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Island Blog – New Femaline

I awoke to a, quite frankly, feeble moon, full, or so she will be soon. She dithered behind the greyling clouds for a while. Come on, I said, and out loud, startling my sleeping orange tree and the damn geraniums, all ancient and why on earth do I keep them going? Duty, is all. They were my mother-in-law’s and all salmon pink and I am sick to my socks of salmon pink. It thinks me. I have annihilated quite a few growing things out there in the garden that is finally mine after a whole flipping lifetime of duty, but it always takes courage, or a glass of red, to spin me out there with my loppers. And that is how I see, or hope to see, my ten granddaughters, brave and confident and independent, freed from the constraints of an ancient hold on patriarchy. I also believe my grandsons won’t want it either, although those lads are heading into a world of strong decisive women and that brings its own consequences for them. Knowing their parents, they will be guided, but jeez the change will be tough, no known territory, no manual. I hope they learn on the hoof, by listening and observing, their learned ethics and principles supporting their journey into their own world.

Today one of my granddaughters played the pipes at a Highland games. I have two of these piper girls, beautiful young women, who know what they know, as I did not. They move like women and yet have no idea of the days into which they are moving. They have confidence, but so did I. They have answers, can parry, but so did I. In my day, men ruled and that was that. Now, it seems, women do and the outfall of that assumption of power is an obvious elevation above boys, men. Too much of a pendulum swing. But, who knows the learned behaviour of these boys, the influences to which they have been subjected? Did his/her mother teach of submission to the male, the husband, the doctor, the vicar, the policeman, the teacher, or just the husband of her next door? And did her/his father tell him to take the power, to dominate, to control, to make sure of the last word? So much has changed in so short a time, and it will confuse this new generation, until, eventually, the pendulum swings easy, tick, tock, tick tock. I am hopeful.

My role is to observe. I know that. I have 12 grandkids, 10 of them girls. The lads seem fine at family gatherings, lost in their constructions of whole worlds online, with AI working a treat, or reading, or discussing the dynamics of flight, whilst the girls flit like butterflies through every room, every conversation with wings and on brooms and sparkled with slap-on tattoos of unicorns, faeries and sparkles. All so lovely and all so transient. Does the hammer come down for them? Yes, it does, when trusted friendships sail away without them, when they meet the ‘old thinking’ inside a derisive comment, a judgement carelessly spilled from one who speaks out from learned behaviour, and it can turn an ok day into a catastrophe.

I’m glad I grew up in the arms of safety. I was definitely a child of my time when I met my match. Ten years his junior and absolutely discombobulated, well covered in the carapace of protection against my learned learning, that which made me wish I wanted be anywhere but where I was, so unfit was I for the obliging world of women back then. And he took the risk. He had also learned the old ways. And, as time went on, he brought them back. But, at first, I had met a man who didn’t treat me like the tea girl, the go-get-this girl, this don’t-interrupt-girl, the given cleaner, washergirl, the answer-the-phone-because-I’m-tired-girl. And the new of that captivated me.

I hope, for the next generation, that they can find their own way through the thixotrope of this changing world. I ache for the young men in the rise of strong women. I wonder how they will navigate. Yes, women have been suppressed and poorly informed, controlled and dominated for centuries, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need men. I suspect that it just takes good young dads to teach their sons a whole new learning, of the new female, feral, femaline.

I am always hopeful.

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Island Blog – A Feral Susurration

Talking with a friend today over lunch, many subjects, a deal of which covered my favourite subject, the emancipation of women and I left with many thinks, as, I suspect, did she. I turned my car one way, she the other, as we moved back into our own home lives, own agendas, own to-do lists, and we waved, a strong and confident wave of connection and support, a knowing across the divide, a real something. She is younger than I by many miles, but there is a wild in both of us and a shared commitment to our own freedom to be who we really truly are, although I doubt she has to fight for it quite as much as I did. The culture of my way was so very definite, so finite, so limiting. Women came second. End of. Women should never attempt to rise above men, particularly the ones to whom they were legally connected, particularly them. Because why? Well, for starters, that woman would be, at best, laughed at, mocked as ‘butch’ or deemed hysterical, illogical or ignorant, and, at worst, kept at home, away from her ‘influences’ and threatened.

I was not one of those women, but I had seen too much among my mother’s friends, the older women with whom I worked on the farm, the Pauline in the local shop with her black eye, the Sarah in the surgery who, if I spoke with her in this public and mostly silent place, cowed and bowed and, I could see, wished she was invisible. I was a young mother then, younger than they in all ways, in experience, in lifestyle. I had privelege, opportunity, freedom. What did they think of my reach for friendship, I wonder now? Middle class, protected, safe. What did I know of them? Nonetheless, they responded, and I loved that they let me in, talked to me, trusted me. I knew right then that, whatever life sent my way, my passion would be my voice for women, all women, whenever I could, wherever I could. I was, probably, about 23. It thinks me. When searching for ‘what-to-do-with-my-life, as so many do, and particularly now when there are thousands more young for a few hundred opportunities, it could be so easy to feel like a failure. Someone else got that job, that apprenticeship, that flat, that adventure, so what am I doing wrong? I have talent. I can paint, draw, sing, write, I know it. Or I thought I did………….

And then, at some point, I wanted to climb the ladder, the one that had been handed to me, and one that scared me. I had hidden it in my understair cupboard. I don’t do Climb, I said. My daughterhood was built on a foundation of polite conversation, appropriate behaviour, appearances (never mind the truth of a thing) and susurration. It was the way of the time, our situation, the culture all around us, the bubble. I know that. However, that doesn’t mean it continues. Perhaps, all the while, I was learning, and where in the hellikins did that come from? To know you are feral whilst contained is not in the least comfortable and leads to all sorts of impolite, inappropriate behavioural choices, a sort of wild that creates fire, an out of control fire, an all consuming fire. A pointless and destructive fire.

So, this ladder. When I eventually wheeched it out through the blackened cobwebs, throwded in historical (or is it hysterical?) dust, and leaned it up against the clouds, and began to climb, I met limitations. It surprised me, and didn’t at all. I realised that the feral in me had been attractive until it gained empowerment. Now, that was a confrontation and, thus, uncomfortable at best. But I never wanted to have power over anyone but myself. I had head the susurration, the tidal chatter the upstart of arguing winds beneath my feet, within my heart, for so very long, and finally, I remembered the ladder. So I climbed; poked my head above the clouds visible, saw the possible, the impossible. I know now, that those who are feral hear a call in whispers, a rustling, a discomfort underfoot, a veritable challenge to the ground beneath their feet. There is more, there is more……a feral susurration.

And they are right, you are right. Listen, and find your ladder.

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Island Blog – Bubbles and a Rare Bird

Sorry, been a bit distracted these past few days, and, to be honest, I never imagine anyone wondering if this frickin eejit has finally sqwarked her last, fallen off her perch, not to be discovered for days, and then feel an element of concern. I always thought that everyone is absorbed in their own lives. My blogs, and me, might be a pleasant diversion, when bored on the bus or in a tea break. I kid you not. So, when I get a nudge or two, it bubbles me. I suddenly feel seen, important, that sort of thing. And that feeling is affirming, because who feels seen, let alone heard? Not many, I think. Until we are, seen, noticed, and heard, really seen, noticed and heard, we think it only happens in stories. T’is

A rare bird.

I have a strong woman friend, and she, recently, has chosen a new path in her life, in order to be in the right place for the right people, even as it cut her heart. She has had many cuts prior to this one, and they have healed, or she has determinedly healed them. She doesn’t look broken at all, tall, beautiful, standing fast, and yet she has to adapt, once again, to new surroundings, new challenges, a. new location. I watched her leave the familiar, her eyes brimming rainbows in the capture of sudden sunlight, her focus forward to the what the hec now. She’s

A rare bird.

As for me this past week, I found bubbles everywhere, rainbow globes, in conversation, in the clouds, in the sudden and random. And I am lifted, changed, energised and a bit wild (surely not me…!) by these bubbles. I’m going to buy a bottle from the local shop tomorrow, let them fly free, watch them catch the sky, float cloudward and then disappear like rare birds, gone for ever.

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Island Blog – Radio Gaga

I thought it was Thursday. Certain, I was, and, so much so that I moved my car out of the way for the wood delivery. I also prepped for my counsellor zoom, but, as time twingled on and no lorry appeared through the frantic blur of 60mph wind plus a sideswipe of blattering rain, I did begin to question myself. Then, when I received no link from my counsellor at five to the hour, I could feel a wondering. It began in my toes. and rose up through legs, past butt, and on up through my spine. I laughed, I did. I could be in Thursday, or any day and still be completely present without having a scooby about my connection to the wotwot of days. Days just ‘day’ on. Some of them super slow, like slugs leaving a behinding slime, some cantering on like deer in rifle sight. I never know, never have any control over the wotwot. I can feel drowny, as if I am out of control, or light above the damn waters of it all, in my boat and with my oars and rollicks in place. I know I am not alone in this, met too many people who swivel from a rooted calm to a swindling gale that uproots and fells a body, one with stories yet to tell, a body still determined to ‘alive’, no matter the fall.

Once I got the hang of it being Wednesday, I kind of liked the feeling. It is, after all, Winnie the Pooh’s favourite day and I am fond of the way he takes on life, as if every moment is a foundling, one he will raise it into something wonderful. It also freed me, from wood lorry delivery and that is a thing in itself. The wood bag is crane -lifted over my fence and immediately subject to the slashing rains of the now, in our now. I have a wheelbarrow. I have me, but the me in this scenario is not the strong woman of old. Why do we say that? I want to write, The old woman of young. Anyway, it will arrive tomorrow, and I will move my car again, and will make the barrow trip from open rain-soaked bag to my wood store, and then I will be happy and chuffed and puffed and warm.

It thinks me, and I am happy that I got days wrong inside a week that doesn’t bother me, nor I it. However, soon I go for radiotherapy, just five days, a CT scan before, and I do need to note the days of travel that deliver me into the laser zone of cancer zap. I should have gone last week, but last week was a frickin wild nightmare, no ferry, huge slamdunk gales, punching way beyond their pay grade, and an earthquake that rattled my windows. 

Talking to my lad in Africa, he who knows I am Gaga to of my many grandkids, connected radiotherapy with Gaga. We laughed a lot at the connection.

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Island Blog – Walking On

I was supposed to have my shingles jag today, but the nurse said I was too run down. I know it. So tired all the time. Part recovery from being nearly dead and the long climb back up from the mud and sludge of that Old Gripper, part fear of what may lie ahead. This is a time I could wish, as I did way back in school, for a less brilliant and inventive imagination. ‘Judith (cringe) has too much imagination’. Quote from a school report. And it wasn’t just once. It seemed to me that an imagination was something to be deeply ashamed of, something, perhaps, that might require surgery or therapy long term, at the very least. It got me into no end of scrapes, and, I might add, out of them too. An imagination is, by its very nature, flexi-intelligent, dynamic, able to work both ways on most things and in most situations, and two faced. There is the light side, the fun side and there is the dark side, the backside, the backslide. However, I am in control, mostly, of this imagination of mine, even though right now it is showing way too much sass. I suspect this is because it is also an opportunist and in the face of my looking smaller, aka, run down, it is rising above it’s pay grade. Well Hoo and Ha to that! We need to work together, I tell it, not against each other. When you show me dark, let the fear of wotwot court a dalliance with said dark, I go off you. We have worked together for decades, you and I, much as in a long term and bumpy marriage, agreed, but we did find a synergy of sorts and it benefitted us both. I got to keep the mischief and the inventive thinking and you got to keep me. Actually, I think you owe me. Without me, you would be foof in the wind.

Although I didn’t have the jag, I had the nurse, the one who flagged up a few weeks ago that I was looking like the nearly dead. She told the doctor and I had the chance to thank her, the nurse. She, Cara, has bright eyes, a beautiful and unlined face and looks about 16. She isn’t. Then I got to see the doctor to thank her for her quick and intelligent decision to send me off to hospital. She, Dr Jackie, is a lovely woman. I thanked her and we hugged. The new doctors on the island, this end of it, are a warm and welcoming couple and we are so very lucky to have them now. Actually the whole staff are so friendly, efficient and intelligent, I wonder how we islanders came to be that lucky. I am only thankful.

I came home with the damn imagination. I need distractions. Radio Four Extra is a wonderful discovery. I am knitting something. For now it is a long line of knit-ness. It entertains my fingers which is enough in small doses. I walk the wee dog but oh my, how wearily i walk, how weak I feel! I can do little and often. It’s the same with gardening jobs. A wee bit of weeding, a little pruning of the currant bush which isn’t/ wasn’t a bush but more a blanking out of the sky. It looks a bit weedy now, but I encouraged it to stop whining and to get back its mojo for next Spring, as I intend to do. I gave it a backward glance, having hefted huge long branches into the neighbours garden (she won’t notice). Stop focussing on what’s gone, I said. Look at the opportunity. I swear she quipped ‘Right back at you, lady’. Maybe I imagined that.

I feed the birds. We have swarms of sparrows here, unlike many other places, Englandshire in particular, and I have masterminded my feeders beyond the dive of our prolific sparrowhawk population. There’s a fence in the way, three wheelies and a mini. It seems to work. I watch the tidal dance, listen to the gulls screeching at the sea-eagles and hear their yipping response. It floats across the sea-loch as something unseen yet believed. I know the sea-eagles are there. I cannot see them. That doesn’t mean they aren’t there. A lesson in that, for the learning.

I fanny about with what to take when I leave this beloved home on Monday and head into the unknown. A couple of frocks, a jumper, cardy, (tweezers this time), nighties, leggings, a jacket, my purse, phone, laptop, chargers, underpinnings. How long will I be away? Will the consultation lead straight into surgery, or will there be weeks of waiting? Will I come home or stay away with my very limited clothing options? What surgery do I face? Lumpectomy (day job) or a single or double mastectomy? I don’t know yet but my imagination is already having a field day, whatever that means. Because I am high risk, many in my family having had breast cancer and with my great grandmother coming from Orkney, I may opt for those breasts to go. They fed five children and not many can say that. I thank them. Sometimes I look at them, old now, paps really, and marvel at the work they have done, the lives they have sustained. I can let them go, if that is what I and the consultant decide. To think I may leave with breasts and return with none is quite a thought. Some might say, Don’t talk that one up! I ask Why Not? I am a realist, a woman of age, a strong and vital life force and honest and open to a fault. (why is is called a fault? Does it refer to a fault line or is it a somebody’s ‘fault’? It thinks me)

I will keep writing. I will keep blogging although my arms might feel a bit dodge for a while after surgery. But we are not at that point yet. This is just the beginning. Rather exciting when you look at it that way, don’t you think? A world I have never walked in before, a newbie, wide eyed, scared, yes, but walking on. Always walking on.

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Island Blog – Scatterfry and Meaning

I collected my scatterfry of grand girls from school this morning. Early, although unannounced, I was welcomed, as I always am. I remember so well the possibly fraught minutes through waking a reluctant sleeper, encouraging pyjamas off, breakfast proffered, rejected, recreated, rejected again, the whole flipping tiredness of motherhood. I remember it well and am glad it is no longer my role. This child needs to eat before school. Am I failing? Did I get him or her wrong? No, no no, my wonderful young mothers and no again. This is motherhood. Welcome.

Then I went back to my life. An hour long call with my counsellor, strong, challenging, compassionate and funny. He is a strength for me and weekly and lucky me. However, he didn’t just appear like a white knight, no. I seem to be No-ing a lot here. Hmmm, moving on. We spoke of many things, not cabbages nor kings but of the questions we ask ourselves, the doubts we do or do not challenge, the foundering on rocks and the maybes and the what ifs and the option to lift above all of our circumstances as a sentient and choisic being. We choose who we are in any set of circumstances. I have always believed this, not always managed to show it out, not having the confidence to find the words to deliver my belief into those circumstances. I did cower, I did hide, I did, I did.

Back to the scatterfry. I collected them from end school, arriving a bit early thus giving me the chance to chat to the young mums and dads on collection-duty. We spoke of many things, of foraging, of ferry halts, of weather and of school brilliance, which is a very big thing for us. The Primary School here is second to none and even none can leave the room. It is a magnificent school and no mistake.

As we left, the scatterfry and me this morning when all our hats were askew and our breakfast half eaten something big erupted. Let me explain. I was to take them to school to help mum. No issue there. However, in the porch, whilst pulling on trainers and backpacks, something feral wilded. Who is to sit in the front of Gaga’s car? Eish, you might think, who cares? But the care manifested in tears and more. The young girl just knew, just KNEW that her older sister had been in the front the last time. She melted on the steps. She was sure, she was certain. I waited by the car with the older one, already in the front seat, however, her face in that front seat was downcast, sad, somehow. I asked her, what are you thinking? She said, I don’t mind being in the back seat Gaga. Ok I said, good for you (thinking compassion learned at such a young age). She quietly back-seated herself. The wee one got in. We moved to school and I said I would collect them. Your big sister in the front next time. She agreed. We came to me, ate crackers and watched Sponge Bob. Well I didn’t. Then they went the scatterfry and the silence of their Go, thinked me.

The ‘wee one’ remembers everything, is a sponge for learning, forgets nothing and remembers everything, more than anyone else. And I wondered. Was she right about who sat in the front of my car last time? Was she? Well, maybe she was. There is the likes of me who really doesn’t care. And then there are those to whom such information matters a lot.

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Island Blog – Call them by their Names

This island night, I hear of another name, suddenly moved into the past. Just like that. She was a woman I met now and again, and one I always saw as strong. Strong, hmm, means something else up here in island life. It means tough against pretty much everything. Atlantic slice winds, sudden have-tos in the middle of something else, like baking or feeding a babe or just sweeping the floor. As woman here you need toes on your toes, ready at any moment for the ice swipe of out there to save a cow from the bog in mid February when the hail is ready to take you out, when you can barely stand on a rock face that doesn’t give a monkey’s about whether you succeed or fail, but you are always ready. She was.

She was, and is, Jeannie. Others who I remember this night also need naming. So, here I go. Jessie, her twin sister, Donnie her husband and Angus her son; Kirsty, Katy, Helen, Kathy, Amy, Willie, John, Mouse, Jonnie, Belle, Blind Katy, David, Hughie, Eck, Katy, Bert, Chrissie, Sonny,and so many more; folk I met when I moved here as a complete idiot and who became my kindly guides. As an incomer, back then, a welcome was not expected. I get it, now. However, island west coast folk have big old hearts and I met those hearts. They may have laughed at us but they didn’t block us out.

Hey Jeannie. I am so glad I met you. I saw, in you and Jessie, strong women with attitude. From my protected life, women like you stood out, literally. Tall and booted up, in the ring, in the field, in among the shit of stock farming in sometimes cruel conditions. You showed me that being woman is not a thing to be taken lightly, nor restricted to domestic duties. I smile as a I write this, because without knowing you changed me, you did. Thank you.

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Island Blog – Rethink the Butterfly

I remember times when we could move in and out of each others lives without second guessing the wisdom of close encounters, sharing laughs and songs, music and chatter. I am sure you do, too. These past months have shown us how limited that freedom now is. We don’t like it. We feel confined, scared at times, at best, cautious. We have to think for ourselves and make our own decisions regardless of governmental announcements and that state can be confounding, overwhelming. I flit like a butterfly between overwhelment and decisiveness, caught up in the barrelling winds, soaked in the rain of it all, only finding rest inside my own home and alone. Many, many folk will know how this feels and for now we can see no end to this battering.

However, being forced to think and to make our own informed choices about what we do, where we go and whom we meet with is good for our brains. We are not schoolchildren. We have autonomy no matter the restrictions laid down for us. They are very important, nonetheless because nobody really has a Scooby about this virus and its dastardly plans. Is it dying or is it morphing into something even more destructive? Nobody knows, not the governments, not the scientists, not the medical profession for this enemy is invisible, secretive and immensely powerful. We move through each day with caution, most of us, and as we wake up our immensely powerful brains, we have to stand for what we believe in, even if it upsets someone else, or many someone elses. This is not an easy thing to do for we all want to fit in. We second guess ourselves. Is this decision not to attend a gathering based on wisdom, my wisdom, or fear, my fear? Well, the answer is both. We need awareness of fear, the knowledge of it, the inner study. We need, in short, to think and to question those thinks.

Not so long ago, wars raged for real with military ranks marching into battle. Those left at home faced huge restrictions, fear for the fighting men and women, shortage of food, of warmth, of security. Time dragged, days rolled into a long line of misery and frustration but in the middle of all that confusion, individuals stood strong. Mothers queued for many hours to make sure their children could eat bread. Young women and the men who could not make it to the battlefields, entered into the intelligence services. Folk butterflied in hospitals, on the streets, in soup kitchens, in schools, helping elderly neighbours, working on farms and in many other ways. The country pulled together because of the war, in spite of it because the human spirit will not be defeated.

We are in a different war now, but it is war nonetheless and every single one of us can do something to make life a bit better for someone else. Many have been bereaved and they need comfort. Many are lost in fear and isolation, the loneliness chipping away at their self-confidence, spinning in confusion unable to see more than one step ahead. They need friendship and connectivity, even remotely, through a window, on the phone, through a zoom or a text. I’m thinking of you. We will not emerge from this unscarred, none of us will. It has shifted the tectonic plates of our thinking, played shinty with our beliefs and shattered the structure of all we heretofore believed solid and strong.

And now Christmas is almost upon us, one filled with concerns and ditherments. Do we, should we, can we, ought we? I shake my head. I have no idea what to do. I know what my heart wants, as do you but if we look beyond our obvious desires, what do we want to see? Good health, yes. A future without viral attack, yes. But a vision requires restrictions in the present. Not at all comfortable. However we are fools if we pretend everything is okay or bury our heads and hope we won’t be the one to get sick, won’t be party to bringing sickness in for others. It is, in the end, all down to individual decision, popular or not. Easy to say, I know. Damn hard to stand strong and light in confinement and darkness.

In Spring, the butterfly is a wiggly worm, a maggot, a nothing much. Inside the safety of its cocoon, it develops beauty. Then, one fine day, it breaks out to enchant anyone who sees it. This unbelievable metamorphosis is only believable because we know it will happen. In these dark times, in the wind and the rain and the uncertainty, vision, trust and faith are everything. If we are patient, careful, considerate and with an eye to the future, the lucky ones will emerge and fly once again in new colours, even more beautiful than before.

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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 – The lift of memories

This needs saying too.

Although we would never have spoken this way when you were here, I am free now (and independent!) to say whatever I like to say.

I remember you, strong and lean, tanned and muscular. I do. I really do. Although for a long time I have only seen you as a difficult, sick and compromised old man, this was not always the you I remember now. You could flip my heart with just one loving look. You could melt me into soft putty. I would have fought all those who said you were no good for me and with all my weaponry. I would. I did. Even when you upset door knockerers, random visitors, anyone really who came without an invitation to our huge and freezing mansion house, even then. When I challenged your attitude later, you could turn it all around and bring me into your arms. I miss that.

Since you have left the planet, it seems that freedom is allowing my mind to open and my earlier memories to float in. They come unbidden and randomly and often very inconveniently. I suddenly find myself tearful and having to pull in when a song comes on that reconnects me with the you who, in truth, died years ago. Not that you ever went with lyrics. To hell with the lyrics, you said, batting them away like a buzz of bluebottles, I just hear the music. And you did. That is how you managed to balance so artfully the depth and dimensions of many musical instruments in the way you did. There are bands who honoured you for that skill. But me? I am a lyricist, through and through, although I do need good music behind those lyrics. If the words are great and evocative and the backing music skinny and full of electronic bips and clatters, music so obviously not composed by those who know how to physically play an instrument, then the words lose gravitas, at best and are quickly forgot.

So, images of you, bringing in the cattle, driving the sheep, recording behind your desk, all concentration and frowns, or smiling at me as we begin our escape for a break away, are coming to me now. I never thought they would. I never thought at all. We began our adventure as adventurers. Then we met Life and she tripped us up, she confounded our plans, she altered us, divided us. She didn’t mean to. We were just unprepared, two dreamers without feet on the ground that claimed us. Thus we lived on and we never ever talked about who we were in our shared past. Not once. But I can do it now and, oddly, there is a freedom without you because you would have flapped it, bluebottle style, away. I know you would. In my new life, my life without you, I am good to go, free to wander back, free to cry new tears in passing places (lay-bys for you non-islanders)for an old life so very far back in the past and yet somehow so close by now.

I am glad of it.

“Who am I, you ask?

I am made from all the people I’ve encountered and all the things I have experienced. Inside I hold the laughter of my friends, the arguments with my parents, the chattering of young children, the warmth of kind strangers. Inside there are stitches from cracked hearts, bitter words from heated arguments, music that gets me through and emotions I cannot convey. I am made from all these people and moments.

That is who I am.”

Ming Di Liu