Finding Wilson Among the Coconuts

Day 6 through 19 on Eigg:

Saturday, June 9 - Friday, June 22

Saturday
  Dear readers, I should've known that saying I would post every day was an unrealistic promise to make on the day of the Twelfth of June Ceilidh Celebration and amidst a busy start to settling into the house and setting off with our wedding planning journey.  Because I have been so tardy, I will limit 13 days' worth of posts to brief descriptions.  I don't think you all want a novel of a blog post, so I think that will be best. 
 
  With that hang-my-head admittance over with, I can now tell you that Saturday was a blur.  Ben's cousin, Josh, and girlfriend, Lola, from Paris, (both of whom I mentioned in my past posts about our holiday in France), came over to the island for a week-long visit, so we were all quite a happy bunch.  The ceilidh was crazy, as usual, but incredibly fun, despite the inevitable sore feet, head, and throat you find yourself with the next morning...make that late afternoon. 

Sunday
    Upon waking up at *mutters a made-up number unintelligibly* in the...post-lunch section of the day, Ben and I took one step up the stairs, groaned, considered turning back around to hide in the shelter of our blankets from the menacing sun, and then continued onward after giving each other some inspirational speeches.  They consisted of my suggestion that pancakes and bacon sounded good and Ben's immediate agreement.
 
  From under the t-shirts shielding their faces from that pesky sun, Josh and Lola gave the same reaction as Ben - albeit with slightly more muffled voices.  We ate our fill, nestled into couches and chairs, and agreed to make the journey across to the tea room at the pier that evening, where we knew a post-ceilidh music session would materialize.

  No one could stop their feet from tapping or their heads from bobbing out the rhythm when the fiddles, accordion, whistles, guitars, cello, banjo, spoons, and bodhran were taken up.  I suppose the few who hadn't properly recovered from the night before and were fast asleep in their chairs may not have been tapping their feet, but their heads still bobbed in one way or another.  Looking around, I fondly noted how important music is to this culture into which I've been adopted.  Music, the traditional sort being the most prominent of the type of gathering I'm describing, isn't just a pastime for Scots.  Music is their lifeblood.  It appears constantly and very much echoes their ways of life.  The Scots have both suffered and thrived, throughout history and the present, but they have survived, maintained, and held together.  The long, slow notes and the fierce, intense ones of the music I am so lucky to hear in my house, community, and new country seem to reflect the people about which I am learning so much.  Life here can be difficult: stopped in its tracks by weather or hard, rocky land or frustrating and slowed to the pace of those people in airports who think "moving" walkways means that they don't have to by the complexities of living in remotes areas.  Those are mirrored by the drawn, sorrowful, almost painful sounds I hear in the music of Scotland.  The sounds that leave scorch marks on wooden floors are self-explanatory.  The Scots have fire in their eyes - a warmth that comes from living life, despite its difficulties, and gaining strength from the embers of the people around them.  They keep themselves ablaze, and, as the saying goes, "Fire is catching."

  That must be why, as I stood smiling softly amidst friends and visitors alike in the tea room that Sunday night, feeling the music swirl and seep into my own veins, I saw the same chest-swelling happiness in every person - Scot or not.     

Monday
  Monday mornings on Eigg now mean Market Day, at least for the summer months.  It's a great way for tourists and islanders to converge and take advantage of all of the talented craftsmanship that occurs on this beautiful island.  The market is set up in the Community Hall, with tables for each islander that wants to sell his or her wares.  Goods for sale start with homemade bread and bakery treats from my good friends (and bridesmaids!) who have followed their dream of opening a bakery and catering business called "Eiggy Bread."  Needless to say, they'll be creating my wedding cake. 
 
  My apologies for straying onto wedding plans.  My brain has officially become a black hole for wedding ideas and conversation, sucking entire planets into its depths and spewing them out into a different dimension where nothing escapes without ribbon, hearts, and magazine clippings littering their surfaces.  Market, right.  Other islander products for sale range from hand-knitted garments to homemade lotions and body products, paintings, ice cream, books, and crafts made by Eigg Primary School children.  It's wonderful, and I spent some time there on Monday, recuperating from the weekend of late nights in a welcoming atmosphere.

Tuesday
   After getting ourselves up at an early hour, Ben and I met with Ben's mother, Natalie, to go through wedding details in a bit of a fast-forward fashion.  Natalie had to catch the boat back to the mainland in a few hours, and we had a lot of ground to cover.  To be honest, my head nearly caved in on itself.  That's a terrible vision, but you must remember that black-hole brains have incredible sucking power.  My nose feared for itself.  In fact, that may be why it threatened to stop breathing when the stress became too great.  I don't really want to think about what I must have looked like to my future mother-in-law while I was in the clutches of a melt-down that morning, slumped in my chair around the table, my eyes ever-widening as she rifled through and read off her organized papers and expected my mouth to elicit some sort of verbal response, of which it was incapable - except for making drowning fish gulps.  I was a mess - not even an interesting one.

  We went to the pier to wave her off on the boat and do some grocery shopping, but even that left me frazzled and wanting to curl up in the nook of our tree outside the house to suck my thumb and will everything away.  Instead, we went home and set to work on the wedding.  I don't remember if I was at all productive, which probably means that I wasn't.  I vaguely remember attempting to chat to Josh and Lola, but I think I failed as a good host that day and, therefore, sank a bit further into my swampy mire of guilt and fear. 

  Not to worry, dear readers - the mire has since been closed for refurbishment, as I have now gotten a grip.  Also, I intend to install some sort of dunking booth in the swamp, whereby, if ever I find myself skulking back to it, I can plunge myself back to the cold but alive world of reality and get on with things.

Wednesday
   If ever you look across the sea, (mind you, you may have to squint if you're REALLY far across the sea), you can know with certainty that you are feasting your eyes on the Isle of Eigg if you see the great shark's fin-looking mountain rising up at one side of it.  That point is called "An Sgurr," which is a Scottish Gaelic (pronounced "Gah-lic" instead of the Irish "Gay-lic") word for a rocky, sharp, or jagged point.  Oh, and "Sgurr" is really pronounced like it looks.  Put an "oo" sound in your scariest lion growl.  That's it.  Now everyone in the coffee shop you're sitting at while reading this will be terrified of you.  If you're in your house, your couch cushions will shudder.
 
  The point of all that nonsense above is to give you a hint of background on what Wednesday held for our little group.  Josh and Lola had never climbed the Sgurr, which is a must on Eigg, since it not only allows you to feel reallllllllly tall while you're braving the wind on the highest point of Eigg but also because you have the best view ever.  It's fabulous.

  I would go on to describe our climb to the top, our stop at the gorgeous lochs (lakes) on the way down, and our later feast of brown trout that Ben caught, but, let's face it - I'm wordy, and we still have the next week to get through.  Plus, maybe my short description will be enough to entice you to go climb An Sgurr yourself...or any other mountain in your area...or hill...or at least the tiny ditch by your mailbox.  Maybe.

Thursday
  Realizing with the breaking of the day that it would be Josh and Lola's last full one on Eigg until they next return, I found myself sad.  Sadness soon had no time slot in the busy day, however.  Thursday night was to be a community dinner to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the islander's buy-out of Eigg, following the annual ceilidh by a nice amount of space.  Everyone was to bring a dish for a pot-luck, so caramel apple pie had to be made.  I never want to peel another little apple ever, ever again.  I might if it's a reasonable size, I suppose.  It would have to be a terrifically tasty one, though, and more beautiful than Snow White's wicked step-mother's specimen.

  The pie turned out pretty and delicious, and the rest of the food at the dinner was incredible.  I think we all waddled more than walked out of the hall that night.  Nonetheless, the speeches and general feeling of good-will topped even the bounty.  I am an incomer and can only gain a vague sense of what life was like on the island around the time Ben was a child, but I know a grueling daily existence at many times and an underlying uncertainty about the future under a bad, disconnected landlord were the constant undesirable companions of many of the islanders.  The emotional sharing of how far Eigg has come since those negative times was a beautiful experience to be privy to, and I am grateful that I can now count myself as an islander - as one of Eigg's own.

Friday
  We gave Josh and Lola hearty hugs before sending them on their way, braving the rain and dreich (just like it sounds - bleak and dreary) day to wave them off from the end of the pier.  They'll be back soon, though, so more adventures will follow in the months ahead, I'm sure! 

Saturday
  I am a might huntress.  You may call me Artemis, if you wish.  Deadly with a gun, I am.  Actually, Ben is.  He killed a rabbit on Saturday.  I shot a wall - a stone one...while I was standing inches from it.  It's sheer luck that I didn't blind myself with the ricochet from the pellet (luckily not a bullet-taking gun!).  So, perhaps a name other than that of the Greek goddess of the hunt might be better.  I can aim, I promise - just not that day.

  When we made it back from the hunt, I finally scraped all of the paint off our poor dresser - the used one I mentioned many, many days ago that we lugged across on the boat all the way from Glasgow to our house.  I was more successful with scraping than shooting, thankfully. 

  The only thing more exciting than scraping paint is watching the worst horror film of all time: "The Mist."  Wretched.  Awful.  Horrific.  Once the credits rolled, leaving my face scrunched in disgust at the most crushing ending I've ever seen, I do believe I yelled and pouted to Ben that I hoped Stephen King stubbed his toe for writing such a despairing, go-to-bed-grouchily-wondering-if-you'll-ever-make-up-for-that-lost-couple-of-hours-of-your-life movie as that.

  Go to bed we did.  I'll bet I muttered mean things about Stephen King in my sleep, all the while being strangled by fanged tentacles.

Sunday
  I helped Ben roll a big barrel up a hill.  It was a water barrel, and I'm sure there are other, more technical ways of describing what we were actually doing, but to me it was just a barrel.  Yes, I did feel like we were Jack and Jill - except it wasn't exactly a pail...and it luckily wasn't filled with water yet...better luck still - we didn't come tumbling after.

  We also put our finished dresser in our room, and I filled it with clothes.  Then, Ben came in and deflated a bit.  He had actually thought he would get half the drawers.  Hah!  I eventually gave him one drawer, although it nearly killed me.  When I remembered that I love him and am, you know, going to be his wife and all, I gave him the corner of a small one, too.  I'll stare down the first person to say I don't sacrifice.  Then I'll steal his sock drawer.     

Monday
  I awoke to sunshine and warmth - two things that you MUST take advantage of in Scotland.  I decided it was a day to try out yoga on the beach, while Ben went out in a kayak to fish for dinner.  I had asked my wonderful yoga instructor and friend back home whether she had ever done yoga on the beach, and she had advised against it, saying sand gets everywhere.  I should have listened!

  I put towels down under my mat, kicked off my flip-flops, (another rarity for Scotland, since hiking boots or Wellies are much more sensible), and started my tranquil session.  The view was beautiful looking out at our neighboring isle of Rum, the air was filled with the sound of sea gulls and gentle waves, and the sun was at least a little warm on my exposed skin.  But the sand...was...everywhere!  I stretched tall to the sky, pointing my hands to the sun, only to find myself blinking and spitting to avoid gritty grains getting in my mouth and eyes.  It really does nothing for achieving inner peace and concentration when you're behaving as if you've just taken a bite of a green persimmon, which, for my non-Indiana readers, involves having your lips turned inside-out because of a Thanksgiving season fruit that is delicious when ripe but slap-your-Grandma bitter when not.

  I was doggedly determined to finish, and so I did, up until "tree" pose, which involves balancing on one leg.  Sand moves, Audra sinks, balance fails, tree falls.  No more sand yoga for me.

Tuesday
  One of my best friends on this side of the pond asked if I wanted to join her for a girls' day out around the pier that afternoon, since she would be leaving the next day for a week.  I readily accepted and dug into what tasks I needed to finish that morning with more zest than is normal for me.  I was looking forward to some much-needed girly chat and laughs.

  I'm not sure if I've mentioned this particular one of my personality "weaknesses" before, but I will now.  I am a perpetually late person.  I know it's a fairly ugly trait to have, but I never seem to be able to shake it.  My intentions are good, truly, but I get distracted easily and think that I can accomplish a week's worth of tasks in the last five minutes before I'm meant to be leaving my house to meet you where you are already waiting for me.  My father has said to me in the past that I'll be late to my own wedding (a more pleasant thought than funeral, at least), and, now that that day is less than three months away and my behavior seems not to have changed, I fear my father's jokes may turn into prophesy. 

  Under less extreme circumstances, this lateness caught up with me on Tuesday.  I meant to leave an hour before to allow plenty of time to reach the pier on my new bike.  I'm becoming more comfortable with riding it in general, but Eigg's hills and single-track road that really does only allow one vehicle and no other moving thing of any size on its width at a time still hamper me a bit.  Feeling the pressure of having only left myself a quarter of my intended time in which to park my steed at the pier, I hammered down the pedals and soared up our track to the main road.  Actually, I puffed up half of it, felt like my lungs were going to explode, and experienced that menagerie of questions battering my self-esteem like: "Am I really in bad shape, despite my active claims?" "How can I possibly handle riding across the entire island when I can't even make it up the first hill without dying?"  "Geesh!  Do I have emphysema or should I just call myself Miss Wheezy?" "How could I get emphysema when I've never touched a cigarette in my life?"  By the time I reached the half-way mark, my mind finally stopped harassing my tired but adapting body, and euphoria at knowing I had a mainly down-hill glide from there to the pier and at believing that I might be in fairly decent shape after all put a huge smile on my face.  I smacked my lips together just in time to avoid getting a bug in my teeth and enjoyed the smooth sailing, feeling a bit like Lance Armstrong as I leaned perfectly on the curves and guided my bike like a pro.

  When I pulled in to the pier, only 10 or 15 minutes late, I still felt quite happy, but very thirsty and hot - very hot.  Oh no.  I could feel it in my face as I walked toward everyone.  I knew they'd think something was wrong with me.  I knew I'd be asked if I was alright - if I was having a stroke or something.  It was happening.  I said hello and sat down briefly, judging everyone's reaction with heightened senses.  I couldn't tell, but I quickly excused myself to the bathroom to see if I could salvage myself at all before too many people took notice.  I looked in the mirror, and there it was: the dreaded splotchy face. 

  Most people sweat profusely and maybe turn a bit red in the face with an intense workout.  I turn red, too, but in splotchy patches all over my face.  Maybe I don't sweat enough and over-heat my skin or something.  I don't know.  All I know is, I look like I'm breaking out into some horrible rash, which is somewhat ironic, since I'm severely allergic to stinging insects and very well could be suffering from anaphylactic shock for all anyone would know. 

  I attempted splashing my face with cold water, but it seems time is the only thing that turns me back into an unselfconscious, normal person.  So, I went back outside, gulping water to try and speed the transformation process.  Luckily, I have good friends on Eigg whose only concern that night was that we all enjoy ourselves.  They didn't even care that I had a splotchy face.  It was a good evening.

Wednesday
  I tea-stained a stack of white paper for our wedding invitations on Wednesday.  My fingers turned brown.  It's kind of a cheap fake tan, though, so I think I'm okay with it.  Plus, it was a cheap way of giving our invitations a great treasure-map sort of feel to them.  I'm very okay with that, too.  I prefer drinking tea to bathing in it, though, so I won't try any mad antics of dipping myself in it before the wedding.  I promise.

Thursday
  The highlight of the day was going to one of our friend's going-away parties.  He's a great guy, and we'll miss him dearly, but we're also extremely happy for him.  He's taking an awesome job working for a charity on the mainland, and I think he has many good times ahead of him.  When I hugged him goodbye for the night, he told me we're trading places and that it's so good that Eigg is losing one but gaining another.  It was also clear he could feel how much he's loved and will be missed but uplifted from afar.  I went home sleepy but contented and happy in my heart.

Friday
  At last!  The moment you've all been waiting for: the end of tonight's post!  I'm sorry to say that it's not a very exciting one, since I've spent most of it on wedding errands and typing this out.  I did, however, start a new book: "Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter."  I'm laughing at myself, too, but the writing is quite good so far, and who doesn't love a vampire book?  One that makes possibly the most famous and revered president the United States has ever had just puts the icing on the novel cake.  They make those, by the way - novel cakes.  They're amazing!  They look just like a stack of real books but with icing.  If anyone ever wants to bake one for me, I'll give you a list of my favorite novels to include.  Please. 

  With that, I believe I'll drift down the stairs and dream of eating fluffy books or reading paper cakes.  I guess I'll have to leave that up to my subconscious, which I can tell you is a lot like my rambling consciousness but with absolutely no reins on the silliness.  It does make for adventurous dreams.  Sweet dreams to you, readers.  Don't let the bed bugs bite.

          

Audra Crusoe Lost at Sea

Day 1 through 5 on Eigg:

Monday, June 4 – Friday, June 8, 2012

Monday

  Ben and I made our scramble to the boat surprisingly early, but, of course, when you have a new mountain bike, an old chest of drawers bought from a charity (used) shop and ripe for restoring, three major suitcases, numerous bags stuffed with shopping and grocery treasures, and one wedding dress (crammed ever-so-tearfully into one of the aforementioned suitcases) to load onto a flat-bed truck, amidst grumbles of ferry workers, that must then be loaded onto a ferry, it does pay to be early.  Well, it doesn’t really pay – it just saves you from enduring lots of Scottish cursing from big, bad ferry men.  To amend yet again, they’re not really bad…or all big, for that matter.

  My lovely chocolate chai tea lingers half-way to my mouth, open, not just in reflex anticipation of the delicious liquid sure to fill it, but more so in sheer incredulity and horror at the fact that my first sentence of this “journal entry,” if it should be thusly named, is an entire paragraph long.  Upon realization that all of you will surely go blind or succumb to a fit of boredom spasms, I’ll go full-steam-ahead with this ship.  Not with the Calmac ferry, though, since my driving it would ensure a meeting with Davy Jones for all aboard.

  The rest of Monday involved being greeted off the boat by my wonderful father-in-law-to-be, by the local bagpiper of the island (which, of course, led to reminiscence about that very first trip so many (3) years ago, when I dolefully kissed Ben goodbye to her romantic tones), and by all of my friends who gave me hearty hugs of welcome to my new island home.   

  After making numerous stops along the single-track road across the island that leads to our wee bothy and beyond – beyond being only another half-mile or so of houses until you would be forced to trek across the cliffs and plummet into the sea – rushing in excitement to share another welcoming hug and chat, I put my feet back on our grass.  Beautiful, green, lush grass it is – except for the cow pies…and the stinging nettles…and the thistles, lovely to look at but curse-inducing when stepped upon.  I suppose that last description might go for the other two items, as well, especially if you like the abstract art a cow patty tends to make when splatted onto the ground. 

  I did finally make it to the house, after unloading our truckload beneath our gorgeous tree, which happens to be one of my favorite trees in the whole wide world.  I promised to move it along, but I must stop to tell you about our tree.  It’s a British sycamore (different than the American version), which is quite nice, since pine trees are quite prevalent in the Highlands but not as good for daydreaming under as a strong-branched deciduous.  Our tree is also situated by itself in the gentle bend of a lovely babbling brook (or “burn,” as I do believe I’ve mentioned before as the Scottish word for small creek).  I can’t tell you how picturesque it is.  If you stand on Eigg, anywhere near our house, even, you’ll be absolutely blown away by the immensity of the landscape.  Picture walking into Jurassic park and seeing a giant pterodactyl soaring down the cliffs, which are high enough to shield a small group of brachiosaurus standing on each other’s shoulders.  You’d probably feel no bigger than an ant – not a prehistoric ant, either, since those were probably the size of elephants, for all I know.  That’s kind of what it’s like to look on the cliffs and the sea and the foreboding island of Rum across the water.  Our tree, however, nestled in the little stream gurgling over its stones and giving life to delicate yellow flowers with bees buzzing around and birds chirp-chirping to each other, is idyllic in comparison – quaint, even.  I love it.  It’s my own little piece of paradise, and I give myself over to its welcoming branches anytime I need to think, write, or simply lie and look at its leaves waving all of my stresses away and cuddle up to its scratchy bark, comforting me in a shoulder-pat-and-“there-there” sort of way.  I insist you give it a cuddle if any of you dear readers ever make it Eigg-ward.

  Beyond the tree, though, is still our house…the one I meant to tell you about five million sentences ago.  Ben led me into our cosy room to show me all of the shelves and furniture he’d been secretly building for the last few weeks in anticipation of my arrival.  He’d had to carefully position the computer’s webcam so that I couldn’t see anything in the room but the white wall.  What a wonderful man I’m marrying.  So much shelf space with so many possibilities for books of all sorts who are calling my name from secondhand bookshops all over Britain!  Clothes can find another spot.  Anyway, after recovering from a blubber-fest over Ben’s thoughtfulness and a well-deserved kissing session, I unpacked my new life…or attempted to, since that chest of drawers waiting to be renovated will be the bearer of my clothing. 

  It was a good day and a good welcome back.  I slept peaceably, looking forward to tackling the new day.

Tuesday

  I woke exhausted, totally unprepared for that new day.  Rubbing at my eyes with weakly clenched fists and feeling very much like a five-year-old little girl, I loosened myself from the warm blanket and dropped off the bed.  I stumbled up the stairs, desperate for a cup of tea and a bowl of well-sugared porridge.  I’m a sugar addict.  I admit it.  I try to cut back to a scant teaspoon of the white stuff in my tea and a light dusting of the brown sweetness on my oats, but it tastes like…well, like nothing.  There, I said it.  Now you know. 

  My late breakfast over with, I decided to focus on a single project for the day.  You see, I’m that type that starts out in the morning with a zealous optimism for productivity who then fills her head with limitless lists of tasks to accomplish for the day, week, month, year, lifetime and then fails to get anything done but huddling in a dusty corner due to sheer terror at the “to-do” mountain that would be impossible for a NYC event planner to accomplish, let alone her little frazzled self.  Tuesday was the day for changing all that, I decided, so I zoomed in my eagle eyes to the porch.  Ben and I had been given a lovely bamboo shoe rack, and Ben had waited until my arrival to crack open the box.  Now was the time to organize the incredibly messy entrance to the house.  I love my man, but he does need my feminine touch and care for mostly clean order.  A few times I did start to stray from the self-assigned task when a pile of pellet-gun ammo and random building supplies on a corner shelf caught my eye or a sudden recollection that a bag of newly purchased shampoo and conditioner awaited my placement caused me to start to zip toward the bathroom.  My willpower was firm, however, and I managed to clear away the debris, sweep and mop the tiles, and leave that space yearning for its new shoe rack and organized collection of scrubbed shoes in one fell swoop.  I put the flat-packed shoe rack together like a pro, making a point to pore over those three-step, picture-only instructions just to be sure my shoe rack was the best it could be.  Ben and I managed to fit a yoga session in somewhere in the middle of my shoe rack-fanaticism and his paint-scraping on our dresser, which rounded the day off well.  This all seems very mundane to me now that I’m actually taking the time to put it into words, but, I can tell you, that porch is now a home…or part of one.  I’ll let you all admire it after you’ve hugged my tree.

  I can imagine it’s difficult moving across the street to get married and start a new life, so moving across the ocean and trying to settle into a new country is a challenge and a half.  Making a house into a warm nest that you can feel comfortable enough to sign when you walk through its door and smile when you flop onto its bed helps, though.  On Tuesday, I was able to do just that, if only because of the sparkling porch.

Wednesday

  I woke up wanting Weetabix, badly.  Weetabix, for all my non-British readers, is kind of like shredded wheat, except the little biscuits are made out of wheat flakes instead of wheat strings…or fibers…or shreds…or whatever you want to call them.  People have their Weetabix technique preferences.  If you pour milk in and let them be, you’ll end up with mushy Weetabix sponges.  If you pour your milk in and try to eat them too quickly, you’ll end up sending wicked shards of Weetabix flying toward your eyeballs as you jab your spoon at the dry, crumbly ovals.  If you stare at them perplexedly, and then spread butter and jam on them and munch them messily like toast as my dear sister and brother-in-law did on their Scottish honeymoon many years ago, you’ll end up with a horrified little British girl who’ll run to her mother to tell her what the strange foreigners are doing with their poor Weetabix.  If, however, you line them up gently on their sides, sprinkle (oh, go on, pour) your sugar on, add your milk slightly over the tops but mainly around the sides of your domino-like stack, and then wait just a few seconds for them to begin their massive absorption process, you’ll end up with a spoonful of perfectly soft-but-still-crunchy, sweet biscuit.  Mmm.  This ambrosial delight doesn’t last forever, though, since, about half-way through your scarfing, you’ll have to pour in more milk.  Weetabix devours milk like the Pillsbury doughboy devours…everything in sight.  It can never get enough.  Don’t be surprised if you go through an entire pint of milk for just one bowl of the stuff.  That leads me to my Wednesday morning crisis.  We were out of milk.

  What’s worse, we had half a pint of spoiled, cheesy-smelling milk laughing at me from the door of the fridge.  Actually, we were out of most things.  The pantry looked a bit like the Grinch had come early to steal away our cupboard crumbs, leaving only an entire shelf of pasta, several cans of kidney beans, a shriveled stalk of celery, and a few other bits and bobs.  It was going to be another porridge oatmeal day, and NO MILK FOR MY TEA!  Upon draining the last of my bitter sips from my favorite cup, I made the decision to go grocery shopping.  Thus began my adventure for the day.

  I had to rifle through my suitcases to find some bike attire, since that would be my transportation.  Ah, bikes, how I love them.  They’re a relatively new love of mine, too, since growing up as a child in Indiana, I only knew the pleasure of the occasional Sunday afternoon bike ride on our no-speed, brake-is-when-you-peddle-backward, tootle-around bicycles.  Mountain bikes are a newcomer on my life’s scene.  New from a sports store in Glasgow, my girly purple bike was waiting for me to break it in – or for it to break me in.  On Eigg, “going into town” consists of making the three mile journey back across the single-track road to the pier, where you have your options of getting groceries from the very small, but surprisingly well-stocked shop, buying folks back home some knitted souvenirs from the craft (gift) shop, refreshing yourself with a cup of tea or a cold pint from the tea room, using the toilet/shower facilities in the “waiting room” hallway, or catching up on work or official business in the office upstairs.  All of these things you can do within the confines of a single building, split into separate facilities by doors alone.  It’s about as far from urban life as you can get, but it’s efficient, quite social, and easy on a rural soul in need of goods.

  For this six-mile total journey, I would take no car, partly because it’s not long enough to warrant the fuel, partly because I wanted to see what my two wheels could do, and partly because our car-share’s other sharer was on the island and selfishly using his car.  Can you believe it?  The audacity of some people to actually use their own car when they need it…it’s outrageous.  Rolling along, (which I did, by the way), I strapped on my backpack and took off down and up the bumpy rock/dirt road to the main track, list and essentials tucked safely away and praise after praise running through my head for the invention of padded bike shorts.  I died going up the hills, demolishing my pride by awkwardly dismounting and pushing my bike up the first huge hill after only about three minutes of riding.  Speeding downhill, feeling the wind whip back my pigtails and smash bugs against my shiny glasses, made it all worthwhile.  Some of my coasting resulted in swallowing a few of those bugs, after forgetting to close my mouth from the huffing and puffing of the previous hill.  Just more protein for the ride, I suppose…gulp. 

  I had several near-death experiences, too – not for me but for the tourists who thought it would be a good idea to just split apart at the last second, leaving me just enough room for my handlebars and none for a pillow of space a newbie biker needs.  I made it, though, injury and secondary manslaughter charge-free.

  Grocery shopping is always quite a big thing for me.  It’s big in the sense that I get very excited about perusing shelves of ingredients with endless possibilities for new meals and in the sense that it takes me about a thousand years to do it.  Ben literally has to steer me, dragging my feet, toward the exit when we’re in big supermarkets.  Grocery shopping at the Eigg shop is definitely on a smaller scale, but it’s pleasant, nonetheless.  I finally decided on my purchases and meal for the night, attempting to keep in mind that I would have to carry my groceries home on my back but not doing very well.  Catching up with those islanders I had yet to see earlier in the week, I wasn’t surprised that it would be nearly dinnertime when I made it back to the bothy. 

  I started back, only to stop a few more times for visits, but, again, no injuries were incurred and only a few bugs were eaten.  One of the visits happened when I pulled my metal horse over for a quick browse at the Swap Shop, which is a little building near the school where people trade unwanted items for someone else’s previously unwanted item, hence the name.  I was looking for something specific, which is never a good start to a Swap Shop perusal, but I just happened to find it this time: a bizarrely floral, silky house robe that slunk right out of the ‘70s and would have settled well onto the shoulders of my grandmother.  No, no, I haven’t had a sudden yearning to return to an era I never even existed in.  And, no, Ben doesn’t fancy having his soon-to-be new bride swan around in a kaleidoscope of a robe on his honeymoon.  What I needed was material for a pretty bag for my brand-spanking-new, promises-it-will-last-forever, saffron-colored (or just plain yellowy orange, if you must) yoga mat.  And I found it.  Whoop!  The wacky thing even came with a multi-colored strap.  I was doing a happy dance that made the chipped tea cups blush in embarrassment for me, when my friends pulled into the lot.  You can imagine my mortification when I realized I had no choice but to come out and greet them holding my outrageous find.  I couldn’t risk stuffing it under the nearest pile – what if someone else swooped in and stole my treasure – someone with quirky panache and an obsession with disco music?  No, I did the only thing I could do – I hurried out the door and tried to distract them with enthusiastic hugs while I tossed my robe over my bike seat.  Silky material doesn’t like to stay put, however, and blaring ‘70s colors don’t like to be inconspicuous.  Therefore, I felt my stomach drop as the silly clothing slid to the pavement and my friends’ eyes darted to see what I would have to claim.  I thought about laughing it off as a wicked outfit for that retro party I was planning but just hadn’t gotten around to telling them about.  I also thought about lying through my teeth with some made-up story of a distant Aunt Bertie coming to visit soon and who had a habit of lying around the house naked, so a house robe was sure to do the trick for encouraging a small amount of modesty.  These were ill-constructed plans of escape, though, since social etiquette would demand that I follow through with the mentioned retro party idea, and there are a million and one things to do with the house and my summer besides a party filled with wigs and disco balls.  The Aunt Bertie thing would have been equally, if not more humiliating to mention, besides the fact that no such Aunt Bertie exists, and, when you’ve just moved to an island with 80 to 90 people inhabiting it, gossip spreads and eventual truths must come out. 

  I could see the grins spreading across my friends’ faces, so I stuttered out the truth of my search for the perfect yoga mat bag material, but it was too late.  The robe was too loud and glorious in its beam of tackiness for them to hear me.  Bellowing laughter ensued.  My blush matched that of the mismatched tea cups. 

  Eventually, laughter turned to conversation and further chummy searching for booty – in the pirate sense of the word, of course.  I managed to stuff a Shakespeare play and an old German children’s story translated to English into my engorged backpack, along with my conversation piece, of course.

  Once home, the remainder of the evening consisted of fixing a divine supper of chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes, and gravy out of my favorite cookbook in the world: “The Pioneer Woman Cooks” by Ree Drummond.  I love that woman.  I want to kiss her Kansas cowboy boots every time I serve up one of her lick-the-plate-clean meals.  I suggest you all look up her website and buy her cookbooks right now.  Your tummies will thank me.  Be warned, however.  You might end up with jealous partners.  I’m fairly certain Ben thinks I’d leave him just to follow her around, fanning her with palm fronds in crazed fan style just for one golden word of recipe wisdom every once in a while.  It’s not true, of course, although her cinnamon rolls could push me to that edge…

  With a full belly and a Cheshire cat smile on my face, I rolled myself into bed and fell into sleep in about fifteen seconds flat.  That is where my adventurous middle of the week ended and space for the week’s end and weekend began.

Thursday

  No time like the present for realizing you’re a wordy blabbermouth.  I would have posted all of these separately if: A.) I wouldn’t have been lazy about getting my posts up, and B.) the internet would have chosen a different time to be off for hours on end.  You have my apologies on having the biggest blog post known to man to chisel away at.  With the exception of future internet failures, personal Audra failures, natural disasters, and possibly my upcoming honeymoon, I will be vigilant in posting daily entries, so that there will only be one day’s worth of a ridiculously long blog post, instead of four. 

  Here is where this last day’s entry should truly end, for my main chores of the day have been moving straggling shopping bags out of the hallway, which is boring enough to peel the rest of the paint off of our dresser, playing a game of golf on the beach with Ben, which involves wacking a golf ball down and back with the least number of strokes winning, (water hazards being the Atlantic and sand pits being the entire course), visiting with my very good friend, whose visit stripped away some wedding-planning stress and, thus, allowed me to have the peace of mind to type away in order to fill you all in on my first week on Eigg.

  Staring, bleary-eyed, at the computer screen and having just finished the last of my I-lost-count-several-cups-ago cup of tea, I declare that I must now go to bed.  The clouds are closing in on the peaks of Rum out my window, and sleep is closing in as my spinning head threatens to bring me clattering to the floor.  I’m sure I’ve left you dear readers in no less of a state if you’ve had the patience and fortitude (and perhaps a bit of insanity, you crazy, wonderful people, you!) to read this entire post all in one go.  And, so, I bid you goodnight, so long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, adieu, to you…oh no.  “The Sound of Music” beckons us all to sleep or at least away from our computer screens.  Go on, get off your computers and go into town, even if it’s a pier, and buy the Pioneer Woman’s cookbook…or maybe just bake some cinnamon rolls.  Mmmm… 

Friday

  Some mornings, you wake up knowing all is right in the world and that your day is going to be flawless.  Then, you get out of bed, and that confident smile slides right off your face and lands in a crumbly heap beside your big toe.  This, my friends, was one of those mornings for me.  It started with the wave of nausea rolling around in my stomach as soon as I hoisted myself to our slightly chilly wood floors.  With intent to brush that away to early morning acid buildup or something else on an equally unattractive level, I fired up my trusty laptop, just to get a big, glaring “No internet connection” message bubble up from the corner of my screen, bursting my motivated plans to start the day out with a four-day blog post ripe and ready for all of you.  The internet went off yesterday afternoon, but I just knew, without that first shadow of a doubt, that it would be on this morning.  Ah, the naiveté.  It turns out the entire Northwest of Scotland was out of the pulsating web connections we’ve come so heavily to rely upon. 

  Going through my hygiene routine, I panicked when I felt the texture of my face while applying lotion to it.  My sensitive skin didn’t like either the new atmosphere or the new lotion, and it had decided that sloughing itself off in flakes was the way to go.  I totally could have come up with a better solution for it.  Instead, I mourned as the mirror reflected the angry, red, irritated, peeling state of my complexion – just in time for the weekend.   Feeling the rumble of those dark clouds of foiled plans and frightening appearance gather above my head and still trying to ignore the similar rumble from my pained belly, I tromped upstairs to overcook some oatmeal, lose my appetite for it anyway, read a new wedding magazine that opened the floodgates for further stress, and stare at the broom and washing machine that were both mocking me in my current shirking of domestic duties.  I was already a wreck, and it wasn’t even ten o’clock. 

  I checked the internet again, a habit I would keep up approximately every fifteen minutes for the rest of the day, and shuffled off despairingly toward our laundry basket.  Tomorrow is the big Independence day celebration on Eigg, marked mostly by boatloads of visitors coming over to enjoy the ceilidh and accompanying merriment.  It’s very fun, and it gives all of the islanders a chance to dress up for the occasion.  It also marks the third anniversary of Ben and my meeting, although this year is a bit shy of the actual date.  All in all, it’s something I’m looking forward to.  Ben’s wonderful cousin and his lovely girlfriend from Paris are coming over tomorrow to stay with us, which is both a cause to celebrate but also a cause for my laundry shuffling. 

  Being a young bride-to-be, I have a vision of myself as the perfect domestic goddess (in a voluntary fashion that still upholds my feminist beliefs, of course).  In this dream, I am the host of the century, providing our guests with clean, crisp sheets that practically send bunches of lavender straight to their noses, fresh towels folded with impossible symmetry and placed in the same manner at the foot of their inviting bed, and mouthwatering meals for morning noon and night that I’ve already assembled and typed out menu cards for, leaving blanks for them to fill in anything I’ve possibly forgotten (which I haven’t).  Alright, perhaps that’s going a bit far, but a girl can dream, can’t she?

  Anyway, as I was unenthusiastically stuffing clothes strewn on the floor into my hamper and mindlessly sorting darks from lights, I watched my vision pour into the little laundry detergent black hole, never to be heard from again.  My laundry detergent smells like plain old soap – the kind that doesn’t keep its fresh smelliness for longer than it takes your clothes to dry.  The sheet I was washing for our guests would be stuffed around the thin mattress of our sofa bed before it would be folded up again to save space until they arrived the next day.  The towels would be folded and stacked on the arm of the sofa in a manner Martha Stewart would turn her nose up so wickedly at that she’d possibly get a whiff of that practically fragrance free laundry detergent.  As for that Mary Poppins menu, our guests would be lucky if I managed to keep from breaking any more bowls (which I did earlier in the week), so that they could actually scrounge some Weetabix in the mornings.  It definitely wasn’t looking good for me.

  My stomach ache was turning into a situation I soon would be unable to brush aside, and my mood was worsening.  Ben had gone to the pier to do some work, and his absence was only allowing me to dig myself a deeper pit of angst and frustration. 

  Ben’s dad soon brought the mail, which consisted of a new printer and blank wedding invitations, both ready for action in our ongoing wedding battle plan.  I was quite happy, until I remembered I’d sworn to myself that I would hole up and avoid seeing all people in my current, flaky state.  I blurted out something about my skin having some kind of weird reaction before averting my eyes so I wouldn’t see John inevitably take a peek at whatever I’d drawn attention.  He kindly said I looked just fine to him, but I know he was either lying or hadn’t had a chance to remove the giant horse blinders from his glasses lenses.

  By the time Ben returned, my stomach, skin, and emotional states were on the fritz.  Ben had bought me a chocolate orange from the shop – the kind you break against the table and perfect segments of delicious orange flavored-chocolate open out like a scrumptious flower – so we opted for a break from both of our stresses to sit on the couch with the chocolate and The Hobbit, which we’re reading together.  Before Ben had uttered any words, half a segment of chocolate orange I’d been nibbling began quivering on my lip.  It’s so annoying – starting to cry when you’re eating something.  It always makes me feel like a toddler, but it can’t be helped – the downpour can’t be held back when it’s rainy season. 

  Tears rolled down my cheeks and splashed onto Ben’s shirt, his chest becoming a salty pool.  He held me tightly and stroked my head while I let it all out.  After I’d thoroughly soaked his shirt, he gently asked me what was the matter – he has a good way of knowing when I just need a good cry before inquiring why it’s happening in the first place.  I choked out that I didn’t know and followed my lousy answer with another round of drizzles. 

  Eventually, I managed to stem the flow thanks to some huge Kleenex that can only be found in the Eigg shop, I’m convinced, and Ben gave me several more cuddles.  Wedding planning, attempted housekeeping, and moving thousands of miles from home to a remote Scottish island all in one go give me a right to have a tear or two, I suppose.  They also give me a right to have a hellacious stomach ache and mild bout of leprosy…unwanted, but the right to them.

  One leisurely walk along some of my favorite stretch of beach while smooching each other and enjoying the warmth of the sun brought my mood back around.  Several runs to the bathroom after remembering that Ben had said I might just need to adjust to the water did not really do anything for my mood, except for maybe making me hopeful that it might just be possible to get this out of my system before the ceilidh…with tons of friends, family, hundreds of strangers, and an overcrowded bathroom in the hall that usually runs out of toilet paper long before the ceilidh runs out of steam.

 

 

  I hate to leave you all with that lasting, foul image in your heads, but after getting out of a warm, cleansing shower, I have found that the internet has finally returned!  Therefore, I’m going to post this monstrosity up for you to read at your leisure or to skim through for anything that catches your eyes.  I hope it’s not just my skin or stomach ailments…or my pitiful sinking into Gretel’s goodnight song at the end of yesterday’s entry.  Whatever it is you all get out of this, I hope you are able to follow along with my craziness, getting a little laughter out of my adventures as I delve into island life.  Until tomorrow, I wish you sweet dreams and a morning where your smile stays on your face – your smooth, flake-free face.    

   

Food for Thought...or a Late-Night Sweet Tooth

This is the best-named pub I've ever seen, and it happens to be in Fort William, which is fairly close to us, if you don't count the sixteen miles of ocean between us and the mainland.  This picture has nothing to do with pie, but the Scots do love their pies...and their pubs, so the connection is there.

  My apologies, dear readers, yet again, for my extreme tardiness in gracing this screen with words.  I promise I have not been idle.  Filling a heavy duty, three-inch binder with enough supporting documents for my fiancee visa application to support a three-legged table with two legs missing has been quite a task.  After months of solid work, headaches, and countless, terrifying nightmares in which I find myself completely out of blue paperclips or sealing the UPS box, only to realize that I might have made the cursive "v" in my signature resemble another "r," I am going to mail this monstrosity in at the beginning of the week and do the world's most outrageous happy dance.  Then again, I might just cry...for hours.  The sheer relief I will feel after putting this in the nice UPS man's hands to deliver it straight to New York for me will only be overshadowed by the torture of waiting for the British Consulate's decision.  If only I could send a few good "pretty pleases" to them.  Those "with a chocolate covered, sprinkles encrusted, makes-you-want-to-jump-up-and-launch-yourself-into-that-Ghirardelli-chocolate-display-in-the-sweet-shop-window" kind of cherry on top.  I want to beg them with that form of asking. 

  If they grant me my visa, you had better believe I'll be on a Cloud 9 that even Ghirardelli can't rise to.  For now, though, I've made the decision to go to my much-missed bed, hope for a few solid hours of sleep, and dream about the flawless Table of Contents I have to create tomorrow, before giving that binder the proofreading of its life!  I'll have to make this a short entry, therefore, even though it's a tardy one. 

  I do have a slice of pie to share to make it all up to you.  I somehow managed to actually maintain some creative writing amidst this visa madness, and my first self-published short story is now available on Kindle!  You can buy it even if you don't own a Kindle or e-reader of any sort - just download the free PC application. Here's the link to get my story for $0.99! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007L3D94I
 
  I'm sorry it's not a free slice of pie.  In fact, I'm sorry it's not pie, because I do love pie, but it might be nice reading material for drinking a lovely cup of tea and savoring a nice slice of lemon meringue or sugar cream with.  Just a suggestion. 

  I appreciate all of your support, and I do hope you will all find the time to grab an e-copy of my short story.  Oh!  Ben illustrated the cover for me, by the way.  See, that has to be worth a slice of pecan with french vanilla ice cream on top - and that fantastic cherry. 

Yes

  It has been one amazing year.  It's four days into 2012, and I'm still reeling from 2011.  I have left you in silence, my dear readers, for a month, and I do apologize, but I'm sure you were all just as busy living your lovely lives and lapping up every last drop of the end of the year as I was.  Mmm...it tasted wonderful. 
  Ben flew to Indiana back at the beginning of December, and we've been breathing in evergreens, melting snowflakes on our tongues, singing for figgy pudding, and swimming in pools of eggnog ever since.  Christmas and New Year festivities demanded our attention.  We did manage a few million stops beneath the mistletoe, as well.  On the morning of December 29th, I was lazily enjoying the peace of post-Christmas relaxation and still clad in my pajamas.  My hair was probably a mess, and I'm sure I had pillowcase lines faintly showing on my face.  It didn't matter, though.  Nothing mattered except the vision of Ben down on one knee in front of me as I opened the supposedly forgotten Christmas gift to find a tiny box with a shiny ring blurred in my vision by shocked tears shivering down my cheeks.  Some may think the phrase "Will you marry me?" is one of the most well-known and worn combination of words in our romantic vocabularies, at least as far as movies go.  In that moment, however, when it is actually asked of you, not in jest or cinematic reference, but anxiously and tenderly, it is the most original, profound, and timeless question a human being can utter.  It echoed around in my skull, and made answering seem superfluous.  Tears and kissing  seemed enough of an answer to me, but I did finally manage to let "yes" spill from my lips.  Dodging its way through choked tears, "yes" barely reached Ben's ears in any audible fashion, so I repeated it half an hour later when he asked me (perhaps a bit nervously) if I had an answer for him. 

  Now, here I sit, probably making you all a bit sick on your leftover holiday chocolates with my sickly sweet story.  I'm afraid I'm not going to apologize, though.  I'm relishing this new staring problem I have developed with my left hand, my fancy title of "fiancee," and the gushy wedding planning I get to brashly start.  It might make for a blog entry with a lack of philosophical depth that I do usually enjoy hashing out with you, but I'm banking on the kindness of my readers to allow me the one entry. 

  Our wedding will be in September on the Isle of Eigg, and it's going to be one incredible celebration...as long as it doesn't rain.  In case it does, though, I'll be looking into wedding dress waterproof spray.  We'll be just as married with or without a little Scottish dampness, I suppose.  Stepping down from cloud nine for a wee second, we do have immigration applications to trudge through before we ring those chapel (or beach) bells.  I'll be moving to Scotland, and, for some reason, they want more proof of the legitimacy of your relationship than lovebird cooing and ogling.  Darn. 

  Standing on the coast of our beloved island, gazing at Ben in his kilt, and feeling my heart click into place with his will make it all worth while - even the fingerprinting and countless British government background checks.  :)

Our Story

  A cousin of mine recently said to me, "You'll be glad when you can stop having to be in two places at once, won't you?"  I looked at her in amazement, since she'd said it knowingly and correctly.  She went on, saying, "I bet when you're here physically, you're constantly there mentally and emotionally.  Am I right?" 

  Forgive me, readers.  I'll stop being ambiguous.  My cousin was referring to my constant state of identity and belonging crisis when I'm back in the States but thinking of Scotland.  She was right, too.  I could skip to my current situation and today's not-so-fun research of finding out which British consulate in the States I'll probably end up flying to in order to apply for a fiance visa.  I'll be forced to hold my breath to see if they'll grant me permission to marry and live in the same hemisphere as the love of my life.  Despite the fact that my face will have turned blue at that point, everything will depend upon how well we've prepared, completed our research, can prove we have a legitimate relationship, and, most probably, upon how good of a mood the immigration staff are in at the time we go through our interview.  My life and future hang by that precarious thread. 

  I suppose I've just successfully and somewhat inadvertently started you out there, but I would like to tell you our story from the beginning, if only you'll permit me.  It's a good story.  It's quite romantic and shares many qualities with the fairy tales you all probably believed in when you were children but now have written off as impossible and silly.  Our story is also filled with stress, tears, a love-hate relationship with geography, and decision-making that would frighten Lincoln's statue off of his seat in the Washington Mall.  I'm just warning you.

  Also, I don't expect all of you readers to be interested or care in the slightest, thinking of yourselves as the non-romantic types or as not having time for autobiographies.  I can only ask that you'll realize that my story is one of the beauty of human companionship and the intensity and strength of human commitment in the face of adversity.  I do not claim to be unique - many, MANY others have taken the path I now tread before I ever knew its existence - or my own, for that matter.

  I only ask that you readers will gain from my story at the least some amusement and at the most an understanding of who I am and who we all are.  We humans can endure much more than we think we can.  We can also love like Sleeping Beauty's prince when he hacked through five miles of thorny brambles just to kiss the probably well-chapped lips of a comatose princess - all in the name of love. 

  I don't expect you all to consume my story in a single, gigantic entry, either.  My fingers and your capacities to read would all be numbed to oblivion by that.  Therefore, I'll stretch it out and give it the space it requires.  I'll try to break it up with entries on other topics, too, when the mood hits me or I can hear your screams.

  I'm not going to start it out with this entry, either, since it's already too long and the water in my bath is threatening to extinguish the process of circulation in my body by means of hypothermia.  I just wanted to introduce the idea here, partly to give you all a chance to stretch out and make a pot of tea in preparation for reading my further entries...and partly because I want to.  I'm ready to share it with you.  I hope you'll read it.  If not, though, I hope you'll at least go ahead and make that pot of tea.  It fixes everything.

Homelessness

  I saw a man today.  He was riding a bike.  It wasn't a motorcycle.  It was a bicycle.  He wasn't an athlete.  He was riding the bike because he had to.  He was a homeless man.  I don't know because he was holding a sign or because he was begging for money.  He was doing neither of those.  I know because he had his whole home, his whole life strapped onto that bike - down to some stuffed animal cow strapped onto the back.
 
  I moved over to the other lane so that he would have room to ride on the side of the highway, and I watched as several other people just drove right on by him, blowing the air into his face and threatening to tip his already top-heavy vehicle onto its side.
 
  It made me sad to see a human being with no four walls around him, no security - just everything he owned piled onto two wheels, heading for who-knows-where.  I thought to myself, "Well, at least he's heading south, so that it will be a little warmer in the wintertime, wherever he ends up."

  Thinking about the homeless didn't really occur to me when I was younger.  I'd see people walking along the highway on occasion or sometimes outside of our small town McDonald's, holding cardboard signs and hoping to catch a ride to anywhere-but-here.  Awareness finally hit when, one day, my dad stopped in front of a ragged looking man who was holding one of those signs with black magic marker scrawled across it, and Dad rolled down the window, leaned out, and handed his sandwich to him.  Other than "thank you," no words were said, and I suppose none needed to be.  At the time, though, I was very naive and couldn't understand what my dad had done.  As we pulled away and headed toward home, I looked at him and said, "Daddy, why did you just give that man your lunch?"  My dad told me that he didn't need it, but that man did.  He also told me that you never knew who people were or what they had been through.  My own sandwich grew cold in my lap as a tiny part of what my father had said made some sense to me.  I felt a bit guilty in my warm bed that night, my belly full and my favorite toys close by to protect me from any monsters lurking about in the darkness, just as my family could keep me safe from the monsters of poverty, starvation, and homelessness.

  Now, as I think back to the words of my father, I stop at his description of homeless people's unknown identities.  This makes me wonder: can anyone be homeless?  What does it mean to be homeless?  How can we define "home" in the first place?  I believe that these are secondary questions to a bigger one.  Why do we tend to ignore the homeless?
 
  Those people who just drove right on by that homeless man on the bike probably thought they could speed on by him quickly, leaving both him, and their guilt, on the side of the road with as little injury to themselves as possible.  Just like people who walk by the homeless begging on the sidewalks of cities or the highway edges of smaller towns harden their faces and direct their eyes elsewhere, maybe even feigning a cell phone call or crossing to the other side of the street, in order to escape the burden of helping their less fortunate peers in this life quickly and painlessly.  The guilt doesn't linger as long if people choose to ignore instead of turn down.  To acknowledge or, especially, to actually help is to admit that 'home' can be taken away - that our security in this life is quite fragile.  The answer to that bigger question then leads to those secondary ones. 

  "Home" means different things to people.  Songs, quotations, cliches, etc. all try to define it.  For me, I think "home" isn't the physical structure, and maybe it's not even "where the heart is," as much as my hopeless romantic self would like to believe that it is.  Maybe "home" is just that feeling of safety and security.  Maybe that means that "home" is much more temporary than we humans would like to believe.  In that case, anyone, at any time, can be homeless, even if it's not as obvious as being forced to live under a bridge or shake a Styrofoam cup.  Frankly, that's quite frightening to me.

  I think that we all have a lot more in common with that homeless man on the bike than we think.  Perhaps that means it's time for people to stop crossing to the other side of the street just to avoid the guilt that comes with turning down a desperate person's plea for some change.  Myself included in this.  I know that the argument that every person can't afford to give money to every homeless one isn't wrong.  I am well aware of the arguments revealing suspicion that not all homeless are, in fact, homeless, and that maybe it would be possible for some homeless to get jobs to support themselves.  I am not denying that all of these arguments exist and that some have validity.  I am simply putting forth the idea that to ignore the homeless is to ignore the fact that we could all be in the same situation.  We could all be homeless.  Maybe offering one tiny shred of security and safety to those homeless individuals could provide a home for them - temporary, but lasting in the reality of showing a little bit of humanity.  Maybe even if it's only in the form of a handful of coins or a lane change.

The Music of Life

  I was watching the sun rise this morning, listening to the beautiful music of an Irish singer and flute player, and I thought about the power that music has.  Ben and I are both musical, (although he is much more faithful to his practicing and performing than I am!), and Eigg has an incredible music culture.  In fact, music is what brought Ben and me together, since our fated first meeting was at the 12th of June ceilidh (pronounced: kay-lee): a dance/party with both traditional and modern music and dancing that celebrates the Eigg islanders' independence day.  In 1997, the islanders bought the island from a very oppressive landlord, so Eigg now belongs to the islanders.  The yearly celebration is, therefore, filled with shared memories, happy visitors, and endless music.  That music remains a huge part of our lives during every other day of the year, as well.  Even in France this summer, Ben and I experienced the magic of music. 

  We were driving back to Ben's aunt's and uncle's house in Buze but decided to stop at a little church that Wina said had perfect acoustics.  Wina, Ben, and I walked inside after seeing that a van was parked outside with the name of some professional choral organization on the side of it.  Once inside, we found a nice couple, and Wina, (through pointing and broken French), asked the woman if she were from the organization.  We found out that she was, so Wina asked if she would sing for us.  She shyly agreed and walked to the front of the stone chapel.  She sang the most haunting tune I have ever heard in my entire life.  It was more than breathtaking.  It was music that could both give breath and take it away.  It was music as music was meant to be.  It was the spirit of music, and I witnessed music's soul.

  The chapel had been built hundreds of years ago, but the builders had known what they were doing.  The stone ceiling curved into a pointed arch that echoed in the most magnificent way.  Every inch of the building was filled with sound.  I had thought about videotaping her song, but the moment was too perfect to record.  I knew that I needed to simply be present and record that memory forever within me.

  When the singer's last note had faded, absorbed into those old stone walls for eternity, we stood in awed silence, then came to our senses and applauded and thanked her profusely.  I never meant "merci" more than at that moment in France.  I looked over at Wina and saw tears in her eyes.  I didn't blame her.  My heart, too, had been lain bare by that music, and the sounds reverberated through my entire being - raw with emotion. 

  I will never forget that pure beauty, and I will always feel so fortunate to have heard it.  Music is such an amazing, powerful entity that has lived for all of history.  As I and those stones saw in that ancient chapel in the French countryside, it continues to live agelessly in any place and at any time - even in the genorosity of a talented stranger to some oblivious travellers taking a detour.