Northern Lights

April 5. Milngavie (pronounced Mull-guy). 1:11am here (6pm back home on Orcas Island). So I am lying in bed unable to sleep and it occurs to me that I might as well blog instead of lying here there wishing I could sleep. My favorite picture of the day was from during a walk near my hotel (a pretty park where watching children play have me a bodily jolt of their joy in play and being alive). I loved that it was not windy or raining or terribly cold and sun even peeked out at us. 

The trip went very well. I flew Icelandair (an Alaska airlines partner, I got to use my miles to pay for the ticket) to Reykjavik, then changed planes and went on to Glasgow. After having been given a middle seat in the very back row (in what turned out to be a full flight) I somehow had the luck of having a young family I had met earlier in the check-in line - a mom, dad, and two boys 4 and 6 years old sitting in that back row with me.  It was the 4 year old’s birthday and he told me their trip to Iceland was a birthday present to him. They are renting a car and driving around and hope to see the Northern Lights. Seeing the light in the Mom’s face when she looked at her boys was was as good as that (for me) and I told her so. She said that wasn’t always the way her face looked when she looked at them! And then the window seat person never showed up. So I got to ride in the window seat and look down through the clouds sat Iceland as we approached Reykjavik. 

I liked the airport in Reykjavik - and even though I had only an hour between flights it was plenty of time. No customs or passport control. And in Glasgow no line for passport control just a friendly officer who wished me well on my walk and nothing for customs but a walk-through on the aisle labeled “nothing to declare.” Maybe the Scots aren’t overly fond of bureaucracy? 

The curving elegant wooden seats in the Reykjavik airport delighted me and I liked imagining that expressed something essential in the culture. 

Then I got to Glasgow airport and the squat inelegant log benches delighted me even more. 

I recalled a log bench (I believe made by my grandfather) that has been a family heirloom. So I feel certain log benches express something essential to Scottish culture. 

I have found Scottish people friendly and generous with both help and playfulness. When I went out to dinner I was sitting at a table beside a group, including an older woman (maybe as old as I am?) who was a bit heavy and needed a cane to help her walk. As they got up to leave she had to make her way through the very narrow space between our two tables. “I’m about to sweep your entire dinner into your lap” she informed me. “You better not” I said making okay fists and punching movements “I’ll fight you if you do.” We all laughed and she said (proudly) “That was pretty cheeky of me to say that, wasn’t it?” They asked if I was goibf to walk the West Highland way and I said “I hope so” and they wished me well. 

The interesting thing to me is that so far I have felt no magical ancestral connection to the land and the sense of place, but a deep sense of being at home with the people and their warmth and friendliness and humor. And their log benches. I’ve always felt a wee bit roughly hewn myself. This is particularly interesting because I usually connect strongly to place and nature and am ill at ease with people. 

I was quite proud that instead of taking a taxi I found a way to negotiate public transportation - taking a bus, then a train, and finally walking a mile (which with both pack and suitcase turned out to be a bit much especially the steep uphill parts). My suitcase is light and rolls easily but it was still hard going uphill! This put me into the position of engaging with lots of people and asking for lots of help. On the way from the bus to the train I passed the Glasgow Quaker/Friends Meeting House. As many of you know, I have reaffirmed and deepened my love of Quaker community and worship during Covid, first by zooming with my sister Judy’s meeting in Central California, then zooming with neighboring Lopez Island Friends Meeting. Chris and I have both transferred our memberships from La Jolla Meeting to Lopez and have been very inspired by watching Lopez come to unity and build a yurt on a member’s property - their share of the funding and their volunteer labor give a long term lease on the yurt for Sunday meetings. This is a complex and delicate arrangement and I loved watching the meeting come to unity (respectfully, listening to one another, but also moving quickly to seize a moment of opportunity). They will celebrate their first meeting in the new yurt next Sunday. I’m sorry not to be there I person. But my chance discovery of the Glasgow meeting house included the discovery that they have a meeting for worship in Wednesdays at 12:30 as well as on Sunday. So tomorrow - my rest day before I start waking - I hope to head over there for meeting and to bless my journey with my favorite form of communal worship - sitting in shared silence and listening for “that of God” within each one of us, and between us.

Thank you for reading and “walking” with me and please write me any thoughts, feelings, memories or whatever that come up for you if you are moved to do so. I really appreciate your the blessing of your reading this and walking with me. The real walk starts Thursday and I don’t know yet how much I will attempt to walk, given the foot injury on the one hand and the distance between walking routes and bus routes on the other (making it hard to patch together a journey part walking and riding).