The Hills, the Views and the Cats

The sun rising over the hill lights up the snowy landscape making it gleam like a mirror. I'm reminded of our last Christmas, a White Christmas and the last time that Mama was here at Cottarton. We were eleven around the Christmas Eve table; luckily the snow didn't keep anyone away. One morning, while she lay in her bed, she saw Cocia Renia (Cocia means Aunt in Polish), walk by on her way to the bathroom.
Mama asked , “Who’s that old woman I saw?”

“Cocia Renia.”

“Oh, then I must look old, like that.”

These days unfortunately we can no longer have such a fluent conversation. Her stroke has affected her ability to form words. But we do communicate. She's always overjoyed when Amber or I appear in the ward room. Amber introduces herself as, "Your best Presbyterian daughter in law." Mama always asks where we came from, as if we'd dropped from the moon. She'll say a word or two that I can make out; her eyes ask the question. Often she has to try a couple of tries before I understand.

“You’re asking where I live?”

She nods.

“Cottarton --- you’ve been there.”

Her eyes look puzzled; they ask me to explain.

“It’s the house in the hills, with the beautiful views and the cats.”

Her smile indicates that she’s made the connection. She asks again, trying to form a couple of words. At first I don't reply but she can tell from my look that I don’t understand. After a couple more attempts, I realize that she’s asking about Johanna and Natalia. Do I have any news from them? I begin by recapping that they live in London and about what they do for a living. Natalia has an upcoming concert of Handel’s Messiah. Johanna is enjoying her work at the British Library. She has a boyfriend. The girls call often to ask about their grandmother.

Mama smiles, a crooked smile where the right side is lower than the left but quite endearing. Her broadest smile is reserved for Natasha, when she runs into the room and flings her arms around her Cocia’s neck. The past five years Agata and her daughter, Natasha have lived with Mama and cared for her The three have grown close as blood family. Twice a day, at mealtimes, Agata is at the hospital. Yesterday she trudged for two hours through kneehigh snow to get there. She feeds Mama, spoon by spoon, a process that sometimes takes two hours. Mama must be reminded what to do with each bite. That it must be swallowed. The process doesn’t always work, and for Mama it's often exhausting. But it’s the only way to feed her.

That's on a good day. Last week when I was there, Mama slept the entire time, a deep comatose sleep that lasted 48 hours. But when I held her hand, her fingers tightened about mine. For two days she was out. Phones buzzed between Cottarton, Scone and Edinburgh. We waited. Wondered if her turn meant that she was in a terminal process. Then Mama woke up and asked for breakfast. She greeted Agata and Natasha with a smile, then asked what the fuss was all about. Can’t she go home yet? Why not? Her Consultant (the doctor who takes care of her) shakes his head, telling us he doesn’t know what to make of Mama’s condition. Her brain, shot through with Alzheimers has only limited regenerative ability to deal with the effects of the stroke. She may never speak as before, or be able to feed herself. But he admits that he doesn’t have a prognosis.

Mama has surprised us before. Like many women who lived through the war years in Poland, she emerged tough as nails. She’s not about to give up. Over the past couple of years she received the Last Rites at least ten times. Every time we think we’re about to lose her, she’s back, asking for breakfast.

A few days after her last stroke, I told her that Amber, presently in the States, was coming home early to be with her. Mama laughed. She mumbled out more clearly than usual: “Does she think I’m about to keel over?”

The Day after Tomorrow

So, there’s this action movie playing in the neighborhood, where the Atlantic freezes over as a result of climate change, the Statue of Liberty is encased in ice, and Scotland disappears under a mountain of snow. Unfortunately the theatre where it’s playing, is our back yard. The first sprinkle was on November 22, then came Apocalypse Now . A dump like this, in November, hasn’t been seen for 20 years.













Just in case some of you try to accuse me of fraud, of using snow pictures from last year create a sensational blog that will make a lot of money, I'm including a picture of our garage. The green doors were painted last summer. So Amber and I are back in our snow routine. The car, with its snow tyres is parked at the end of our access road. The fridge is stocked. Anticipating this show, I planted long garden stakes to mark where to dig up carrots, leeks, turnips and parsnips. No more digging exploratory trenches to look for vegetables, thank you very much. I’ve also inserted a post in the garage to shore up the roof.

The weathermen point to their charts, incomprehensible except to the expert. They reckon that the Atlantic Jet Stream somehow lost its way, and doesn’t know where to find it. And so the frigid weather in Poland and Scandinavia has wandered over to the UK, to help find the lost Jet Stream. Actually, last April, Professor Lockwood, a climatologist at Reading University published a paper in which he warned us that this would happen. That it is linked with a period of very low sunspot activity. Here's the article.
Low solar activity link to cold UK winters
Climatologists have long recognized that the solar cycle affects our climate. Sceptics of man made global warming seized on this factoid like pit-bulls and won’t let it go, saying, "Our climate change is all the sun's doing, so tighten up folks and keep driving your cars." However solar variability cannot explain the Earth’s temperature --- still rising, or Greenland's melting glaciers. What Lockwood and others showed is that the solar cycle can explain changes in local weather patterns, such as the position of the Jet Stream. So, while Scotland shivers, the Spanish and Italians are baking. Even places in Greenland today have highs of 8 Celcius. Looks like the Scots drew the short straw of global warming effects.

Because of the sun’s role in our climate, I regularly check out solar activity. The website Spaceweather.com shows the latest pictures of sunspots, solar flares, and spectacular movies of the Northern Lights.Even comets. Lately solar activity is picking up and the sun is putting on a show for anyone who is looking. This also gives me hope that, if Lockwood is right, the coming winters won’t be as severe as last winter. But we may have to plough through one more.

As Mark Twain remarked, “Everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it.” So what next, now that the Day After Tomorrow is here?














We keep the house warm, the fire roaring in the fireplace and look out over our austere landscape. And we write, without the distraction of shopping or joy riding in the outer world. I like to take snow walks down our road. We rarely meet any vehicles. The white landscape contains an unearthly silence that belongs to another order than ours. Years ago on a business trip to Calgary, I tried to capture the sensation in this poem.

WHITENESS

Is not information.
Information is time, knowledge, the computer.
Our information age of
Where, what, why, how and when.
Words we value most.

But whiteness is the other.
It blinds your earthly eyes.
Buries under its cloak
All knowledge, information and memories.
And in its silence you discover
Earth and the deep sky’s ornament.
Certainty - and a vision of how things are.

A Scottish Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving: Messy, Complicated, Forgiving, Sentimental and Pecan Pie with loads of Whipped Cream.

While I celebrate my fifth year wedding anniversary in Scotland, Americans dish up turkey and dressing, sweet potato pie and green bean casserole. This is Thanksgiving week. A harvest festival: a week to be grateful for family and friends, football, Black Friday and Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Even those who are less fortunate can queue up at the local shelter and enjoy a meal fit for a king. But in the average American kitchen this week, you can count on sheer pandemonium. Men and women who normally microwave their supper will wake before sunrise, to chop endless piles of onions and celery for cornbread stuffing, oyster stuffing, sage stuffing, chestnut stuffing; it depends on what part of the country you boast before happily getting on to the next project of more endless piles of chopping for yet another Thanksgiving favorite. Do you stuff the turkey, bag the turkey, baste the turkey, deep fry the turkey or simply order it from Central Market (if your roots are Houstonian)? There is much to organize on this popular American holiday, from how many pies to prepare to what time the feast is served to who will drive Aunt Jess and Uncle Nick home.

It’s not always easy being affluent. It has its shadow side, like loneliness and families who are fractured and so deeply wounded they must have two Thanksgiving feasts because of a history of pride and poor choices. (As is the case in my family: sadly, it's what we, the older generation, bequeathed to our children, my son, my nieces and nephews; it's their legacy).

I think it’s important to remember these ugly bits about the holidays because it gives such potency, such poetry to gratitude. Most of you reading this blog already know my family history and its unflattering tales and most of you will remember that in spite of this my mother and I and my son, Zach, actually managed some very pleasant, in fact memorable Thanksgiving moments together. Of course, on the other side of town were the rest of her family, her son and his wife and their children, her grandchildren celebrating without us; the shadow of Thanksgiving.

We simply gorge ourselves on this feast and even take another plate from the table to the den to watch football, when not far from this bounty, more food than is found in some small, under developed villages more than their population could consume in a week is the awareness that we eat and they eat less.

These are the polarities of life, the light and the dark, the old and the young, the sick and the healthy, the happy and the sad, the wounded and the new born of all our lives that bring us together in concert at Thanksgiving.















In the far northeast of Scotland last week, where the gale force winds hold you sideways and the sky casts a muted light, Adam, my nephew, came to visit. We didn’t celebrate a national holiday together, we just celebrated being with each other. We cooked and laughed and engaged in polite debate: the British way. Nothing escaped us, not religion, abortion, spirituality, psychology, the dying and the newly born, our immediate family members and their children and our respective trips back to the States, we covered much ground.

Adam and Paul played music to entertain the chef by and I must say we ate like Royalty, maybe better than. In this pre-Anniversary week, I was completely conscious of the goodness at the table here at Cottarton: the goodness of the people, their kindness and their generosity, the spirited conversations and the unreserved laughter – it was all here and yet…

I know what loneliness is: I know loneliness in a most intimate way and because I know, my gratitude for the family I do have and for the loving relationships active in my life, I am so very thankful this Thanksgiving season.

To paraphrase Joseph Campbell: “It doesn’t matter what seat I’m in at the opera, I’m just so grateful to see the show.”

At this American Thanksgiving Table, this season, don’t forget to pass a little shadow along with the cranberry sauce.

Kinnoull Hill

Kinnoull Hill has been part of my life since early childhood. Its tall cliff face surmounted by a small tower looks over the River Tay, and dominates the Perth skyline. The first time I climbed to the top, my father held onto me, as I was determined to walk right up to the sheer edge and watch the world drop away into nothingness. The winter of 1963 Munia, Jim and I sledded down the slope facing Perth. Though not a sheer drop, the slope is steep enough to generate enough speed to bring your heart into your mouth.

Whenever Amber and I visit the old nest in Scone, we try to fit in a walk up the Hill. There’s something unearthly about the place. It feels like a temple, a place of magical power, more majestic than anything built by human hands. Though the Hill is not a tall mountain, it makes you feel small, coming face to face with something vast; not unlike the sensation that may arise when you stand at the foot of a Giant Sequoia. There’s rarely a time after a climb up the hill when I don’t feel refreshed and ready to take on the world. On the Hill daily troubles and concerns retreat to where they appear paltry.

On the summit, there’s no barrier to prevent anyone from jumping over the cliff, and some people have. There’s only a wooden sign that reads, “Dangerous Cliffs.” Unlike the United State, Scotland doesn’t have serious litigation problems. If you want to take your life, nobody is going to stop you.















I’ve long felt that such a place has many stories to tell, and I set myself the task of uncovering them. The small tower, known as the Folly, was erected in the 19th century by the fifth Earl of Kinnoull, who wanted replicate the castles he saw overlooking the Rhine. Built as a ruin the tower never had any other practical purpose. According to some sources the hill was the site of an earlier castle, long gone by the twelfth century, however the site has never been excavated.

Less generally known are the early legends, about a dragon that, back in the sixth century, had his lair in a cave below the summit. True to his nature, he slaughtered cattle and abducted beautiful girls. Supposedly he was slain by the Christian saint. St. Serf. I say supposedly, because what’s more telling is that the dragon was consecrated to Belinus, the Celtic sun god. The great festival of Belinus is Beltane that is celebrated on May 1, one of the two main Celtic festivals, the other being Samhain --- or Halloween. On Beltane, people celebrated the birth of the sun, with fires, dances and debauchery. Even all marriage vows were suspended for one day. Beltane was celebrated on Kinnoull in a small hollow below the summit called Windy Cowl, a place reputed to have of multiple echoes and eerie sounds. Finally in the sixteenth century the Scottish Kirk, declaring Beltane to be mostly frequented by papist monks and other unsavoury characters, put an end to the fun.

I wasn’t surprised to hear that a dragon is associated with the Hill, as the dragon appears frequently in British mythology. He’s often called “The worm”. Many places whose names contain the phrase “worm” or “orm” are named after a local dragon.

The following site, Mysterious Britain, contains links to many British dragon stories.

I suspect that the dragon’s legendary wickedness is as undeserved as the big bad wolf’s rapacious reputation, and is more a result of the attempts of monks and priests to Christianise the old religion of Britain. In China, where there was no attempt to suppress the early beliefs, the dragon is a benign force --- celebrated with song and dance. The great worm appears to represent overwhelming power that we have no control over, often disruptive like a gale storm or earthquake that periodically changes our lives. If we're religous or spiritual, we might attribute that power to a deity or deities. Long ago that power was believed to reside in prominent physical features of the land: mountains, caves, or a stone circle such as Stonehenge.

Kinnoull Hill is such a place. Its dragon also bore the distinguishing feature of a stone in the centre of its forehead. Whoever possessed the stone would himself have the power of the dragon, including the gift of invisibility. Back in the seventeenth century a certain James Keddie found the stone in the cave. For a while he enjoyed being invisible; playing pranks on his friends, but he eventually lost the stone, and it hasn’t surfaced since. Perhaps it’s in a cave, waiting for Bilbo Baggins to drop by.

Today we inhabit a different world. Dragons and magical stones of invisibility belong to the world of fable; we’re most comfortable relegating fables to Halloween or Harry Potter movies. Ours is a rational world that values working a job, no matter how humdrum, and making money. We imagine that we’re in control and that we don’t need to propitiate any deities. I’m not sure that we are in control. Life has its way of dealing us the unexpected. Nor can we dismiss what the dragon stands for --- an awesome power that makes itself felt in our psyche, whether we invite it or not.

Take a climb up the hill and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Wayside Cafe

Off the A96, a few miles from Inverurie you’ll find the quintessential Scottish honky-tonk housed in a single-decker bus parked permanently in a small lay-by. There are always several cars parked there, testifying that people do frequent the bus. Whenever Amber and I whizzed down the road from Aberdeen toward Cottarton, we’d notice an official road sign pointing right, saying, “Hot Food”. As if this was the last chance to eat before you headed off into the bare hills, where the only residents are sheep. We’re not great fans of local eating establishments. They're genuine but sparse. In a Huntly cafe, if you inadvisedly order a cappuccino, they serve you a cup of --- get it, “instant cappuccino.” To make the coffee appear Italian, the waiter cups a hand about his lips and makes fake cappuccino sounds. In an Inverurie café, the waiter froths your milk, then adds drip coffee to it, and calls it a cappuccino. Toto, somehow I don’t think we’re in Italy any more. So, when we stopped by Roy’s Bus, as it’s locally known, we didn’t try to order cappuccino. Amber had just got off a transatlantic flight from Houston. Her nerves were shot. She doesn’t pretend to be anything but the most nervous flyer. We were looking for something to help her feel the ground under her feet.














The Bus, analogous to Doctor Who’s Tardis, is a bus on the outside and a café on the inside with two rows of tables and chairs. Space is distorted so that the bus’s inside feels much larger than its outside. Several other customers were there; the waitress moved rapidly taking orders and delivering them. We ordered coffee --- no European funny business please --- and she brought us a cup of hearty, brewed coffee. Couldn’t have tasted better. Jerked us both awake. Then came the Scottish Breakfast, comprising of fried eggs, bacon, ham sausage, black pudding, baked beans and a fried tomato. Perhaps in such a charming place with windows on every side,giving us a 360 degree view, the food tasted especially good. I savoured every bite. The Scots are unpretentious about their food. They don’t try to compete with chefs from other countries. What they cook, they cook well, whether haggis, soups, breakfast, savoury pies, stovies or fish and chips. Scots are good with simple meat dishes. If you want healthy, organic meat or fish, there’s plenty of it here. Local butchers will sell you meat, derived from animals and farms that they know well. In Aberdeen you can buy fish that comes straight from the docks. For most people, eating out is not as common as in the States. Home cooking is preferred, partly because restaurants tend to be expensive, and most people feel that their home cooking tastes better. Plus, there’s the ambiance of a warm home, and the home table that’s special.

Roy’s Bus is special, a true wayside café for travellers on their way somewhere else, and who want something more than to gulp down a pre-packaged sandwich and a bag of potato crisps, all the time with one hand on the wheel. It’s definitely a place to relax, and to hang out. Local kids call the bus, “The Hangover Bus” because it’s a good first stop on Sunday mornings, to cure the hangover from a Saturday night blow-out. One local said he liked to sit there with his coffee and do research. Others study for exams. I can’t think of a better place to write. You’ll meet every character you might want to put into a story. I think I’ll start my next novel there.

Flying

Do you ever fly in your dreams? Like the woman in the picture? Like Superman with your arms stretched out? It’s good to find that ability when, in the midst of a nightmare, you’re in a tight spot, pursued by baddies or demons. In such situations your legs are usually not much use, so the only way to escape is to fly away. Sometimes you just skim the surface of the land, and at other times you soar above the trees. It depends on the lightness or weight of your heart. The places you visit are likely to be unfamiliar as a temple in Papua New Guinea, or a shanty town in an unnamed country. Curiously, on your journey you meet people you hadn’t seen for a while, but who know you very well.


















The evening Gabriella Nissen invited us to her photographic studio in the Heights had its special magic, because we found ourselves surrounded by friends we hadn’t seen in three years --- Quin and Gabriella, Chris, Pat and Jim. Shirley had just flown in from LA to see us. I met Quin over twenty years earlier. We canoed together and worked with a group that was trying to establish a Waldorf School in Houston. We picked up conversations where we’d left off, as if no time had passed. We drank dark beer and ate the mythological Star Pizza. Gabriella’s images added to the dreamlike quality of the evening. They contain movement, often dramatic and expressing deep emotion, such as the photos of Dominic Walsch from the Houston Ballet. Some recent images were for fashion magazines, such as the flying woman; she had mastered the force of gravity; the watery element too. There she is sleeping underwater. The studio also contains Quin’s wood art, such as the bench carved out of a single cedar. Every whorl and knot in the grain stands out, emphasizing that this is an object carved out of a living thing.














What did we talk about? Things we all felt passionate about. Our art, as many of us are artists, whether we use images, words or wood. Politics cast its shadow too. With election not far off, the Country stood at the edge of a precipice. We felt that many opportunities had been missed because of fear. Fear is the force of gravity that prevents us from flying. Adds weight to our hearts. Despite the insanity of politicians, bankers and the powers that be, we knew that we had each other, our lives and our vision. If we allowed ourselves, we could fly like the woman in Gabriella’s picture.

The real world broke in --- the watch, that pocket dictator, told Amber and I that we had to drive off soon so we would reach Tomball before our friends went to bed. And so, awkwardly we had to get up, say our good-byes, at least for now. We might see each other again, but that moment in the studio was over. Walking back to our car felt like coming down to Earth, landing, the inevitable waking that follows any dream.

Wolf Talk

Perhaps you’ve seen wolves, in a sanctuary or at least on a TV documentary. But did you ever hear them talk? The wolves we saw at the St. Francis sanctuary in Montgomery, Texas, appeared at first to be large dogs, but upon a closer look their eyes were nothing like a dog’s. You sensed an intelligence behind them, that the wolf studied you closely, reading your mood and your character. It knew more about your feelings and impulses than you knew yourself.

They talk to each other. Listening closely to their howling, you soon realize that there’s an elaborate conversation going on. Each cry contains, words, vowels and consonants strung together in a way that’s not haphazard. As in our conversations, the wolves aren’t talking at once. First one calls out, a long drawn howl modulated; more like a song with words. Another wolf responds, but using different words and then a third. You’d swear that they’re having an elaborate conversation. No doubt you’ve heard a dog howl at the moon, but not like this. Unfortunately we've no Rosetta Stone to help us understand that the animals are saying. We can only surmise.


















I’ve known Jean LeFevre for almost twenty years. She and her husband John settled on the rolling hills near Montgomery about the time I moved to Houston. They built a church and a retreat centre there. Also a wildlife sanctuary to take care of sick or wounded wild animals that people brought to them. Among their patients, there soon appeared several wolves, brought often by police or rangers. Now that they are in the sanctuary, the wolves can no longer be released into the wild. But --- do they have a bad life being fed and cared for by Jean and her volunteers? Click on the link for a look at the cast of characters.

St Francis Sanctuary

I last saw the wolves five years ago and since then they’ve been one of my passions, to the extent that I recently wrote an entire novel around their lives. On this visit to Texas, while Amber reconnected with her family, I needed to reconnect with the wolves.














Duchess wasn’t happy to see Jean that day. I’ve no idea why Duchess was so displeased, but the moment that Jean drew close to her cage, the wolf bared her teeth and threw herself against the wire. Not only did she utter a medley of snarls, typical of a mad dog, but she spoke to Jean in a dark voice, words that only a magician could decipher, telling Jean precisely why she was angry with her. The antics didn’t fluster Jean in the slightest. She placed her hand on the chain link fence, inserted a couple of fingers and wagged them in Duchess's face, not only to try to calm her down, but to demonstrate that she wasn’t afraid. Anyone else would have ended up minus a couple of fingers. Placing her lips close to the wolf’s head, Jean spoke in English, telling Duchess that she was sorry for the misunderstanding, and that she would always take care of her. Duchess snorted, pushed away from the fence to land on fours and trotted off. A minute later she had forgotten the episode. I surmised that her anger was specifically directed at Jean because when I whistled to her she smiled at me. I wanted to greet her. She was barely a pup when I met her on my earlier visit and she had been extremely friendly to me then. I told her I was pleased to see her again. She walked over to me, looked me over closely and said she was happy to see me too.