Writing

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Island Blog – Don’t Stop the Dance

So what, after death? Nobody can answer that because a whole load of shit blocks all doorways for the closest, the ones who, from now on will face down anger, regret, emptiness and a big dark. On the outside of them there’s another so what. No question there, just thinks. What we outsiders feel is the obvious, the wonderfully human impulse to make things better, which we cannot; the beautiful desire to bring something like a plant, or soup, or words which can be swords, trust me. The formers are well meant, lovely, kind and do very little because the dark is all invading. So what can we do? There are two answers to that question.

Bring light. Not the light we want to see but the light worked out through a lot of thinking. Too many times we have all given gifts that weren’t well received. The reason for that is simply because we didn’t bother to really find out what makes another tick. I’ve done it myself, we all have, until that is we decide to learn, and that learning guides only one way, in human contact, in calling, in asking, in gentle conversations over coffee. See, the problem we have, as we had pre the invasion of Covid when we were ‘forced’ into neighbourliness is that we have forgotten each other, all over again. It seems, from my friends who live in cities and environs where nobody really has a scooby doo about any of their neighbours, even when all 10 flats or more share an entrance, that nobody knows anybody. It saddens me but of course it does. Out here in the thwack of gales and skinny switchback roads, we have a strong community spirit, but don’t let that think you that it’s a breeze (scuse that) living an island life because it is tough and controlled firstly by weather and secondly by the ferry company, by product being landslides. We are volcanic and eruptible, although ages late on that one.

My point is this. Communication with others is our key to surviving. It is also our key to a happier life because no award, no amount of money, no rise over someone else, in work, in words, ever lasts beyond the initial feeling of superiority. We all still have to put out the bins, deal with bills, sort childcare, park our dreams, work hard, bring in food. All of us. However and but……each one of us have to find the fun, the dance in our lives. From the time the dance left our feet, when we got a baby, a mortgage, a demanding job, we stopped believing that we had a choice. And the years go on and when something takes over as acceptable, we let go of it, the dance. Until when? Every life is tough. But, and this is me talking about me as I face olding and don’t want it, as I have a few aches and hesitations and lacks of confidence, and as I, every day, tell myself Don’t stop the Dance, don’t, because all around you are falling into a grimace as if their legs have forgotten the steps, Don’t Give up. Someone has to keep bringing in the light and the tunes even as cancer takes hold, even as a beloved dies, even as a child is traumatised, even as those my age slip and dip into an acceptance I won’t accept.

This is my so what after death. I can’t beat it down, but I can still dance, still reach out to others, ask them about their lives, actually see them, and learn. And I can bring light, not a candle, nor an enlightened fixing, but just by sitting there, making eye contact, no mobile, no other agenda beyond that other broken human across the table talking with me.

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Island Blog – But the Brave

I’m listening to a song that a famous someone is completely turning into a complete personal indulgence, but I am sat sitting as they say and so I, not you, am going through the excrutiate. I do wonder why those who once were so brilliant, return obviously compromised. It’s a Judy Collins number and she, for certain, was the only one to sing her songs. Moving on. Where was I?

Today felt like a bit of a sladge, my word. It’s sludge with an A and that’s a bit of an uplift in itself, A being the firstborn, the Alpha. I rose, ate, sorted, cleared a thing or two, brought in wood, watched the moon the cantankerous madam slip behind the hills. I washed up, prepped for my trip into town (it isn’t a town btw) which takes many manoeuvres and swingtwiddles to get through because it’s single track and that whole single track is always compromised by the Parkings. The Parkings on this island almost define us, or they do in the summer months, mostly because there are none. This is due to the crap knowledge of Parking. I have known some who take over too much for their parking thing and then head off for the day. Often. I could have got two minis in there. Two locals.

Back to the point. A sladge, yes I said that already. I tramped in the rain, I did, and the waterproof coat failed me. I could feel the sky invading my skin. I waited for my mini to be fixed, dripping and cold. I had gone to no shops and why was that? My damp tramp sladge. I admit. The shops are alight and bright and welcoming. Oh. so it’s me and my self pity, my angst and sladge? what happened to the frolics in me, the wild and inspire, the fun, the mischief? Good question. It seems that we have learning, And we have turnaround. Oh we can’t do anything much now, to save the world, the ones we love but we can do something for ourselves and more for the young who want to know, who are listening, and there’s another think. Whom of us have been honest with our own children? When have we sat to talk with an emerging adult and hung our heads, opened our hands, admitted we have no idea, being completely vulnerable? Not many but the Brave.

That’s me. And you.

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Island Blog – You Turned me

My Thesaurus is lacking, I confess. Granted, my copy dates from the early 70’s which probably explains itself. Language and the metamorphic elevation (or devaluation for some) of it has me quandarying somewhat. I’m looking for an intuitive alternative to the word Thankfulness and what I am finding is a definite slide into Obligation. Oh no. Definitely not that shit. I want to be wildly thankful. I don’t need a landing. I just want to send my gratitude out into the sky like a lift of birds, a whorl of butterflies because someone, somewhere, tilling their rice fields in a country I will never visit, might just sense something in the air, and smile for no reason.

Looking through old writings today, I found something. 2016. On to today. I had gone to a conjoined church service, sort of mid island, a good 90 minutes drive away, but the journey was fun, the low sun a complete block at times, spectacular but definitely a sudden stop as the road disappeared completely. We met in a village hall. We do this, we islanders, grabbing a venue for all sorts of things. The roads windy, the window views endless hills and what some may see as a lonely nothing, but there is way more than nothing out there, if you have eyes to see. All I felt, in the lulls of conversation, was thankfulness, and I live here. This is my beloved home and more, every single moment I learn something new, or anew, which is somehow better. The theme of the service touched me. What do you long for? Do you judge yourself harshly? Is that in your way? I may have got the wording wrong, but those questions almost cried me.

This is what I found, written June 2016. I know it was smack in the guts of dementia care, but I recollect nothing more. Here goes…

‘I am a brilliant and prolific writer.

To those who squashed my creative growth, who never wanted the best for me, who chained me up and pinned me down, who convinced me I was a show-off, too loud, too selfish, un-special, untalented, untrustworthy if set free, fluff-headed. Those who told me my duty lay in conformity and fed me daily guilt and self-doubt, who stole my life. I thank you. You turned me.

To those who encouraged me despite seeing clearly my handcuffs, ball and chain. You who brought me back to myself, asked me. something about Me, and listened with interest, who liked me for who I was, not what I could do, nor how well I could accommodate, or behave, or change shape. You helped me keep myfaltering light alight, you gave me hope. My first, a teacher in primary school, my second the mother of a widlfree family. The first looked me in the eye, said nothing, didn’t need to as her eyes said everything I had never seen before. The second spoke out. You are lovely, she said, as she whacked the bejabers out of newly gathered salad leave. Just be yourself. I was astonished to realise that it was an option at all.

There are many of you, many more than two and to you all, from my heart, I say this….

Thank you for telling me it’s not only ok to be me, It’s wonderful.”

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Island Blog – Hutzpah

Someone said to me once, “It must be exhausting to be so consistently positive.” This may be a misquote, but the sense is there. It spun me around when he said it, so clear, so observant. I could feel my legs jelly up. At first I leaped to defend (what, I wonder?) my state of being, as if my positivity wasn’t completely natural and effortless, as if I was faking it all and that he had clocked that. I wasn’t naked but I felt it as a nakedness way below skin and bone. His words have never left me even after well over 30 years. It thinks me even now. And there are times, many times at this end stage, or Autumn stage or whatever bright and nonsensical term is applied to we who are over 70 and alone, that I recall those words. They were sent over the Tapselteerie kitchen airspace, whilst children drove plastic tractors around and around, collies biting at the wheels, when those of us on a mission to serve a sumptuous meal to waiting guests lifted plates and feet high, ducking, diving for a chance to get through the door intact, laughing together at the lunacy of our collective life.

As children, all five of us, because I was a child once, as were they, we were taught hutzpah, not that that word came up. You don’t make a big Thing of the whatever that is big-thinging you. Well, you might be allowed 30 minutes but then you got up, brushed off,and got back in the game. Or else. It has served us all well. We got over the personal harshness of it. It becomes a way of being, with a caution nonetheless. This was our childhood, not one we might choose to perpetuate as parents, at least not in its initial shape. However when you learn something from birth, it sticks. My ma always showed positivity, not always behind closed doors, but most definitely when she was ‘out there’. And I, not necessarily recollecting that, as I downed the stairs, tripping over tractors and collies, made my choice. I was one woman in private moments and a veritable force of nature in the rest of the day which went on for hours and hours, for years and years.

I don’t think I am unusual. I believe every single everyone gets this. We either do or do not employ hutzpah and it isn’t falsehood, as I once thought, but deep inner strength. It’s a determination not only to survive but to fly. It isn’t a two-dynamic puzzle which confounds but instead an opportunity for a jinx, for fun, for the laughing with and at life, the chance to let go of control of the (may I venture) panic hold on the how I think it should be. Perhaps that’s what I did, coming down those stairs into another new long day. I can still see myself, young then, tired, wondering about the again and the again of the again, a baby in my arms, the toddlers already on tractors or frying bacon or letting the calf in to scourry the floor into a slide fest, and deciding just before the bottom step. And then through their teenage years, the turbulence of relationships, the wondering, the hoping, the grandchildren and all the way right up to the now of now.

A deep breath. Bring it on. I am a match for whatever comes and more than that. There is a dance in my step, a jinx in my eyes, a pixie, the fun rising. So, yes my old friend. It is exhausting but I can live no other way. I positively worked out, with oil on my face and at least 3 spanners, and a deal of self doubt, how to affix a new handle to my woodburner, the right way the screw worked, the springs and things and the twiddles and jeez the patience! T’is done. It took two upside down balasters, (new word) until I remembered how I can do any damn thing that challenges me.

We all can.

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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 – I Rest There

It rained all day today, heavy stuff, non stop. Actually, no, it wasn’t always heavy. Just looked like it through my windows. And there’s a coolth in rainy days, even as it isn’t as cold as yesterday which was all slippy ice and still as a still thing. It just feels that way, all that wet and slam against windows and the wind pushing against the glass like a bully. It thinks me. Perception. Always a good thinkster. Let’s dance with this……

I see a rain day as an internal rain day as a VERY BIG RAIN DAY. Others not so. You, jolly old you who don’t give a rip snort about weather, skipping out on your skateboard, or heading off for a sea swim, or just happy in your life, or a kid who never sees anything as a stopping of fun and opportunities. See? Hence my thinks. If I awaken as I usually do thinking a couple of things, such as I am so thankful I have woken up at all, and in this beautiful cozy island home, or Oh dammit, I can hear the mice in the loft and it’s only 4 am and dark as hell out there, I have to decide how I feel about how I feel before I set foot on the bedroom carpet. If I don’t, the negative overtakes me, the fear, the alone, the self pity. I am crap at self pity and also very good at it. I read that two contradictory thoughts can be held in the brain, but nowhere have I discovered how to deal with that. No amount of googling. So, with lofty mice and gratitude diddling with my brain, I downstairs myself and into the day. It’s still dark and the rain drowns out my audio book and my thinks, until I settle. That’s when I stop to listen to what is actually going on right now around me, and I re-jig myself. I am Alice, I know it. Curious, adventurous, a bit wild, a lot wild, trusting, too trusting, saying Goodness! a lot, eyes bright and without fear, even if the Red Queen is just around the corner.

In this real life, I can see how damn tough it all is. We have made our families islands and there’s an understanding and a loss in that. We want control. We also want to make the change we want to see. I get it. Waaaay back we were the same. There’s no way there will be the restrictions on our kids, not yet even conceived, no way this patriarchal control will come into our plans, no way this, no way that. I’m smiling now, writing this. I’ve no idea if our plans worked, probably not, but I do know that, no matter the child, no matter the chaos he or she brings in, we just loved, floundered, got lost, spent nights without sleep, hoped, prayed, loved again, barely noticed if the broccoli was yellow, cooked something with gravy, baked bread, answered calls, washed clothes, hoped that school was ok and dreaded pick-up, barely noticed the day of the week, tidied bedrooms, thought thought thought of the best treat with the money and time available: on days of non stop rain, on days when the wind threatened to take out windows, days when I was late for pickup because the sheep got out and it was just me trying to negotiate with a dog who did not understand a thing of me, when the landrover broke down and I could do nothing about the damn thing with it’s huge tyres all fixed with a spanner thing that would defy a god strength. Or, when I am feeling so broken and don’t know why, and that’s why I just look blank at you as if I don’t know you at all, and there’s no treat and I’m sorry.

Basically we have no idea what we are doing, most of the time. The problem is we think we do, because admitting we don’t feels like a personal failure. It isn’t.

I rest there.

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Island Blog – Hoping So

I did Wordle today, got it in 3. Yesterday when Tuesday was actually Monday, in two. I tell you this because there’s a thing about olding, much of which, if not all, we who are indeed olding, know only too well. And here’s a thing. We wonder about ourselves. We do. Although we may be saggy, pouchy, floppy and wobbly at times, we still remember the dance, that one when we just dazzled, sliding effortlessly over acres of floor, so very confident. Many laughing mates gone, but that’s not the whole thing because there are the we of us who still have the fire. I do. Many do. And here’s the butt of a but. In this isolated life of this new life, new generation, the fire is there at times, yes, but not strong, or it seems so to me. So many work demands, the ownership of employees, the pressure of two working parents, the cost of childcare, the cost of everything. I have no idea how you all can. make this work in harmony. It must be super tough and you have my respect.

To be honest, I am glad I lived when I did. Oh yes, there was stricture and parental judgement and community blockings and school abusement and appalling selection processes and racial and class blindness but I didn’t know anything different. However, I did find myself at a red light at times, something not right here, I don’t like this, what is going on? But no voice as a girl, and absolutely no voice as a middle class girl. No power. When any of that shit happens now, I find the fire. I can’t change it for all, but I just might be able to say to one, Hey, hallo, I love your purple hair, your piercings really light you up, your smile at the bus stop just made my day, Thank you for the way you stopped and asked me about my coat, my smile, my short hair, my red boots. The way you showed me to my table and laughed with me when I said, Not there, maybe over there and the way you swished me lovely towards a window seat as if knowing me without knowing me at all.

This is new gro world. All of you living it. All of the constrictures we oldies knew are now yours. We were there, hippies, wars, Hendrix, Woodstock, Bob Marley, so much revolution and so much dance, so much fire, so much hope. I wonder, when I look at your lives, the protective, fear driven control to master it all and I wonder if anything has changed at all. I’m hoping so.

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Island Blog – Actually Tuesday

In deference to the olding of me, I get the flapdoodle assailment. I suspect it was always here but when I was dealing with immediate disasters, such as fire in the hold or a child dangling from a rope that fell three floors and yelling Mum in a screech beyond the beyond of sludgy sleep, his slippage a definite concern, my inner Dante could barely whisper. Ditto when there was disaster at lambing, or the horse was sinking in a freezing bog, or a guest was stuck in the bath in a locked bathroom requiring a deal of laddering and a lot of looking away. Nowadays with all of that a chuckle in my mind, when most survived, I have the silence of olding and widowing. I love a lot of it. It even funnies me at times, usually when someone I am talking to bursts into giggles. Life is ridiculous after all. No matter how we plan, how prudish, how strait-laced, how desperately we hang onto rules and restrictions for ourselves, our children, our husband, wife, partner, there comes a time when Life flips us like pankcakes without a safe landing. It always has and it always will. As we hold too tight, there is always slippage. The key is to teach that to our children, even as nobody does, holding on to the right of the times, the limitations, the fences and boundaries. I hope we learn one day. I really do. By the way the dangling son landed safe, the wee shite, after a deal of leaning over bannisters, proffering smoothing okays, being there to catch him.

Talking to my children, adults now, they tell me thank you for the crazy life, the wildness of it, the way they learned to accept life/death/life at an early age; the way you did this mum, sorted that, the way dad made us safe. We never doubted that. Pretty good, eh? I have all of this and so very much more, the convoluted vortex of it, not pulling us all down, but containing us in a swirling collective. The olding years show just me centre stage, and I have to confess, despite my siblings sniggering at my ballet moves, I feel proud. I make mistakes. Today, for example, I got all ready to go to the Library Coffee meet. It’s Tuesday here half way along the sea-loch, but not there in the village hall, I discovered. It’s Monday there, the hall’s wooden mouth clamped shut. I laughed at myself and drove home. I walked up into the woods just to say hallo and tripped over a willow root, apologised and rose again. I lit the woodburner and went to close the doors, the door closing handle breaking right off. I walked into the beyond of marvellous at 3 and met the hind and her calf, about 5 feet away from me. She looked up. Hallo Lady, I said, gentle and low. She looked a minute more, then ducked right back down to graze.

The clouds are umber grey just now, a bit shouty, pushing at each other’s backs, against a dying blue. Their tips are burnt umber, gold, rose madder, the hills below a silhouette. The day is leaving. I’m hoping tomorrow is actually Tuesday.

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Island Blog – Moody and Beautiful

I love to watch the headlights moving around the backside of the sea-loch. Where have they been and where are they going to? I love the bitey catch of coriander when I open the pack to snip it over a green salad. I love the fall of the dark, when my twinkly winkly lights show themselves, a string of golden positivity. I love the disappearance of my whole garden, the emptiness of birds at the feeders, the slink-silhouette of a cat on the track and the way it suddenly looks up at me, the movement of me, the momentary connection.

I love my shower, the way it changes me from one day and into a solace. I love to sort and prepare something interesting to eat. I love the window dark of my rooms, the blindness of looking out. I love the pop of a cork and the glass of red wine, the way my speaker bigs up my playlist. I love that I got through today, that I walked into the wild, noticed, stomped, trudged, faltered, filled in time, did some admin, all of that. I love that I assembled a tapestry frame, after many attempts, that I changed my bed, laundered bedding, cared enough to respect the linen.

I look around my warm and comfortable sitting room, see the fire licking flame, feel the pushed out warmth, hear the tunes, and it thinks me of the other side of this I love thing. It isn’t an ‘I hate’ no, because I don’t believe in black and white as parentheses. I believe there are many greys in between. So, (don’t ever begin a sentence with that word) Sorry, dad, but I am doing just that beginning…….If there is, and there is, an whole nother to an I love beginning, how does it begin?

Perhaps it is honesty and doubled; perhaps we find it hard, if not impossible, to allow the truth to spill. Because why? Judgement, tick. Failure,tick. You are young, made mistakes. You are menopausal and angry most of the time. You are a young man who was told at a vulnerable age to pull yourself together, to stop snivelling, to man-up. You are a young woman who doesn’t want to do what her parents think is ‘best’ for her. You are sure you don’t identify with the sex you were born with. You are olding and furious about the tiny and daily losses of sight, of movement, of where you put that important receipt, or of who will help you stack a ton of wood, your fingers gnarled and weakened. The Lonely in all of these can be black as an island night.

Perhaps it’s because I am old and doing this looking for receipts, or trying to work out a way to see better in winter craft work, that I can see the love in the lack. Living so long gives a person a ‘so long’ on the angst of things whilst holding tight to a tryst with life. I am still trying to rein in the Lonely, a really feisty and bloody-minded colt, all spurs and twists and moody and beautiful.

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Island Blog – Left of Right in the Dance

There’s a silence at this time of day, when the sun has set behind the hills and the dark, greedy and heavy is bloody determined to win the game. I think about that game. It’s gone on for a gazillion years and yet these two keep on keeping on. We adapt. However, I notice that at certain times of the year those two fighting for space, early themselves. On a cloud-sworn cover up day, the dark finds an invenue and grabs it full force so that, say from about 2/3pm it is effectively dark. The school run is all headlights and avoiding those horrid blue-lit-light cars which confuse and diffuse clarity of vision. Or, they do for me. I’m pulling over thinking Ambulance.

This morning I knew I was going to collect my beloved mini who has been in the operating theatre for almost a week. I was up twirly, Dark still holding like a control freak but obligingly (or maybe because Moon is stronger than Dark), hoisting a crescent moon into its sky, and that light showed me big frost. Oh shoot. I de-pyjamad myself after a couple of strong coffees, black. I did falter. The sun will be low, the courtesy car frozen up, the switchback road possibly an icescape. Then I calmed, ate something and set off. I got as far as my neighbour (8 yards) and could see nothing but black, even with switch-eye shades, the visor down, nothing, no road, no concept of a landscape I have known and trusted for decades. It was gone. I did falter. I could go back home, explain, they’ll understand, I’m old and a fearty. I could. But I didn’t. I stopped, parked, thought ‘what is the left of right, and what is right? It jinked my thinks. I love movement, the physical, the mental, the way we can shift in a dance.

And I remember the dance, the way I went to the left of right with a partner who was making a collision mess of such a simple swing, couldn’t count, legs flying, hands barely gripping. My feet knew better than I ever did, and I saw what might happen if I didn’t guide this galoot back into formation. It’s the same inside my own mind, the crazy galoot, the dark and the light and the whats are there for me to hold onto when the dark oppresses, the light is quiet and hesitant and the galoot is a wild tom on the hunt?

In the silence, now that this island comes bome to itself, there are bare roads, plenty parking, no holidayers, some of whom expect more than they might if they just got the whole island thing, the way we have to go left of right, a lot. I’ve met plenty who’ve come here, and they love it. I do, I confess, have a squidge of an issue with the expectations, as if here is the same as the ‘there’ they have come from, with everything perfect. Island life is far from that. Instead we learn to go to the left of right a whole lot. Here it is all about acceptance, understanding, a gentle acceptance of the way that every single one of us do our best. And, all of us can keep up in the dance.