whale

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Island Blog – Singularity, Tile number 17 and the Frog

I was thinking, or was I being thought? Good question. When a whale in the wide open ocean, or a stag within forest cover, or, even the frog I found in my kitchen this morning, looks at me, I do wonder who is looking at who, or is it whom? The wee frog shifted its unrestrained eyeballs this way, that, up and down, over and above and wotwot, unlike my looking, which is forwards, pretty much. Such a limitation, I said to said frog, as I lifted it’s cold wee body out into danger, aka, the outdoors. How it got in infiltrates my thinking. Not that I mind. We are all travellers, from one season to another, from one state to another, from sleep to awareness, from one birthday to the next. But this frog stopped me, thought me. Beyond the how-the-hell-did-you-get-here questioning (and I am quick to beyond myself from that poibntless question) I wondered about the help thing. My help. I did not squeal nor pull back in revulsion and call the fire brigade or, worse, pest control. No, indeed. I hunkered down, best I could, and watched its eyes, felt its fear as it froze on tile number 17. I only know this because, in my oldness it helps to count my way in the dark. I liked being 17. Finally I was free of curfew and about to find the damn lunatic with whom I fell in love, and who fathered five astonishing individuals. I digress.

We all walk singular. Oh yes, we join others, conjoin with a few, stick with one or two, but, even within those comforting boundaries, we are still singular. I am still me, and that me can cause much eyeball switch. Change comes, to one, to another and the timing is always off, or so I have found. So how hard it can be to retain self when others want, or appear to want, me to change shape in order to fit. We all build our protections, and, yet, when we meet a rigidity, we are thrown. And what we do, all of us, initially at least, is to doubt ourselves. What did I do wrong? Is my change a bad thing? And, sadly, many of us slink back into the dark of those unnerving questions. I certainly did. But, as we do that slinking thing, which is, to be clear, safe passage, we lose our singularity and our voice is silenced. We have watched this scenario played out in many films, cheered the one who rose, naked and scared and singular into their own light, risking the wrath of anyone at Ground Control.

It takes courage to stand strong. I don’t know the way, can’t find the words, have no plan beyond the truth that I will stand for this no more, allow this no more, will not bend my shape. I know this place and, trust me, singularity is not single. Not at all. There are a gazillion singulars on heretofore unknown paths, feeling the fear, pushing on in trust and faith. You will find them, as I did.

As the frog found me.

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Island Blog – Tumbletast

My Dad liked bloaters. The rest of us baulked at the whole bloater thing, the name being enough. I don’t know, even now what is a bloater, and am not sure I want to. I think it is half smoked, or half something and half anything is not for me. I remember many times being called to shores where a huge whale had beached and died (thankfully), each sight a bloat, big enough to eventually explode with enough force to cause turbulence in the flight from Glasgow to Iceland. the swellbelly of that magnificent, once free, wild person was a trip in my step, the deep sadness a hold in my belly, a gasp. Even as I had seen death many times, sheep, cows, calves, lambs, dogs, cats, in-laws, these encounters, seen afar off, yet known, walked to over stones and tumbletast, maybe in the darkling, with torch, always ready to defend, to protect, from gulls, from people, from the weather. A lonely death, a lonely walk. But, I would not have missed any one of them. I saw them. I see you. I put my hand on your bloated beautiful body. Hallo.

I understand why some of us choose to beach.

I watched the sky today, the first open one for frickin days of slanty rain and grumpy clouds and the whole wotwot that goes with such control, mud, puddles, landslides, the withering of our confidently constructed land. How foolish we are to think we can do this. Nature allows no half measures not neither. (sorry Dad) By the way, what do three negatives mean? Perhaps a lot. I might look into the three negative thingy. I know 3 to be the perfect number, and I employ it myself in my writing. This, this and this. It seems to work. In fact, I struggle to do two, as if two fail me somehow. Then I feel sorry for Two. Life is so complicated.

I am scared. I am anxious. I sleep little. I am tumbletast.

The post arrived today from Ros, my lovely friend. Everyone here is a friend. She, however, has the smile and the welcome that could begin a new history. I collect, barefoot, and not under rain. She, in her luminous PO kit meets me over the fence, hands over. She asks me how I am. I tell her I am waiting, waiting, two weeks till surgery. How do you feel? She asked. I am not half anything, so I smiled and told her.

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Island Blog – Turmish

My word. I love to make new words. I remember writing an article for BBC Wildlife magazine years ago. Lordy, the editor was a tough nut and a half. She picked and poked and corrected until I was back before the headmistress who expelled me mid A levels. My embers were stoked and, eventually, I burst into fire, my tether at its end. The loch, I wrote, describing a far north body of water in which, apparently, a minke whale was ‘trapped’, poppled with balls of ice. It, the whale, was no more trapped than I inside my polar suit whilst fighting to remain vaguely upright in a slanty gale on a freezing, sleet-blasted hillside, and in February. I had personally watched the whale slide easy as an eel through the narrows as the tide began to ebb, returning for a feast of trapped fish at the next flood. Not once, but four times. Nobody was listening. The fish farmer freaked out about his cages being damaged. I wanted to shake him, tell him we had observed and studied these whales for decades and any one of them would have considered any such bumping or damaging as plain foolish. Big brains, remember and way bigger than the ones we lug about inside our own small and limited confines. There was talk of ‘herding’ a single whale (hallo?) out with a flotilla of boats. There was talk of explosives. We sighed a lot during that week, I can tell you. But when you are up against fear and small community thinking, you are blowing against the wind, expecting it to say, Oh Sorry, I’ll just go the other way, shall I?

Back to ‘poppling’. There’s no such word, she said, the headmistress/editor said. By now I was busy hoping she got absolutely nothing off her Christmas list, ready to fire, to yell, to tell her many rampageous things, but instead I went quiet, deadly quiet, like the eye of a storm. Leave it in. I said, surprised at how commanding I sounded. She said nothing for a beat, then conceded, reluctantly with a lot of tuts and mouth blowing. Today, I find that very word in the dictionary, so ha, ha, ha.

I digress. Today was super wet, wet like a complete soak just going out to feed the birds. I did not walk the dog who is still puzzling up at me as if I have finally lost the plot. Instead, I lit candles, the fire, and watched a movie. Now this is a rare thing for me, to watch tv during an afternoon. In fact, it is rare for me to settle comfortably in the evening to watch a movie. Watching tv is a sharing thing. My African son said that to me this very day as he watched the same movie and he is right. Perhaps this is why I, to date, have not been able to settle by the fire to enjoy a damn good story, beautifully presented, to get lost in someone else’s world just for an hour or two. When the movie is over and I flick the room into silence, there is nobody there to talk to about the experience. What do you think? What did you feel about this bit, or that; him or her; that happening, that twist? Since the bodach is gone, even though, latterly, he was engaged with some soap series whilst I watched a movie, there was no silence when the light of the moving pictures were turned off. There was some sort of conversation, even at the very end when barely a sentence came from his mouth. I had plenty to say, of course and now I say nothing and to nobody. It is a strange time indeed. A time of turmish.