Running home to Scotland
Because there’s so many big’eds on Medium, maybe not big’eds, but knowledgeable people. Same thing!
I’m not kidding. Bloody Medium. I just gave Joanie Adams a thwacking. Bloody upstart. Then you got all the big’eds in the world hanging on her every word, licking them up like they were fucking ice cream.
Fuck it. I need a holiday.
I was eight years old when I first set foot on the Isle of Mull, an adopted child. As a man, I learned that Scotland spits on the poet’s poetry. It dares any writer to write, to gobble up the next syllable, then sneers dissatisfaction until the author’s forehead becomes flushed with embarrassment. Not bloody Joanie Adams, oh no.
Scotland spits on you, Joanie. Cry that out to Robbie or Walter; see how much they care about your sorry ass. You, too, are just one of that whole crowd, Joanie. Bloody mobsters.
Let me tell you what I really know and love about Scotland. You must first understand that it is a cruel place to get the best from it. If that’s so, I hear you ask why you return. I return in winter to hear the snow falling, to feel protected from the storms of life, hear the screech of the gulls, smell the lobster pots, and taste the salt air cleaning my throat.
It’s a strange thing to return these days as an old man boarding the car ferry, hearing the noises I thought forgotten come hurtling back: the yells of the ferry workers calling out, the piston-powered doors, the dragging chains, and the pungent smell of exhaust fumes. Such sounds speak to me like old friends; you get that, Joanie, right? Old friends.
There’s no fucking Scotland where they sell tartans to tourists or where legendary monsters are said to lurk in deep waters. You must believe me, Scotland is between the hills, over the tors, and pressed into the crags. In village communities, like garrisons, Scotland is best understood where tradition and heritage are kept safe.
I soon learned that life could not be better than when damned by the rainbow. If you’re open to its calling, Scotland will cast its spell on your heart and soul. Scotland is not simply an image found on the lid of a chocolate box, snow in its streets on Christmas Eve. It’s an experience where one’s life must be large enough to cope with its strength and beauty.
Tobermory, on the Isle of Mull, with its historic townscape, the post office, the library, the school, and the grocery store, sit alongside the antique and the art shops. None of which detract from the town’s sorrowful length of history. The trust of that history is left to men like Dad and his dad before, born of Viking history.
He would talk to me about pathways, the tors, the bluffs that don’t bluff or boast but stimulate and inspire when treading along the winding road of adventure. Its bouquet of scenery quite as stunning, aromatic, fragile and rugged as nature designed it to be.
Dad played the mandolin. He said he learned because he had traced his ancestry back to that of Scandinavian Gypsie's, but Mum said he learned to impress the girls.
Dad also had unusually strong physical prowess, often carrying men, mostly his crewmen, in a drunken ecstasy back to their homes, leaving them to sleep it off in the garden and take their punishment in the morning from their wives.
But the thing I most remember is when Dad played the accordion. It was a popular night with the locals at the inn in the town. Mum told me Dad liked to play at the inn because, she said, there were shadows in the town where lonely people lived. He hated the idea of loneliness. Pretty soon, the whole place was filled and bouncing. Truly, I mean it was spectacular! The women danced, still wearing their kitchen pinafores, while their husbands stamped their feet on the old wooden floor and thumped fists on tables. Dad always said even husky voices need to sing!
I mean, how is it possible on a blank page to describe a joy like you never heard? Music flew into the rafters; it escaped from windows, crept under doors, and flooded the street.
It is a community at its best.
There’s not an intelligent person on the island, or a billionaire, and no fucking therapists within a hundred miles.
Fuck, I fit right in. My home.
See you, my friends.
Don’t try following, Joanie. Dad will haunt you.
Important note:
For anyone not familiar with my humour, this is how I adore certain people. I Thwack them. Otherwise, they make me cry with their outstanding ability.
Joanie Adams makes me cry.
Adrienne Beaumont | Autistic Widower (“AJ”) | Brett Jenae Tomlin | The Sturg | Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles | Trisha Faye | Karen Schwartz | NancyO | Katie Michaelson | Bernie Pullen | Michelle Jimerson Morris | Amy Frances | Julia A. Keirns | Pamela Oglesby | | Tina | Pat Romito LaPointe | Ruby Noir | K. Joseph | Brandon Ellrich | Misty Rae | Karen Hoffman | Deb Palmer | Susie Winfield | Vincent Pisano | Paari | Marlene Samuels | Ray Day | Randy Pulley | Michael Rhodes | Lu Skerdoo | Pluto Wolnosci | Paula Shablo | Bruce Coulter | Ellen Baker | Kelley Murphy | Leigh-Anne Dennison | Jennifer Marla Pike | Carmen Ballesteros | Marlana, MSW| Patricia Timmermans | Keeley Schroder |Jan Sebastian | James Michael Wilkinson | Whye Waite | John Hansen | Trudy Van Buskirk | Joanie Adams |
(If you dislike being tagged for various reasons, no offense will be taken, please let me know, I’ll be sure it doesn’t happen on my posts again. If, on the other hand, you’d grace me by allowing a tag, I’d be thrilled to add you.)
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