No idea where this will go. My teaching week has ended and tonight feels like the start of a weekend, so I’m just drifting over the keyboard.
Reading? Yes, The Book Thief?
Planning? Yes a work schedule for the rest of the year which promises to be gruelling - much too much reading, writing and marking to do plus proofreading and indexing. Planning, too, to make this schedule manageable with yoga; and scribbling - here and elsewhere.
creates a pinprick of peace and works it into a puddle, a pool, and then a lake deep enough to immerse yourself completely, and muffle life’s noise.
I lost yesterday to a good book and am planning the same for today. Tomorrow I begin a long drive south – ‘begin’ because I’m breaking the journey overnight so will arrive on Sunday. And as usual I’m crinkled with anticipatory guilt at leaving the dogs.
It seems odd to have the day before a journey, to myself. Usually I’m working and have to hare about trying to pack, collect the car, deliver dogs on the day I leave. Today, in theory I could pack. But I shan’t. I find I need the adrenaline which only comes with panic, for that task. I may write letters. I shall write notes and thoughts (just not here; this, I find, is a way of warming up to the more physical writing using pen and paper).
What a summer. It was not meant to be idle, but it was meant to be relaxed – and it’s been neither. Today I met the last of my postgrad students for the year. I have a pile of marking, but I can cope with that. I’ve had enough of meetings and talking and e-admin, though.
Now I’ll re-read Shakespeare’s Richard III over a pot of tea, walk the dogs through the teeming rain I love, and sleep.
When did my ideal holiday become so very unremarkable?
M.E. is biting deeper and deeper. After almost 15 years of containment, it’s fighting back, fighting hard and fighting dirty.
But is this the right way to think of it? As something 'other’ crashing in and taking my life over, taking me over?
No, it isn’t.
M.E. is a part of who I am. And it has been since I was a child – so why don’t I accept it? Or accommodate it? Or even acknowledge it?
I am fighting it at the moment, and not the most sensible way to calm things down. I try to work round it but not with it; I try to cram it into cracks and corners or my life; and this strategy won’t work either. I still can’t manage the ‘less than 100% of what I’m capable of’; when I feel well I act well with the emphasis on action. I’ve lived fast for two days; and now I’ve ground to a halt, despite needing to live in some way today – even if just very, very slowly.
So, once again it’s back to square one. I should be grateful it’s not zero, but I’m not. I’m furious.
Thus morning I found a chill mat for my laptop and this is the first time I’ve tried using the keyboard, which is now raised a little and slopes a little. I like the way the screen is slightly higher, but I’m not sure about the height of the keyboard. Perhaps this will help prevent the backs of my hands from aching when I spend long hours at the desk. I hope so.
Ah! But the screen height does make a difference.
Strange week. I was fine for half of it but struggled through the rest. Monday: archive work in the NLS, which was interesting; Tuesday: Cedar to the vet and work for the publishing students, whom I saw on Wednesday before a stroll round the town with R, collecting new sunglasses and Boots stuff and a long evening dogwalk in torrential rain in D forest; Thursday: work on a student’s submissions for a meeting on Friday; and a long dry cool walk with the dogs in the forest; yesterday: meeting with a CELT postgrad followed by one with a linguistics undergrad, then nothing very much despite good intentions until a long, wet walk with dogs in the forest. Too tired to do very much mostly – even to read a novel.
May’s disastrous general election took place on Thursday, of course. I woke early on Friday and was glued to the BBC election Twitter site so saw the last results come in, hazily doing arithmetic to ensure I didn’t miss the result that meant the Tories had lost their majority; and grinning at the number of seats the SNP had lost. Not that the resulting hung parliament is a comfortable result. May, despite the loud signals sent by the electorate, has decided to persevere and form a minority government, with the aid of the DUP, for heaven’s sake. Still, that will ensure a soft(er) Brexit, I suppose; and, providing the powers that be see sense, a change of PM over the summer; plus Nicola Sturgeon has perhaps finally begun to realise that many SNP votes are largely tactical – something you’d have thought she’d have taken on board when the support for the SNP during the Scottish parliamentary election was followed by a No result from the Indy Ref. But politicians in the main aren’t noted for anything other than narcissism these days – Corbyn aside.
I am, I find, being more honest about the ME. Not quite accurate – I have no option but to be more honest about it, as it’s becoming impossible to work around it. I’ve been trying to squirrel it away, to keep it private, for months, but now I hit a wall more often than not, so can’t do this any longer.
Twenty minutes after the train had stopped in the tunnel it gave a sigh and a lurch, and the lights went out.
‘Bleedin’ Nora’, muttered the man sitting diagonally across from Marcie.
‘Arfur!’ His wife sat on Marcie’s right. Her knitting needles momentarily stilled, then recommenced their twittering but more emphatically. She hadn’t stopped knitting since they boarded the train – a Fair Isle pattern in four colours.
‘Four colours’, Marcie registered silently, ‘in the dark.’
The incongruity also occurred to Arthur.
‘’Ow can you possibly keep on knittin’, Doris? You can’t see what wool you’re usin’!’
‘Well I can’t do nuffink else, can I?’ Doris retorted, and Marcie heard the whisper of colour in motion.
There was a rustle in Arthur’s vicinity, a muted crack, and a peremptory swish. Marcie was almost certain that Arthur had followed Doris’s example and continued with what he was doing before the lights went out. This meant she was hemmed in by a couple who’d elected to settle at the only occupied table in the carriage, and who were now sitting opposite each other in complete darkness, one opening the newspaper at the crossword and the other knitting in four colours. She fought hysteria.
A growl, swiftly followed by a roil and a gurgle came from Marcie’s right.
Doris said, ‘Let’s ‘ave somefink to eat, Arfur.’
‘Righty ‘o’, Arthur replied, and suddenly the bag Marcie remembered he’d placed on the seat next to him seemed to contain small scrabbling animals. She heard a light metallic flutter and was assaulted by the aroma of raw onion with a bottom note she couldn’t quite place – something earthy and frowsty. She felt a dig in her ribs.
‘Tuck in, love’, said Doris, ‘You must be dead ‘ungry too. There’s beef ‘n’ onion, ‘n’ cheese ‘n’ beetroot.’
‘Oh!’ Marcie replied, astonished. This was the first intimation that either of them had noticed her. ‘Thank you very much.’
She slid her hand across the table towards the onion. Her fingertips navigated an archipelago of grittiness and a broad sticky lagoon, before running aground on a reef of crumpled foil. She traced the corrugations up a stack of pan-loaf slices, pressed her fingers lightly into soft springiness at the top, and drew a sandwich towards her.
She inhaled. Was it beef or cheese? The onion wasn’t strong enough for it to be beef, but she couldn’t smell beetroot. She took a bite.
At exactly the moment Marcie thought ‘There’s no filling’, she tasted sweet yet tart citrus with a tang of onion, and Doris said, ‘I fink there’s a lemon curd on the top.’
The hysteria won, and Marcie dissolved into noiseless laughter.
Unsung but not unnoticed; talked about but never spoken to; you lived on the rim of my childhood, and when you died, people noted your absence, but not immediately.
You were other, alien, not quite human. You were too different even to threaten a fate I and other children tempted when misbehaving.
I haven't thought about you for years. But in those years you have become a woman with a story, and I have become curious.
How did you choose your route when you pushed your battered pram through the town? (And what was in those tattered carrier bags it held?) Were you taking the path of least resistance; one that allowed you a bench to sit on undisturbed in the morning sun, and a wall on which to lean and catch your breath without inciting the fury of a fastidious shopkeeper? Or did you trace over and over the last walk you took with your sweetheart before he left for France?
I can't remember your face, but one evening in the bus station, I watched your hands brushing invisible crumbs from the front of your filthy gaberdine. Your fingers whisked against the navy fabric. They were nut brown and engrimed with dirt. They were long and they were shockingly elegant. They didn't deign to pick up the coin I left for you.
There's a thrum of excitement in the pit of my stomach which threatens to escape as laughter. Eileen's on my left, unclipping straps to free her concertina. I catch her eye and we both grin broadly. Dave springs up the steps to join us on the stage, tunes his fiddle to my flute, and we race each other through a slip jig. Now we're ready, and as soon as Rab reappears we can start. Rab's our caller, the one who guides the dancers through jigs and reels, who gives good craic to break the ice, who weaves the magic of the ceilidh.
Tonight, for once, I'm playing on home ground. There are very few unfamiliar faces. Morag Stephen from the bakery has just arrived, raising an arm in greeting before bending to unpack her two young daughters from hooded, pink, down-filled jackets. Earlier, auld Jim Robertson, unusually trig in his dress tartan kilt, but still wearing his bunnet, dandered across the hall to join Bruce and Irene from the post office. A group of volunteer workers from a nearby organic farm swoop into laughter; their waistlength dreadlocks and patchwork trousers mark them as incomers as surely as their English accents.
Rab climbs onto the stage, turns to us and beams, then faces the hall which has suddenly hushed in anticipation. In a clear voice, he says simply, 'The Gay Gordon'. People are expecting this. They hurry to form sets. They know what to do. Eileen counts quietly 'two, three, four', and I fall headlong in love with a lonely, liquid, Galway hornpipe.
It's later - perhaps an hour, perhaps much less. The music is a wind rollicking through my heart and soul. Grace notes flick unbidden from my fingertips and the hall is a whooping, stamping, birling, whirling, swirling, skirling rainbow.
Glossary
auld – old
birl - spin
bunnet - bonnet, soft flat hat
craic - chat
dandered - wandered
trig - neat, tidy
‘Take up the T’ai Chi stance and connect for nine breaths.’
I do not want to connect with the earth. I don’t want to be here at all. It’s too cold. Too damp. Too early. Well, look at that! Up, dressed and marching a double buggy round the park by 6! That is impressive – unless, poor soul, she hasn’t been to sleep. Yeuch! They’ve mown the lawns - icy clods of wet grass cuttings caught between my toes. Don’t you dare allow your dog to pee on my shoes, sir!
‘Raise the chi; breathing in and lift.’
The fog must be impenetrable at sea - all these gulls. Just look at that haar snaking up river. It’s even muffled the weir! I’m going to run out of dog food this morning. And eggs. I hope the supermarket by the prison opens at 7 on Sundays too. Half moon circle left.
‘Inner circle right. Breathing out. Step to align.’
And shampoo. Should have made a list. For heaven’s sake, Marguerite!! What kind of person makes a shopping list at 5.30 am? That’s easy: the same kind of person who does her housework in her underwear. Oh no! I’m going to giggle. Breathe in; breathe out; breathe in; breathing out. Breathing in. Pause.
‘Breathing out and offer.’
This is such a gentle sequence. Slow. Smooth. Your hands drifting across like clouds. Hold for three breaths.
‘Inner circle right’
Inner circle left; body weight right; step left; push. Breathing in; my hands are warm.
Breathing out.
Breathing out.
‘Dragon tail to the right.’
Step left.
Breathing out.
Extend the dragon tail.
Breathing in.
Breathing out.
Breathing.
Alasdair and Ishbel stood side by side on the path waiting for someone to open the gate to the dog pound. Alasdair fidgeted with the knot of his tie and quelled an urge to buff his brogues against his calves. Ishbel had been quite scathing about his decision to wear a shirt and tie, he thought. ‘Unwarranted’, she’d said. And when he’d tried to explain why the occasion merited a degree of formality, she’d sniffed derisively and muttered about foolish sentimentality and crying at weddings.
Alasdair breathed in slowly to pacify the butterflies in his stomach, and as he did so, he was surprised to discover that Ishbel was wearing perfume. Aha! So this afternoon’s visit had moment after all – as important as a bowling-club tea or their wedding anniversary. He was debating whether to risk complimenting Ishbel on her choice of scent, when the pound gate was opened by a thickset, sandy-haired man in shabby corduroys and wellingtons.
‘Ishbel McCortachy’, Ishbel said, circling her right hand like a royal. She gestured towards Alasdair, ‘My husband’, and continued ‘I rang this morning. We’d like a dog. Are you Drew Sinclair?’
‘Aye’, said the sandy-haired man, and invited them to follow him to his office.
An hour later, Alasdair was in despair. There were scores of dogs to choose from. He couldn’t single out just one; he wanted to take them all. He squatted in front of an empty kennel and cooled his forehead against the bars.
A large greyhound sauntered out of the shadows at the far end the kennel. The dog was thin and haughty. It had tattered ears and baldness speckled its grubby, lilac-grey coat. The dog looked Alasdair over dispassionately, then turned and strolled back into the shadows.
Alasdair stared after it for a few seconds, then scrambled to his feet. He needed to find Drew. He wanted that greyhound. He’d name it Kenneth.
He set off almost at a run, and narrowly avoided a collision with Ishbel, who was holding a lead attached to what appeared to be an animated hearthbrush.
‘Isn’t she just too sweet’, Ishbel said. ‘She’s called Fleur. We’re going to take her.’
The sky was lightening. I pushed my hands deep into my pockets for warmth,
and watched a bloom over the burn swell and thicken to a mist. The hills to
the west were indigo, the grass underfoot was wan as lichen, and a leafless
silver birch etched a silhouette against the lavender of fading night.
It was still too early for blackbirds to hop and scurry through fallen
leaves rimed with frost. A silent drift of swans had settled in the reeds.
Here and there, untidy piles of freshly cut cedar sneddings laced the air
with pine, and in the quiet half-light the scent was as startling as a cry.
The lambency of daybreak broadened behind the Black Law, and it seemed the
ancient mountain bent more closely over the town it cradles.
But there's an agitation over the Law head - a twisting scribble in the
silvering light. There's a whispering - a witching.
The scribble churns, becomes a helix, lengthens, blackens, unfurls its wings
and grows into a mighty chevron. Heading south, the chevron shifts and
tilts. It curves, and in an undulating garland spans the sky. It flexes,
yaws and breaks in two.
The sky is a clamour of geese - hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of geese.
They whiffle and gabble, they honk and yawp, they rise and fall. They jink
from side to side. Jostling, they deepen the garlands to wedges, surge
again and rickrack to a single swallow's tail.
The skein of geese flies over, trailing fraying threads of stragglers,
singing out its hauntings, till they vanish to a whisper in the silver grey
of dawn.
