Life stories

Saturday 18th June 2022 Sometimes I look at my life as an outsider and I am amazed. How did this all happen? This scared girl who couldn't get rid of her fear to travel on her own as a 21 year old for her gap year, yet here I am. I was in the same city that I turned 21 in this morning and I deliberately walked from my brother's house to the station.  Not a long walk but my first, on Scottish soil. The birthplace that I have some affinity with yet still feel like an outsider in.  I recognised the streets of Glasgow and didn't need to use my GPS. Walking is a great physical way to process things. The sights are easier to visually absorb and the smells stimulate hidden memories.  The weather was sunny and cheerful,  cold and sunny then dark, wet and gloomy and back to full on sunshine.  A life metaphor that is possibly helping my physical body to assimilate my path until now.

The train trip had me smiling,  grimacing (at loud passengers) gasping at the streams and lochs, the mountains reminded me that nature is unreliable and mysterious.  I usually am able to verbalise my emotions and writing is my tool. But there is do much going on, beneath my surface and in such rapid flashes that my words can't keep up. Perhaps they aren't meant to.

My journey of life has been like the Highlands of Scotland,  the intensity of Johannesburg and the starkness of the Karoo. Full of Heather, water, Highland coos, buzz, running, cake, heat, glare thorns, windmills, unicorns and dogs...and I wouldn't change a thing.