? Well, yes, power back was lovely; lights on, yes lovely. Wifi and connection to my kids, yes lovely. But here’s a thing, here’s the conundrum. That time, on reflection was a calm I hadn’t expected. I remember candle lighting my rise to bed. I recall reading my book by candlelight until my eyes were tired enough for sleep. I remember waking in dawn light, padding downstairs, boiling water on the gas flame for strong coffee. I remember watching the day lift. No radio, no noise, just birds and sky watch. And me. Just me in the turmoil of it all, as if I was the calm.

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Island Blog – The Truth of It

We don’t tell the truth. No, we don’t. We decide on a persona as we get out of bed. We do this because, well, in my case certainly, there is an abundance of moaners wherever we/I go and we/I don’t align with moaning. However, this makes it tricky for truth telling. I know this, have known this for decades. It’s as if the one we once were, the upbeat, smiler, joker, uplifter is somehow fixed, like a creature in a snow globe or a face in an old photo, the one who never changes. But we all do.

This storm frightens me. The gusts up here on the island are loud and fiery, up to 80mph. I know, I do know, that my gone man knew exactly what he was buying. He knew the gales, the wind shifts, the structure of home, the waiting for challenge that it faced, whilst catching the sun and backed by a woodland of 180 year old pines, not one of which would ever fall on the house because the prevailing wind would always push them backwards and even as I sit here listening to the huge punches of storm, I know that they won’t fall on me. Still the noise is still scary. It’s as if all the worst devils, or the most fiery dragons are initiating a full frontal attack on my home, and not just mine. However, it was my big frickin window and I met it, wondering, in the dark of the onslaught, the sudden rush of colding down my stairway. I danced up, I did, and heard the sound of anguish, the pull and push, heard the defeat, saw the big window fighting against it’s fines, confines, the plastic and glue and whatever which holds this big-ass glass in situ. This wind was winning. Gusts of up to 85mph and just me. For now. And there’s a thing. I rose, I did, I know this fear, I have been against this power before. I remember.

The roar was deafening. Everything falling off everything else. Darkness outside, no-one there. Power out. The wind gusts terrifying. It’s dark now, scary. So, here am I, window was tight shut, and not open, at all, but even in that not open thing, a hinge broke. Split, freaked the whole frame out which, in my opinion was never an intelligent build. And then she bucked and pushed against gusts up to almost 90mph. I could do nothing, my strength a nothing. The window is big and heavy. In the dark and the slam of rain and wind, I ran to my neighbour who was alone with her kids. He’s at the pub, she said. I’ll drive down and get help. Men came but even they struggled with the power of the wind, managing, eventually, to drag in huge posts to wedge the window almost shut, the props against my bed, already drenched, then wedging my bed against the back wall. Mud and leaves and rain everywhere, but the window was re-instated at last and I am so very thankful to them. I slept in another room, well, sort of slept as the massive power circled my house, keening like a banshee, slamming huge unearthly fists against the face of my old stone home.

I heard no sounds beyond that during the night. Heard nothing of the devastation behind me, in the ancient pine woods. 20 massive old friends uprooted and lying on their backs, one of which flattened the Honey Shed whilst another fell right through the power line, leaving dangling wires. It took four days for any clearing, for the power to come back on, after everyone else got their light back the day before. And now, a hot shower after all those hours of cold and I’m okay and all the visits from neighbours, the delivery of soups and power chargers, all those hours of I’m okay when I wasn’t at all. I was scared, alone, small and without appetite. I was fearful that now I am responsible for the remaining pines in the woods, the ones which never bothered to grow a good spread of roots because the big guy in the face of all this wild shit is protecting the rest of us, or so they believed. These pines are now seriously wobbly because these huge gales will keep coming and they are not prepared for the onslaught.

It thinked me. Am I? All I have learned from himself must be in there somewhere, in my head, in my knowing. There is a huge amount over which I have no control, but there will be something, some things, over which I do. For now, however, I am thankful, yes, and completely wrung out. And my damage was nothing much in comparison to others.

I know that truth, but my truth is also the truth.

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Island Blog – Wild, the Willies, a Tee-shirt

I’m not sure how to begin this one, because there are so many levels around storms with ridonculous names, not that I have a problem with the actual names, but up here, they are just frickin storms and they never, btw, stop long enough to exchange pleasantries. The levels….well, we know a storm is coming. It’s in the clouds, the yellowing of the sky, the way things suddenly feel more acute, a turn to look at what isn’t there, but which is heading t’wards us bullish and quite without an explanation. The air, pre storm can catch in our throats, a silence but one which causes us to look left and right, a heart gasp on a street mid shopping.

Another level comes in the shape of concerned others outside of said storm. A fear driven but loving message, and I completely get the fear driven thing because (about to rant) the news is always waaaaay over the top and it does make me mad, as if we, who live, and have lived, here for decades and longer don’t know how to sort out a thing like another storm. And I am the same, if one of my beloveds is in a ‘storm’ I am not there to experience.

Anyways up, it was wild walking under threatened branches, the West zinging in by the time I got my boots on this avo, a complete shift from the morning massivo gusts, and they were huge, a slam dunk, a heart gasp. I watched the conservatory roof lift and luff and I did pray. Don’t leave me. That’s my prayer. Hold tight, as I will. Stay close as I will. I still get the willies. I do. My thinks are thus…..when I feel the fear, tickerley, (family word) when it is dark, power off, winter, cold, the alone of me rises like a she devil, mocking. But I have learned to cant flight with her, and I am dynamic in the wild, I know it, I am just me but that doesn’t mean I am nothing.

I can still see the fear, the alone, the dark, and what I do is this, once the power comes on again and the storm is losing breath, I upstairs myself for a shower and a change, and it isn’t just clothal. I do change, I add different earrings and, today, I chose a tee-shirt (my favourite) in red with a message.

Bloody difficult Woman.

I love it.

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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 – So Who Am I?

Answering for myself, and honestly, I am reckless, spontaneous, loving, able to say sorry, aware, intuitive. I make endless mistakes, move too quick into situations, pull back too quick as well. I am naughty, looking always and everywhere for the chance of harmless mischief, wherein, I have noticed, only I ever get sent to the corner. How is it, I ask myself, that this still defines me at almost 72? I have no answer for that one. I think that, finally, I have come to terms with what seems to run like blood through my veins. I just can’t not be who I am.

Controlled, or so it seems, by these qualities, and as a youngster, I found myself often having to apologise for my, well, self, because in those days I heard, until it almost took me out, the rules by which it was acceptable to present oneself, and they just did not fit. Music began, my feet tapped into jig; someone said something and I was unable not to respond. I moved away from encounters, situations, circumstances feeling like a blue alien all the way up to when the rulebook annulled me. I remember that time, the compliance strangling me like a corset, and it was the same as a young wife. Oh, a lot of me was ‘acceptable’, until it wasn’t and the ‘wasn’t’ came from someone else. It was like living in a constant storm. Funny, is it not, that our past continues to trigger things in our present? However, and notwithstanding all that learning and behaving and feeling corseted on the way to strangulation, I now believe I have held on to me.

The wind is high tonight, red in the weather app, but that app isn’t promising 70mph gusts, as of last weekend, scary as hell. These gusts are coming in from the other direction, and at the most, 40mph. Piddling, really, in a land and history of a great deal of gusting. It thinks me. Sideswipes come at all of us throughout our lives, gusts which could, if we let them, take us down. I don’t like being down. So, what do we do to prepare for that which might come, and often does? Now that is a good question, a very good one. My belief is that we all have the power to stand, as a self, against any constrictive or blasting force outside of who we know we are. We cannot control the weather without, but we most definitely can control the weather within. No matter the corsetry constraints of youth and beyond, we know who we are. The hard part is stepping out in those boots. It’s worth it, I promise you, no matter the battle.

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Island Blog – Dungarees and Cake

I know we are in the middle of a right frickin blast of an angry storm. The MET office is in a panic and everyone is warned of death. Although the catastrophising is ridiculous, I am very aware of how traumatic this storm, and all other storms, are for those in the crosshairs. There is no diminish in that. It must be horribly real for many. I know this, am aware of this, as I walk beneath bonkers trees, swiping at the sky as in an attempt to slice the wind and, thus, to cut it down into bite size pieces. I notice the limbs agrounded, bits of what once was a whole, lying scattered and looking up at me as I stomp by through the mudfast track. I’m sorry, I whisper to them, as my yellow boots lift over each one.

The night noise is frightening. Punching fists of muscled wind at my glass, I start, awaken, freeze and imagine. Settling, slowly, I bring in the narrative. I am safe, I am warm, I have four stone walls around me and the dark is not a threat. I lie back on my pillows, sip water, listen. Well that’s an error of judgement, because the shriek of that damn banshee is punishing my window vents into submission, forcing their little openings into a desperate whistling breath, and it sounds me like a caust of ghouls on the wild. I stop listening.

So, and tell me this. How is it that my thought in all this melee of ghastly, not for me as yet, but for so many others, is ‘Will I wear dungarees tomorrow at our library meet?’ I have no answer to that, once I have clocked the inappropriateness (good lord what a wordy word) of my thought. But, I am guessing, that most of us, faced with the face-sure of what is happening, and what will happen more so, and again so,tor and so and so and so, will twist home to the familiar. All of us, UK wide are in the shit of this. But, is it shit? That wonders me. Many may say yes, and do nothing about it. Many may say yes and find ways to work with what is happening to us all. Some will be lost beyond the beyond of it all. Some will surprise. 

It is happening people. Meantime, I am going to our library meet in dungarees and with cake.

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Island Blog – Roots

I watch the sky. Been watching it all day as it recovers from the Big Wind, the cold one full of hail and snow and threats that came to nothing. I know that those threats did manifest in other places and while I watch the sky I think of them, those who had, and still have, to deal with power outage, destruction and the cold coming in as if it felt welcome, which, in my experience, it rarely is. Pushy bugger. I walk through the trees, the today trees, for yesterday they were bent like old women, fighting to retain a gravitational pull. They are calm today, calm with a Phew in their breaths as I congratulate them all for remaining upright in such freezing blasts, holding hold against those gusting spirits with grabbing hands, hands that can uproot an ancient pine, tall as a building and old as time without a single regret. These old folks have roots that stretch beneath tracks, beneath whole expanses of hill and heather, gnarling into fixation but always ready to move on when the threat above is told them in a story. A warning. I noticed the garden birds yesterday, no, the day before, behaving in a way more alert, more dynamic than usual. They always have to watch for the fast dive of a sparrow hawk, but this was different. They were telling me something ouchy was coming. And they were right. I noticed but already knew thanks to Google weather. Disastrous winds, destruction, high risk of death, all the usual overly ridiculous hype, thanks media, thanks news, thanks but no thanks. I have the birds. Back in the Tapselteerie days, I had the cows, the horses. Their behaviour changed as they sensed me into ‘alert’. What’s going on my friends? They might buck or run, slow or hunker but whatever they showed me told me a new story was about to show itself, demanding to be read and absorbed.

It all thinks me. The trees knew it was coming and some of them, like that big pine there, the one holding up a mate who fell, but didn’t quite, some time ago. As it fell, but didn’t quite, it compromised the rooting of the one who held it up. The holder’s roots lifted, became exposed, created an unsafety, a new unknowing, a lesser ground hold. Nonetheless, they stick together. I look and I pause to consider the new root growth that will, for sure, have been implemented as a result of this new challenge. From where I stand, and with my limited human ground level thinking, I see two trees going down, exhausted. But today I reconsider. What do I know of the intelligence of trees? Absolutely nothing. Everything they do goes on underground, a dark forbidden realm to me. But it does think me of roots. I can be afeared of storms. I loved them when I had a husband here, one who was unruffled by pretty much everything including storms. The story in the storm was all he heard, dealing with lifting caravans, rawling boats on spindly moorings, children blown into the trees, dustbins heading for another island, with a calm acceptance and a strong hand to right whatever was rightable. I am a tad unsure about my talents in the realms of unrightable. For now. But I get stronger, less fearful, more ear-aware, hearing the story in the wind, watching the birds, the animals, the trees and leaning into their wisdom and the words they say are always the same.

We have been here before, many times. So have you, you just don’t trust your spirit, your story memory, your inner strength. The world and all its fear mongering has polluted you. Breathe. Let it be. All is well and if it isn’t right now, it will be soon.

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Island Blog – Watching, Waiting, Wondering

The morning begins well in that I wake up and it’s morning, well almost, still dark but the clock tells me of others who rise at this hour, dark or no dark. I slip into my dressing gown, thank my bed, pat the dog and glide down the stairs. I remember actually doing that once, for a dare of course, on a tin tray and an oak stair case that dog-legged into the room. Not a good plan. I started off well, gathered warp speed and just knew I was about to be sliced like an egg when I hit the sharp corner, all balustrades and newel posts and rigid as if it had rooted into the earth’s core. The wails arose in me, alerting all inmates who were quietly sipping Earl Grey from china cups and pretending they didn’t want another scone. My mama was livid even if she feigned compassion. I could see it in the slit of her mouth, the narrowing of her eyes as she scooped me up and marched me away, my knees bleeding, my face scratched and my mouth yelling out a storm. This morning’s glide was more gentle, my hands holding both bannisters and my cautious eyes wide open for the fall that always threatens old folk, the one that leaps out for a rugby tackle from somewhere in my blind spot.

I descend in regal safety and round the corner for coffee and a peer into the darkness. No moon, but she is coming, the Beaver Moon, tomorrow I believe, although why the moon has to keep to a schedule un-moons me somewhat. I had thought her above such calendar control. I perceive her as reckless, upskittling, wild, and that’s because her full bellied lightshow creates that reaction in most women I know and some men too. I tap tap wait for the light to rise. I iron something, sweep another thing, flip through Facebook, write some notes about what I will do with my day, this day, today, most of which will be scratched out by breakfast once I realise that the ladder to any of them has faulty rungs, most of them missing.

I WhatsApp chat with my best friend and she laughs me and we share all our familial concerns and delights. We have done this for years now and her face takes me right back to her, the way she waggles her head when telling me of something that pains or puzzles her, the way she looks straight at me when she asks how I am. I know why. When I say ‘Fine’ she smirks and challenges, but I will always say ‘Fine’ because mostly, I am just that. However, as the day rolls on, not like chocolate, more like a stubble field and with me barefoot, I am ratty with the dog. It shocks me for I am only occasionally ratty and I don’t like it in me at all. I watch the wind, hear the roar of the whips and twisting punches of it, see it scrape rain across my window and bend the trees like torture, laughing at its bully power. Reluctantly I decide to walk, no matter the rain, the bully punching wind, the darkling grey, the wet underfoot.

To begin with, I stomp. I know I am stomping and the track looks up at me, eyebrows raised. I pause and smile and slow my boots. Then, as I rise into the woods, the rise of the track lifting me from my earthly grump, I begin to see, to notice, to watch. The bare limbs stick out like old fingers, old friends, the ancients who still stay to protect and to remind. Leaves still holding on, copper, gold and blood, tremble in the wind, showing me this face, then that. I hear the tic-a-tic-a-tic of their dance and I stop to watch. Beneath my skinny soled boots, a bronze carpet tongues out before me, inviting. The wind lifts again and the pines sing as the wind combs the needles, the ones that don’t ever give up, the ones I will see all winter long. A stand of ditchwater has been claimed by water moss and I chuckle at the emerald courage of this survivor. Well done you, I say, as I pause to wonder and I swear it shimmies. Tree ferns waggle like random hair tufts all the way up an alder tree, flapping at me as I meander beneath the high stretch of ancient trunk. Geese navigate the sky wind adjusting their positions and I wonder again at their understanding of all this power and of my complete lack.

I will never understand the power of watching, waiting and wondering, will even thwack it away with an irritable flap, but once I step out into it, bring myself to walk, to stand as a part of it, engaged with it, no distractions from it, I return with hope. Where the hell I found that hope, I can not answer, but it doesn’t matter to me. What matters is that in my reclusive sadness there is a beckoning, one irritating enough to get me inside my boots and out there.

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Island Blog – Friend, Ships and Wide Open

If I was to ask you – how many true friends do you have – might you have pause for thought? Let me help you out with a definition or two…..

A true friend is always wide open. They may not be able, at the very moment of your ‘massive drama’, to speak with you on the phone, or rush over to your place. Perhaps her granny has just fallen into the wheelie bin whilst searching for her missing dentures; perhaps the kids have buried the dog in the sandpit and all she can see is a wiggling mound; or, maybe, she has just burnt the strangled eggs, is late for work, can’t find the kids, the granny or the dog and her partner has gone off with both sets of house keys. But, rest assured, this true friend will be thinking of you all the way through her own massive drama and will make contact the very first moment he or she can. Then when he/she hears of your pain, she will not compare it to hers. She might not even mention it. She will listen, respond without fixing, suggest nothing unless you ask for such, just leaning into your flow of pain, putting her hand in yours and saying – Let’s sail together on this.

This probably narrows the list down somewhat. On reflection, you might think, I wouldn’t go to this person, or that with my massive drama because it will pass and if I tell him/her I will need to follow up once the missing members of my family are re-located, returned to the upright and able, once again, to breathe. Or, perhaps this person might think you weak, or fix you with some cutthroat bright solution which will confirm she knows you’re weak. How long has she thought that about you? It gets worse, this line of thinking. It heads one way only, into the pit of all that you feared, have always feared. And now it’s the truth. You are a lame duck, a pathetic wimp of a woman and nobody likes you anyway. You can see the neon flashing sign above your head. It reads, Loser. So don’t add this one to your dwindling list. Nobody is that desperate.

This true friend might not be the first person who comes to mind. After all, not one of us is immune to self-protection. Most of us keep our true selves very private, considering what we will reveal and how we will reveal it on a moment to moment basis. There are things I have told no-one, not never, and I am sure you are not so different. But when you look at your list, pondering each name and reflecting on past history, shared moments both good and uncomfortable, you will eventually get that list down to about 2, if you are very lucky. And this, my friends, is absolutely normal. We may have hundreds of acquaintances, but the true friend, the one who just sails along with you, keeping a respectful distance when required, one who watches you fly the crests of monster waves as a purple storm approaches, or who keeps her eyes on you as you head towards jag-toothed rocks in some crazy game of Chicken, and who prays for your safe return, well, she’s the truth.

In a perfect world, this would describe a mother or a father, or both. Parents who do not load their own expectations of supreme success onto the soft-boned backs of their young, who do not reward according to achievements; who welcome you home late, under-age drunk, in suggestive clothing or with a biker boyfriend twice your age and with no space left for another tattoo; A loving mum and dad who, when you fail your exams for the third time, or when you tell them you cannot spend another day in this college, university or relationship, no matter how much of a messy split, will welcome you into loving arms and who will stand beside your decisions for all time.

I hope I have been that mum. I suspect we all do, we mums. To be a true friend and a parent is not simple, however. We want for our kids what we didn’t have for ourselves. We know, as they don’t, how tough the world is on colour, creed, race, sexuality, relational splits, career women, traditions, freedom of speech, independency. The labels live on. In fact, they are thriving. Nobody escapes the criticism, the labels, the judgement. But a true friend, one who sails beside you, who sees who you really are will make all the difference in the world. Even if this friend lives miles away she knows you without needing to own you; you don’t have to start from the beginning with her, not ever. She knows that you will fill in gaps if you want to and not if you don’t. She may well challenge you, you can be sure of that. But inside that challenge there is only heart, only love. You can tell her to truck off, as she can tell you to do the same, but she is authentic. You are authentic. Your true friendship is authentic.

Ok, so now we might be down to one. Still lucky.