Jimjan’s Journal

In life, experience has taught me many things.  What I’ve learnt is that some days are hard nuts to crack, some smooth chocolate fountains.  Some days beam bright rays of hope, some drench despair.  Some days bring joy, some gloom, some are hallowed, each day follows, a system.  Some days are productive, some hollow, caves of emptiness.  I can laugh one day and cry the next, I can sing one day and scowl the next.  I can run, jump, skip and fly one day, before rubbing my belly in the pits, the next.  Some days the sky is blue, cloudless, only the odd visit by a faint-hearted trail, some days the skies lower their brows in anger and contempt, some days they hang heavy.  The days can be warm and plants sprout, green leaves, daffodil yellow, cornflower blue, rose red and fuchsia pink.  But in wintry days, grey, black, burnt ochre.  Some days lambs bleat, small feet pitter patter, calves cry to mamma cow, and foals’ legs splay, kittens spray and puppies play, while the vastly experienced in life can only look on, counting their days.

My life experience has shown me happiness, laughter, a carelessness, a carefulness, love, danger, friendship, unity, good teaching, bad teaching, far reaching lands, exploration, deterioration, tears, pain, darkness, guilt, hopelessness, and much, much more.  There are days when I open arms, grasp what I can and days when I’m guarded, hidden in glaur.  Some days see me free, running in meadows, some see me captured in duty.  Some days, when I’m low, I can be so low as to wallow, wallow, swallow grit, feel the weight of the earth on my shoulders, thunder clouds hover, strangle all light, but sleep brings me rest, and rest brings me back to the me that I am, the me I should be. 

In all my life experience I have never tried and tested the days that are our present days, days of isolation, grief, guilt, fear, death, death, more death.  These days began from nowhere, suddenly upon us, upon the world, and we struggled through it as best as we could, we can.  These days are still here shredding disbelief, a year and more.  We’re not untroubled yet.  Our days are slow, they are tentative, tenuous, tedious.  Someday, it will be over, but will we ever have days like before when restrictions didn’t pervade, when we could be impulsive, when a trip to the shops wasn’t steeped in rules and regulations, when we could travel and see new sights, when we could hug, be close. 

In life, experience teaches me, I must help others, attend to their plight, I mustn’t let my mind take flight, I must be positive, objective, selective, supportive.  Am I those things?  Some days, yes, some days no.  Some days are exhaustive, cooperative, formative, evasive, compulsive.  Some days are mechanical, practical, physical, musical, hysterical.  But at the end of the day, what all our days become, is historical.      

A fridge in my head

Crazy I know

But come, assemble here

Inside my ear

And hear

The noise, the din

A motorised spin

A squealing violin

Yellin’ yellin’

Give me strength, a way out of this

Free me please

Of this frigidaire hiss

This story is as a result of a prompt with my writer friends. The prompt was Don’t Marry The Fly

Don’t Marry The Fly

It’s that time again. 

‘Go on,’ says the spider, ‘just a little more.  Grab onto that plug of hair, and you’ll soon be up.’  Ugh, phew, ugh, nearly there, squeeze.  Two hairy tentacles appear from the drain, and an echo is heard.  ‘Are you there yet?’  ‘Yeah, I’m in says Shelley.  Come on it’s all white and shiny, no sign of the humans,’ she sings as she glides over the smooth surface, stopping for a drink at the rim. 

Another two hairy legs and Sibelius was up.  Success.  He was in the house, via the plug hole as was his normal entrance.  It seemed to be getting harder to get in this way, not so much to grab onto.  Either the humans who lived here were balding or they’d sold up to someone without hair.  There had been a definite lack of hair.  This was when their suctioned feet came in handy, and of course their webs. But today, they’d hit lucky. A lock of hair is coiled around the grating.  

‘Wait, listen,’ says Sibelius as his soulmate Shelley explores the surroundings.  ‘Someone’s coming, stay still.’  Both spiders stand stock still in the hope that two little black specks won’t be spotted.  Black on white, what chance.  Shelley holds her breath, knowing this and Sibelius freezes on all eight legs. 

False alarm.  No one appears.  ‘Come on let’s hurry, if you value your legs,’ says Shelley and so the two spindly spiders make tracks, up and over the bath.  They move quickly for such small creatures, but then I suppose having eight legs helps.  I mean to walk with eight legs must be four times as quick as walking with two legs.   

The spiders stumble under the Alibaba basket.  ‘Oo it’s nice and dark and gritty here,’ says Shelley.  ‘I could make a lovely home here.’  ‘I don’t think so,’ says Sibelius, it smells of tea.  I have a dislike to tea since I was swilled down the plughole in a slurry of the stuff.  That was last year, and I’ve only just got the smell out of my feelers.’  ‘Well, where do you suggest then?’ 

‘How about exploring a little more,’ and he crept from under the Alibaba basket and headed for the hallway.  ‘Mmm, they’ve decorated this place.  Too much white.  Come on let’s find somewhere darker.’  They creep under the white door into a room with a smooth wooden floor in pale grey, a desk, a chair, a bed all that can be seen.  As they creep further into the room, an owl comes into view.  

‘Quick, exit, exit,’ there’s an owl in there,’ shouts Sibelius.  ‘Yeah, but it’s stuffed,’ Shelley scoffs.  ‘All the more dangerous.  Have you ever been chased around a room by a stuffed owl thwacking human?’  ‘No, just sharp shiny scissor snapping ones,’ says Shelley.  ‘Well, I have and it’s not nice,’ says Sibelius.  Shelley rolls her eyes.           

 Next door there is a pile of pants and socks on the floor, a plate with some crusts, a hot chocolate-stained mug, and headphones.  ‘How about here,’ says Shelley, ‘look under there, dust as thick as the woodlouse leaf pile.’  ‘Come on let’s roll in it,’ says Sibelius.     

‘You’d think we had nothing else to do the way you speak.  No not here it upsets my sense of smell, too much white, argh a sweet lifeless owl, must explore more, let’s roll in dust.’  Shelley hangs her head, as one leg feels her brow.  ‘I’m not getting any younger, I hear ticking.’  ‘That’s the human’s clock.  Come on, let’s go see it.  It has a golden arm with a flattened gold ball on the end, that goes backward and forward.  Makes you sleepy.’ 

There you go again, putting things off.  I’m getting the idea that you’re not really into this,’ says Shelley stamping her feet.  All eight of them.  Sibelius stops laughing and looks across at his mate.  Anger has soared into the room with them, curls at his toes, shakes his tummy.       

‘I could have had a nice home with Billy, but no.  Don’t marry the fly you said.  Marry me, I’ll make you a nice home, you said.  Billy will never settle in one place, you said.’  Shelley crawls under the bed and settles in a big ball of fluff, head in hands, eyes watering.  ‘That was four months ago.  Four months of travelling up and down plug holes.’

Just then Sibelius spots a chest.  It’s an old wooden chest from the days of pirates.  It looks solid sitting there, pushed against the window wall.  He looks around at the clutter, the things lying around the floor.  Plenty shelter for when out on adventures.  ‘How about here?’ he asks Shelley.  ‘Behind this chest.’  His front arms point to the large wooden trunk.  Shelley creeps closer, sniffs around the base.  ‘It does have a nice oaky air around it, I agree,’ says Shelley. 

The two spiders look at each other, remembering the last four months of climbing up drain pipes only to be washed back down them.  That feeling of being without a home, a comfy bed, a shelter over their heads, the feeling of doom, hopelessness, still sharp in their fangs.  A noise broke their thinking.  It was a thumping noise, like a herd of elephants running up the stairs.

Sibelius and Shelley look at each other. 

‘Scarper,’ shouts Sibelius and they scurry under the chest and out of sight.  Here they will hide until another chance comes their way to do what they love doing best.  To explore.                                       

I dream words. They fall like the fleeting snow. White flakes falling, landing, melting, and then I’m alone, searching, searching. My lips are silent, my heart is still, but the words drift towards me. Jiggle. Heap up. Learning, I’m learning. The words untangle, free my tongue. Let me share my light, my hope. Healing, healing with the words of my dream. Share with me, my kaleidoscope scene.

Try to remember the kind of September
When life was slow and oh so mellow
Try to remember the kind of September
When grass was green and grain was yellow

I’m in the now.  The present tense, in present time.  My time.  Life, take me back to another time, where only he matters.  Life on earth matters.  The physical realm in three parts matter.  Liquid matter, solid matter, gas.  All three in one and then none.  It oozes, sticky gel from a porous tree, it flows fast with the river, bursts forth in psychedelic formation, addressing the atmosphere.  Tears matter.  Tears of the past are still matter, past matter.  But this is now.  How is it, you may enquire?  This now?  It’s sad and mellow.  It’s vague and misty.  I yearn.  Clear as the night stars I covet the song.        

It’s an old song, that melts into me.  A smooth, serene song, and yet, with it there comes a wall of bricks.  I have to climb, I have to reach the top, I have to shout out in anguish.  Please hear me.  But the black blocks me, a hue too dark, binding me down, silencing me, so that all I can do is heed the assertions.  I listen to the words.  They tell me to follow…

What should I follow?  I follow the leaves which fall, petals quiver, float, gold and yellow, grazing rough edges upon sheep and gathering cattle.  Nature thrives against life’s sorrow.  Charm ripples outwards, spreading the mystery behind those deep dark eyes.  What did he see, how did he feel?  Did he grasp, gasp, did he cry out in the room?  The quiet, lonely room that became his last stand.  I’m sitting in a room, a different room, and I gasp, my lips are tight, my eyes are lifeless. 

Life, you’re in my feet.  My feet are itching, the stillness stifles me.  Walk, just walk, to where the mind takes one.  Into trees, tall trees, home to the birds.  If you could just but be a bird, with wings of your own, to fly high into the clouds, roll on the breeze, sup the air’s dew.  Life, please feather me in your nest until I can learn to jump into the dawn. 

I know too much.  I know not enough.  My mind is blown up, puffed, like the sleeves on a young maiden’s robe.  Collectively gathering things.  Words, terms, people from past times, phrases, quotes, epigrams, poetry.  Life is a journey through poems, through sounds, rough and smooth, melodious, glorious.  I’m living an opera.   I’m playing the leading role.  I am the hero, the heroine, the saint, the sinner.  I am the song that sings on, in the ember that glows around me.  He’s there, life.  He’s there in the song.  He’s in a river of notes as they flow and ebb.  He’s in the wailing harmonica, how it feels to make a silver coat shine, a gift, held close.  Laughter once sang from the moothie, before the now. 

You are my journey, life, but tell me is death a journey?  Was it life or death I saw the night he came to visit?  It was a night when the stars were so bright, and I trembled at the sight.  He stood in the dark, by the door, quietly, as in life.  I felt his encouragement seeping into me, like years before, when he encouraged the musicality within me, brought out a need to play, to be the best, for him.  A slip of a girl, nerves hidden, dispersed in his impish smile, playing my best, for him. 

Strings are broken, rose-wood dulled, no trills or frills.  How is one to bear the aged form, the scroll, the pick guard, the bridge.  The bridge of love, over the stream of time, where tremelos weep under a harvest moon. 

Halcyon didn’t last.  I rebelled.  Against what?  I cannot be sure.  Rigidity, rules, myself?  We drifted horribly.  Life, why did you allow me to turn against him?  The snow fell, a bride of white, with a flush of berry red, the tip of a nose.  I looked out at the snowy rooftops, the castle on the hill in the background, blotting out my shame, the distant dungeons scurrying down, down.  If only I could bury such detachment, the same, I would have, but you wouldn’t let me. 

I know, I know, it wasn’t for long. You altered the course, I grew up, bought a house full of autumn-coloured carpets, the October sun squinting indoors.  Who lives here, in this house with burnt leaf walls and primrose bath, asked the sun, in half-baked glory.             

Let’s shake hands, mend this mess, recollect a family holiday, heal the void.  I see him in sunny light, knobbly knees, milk bottle-white.  A sea of tranquillity spread wide, but the steady feel of the ground remained his desire.  No, he wouldn’t swim, no fish around his feet.  I swam.  I wanted to lose myself in your ocean, life.  I should become a shark, a sea-horse, a plaice.  What am I saying?  I had my place in life.  Life was already mine.  The life of a human.  I couldn’t be a fish.  I’d been born, I was a girl, a woman now, who knows what it is to be conceived.  Conceived out of love.            

The search for love is immense.  Out of depth, one forgets oneself.  Everyone around.  Try to remember.  I don’t need to try, I just do.  I remember to keep my dreams beside my pillow.  

 It was September, I’d flown the coup, leaving the two people who gave me life, life.  I was off on my own memory making travels, a babe in arms hugging my waist.  Yes, remember, I brought life into my life.  One life born, another taken?  Is this how it works?  People die leaving behind them a trail of sorrow, horsehair vests in this month turned hollow. 

Time will heal I was told.  Time brought more children, but the haunting of September repeated, on and on, when ghostly dreams rippled through the fallow, the children’s brows kissed by a wish that would linger – that they had known him. 

Life, you stir me and I look into faces for a familiar expression, a gap-toothed smile, pixie ears, a pair of soft eyes, a strong chin, bold nose, until again and again I follow…Through this song which I hold in my heart, now deep in December, I come to feel the fire of September.     

An example of Ekphrasis, I hope. A poem inspired by this picture.

Yayoi Kusama – Yellow Pumpkin – Naoshima Island, Japan

Pear shaped, but squatter, a thick bent stem

Incongruous, decorous, swollen bellied fruit

or veg, it’s on the edge of the quay

waiting on a navy boat

to set it afloat

into the pristine scene

Seen from the sea seen from the shore

a muckle big pumpkin grown from a bean

dotty spotty, spots galore

giggle down the bright swelling hunkers

Speckledy buoyant reflecting the sky

Heat wave spectrum wiggles upon the vista

The sand blasted base hums to the sea

at peace, a gentle blue sigh

against the dotty, daring roar

Haze on the landscape, ripples oar

Search for urchin pumpkins

Let there be more

Furloughed furrowed forgotten or burrowed  

told but to wait, only a few weeks more             

what’s that you say, am I ordered to stay      

do you need me back to empty the store?              

am I encouraged, enraged, or engaged                    

in this last fell swoop, selling trews, red shoes    

jumpers, winter coats, scarves around the throat  

to the troupe, the group who’ll spill through the door   

given the nod to boost the f***** up groat              

some money to burn in the nations grate                                               

not my fate, gie’s a job I hear me ask                 

I need a job, out of work, out of cash                    

lost my esteem, lost it all with no task                        

just worry, and woe, and death, and dreams dashed          

gie’s a job I ask, no reply, no word                                                      

ask another, another, another                                

don’t moan, you live says a jobless brother         

lost his mother, tongue stills, a bitter pill             

I’m alive, not alive, where’s the flutter                        

where’s the pulse of blood when I’m brought so low                                     

to the ditch of distress, the perils plain                 

where do I go, do I join with the devil?                  

God knows, he’ll tell me I’m sure, so demure      

I bide and blether and blether and bustle                  

selling all, waiting, waiting, for the call.  

To the Lighthouse lilted Virginia Woolf in a beautiful narrative first published in 1927. 

Many hearts have beat and slowed and stopped since then. 

I have a heart which loves many things, people and their inspiration, unhinged and let loose, it lives. 

Another bright light in the world of literature is Muriel Spark, a Scottish writer, born in 1918, dying some eighty-eight years later, in 2006.  Her famous novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was first published in 1961, a stage adaption following in 1966. 

Here am I, a fickle whelp, untutored, untamed, with nowhere to go and nothing to do, but make lists. 

Visible sun rays are seen as what is known as ‘white light’, although this is not a true description, for if such light is passed through a prism, the colours of the spectrum will be found, so it is documented in The Hamlyn Children’s Encyclopaedia.

Sing to me children, a song of sixpence. 

Dramatically placed is Neist Point Lighthouse which was built in 1900.  The light is 43 metres above sea level and can be seen up to 16 nautical miles off shore. 

Did you know that our shores bring Freedom of Speech which is one of the characteristics of a democracy?

Is this concept sliding under the radar?

A song from under the floorboards, sings Morrisey.   

‘I prefer the pen.  There is something elemental about the glide and flow of nib and ink on paper’, says James Robertson of The Fanatic.

Miscellaneously thriven, driven by division from life as I knew it.

‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again’ said Robert The Bruce before defeating the English at Bannockburn, 1314.

A term picked up and adopted by my dad.

If Not For You, sings Dylan.

Edinburgh Castle is in the old part of the city, sitting high on a rock, from where it sees everything.  Memories hold me there.    

Rock and Roll me there.

While Arthur’s Seat lies dormant.              

In 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst tried and succeeded in forming the Women’s Social and Political Union, and then chained herself to some railings. 

Mary Ann Evans, author of Middlemarch, wrote under the pseudonym George Eliot.

‘Animals are such agreeable friends, they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms’, Mary Ann Evans is known to have said. 

Are my writings valued by man, I said?  Not so much said, but certainly thought. 

In Together Alone, Crowded House got Locked out and with it brought inspiration to write. 

In 1859, Charles Darwin’s great work on The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection’ introduces a variety of ideas and observations about how the species evolved. 

‘A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life’, Darwin said. 

The tree of life. 

There are about seventy species of coniferous trees, all of which are evergreen, to name but two – The Scot’s Pine, Pinus Sylvestris and The Chilean Pine, Araucaria imbricata, known more popularly and affectionately as the Monkey Puzzle Tree.

The Orang-utan, meaning the old man of the woods in the Malay language, responds well to training, like the wise old men of the city and towns.

The scribe in ancient Egypt, then an illiterate country, was highly revered, being an educated man who could read and write.

Words are the basis of all stories.  Poetic, prophetic, magnetic, majestic words woven and thread. 

Rupert Brooke wrote The Soldier, gloriously inspired by WWI.

Charles Darwin was also known to say ‘If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week’. 

‘If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you.  If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowances for their doubt’ sayeth Rudyard Kipling in If.     

Say I, ‘if you can follow your heart, if you can see where it beats, allow it the space to beat, cradle the words and suffer your silences, then you will keep your head’.  

Like some are asexual, you can call me apolitical, having buried my frivolous little head in the sand for many years.  Politics, legislation, philosophies are well under my radar, swept under a carpet of fun, tomfoolery, laughter and musical gaiety and talking.  I love talking and listening.  Listening to Left-wingers, right wingers or flip-floppers isn’t for me however.  Listening to Last Night of the Proms, to Sibelius, to Tchaikovsky, or to The Proclaimers, The Waterboys or Snow Patrol is more my scene.  Or even listening to my neighbour tell me about his new remote-control car, his own model, made by him in his newly erected hut.  Then there’s listening to my mum, who has years and years of stories, which I’m trying to capture for posterity. 

Which leads me civilly to the intention of these, my thoughts and wanderings.  Is there going to be posterity for a language of minority which could be wiped out in as little as ten years.  I’m talking about Gaelic.  The Gaels [1] have been blowing in the wind for some time now, and they are advocating a job of work to be done.  Let me be very clear.  I’m speaking as an apolitical about an article I read in the Mail on Sunday.  A group of campaigners are fighting to keep Gaelic speaking communities in Scotland.     

Have I suddenly lifted my fun-filled noddle towards politics?  Perhaps, but we all know that lately it’s been hard to avoid politics and political speeches, as well as politician voice overs.  Since Covid19 broke free in a wild fire of devastation and despair, a spiky disease seeping into orifices, stabbing into cells, and changing the lives of many, world leaders have been high profile, trying to tackle the real issues while looking for windows of opportunity.  Sceptical of me?  Well, I might be apolitical but I am also a sceptic, but maybe not a real one.  Why?  Because I don’t question, I’m too playful.  But for this examination of language, I’m going to try. 

The headlines ‘Divisive’ vision backed by SNP caught my attention and rumbled an overwhelming desire to read on.  It would appear that campaigners have the backing of SNP, Kate Forbes, MSP representing Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch.  So, the first question I asked myself was who are these campaigners. 

They are “Misneachd” (meaning courage, bravery, fortitude) a Gaelic campaign group who have published a Manifesto urging Scotland’s political parties to help reverse the waning of the language.  Amongst other proposals for keeping Gaelic talking, the most radical one perhaps, is the one mentioned in the afore mentioned article.  That is to have control over second homes and to have all those living in The Western Isles, speak an element of Gaelic.    

The residents have suggested that the Government look to bring about projects for promoting people to buy their main residence in these areas.  Kate Forbes has concerns about the increase in holiday lets and second homes in the Highlands and Islands which could bring about the end of Gaelic speaking communities.  My second question.  Who is Kate Forbes? 

I looked her up and I learnt that she was born in Dingwall and speaks fluent Gaelic.  She is Cabinet Secretary for Finance, and is a Christian who said that “When making decisions, I recognise that I know the boss of all bosses, and he sees everything I do.”  She suffers ‘grief and anguish’ at the decline of the Gaelic language.  In this article Kate Forbes, aware of the controversy, said she would be supportive of Misneachd’s proposals, although she realises there are equalities issues.  She said, “the one caveat I’d make to that is that you cannot artificially create communities.  So right now, I would far rather focus on saving what we have.”

You’re right Kate.  I’m pleased you said that.  I mean look at the artificial communities that were created by Hitler’s dictatorial practices under his National Socialist German Working Party during WWII.  There was Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald to name three of Hitler’s artificially created communities, not all residents speaking the same language I have to add.  These communities were set up for an entirely different reason, one that I’m still ignorant of.  And horrified by.  So, yes, I’m hoping all Kate’s SNP fellow nationalists will keep her caveat in mind, if also supporting this proposal. 

Back to Misneachd, I have to say I am not unsympathetic to their plight.  I can understand their sadness and their will to fight to keep this language alive.  I am Scottish through and through after all and have always been a lover of anything Celtic.  The bagpipes, the accordion, the fiddle, the folk songs, standing stones, the charisma of the people, and the history behind it all which links Britain, Ireland, France and Spain and the languages within these countries.  

Misneachd said the current Gaelic policy framework is “largely based on a fantasy”, and argued the policies of the last two decades have been “largely ineffective.”  I don’t know anything about these previous policies, so I cannot comment, I have no opinion, but I do on this article. 

In Scotland we have the freedom to walk “everyman’s right” to get access to public or private land for exercise and leisure.  We want to promote tourism.  Scotland is a beautiful place with many amazing sights.  I know it’s not the same thing, having the freedom to roam to having a holiday let property in a beautiful rural setting, but there are similarities.  By all means set up communities, keep the young living in the Highlands, provide work, incentive for them to live there and keep the Gaelic speaking community alive, but also see that it’s unreasonable to ask that it be exclusive to Gaelic speakers.

Scottish Tory housing spokesman, Alexander Stewart said “Housing should be available on a needs basis for Scots, not if you speak English, or Gaelic over the breakfast table.  With the SNP Government on track to miss their affordable housing target, the focus should be on delivering roofs over people’s heads rather than unhelpful ideas.”  That sounds fair to me, even if I don’t tend to speak over the breakfast table.  I prefer to have a couple of wakening hours under my waistband before speaking.    

But there’s more to Misneachd’s Manifesto than this.  It includes a job strategy to keep the locals there, an introduction for Tourism Tax, not unrealistic, and more social housing on the islands.  It’s all very well for SNP ministers to say they would be supportive of keeping the Highlands and Islands elite, and only allowing people who can speak Gaelic purchase a house there, but are they not all missing the point?  It is said that Western Isles Council has suffered disproportionate cuts and are asking for funds to be given to help give services to the communities.  My next question might be where is all the money going?  But enough is enough for one day of questions in the life of an apolitical writer of such flippant ways. 

The experience of a reasonably recent trip to the more northern areas of my homeland, saw me look upon the Summer Isles, Scourie, Ullapool, lying in all their scenic glory. Rugged rocks, the bearer of splashing waves, marine blue seas, rambling sheep, and lambs, hills and valleys, lochs, birds of prey. I’m not one to want a second property, but I can certainly see why someone would want to buy a holiday home in these places. It’s not a new thing for people to travel and settle in foreign lands for a time. Writers and artists did so for inspiration.

I don’t know what the answer is.  Ireland have signs in both Irish and English and the children are taught it in school, but it’s my guess that because English is the International language most end up resorting to that and not Irish.  The same for Gaelic.  It’s a real issue I can see for those that are fluent in Gaelic and who are passionate for it to continue, but if you cannot artificially create communities, nor can you force someone to speak in a chosen language.  I can say this with certainty after years of trying to get my children to pronounce their t’s nicely and to say town and not toon, down and not doon.       

Personally, I love language and I’m going to take my fanciful little self into Duolingo and I’m going to learn Gaelic.  Síocháin agus dea-thoil a thabhairt duit go léir.         

Footnote [1] Gaels – an ethnolinguistic group. 

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Free by Lighthouse Family

I wish I could say all the things that I should say
Say ’em loud say ’em clear
For the whole wide world to hear

I wish I could share
All the love that’s in my heart
Remove all the bars that keep us apart
And I wish you could know how it feels to be me
Then you’d see and agree that every man should be free

There is so much I want to speak about, I’ve got words swilling, waiting to spill from my tied-up tongue.  Speak up then, you say, but I can’t speak up, incoherence grips me.  So, I etch the words onto paper.  Jot them down.  Here they are – queues, masks, restrictions, travel bans, death, dying, misunderstanding, resentment, little ones, birds, squirrels, sheep, fields, and trees, so many trees.  Does that make a forest?  There are not enough trees in the forest to hide my towering froth.   

A jangling of gens soars through my head, I don’t trust myself to speak them out, making a traitor of myself, my trait curbing me, sending me headlong into the dark, where I ruffle and roll, stroll deep and deeper into the mist. 

Stop, make some form of it.  Think.  You can think.  Let’s start with the first word on the list.  So, there’s a queue at the Post Office where you wait to post Christmas cards to far off lands?  Big deal.  You have time on your hands, and besides it frees you up to look around.  Smile.  Allow your eyes, from behind the mask, to alight on another’s. 

Masks, the next word.  We’re all wearing masks now, faces covered, only eyes on display, like Muslim women.  I’ve often wondered if those women are happy to wear them?  No one sees them for who they are, only their eyes on show, like me now.  Are they beautiful underneath their veils?  Is that why they’re made to wear them?  To hide their beauty?  Are they in fact made to wear them, or is this a fabrication?  Only they know the answer to that.  But here I am, here we all are, hidden, muffled behind our masks.  No need for titivation, no face creams, no foundations, or lipsticks, underneath just a pretty strained face.  I’m going to the dogs.    

If I was a dog I wouldn’t care about the restrictions in place.  A dog’s favourite place is outside, pissing against lamp posts, shitting in the long grass, sniffing for foxes and deer, fawning against a leg by way of thanks, forever grateful to be taken walkies and to be fed.  A dog’s life is simple.  They don’t care that they cannot leave their local area.  They don’t even know they have a local area.  As long as they get out.  Life is too short, if you’re a dog.

I’m all too aware of how short life can be, even for us humans.  I’ve lived long enough to experience the harsh side of fate to quite a large degree.  The first time it happens it’s like a sledgehammer, hitting your temple, taking the power from your legs.  You’d think it would get easier once you’ve suffered your first death.  It doesn’t work like that.  The second one hits you like a demolition ball.  The third one tears you apart.  It doesn’t get easier.  My eyes water whenever I hear of another death, and another, and another.  There are too many losses. 

Everyone understands loss, but not everyone understands another person’s mind.  How are we to do that, without talking?  There is so much misunderstanding, bitterness, drifting minds swirling around us.  The world has gone to pot.  A stew pot of people, bubbling, foaming, anger filled stock, looking for scapegoats, and there are many it would seem.  Everyday someone is getting cancelled.  A new 2020 word?  In my day you were sent to Coventry.  Why Coventry, I have no idea? 

Is it all necessary?  My theory is ‘live your life’, and let stupid comments disperse in their own puddle of insensibility.  Why give it air time, rain on it, dispel it, and move on.  And while I know there is a lot of kindness out there, there is also a lot of anger, revenge hatred and vitriol.  I will personally attempt at all costs to soar above it.  I’ve been in that muddied ditch, and believe me, it’s not easy to get free, and after gagging on dirty water, wanting just to drown in the mulch, I swam to the banks and dragged myself out.  If I can help it, I won’t fall into the swampy trench again.

I have children around, and I dive instead into their world of fantasy and adventure.  I’ll be your horse, your adversary, your patient.  I’ll play Hungry Hippos, frustration, and dominos.  We’ll do jigsaws and we’ll draw, a caterpillar, a mouse, and we’ll look into the garden at the birds and the squirrels.  I’ll make them laugh.  They’ll make me laugh.  Worries will flee in the hot air of glee.

Happy, happy days.

Fun filled ways.

My sun shine rays.

Duties done, cards posted and stamps have been bought.  It’s my time now.  I stride out.  The country pulls me towards it, wraps me in its greenery, earthiness in my nostrils, bird song in my ears, the bleating of the sheep, the sky above me, blue and expansive.  I soar, I really do soar now, outdoors, the wind in my hair, sunlight’s fingers stroking my cheek, praising me and I sing along.  Loud and clear.  The words come forth, freed at last in lyrical lilts.