I’ve been writing on Islay this week, in a stone house overlooking the sea – reconnecting with the writing life in different ways. My most recent muse, the poet Sydney Graham, has all but flown. Yet, there were times this week when November wind howled around the building, or when grey waves chased each other toward the strand, that I've sensed his presence. He would have been content here beside the sea’s roar; watching oyster-catchers feeding on the beach littered with mussel-shells; a malt whisky distillery a short stagger from the front door.
Yesterday at the RSPB Reserve, Loch Gruinart, we saw thousands of Barnacle and White-fronted geese, who flock from Greenland each year to Islay’s flat green fields. The geese join the lapwings, grebes, widgeon and mallard on the mud flats amidst the moor grass and sedges.
They are overwintering. And I’m thinking that’s what I’m doing here too. Reconnecting with words is as essential for my own survival, as food, and warmth. And as we throw another log on the fire, we raise a dram to the joy of overwintering, and sharing words, and rekindling friendships. The memories gathered here have fed me, and will sustain my writing through the winter days ahead. And at home, when pouring a glass one night by the fire, I'll have the notion that I can smell salt, and peat, and sea; and when I hear the skein’s call lost in cloud, I’ll be right back here, ready to welcome them home as they land by the loch, sharing their cacophony of words.