wind

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Island Blog – Everything a Touchstone

Another damn gale. We have many damn gales up here in the pointy end of two countries joined together at Gretna Green. It’s all thanks to the fact that there is nothing but Altantic swell for a gazillion nautical miles, which, let’s be honest, makes for the best playground. However, I took notice of something. It wonders me. Wind, at any level is actually silent. It just blows. But, when it hits something, a building, a person, a mountain, a ship, anything held by gravity, it can shriek, whine, even sing. Think of the rustle of leaves, the melody that comes through cracks, the siren scream around the corners of buildings, the blatter of bamboo wind chimes, and so on. The thwump of a wheelie bin toppled: the sigh and crash of a falling tree.

Power on, power off, power on again. It is island life, life in the land of the Scots, and across other countries in the northern spheres. When I talk with others who don’t live here, they are amazed at our resourcefulness and we have that in spades. We have known saving cows in blizzards. We have known endless winters and even smile at those who are filling flowerbeds in April. Our winter has a greater hold on these beautiful, exposed and rocky lands. Was Englandshire formed by ice age or volcanic eruptive chaos? I don’t know, but we were. Collisions, cosmic fury, undersea upthrusts, the moon in a right stooshie. That’s us, and do you know what? We are tough as nails, but more, so much more. Nails are rigid. We are not. We learn to bend with the winds, we laugh at the rain. It’s just rain, after all. So, when ‘Disaster’ happens, let’s say on social media (and god, those disasters are endless) such as when something isn’t delivered, or the nail surgeon has ruined nails, or the dress isn’t really silk, or Deliveroo didn’t, or the whatever didn’t whatever, I do wonder if a winter on a remote island might be a grand idea. Not in an expensive rental with all accoutrements and a live-in maid, but in one of those wee bothys with the best view you will ever see in your life, the seabirds overhead and the selkie singing you ancient stories: where the ferry may well not run: where the mail arrives when it can: where the skinny roads may not be gritted; where outlying farms and homesteads are way more than a bycyle ride away even on a good day: where the path is not perfectly gravelled, the door sticks a bit and the fire takes a bit to get going and the kindling is damp.

Where, after dark there are a million stars and all of them silent, and where you can hear all those words the wind never got to say.

Everything is a touchstone, or it is lost as nothing.

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Island Blog – Celtic Sea and Me

We were born, before the wind, some of us. We are irrefutably connected to the mystic, although there’s nothing mystic about it, not for some of us. We’ve always known it. Trouble is, with all this concrete covering over earth, all that burying, that disguising, turns our land into, well, Pleasantville. Watch the movie. It has much to say about the falsehood of our lives. We, out here in the blast of the thrawn Atlantic, still bumping over tracks, still able to walk barefoot without (sort of) any fear of broken glass shards, used needles, cutting things, are still connected. It wonders me, as I think back to my time living in a flat in Glasgow after so many years in the wild, that pavementing damage to a human connection to what once was (and still is) so vital for a goodly life. Over years, over time, the strive for money success, the building over bones, over history has taken us up many miles by now. We are lifting ourselves beyond oxygen.

At work today in the cafe kitchen, working with the team, filling the quick-steam dishwasher over and over and over again (and more), we fried, all of us, but we knew we would, and we kept each other cool just by asking “you okay” a lot. It’s a very uplifting question. My thoughts as I sank my old fingers into the deepsinksink scrubbing pots and pans and kitchen whizzy things went to the oceans, the seas of the world. I don’t question my thoughts anymore, nor did I much as a young woman. I know I am connected and it is a warm bond, like a cord, like a chord. I saw and see what those caught on pavements may well, and do, dismiss, although not so much these days.

My thoughts today as I batted away a persistent wasp sailed on the Celtic Sea. I love that name, feels me at home, my sea, although it isn’t. However I came home and studied a bit. This Sea, which immediately tells me it is confined somehow, like the `North Sea’ and thus, a possible grump. However, this sea, a big tradeline traverse, has the blood of the massive Atlantic in her veins and that smiles me. She will be feisty for sure. I check more. Celtic Sea, Basin Countries (the ones she bangs up against) Ireland, Wales, Breton France, Cornwall. She follows a tricky coastline and, knowing skippers (sons) who have launched into the Bay of Biscay in slight trepidation, she has a temper. She is also the minder of part of the Continental Shelf, where land falls away into scary depths. She curls around landfall, so she needs company.

I love her already. She sounds like me.

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Island Blog – Feelings Left Behind

We can lose years of feelings, yet remember moments burgeoning with them. When someone died, or was born, we know the date, but have quite forgot the feelings around that event. We get a glimpse of joy, of sorrow, of relief, of anger, of being there, as a person, remembering, perhaps, what we wore and who was there. Feelings flitter away. The sense of presence, of engagement, of inclusion, seem, to me, to float into the already past of such events. It thinks me.

How many of us can accurately come up with a date, when asked, one which includes lockdowns? Not me for sure. I start off answering a question, one that requires a datal fix, and I founder. It was four years. No, that cannot be. ok, 6 years. No again. And. I trawl, literally trawl as through a whole expanse of ocean, sky, time. I can feel my arms reaching back, lifting as I try to gather in an answer, wanting so much to gain a hold on ‘that time’, but I cannot. Then, when some semblance of datal knowledge (did I just invent a word there) arrives between you and me, I find myself alien to the facts, because I cannot find the feelings. This happened. I know it did. You just told me it did. But i am not there without feelings, so, basically, I am not there at all, although I was. I did get a glimpse (stupid word btw) of a sudden rush of something, but it was gone in a second, and I couldn’t hold it back.

There are so many memories I want to haul in like a fisherman, to pull ( with my own strength) into the boat I am now captain of, and to spend time bobbing in the salt, the wind, the sun, the storm, picking through those times, feeling them in my fingers, remembering them as I was then, as everyone was then. A memory bank, like other ocean banks where living is visceral and immediate, and time is but an illusion.

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Island Blog – The Elbows of the New Moon

Back from work, I’m watching the tide ruffle, lift, push against the rocks, elbows out. There’s a moon in this, somewhere, I know it, and there is. A new one, yet another, and isn’t that a wonderful thing? I mean, well, the moon catapults many of us who recognise her influence, sending us into haphazardness – and many more who justify their bad temper and bizarre choices to something else, like work, or her, or him, or school, or envy, a hightened sense of failure, or of a choice made in faith, hope and love, as being a grave mistake. Hmmmm.

Because of the discomfort, a big tide brings in, it reminds me. Living all those years on Tapselteerie, we would, or I would, walk my way to a ‘spending beach.’ Such a beach, almost a wee cove, a cup of catch, like a hand grab at whatever might come in, a something of value which might be held and captured. Then, it would be plastic, the weariness of toil and spoils, ropes and hopes thrown overboard, en route to somewhere after fishing, playing, not-caring about the ocean and those within her depths, who, btw, don’t want any of that sh*t. It hasn’t changed, but worsened. We gathered, cleared, unleashed, yes we did, seal pups from rope strangulation, setting them back to the ocean, scarred, disorientated, already time-separated from their parent, their safety. However, the beauty of a tidal flow is like a photo to anyone who has no idea of what really goes on. I won’t lecture. But, having seen what we are stupidly doing, does, I confess, alter me. Plastic blows and goes up with any passing wind.

Back to the new moon. She’ll have some ridonculous name, for sure, as if she could be tamed like a terrier. I see what she can do, the lift and luff of her influence over a tidal flow, big, lush, swelling, feisty, sexual. Her voice quiet. And yet she moves, grows, with no care for a sheep stuck on a rock, no care for uninformed canoeists who set off in all the gear but without respect for her. She is wild as the wind, stronger, more powerful. In fact, I think she controls the wind, brings it on, shuts it the eff up when required.

For now, in this balmy soft, sunshine evening, on this beautiful, grumpy, shifty, awkwardly weather controlled outscape, this most westerly point, this wild and wonderful place where folk gather to celebrate anything and everything, I am just going to sit quiet and watch the elbows of the new moon widen and spread.

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Island Blog – Wet baskets and Thinks

I have returned to the most wonderful artwork in my home, on the ceiling above a recessed window, in the halfwayupthestairs wall, in the bathroom, no longer (and sadly) containing a bath. The colours are eliptic, shaplular, interesting. I know why they are there, and what they would mean to anyone but me, obviously. They show water ingress. But I have lived with water ingress for most of my adult life, all of it, actually, and have become friends with it, interested, even. In a home 117 years older than I, expectations are definitely a mistake, particularly in our current world of covering every damn thing up with paint and walls and pretence. In those old days, sentient folk followed water courses and with respect. They just knew what they were up against. Nature. Now, well, now that intelligence is considered obsolete.

I’m watching the ingress right now. It comes every winter, and every spring when the winter king has finally let go of control, I call a plasterer to cover up what will always be there in this ancient stone build, my home. Through my windows, i am watching big cloud talk and I am not surprised. They know there is a huge gale coming in on Friday, and they are bunching up, holding tight, shouting it out, running for cover, for those who recognise sky conversation. Fishermen may not be out on Friday. Ferry may not appear on Friday. But those of us who live here, who know the gales will come, who know that, accept and batten down. The wood won’t burn. The rain comes in. The wind takes your wheelie. And, and, there is shared laughter in that.

When I come into my ancient home, all tripled glazed and with underfloor heating, I smell wet baskets. I think. Or, is it mice? I think mice smell like wet baskets. I don’t like opening my door to the smell of wet baskets, nor mice. I want to come in to fresh and welcoming. Too many years of this place smelling like an old folks home, and I so wish I didn’t have to say that. Maybe that’s an ingress, maybe from the old bones of the old stories, I don’t know. Perhaps rain ingress smells like wet baskets, or mice?

A lot of thinks. For now, I’ll go with finding supper.

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Island Blog – An Eye on Things

The wind is wild today. She began with a huff and a puff, and a bit of spew, then, and I noticed this, she gathered her skirts into a whirl and then some, slewing everyone sideways, canting roses, ripping off their blooms. She felled a tree, well, not the whole tree, but a big limb, already compromised as I saw from the black ingress of water at the point of release. This limb fell right across the cut-off path through the woods. I bogged my way around the whole collapso wanting to see it all from another side. The fallen branches still shivered, still lived, still green and hopeful and I bent down to say something to the dying. The rich green was beautiful against the carpet of lift into the woods, still brown from lack of sunlight, fizzing with old needles, old nuts, old stories. I lifted myself, moved on, looked back, thought much. We leave life lost behind us, until we don’t. It thinks me.

Returning from a various on the mainland, over on the ferry, will there be a ferry, all thatshit, I am now home again, and so thankful for that. The plan was to go to a secret ceilidh for my beautiful daughter-in-law (such a clinical label) but and but and but, I had a sudden thing about my eyeball, left one, not good. So, after the most marvellous night of celebration and dancing and children and balloons and fun, I headed off for the eye thing. Thanks to my wonderful sisters, the tests were done and, oh my gosh, there is nothing to do! Who ever hears that! Nonetheless, being on the mainland where people, my favourite, become a crowd, a number to navigate, to avoid, to watch from a safe distance, confounded me. I would never choose to live in such a busy place. Being told where to walk, which lane to drive, no matter the wotwot of a life would piss me off, big time. I’m all about free movement without explaining, or ever needing to, my reason for rushing anywhere. Here, we respect that, if some vehicle is up your butt, they need to pass you. We know to pull in.

Now home, I think about what home means. I know that I want to stay here as long as possible, but I also know that people think too late. I never want to leave here. But I would, and I did consider that big time when the possibility of my left eye dodging me might mean no driving. I live in a wild place. I adore this place, my home. But it came to me that I am my home, no matter where. In fact, if I have my eye on things, I can see beauty, opportunity, dimension, fun, mischief, perspective, no matter where I am. When I was in the city, my elbows out, moving through the fear of missing a train, etcetera, I found a piano in the station. I had time. I sat down and played as travellers moved by in droves. For a few minutes I calmed myself. The piano was tuned and sounded good. And then I moved on, lugging my broken suitcase down the steps. In Glasgow I had time to buy a coffee. Another piano beckoned, but someone else was there. So, instead I walked outside and watched a man begging, jovial, polite, welcoming folk. I noticed no eyes on. Then a young woman’s suitcase, big, burst. He was up in a moment, helping her. She welcomed his help. I watched and watched, eyes on. Before I headed for my train to the home that is me, I went to give him something and to shake his hand. The young woman was still there. You know, she said, in her Australian accent, I have met a lot of shits on my travels, and then, right here, when my case bursts open, in Glasgow, I meet a real human.

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Island Blog – Tidal Curve

Such days of glorious Autumn, dry, sunny, coloured up like blood, gold, emeralds and fox. Folk wander, stop to watch a silken swirl of thrushes, Mistle, Song and Fieldfares, all dinging about the blue in search of berries. They can strip a tree in 20 minutes, working as a team, even though they don’t gather like this at any other time of the year. There appears no discord, no fighting, no chest bumping, just a ribbony swirl like the wash of a boat, lifting over treetops, diving into branches, all a-twitter. I walk out into this, into the fairy woods, under a shelter of trees hundreds of years old. What stories they could tell me, if only I spoke ‘tree’. The sealoch is speckled with diamonds, stealers of sunlight, reflectors, the surface broken by the rise of an otter, busy with the salmon run and mighty with cubs to feed and protect. Herons bicker and shriek, divers fly in silent until they settle on the surface and call out in ‘loon’, their velvet voices schmoozing the air, and me.

I watch Arctic Swans, various of them, push past the wind and into the lee of the loch, where the tidal flow comes smack bang up against a right bloody push of rainwater. The flood against the tide. I go out to watch the meeting. It’s like a Scot meeting an Englishman. The rise of wild bubbles tells me much. There is no way out of this. I know it, as do they. I watch them curve away from each other but there is no escape, not with those damn hills and rocks and wotwot hemming them in. They have to bond. It thinks me.

Not of cabbages and kings, nor of how to service a chainsaw, nor, even, whether or not I ought to deal with the extraordinary wonderfulness of spider spin that fills most of my corners. In this sunlight, they look like hope, connection, determination and strength. I watch them rainbow, lift and move with any breeze, almost breathing. In my before cancer life, around this time of year, I would be flapping a cloth or cobweb thingy through these webs and strings and connections, always very cautious not to hurt the spider. Sometimes, if I reckoned the spider to be a very tiny one, or couldn’t see it with the naked eye, I would employ binoculars. No. I am not anal. This is when they’re ‘in’, and they are my friends. Now that I know my cancer is, colloquially, known as The Spider, for it does not pronounce itself in a lump, more a spread, I feel a kind of safety, as if all those gazillions of spiders I have saved and relocated and freed, have returned to me. This reads bonkers, is bonkers, but allow me please, for it helps me to find the positive in all this interminable waiting, in the sleepless weeks, the slash of early waking fears, the exhaustion of keeping myself upright, fed, excercised and washed. That’s on the bright side. On the other side, I feel scared and lost and exhausted. I might tell you this and I bet, I absolutely bet, that you, like so many others, will respond with a ‘but’ and place a lovely new Patch on the coverlet of my life, a glorious one with no fraying and with colours that will last for ever and ever, Amen. Don’t do this. Not to anyone. If I could, personally, remove the word ‘But’ from the dictionary, trust me, I would. It is a fixer, like the freshwater is to the tidal flow and yet, which is the wild one, at the beck and call of the moon and the four winds, the storms, the violence of volcanic eruption, the dying of an iceberg the size of Brazil?

Feelings come unbidden, unasked for, unsought. They just come, like a tidal flow. We attempt, because, (if we don’t we are counted weird, odd, unmanageable (?) and ‘difficult’), to process our feelings into a palatable presentation, delivered over the phone, on the street, at work, in a relationship, among family members. I have not learned, yet, to butt against the ‘buts’, and, maybe like the tidal flow, a pisces me, I can just curve. Maybe bending to the butt of the world is exactly the way to continue a flow. That thinks me too. And, to be honest, I am weary of being a standup in my life. Perhaps this cancer is proffering me a curve, the layback into the care of others, short term, and, perhaps, there is a sweetness therein, like the ribbony flow of the thrush family, who only conjoin at a time when the collective brings power and success. I can go with that.

My baby boy, well over 6 feet of him, is flying over from SA to bring me home. Number OneSon will drive us to a ferry which may, or may not, run for a load of reasons, not many of which make sense. We will home ourselves, and we will celebrate when we do. It is always a birdlift of relief when we do, when I do, when anyone does, cross the water, and land. At times, oftentimes, we have to curve, are stuck in the wrong place, no toothbrush, no jamas. This is when we might(y) take on the curve, if we decide to.

I am one, no matter the buts. I am afraid, moving into a space on which I have spare intel. It feels as if I am shoved into a time I do not recognise. I will, after.

Here comes the curve.

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Island Blog – Just Saying

My garden throws its colour to the sky. I know from the slow down of all those throwing blooms, that these wise creatures are saying farewell for another year. They feel the chill of Autumn, are bent tapselteerie by the sideways punchgusts of October, and they accept. They’re probably knackered anyway. I know how they feel. Pushing out colour and brilliance, every day and for months, is a demand and a half, for sure. Languid clouds in a troposphere of unusual calm, float like holidaymakers, pulling apart now and then to let the sun blast out his light, dazzling my eyes. I watch the season turn and it thinks me. I probably do that thinking thing a bit much, but everything fascinates me. On walks with friends, I point out the spot where deer have traversed the track. I see the flattened grass over here and then, look, a continuation to our left. I see where mice or voles or wotwots have nibbled at fungi, where birds have pulled off the buds that come, always too late, a nourishment as food supplies dwindle. I hear the change of birdsong. And I think about all of it.

What is it like to roost hungry, and how many days can any bird manage that? How many deer in this fold? Are there young? A hind and her healthy looking calf, stand just beside the track. I lasso the dog and avert my eyes. I mean no harm, I tell her, in my calmest voice, and keep walking. I look up now and then to see here black eyes fixed on me, her head turning as I move on. She is beautiful. From the look of her calf, she is a good mother. I remember that this is the rutting season, the big fight ahead for the stags. I will hear them roaring soon, the clack of antlers across the sea-loch and that will think me all over again. Survival is key to all animals, the continuation and strength of bloodlines. The old guys will be thrown out, or killed on those hillsides. It makes sense, in the animal kingdom. The males fighting, always fighting. The females protecting, always protecting. Who is the wiser, I wonder? Neither, is the answer. Both have a role, an essential role, and in the animal kingdom it is clear and unquestioned. Perhaps in the realm of humans, this is where we get in a muddle, because I believe that our men can feel very lost around all the powerful and assertive women.

Not that I pay any homage to the old ways. I have, personally fought against that load of nonsense, and with zeal and planted feet, but I do think that even our young men are in a spin. They learned a role, it was clear. And now, it’s as if they have been thrown into a womansphere, in which they might be forgiven for feeling that they have little space, if any. Perhaps we women might refrain from criticising men in general, much as we worked hard to stop them from critising us, and to, instead, see them as individuals, just as we women are.

Just saying.

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Island Blog – Thinks on Waiting

I love this time of year. Yes, it does rain most days, but if I wait and watch, I can pick an in-between space within which to walk out with Little Boots, the wee dog. I am so not a waterproofs woman, to hell with that crackling stuff. I am frocks and bare legs and would go barefoot if the track wasn’t so sharp with stones and wotwot. The in-between times show me chiaroscuro in the wide open sky, like a light show no human could ever emulate successfully. I love the touch of cold grass beneath my naked feet each morning, the thrill of the cold, the smell of it, the fizz in my breath. I love the sound of raindrops (not on those hideous waterproofs), the soft plunk onto grass, the tinkle of it on the roof of my warm conservatory roof, like a tap dance of fingernails. I love the feel of wind in my face, the way the (cheeky sod) lifts the skirts of my frocks, all layered up now, and flaps them wet against my bare legs. I love the sound of the current nonsensically named wind as it divides the limbs of beech trees, oaks, sycamores, larch and pine. Each sound is unique to each tree.

As I move beneath the rain-laden canopy, ready to duck, a wind nudge lifts a limb out of my way. I smile and speak out my thank you. The floor of the wood is not soaked, latent fungi leaping out in oranges and reds and snowy white and danger. I don’t know my fungi, beyond the chanterelles, so I just admire, no touching. I navigate the muddy puddles, or ‘cuddles’ as my grandaughter calls them. They are too disturbed to reflect the sky and too muddy because there is traffic on this track, workers on the estate, families who live here, passing up and down just like I did, endlessly, when it was Tapselteerie and it was ours for a while.

As I head for home, the fire already merry, the afternoon beginning to lay down her weary body, to hand over to the evening, I consider all those waiting. I think of people, all people, not just those I know. Waiting for answers, waiting for buses, for appointments, for interviews, for a plate of food, for a future, for just someone to acknowledge the pains of a troubled past; for a child to be born, for someone to finally die. There’s a whole load of waiting going on in this world. The sealoch waits, I watched it do that waiting thing, as one wind puffed out and the other (Arlene???) headed towards it. I saw geese peaceful, unfluffed up. I saw a sea eagle perform in majesty so high above me as to let me know it was probably dodging ice, wings wide, slow, dip, cut the sky in half, level and return.

I waited all day yesterday to hear the results of my recent tests. I had a friend here and we both had notepads full of questions, ready, alert. Our alertness began to dive about 3pm. We couldn’t walk Little Boots together. We had to be beside the phone. No call came. So I made contact this morning and received an almost immediate return call. It’s good news. There is still a tumour, yes, we know that, but there is no second, just an extension of the original, like a tendril. All lymph biopsies are clear. Plan is to insert, under local anaesthetic (eek) a Savvy Scout, which will grab all the floaty bits, apparently. Then, a short while after that is done, surgery. I still don’t know what, as I still haven’t spoken with the surgeon, but I am not worried. I liked him, trust him, and his team. It looks like towards the end of October when all this will come about.

I know waiting is tough. For birds who want feeding, to those awaiting decisions on scary surgery. It is exhausting, and I am as tired as I was in the days of Tapselteerie. And I am also thankful. I know I have massive support and love from my family, from friends, from all of you and I cannot tell you how precious that is, in the times of worry or confusion or just plain shatter. And, this, too shall pass. Whatever comes next, I know the sensual joy of really living, of my connection to nature, of the sound of music, the lyrics of songs telling me I am not alone; of books and stories, of my own and the impact it had on hundreds of others; of this focussed and caring cancer team; of the ferry that still runs, of the rain, of the light in the sky and of the full moon, of clouds and light and the fact that I have plenty frocks all for the changing should I get caught in a deluge of cloudal tears.

‘She is one who can laugh at the things to come’. That’s a bible quote. I like it, very much. And I can wait, as long as it takes, with humour and sass, even if I have no idea of what for.

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Island Blog. – Present, Alone and Safe

Oh how I love my home, the warm, cozy, safe happiness of these four stone walls surrounding me and my wee dog. Since himself upped and died, I have not felt safe here, concerned about loneliness and boredom and the fact that those who needed me, every single minute of every day, every month, every year, no longer do. It has taken all this time to be comfortable with that. At first, it felt like abandonment, I was abandoned, and I was, abandoned. I remember thinking, as each child left home, that gut twisting ouch, like a punch, that one of my beloveds had chosen to leave me. It sounds mawdling, arrogant, even, but what loving mother feels it any other way? I dont know if himself felt it too, but I do know that he still had me and that was enough for him, but he wasn’t enough for me, and that’s my raw truth. When they left, I longed to go with them, even as I knew I never could, nor would. A young life must learn through living it out, and a mother in tow was never going to be me. I knew one of those, my mother-in-law, and much as I respected and needed her, I didn’t admire her hold on himself, not once he had a wife and family. However, reflecting, this was a two way need. I get that.

It rained today. No big deal. T’is the norm in this glorious place, the wettest in the whole of the country, and that is saying something. To be the Best Wet……. goodness, demands a medal, or, maybe several medals distributed among all of we islanders, not that you would ever see them beneath the layering of wools and waterproofs. The rain can be slanty or stick straight. The clouds must be exhausted, or perhaps not. Perhaps this place is the only one offering regular employment, and clouds are fantastic creatures, lifting, shifting, colouring, turning Colgate white, spreading out their arms to each other, conjoining, merging, changing, always changing. Clouds can teach us a thing or two, at the mercy of Nigel or whatever daft and ordinary name the weather folk have decided to give a force of nature that begs no name at all. It is just a gale, I want to tell them, just a wild creature of magnificence and power, and you want to what……turn it into a small thing, a something you can label and tidy away once it has moved on? It ridiculouses me.

I finished a jigsaw, started another one. No, that’s a big fat lie. I laid out the 1000 pieces, covering most of my big oak dining table, tiny pieces, god so bloody tiny and dark, darker than the bright picture on the box. I left them overnight, studied them this morning, these pellets of impossibility, and snorted. There is no way I will, would, want to, enjoy putting you together. In fact, you are a big fat chore and I don’t want one of those. I gathered all the pieces up and returned them to the box without a moment of guilt. I shall take this one to the library. And it thinks me.

As I move beyond the loneliness and the boredom, and the pointlessness of me, I find a strength, a new confidence. Had I been the old, bored, lonely and pointless me of just a few months ago, I might well have battled with that horrible jigsaw, out of a sense of duty and because it might, just might, have filled in an hour or two. But not now. Now I can feel the amazon (not the company, but the woman) awakening. I can, and will, choose what I will do and what I will not do. 50 years of not having much choice about anything much is becoming my past. I will put myself together in a new way, even if the pieces confound me at first, and it will be I who choose the picture. And my head is full of colour and light and clouds and skies and fairies and walks in the woods. I can feel the Atlantic swell in my heart, and she calls me, the minx that she is, and I find myself yearning for that wildness, the not knowing and not understanding, the turbulence, the storms, the sudden calms, the snow geese flight overhead, the swans coming in, the autumn bluster. It all chuckles me. I am woman. I am strong and, I am rising up to laugh at the days to come for I am made of cloud, woods, ocean, light and dark, and I am here, present, alone and safe.