I RECENTLY RETURNED HOME FROM A JOURNEY TO NEW YORK CITY. MY TRIP WAS PUNCTUATED BY WEIRD AND WONDERFUL MOMENTS, A HANDFUL OF STRANGE COINCIDENCES AND AN OVERALL SENSE OF FREEDOM BUT MORE ON THAT LATER.
I landed back on Mull first thing on Monday morning. I’d stayed in Oban the night before and had gone to sleep in an offbeat but cosy hostel, tucked away on the top floor. My room had three single beds in it, portraits of the owner’s pretty daughter with 80s style eyeliner and a little knitted bear sat on my pillow. Down in the kitchen, three vases of colourful, fresh flowers sat on the table. With the combination of beautiful flowers and old fashioned decor, and having been on the move for a full day, things started to take on a dreamlike quality, an ongoing theme from the last couple of weeks.
I fulfilled my role as single, white traveller and logged onto the hostel’s WiFi. I shared a photograph of the flowers with friends and let my NYC friends know I’d made it home safely. The hostel manager (Terrence) ducked his head around the door. We have some tuna steak and potatoes left over if you would like something to eat? Truthfully, it was really lovely to be sitting in the quiet of the kitchen on my own. I’d spent the train journey to Oban catching up with an old friend. I say catching up; I had done most of the talking. The combination of jet lag and feeling of euphoria I was feeling as my trip started to sink in, I’d been uninhibited in my sharing and talked (too?!) freely with her about the last few years of my life. The personification of sunshine, I’d been in a band with Jennifer at high school and hadn’t seen her since we’d run into each other by chance in Manchester about 5 or 6 years ago. I couldn’t have hoped for a nicer person to share the train journey with and time passed without recognition as we talked our way home
As pleasant as the quiet of the kitchen was, I couldn’t turn down the offer of a meal and some friendly company and went to join Terrence and his partner and their four little dogs. Funds depleted at the end of my trip, I’d been eating cream cheese sandwiches for the last couple of days, made using the strangely sweet wholemeal bread and soft cheese I’d bought from the mini supermarket in the Bronx. There aren’t many things more enjoyable than home cooking after a long journey and the tuna steak and golden new potatoes with butter tasted completely delicious. A large bowl of fresh watercress and rocket leaves was placed next to me. The salad was such a verdant shade, I started to wonder if the lack of sleep was making me hallucinate. Help yourself Billie, eat as much as you like, it will only go to waste. It’s not much, only leftovers…Would you like a glass of wine? Red, white?
I’d experienced so much warmth and kindness over the last couple of weeks, it was hard to comprehend. My B&B hosts had driven me to the subway station in New York, accompanied me down in the lift to the turnstiles, swiped their Metrocard without a second thought and paid for my trip to JFK. I’d then met a woman on the way to the airport who wasn’t only going to the same terminal but catching the same flight. We ended up in conversation after what should have been a simple train ride to the airport became slightly more complicated(I won’t bore you with the details but it involved a bus ride through the suburbs and hauling my large suitcase up steps with such speed that I felt dizzy when I boarded the train again. And the train didn’t budge for a good 10 minutes after). Being in each other’s company felt strangely familiar and we wandered about the airport together as I selected my final cheesy souvenirs whilst my sophisticated subway companion (an art writer from Florence),bought a copy of Vogue. Low and behold, it turned out we were sitting beside each other on the plane! In our own row of two, we kept each other company across the Atlantic. The flight attendant tried to wake my neighbour to give her some fruit. It didn’t seem a good enough reason to rouse a person from their slumber. I was wide awake and watching the recent Amy Winehouse film. I’ll give it to her when she wakes up if you like…Sleep is sleep after all. Regardless of how long you have know someone, fruit or no fruit, we can all appreciate being left to snooze in peace on an overnight flight.
And so here I was back on home soil. I’d had the pleasure of seeing my little sister in Glasgow ( she is taller than me and has been for a good while), enjoyed the company of an old friend and was now eating an unexpected dinner. I went to sleep in my little bedroom afterwards feeling a strange combination of excitement at being home and sadness for all the colour and motion left behind in New York. But mostly I felt thankful for the kindness I had been shown. And grateful to whatever it was that had delivered me back to Scotland safely. I said a silent prayer of thanks to the Universe and fell into a deep and heavy sleep.
The sunshine on the fields outside Craignure was soft and golden. Two weeks away and the light had changed. The sun was now lower in the sky, bathing the browning bracken and grasses in orange and yellow hues. I drifted off to sleep and the next time I opened my eyes, Burg was looming familiarly in the distance. The expansive cliff face that hangs in the distance beyond the Ross of Mull is surreal and beautiful. Its closeness to your viewpoint changes depending on the light and weather of the day. I’ve been in a garden outside Bunessan and it has seemed alluringly close, a short boat ride away. I’ve stood in the same spot on a different day and it has appeared separate from Mull, a whole other piece of land, beyond me and my rowing abilities.
The bus drew on and before long, we were back in Fionnphort. The driver kindly let me off at the top of the village and I pulled my suitcase along, dodging sheep poo, slightly dazed.
I sat in the kitchen of my mum and dad’s house and we shared a cup of coffee whilst I gave them their trans-Atlantic gifts and began telling them everything I had seen and done in the last couple of weeks. A Brooklyn artist’s impression of the High Line, a copy of the New York Times, Reeses’ Peanut Butter chocolate bar and the obligatory fridge magnet, it was lovely to share some pieces of the city with them both. Despite the number of miles covered in the last couple of days, my head was buzzing and I chatted in that caffeinated, jangly, jet-lagged way. Similarly, when I returned from living in New Zealand, I had sat in the back of the car and spent the journey from the airport two-ing and fro-ing between wide-awake, incessant chatting and instantaneous sleeping, dozing off mid-sentence. I’m sure it must have been a relief to my family when I conked out, only for the peace to be shattered when I woke up and started waffling on again, …yeah so I got a Maori style tattoo, cos you know, we’re tribes people too, being Celts and all, so it’s you Dad, and you Mum and me and Daze and Poll and we’re Koru’s and they represent family… Fortunately, they are patient souls and share my enthusiasm and excitement for visiting new places. They listened to me, smiling. My mum was leafing through the New York Times in search of a crossword, …do you think they have a cryptic in this, Jim? Oh, here we go… what the bloody hell is this? That isn’t a crossword, look at the weird grid thing…
As the morning turned to afternoon, I thought I better head to my caravan. I had moved my belongings in before heading away and spent the day unpacking various things. I finally allowed my mind and body to rest mid-afternoon and fell asleep as soon as I lay down, wood crackling and popping gently in the stove.
After any holiday, adventure, journey, there is the inevitable return to reality and the varying degrees of discomfort that this is often accompanied by. When I was little girl, two weeks of my summer holidays were almost always spent with my grandparents. They often worked for wealthy people on big estates and I would go and visit them wherever they happened to be. Spending time with them was always a treat and I can still recall the feelings of absolute dread I felt at having to leave our summer idyll and head back to Birkenhead. It was always lovely to see my mum and dad of course but leaving my Nan especially caused me real grief. She had a way of making everything enjoyable. Though they moved about a lot, their house felt like home. An eclectic mix of pretty teacups and mugs always hung on hooks in the kitchen. Pillows on the bed smelt faintly of lavender. Days began with turning on the radio, cups of tea and digestive biscuits. As I’ve grown older, I’ve managed to curb the feelings of dread at returning to the every day. Living somewhere beautiful helps of course, it is hard to feel sorry for yourself when you look out the window and see a bird of prey, a particularly interesting cloud or even just a big, open space filled with not much at all. As my week back on Mull wore on however, the euphoric daze began to fade and reality elbowed its way back in to my days.
It started with a bill. A bill that I needed to discuss with my ex-partner.That’s fine, I can handle a bill, no need to worry. Give him a phone, we can sort the bill, not a real problem. As soon as I heard his voice on the phone, I got the feeling that something was amiss. I ignored it for a while. So where are you? Oh right. How come you’re there?…
I’d never been in this situation before. What do you say when someone you loved for a long time tells you they are sleeping with one of your dearest friends? The same friend whose wedding you attended as a couple and who you confided in when it all went wrong. The real kick in the teeth comes from knowing a friendship has been damaged or, depending how forgiving you are, gone for good. I didn’t know what to say so I ended the call, threw down my phone and swore at the top of my lungs. Tears spilled onto my cheeks. I was confused, sad and angry. I’ve made some poor decisions myself for which I’ve paid the price, shuffled around with my own boxes of humiliation and guilt. But balance had recently been restored, it didn’t feel as though I was due a dose of discomfort. I suppose in the great scheme of things, you can’t take it too personally. And in a silly superstitious way (maybe some Catholic guilt I’ve inherited too), I felt as though it was only a matter of time before the balance of the Universe swung away from all the joy and pleasure and happiness of the last two weeks.
A day later, I was making a cafetière of coffee before heading out. When it came to the plunging part, I pressed the handle down as usual. It wouldn’t budge. I should have taken off the lid, given it a stir and dispersed some of the pressure. Instead, I placed both hands on top of the plunger and pressed down heavily, my face positioned over it’s top. Before I had time to acknowledge what I was doing, hot water and coffee granules shot up and had covered one side of my face. I shrieked and ran into the bathroom, unsure of what to do. The coffee was in my fringe and all over my top. Fortunately, I’d left the kettle for a while before pouring and the water wasn’t boiling. The skin around my eyes still stung however and as I wiped the grains of coffee off my face, I couldn’t help but feel like the cosmos were not operating in my favour.
As I write this in the caravan on a dreary Monday afternoon, the difficulties I faced earlier in the week pale into insignificance. Philosophising about the balance of the Universe feels crass in the face of real tragedy. A young, talented, valued and lovely person’s life was taken abruptly in a road accident on Wednesday evening. When tragedy occurs in a small community, it is palpable. It infiltrates the place , making villages quieter and the wide open spaces more desolate. We are all struggling with the news, knowing that it will have caused those closest to Theresa complete and utter sorrow and loss. I'll draw this to a close by sending my sympathies, thoughts and prayers to them.
