Illness and General Debauchery

Time flies when you're staying on a remote island in the Northern Hemisphere with a man who's almost blown up a whiskey distillery on more than one occasion.

Or at least, I think that's how the saying goes.

Time spent thus far on the Isle of Lewis has been fantastic. The landscape is so ancient and full of tradition and history. Everything is beautiful. We've drove from coast to coast looking at everything worth looking at...which is everything. Standing stones far more extensive, impressive, and accessible than Stonehenge (Thank you, low tourist traffic!), blackhouse villages infused with the delicious scent of burning peat, bow-legged sheep grumpily vacating the narrow roads, white sand beaches pounded by wild, aquamarine surf and hemmed in with astonishing rock formations, and eccentric cottages populated by kittens and leatherworking milkmen drinking tea from champagne flutes.

There is a sense of belonging here. These people were raised on the island. Their anscestors have lived here for centuries. It is a world of old ways. Of craftsmen and farmers. People surviving by common sense and a unique relationship with the land they live on. It makes me realize how transient everything is in America. How scattered and young and chaotic. I've never felt as at home there as I feel I could given time to live here. It's bleak and wild and beautiful. The people are kind. Life is simple.

Apart from driving and exploring, I've had time to relax and read (It Ends With Magic by Spike Milligan, John Masefield's poetry, My Family And Other Animals by Gerald Durrel, and Contact Zero by David Wolstencroft) as well as wander aimlessly through the countryside.

Such a day was yesterday, when I set out for the castle around 12pm. The castle sits on a hilltop beside the harbor, rising out of a forest of birch and willow. The grounds go on for miles and are full of trails and adventuresome places. I wandered through many of them before ending up on a long track which ran straight into the distance. Shoes cast aside in favor of the deliciously springy turf and oozing mud, I must've walked for two miles or so before reaching a fork which would lead me back to the town centre.

Heading home, I couldn't resist the temptation to explore a small side trail which ran downhill into the underbrush on my right. Careful not to slip in the black mud and cake myself in earth, I proceeded down, down, down until I emerged into the most beautiful glade imagineable. Ancient trees with low, curving branches completely covered in green moss formed a canopy overhead. My inner imp took over and soon I was 20 feet up in the largest tree, cradled by the padded branches. These were trees that were meant to be climbed. You could feel it in them. Each handhold was perfectly placed, each low-slung branch just wide enough to lounge on in comfort, the trunk steadfast and strong. I've been branded a tree-hugger in my time, but many trees aren't that comfortable to embrace. Not so these. They were soft and warm and loving.

I gamboled for at least half an hour, delighted by my find, when the wind dropped.

For many, this would be a relief. The wind here is like a person all its own. A constant presence. A character. It buffets you from all directions wherever you are. A lack of breeze would be a relief, no?

Wrong.

When the wind dies a far more sinister presence is able to take it's place: The Midges.

Scottish Midges are very small, very sociable, and very toothy. They swarm one's head and any other exposed body parts, nipping like the Dickens, buzzing into nostrils and ears and eyes. They're enough to drive even then strongest man mad. And when the wind is gone, they arrive.

When I inadvertently stuck my head into a swarm of them I almost fell out of the tree. Swatting desperately at my face, I managed to climb down and get my immediate airspace relatively clear, but they were on the move. I had to act quickly. Hoping to find sanctuary by continuing downhill, I grabbed by backpack and set off further down the path.

This proved a grave error. The track, if it could be called that, was shin-deep in black mud, threatening to smack me down on my backside at every step. It wound steeply through dense foliage and was bordered by a stagnant trickle of water. Of course this was a perfect midge breeding ground. I barged through swarm after swarm, one hand keeping me balanced, the other defending my breathing passages, until finally, finally, I exploded out of the underbrush and onto the main road.

Luckily there was nobody passing because I looked a right mess. Mud-spattered, wild-eyed, clinging to my bag and my jacket. I stumbled along the road until I reached the Island, a lump of turf nestled out in the harbor, connected only by a thin strip of land. The ocean felt like Heaven itself. I washed my feet as best I could, rinsed my face, and collapsed on the grass.

Once I had regained my strength I struck out for home. On the way back I sampled a few of the blackberries hanging in ripe indigo clusters by the side of the trail. This is an important point. Make note of it.

When I finally got home I was so tired I just collapsed into bed and slept until 7pm. The rest of the evening passed without event until about 9. I was curled happily on the couch watching Rome on uktvHistory, when my stomach started to hurt. After about half an hour I decided the best thing would be to sleep it off since it wouldn't get better, so I went back to bed.

Let's skip ahead to 2am. Stomach still in agony, I was coming to terms with the fact that something I'd eaten -- I blame the blackberries -- wasn't agreeing with my system. I couldn't sleep. I was miserable. Finally, I managed to throw up and get whatever it was out of my stomach. Thank God. I fell asleep soon after and woke up this morning feeling vastly improved, if still rather delicate.

So the moral of this story is:

Well, I think you can figure that one out for yourselves.

Until next time...

A Stirring Somewhere Deep

There is no way to express with words alone the beauty of the Scottish Highlands. It is rare that I come across something which I feel cannot be brought to life through language, but in this case I'll have to ask you to bear with my impressions, knowing that they will not gain true meaning until you find yourself in the same position I've been in.

The landscape is not just a vista, it's a feeling. A startling tapestry of emotion and vision and scent and sound. A pounding, soaring desolation and majesty. Crags brutally carved into distinction by unstoppable glaciers, brooding in huddled solidarity, bases sweeping seamlessly into sloped valleys. They flow into one another: Alive with a carpet of purple heather and bristling, low bracken. Burbling streams, an occasional bird, nothing more.

The sky seems insubstantial, fleeting. A mess of constantly evolving wisps of fog clinging to the tops of the peaks, floating into hidden valleys and gorges. The wind whines through the landscape. It feels a thousand miles from nowhere. Nothing but the endless flow of peak and plateau. Shelves of sheer rock jutting at sharp angles to the sky, stacked upon one another like haphazard books fallen from a great height. Buttressing the final summit.

The highway seems to go on forever. A smooth expanse of dips and curves. A strangely precise creation in the midst of such wilderness. A sweeping field of gorse and heather, then a drop into dense pine forest, sequoias, mouldering rock walls exploding with moss and fern, then a curve flings us into a wide plain, the mirrored, pristine surface of a loch, calmly reflecting the green hills surrounding it, a waterfall high in the cliffs, tumbling down like an avalanche, cutting deep into the rock. Here and there an ancient barn imploding under the weight of centuries, small clusters of whitewashed homes, churchyards with tombstones tumbling like dominoes. Occasionally a flock of sheep, almost mistaken for clouds, high up, complacent, browsing in the green, stepping nimbly across the rocks.

A part of me cannot believe that I am here. Now. Experiencing this. The unbelieveable beauty of it all. Glencoe sweeping out of the fog, rising to dizzying heights, wrapping me in all its bloody history, its remote magic. It does something to your soul. Tugs at it. Dares you to scale its peaks and ramble through its valleys. To brave its scaled spine with nothing but your flesh and your bones and your blood for company. To tumble, at the end of the day, down the impossibly smooth plane of its foothills into a brook. To return home soaked and giddy.

Or to simply stand and weep at the desolation of the place, the aloneness that presses your nose into the glass dividing you from yourself. Making you ache for the chance to smash your way in, or out, depending on how you look at it. This is the sort of place that could drag you through madness and back, still leave you wishing to return. To understand. If there is a place where magic can still exist in the world, it is here.

Reaching the coast. Stormwalls holding back the steely, unstamed North Sea. The Minch. The passage of legend which I sing about with ease while sailing the Pacific. Mingulay settled in the waves to the south. The air is full of misty rain and the smell of fish. Smoke spirals lazily from a few chimneys. In neat rows the cars trundle into the underbelly of the ferry. The stench of fish strengthens, flourescent lights flick into life along the ceiling of the beast. Up two flights of stairs to the passenger deck. It's outfitted like a hotel. A sleazy casino. Still another flight of stairs and I'm on the open deck. Rain falls in horizontal sheets, the wind buffetts me across to the railings. Everyone else is inside.

I gaze out at the water, the looming coast. In front of me the giant wake of the vessel smooths itself into the fabric of the sea. A cluster of islands to starboard, nothing but fog blending the ocean with the sky to port. The islands look like a fleet of ships bursting out from the deep, prows jagged against the white sky. Wild. Treacherous. Waves whipped to foam along the shore, wind flattening the patched grass into the rock. I long to camp along on their shores. To weather storms in their craggy embrace.

The roll and toss of the waves is welcome and familiar beneath my feet. It feels like home. The ferry judders through the choppy waters, beating against the wind and the current. Lumbering, enormous. I can feel my ears going numb as I sift through the past few days.

Watching the end of Festival fireworks from a dark window on the second floor, the nestled lights of Edinburgh twinkling, Barber's Adagio for Strings crackling from the radio, enough to break my heart. Catching the bus away from Edinburgh, the thrill of being on the move again. Meeting Peter MacDonald at the the station in Glasgow. Staying the night with his Aunt, Joy. A bathroom with a felt floor. The tang of whiskey rising from a glass at my bedside ("A wee dram," Joy had insisted, "To help ye sleep."). Fumbling with the toggle on my necklace. My little string of family camp memories. M. C. Escher ceiling tiles sloping this way and that in geometirc impossibility. Taking off my watch before tumbling into sleep.

It has struck me as appropriate that we do this as humans. Disconnecting ourselves from time just before we misplace several hours of it. Each night we unquestioningly relinquish our precious minutes to sleep, not stopping to wonder where they've gone when we wake in the morning. Death is simply the rediscovery of all these moments lost in slumber.

Fog has descended on the ferry, drawing out the mournful cry of the horn every five minutes. We are blanketed. Blind. The motion of the boat works its spell on me and soon I'm curled into myself on the bench, thinking of the people around the globe following my progress -- in Australia, South Africa, England, California, Washington, Illinois, New York, London, Edinburgh. Old friends, family, shipmates, relatives, strangers, teachers. I'm being tracked by more eyes than I expected. It's comforting. A safety net. A web of validation.

I stay there until nightfall, dreaming of mermaids on barren islands and the whistle of the wind through Glencoe.