travel

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Island Blog – Cross the Street

We walk as we always do, along the paths we know. Of course we do. It’s safe and familiar and we meet the same people, the same contours, the same trees and spaces and views. We know who we are along the way and it’s comfortable, normal, uneventful. To be honest, we don’t want ‘eventful’ not as a sudden thing, not in this life we have worked hard to bring into a shape we can manage. Manage. As if life is ours to control. No surprise then when a shadow falls on our path and we are suddenly and severely compromised. Of course, there is a perception thing going on here. Most of us, hopefully, won’t meet muggers, or a pavement explosion, but we will meet rejection, taunting, something that trips us up and makes us fall hard. Could be a realisation, a thought, an encounter, a sudden eclipse wherein we see what we have avoided seeing for possiby years.

Here’s a thing. A thing I have pondered for decades. What is it that keeps us in the familiar? Think on it. I am guessing that the people we most admire have broken the chains of it, whether in a film, a book, a story, the ones who actually had the courage to cross the street, those who said no, this is not me, and who stepped out and kept going, with the wrong shoes and no money and into the unknown .

I meet teens who know who they are and it isn’t who they supposedly were. They speak out and they cross the street and I applaud them because they are bravehearts. I know I am granny and old but I glory in this. We all deserve pavement space, can work together to shift and move, to single file or to shimmy around each other. I believe in this world and it’s about bloody time. We need each other, We need the skills we all bring to the work place, to the world to the pavement.

I have crossed the street, the odd times I have been in a city, when I knew I didn’t want to encounter what was ahead. Another time I could see a blanket of threat heading my way. Youngsters yes, joshing yes, but with the louding of parental lack and that saddens me. I didn’t cross the street then, although I probably should have done. I kept walking and smiled up. 10 lads, merry, Bacchus, The ages of my own boys. Hey, I said, have fun. Thanks Missus, they all said, swerving around me.

Not need then to cross the street, and there’s a message in there there too.

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Island Wife – Be Brave

I remember being told that my book, Island Wife, would resonate with older women. I sat there, across a table with my publisher and my agent thinking, older? Yes, I was 59, but sassy. I was still in complete charge of my accoutrements, faculties and agendas. I could move like a dancer, arriving in some sort of wild costume and just off the Oban train, complete with a jaunty herringbone cap. Older for me was my mum heading for 80 and, although still feisty, a bit cautious over rocks – still game, though. I get it now. I started early, in love at 18, married at 19, mother at 20. Nobody does that, not in the lasting game, as mine was. I suppose that I just could not relate to the ‘older women’ thing. The ones I had experienced were tired, downtrod, got their make-up wrong and spent a huge amount of time pretending they were ‘fine’ even though that word meant something so different to me. Fine was about spectacular art. Fine was the way a butcher cut a fillet just right. Fine was how someone arrived looking magical into a gathering; a spectacular arrangement of flowers; a perfect sorbet. Now it has become a dismissal, a middling beige nothing.

I do remember the train journey to almost home, the stunning landscape, the chacha of the train along winding tracks, around lochs, through endless scapes of empty deliciousness, past the Hogwarts Express bridge, the winding of endless drover tracks, the moody mountains, the clouding, the spritzer of light. My thoughts carolled me to the ferry port. ‘Older’? I got that even as it thinks me. I realise I was being a mayfly on the surface of real life, aka, the truth. I believe that as I walked onto the ferry for home that I sunk a bit, got it, and it freed me. Of course my story will resonate with others who have experienced such a life.

There is so much vanilla out there, so much beige. On the out-there forums, everything is ‘fine’. It isn’t. Where is truth? Where are the young writers going through rebellion? Facebook and more are all about memories and wonderful moments. I do love to see that but it is not the truth, not real. If I said anything in my story, it was raw truth, still is.

Be brave.

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Island Blog – I Want Clarity

Yesterday I saw through a misty haze. Today I am seeing detail and clarity. Although there is a falsehood across my eye, it’s like a new windscreen on a car, startling at first and then that glorious rise in the gut, the heart, the belief of it, of seeing everything clear, right there, a sharing, because I am involved.. I am the looking and the seeing. We are complete, a perfection, circling, the tree, the bird and me. It is more than enough. And all thanks to the brilliance of surgery.

I confess to anxiety pre this. Not for the surgery, I know I know zip about surgery and the surgeon has trained for eons to absolutely know, so there is no anxiety there. No, it was the journey, the possibility of a ferry and on time, the hotel I had booked into. Where is it? Let me check. Oh, yes, just a mile away from the hospital. A taxi ride. I had booked at the Premier Inn, Braehead, a bland flat-faced building with no character at all, but. I had spend ages in a taxi from Queen Street just getting here and many quids down and yes, I could have sourced a bus but was compromised, bleary-eyed, anxious and tired, so blow that for a feathering. Tell you one day about ‘the feathering’ – t’is an island thing for husbands to be. Moving on.

The minute I arrived I was welcomed and smiled upon. My room was comfortable and I did manage to get over the fact that the window was/is sealed shut after watching a pitch full of young footballers training. So many, so many teens working like pros to be, really lifted my spirits. I met nothing but kindness in that hotel. The outside belies the inner mother.

Now with family in the North Berwickshire wild, I walk out with sunglasses on, and a gazillion eyedrops sloshing about my eyeball as I watch the swallows swoop among the flies. I can see them clear. I watch the lift and wave of the beech branches beyond the farm gate, the way they definitely do not agree on choreography, the detail of the leaves, the definition clear to me, incisive cuts to make the perfect leaf over and over again, the blood veins. For the first time in more than months. A glorious gift and in a few days even more clarity, and then I won’t doubt myself again because nobody does when they can see ahead. If you know nothing about the road ahead, at least you can see it and thus make an informed choice.

At times I was fine with the mist. It almost laughed me, until it began to compromise my freedom, my independence. I grew up then. I want clarity.

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Island Blog – A New Matrix

I’m squinting at the screen with my dodgy eye. I have two, by the way, but one is dodgy and on Monday I am offski for minor surgery. All will be well, of course it will, it always is because there is a matrix for this as there is for everything. It thinks me. Matrix, from the latin ‘Mater, meaning mother/womb with the secure landing of ‘ix’ gives me confidence. Needless to say I am not concerned on behalf of the surgeon. He, and he is a ‘he’ has trained for ever and comes highly recommended. It’s the cricks in the matrix which unnerve me, the ferry not running, or running late; the potential miss of the train to Glasgow, the stranding of me. I remember, once, that all we had to do was to check the maritime weather report to know for sure that we would make the crossing. Not now #cricks.

Perfection is a rubric, a guide, a set of rules and moves and decisions that would always result in a tidy cube. Over generations this rubric slices into lives, fed wordy, initiating acceptable behaviours, cementing vows of loyalty, stultifying relationships and informing choices and, in places of power, decisions. Such a complexity and so rigid, a scoring guide with awards proffered to those who comply. And, bizarrely, I get it, even though I have lived within a rubric matrix at times in my life and fought through the cricks to escape. We do need order because disorder is unsettling, even though the ancient greeks and well before them considered Chaos as being the most powerful auger of change. I also think they were right because only from chaos does anyone, eventually, choose a new rubric, to then form a new matrix.

Think on it. In a war zone, when bombs take your everything and the street is a heavy landing of rubble and dust, there will be a voice, a someone who rises and who gathers in the broken. In a family when disaster hits there will be one who rises, takes control. In a troubled mind, full of ferrets and snipers, a voice. These voices don’t dismiss the situation as so many humans do. There are no platitudes, no empty words, no sugar coating. They are simply there and vocal. Just saying I am here. I can keep you safe. Here’s a new matrix.

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Island Blog – The Perfect

See today? It was as if I had moved into another life. Yesterday I could drive my feisty Mini Cooper and today I cannot. I look at her, out there, well not that much ‘out there’ but just the other side of my window. She has a sassy attitude and I love to drive her. Today I have to get the bus, or a lift which I did get. Now hear this. I am no woman who will confound when confoundment steps in as if it owned the whole thing. However I also know that brushing away feelings about the about-ness of something that bursts open a heretofore locked door is foolish. The slam has reckoning and I can feel it.

I knew it was coming. In Africa my one good eye started showing me fantasy. You see one bird, I see two. You see one lorry coming at us, I see two and one of them is in our path. It isn’t a big thing, a cataract op, not now with the skills of surgeons, but the op is not the point. Even though I may no longer need specs (oh happy days) ever again, and will be back to work in the best cafe ever and able to drive again, this all thinks me on the Perfect.

I remember a perfect night when I was so fallen in love that I’m amazed I remained standing. I remember a sudden dance in a wild place, picnics random and crazy, hidden. I remember a friend sharing sweets with me in primary school. I remember that moment when I was lost around Queen St Station, unsure of next train times and the smile and welcome of someone. Hey, you ok? There is something so perfect about that.

When I caught a lift home after a very busy day at the Cafe, I felt so warm, so loved. We talked and laughed and I was delivered to my happy place. The perfect was, yes it was, but the Perfect doesn’t die. It still appears and at surprising moments, at random times. However we need to be open, curious, looking out. At my age it could be so easy to pull on the blanket and just sit. Don’t do it, don’t allow it. The Perfect dies if not fed with sass, determination and curiosity.

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Island Blog – Mud Heft and Stone Humping

It annoyed me, the scourge of mud below my wee pull-in. It used to be gravel but I am letting it return to itself, to that grassy green naturality. To be honest, I am displeased with those who seal the ground shut. We have little enough of it left, after all, and all that healthy breath is paved and suffocated. I know that gravel isn’t so clever at closing the land, but it dims the light. Folk moan about moss in their lawns and yet moss is essential in so many ways, and, by the way, moss is way more beautiful than sticky-up grass, mown into controlled order, like Dickensian pupils.

The sun was freed up, all of a sudden, and the wind grew warm. I pulled off two big jumpers and felt quite menopausal for a few minutes. The weather is bajonkers, but this smells of warm stories and hope. It inspired me to do something. about my grump. See, when lorries or big vans deliver they just scoop onto my not-gravel, digging nothing less than. a whole ditch. Those wheels sink so down, I feel like I am looking at the topsoil of hell, not that I. believe in that. I selected my least rusty shovel from my fishbox of chaotic garden things with handles and marched forth. It took me ages. I stabbed and jabbed, scooped and dumped and all beneath a warm(ish) sun. It wasn’t a big scoop, just a deep one and I felt a butterfly of excitement once I hit the tarmac.

Now, stones, I thought. I have some big ones, old as Eve in my garden, fallen from drystane walls of old. I grabbed my wheelbarrow and bent to hump three big ones onboard. Heavy. they were and still are, but they are beautiful. Ancient basalt, naturally formed and willing to help. I placed them in situ. Now, if a van or lorry thinks it might cut my corner off, it will regret it.

I wondered if I should paint them white and then dismissed that nonsense as so urban. The moss growing over them is so beautiful. No white paint here. After all, drivers on islands might consider the fact that we are island folk and also that they should be looking for rock trouble, as we all do.

I hope you have sunshine too.

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Island. Blog – The Insprits and the Mostly

Life is mostly ordinary for us, We might think it is different for those with solutions to everything, but, in truth, nobody does. Rich or poor or in between we find solace in the ordinary. In this ‘ordinary’ things work, wifi connection, light bulbs, fridges, washing machines, bus times, clocking in to work, locks on outer doors and systems we trust. Night is night and day is day and daffoldils are early spring and bins are emptied on the right morning. Mostly, it works according to. Mostly. And we like ‘mostly’ because we can ignore any inner doubt, any mind-fiddle that awares us of the fact that this is not as stable as once it was. And this we ignore, mostly. But there are nivits in our world now and I have met a few. Actually they have been here for many years.

I watch the tide rise bejonkers, too soon for the full moon. It slips determinedly over grass and rocks either side of the sea-loch. The Insprits are here. To be honest, it twinkles me because there is no sustainable ordinary in island life and I know this. I have lived with them for many decades. Mostly Folk could not live this way, but this way will be the way one day. The weather decides ferry access to the mainland. And, since Covid, there are many happy homes here, those who love the. shenanigans of the Insprits, who work from home, who dance with the ditzy dynamic of everything ‘island’ and who are patient.

I’m looking out at a full tide, the rise beyond itself. I hear the call of whitetails, watch a canto of buzzards, see the black lambs cajink over new grass. There’s rain coming, again, we all know that, but there are those wonderful moments when it stops and there’s a sunblister in the grey and then we see all the beauty beyond the insprits. They were always here and always will be. The sudden upsets, the unexpecteds, the terriblest awfuls.

If we can hold to loving the ‘mostly’ but prepared for the insprits, and we can teach our children this, well then, we are wise.

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Island Blog – Eluctation, elucidation and endings

The ending of my son’s golden retriever is a wonderful thing to follow. He sways all sassy without having a clue he’s doing this sassy thing as we walk through the vineyards over sand tracks all cobbled with stone-rush thanks to the recent heavy rains. He has four legs so his walk is more of a glide than mine as I pick my way over ostrich egg-sized stones. The sun is already fire-bright and hot at 0900 and there is red sand between my toes. My feet look like I haven’t washed in weeks which isn’t the case. As the three of us walk, there are many strides of silence peppered with sprinkles of shared ideas or information. The vines are turning gold and copper now, curving into rest, their long and important work done for another year.

We talked of how the world is now, for a bit, but didn’t stay there too long. The thing about my family is that, whatever comes (or came) our way, we always see the wotwot of it, are as aware as we can be, and then quickly find what we can control and all that we cannot. That is where we begin because we have all learned the dangers of being an ostrich. You just get run over by either the next ostrich or worse, a lorry. When there is a moving on in someone’s world or over the whole damn world, those who freeze will not survive. I know many of my ageless age who say they are glad they are old, and I have said it myself, but once I thought that through, I pulled up my head and looked around.

I cannot stop what is happening, and, by the way, nor can anyone. This is not an ending. To watch the news every day only hurts the watcher because I never do and it is all happening to me as well. My mind is clear, my limbs old, my usefulness……..? Good hesitation there. What is my usefulness? A simple question and a sort of park bench reflective moment. Elucidation, the light moment. In my community, within my family and wide circle of friends, I can bring some light. How do I do that? Oh, not with wise words, not with uplifting nonsense, not when they may well be downed as starving rivers, carving whatever path they can through red sand valleys just to get somewhere that isn’t here. Not that. So what is my call? What is my walk when false eluctation will only result in a turnaway?

To remember the magic, that’s it. There are children here still with unicorns and stars in their eyes. And not just the children. We all have a choice here. We moan and groan, grow grey and shallow, lightless and downturned, or we rise to this. We’ve done it before, after all. Perhaps we just need reminding.

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Island Blog – Betty’s Bay and Baboon Balls

We walked this morning through the fynbos and down the wide open beach. There is something so recognisable about the Atlantic Ocean, something to do with my history and the breakers high and white with spindrift. The smell of salt and seaweed floats around and through us as we walk over a spread of bleached pebbles and shells that sparkle like jewels. In the shallows, vast tracts of floating kelp sway and lift as sunlight catches each rise, turning the mass into moulten gold. The fynbos is almost done with flowering now, as Autumn moves closer, but still some tiny flowers spread their petals wide, purple, scarlet, butter yellow, blue and spindrift white. We follow tiny sand-ways, curving this way and that, narrow and respectful, for this expanse of life is both protected and essential for all of us, breathing with us, and, unlike us, lifting goodness into the air.

Behind the house, huge mountains climb into the sky. This is where the baboons live, whole troupes of them. It is completely possible to live alongside such animals providing you don’t go out leaving a window open. Nobody does it twice, for they will wreck a house in search of something to eat. We talk of those who would like them eradicated, those who own a schmancy elevated beach front house but visit twice a month. Those who live here have learned baboon lessons and would never leave a window open when going out. There is, in short, a mutual acceptance between the species which, in my opinion, is most gracious of the baboons, because this land was exclusively theirs once. We are the invaders who dug up the precious fynbos and closed the land shut with concrete driveways and big fat holiday homes, with high fences and entitlement, fast roads and supermarkets.

Back home for coffee on the stoep, a huge male baboon leapt easily onto the roof. We quickly moved the dogs indoors and closed the door. He swivelled around to eye us. We eyed him back. Perched on a roof strut, he yawned wide and scratched his balls as if in comment. Then, with a leap, he was gone, back into the fynbos.

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Island Blog – Skinny Bathroom, Piddle, Little Things

After the rains, the air is fresh and smelling of citrus and sunshine. Last evening friends came to share a delicious lamb shank tagine, plenty wine and a load of laughter. We talked news of our week as many and diverse subjects flew about the table. Faces glowed in candlelight and the embers of an equally merry fire. It’s always the little things which uplift us most, even though they aren’t little at all. In this troubled old world it is what people can do for each other that truly counts, leaving legacies, memories and glimpses of how life can be when those who plan for war finally understand that they plan for the wrong thing.

Looking far out, beyond the garden, the huge eucalypts, oaks and other green-leaved old guys, across the huge expanse of grass and towards the lines of vines, now all harvested for the year, I can feel hope. I think we have to look for it and then see it, a wide open offering of beyondness, beyond ourselves, our own little prison walls, our own prickly thoughts and perceived ideas of ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts’. Beyond the line of slow-moving traffic when we are in a hurry, the things she said, he said, the way someone looked at me in disdain, the deadly daily headlines, the neighbour’s barking dog. All of it, piddle, and about as useful, but, like piddle, it is there whether we like it or not. Our choices gives us voices, over which we have complete control, unlike most other things out there. It all begins with that choice, a cerebral decision not to drown in piddle. No special talent required. We all are gifted with that choice.

My little home away is in a different building. Across a lumpy brick-laid courtyard, where the earth refused to be accepting of all those bricks on her back, is an interesting journey, particularly after dinner and wine and hilarity and in the glorious pitch dark of an African night. I have the hang of it now, my feet have learned the ups and downs of this short traverse, and that makes me smile, because I love to know how connected I am with the vagiaries of Nature. My mind may be full of piddle, but my body knows the way and the way is not always a literal body walk. Oftentimes the traverse is more neural pathways with signposts as I navigate my way from complicated to simple.

In my skinny bathroom I have the usual equipment and a very efficient shower. However……..If I close the slide door which affords me privacy whilst naked, it is impossible to squeeze myself between basin and said door, en route to the very efficient shower. Impossible. So I gingerly de-slide, peek around the corner to ensure no unfortunate farm worker gets a scary shock, and dive into the shower, re-sliding it. Afterwards this performance is repeated in reverse. It has become a daily nonsense and no two days are the same. I am quite certain I have been glimpsed on occasions, and this smiles me too. After all, I am hardly ever going to hear “Morning Ma’am, I saw you butt naked yesterday’, now am I?

Last evening, pre lamb tagine and vibrant people, there was a tiny frog, obviously not of the voyeur variety, if, indeed, such a frog exists, which I doubt. I was already partially un-clad. I stooped to wonder at the spectacular markings on its tiny back, so intricate, so perfect and so not ‘just’ a frog. How extraordinary this big life is, for those who stop to notice. I bunched a bath towel around myself, picked it up, cold in my palm, soft, gentle, and opened my door without a single thought of farm workers nor maids with bundles of washing and wide smiles. I opened my hand among the pretty ground-creeping thingy with orange flowers and felt the frog leaving my skin, my palm empty yet still echoing that connection again, to all things, all people and all of Nature.

It’s always the ‘little’ things.