Stirling and the Glasgow Boys

"FREEDOM!" yell the school boys on the count of three from atop the tower. "FREEDOM!" rings the cry far above the fields of Stirling. Mel Gibson couldn't have done it with more enthusiasm.

We are all crowding the top deck of Wallace Monument in Stirling, celebrating, reliving--and on their part, re-enacting--the story of William Wallace, Braveheart of Scotland, whose father, brother-in-law, and wife were murdered in massacres by the English.

Wallace spent the rest of his life fighting for Scotland's independence, leading rebels against Edward I, winning a definitive and infamous battle at Stirling Bridge (visible from this vantage point), invading northern England to send food back to Scotland, losing roundly at Falkirk, and then being betrayed into custody by a friend. He was driven 17 days to London strapped to the belly of a horse, sentenced without trial for murder, arson, and pillaging, and finally, on August 23, 1305, dragged through the streets by a horse, strangled, disemboweled, quartered, and sent to four corners of England and Scotland as warning against further insurgency.

It didn't work.

Although Wallace was, as the Munchkins would say, "not only merely dead, [but] really most sincerely dead," Robert the Bruce (there he is, again) rose up to take the throne, and Scotland won its independence in the years that followed.

Wallace Monument is a Victorian achievement, one of many celebrations of Wallace throughout Scotland. From its highest level, nearly 200 feet up, we oversee all of Stirling, Stirling Bridge, The Trossachs and Ben Lomond. The University of Stirling, too.

From this site, Wallace was said to have run down a hill and ambushed the English in a particularly bloody and definitive fight. The story has fired the imagination of the third graders who have clamored up the 246 spiral steps to this viewpoint, hence the cries.

Stirling was a good side trip today. I bused alone to the Wallace Monument, then talked to a young man from Portugal and two traveling buddies from Idaho and Atlanta on the way back to town.

I meandered toward Stirling Castle via the back roads, along the old town wall where an engraved stone plaque honors Robert Spittal, "Taylor to King James the Fourth," for erecting a hospital for the "relief of decayed tradesmen." I came upon (I shouldn't be surprised by now) a cemetery near the castle, from which I listened to a warm-up session for a James Blunt charity concert that's being set up in the castle's bailey. The high-tech amphitheater looked like something dropped in from the Puyallup Fair.

A few young boys tried to climb the wall to watch, and the youngest tyke got stuck halfway up and cried for help. A Scot I was talking with came to the rescue from the cemetery grass.

The castle was under scaffolding, pretty much closed off for the afternoon because of police escort for the evening's concert, and I felt no need to tour it. The grounds provided a lovely view of the Wallace tower in the distance, though.

I took the early evening train home and had the pleasure of whiling the night away with the Glasgow Boys (my name for them), some writer friends of Cynthia's, a gal I know from a writer's group in Olympia. She's lived in Glasgow and was closely connected to this writer's group, many of whom have published science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories.

My main contact point, Neil, and I had spent a couple of emails and text messages to arrange a meeting at 8pm Wetherspoons pub on Sauchiehall St. The others floated in and left as they needed to--Al, Craig, Mike, and Duncan--all seasoned writers and as gold as they come for making a gal feel welcome.

I had expected to visit maybe an hour or two, but the conversation hadn't ebbed even three hours in. This evening tested my ability to follow the notoriously difficult Glaswegian accent--all of the UK jokes about it, and I can see why: it's like trying to follow rapid-fire slurring. We had a good laugh every time I didn't get something and we nattered over the nuances of British, Scottish, and American vocabulary as only a tableful of writers can.

The talk waxed and waned over writing, beers, world fantasy conferences, readership, the why's of writing, bands (Neil plays in one), America, Glasgow, movies, the Glaswegian sense humor, the mental models by which we view the world and read books, how each of us approaches writing and why we do it...on and on.

We closed the place down at midnight, and Al and Neil walked me up the hill to the hotel, where we stood under the stars at the bottom of the steps and talked some more, until I got too cold to stay outdoors. We said goodnight near 1am, and I retreated to my room's warmth, happy to meet people who also feel, and follow, the compulsion to write, no matter what.

I had told Al and Neil about my grapplings with Sigil, that long-term, won't-let-me-go novel that I'm getting clear direction about finishing even though I'm feeling daunted and unconfident about doing so.

I don't have a bunch of plots and characters rattling around inside me to get out and into print. I don't have a shelf full of novels or short stories waiting to be told. I'm not that kind of writer, and I don't want to be.

Nor do I want continue to spend all my energy helping businesses reach their markets, or peddle their products, or explain their processes. I'm skilled at that, yes. But I'm an essayist at heart. I do best with short stints like these blogs, sent out to the world to say, "This is me. I am here."

I question: Do I really want to write, once I've let go of defining myself as a writer by trade, one who collects other people's thoughts and talks to their customers? What is my true passion of creation? Sculpting. Mud. Mess. Stories in clay, as well as in words. Animals and animal husbandry. Building but not crafting. Probably lots more that I'm still finding out.

Only this one tale is inside me. Alec's tale--my own tale. Written as I would write it, given structure as I would give it. Putting it out to the world without defending it, explaining it, or letting go of the core truth that's there. Making it available to those who are meant to find it when they're ready, and letting it have whatever life it's going to have as part of my own lifetime here.

Tonight, after talking to the Glasgow Boys, I felt seen and heard and supported and inspired no matter what I choose to do with it next.

On to Glasgow

It may be my mood these past two days, but Glasgow doesn't particularly light my bulb for an inspiring place to be. A busy M road bisects it into workaday east and posh west, and even though it has two main pedestrian-only streets on the east side, I can't seem to get far walking the area. It’s like there's some Acme Marketing Magnet that keeps sucking me back to Sauchiehall ("Socky hall") and Buchanan Streets--full of their mega department stores, salons, mobile phone stores, pharmacists, high-priced restaurants, jewelry shops, boutique stores, and shopping malls. The thoroughfares are packed with weekend shoppers.

I arrived on Saturday by two-hour train from Dumfries, moving through a low ceiling of clouds--soft gray, shadowing the fields. The train's vibration set up a very loud, deep harmonic that hurt my ears. A deer bounded through an unmown field, but the grass was so high all I could see was its brown back bouncing in and out of waving green.

The hotel I'm at here, McLays Guest House, has little merit beyond its location about a mile from both train stations and a few blocks from the Glasgow School of Art. The interior is serviceable enough, but it feels old and shabby, like a dowager who has aged poorly and is trying not to show it. The breakfast room is crowded with so many tables and chairs that getting to the cereal and coffee areas takes dexterous maneuvering, several apologies, and walking sideways. That's the view from my third-floor room. Most of the buildings on this street looked like this.

A few blocks from the hotel is a small U-shaped laundromat, which I welcomed after a week of hand-washing in sinks. Pay the grocer next door £3 for a funny-shaped token for the washer--a silver medallion with two opposite sides cut straight--and take your chances with the dryers for 20p for ten minutes.

I've been to two movies here so far. The Glasgow Film Centre is close to the hotel and has the charm of a small, local theatre that has been lovingly refurbished. Went to see The Wind That Shakes The Barley my first night here, and walked out half an hour into the film--no plot beyond English and Irish killing each other in brutal shootouts in the 1920s, with not much effort to hook me into the characters. I didn't want to stomach the rest of it. The man and woman I walked over in order to leave my seat were surprised I was going.

The second show was an American film, Thank You For Smoking. I found the satire wickedly funny, but the rest of the audience didn't seem to get it, or perhaps Glaswegians prefer not to laugh out loud. I overheard one young woman ask her boyfriend, "Who's Jimmy Stewart?," clearly missing the allusions of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. But, then, most younger American audiences wouldn't get that, either.

The anti-smoking campaign in the plot seemed out of place here, too, since all cigarette packages in the UK are marked in red with phrases like SMOKING KILLS in words that take up half the package. And Scotland has just passed a country-wide no-smoking-in-public law, which is sending some smokers to distraction. We just passed a similar ordinance in Washington state, and it's already meeting with lots of flak.

I came too late for a folk festival that ends this weekend, but I like the humor and art that is all around Glasgow. Even a parking garage becomes a canvas for interesting metal sculpture.

My tour of the Glasgow School of Art on Sunday was given by one of the students at the school. This is one of the many buildings Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed in Glasgow. Alas, no photos allowed. Mackintosh is a native-son architect who practically defined the Art Nouveau style. He was working in the same time period as Frank Lloyd Wright, and their styles may have fed off each other. The rooms are an odd mixture of nature and geometry, of symmetry and asymmetry.

Mackintosh's famously simple rose pattern has grown on me. I've seen it a lot since entering Scotland, for the country is celebrating a 100th anniversary of Mackintosh this year. The Art Nouveau theme is in a lot of jewelry. And of course it's on everything in Glasgow from coasters to picture frames and aprons. I finished most of my souvenir shopping at the school's gift shop.


Took high tea at the Willow Tea Room, also designed by Mackintosh and renovated in that style during the 1980s. I like the fact that he created a unique design for each client--no one has the same thing, and the furnishings are easy to identify for where they came from because of it.

Glasgow does have some good dining places. My first dinner here was at Anduluza, a Spanish tapas restaurant. Good food, and very crowded--I ate at the bar in order to eat there at all. Reservations definitely recommended.

Will watch what I can of the football game today--England v Equador in round 2 of the World Cup. Whoever wins this one continues on; losers go home. England's been playing pretty badly in the last two games...they look out of their league against some of the other teams I've seen.

(England made it: 1-0.)