I walk through dark streets to the bus stop. The sky is clear and a few stars are still out. There is no good reason why I’m taking a bus this early, except that the week is busy and if I want to do something that isn’t work, I better do it early and so I arrive at the lake before the sun has even risen. A few cold mornings in a row have finally discouraged even the hardiest seasonal swimmers and I have the lake to myself again. Some mornings, pink whispy clouds stretch across the sky as I pause mid-swim to take in my quiet surroundings but on this blue hour morning, a flock of swallows suddenly rises from the trees, speckling the light blue sky with black, a heron cries out and a fox watches me from the shore.
As the season changes, so does the light. Where previously the hour after sunrise was filled with a warm, golden glow, the light now is a pale, milky yellow. The light’s consistency has changed, it feels as though you can touch it now, just before the night starts stretching further into the day.
“Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever reach you
Or if, now, you're just gone for good
If I'll ever see you smile again”— Blue Hour, Bears Den
Edinburgh greets me with drizzly, grey skies and the forecast of a storm. On the way into town, my mind still half at work, I spot the words “of shifting light, of changing skies”, an Alexander McCall-Smith line, on the side of a building, in that no man’s land between airport and Edinburgh proper, which could really be anywhere on earth. Exactly the things I hope to see during these weeks in Scotland, when sunrise and sunset no longer require you to cut down on sleep.
In planning this trip, I tried, as ever, to strike a balance between being outdoors and seeking out corners of Scotland I haven’t seen yet, and creating space for me to write and draw. Things I do at home but more often than not, they are pushed to the edges of the day, crowded out by more immediate thoughts and concerns. Travelling to me means getting to live a different version of my life or rather putting more emphasis on different aspects of my life. Writing, for now, does not generate any money and maybe it never will but not everything we enjoy, not everything that makes us who we are, needs to generate an income. In fact, only the most successful writers are ever able to live off their writing. For most writers, for most artists, their life is a patchwork of their art, activities that inspire them and the things they do to keep a roof over their head. Not an answer, perhaps, that lends itself easily to the question “what do you do?”.
"This is a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas. A city so beautiful it breaks the heart again and again."
— Alexander McCall Smith
After a very short night, thank you loudly snoring hostel roommate, I catch the train north, past lochs, castles and bracken covered mountains. The storm that was predicted has slowed the train down but hasn’t stopped it entirely, so I manage to catch my ferry, with only minutes to spare. The train I’m on is said to be one of the most beautiful journeys in the world but either I’m jaded or simply too stressed, to see much beauty. To me, there are just a lot of trees very close to the tracks, hiding the real view. But I know my head is in too many places at once and maybe even too many timelines at once, to be in the present, only once I am on the ferry and surrounded by wind and the shifting light on distant hills, am I drawn into the present.
The Isle of Mull is only a 50 minute ferry journey away from Oban and thus, one of the more accessible islands of the Hebrides, and yet it feels like a smaller, quieter, different place entirely. On a bus to Fionnphort, the automated tour guide voice tells us about a monument dedicated to Douglas MacPhail, who worked on the mainland but who „like most people from Mull“, was also a poet. I love the thought that there used to be a time when we could all be more than one thing and that the Isle of Mull, somehow, made everyone a poet.
Rain lashes down and strong winds halt the ferries to Iona for a few days but in the breaks between the rain, I manage to walk to a lighthouse. The trees are still lush and green, only the bracken along the path has already turned its deep autumn red. Upon my return to town, I spot a few people getting changed after a swim in the harbour and so I quickly go in to grab my swimming stuff. The harbour in Tobermory contains “some of the best seawater you’ll find anywhere,” one of the swimmers tells me. Somehow I feel like there are a lot of people who would say this about their corner of the world but after a few strokes in the almost unreasonably clear water, I am inclined to agree with him. Until, perhaps, the next day, when I ran into the sapphire blue sea on Iona, at a white sand beach that I had all to myself.
„Are you lost, pet?“ a man asks me as I’m leaning against a pillar in Oban and scrolling through my phone, trying to figure out where to get some lunch. Biases are a terrible thing but if you had asked me what I expected of this small, slightly shrunken-looking man who seemed like he came straight from a documentary about white working-class men who’d been left behind by Thatcherism, this question and his soft, worried voice, would not have been it. He pointed me towards the Wetherspoons around the corner and as I walked away, I wondered what his story is and how often we don’t listen because we judge each other based on a first impression. Maybe if we all adopted the Scottish and northern British habit of simply calling each other „pet“ and „love“, rather than shouting about how we don’t see the point of pronouns, we could understand that what we all want is simply to belong and be accepted for who we are.
You might wonder why a simple question would get me thinking about larger societal debates but that is simply how my brain works. Maybe because these issues that politicians are using to pit us against each other are so far away from actual life. Somewhere between Edinburgh and Tobermory, I’ve forgotten where, I found myself in front of two bathroom doors, one telling me it contained „One cubicle and 3 urinals“, the other „3 enclosed toilets“. As simple as that. No one was shouting, no one requested anyone’s birth certificate and everyone could choose to go where they felt more comfortable going. And in actual fact, as I was washing my hands, a man came in and walked into one of the three enclosed cubicles. If only some of the angry people shouting could pay attention to what is already around them.
As you read this, I will have turned my back on the sea, at least for a few days, to go to a loch nestled among mountains, before heading even further north. Always in search of shifting light and changing skies. Maybe that’s what Alexander McCall-Smith got wrong, maybe it’s not just Edinburgh that breaks your heart again and again, with shifting light and sudden vistas, maybe it’s all of Scotland.
I somehow missed this when you shared this earlier but – adore, pet! x
SO beautiful! I visited the Isle of Mull with my dear friend for my 30th, and the trip has always stayed with me. It's crazy that I haven't found my way back there in 15 years since, but this post makes me want to book a trip right away! Pure joy to read, thank you. x