The Paps Are Alive to the Sound of Music

Got up at 6:20am to plan today’s walk to Barnhill and have an earlier breakfast so I could catch the 8:05 bus to its northernmost point, Ardlussa, which is about six miles from Barnhill. Gwen makes only two runs a day during summer, unless by special appointment.

I ducked into a garden for a photo of some lovely prayer flags catching the breeze, then headed north on the narrow lane. I was soon accosted by a handful of very friendly orange cows who probably would have come up for pets on their very wet noses had I not gently edged them away over a ditch so I could pass.


The road to Barnhill is paved, then graveled, before it degenerates for the last four miles to a rugged road that only a 4x4 with new shocks has any business going over. The view is endless grasses in all directions (green at this time of year), with occasional glimpses of deer and the Sound of Jura and the mainland of Scotland beyond. The UK has so much coastal land, yet most of it is completely undeveloped. In America, houses would be crawling over every hillside in an attempt to claim their part of the water view. Certainly that’s what it feels like in California and most of the west coast.

Barnhill is famous for having been George Orwell’s home while he wrote 1984 in the Forties. It’s a pilgrimage site for diehard literary fans, but the place is a private residence and closed to the public, which tends to dampen the effect of bragging rights. It’s the white house in this photo.


For me, going to Barnhill was a chance to try out a long-distance walk—12+ miles in preparation for the coast to coast walk in two weeks. I covered it in 6.5 hours, including 45 minutes for lunch and another 50 dallying for photos, breaks, and rests.

On the way back, I sang—loudly. Only the hills and grasses and heath birds could hear, so I really belted. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (while it was raining), “Memories” (loads of ’em), “Magic All Around Me” (which was absolutely true), “This Is the Moment” (and it was)—lots from the repertoire I created while I was learning from Scott. I felt totally happy and in love with life, and the four miles of rocky road went by in just over an hour.

Arrived back at Ardlussa in time for a siesta waiting for the bus, and enjoyed the banter with Gwen and another rider as Gwen delivered milk and bread and forgotten sunglasses to residents and pointed out landmarks such as “her” viewpoint (a section of road that friends cleared of trees so she could enjoy an unobstructed view of Loch Tarbert on her daily runs).

I felt very tired when I got back, so I showered and napped before walking into town for my last supper at the Jura Hotel—leek and potato soup, haddock with cheese, mushrooms, and shrimp, and the Craighouse Special for dessert: toffee ice cream, bananas, butterscotch, and whipped cream. Thoroughly replenished in the fuel department.

I have found that the most deeply affecting parts of this trip are also the ones most difficult to record. Tomorrow I leave Jura, and I feel both sad and glad. I saw the guestbook waiting for me to sign at The Manse and felt tears spring to my eyes—this has been the best stay of the trip so far. I’ve felt fully received as family at The Manse. Being able to learn about the island’s unique culture from Ani, to sit with her friends over tea, to share personal time (and laundry duties) with my B&B hosts, and to get out in nature in ways I never have before—they have all created an experience that surpasses all others to date.

As fearful as I was to come to a place where there’s “nothing to do and nowhere to go,” I’ve been rewarded for following my intuition. I’ve cracked open parts of me that I once barely sensed were there. To attempt to put them into words is as pointless as it is difficult. This has been a deeply internal process, at a subconscious level, to grant me a new kind of self-poise and balance.

I discovered solitude and its joys. Clarity and its patient ways. Resiliency and its reservoir of optimism that keeps affirming my body, my mind, my spirit’s ability to meet each day, each challenge as it comes.

Today it doesn’t matter if I’m alone or with other people. I am as I am, walking this planet along with millions of others who are here to experience this world.

Until now, I didn’t ever feel as if I truly owned my life. I get that now. I have infinite choice available to me, all of it good, all of it okay, all of it safe.

What will I choose next for this life that is mine?

Ghosts, Gardens, and Guests

Slept poorly last night thanks to a headache that moved from the left side of my forehead to across my skullcap. I think it’s from the exertion in the heat yesterday. This body has never taken well to the high temperature + exercise combo deal, and a headache and a day’s recovery time aren’t unusual. I need to get back to drinking a liter of water a day, instead of all these liters of tea.

I put a load of laundry into Margaret’s washer this morning, and have spent the past hour reading in bed. National Geographic, Aug ’05 edition. About alternative energy sources, cave paintings in Indonesia, Brazil’s wet time of year.

The hand soap here is from Avon and scented as Jasmine/Exotic Rose. It smells like Sandra and the comforts of home. I feel loved every time I use it.

I don’t quite tiptoe around rooms, but I don’t like to make a lot of noise in the B&Bs I stay in. Even ringing the bell for attention at the Jura Hotel pub took me several times to feel comfortable about. This is old stuff, outmoded ways of living in which I’m supposed to be quiet, not a bother, not intrusive on my host’s privacy. At all the B&Bs I’ve visited so far, I’ve been the sole guest or eating breakfast alone. I don’t like that form of solitude—I feel self-conscious being the only patron, although I do like having the bathroom to myself at any time of day. George and Margaret tell me that having only one guest for a few nights has been a relief after being solidly booked for the past week or so, which sets my mind at ease. I’m less worried about interrupting their routine as I tromp in and out all day long.

George and Margaret have invited me to join them to hear a singing group that comes once a year to Jura. They’re performing at noon at the Jura House gardens, a place I wanted to visit but hadn’t quite figured out how to get to miles down the road. I feel like one of the family, being included in their outing this way.


In the meantime, I spent a somewhat rainy morning visiting Keils cemetery, about half a mile from The Manse. It has an older and newer section, with a famous marker of the purportedly oldest person on the island buried there—a 180-year-old man who died in 1645! At the opposite end of this spectrum is the body of a fetus, buried here a few years ago by the child’s unwed young mother. George officiated that one; I could hear the grief in his voice as he talked of that ceremony.

In the older part of the cemetery, I came upon a large, fading tombstone that read, “In Memory of Jenny, daughter of John McPhail Tenant in Knockrom, who died the 8 August 1835 aged 3 years & 1 month.” A smaller stone in front of it said, “MARION, 11th Oct 1907.”

I stood at Jenny’s grave and suddenly felt weak-kneed and nauseated. I sat down and bile rose in my throat. A golden-haired girl, died of fever. A story comes. Her work, undone, to ride the sea lions and seals in the bay. She flings her arms around its neck, dives and collects fish and shells. They rise together, she comes up laughing and dry. They swim to the small islands in the bay, she astride the seal’s back. She collects pebbles, strings them together, tosses them into the air. They return to the ground as jeweled necklaces. She returns and gives them to her father so he can buy his own croft and no longer be a tenant.

I mentally calculated—3 years, 1 month old. Today could very well have been her birthday, July 6, 1832, 178 years ago. Happy Birthday, Jenny.

I stopped at Jura’s parish church to look over the island’s photo gallery, hoping to find some information on Jenny’s family. Alas, the oldest pictures date back only to the 1850s. One shows the cemetery as it looked around Jenny’s era. There’s another of the McPhails of Lealt—the wedding of Angus McPhail and Mary McColl, 1854; they had seven children, who all moved away from Jura as adults. I wonder at their relationship to John McPhail and his young daughter whose bones lie beneath that stone.





Went to the wee beach that’s across from The Manse and found some interesting shells and stones and the white husk of a crab that’s barely half an inch long. It kept blowing off my hand when I tried to photograph it.

The visit to the Jura House with George and Margaret (shown here in the garden) was like entering a little Eden under overcast skies. It has a wonderful walled garden that’s overgrown and lush—and, amazingly, tended by only two people. They sell many plants and seeds there. It was like the Lost Gardens of Heligan all stuffed into a few acres. We walked quite a ways through a shaded wood to reach the heart of the garden and the famed “tea tent” where they sell tea and homemade baked goods and gifts during summer.

We went to hear a “harmony” concert—a group of a capella singers who sing songs in Gaelic and African and other languages. The setting was exquisite. We were at a wooden table beside a seven-foot tall flowering plant whose sweet fragrance kept filling my nose as the voices filled my ears. Little birds—siskins, robins, and others—darted among the branches and took scone crumbs from my fingers in midflight. Bees buzzed the flowers. I felt like we were listening to the beginning of Will Vinton’s Mountain Music, when all the music that people make is in harmony with birdsong and forest growth.

I was getting tired of eating only at the Jura Hotel, so when we got back, I went into town to buy dinner at the Spar, but found little to select from for premade meals. They heated up a frozen cheese and ham toastie for me, and I added an apple and a yogurt and picnicked on a cement wall overlooking the tiny harbor outside the store.

Took the mile+ walk back to the B&B for the seventh time, at least, since coming here, and I am still seeing new things all the time. The swans were closer on the beaches, their little gray cygnets poking their beaks into sand beneath the algae and kelp shallows. I missed the otters again this evening at the river near The Manse; I think I came home too late.

A new guest arrived at The Manse tonight—George had said someone was coming on Thursday—and to my surprise I recognized the voice booming from the room next to mine. It was Geoff, the biologist I met at the Inveraray hostel.

When I heard him talking to George, I was pleased; then I caught myself circling my room, unsettled, wondering how to announce my presence, wishing my hair were clean and tidy. I laughed at myself. Calmed down. Forgot about the hair. Finished gathering my freshly brewed cup of tea and Perry’s computer parts, which I was already collecting to take downstairs, then headed out the door, deciding then and there to stop to say hello, instead of scampering by, trying not to get noticed and hoping I would be anyway.

He was surprised to see me. George left us to chat—me leaning against the banister with my tea, Geoff in his room, leaning back against the wall. We exchanged stories about getting here, and he asked if I wanted a lift into town for dinner at the hotel. I declined, having already eaten and being ready to work on organizing my journals for the first time in a week. I felt fine with this choice, knowing it was right for me, and was actually glad I had no energy about either staying or going in his company. He’s here on more hunts for red- and black-necked divers, leaving tomorrow after he checks out his 5k square plot of land near the ferry dock.

Right now it’s 8pm and the sky is still very bright. Even when I wake at 2:30am, the sky is so light that I can’t see stars. A dull orange glow in the east is Glasgow—sheesh, it’s miles and miles away. I’ve watched early morning sunrises glow pink on the water.

Both sky and water are gray right now. The midges have been OK today—the two sprays I’ve been using have kept them from biting. The product of choice from everyone I’ve asked is Avon’s Skin So Soft moisturizer. It really works.

The highland cows are moving around in the field tonight. They’re here for grazing only—the manse rents the field out. One of the cows is very pregnant, but Margaret says they’re not sure when she’ll pop. She was bred twice, and by her size should already be due. But if the calf isn’t born soon, it will be a September baby, which would coincide with the timing of the second breeding attempt.

I like everyone I’ve met on the island so far. This is a place where people wave from their cars as they pass me on the road, and almost everyone smiles and says hello when I approach. Even the grocer at the Spar has been amenable and gruffly humorous.

As Christine said over tea in her kitchen two days ago: “It all depends on what you put out to the world. You get it back.”

I like what I’ve been getting back here on Jura.

The True Skinny on Dipping

One of the more popular things to do on Jura is walk. The island has several marked trails, an annual run (yes, run) up the Paps, and, from what I’ve heard, some very interesting caves and coastlines, especially on the west and northwest sides. Right now, I’m on the east side of the island, and have found out from George how to get to the secluded Market Loch, four or so miles from town.

I left The Manse at 9:15a, stopped at the Spar for an apple and Snickers bar to supplement my lunch, and found the trail to Market Loch easily from the main road out of town. The trail used to go through a shady plantation of fir and pine trees, but most of the land was recently harvested, so the path is exposed logging road much of the way.


And it’s hot today, with the sun beating down on areas with very little shade. The hillsides are still strewn with the debris of clearcutting—splintered wood, brackish ditches, sawn-off tree trunks, empty fuel and oil cans, fern trying to grow amidst the jumble of leftover limbs and branches. Where it tracks along the edge of a gorge toward a skinny waterfall, the trail turns into real footpath that goes uncomfortably close to the cliff before veering off into a half mile mass of waist-high fern.

The map showed that before I got to the gorge, I’d pass the Stones of the Glen—one of the many sets of standing stones on Jura and in the UK. Only one stone was still standing, with four fallen nearby. All were six to seven feet long, granite, narrow like needles. The standing stone had a thin edge that pointed straight toward a distant hill toward the northeast. The map shows a cairn on that hill. Are these two sites related? I got out my compass; the edge points about 25 degrees off magnetic north. The location of magnetic north changes slightly each year. Was the leading edge of this stone dead-on magnetic north at the time it was set into the ground ages ago?

Shortly before I reached the loch at 11:15, I spotted someone else leaving it—the same man in black that I’d seen take a different logging path earlier in the day. I was glad to have the place to myself, and wondered how he had made such good time ahead of me. Must have been a shortcut over the heathered hills. I saw no trail in the direction where he went.


I ate some lunch—peanut butter on crackers and the apple—and gathered the nerve to strip down for some skinny dipping in the lake. I’d never done that before, being usually too bashful of someone coming upon me unawares, and then fearful of their snitching my clothing from the bank and leaving me high and drip-drying.

Lake swimming wasn’t really in my childhood repertoire, either. I grew up near ocean beaches in San Diego, and my few school-based lakeside camping experiences were miserable affairs of water and teenage cliques that were both too cold for my comfort.

True to form, it did take me some time to work my way into this chilly loch, slowly walking in on smooth stones that hurt my feet to stand on, and easing down until I was neck-deep in dark yellow water. My body looked like it was encased in amber, the water was so brackish with peat. No stink, though, and the temperature was alternately warm, then cold as the current shifted. Amazing that this water ends up so clear by the time it reaches the distillery miles away. Many of the rocks deeper in had thick plant life growing on them. They were like walking on a long shag carpet that has lots of padding underneath. Soft and comfy and easy to stand on as I treaded water.

I swam out a little, thankful again for the time my Grandma spent teaching me how to swim at the TraveLodge pool in Hawaii when I was nine. Her brother had drowned as a teenager, and although Grandma didn’t swim, either, she made sure I knew how to dive for pennies and do the crawl all the way across the pool.

Today I was without makeshift water wings, though, and I didn’t go very far from shore for fear of getting tired too far from the bank. I stayed long enough to commune with flies hovering over the water, just missed a fish jumping up to grab one, then returned to the upholstered rocks to get out and get dressed and bask on a boulder to dry. The warmth from the rock seeped into my buttocks, even though the sun kept ducking behind cloud cover to leave me shivering.

This end of the loch has been edged with concrete berms, a small aggregate concrete pad, and stones stuck together with cement. While the cement was still wet on the rock wall, someone had written, “Will ye nae come back again?” I liked the Scottishness of that invitation.

It was very quiet at the loch. I heard the light lap of wind-ruffled water against a stone, the bomber buzz of a fly, the whine-up of a mosquito, the baa of a sheep practically invisible on the high hill to the right. A splash of a fish jumping up from the loch, the twitter of a bird coming over the crest, the muffled tapping of my stylus on Perry, the lift of wind as is passed my ears.

Beyond all that, stillness. Creation recreating itself all around me, silence begetting silence.

At last I gathered my gear and climbed the hillocks at the south of the lake to see the water views and how far I’d walked today. No trails here, just clamber over the heather and rocks as best—and as non-invasively—as I could. The sun was strong again, and I was already sweating off the memory of the cool swim.

I walked back to The Manse, cleaned up for another walk into town for supper, and while heading home for the last time today watched a seal sitting on a near-shore rock. He looked around, raised and lowered his tail, scratched his face with a fin, then looked around some more. Two herons were out this evening, big gray ones. They flew away with big, swooping, heavy wing-beats that glided one along the shoreline and the other away over the water.

I’m proud of myself for living today the way I did, for breaking through tiny inhibitions that I used to hide behind. I stopped to say hello to Christine and Catriona at their garden in the morning, got the grumpy grocer at the Spar to smile on my way out of town, and tried new things like hiking four miles to swim naked in a loch. I got a good workout, climbed a small mountain, ate well, napped well, accepted a last-minute lift into town to dinner, accepted a ginger beer from a party of four after I gave them the table I was at, watched a sea lion on its rock, and pretty much won the war of the midges.

Yep. A full day.

I am very much liking this stillness of life, sitting and watching the world reveal itself to me, having it teach me. I stop thinking and figuring and naming and identifying. I begin absorbing, taking in, accepting, knowing, claiming my own readiness for anything.

Not “Why?” Not “How?” But, “What now?”

Today, this is the essence of Being. It’s a state I want to practice more.

Surprise. Jura isn’t nearly as scary as I’d expected.

Getting to Know Jura

I spent last night at Glenmora, Mrs. Logan’s house that’s halfway between the A846, the only road on Jura, and Keils cemetery, one of several cemeteries on Jura. Mrs. Logan’s is one of the few newly built homes here, finished a few months ago. It’s specifically designed for B&B service. My cozy en suite room, plush bed, and personally cooked breakfast were particularly welcoming after a week of shared space at the Inveraray hostel.

This morning I moved into the second lodging for this island stay: The Manse B&B down the road. Most homes in the UK are named and they often reflect their former purpose—The Old Schoolhouse, The Old Brewery, The Forge, etc. I was surprised, then, to discover that The Manse is not only a still-functioning home of the island’s pastor (“Baptist flavor with Pentecostal influence”), but that the pastor and his wife were my hosts!


Because I arrived on a day when they had no other guests, I got to select between two rooms. I accepted the larger one—a twin and double bed, sofa to sit on, more spacious overall. It has throw blankets for cozying up on the bed, and biscuits with tea. I like that. Margaret and George are the proprietors. The view overlooks the water at the east and promises some lovely sunrises.

Took a leisurely walk into town a little after noon and watched an oystercatcher pick at something in the wavelets. It got done and sauntered away with an air of utter contentment. If an oystercatcher had chops, it would have been licking them. I went to see what had occupied its time. A crab almost as wide as my palm was exposed on the sand, its body neatly flipped open like a compact, all legs still attached to the bottom half. Every bit of flesh in the dish—the part that none of us eat because it’s so unpalatable—was gone.

A wander around a tidal beach uncovered a large spiral shell about 2.5 inches long. A break was in its side, as if the shell had been dropped to get its owner out. I counted the ridges on the spirals—57. Do ridges on spirals indicate age for a sea critter, like trees and their rings?

I met Ani—the Tibetan Buddhist nun directly responsible for my side trip to Jura—and her granddaughter, Lauren, for lunch at the pub at Jura Hotel, the only place to eat out on the island. My venison burger was local red deer. I enjoyed being in Ani’s company again; she’s grounded, gentle, direct, dry-witted, inspiring.

I stopped after lunch into the Jura distillery across the street, where I sampled the Superstition smoked barley whiskey and got two mini bottles, a little bigger than the size they serve on airplanes.

I had planned to bus to Ardlussa to see the north end of the island, and then bus back this evening, but Ani met a friend in town, and we went to visit him and his wife instead. Lauren and I walked back to town to the only store—the Spar—for milk and bread and ice cream sandwiches.

The Spar is compact, functional, and cramped, with waist-high freezers in the center of the store for frozen foods and ice cream, ceiling-high shelves for canned and boxed goods, a stack of produce bins with sad-looking fruit and vegetables, and a standing glass-front refrigerator for meats and cheeses. A narrow staircase at the back leads to an attic shopping space full of hardware, stationery, maps, gardening tools, and other sundries. I almost got locked in there last night when I inadvertently shopped at the store right before closing.

I fell into line at the grocery counter behind a slender, unshaven, unbathed, unlaundered old man who was wobbly on his pegs. He was buying a quart of whiskey, a super-size can of beer, and a box of 100 cigarette tubes that had spilled on the counter. These are cigarettes without any tobacco, just filters attached to paper tubes. A hundred for 99p. It requires a special machine to stuff them. The young female clerk was collecting the tubes and repacking them in the box, trying not to crush them. The old man took his beer and booty on credit, and I breathed fresher air once he was gone.

“A short but cheerful life” proclaimed a lady waiting behind us, with a nod toward the old fellow through the door. Indeed.

When Lauren and I got back to the Rob’s house, we sat in the kitchen for tea with Rob’s wife, Christine, and their two dogs, a chocolate lab named Brea and a collie/something mix named Sophie. We talked and talked and laughed and talked some more when Ani and Rob and Christine’s daughter, Catriona, joined us with her fiancé, Willie. Christine’s daughter is getting married in August and Ani is doing the flowers.

Christine drove us to the north end of the island, giving me a tour of the island. It took almost an hour to get there from Craighouse. Although the road on Jura is an “A” road—what would often be a very busy highway on the UK mainland—here it’s barely a single lane with occasional pullouts for passing. It’s potholed, cracked, winding, and bumpy, and driven at least twice a day by Gwen in her minivan bus. Many homes are far from town, and many islanders don’t have cars, so Gwen also delivers milk and bread Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and groceries Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

Christine gave a wonderful personal commentary of the island, including a bit about the area called the Tarbert, a thin spit of land over which ships were once dragged to get them from one side of the island to another. For all its land (about 29 miles by 7 at its longest and narrowest points), Jura has only five or six landowners, and it’s still a layered tenancy.

Some of the coves and bays are owned by the Asters (as in The Asters), and some archaic rules of inheritance are still in force—for instance, precluding children from inheriting unless they’re married or have a son. As recently as a generation ago, landowners could walk into a tenant’s kitchen with no “by your leave” and lift the lid from a pot to check if the food inside had been poached from the land.



The views, however, are spectacular. Red deer wander the wilds, and we saw several small herds on the way back. It’s stag hunting season now. The waters are calm this time of year, but Christine says the weather can be ferocious in other seasons.

Everyone I’ve met here knows about blogs—and some of the folks have wifi in their home. Jura is the most out-of-the-way place I’ve been yet on this trip, and they’re the most Internet-savvy people I’ve met. Go figure.

Inward Bound to Jura

1. Inveraray 1100 #926 bus to Kennecraig, arrive 1215.
2. Kennecraig 1300 ferry to Islay (EYE la), arrive 1505.
3. Islay 1515 ferry to Jura, arrive 1520.
4. Jura minibus with Gwen, arriving around 1615 at Craighouse, the only town on Jura.
5. Walk to Mrs. Logan's house a quarter mile from where the bus drops me off.

Looks simple enough on paper.

I wrote to Sandra and Vince this morning telling them I feel a little scared to be facing four days, five nights with nothing to do and nowhere to go on Jura. Sitting, walking, watching the world. Being. That's all.

Yesterday, to do that for an hour or two made my stomach go funny. Nauseated. The thought of it now does, too.


Yet as I stand on the deck of the Hebridean Isles ferry and watch the stern drop down to seal in the vehicles below, I know I'm also ready for whatever comes. Why be afraid? All of my time and life before this moment has prepared me for this moment. And I'm not even on Jura yet. This moment alone is what I'm prepared for--to feel the fear, to let it pass through, to come out the other side.

I think fear has been a habit for me. When I fear a task, I really fear that I'm not adequate, not ready, not up to it. I fear that by saying "yes" to something I'm not sure I can do, I'm misrepresenting my true Self to others, pretending to be someone I'm not. But that's really impossible to do--my true Self can do anything she sets out to do.

I stand with other passengers at the front of the ferry and watch our progress to Islay. The wind is cold and strong. A flag on the bow whips and snaps. I snug my windbreaker around me.

What would happen if I never wrote another word for someone else to read? Never took another photo for others to view? Never came Back?

Probably not a lot. People might talk about me. They might not. I don't really have to have a reason to do anything. I don't need to explain why why why anymore. I only need to know what...what's my next move? And then trust and do it.

I wander into the cafeteria to order a lunch of curry chicken and rice and giggle over the onboard Insect-O-Cutor in the galley. Across the dining room, a couple tries to deal with their screeching offspring. I've been astonished at how little I've been bothered by kids and infants on this trip. Wailing babies, crying children, tantrum tots, pre-teens on a rampage--I watch them with tolerance now instead of impatience. Therapy has done good things for me...given me the chance to receive that which I begrudged all other children whom I came across before.

I watch the Paps of Jura, three smooth mounds of granite, get larger as we pull through the channel between Islay and Jura to dock the big boat on Islay. The Jura ferry begins to motor over from the west, looking and sounding like a rubber-band-powered toy boat BbbbBbbbbBbbb-ing across the water. I wait for the five cars to drive on--they fill up her deck--and then walk onto the platform alongside the day's mailbag and two other foot passengers with their rolling luggage and backpack. The engine roars up, smoke churns out, and the metal deck vibrates beneath my feet.

My questions today: Who am I? What did I come here to be or do?

And the answer comes: It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter which way you turn, which way you go. You'll always end up right where you're supposed to be. Leave. Go. Stay. It doesn't matter, so long as you're still following your Self. Stand by your Self. That's what's important. That's what you need to tend to. Do things "by your Self." As in next to your Self, guided only by your Self. It's OK to do this trip by your Self. Be alone or not alone as times and events dictate. But definitely always be "by" your Self.

I've been afraid to go inside on this trip. To meet my Self that way.

Fear not. Your Self loves you, is Love itself. Step into the Void. Self awaits with loving, open arms.

I've been afraid of this before.

Yes. Are you ready this time?

Yes. I'm ready this time.

Then let Me introduce you.

The little ferry Eileen Dhiura chugs to the dock at Jura, and Gwen with her minibus are waiting.

InverNausea

I am sitting on a bench at Inveraray park overlooking the mudflats. It is 9:35am. The sun is shining. I watch a pot-bellied man in white T-shirt, blue jeans, and olive-green waders search for clams. He looks down at the seaweed-covered mud, carries a white plastic pail with no handle; the inside is yellowed, as if it's seen a lot of clams in its day. Every so often he pauses to kick a pitchfork into the sand, lever up a pile of mud, sift through it, do it again. Nothing. I watch him for half an hour.

Pigeons pick at the seaweed. Seagulls skim around, bob in the water, drop shells on the rocks to break them open. Two herons stand in the shallows. Sunshine beats down on me. I lay back on the bench and nap.

11:00--the church bells chime. I sit up. The tide has come in about 20 feet. Still lots of mud.

I slept poorly last night--too hot in our room. There are the same three other girls from the large group; one of whom seems to have spent much of yesterday in bed and seemed to have no intention of getting up this morning. The room is stuffy and it stinks of bad breath and sleep. Got up in the middle of the night to move the curtains aside for some hope of airflow. Propping the door open lets in too much light from the hall, right onto the face of my upper bunk mate. I'm hoping they leave today, but they don't seem to be. I plan to go back this afternoon to try to air out the room.

I've been wishing lately for a place that offers a comfortable lounge for spreading out in. I don't like being cooped up in a bottom bunk, and the travel paraphernalia of four women can't help but ooze over most of the floor space in the small room. The dining room is OK for projects like postcards and scrapbooking, but not for comfortable reading, and the tiny alcove with the Internet computer has an uncomfortably hard sofa--no squishy padding and pillows to settle into with a good book.

I'm feeling very tired today. As if lots of healing is going on and I need to rest. Not interested in shopping or eating or sightseeing or walking. Have my paints with me, and not interested in them, either. Just want to keep sleeping. The herons have left.

I nap on the bench for another 10 minutes, wake to watch clouds form. They go slowly. So slowly. I can see them roll and change, but I can hardly stand the stillness of it. I sit up. A heron stands in the water. The sky has filled with clouds.

Sitting quiet like this today brings an almost physical nausea. A billowing belly, discomfort of Being. I fight the urge to get up, to move around, to do. I stay on the bench, choosing to live through this discomfort, see where it goes.

The growing tide has lifted a pair of boats in the harbor. They float at anchor. The water isn't yet affecting the Vital Spark and Inveraray Maritime Museum, two ships that are moored at the quay.

A pair of adolescent jackdaws practice takeoffs and flights from the sea wall near me. They're about two-thirds the size of their parents. They yell for food, a screechy kind of caw. A black-headed tern coasts around.

Lots of motorcycles on the road today. Sunny day, winding road--perfect combo for riding. They roar in over the Aray bridge heading south through town. There's one main road in these parts--a scenic path that follows the coastline much of the way; it makes a loop at the top of the peninsula then becomes a miles-long dead-end road to Campbeltown. An accident my first night here turned fatal for a biker. They closed the road until midnight. People had to sit for hours in parked cars or go the long way around the loop to get to Inverarary.

Just got joined by two German women on the bench. I feel a moment of irritation at the intrusion, then think, Sunny day: the bench is worth sharing. I start a game of Sudoku. They talk for thirteen minutes without stopping. One talks more while the other gives nods and yahs and uh-huhs. They each indicate parts of their feet and shoes. Perhaps discussing travel aches and pains, or fashion footwear. The one nearest me looks at her watch. It is 12:23 by Perry. They stand up and go, still talking. I finish my game of Sudoku in a record, for me, 15:38 minutes. The tide is about one-third in now. Taking my mind off into a game has reduced the nausea. I can't do this Being for more than short stints at a time.

The tide comes in more slowly here than it did over the causeway at St. Michaels. It doesn't stink here like it did at St Michaels, either. There are mud flats, seaweed, etc., but no stench.

The more I look, the more I see. A fat gray and silver-backed fly lands on my trouser leg. Black-and-white oystercatchers, red beaks, red legs. Eight to nine of them cluster twenty feet from the water's creeping edge. One of them pokes among the smooth rocks that are just now getting wet. Swallows flit over the seaweed. It's 12:43. The brick red and rusted hull of the Vital Spark are reflected in smooth water. A gray heron tiptoes through the shallows, one foot, next foot, head tilting at the waters.

What's on the other side of this boredom? Of this vague nausea? What would happen if I tossed my cookies on the beach there? Or at Jura?

I feel afraid to go to Jura. It's a place unpopulated and rural, where there really is nothing to do and nowhere to go except right there, wherever I am. I can barely sit still for an hour here at this park bench. What will happen at Jura?

Inveraray Explorations

"Don't ask Why. Ask What." Hemingway was supposed to have said that. It may become my mantra for the rest of the trip. Or maybe my life.

The "What" I have for these two days has been "What's next? What's happening now?"

I spent some time Friday getting phone numbers and bus info for the Jura stay and found it easy to change plans--always a good sign. The Jura Hotel is booked, but they gave me the names of two B&Bs, and I've pieced together a full five-day stay by using them both. The WWOOFer family in Fort William, Great Glen Chalets, was also fine with my change in plans and can take me in the next week.

During lunch I sat on the seawall at the Inveraray park and fed pigeons, sparrows, a pushy gull, and several jackdaws from my bread roll, then poked around town a little. Decided to walk the mile south to Argyll Adventures, a family-run, family-fun place that advertises horseback riding, indoor laser tag, bungee trampolines, and--my objective--a 7-meter rock-climbing wall. Ever since seeing those girls climbing the wall at Okehampton, I've wanted to try that. And I want to see how different it would be from the tree climb on Wight.

My first adventure of the day happened before I got there. I needed a toilet, so I took a detour to a golf course on the way. Now this golf course isn't your typical American course, with a fancy-schmancy clubhouse and attendants, sports shop, and coffee shop. Access is obscure, the parking lot is gravel, and the clubhouse is a small bungalow of a building with a board on the outside announcing the next local tournaments, all of which occurred last month. Inside is a small paper-littered table, bulletin boards, oddball furnishings, and, hoorah, two bathrooms. No one was around to ask, so I just used the ladies' room.

When I went to leave, however, the bathroom door wouldn't budge. Not an inch. I pushed. It wasn't stuck, it was barricaded. Damn it all, who would block the door? I yelled out--"Hello! I need some help! Anybody there?"

Nuts. I had seen one man head out to the course with his clubs, and the parking lot had had very few cars. Hollering wasn't likely to rouse a response. But who would block the door anyway, and why? Had someone seen me go in and deliberately stopped my departure? I suddenly felt very aware that I was a woman traveling alone, and I didn't like it.

I wanted out. I wanted out now. I shoved on the door and got it a few inches open. A bench. Someone had placed a six-foot long bench against the wall, wedging it between the door and a table at the end of the room. What kind of perverse universal timing would make someone happen to block a door within the two minutes I was in the restroom unless they knew I was there?

I shoved and pushed more, and thanked god that the wooden table wasn't particularly sturdy. The bench pushing against its legs buckled them slightly and yielded the extra inches I needed to get the door open enough to reach out and tip the bench over and aside. I left it angled in the room with the bathroom door open, steadied the table legs to keep it from falling, and decided not to announce the situation to the thick, middle-aged man I saw coming up from the parking lot. He'd figure out what happened, whether the incident had been innocent or not.

All the way to the adventure park, I tried to recall whether the bench had been there in the room when I arrived or if someone perhaps had brought it in to furnish the room while I was there. Another bench had also been on the opposite wall when I left, but not blocking the men's room door because of more space on that side. The whole situation was probably void of nefarious intent, but it unnerved me just the same. And I was proud of myself for getting out.

The rock-climbing was different from tree climbing, involving my whole body and balance to stay on the wall. The first of four faces was easy--lots of fat holding spots, a flat surface. The young girl who spotted and instructed me was supportive and encouraging. She had climbed it many times, and knows the best handholds and how tricky the harder walls can be.

I was supposed to use my legs to push up instead of my arms to pull up, and I didn't always get it right or remember to do it. I sometimes felt scared to balance over my feet and then let one of my feet go to find the next foothold. I was harnessed to a hydraulic system that would let me down easily in case of a slip, but that didn't make it any less scary when it came time to let go of the wall once I'd reached the top.

The trick there is to let go and grip a plastic sleeve on the cable and walk the wall back to the ground as the hydraulics let me down. I kept swinging away like some flailing, panicked spider, or tipping my body flat so I was sliding bum first, or staying too upright and zooming down too fast. By the fourth time I'd done it, my body was trusting the system enough that I could walk the wall with enough balance to earn praise from my guide.

I managed the two beginner's faces, then got stuck halfway up the third face. It doesn't look hard at all, but once I got onto it, I found miserly protrusions and lots of recesses to clamber around, which makes for more awkward hand and foot holds than I would have thought. My muscles were fatigued from the previous ascents and practice, so I stopped on that wall, went up the beginner's wall another time, and then slid down, hot, sweating, sore in the arms, and proud of myself. I'd like to do this again when I get home, although right now I've got no desire to do it "for real" out in some national park or Olympic mountain. The body awareness is all I'm looking for.

I came back to a packed hostel. Peter, a middle-aged, bulky, rather loud man in a T-shirt, kilt, knee-high socks, and tennis shoes, kept trying to talk with me in the kitchen and dining room, but my barriers were still up from the golf course escapade and I wasn't in a talkative mood. He acted drunk, or it may be that he's got physical issues that keep his eyes off center, his words a bit slurred, his hips canted, and his walk hard on the ground. He stomps down the hallway like the hungry giant in search of Jack.

He's part of a group of about ten people (it seems like eighteen, they keep coming and going so much), three leaders and the rest in their late teens. All three other beds in my room are full tonight. After such an uncrowded time at the hostel, I closed up around this group of people--too many at once for me to process right away. The leaders seem kind, as do their somewhat shy charges, who each seem to have mild learning disabilities.


I ate breakfast early on Saturday and stuck my attention in a magazine to keep Peter out of my face. I was in no mood to talk or interact--it took too much energy to do it. I hopped a two-hour bus to Campbeltown, down the length of Argyll peninsula, which also took me past Kennecraig port, where I'll pick up the ferry to Islay and Jura on Monday. I was glad for the dry-run of that trip. Lovely coastal views most of the way, and startling to see sheep next to a loch, cattle next to the beach. Waves show up where there is no land mass between the coast and the Atlantic.


I walked around Campbeltown to check it out (interesting parking warnings and bumpers), then spent an hour in a lush green park by a school. Barn swallows swished over the grass and jackdaws hopped about and cawed. A woman walked by with a German shepherd who paused to snuff the air in my direction. The salami and cheese next to me were clearly on his preferred list.

Here it was quiet enough for me to make calls to arrange ferry, bus, and train travel for the next two weeks, including to St Bees, where I start the coast to coast walk on July 17. The plan is Jura five nights, Oban two nights as transition, Fort William seven nights, then on to the C2C walk.

Stopped for tea and chocolate cake with thick milk-chocolate frosting at a local café called Foncie's. The frosting's good, the cake was dry. I have yet to find a moist cake in Britain; maybe it's not a quality they look for in cake. Dined to a pop radio station, which was playing Spirit in the Sky: "Gonna go up to the spirit in the sky. That's where I'm gonna go when I die. When I die and they lay me to rest, I'm gonna go to the place that's the best."

I walked out from the restaurant, got to the pier, and then walked back to the restaurant--I'd forgotten to pay my bill again! I'm still confused about the variable dining-out protocol here...at pubs I order at the counter and they usually want me to pay ahead, although some will keep a running tab; at some coffee shops like this one, I order at the counter, but they want me to pay when I leave (and they don't bring the bill); at other restaurants, I'm to order from a waitress at the table and then need to ask for the bill, sometimes paying the server, sometimes paying up front. I shouldn't be surprised that I occasionally mess up on this, but I felt embarrassed and exasperated at my oversight. The café owner told me she had seen me leave but didn't want to chase after me and create a scene. She appreciated my honesty in returning, and a white-haired patron at the counter empathized--she had done it a few times, too. We had a good laugh, and I headed back to the pier.

One new bird caught my attention on the pavement--the body-size of a sparrow with striking black-and-white chevron markings, and a long tail that flicks up and down like a Hollywood clapboard. I described it to the proprietor of a nature-based craft store, and he said it was a pied wagtail. Appropriately named.

I sat on a rock wall by the harbor and watched seagulls fly and tree trunks get loaded onto a cargo ship. Once again I began to question my choice of Inveraray as my base on Argyll. Why not Lochgilphead, a sweet-looking little fishing village we passed today heading south? Or even Campeltown, which at least has more port activity and all the trappings of a large town and the chance of a movie theatre?

On the return bus trip to Inverarary, I spotted a wild swan swimming in the loch's waters, fish jumping the surface in three floating round pens, a white crane fishing in the tall grass of a marsh, two people tying off a sailboat as it bobbed in some kind of lock, and a family camping near the shore--their campfire on the sand, their tent on the grass, their brown skin shiny with sweat from the heat or maybe midge spray.

It's all a thread. An invisible skein of spider's silk that we unwind behind us, day to day to day. We connect with others, tie off a knot, launch into a new direction. We leave behind a trace of our energy, a shadow of our having been there, a wisp of us that no one else can recreate.

I chose Inverarary to meet Geoff and Jean and Heather and Ani and Peter. To get stuck and unstuck in a public bathroom. To see all these lovely sights today. To set my face toward Jura for equally mysterious reasons, for equally yet-unknown meetings. To be who I am every moment.