Unpredictabilities
And the stories we tell around the fire
We’ve had the first frosts. The first icy roads. White crystals clinging to dead leaves and skinny branches. Sheep looking lost and finding themselves up on the single-track road, wandering off in search of defrosted grass. Red squirrels dart out from under bushes, the only bright colour amongst the white frosty fields. I love this time of year. I love when the skies are pastel shades of pink and blue, when the air bites at your cheeks and the cold, crisp, freshness of it fills your lungs and paints your nose with snotty drips. I’m learning to love every moment of the year, from the endless days of summer to the brief, cold hours that a winter day holds.
I’m writing this by a fire. The caravan all locked up and frozen over. I sought out a cosy cottage to spend the final few weeks of the year in and was very fortunate to find an affordable holiday let to hunker down in and finish my book. Something warm and cosy for short winter days spent writing. With just over two weeks to go before we leave this area for the year, and not long before Christmas, I’m struggling to fit in everything I want to. That panic to stuff in all the wonders amongst all the practical things that need to be done: packing and moving, Christmas card writing, my tax return(!), gift-making, present-wrapping, life-admin-ing!
But most of all, as I sit to write this, I’m reflecting on the whole of the year and struggling to comprehend it; how much has occurred, how to grasp the deep joys and achy sadnesses, the expectations that didn’t pan out - and those that did! - the people I’d never predicted I’d meet, the hobbies I’ve adopted and the different person I’ve become. How January 2023 Beth could simply never have foreseen what this year would bring. Never would’ve imagined such a big move, such a change of life.
As the end of the year approaches the theme of endings and goodbyes has been on my mind. I’ve said goodbye a lot in my life. I think we all have. Big goodbyes, like moving away, like knowing it might be the last time you see that elderly relative, the end of a friendship, the goodbye to what once was. The goodbyes you don’t even notice, like when you let go of that grudge, that regret, that old silly thought that you’ve carried around for far too long. I’m thinking of the kind of goodbyes that are followed by 5000 miles of ocean and land between you. The goodbyes that mean the end of something beautiful, something that will never be recreated as it once was, because time will pass and those people will change and even if you shove them all back into that same space, hand them drinks and force them together once more, it’ll never be quite the same.
And that’s no bad thing. For if everything could be what it once was, the past wouldn’t be particularly special. Nor would the now. Nor would the future.
I spoke to a friend lately about heartbreak. In fact, it’s a topic that’s risen to the surface of many a conversation lately. Maybe it’s that time of year when first loves and painful heartbreaks rear their unfathomable heads. Love and loss seem to slink forth on these dark, long evenings when the fires crackle and the drinks are poured and the sky presents an endless starry canvas that reminds us all of how small we are on this spinning planet. Makes us laugh at how silly all these little worries are, how meaningless it is, and yet, how much these little things mean to you and me.
There is something about hearing of someone’s first heartbreak that reminds you of your own. I was such a young woman when I spent a whole summer in the trenches of heartbreak, unable to see a way out, maybe unwilling to. Years and years later I find myself able to share a few truths to a newly broken heart, to see how full circle life has come. It made me feel all at once warm and sad to speak of a heartache that now feels so old, can be so politely contained and explained without heartstrings tugged.
In those ugly, embarrassing trenches of heartbreak, I spent months laying my heart bare to the unsuspecting visitors of my life, telling pub-goers and new coworkers and the kinds of people you end up speaking to when your flight is delayed about this massive painful thing I couldn’t put into enough words. I couldn’t write down onto the page and work it out. I could only toss it around to anyone who dared listen, only wish I wasn’t speaking in the past tense. Could find solace in music and movies and poetry and little else.
The funniest part of sharing how it feels to be cracked open like that is that it led to so many people telling me of times their hearts were split in two. Sharing their stories, ones recent, ones decades old. Your first heartbreak is like an invitation for everyone around you to tell you of their heartbreaks. Their loves and losses.
You become a magnet for these kinds of stories.
I was eighteen, leaning against the bar polishing cutlery while in between the lunch and dinner rush where I worked a tireless, sweaty summer as a hotel waitress. I presented my heartbreak to my older colleague in its raw form, a bloody, beating organ spilling and dripping between my fingers and all over the floor. She told me gently and firmly of her first love, her eyes getting glossy and her tone understanding, memories dancing across an illuminated, tired face. She told me that it didn’t hurt anymore, that one day you can look at it for what it was, can place it high on a shelf and take it down for moments like this without any fanfare.
“I was eighteen too,” she told me, offering her own story up like a bedtime allegory we tell children in an effort to teach them not to do silly things, like walk in front of moving traffic or touch a hot stove. “But we moved apart, and we lost touch, and eventually I met someone else and *poof*” - she clicked her fingers - “fifteen years has passed.”
It’s funny the stories we tell ourselves - the stories we tell others. The versions they become as they are told and retold, as they are moved from their spot on the shelf and dusted off and presented in compact form time and again, those emotions slipping through at times, the bits that make us cry, the details that appear only when we look at them in the light of another’s eyes.
It’s funny the stories we tell when drinks are hot and minds are sleepy.
We had friends visit this last week. There’s nothing like people visiting to remind you of how wonderful the place you live is and how easy it is to take for granted. It’s so joyous showing them your life now, taking them on walks, catching up on stories best told face to face.
In front of the fire, we share facets of our lives, funny anecdotes, new hopes, big worries. I make a simple tray-bake dinner and we share a bottle of wine between three. The edges of our mouths turn red, our bellies warm, we hold up a magnifying glass to the comparisons between city life and countryside living. Though I struggle to think of this as the countryside - less thatched cottages and rolling green hills, more rugged mountains and muddy streams and mushroom-laden mossy forests.
They tell me about how funny it was getting stuck in a sheep traffic jam, how weird it is being so far from a pub or a shop. How deeply quiet it is here.
I did something the other night I’ve never been able to do living in a city. I shoved on some boots, wrapped myself in a hat and scarf and stood out in the pitch black hoping to see the Northern Lights. It’s become my new obsession, the app notifying me every time there’s a Red Alert in my area - which isn’t very often, but when it happens, you’ll find me outside looking up at the sky. With my phone torch on I marched off down the single-track road in hopes of finding a clear pocket of sky in which to see the Merry Dancers. I was disappointed to see only a dark, starless blanket of clouds, hiding any green and red streaks. Instead, I was faced with quiet. Torch off. Complete silence. No wind, just the distant trickle of a stream, the silence of an empty single-track road and not a person in sight. Eventually, a little disheartened, I turned my torch back on and began to make my way back.
And then it started to snow.
Small flakes catching in the torchlight, the first I’ve seen this winter.
Perhaps that’s my biggest takeaway from this year, that we can run out onto the road in the hopes of catching sight of the aurora and instead find ourselves alone looking up at the first snow of the season. That maybe, for all of our best-made plans and all of our efforts, life likes to present you with unpredictabilities. And sometimes, all you can do is stand in the snow and catch the flakes.
TO READ: I loved this short story in The Stinging Fly lately. So cleverly told, so beautifully written.
TO LISTEN: This beautiful live performance by Nat King Cole of Unforgettable. It reminds me of my grandpa, it was played at his funeral as we all walked out and I can’t hear it without crying. Good tears. Because of how much it reminds me of someone wonderful. Someone unforgettable.
TO WATCH: I saw this documentary years ago and while writing this newsletter it sprung to mind once more. It’s a fascinating look at the stories we tell ourselves and the complexities of grief and family.
I’ve been lucky enough to meet someone recently who grew up being told stories of his family’s descendence from selkies on the isle of Skye, so this month I’m directing you to the fascinating and tragic story of the Selkie Woman of Caithness.
Fun fact: A few clans in Scotland believed they were descended from selkies and many reported that their children were born with webbed toes and feet, scales, and a great affinity for the sea.
This one made me grin!
Well, that’s it! The final instalment of 2023’s newsletters. I’ve loved writing them and I really hope you’ve enjoyed reading them. 2024 will certainly bring lots more newsletters and I hope to continue to grow this platform and my readership here - with almost 100 of you, it really means so much to me that so many people take time to read this every month. I’ll see you again in 2024, and I hope you have a marvellous break and New Year’s.
I’ll be in your inbox again on the first Sunday of the month with more musings.
