A Pink Hint Of A Sky
As much as I love living in a village, I have to open up and state that living rurally has its challenges in this season of 5km restrictions.
It is indeed a blessing to live in nature, walking on ground, ,full of ancient language that hold stories. Rainy days, slapping through deepening puddles. The sight of a bird then realizing I may have held my gaze too long as I stand on a country road which cars often speed along. However, my body is restless and I need that sense of being in the city and I suppose like many others I do want restrictions to lift so I can move further than Ballydehob.
It has been one year since lockdown and during that time, we have had three level 5 restrictions. I have bid my time well, baking bread and scones, making soups, writing , drawing and participating in several online courses. However, good and nourishing that has all been, I have become weary.
I am tired of lockdown and my eyes are worn out by Zoom. I have nestled down for the winter, doing my bit to flatten the curve. It comes to mind I don’t hear that term now. But now Rae wants to travel but I can’t for the moment so I have to settle with second best — the warm travel memories of yesteryear.
I never post much on my son because he doesn’t like social media at all. He is wary of it and has requested that I respect his wishes and don’t post and that is why I have only mentioned him briefly in this story but in the evening shadows here in Ballydehob my three days in Columbia, Missouri is warming my heart.
My face was the colour of the grey slush of a Glasgow pavement, after being trod on by heavy boots for several days. My eye-liner had made patterns of zig-zags under my eyes, which the group Kiss would have been proud of. The short flight from Ohio to Missouri was a nightmare but I am alive to tell the tale.
The plane rattled through a storm. I had never experienced turbulence like it and I never want to again. At one point, the plane dropped several hundred feet then sharply bounced back up. At that moment, I turned to my daughter to see if she was ok, she unlike me was unfazed. She smiled but her words “It’s tornado alley, so this is normal”, did nothing to reassure me.
To this day, I can’t remember anything about the airport in St Louis. I checked out like a hungry ghost on auto-pilot. What I do remember is being lost in this huge hanger of gas guzzlers. The car park had a tinny sound that unskinned me and I distinctly recall that sense of sweat trickling down the nape of my neck and saliva thicken in my throat. I was dog tired and I wanted sleep, the last thing I wanted was to navigate a concrete labyrinth to reconnect with my son and daughter,
“Excuse me, could you tell me ……” but the man with the narrow slit of eyes and black peeked cap just stared at me, I could sense his gaze burning into my soul before walking, making distance away from me.
Then, I heard the welcoming sound of a concerned but exasperated Scottish accemt “Mum”.
The journey from St Louis to Colombia, Missouri was full of bubbling joy of seeing my son. I hadn’t seen him since he moved to Missouri to do his Ph.D, four years earlier. Now he was graduating and he was about to move to California.
We arrived at his apartment, which was stacked high with boxes, ready to be relocated. I desired to chat until the wee sma’ hours, but my body, weary told me firmly that it was time for sleep.
Next morning, I wanted to explore the city that my son had called home for four years. Columbia was once an agricultural town but now its main business is the cultivation of the mind. as the university is the largest employer. Columbia, is situated midway between St Louis and Kansas City. The first thing that struck me was the large number of flags on poles attached to windows. I even saw the blue and white of the St. Andrew’s flag and wondered why it was flying here in Missouri.
We headed downtown for a traditional breakfast of eggs, pancakes with lashings of syrup. I was desperate for tea but of course this is the land of the coffee drinker. I managed to get a cup of English breakfast tea but it tasted like oily water. I would certainly recommend packing a box of teabags if you want to visit Missouri. When we walked in I sensed suspicious eyes upon me and it came to me that I could actually be on the set of a 1950s American sit-com. The place was crammed with people in checked shirts and caps. I was most definitely in the US of A, the land of Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonalds.
Three days is a short stay so I didn’t get to see much of Columbia. Its claim that it has a blend of city sophistication and small town charm is definitely true. The city has an art gallery, museum and The Mark Twain Park and the university had a certain elegance about it with its amber and gold leafed trees.
My son’s graduation celebration that evening was a quiet affair, my son had met up with friends a few days earlier for his leaving party and with his P.hD he was ready to take his next step. Now, he was now off to work in California and I could see his excitement. But, for the next week, we were going to New York, and I was delighted by the prospect of seeing The Phantom of The Opera on Broadway. I didn’t sleep much that night as I was a bit concerned about the flight to New York. I looked out the window and the grey sagging clouds had come together angrily, but I need not have worried, it was a smooth flight, thus emphasing worry is a useless emotion.
Shades of pink wisps have sneaked through the light blue sky and now I am thinking about future travel. I am pretty certain I won’t be visiting Missouri but as my son is still in California, it is certainly on my agenda.
Now, I sincerely want to get out and live again, even experience another nightmarish flight. Not so good experiences are part of life and we have to accept that and move forward.
As my eyes drift towards the sky which somehow whispers ‘hope’ I am grateful for my memories. They nurture my bones when they are dry. At such a time as this I am even grateful for the experience of that plane rattling in that storm. I could hardly imagine a life without story and there is always conflict in a good tale.
I have heard it said, don’t look back, it’s the future, forget about the past but I can’t do that. I have lived through truly bad times and every chapter has made me the person that I am today. It has to be said that when I look with my story eye I can see the treasure in those experiences and in my next article I shall explore that further.
