Glasgow Weekend - April 30 - part 1

Sunday April 30.  Glasgow. 

Greetings, fellow wayfarers. Here I am on the airplane on my way to Heraklion, Crete. Sister Judy is also in the air in her long journey from Shell Beach CA to Los Ángeles to Newark to Athens to Heraklion. Chris is also in the air, having left Orcas yesterday for the ferry ride to the mainland, then the drive to Seattle. She got to the airport at 4am for an early morning departure this morning. I believe she and Judy will meet up in Newark, then fly the rest of the way together (I think they even managed to get seats together). 

I will arrive Heraklion at 10:30pm tonight (8:30pm in Scotland - the time zone I’ve grown accustomed to in the past month). I will stay at a hotel near the airport then join them when they arrive Heraklion (2:30pm tomorrow). 

We will meet up with the car rental driver from Frangokastello (on the southwest coast of Crete) who will drive us to Fata Morgana apartments where we will spend the next two weeks soaking up sun, relaxing, strolling on the beach and running in for quick dips, reading, walking up and down mountains, exploring back roads along the cliffs above the beaches, maybe hiking a gorge or two - and relaxing, relaxing, relaxing. 

I think Natalie and I were both near tears when we said goodbye at the airport. The dogs looked sad too. This visit has been filled to the brim with intimacy and shared good times. We hope to see each other again but we don’t know where or when and we don’t think I will be returning to Scotland - though I sure have loved it and perhaps this past weekend the most. 

Saturday morning during breakfast with Lydia and Callum, I asked whether they remembered dreams from the night before and they said no. I asked if they often remembered dreams and they said no. I said when I was young I used to dream of flying - did they ever dream of flying? Lydia said no but Callum said once he had. I said how fun it was for me to fly over the roofs of buildings and land and take off again, how good it felt and how free. When the moms came in I said we were talking about dreams and they asked what they dreamed about. Callum said he dreamed about football and that in his dream River was the football coach. (Did I mention in yesterday’s post how Callum kept gently kicking the ball to me as I walked so I could kick it back? And how I tried to imitate one of his fancy kicks where he crossed one leg in back of the other - and lost my balance and almost fell into the lake? And totally terrified Natalie?) So you can get a sense of the brilliant humor in his imaginary dream of River as football coach. (Warning: football in Scotland is the game we call soccer in America). 

Lydia was making a drawing for me but it wasn’t finished when it was time for her dance class and she didn’t want to give it to me unfinished so I never got to see it. So Callum probably noticing my disappointment made me a drawing. A drawing of a river and bridges - and Callum didn’t even know (consciously) how much I love bridges. 

While Lydia was at dance class Callum invited me to play an Xbox game with him. Maybe you have an idea of how brave it was for me to say yes (even kicking the soccer ball back and forth had been brave given my self-image as seriously challenged when it comes to any activity involving a ball). He wanted me to choose the game and I mostly couldn’t comprehend what the choices were but when one turned out to be football I settled on it, knowing Callum lives the gane and is good at it and plays on his school team, and knowing a big game between the Rangers and the Celtics (both Glasgow teams but one more associated with the culturally Catholic community and one with the Protestant.) Callum and his mum Katie are passionate Celtic fans while Callum’s dad (also Callum) is a Rangers fan. The bar Katie’s mum works at is a Rangers bar and Katie told me there were sure to be fights at the bar or outside because people get so passionate and contentious under the combined influence of alcohol and football. I was struck that if there is anything I’ve had an aversion to as strong as my aversion to Scotch and heavy drinking in general, it would have to be sports. I don’t have clear memories of my stepfather watching sports on TV while he drank, but it seems to me more than likely he did. I actually enjoyed going to basketball games with my father when I was young and I think I enjoyed being in the pro club in high school (an organized and uniformed cheering squad made up entirely of girls), so I am not sure how and when I began to identify do strongly as someone who disliked sports. It’s been a sore point in my marriage with Chris. She would love to be able to share her passion for televised basketball games with me. 

But back to Callum. So he gives me the control gadget with controls to navigate direction and speed and buttons for different kinds of passes and tackles and I cannot remember which button is which nor what team I am on nor what direction I should be going in. But Callum keeps gently reminding me, telling me to pass now, and starts us off on the same team. Even after he puts us on opposing teams he sets me up with what he tells me is the world’s best team and keeps very patiently and gently reminding me what control does what and that it’s time to pass. 

And even though I send the ball in the wrong direction or out of bounds and even though much as Callum wants to help me succeed at scoring a goal I never do, even do i feel the excitement of pushing the ball across the field, passing it, trying to make a goal, having the other team intercept it. I get so excited I think I am glimpsing the joy people get from electronic games and from spectator sports for the first time. I am having fun playing and that is a rare and special experience for me. I feel close to Callum and amazed at this level of sensitivity and kindness in an 8 year old boy. I don’t have any photos of us playing but here is a photo of Callum in a playful mood when he was putting his hair into pony tails on the top of his head. (Natalie gave me this photo). 

Correction: as I write this correction, I am in the hotel in Heraklion and it is almost midnight. It turns out that amazing Natalie took a photo when Callum and I were playing Xbox. Here it is:

After that we went to see Lydia at dance class. Sadly we arrived late and only got to see a few minutes of her dancing but it was enough to see her so fully in her body, inside her own skin, moving with confidence and pleasure. I was very moved by the dance class. The teacher was the same teacher Lydia’s mum Katie studied with, and the dances were her original choreography. I found them both exciting and brilliant. The dancers seemed to be all girls but the movements were strong, fierce and expressive of aggressive energy. Not girlie-girl movements at all - and I thought how thrilling for pubescent girls to be encouraged to access these kinds of emotions and express them in public and as part of a coordinated ensemble. Belonging, self-control and the fierce expression of powerful emotion. A kind of ownership of aspects of body and self that I think of as off-limits to pubescent girls trying to fit themselves into the mold of becoming a woman. Maybe these are not issues for this generation of girls - I came of age many generations I go - but for me at least this degree of ferocity in girls body language was new and beautiful and exciting and empowering. I was proud and happy for Lydia. Alas I got no photos. The viewing room was crowded and I could barely find a way to see much less take a photo. 

Sadly, Lydia was quiet and seemed upset after the class. I wondered if she was hurt that we came late. Natalie and her Mum said she often got upset if she forgot a move and her dance wasn’t perfect. That made me so sad. That need for perfection has been such a struggle all my life I so wish I could wave a magic wand and free Lydia from that particular demon. And I was so sad that she was withdrawn when we said goodbye as we dropped the kids at their father’s. I felt we had begun to connect in a deep way on our walk Friday around the lake when she showed done dance moves and asked me my favorite animal (probably cats now, when I was a girl horses, for a long time dogs). I asked about her favorite animal and she said dogs and somehow I felt we were meeting heart to heart speaking about those we most love. 

I thought I saw real sadness in Callum’s eyes as we left and I wondered how had I come to love this boy so much in such a short time, and even more mysteriously, how had he come to love me? Love really is a miracle. And a mystery. 

After we left the kids off at their father’s (and I got to meet Callum the father who looked so much like both of his children) we headed off for a tour of Edinburgh - which is just as Natalie and Katie had promised me a beautiful city. We began with lunch at a pub near where we parked the car. Katie began to confide that she has struggled with mental illness and is going through a very hard time, changing her medication, but not having yet found something that is working for her. Here is a photo of Kate and me at the pub. 

This conversation continued and deepened during the rest of the stay with both Katie and Natalie confiding what a hard time these past months have been for them. I do want the power to wave my magic wand and deliver Katie from that terrible internal pain that makes her own life a torture and death seem like mercy and deliverance. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced pain as intense as Katie’s (though such inner states cannot be measured or compared), but I have felt my inner pain to be beyond what I could bear. 

It breaks my heart that these two beautiful young women, so gifted at loving and nurturing others, should have been enduring so much difficulty for a long while now. Katie gave me permission to write about this and to ask you to join me in prayer and visualization for her to be healed and freed from her inner torment. Will you please pause now and join me  holding her in the light? Please imagine her held in these hands of light that my sister Judy drew to hold the spirit of her daughter Angel. Katie said that the picture brought tears to her eyes when she saw it. I do believe years are good that they can help wash away the hurt and prepare the heart for peace. 

Please join me picturing Katie held in these big strong hands of light, letting tears wash away the pain, and peace and love surround and fill and heal her. Please imagine Natalie held in these hands too - and her pain at not being able to help and having everything she tries to do seem wrong. And the children who sense the pain and struggle no matter how hard the adults try to protect them, please imagine Callum and Lydia held in these hands, and the animals too - Bubbles, Teddy and Freddie -who sense the sorrow of the humans they love. Thank you. 

And please continue to see them in these hands and to pray in whatever way you pray - because I am hoping that between us we can help a miracle happen. If ever a family deserved a miracle this family does. 

This will be continued in 

Glasgow Weekend - April 30 - part 2