times

by

Island Blog – Inquillinate

I cut the slimy ends off my syboes until I get to the crispy green, the last addition for a salad. The potato is already baking, the fire lit, the tunes on, the stuff of an admin and action day done. The clouds are back lit, sunlit, fire lit. Just moments. If I move from one room to another I can miss the show. It’s all about noticing, about watching the passing of something, about holding the experience. Everything brings that, every action, each moment, the longing to be noticed. We all want that, if we are honest. Which, mostly, we aren’t. We spend so much time in an inquillination, we do. A place where we ‘dwell in a strange place’. T’is an obsolete word, not used since the 1600s but it’s a gorgeous word and means so much because we all spend time in the strange of a place. Over and over and over in our lives. Those times, say in childhood, when some friend who was always a friend suddenly turns on us when around others. What happened? The times when we presumed everything was just fine and ordinary in our life and something hit us, someone caused massive damage, just like that, in a second, just when we were annoyed about delay, about lack of response, about someone not showing up. When someone we always knew was there, suddenly isn’t. So much cloud hiding the sky. Looking back, well, there comes a clarity, one often too late for reparation.

Someone died. I knew her for decades. I worked for her when she couldn’t manage her beloved garden. She was so strong before she wasn’t. And she was determined. She was a friend. In discussions about any subject, she was a wisdom. She saw a foot slip in any statement and challenged it. Many round tables with her and we all waited for her to speak. She was commanding, but without judgement, confident, knowing.

When we moved to Mull, we threw an open dance ceilidh. Anyone, everyone, just come. Everyone did, including her and her husband. I remember seeing her in the line for Strip the Willow, in her synche-waisted dress, all wide skirt, all white and yellow, her eyes sparkling, waiting for the moment to reach out for a swing.

Rest in Peace my longtime friend.

by

Island Blog – Clockwise and Widdershins

I’m aware that July is easing out of view, note, calendar. To be honest, I feel she only just arrived. How the wheel turns! I thought this as I watched my washing machine do it’s thingy. It swished clockwise, paused, and then went widdershins. Ah! I said, I did and out loud, this is life. You think it’s going one way and then it flaming well doesn’t. I can’t blame July. All the months do this. And what surprises me, now I consider the whole wheel turn backforth confusative is why are we surprised at all? I find no answerers. These questions are mostly thrown into the void, where, which is rather alarming, there is nobody with an answer. It wonders me. Are these questions more a boomerang?

Ah, yes, they are. Although it feds me up a whole lot, I know it’s true. We answer our own questions. We think we can’t, that we need someone else to do this, and, sometimes, when deeply compromised, deeply lost, we do. I know that. I do. But what I know and notice is that so many of us, strong us, confident us, forget ourselves. Life will swipe clockwise and widdershins. Always did, always will. I ask myself, who do I want to be in this new month, new age, new moment?

And then, I remember. It takes a big re-jig, or it does for me. Times I know I am old, feeling it, pushing on when thumbs and hips hurt, because……and what is my because? No idea.

I know me, the who of me. Not one single other person in the whole of everything will ever know the me of me, the I of I. Nobody, not ever. Only me. So this flipshake of clockwise and widdershins, this whole July departure, and the next month and the next, the expectations of those cemented in some man-made control programme, not one of them can decide me.

I turn off the washing machine, hang my clothes on the pulley. Nobody has them anymore, not in the new world of everything aesthetic and clueless. I watch them dangle. They’ll be dry the morra.

by

1sland Blog – Breath

I hold it, my breath, at times, sudden times. Perhaps at a moment that confounds me, as if a rock has tripped me. It might be a word-spout from another’s mouth, of judgement, finite, challenging, and there’s a momentary confusion, like the after blast from an explosion, even though I have no idea what that feels like. The silence at first, then the thunder and roiling in my ears, the deafening to all else around me. We’ve all been there, and when I have, I always wished I had said something, stood up for someone, answered with confidence, not that the finite ever begs a question. I still wished. I also, to my womanly and well-trained second fiddler position shame, deferred to the height of the voice, the learned-ness, the confidence of delivery, the surety that no-one in this (now self-assumed as piddling and inferior) gathering would dream of cutting down this particular invasive species, of which he is a member. No matter his derisive comments, his freedom to dominate, take advantage, to touch, to control. Ok, that’s my stuff, my history, the deferment to men. I have no issues with men in general. I love men, in general. Let’s move on.

I hold my breath when a bird slams against my window. I hear the slam, the ouch of it and it sharps my lungs. They stop, as if they have seen and heard what I did. We go out into the garden, my lungs and I, to check. Mostly these birds slam wing first. They sit a bit, we talk a bit, I crouch on the steps. Little heads turn to me and away, always watching for the hawks, the predators. Not while I’m here with you, I soothe. Sometimes I can pick them up, the wing-slammers, and they clutch onto my fingers, settle in my palm. I can feel their heartbeat through my fingers, daring to, longing to live on. I can run a soft finger down their spine, from head to tail, encouraging blood flow, offering peace, renewal. They take their time, enjoying the connection perhaps, and then fly off. The head-butters don’t rise again, and again there’s a breath stop when I find them crashed on the concrete. Such beauty, so many colours, a pitch for life downed.

Music can hold my breath. I don’t know why. Who does? A superb lift of harmony, melody, a spectacular change of key, from major to minor and back again, the words clear to me in the agony, the joy, the wild, the wild of music. Could be classical, could be the music and lyrics I listened to through angsty teen years, could be songs of longing, of loss, of fury, of celebration panning decades. Something will suddenly touch me, even if I am caught up in a recipe or a to-do list and my breath will stop, just for a catch, just for a moment.

Could be something someone says, a compliment, a line of words that tell me a person has actually seen me, got me. Now that’s a rare breath catch, and no mistake.

by

Island Blog – Tumbletast

I’ve had many thinks about mental wellbeing, since forever, in truth, even when I was just considered ‘difficult’ and ‘strange’. And I was. The tumbletast of me scooried my brain into a storm. What was/is wrong with me, I wondered. Well, everything, pretty much. But see this. I was a girl and young woman of my time, a time when everyone would only whisper the word ‘mental’ as if the head bore no relativity to the body, as if a good person, aka, someone who obliged themselves into a nothing, a bland beige, almost invisible, was a female accepted. Now, in these times, we know better, but I do think about all the rest of those who spent their whole young life paddling backwards, bowing and scraping, apologising through gritted teeth, teeth that spent the long hours of a troubled night grinding together until they lost the ability to bite.

Now that I am old and gay (woman of my times), I chuckle at my flat top teeth and all that turmoil of youth because I now know that I, and others ‘of that time’ are strong fighters, and those who didn’t survive, well, I grieve their demise. I certainly do. What I met, or, rather, who (or is it whom?) along my journey of madness, were one, two, three, maybe four encouragers, older women and men who really saw me and, what’s more, liked and respected what they saw. It wasn’t family members, probably never is, but random meets, sudden lifters, a connection, and I could feel myself begin to flower. I no longer felt like a big clod in frilly frocks and hefty boots, but, instead, a young woman, a beautiful young woman, with a voice, one they wanted to listen to. In short, they believed in me. In me? It was an astonishing moment, one I barely trusted at first, awaiting a put down, a ‘go away you fool’, but it never came. My questions were considered, valued, and answered with an upwards inflection, inviting continuation. It was heady. It was random, It was only now and then in my tumbletast but I could feel my inner spin slow to a confident hum, even to a stop. I didn’t have to be who this person wanted me to be, expected me to be. I was allowed to be myself, not that I had a scooby who that self was with her mental bits totally off piste. I felt enchanting, intelligent, bright and lively. When I laughed too loud or said something that completely missed the point, nobody laughed, but only smiled and explained, without being patronising, or showing their own need to diminish another in order to elevate themselves.

I know I hide my madness well. I know, even in these times, that I am mad. I rather like the title. I see it not as a label, but as a recognition of myself. I am who I am. We all are. And what we need, like water, is for someone, now and then, to tell us, through eyes, smiles, connection, that we are just the one they want to talk to, to collide with, right now. It may be random, a bus shelter, a queue in a post office, a doorway to a hotel in the rain, and, you know what? That is exactly when it happens. Life is such that she proffers the random, and it behoves us to clock that, no matter the rush of the moment, the have to get through, have to watch for the bus, have to check my phone, have to this, have to that.

I recommend just looking around. I recommend saying hallo, and sharing a smile, and then asking Where are you going? or Hey, I love your smile, frock, boots, suitcase, handbag, whatever. We, of our times, who have got through Brexit, Covid and the ripples from the Russian attack on Ukraine, know in our hearts that connection with other humans is our survival. Only through that do we learn about them, about ourselves, and, as we pull apart and go our different ways, we will be holding each other in our thoughts. And this is so powerful.

My randoms changed my thinking about me. I had about four, in a 70 year life, but the power they lit up in my ‘mental’, has carried me all this way, and I thank them. I wish you all the same, with all my heart. I really, really do.

by

Island Blog – Tumbleweeds

You know those times when you venture into something new, something that has your belly all of a quibble in the morning, the doubts like angry Koi (carp) banging against the confines of a plastic pond about 100 miles and even more decisions short of freedom? I know you do, as do I. Off I go into the nowhere of something with my clothes on, my pencil and pad, my car fuelled up, my timing considered, my small dog sorted. Breakfast at five am, just in case I am late for the 10 am clock in. Good flipping lord to that! Nonetheless I wake and rise, bleary and wondering if I am completely bonkers to be doing this, this whatever, stepping without the right boots (what are the right boots?) into a new environ. When I write environ, it happies me, a French word, kind of distancing me from the right here island soaking wet long drive thingy. And, in French, it means ‘About’ and I am so about, wishing the sun would flipping rise so at least my dog will get this early breakfast tiddleypom.

So off I pop, eventually, having secured all things dangerous that never were such before this leaving. I spend a while reassuring the dog that I am gone for the day, alarming her in the process because I keep telling her I’ll be back soon, which I won’t and she kind of gets that with all this overdose of repetition. I check my car for oil, fuel, windscreen fluid, the tyres. I’m going 23 miles for goodness sake, still on the island, and for only 6 hours. My friend is walking said, and now thoroughly bothered, small dog mid-day. What is WRONG with me?

Answer……Nothing at all. Rising from Covid – all of us. Long Term Caring and Bereavement – some of us. Difficult childhood trouble – many of us, rackshattles a soul, diminishes a person, confounds, contracts and confuses her or him. All known parameters swing out and dissolve like sherbert. The boundaries fly off into space, known and trusted familial or friendlial supports bend and some break. The tide of time, this time, arrives not as a sudden tsunami, no. It is like smoke under the door, or a whisper on social media, a moment in the school playground, a cruel word that peers hear, a comment as you leave the shop in some sort of shame, card declined, child in meltdown, a sudden need to get out, get out, get out. Been there each time, this legacy of ripples creating a wave that finds you on the other side of your life as a drowning. I know it.

And then a new thing comes in. The invitation to step into the desert of what if. It comes, trust me, it comes. It infuriates, I resist, I say no and yet the yes in me rises like a koi to the lights, even in the trap of a plastic pond. I think I want the freedom to demand a lake, a mountain tarn, a river, but no, not yet. For now, as I learn to rise again, what I need is a plastic pond with lights. I learn new things, I engage with splendid women, we laugh about how to make a good sandwich, what all this learning affects us, we hug and offer a lift home. We are not Koi in a plastic pond under lights to amuse. We are tumbleweeds in a new desert but with the wind in our favour. We are brave. So are you.

by

Island Blog – Depth, Mining and Tomorrow

On days or at times when I am less happy with my ‘freedom’ I usually avoid writing here. In moments of truculence I disturb that thought, winkle it about with a pointy finger, snarl at it. Why must I always be upbeat about flipping everything? Answer. Nobody wants to hear doom and gloom, well do they? Everyone has more than enough of that within the walls of their own insider life. Well, don’t they? Yes, I have to concede, even as I feel hapless and my arms flop like limp seaweed to my sides. But (and I have plenty of buts) what about being real, about being balanced? In other words, the rough and the smooth, the bitter and the sweet, the death and the life of everything. If everything passes, then surely those readers out there will know that a doom day is just a day, or a time, or a week, and that, once it passes, the sun will out and out once again. And this is true. But there is a lonely in keeping quiet about the times when I feel like a bottom feeder without gills. watching from my depths, the wiggling legs of the surface swimmers, knowing they can laugh without drowning, smile without grimace, breathe good clean air.

At such times I know I choose this bottom feeding thing, not that I’m feeding, obviously. I am a woman, not a fish and I have sunken down here below the laughing others out of choice. I have attached the weights. I know it even as it rolls my eyes, if I could entertain such a thing down here among the octopus and other hideous creatures with gill breath and the roar of forever in my ears, the pressure skinning me even thinner. I am mining. I am searching for treasure deep deep down among my own oceanic rocks, for something, for anything that just might look like an answer. I have always done this, I remind myself and, yes, myself snorts because she has the unpleasant (at times) task of being beside me, even through dreams, the latter enough to send the strongest woman running for safe harbour. You have, she concedes. Childhood was exhausting btw and don’t get me started on adolescence. I say nothing, because if I did we would both drown down here. My eyes are wide for answers, my mind focussed, my fingers raw and bleeding but determined. Answers are here somewhere, I know it.

Diving deep into the sea of psyche is not for many, not for most. We want to find answers at the surface. Few have the courage to sink, to dive into the roar, to mine the rocks. Down there is scary, the predators are lit up like a firework display and they have serious teeth. They don’t want to be recognised or identified and they definitely don’t want to be understood or broken down into their component parts. They are centuries old. They are formed from childhood abuse or neglect. They are the physical result of all ‘crimes’ that happened, in the perception of a mind. They may not be absolute truth but they feel very real. Memory is a fickle friend. Our memories are seen only through the lens of our own perception. But the feeling creates the bottom feeders and those creatures swim forever in our minds. Most days we can ignore them. Many days we cannot. Hence my dive. I want the damn things excoriated and the only one who can do that is me. But before I do this excoriation thingy, I need to see them, recognise and name them, or neither, and let them go. Only then can I deal with the now of Now.

This is why I am down here. However, I need to breathe like everyone else, and tomorrow will be different. Tomorrow always is. And, even down here, the sun will out.

by

Island Blog – Swanlift, Labels, Honey and a Captain son

This day I drive the switchback to the harbour town. I only go there these days on a specific mission, never to wander nor to dawdle, as once I did. As I heft right down the steep brae and see the tongue of the Main Street sticking out like thirst, it is coloured up with tourists, the many who are here for a longing, an escape from lockdown. I am so not joining them. They wander, holding ice creams, takeaway coffees, bags of shopping, children, all loving the tidal sweep of the bay, the seagulls fly, the fisher boats, the chip van. I swing right into the harbour car park and meet a tailback. There are just so many places for the parking and I get it. You arrive and you want to park. That’s all, but it is not enough because all the spaces are taken so we tailback, hover, pause, exercise patience and not patience. I am here to meet up with my captain son as his boat is in the harbour for a couple of hours before turning seaward once more with his passengers. We bench sit for I cannot go aboard. He brings tea, a chef made biscuit wrapped in a paper napkin and delicious. We talk of our lives, his young family, my aloneness. We watch the in and out of boats, of visitors in yachts, of locals checking their own launches and sailors. We say hallo and I watch faces. Of the ones I know as friends, I see the toll Covid and isolation has taken on them. Some visitors come too near and my mask hand twitches. They laugh, cough, move on and here I sit scared as a mouse, even on a bench in the sea air.

What happens to us in such times? It thinks me, much, of those (including me in the past) who felt scared just being around people, never mind an invisible virus. We were labelled as those with mental health issues. Now, I am one who would fight to the death to blow all labels into the stratosphere, no matter the smug relax of those who choose it at some committee meeting and then tootle home delighted with the fact that they don’t fit the confines of any label. So, right now I am afraid. And then I am not. This fear is tidal. It rises, full moons itself and then subsides into seaweed and sand. It is real. Very real. But I would stand at the gates of Challenge and shout ‘ Don’t label us!’. I would. And I will tell you why. Any label fixes a person. It might be on medical notes. It might be a long term tenant in someone’s mind. Oh, he, or she, has mental health issues. How ridiculous and how wrong is that! Does this mean we who have gone down like a swan in a swamp, cannot find a way out? Of course not. We can fly again, lift from fear again, become wonderfully white and light and flighty once again.

It is a thixotropic place. In the language of honey spinning, that honey gift from the bees, this word means honey that refuses to spin. It is mostly heather honey which is why it is common to buy heather honey in comb squares, wax included. In life it symbolises the same thing. A refusal to spin, to melt and demur. What I find in these times is that I oftentimes need to remind myself to relax my shoulders, raise my neck, breathe and go forward, especially en route to what I consider the Big City, bubbling with way too much busy life, a life I felt so easy peasy in before. Suddenly it presents menace. My honey refuses to spin. It is still there but affixed in a wax hexagon that will not let it free. I am not saying I like it. I love to flow. I love people, connectivity, chance encounters, but now I am confounded, afraid and my body is telling me she is not happy.

I know that I am bereaved broken. I know that learning how to live alone after almost 50 years is not going to turn me into a confidently independent woman overnight. I know, because of this, that I have mental health issues. Fear, accentuated; sleepless nights; hypervigilance; squewed thinking. of course I flipping do. It thinks me of anyone who is so labelled and who feels less-than, diminished, isolated because of that awful label. (all labels are awful). When any one of us is in a dark place the last thing we need is labelling. We are not what ‘they’ tell us we are. We are just in a dark place, a dark well, looking up at the light and just a bit terrified of moving towards it because we have no idea of what that light might throw on who we really are now, in the aftermath.

by

Island Blog – A Beetle, Selkie Song and Kitchen Units

I met a beetle last night in the middle of it. The night, I mean. He was rather spectacular with a long oval back, shiny black, indented white. I was sitting drinking a herbal knockout tea around 2am and he ran along the wainscot, bumping against it every few seconds as if he had forgotten where it was. I hunkered down to watch him and he saw me, rising his pincers at me, his body an oblique accent with waggles. I laughed a guffaw, almost blowing him right back to base, and then apologising as he had to do the whole journey again. So brave, I schmoozed, as he repeated the laborious thing. I wondered where he was headed, and my eyes followed him as I thinked. He likes the dark. I just turned on the sun, well, for him, anyway and he is freaking out. He scuttles, bumps and scuttles again his way to where the old kitchen units don’t meet the ground, a thing that seems legion in old houses build almost 200 years ago and with no thought for foundations nor levelling. At least not in inanimate things. I suspect there was a great deal of levelling going on between sentient beings. As he got closer to that perfect lift of warped unit and sinking floor about 6 spiders scooted down their silken ropes, their legs clutching and flailing. Oh don’t be silly, I said to them. Just look at you all, you skinny little things and look at him, armoured up and with a serious pincer waggle going on. They ignored me as they all pretended they had just popped out for air without any beetle-munch intention, performing a few trapezoid spins and then disappearing back into my units.

I wonder, often actually, about the wildlife inside my units. I have met plenty over the years. A family of slugs, no, a whole township. Spiders of every size and colour. Mice. There have been times, when I felt so compromised and overwhelmed that I might take a deep breath prior to opening a door in search of ordinary dinner plates for an ordinary dinner and been quite prepared to encounter some big predator, one that has grown weary of a spider/slug/mouse diet and is ready for change. It has never happened for real. Not yet. Living in the places I have lived, around horses, cattle, sheep and feral children, anything has always been possible and I am no fool. I am prepared. Have always been. Mostly I don’t mind at all but since the old man is gone, I am requiring myself to learn my own courage. Things can overwhelm even as I know for sure that I was always the bravest. However, being brave beside someone else, a husband, a wife, a child, is so much braver than mere courage for self and alone is a load scarier. My beetle encounter teaches me. I could imagine an infestation of waggling warriors or I could decide to marvel at the extraordinary beauty of both the chance encounter and the creature itself. I am just glad I turned on the ‘sun’ prior to entering the lift and luff of my kitchen, thus avoiding crunching this stunning creature under a careless foot.

Later I walked the Tapselteerie loop. As I rounded the point, the breeze caught my breath, salty, straight from the great wide ocean. I saw Sgeir Mhor rock, peaceful today. A singing came to me. My dog twisted and stopped dead at the sound. The Selkies, I said. No worries. I hear them, I tell her, the seal people singing. It is a beautiful song and we stand awhile to listen. I wander home in a smile. Ah wildlife! The one thing that is a gazillion things. Is that a collective noun? And if I am wild, does that make me a part of wildlife or do I need to grow more legs or feathers, or fur, or fins to join this glorious freedom?

I feather home. Open the mail box, deal with probate, answer emails, remindings of the duality of my life. Wild at times, unwild at others, and yet, and yet, if I am learning anything from my innovative (and feral) children, I am beginning to think that, although I have no plan to scuttle nor waggle, nor, if possible, inhabit the night, I can become conscious of both worlds, of all worlds. Being conscious is not about knowing what the hellikins you do next, but about just being open. Life can feel like boots stuck in mud, can it not? But we don’t have to stay stuck. I am learning and loving the learning even when it scares me. Remember the Selkies, I tell myself. They were there and you couldn’t see them but their song, their perfect pure song reached you and stopped you in your tracks.

I am learning. Curious. And learning again. Now, this is living.

by

Island Blog – Ready to Pair

I have heard that many times over the past few days. Although anything technological terrified me in the past, I have become somewhat of a master. There is no son around to call on anyway and, even if there was, we are shielding so nobody can cross our threshold, and for some time to come.

I think this ‘terror’ of tech was really me hiding in the cupboard. After all, nobody knows how to do anything until they’ve tried it often enough to know the ropes, at the very least. Then daily, or regular practice illuminates each step like a new sun rising. Before too long, a person could be running through the whole process, one eye closed, eating toast and singing along to a chart topper, and still meeting success. Like replacing a knob on a nicker drawer, for example, or pruning roses. It is very easy to shrug away anything with which we have no experience, and no desire to gain such. But, when the roses are preventing entrance through the front door, or the nickers to which I need access are locked down behind a knobless drawer, needs absolutely must. At that moment, a part of my brain, the knob/pruning part kicks into life, one I have never accessed before. It was this way with the new bluetooth headphones for himself. This woman kept on about being ready to pair until I finally shut her up (hope I never get to meet her for real) and paired successfully.

It thinks me. Life requires all of us at some time or another to be Ready to Pair. Not just in a relationship that begins with excitement and euphoria but at times when all that squishy stuff fades into routine, arguments about nothings and other generalities, family commitments and the gardener off sick. There is almost nothing we cannot do, after all, if we bring our brain into the mix and take a baby step. Lockdown and shielding has to be thanked for thrusting me into the confident knowledge of many heretofore areas of terror. There is nobody here to do this thing but me. This thing cannot be parked, nor ignored. This thing has to be done. This thing needs me to get off my backside and engage, like I have never had to do before. And, there is a mighty thrill in achievement, even if I am the only one mightily thrilling. The euphoria of success over self is one everyone should seek for it comes with a medal, loud applause and a warm fuzzy that never leaves. I have achieved mastery over self! Well, maybe only over a knob and some rampant roses, but the ripple effect of both masteries keep spreading out. Being able to access my nickers without having to employ a flat screwdriver and a skewer is dizzying and the front door now opens onto the garden instead of Sleeping Beauty’s 100 year abandoned palace. It was I who made the change.

We all know where we want to be and where we don’t want to be, but I have found that the discontent of the latter can consume a person. What we might not ‘get’ is that in order to move on from this latter requires just one baby step. Then another, and another until one day the sun comes out and our path is illuminated by a new sun. Good heavens, how on earth did I get here? You did, I did, by emerging from the dark cupboard of terror and saying to myself ‘I’ve got this!’

I am Ready to Pair.

by

Island Blog – Confucious

He knew his stuff, this ancient philosopher. His modem operandi was this:-

The philosophy of Confucius, also known as Confucianism, emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice, kindness, and sincerity.

I’m in. However, in this uncertainty, I get muddled, I feel doubt, I feel fear. I am sure that way back in his day, there was plenty of that. How someone rises themselves above all that worldliness beyonds me. I think I am practicing all these goodly things. I know I am. And, then, a call comes in from the council, who need to speak to himself, not me, and to tell this confused man that our shielding has now come to an end, that warm, safe bubble is now burst, and that we can now go shopping (that’ll be me). Now that visitors are about to be let in, to stay in their holiday cottages, and those who will now frequent the local shop, the street, the walks, alarms me. Part of me gets it. I am, after over 3 months of ‘bubble’ more than ready for interaction, conversation, smiles shared, freedom of movement. The other part, the one that keeps me restless at night is the one that knows this is not done. It will flick back, and in the winter, when folk like us are even more vulnerable.

Meantime, I walk. I find wild honeysuckle in the woods, cascading over a dying and fallen tree like it was all disco lights and smelling like a peach garden. I notice wild mint, new clover, hear the twitter of tits working a tree. I notice my footfall, one step, then the next. I know what I going back to. Confusion about headphones, connections, calls (from the council) where nothing was clear and certainly not lucidly communicated to me. What happened today? The council woman wanted to talk with him. I get the political correctness of that, but he has no clue about how life is run in this home. Not now. So why didn’t she speak with me?

I know that everyone is doing their best in these times. Me included. But this burst of the secure shielding bubble, when I know this is not going away, not for many months, confounds me.

Confucious said it all. In a perfect world, this is exactly how we should live. Actually, even in an imperfect world. But, you know, you other carers out there, this decision to hold to such magnificent principles is just not humanly possible day after day, hour after hour, minute by minute and thought by thought. I’m saying this because I am daily confounded, daily dealing with the ‘right’ decision, the best way to act.

It is exhausting. I’m waving.