Skye-Isle of Cloud

It would be hard for me to tell how many treasures I have found at the Goodwill store in Fayetteville.A paperback,"The Hills Is Lonely" was there the other day for $1.50.It is selling new for $138.64 on Amazon.When I flipped through the book, I saw Hebrides and I put it in my cart..

It tells the story of a woman who left London in the 60s to find some peace and arrived in a terrible storm to a Scottish island in the Hebrides where she rented a room.I cannot wait to dip into her adventure having found myself on two such islands a few years ago.Mull and Skye,picked out of a travel book ,became our home when we went to Scotland in 2010.

Perhaps, I picked Syke because of the Skye Boat Song whose title I have known my whole life.I found it on "youtube" and it's lilting melody haunts.It tells the story of the sailors taking Bonnie Prince Charles away from the killing fields of Culloden to the safety of Skye.They were the brave and those who would capture them hadn't the courage to set off in chase, in the wild, roaring seas of Skye.
                                   
                                   " Speed bonnie boat ,like a bird on the wing,
                                                  onward the sailors cry.
                                        Carry the lad that's born to be king,
                                                   over the sea to Skye".


The B&B on this island was at the end of  the street where the bus left us,having come over a bridge from the mainland .It was late in the day and the train/bus trip had left us exhausted.We dragged our bags up the lane and knocked.A smiling, silver haired man let us in and showed us to our second floor room.I teared up when I looked out the bay window that was behind the bed.There in the distance was the swirling sea,whitecaps,mountains.Just an enchanting view that I still see in my mind.

To the North, viewed from another window ,was the ruin of a castle on a hill above a bay. My husband wanted to take another bus to tour the island but I wanted to just walk around Skye and write in my journal.He went off hiking to the castle and I sat in a small park by the water to absorb the smells and sights of this green place.

Within moments, a plump grey and white long haired cat jumped in my lap and we cuddled against the cold wind.That sweet warm visitor stayed with me in my reverie until it started to rain and I had to go back to our room.On our day of leaving,we were waiting at the sheltered bus stop ,when I saw her across the road.I called her and she dashed over to once again share a bench with me.

I have never been so affected; I just loved that cat.She lives on a magic island in a mystical land.

I need a little color

The winter sky is grey and sullen; the tree trunks are a perfect match.I love the symmetry of tree branches against the sky.A web of lacy figures.But this gloom makes me want to stuff my small backpack and head further South,like to the Tropics.

My pack will be heavy with T.S. Eliot's poems,Edith Wharton's "Ethan Frome"and pistachios.Dark chocolate,the scriptures and my grey journal that has a plastic pocket in the front for flowers and ferns.I will walk there unafraid and talk to strangers that I meet.The cold will be a memory.

In 1891, Gauguin left Europe disgusted with his penury and the general failure of any interest in his art.He found his home in the islands and his painting took on a whole life of its own.And grand it is.

What must it be like to turn your back on everything that is familiar and lead your own life.Take what you know about painting and strike out on a new course.Who has that kind of courage?There is a price to pay.Gauguin was a few months away from going to jail,and suffered from syphilis and alcoholism when he died at 52 of dissipation.Maybe, I'll just enlarge his painting and sit with it for awhile.Join me?

windows

The red brick house where I lived as a child was built in 1940.The winters in New York are as cold as the ones in Michigan and the windows in our house were small and ill placed.Small, to contain the heat in the bitter cold and God knows why there was no cross ventilation in the steamy summer.There was no such thing as bay windows or sliding glass doors or french doors.No one had them.So this was a tight,gloomy ship that we sailed on.

I could not live in that house now.The house we have here in Georgia has windows everywhere and what was missing when we moved in has been added.A large window over the tub, another by the bathroom door and a third in this room which looks over the back yard.Everywhere that I turn, I can see trees.

I have always had this thing for windows.Perhaps it is from the Irish gene pool.Until 1880, the Irish were taxed by the number and size of the windows in the houses they owned.There was also a tax on the size ,height and number of doors.Of course, the poorer peasants had to limit the number and size of their windows and doors or they couldn't pay their taxes.Most of the cabins where they lived were smoky and dark.The poor called this policy "daylight robbery".My ancestors who arrived in the U.S.in
1848 ,were listed on the ship's log as farmers so I am sure that they fit the category described.

One politician in 1819, in an attempt to abolish it, described the health issues that were injurious to the poor such as the spread of typhus.Sadly, the ancestor that left Cork in 1848,died in New York City in 1853 of that disease.

Anyway, windows draw me and I found a beautiful,inspiring one while in N.C.It is a photo of an old chapel window found in Iona,Scotland.I would like to sit by this window and feel the peace of it.