Tower Gap

Climbing out of Tower Gap on Tower Ridge, Ben Nevis

I had been scanning through some pictures to add to my book tonight. Categories already established, I needed them to support and punctuate the words and prose. Obviously the hills, as a category, were there and this picture stuck out like a sore thumb.

I took this picture of Eric and Kenny following me out of Tower Gap on our decent of Tower Ridge. We had earlier ascended Ben Nevis via Northeast Buttress as part of the first day on our Big Hex challenge. The Big Hex is a climbing challenge which I set up to raise money for Scottish Mountain Rescue and give climbers something to get competitive about – as if that was needed.

It has been commented on, in many quarters that this picture captures the atmosphere of this particular section of one of the worlds most famous climbs. For me, it just reminds me of a fabulous day, with friends, in one of my favourite environments.

Birds: a scarcity on a bitter cold day

I went along to my local RSPB at Lochwinnoch yesterday. To photograph the wildlife and for a general realignment of the senses.

Mention of a visiting Smew was interesting but unsubstantiated. If he was there, he eluded me. Sometimes our intentions are checked and something altogether different replaces them. My search for pictures was sidelined by a sense of just being. In feeling the cold on my face, the crunching of the frozen ground beneath me, the bright dazzle of the sun and the flitting of thoughts through my mind.

Accept change for what it is, a reminder of impermanence, of our ever changing nature and our realignment of purpose.

Have a lovely day today, whatever you do.

Purpose in 2021

With the years, our purpose changes,
and if Hogmanay provides anything
it provides us with the chance to review our purpose,
to restore settings or to refocus.
Habitual practices are always worth examining, correcting, or eliminating entirely.
The ones most damaging are usually the ones we blindly justify and perpetuate for comfort.
The purposeful ones the most challenging.

But what are we if we don’t challenge our purpose, beliefs and direction?
Mice on a wheel,
run, rest, eat, repeat.

Some missed it, the gift that 2020 gave,
the chance to stop and view the wheel for the abnormality that it is.
The perpetual engine we power,
fixed on all but a single axis, and ultimately pointless.

I hope a new year brings you renewed or reaffirmed purpose.

And away…

There’s a stiffness in my neck, back, hips legs, arms and also the muscles in my face as I woke. A 200 mile trip via Tarbert on my Bonnie the culprit. “Age doesn’t come alone” Hardly a wheel turned all year. I took the opportunity. No tourer but thankful for the heated grips as the hills shadowed and chilled the journey at points; and also for the relaxed seating position and engine response as I eased myself in once more, post Covid.

And like the otter, another first for me as I wound my way up – under convoy – the old military road which gives relief to the Rest and Be Thankful when nature blocks its way. Thankful for firsts at my age, but many still to be found. Thankful too that my two wheels allowed me to white line through the congestion, a common occurrence these fine days. Scotland is spectacular, but there is a tiredness to our towns and villages.

A meditation on a bike.

“Your eyes look tired dad” Ceri said when I arrived home. I explained again, in Dad detail, the difference in concentration levels required to ride a bike, in comparison to driving a car. Now her eyes looked tired.

Arlene had had some friends over, they were making their arrangements to head home as I stole a cake one of them had kindly brought, to add sweetness to my coffee; my teeth and brain rebelled. I said my goodbye to them, showered and watched Detectorists (again) followed by Mortimer and Whitehouse Gone Fishing (again). Then bed.

I woke on my back. Hands resting on my chest, fingers intertwined, shoulders almost touching my ears, jaw clenched, brows furrowed and tinnitus singing in my right ear. I automatically unlocked my fingers, dropped my shoulders, unclenched my jaw and let my forehead unfurrow.

Unattended, even in sleep, we invite tension. The open window let a breeze wash across my uncovered hands and face; now that I was receptive to it. And the tinnitus softened by the sound of blackbird, starling, blue tit and crow.

“And away…….”

A Kind Wind

A Kind Wind

I had already set sail,
the shoreline distanced now
as the headland sank slowly;
low cloud swallowed the port as revelers,
too numbed to notice, too dumbed to protest,
fermenting in their folly, simply forgot.
And I,
not knowing where, but why;
and thankful for a head start,
was leaving.

And in heading out, to go in,
habitual waves knock and knock at the hull,
a grasping persistence
to any wavering resistance,
and I will a rope to bind me from the Sirens song.
For too long, caught
in this playground of platitudes and purposeless trinkets,
And then, from the plague storm,
a kind wind filled my sail
And I was gone.

©️Bobby Motherwell July 2020

(Picture: gannets over Boreray on St Kilda)

One day at a time.

 

I never intended to get to six months free from alcohol, but here I am.

I can remember waking on Monday 13th January with a mugginess from the previous night spent in the pub with an old friend. We had – prior to COVID – met every Sunday for a couple of beers (sometimes more) as a way of staying connected, and catching up. A social thing that we all do. For some reason, this morning, this 13th of January morning, I decided that I had had enough. I was fed up feeling this way after drinking, it was time to change. But could I?

I am not an alcoholic – I know this because I have lived with it and seen it first hand – but like most of my generation, I know that I have a dependency and an unhealthy relationship with booze. Unhealthy?… too forgiving a word perhaps, destructive and dangerous nearer the truth. So why, if I am not an alcoholic, do I perpetuate this relationship? If it is purely habitual, it can be broken surely? If it is simply a social crutch, it can be discarded  – with some discomfort granted – but discarded none the less? Why? Because it makes you feel good doesn’t it?….. yes, like every drug, ……up to a point.

So I decided to stop. Now, we’ve all decided to stop before in the aftermath of a night of indulgence, the physical and the mental suffering brought on by our actions and words due to its effects – almost my entire collection of lifes regrets are due to alcohol. I decided, that my only chance of seriously taking this challenge on was to break it down into small steps. I thought about my approach to hillwalking, and to Joe Simpson in Touching The Void; set yourself realistic and achievable goals, give yourself a chance. Up until this point in my life; I’m 58, if I had been any longer than five days at any one spell without having a beer or a glass of wine, I don’t remember it. It has been that much of a constant in my life. So, to give myself a realistic chance, I had, as Lena Martell once sang, to take one day at a time. An old cliche I know, but fuck sake, it worked.

I also decided that it would be best not tell anyone, no one. That way, if I failed (I was definitely going to fail!), it was no embarrassment to me. For that first working week, I didn’t drink at home at all, the beers stayed in the fridge unopened, I never went to the pub. It was relatively easy, I just woke each morning and told myself “Right Bobby, let’s see if you can get through today”. And I did.

And then the weekend arrived. The Weekend. Friday night we had to go to the pub, there was something on that I couldn’t get out of, how would I handle this? My worries proved to be far more imagined than the reality. I made sure that I always had a full glass (non-alcoholic beer) to allow me to politely decline if someone offered to buy me a beer. Only once did I get called out when Sarah (the manager) asked me “not on the Guinness tonight?”, my usual drink of choice. I made some excuse involving an early start in the morning that managed to go unheard within the company. And although I have to admit, it wasn’t the most comfortable of evenings for me, it wasn’t bad and I didn’t die. What’s more, I remembered it the next morning and had done and said nothing to flush my cheeks. At this point, this early into it, five days in, I realised…. I could do this.

Looking back, I can honestly say that I have not at any time missed alcohol. I can also say that I have no intention of ever giving it up completely. My kids have asked me “Do you think you’ll ever drink again Dad?”, they have never known me to be sober for so long – there’s a sobering thought right there – and my answer is “Of course I’ll drink again”. In that singular response, I have disarmed the potential for any sense of failure. The journey always was open-ended, no destination set, no goal, no summit, no expectation. And in its construct, this test, this challenge is always of my making, my rules, firmly on my terms.

This was always about disarming triggers and regaining control.

I would like to set down the many benefits I have noticed, for there are few – if I give it thought – downsides that I can think of. I sleep better. That’s saying something because I could always sleep! Let me rephrase that, my sleep is better. I have a clarity of thought in my waking hours which is a revelation to me. I can wake of a morning with lyrics, words, melodies, and thoughts so clear and ready formed, that they spill freely and fluidly onto my notepad and phone. I have never written so much in my life. I feel mentally more stable, grounded, and open. I read more. I have more time to do so. And what I have read over these last months has been a revelation to me. Greek Classics – Sophocles, Hesiod, of Dostoyevsky, Camus, Plath, Hughes, Dickens, Swift. I have immersed myself in poetry and art and found a new love of Van Gogh and Picasso. My study in Arts and Humanities could not have arrived at a more opportune time and I could not have married my period of sobriety to a better partner. My study now is the drink to quench this thirst.

I am a happier man. That’s for sure. I Like this version of me. I think that it’s probably who I was always supposed to be, my true self. I have never been more comfortable in my own body, in my own thoughts, and with who I now am.

This time of COVID, of lockdown. This time of uncertainty and concern for our future has coincided with my six month period of voluntary sobriety. How fortunate I am to have such clarity during a period of isolation and closeness with my family. With those I love the most in the world – I missed only that Calum wasn’t here too. I could not have chosen a better time for clarity of mind, for awareness of each and every breathing moment. In and out. In and out. And for the connections remade with the natural world and my spiritual past; and with the beauty that surrounds us should we chose to look.

I don’t want to go back. I only want to go forward.

And it will be what it will be.

All those such important things

Awakening

 

 

Have you noticed that our pace

is slowing to a walk?

That we hear the song the birds sing

and even the trees appear to talk

A world in high definition

Our vision now restored

Seemingly dependant on our current condition

inhabiting a world we can now afford

Inhale again the smell of mother earth

Ah! were it ever thus

Are we coming to our senses?

Or are our senses returning to us?

 

Bobby Motherwell ©️17/4/2020

 

What to do today?

 

What to do today?

Is a poem I wrote during lockdown. I invited and was bombarded by friends on social media who added their own verse to this poem, giving insight and overview to what we all were ‘doing today’ as we isolated ourselves from COVID19, and found ourselves in a very new ‘normal’

It was recorded a few days ago, along with some others just on the outskirts of my home village in Howwood, Scotland. It will be in print in my book of poetry which will be released later this year.

Can you add any stanzas?

 

 

copyright 2020 Bobby Motherwell

As New

A nausea washes over me as I lie in waking,

No sooner has it arrived than it has gone,

The spectres of my subconscious retreat from damning daylight,

Reaching, to diffuse the glare

my hand hovers, X-raying my fingers,

I don’t recognise the skin,

Delicate but coarse,

a tree bark weeping sap,

And, just as the sun will find the nape of my neck in mornings mist clearing,

So too will peace follow; rabbits top and tail,

The owned moment now fleeting,

Shed to past authority,

No original me,

Triggers spade,

The nausea returns and I rise again to a new day,

Casting baggage like confetti.

 

 

Bobby Motherwell ©️2020