Humanity

We're getting ready to head to the mainland and travel down to London in a couple of hours, and, frankly, the news just isn't being very cheery about our trip. My first time in London should be spent with me gaping and gasping at the sights, giving myself away as a complete tourist and depending on Ben to helpfully lead me through traffic and save me from all collisions or straying. My head should be upturned, my ever-widening eyes desperately taking every sight in, vacuuming up every image to be shaken out of my memory at a later, less visually tempting time. My arm should be looped through Ben's out of safety, I'll admit, more than romance, since my sightseeing should take number one priority over observing the little green men or red "HALT" hands on the streets. This is how my holiday should be spent. Instead, it seems I may have to be aware of the bracing sound of police sirens, the jolting and unnerving image of store front windows being smashed into a million tiny pieces, fire and aimless distruction, and general mayhem. This, I say, is utter madness. I have never understood the idea of destroying one's own backyard. Violence is an unfortunate part of this life to which I have devoted many, many hours of study. While my passion to hope for a thoroughly peaceful world has been brought down from an ironically violent, raging boil to a more realistic and patient (but still constant) simmer, I still am left with a pained expression on my wide-eyed face, and a disappointed tightness in my chest when I see such awful violence and meaningless anger. No forward movement is made by the breaking down of both property and human character. Violence lends itself to violence. The halls of history have had this echo of truth reverberating off of their surfaces for all time.
The ferry from Eigg to the mainland will cut its way through the stormy gray waters in less than an hour, so I must rush my overpacked bag across our single-track road and off to the pier. I apologize to my fine readers for leaving you with a less-than-chipper post today, but this blog is meant to share my ideas of truth and love, and I feel it would be a lie to shield you from my actual thoughts. Truth and love, it has become clear to me as well, are sometimes just as painful as they are beautiful.
With that, I will leave you and return at the end of August, hopefully nearly bursting with tales of London and Paris - our second destination. Cheers! Au revoir!

The Beginning

The first words...a blank white screen. This is much more intimidating than the infamous blank sheet of paper. At least, with paper and pencil, you can look away, pretend not to notice your eraser making its way down, down to land, ever-so-lightly, on that colorless wasteland, and do the dirty deed. Your lead-stained eraser can brush the light pink shoulder of a line and glide, haltingly, into the plump pillow of the space between. You can risk a peek back, only out of the corner of your eye to see if you were successful in your miscreant behavior. And, "ah," there it is: the perfect smudge. Writers' block broken! The snow has a dirty footprint, so you can now trudge on guiltlessly.
The blinking cursor is not nearly as satisfying of a smudge. Of course, at this point, I have now muddied my electronic page. There are no soft pink lines, which is a bit sad, but my unleaded writing stays in an organized pattern, nonetheless, by a computerized hand which is not my own. I have begun and will continue, no matter the medium. That is satisfaction enough.
So I sit, my fingers tip-tapping across keys lit by the warm glow of our bothy's upstairs lights. The sun gently sunk into Rum - the breathtaking island opposite our shore - a few short hours ago, at last allowing itself to be swallowed by the mountains, accepting its vanquish, but not before turning Askival - Rum's tallest peak which is quite evocative of "Lord of the Rings," both in name and appearance - into a fiery volcano connecting sea to land to sky. The night noises usually consist of the clean and comforting sound of the burn (Scottish word for a small stream or "babbling brook") beside the bothy, but tonight, along with my self-irritating and almost inadvertent alliteration, the air is filled with guitar and whistle tunes, friends' laughter, and softly spoken half-stories, trailing off as the late hour cuts into their memories or my own distracted attention becomes too captured by my fingers' dance to hear. I've just sipped the last drop of hot chocolate out of my favorite hefty cup, pulling the liquid through my lips and teeth to splash onto my content tongue. I sense my clean sheets beckoning to me already, even though my cursor still blinks at me, unfeelingly, demanding I continue. This first post has been, I'll admit, quite taxing. I am nervous at sharing my words with the world. They have always flowed out of me, but I have kept them, hid them away in a safe, tiny cave by the sea...or in torn notebooks and old computer files, but that is less romantic, so I suppose I shouldn't admit that. I believe I will leave these words out now, like freshly baked cookies on a green and red plate for Santa Claus, and go lay my head on my pillow with dreams not of sugarplums but of pleased readers, smiling - at least inwardly - at my rambling words. I will not run (up)stairs tomorrow morning with hopes of our non-existent Christmas tree, (it is only August, after all), twinkling above shiny gifts. Realistically, I will lumber sleepily up each step, thinking of my nice cuppa and brown sugar-laden porridge awaiting my attention and consumption. Yet, I will hold a tiny glimmer of hope within my groggy head that perhaps I have given one fine world citizen a pleasant read. Maybe he or she will even look forward to more of my word sharing. Perhaps I am yet a bit too optimistic. Either way, I will sleep peacefully, knowing that I have released a few words from their secret cave. I have begun my quest of verbal giving - to those both poor and rich in love. I have made my first footprint in the snow.