So, I packed my bags and moved to the Isle of Skye.
Why wouldn’t I?
Photo by Charley Dohren
Ever since my first visit to the place in 1995, I’d told anyone who would listen that living and working there one day would be a dream scenario for me. I’d even bored my Spanish students with it during my time teaching English in the impossibly beautiful Andalucian city of Granada. They didn’t all buy into the notion that anywhere could be as good looking as ‘The Pomegranate’ but describing the place that most fires one’s imagination is always a good conversation starter and was a great way to get my more advanced students talking.
This year I saw my chance and here I am, a poet and an artist finally living and working in the very place that promises to unlock untold waves of creative energy. As far as wish fulfilment goes it seems tick boxes have been well and truly ticked. I believe that one way or another we can manifest our own realities and I’ve spent so long wanting to come here that events finally conspired to make it happen.
‘Be careful what you wish for’ is an idiom I’d previously never taken much note of until now, but it has become apparent to me that I made the move long after it had ceased to be a good idea. Right place; wrong time.
Don’t get me wrong, Skye is unremittingly beautiful and there is much to hold the visitor in thrall. One trivial example is that place names up here are delightful and either put me in mind of characters from Game of Thrones (Edinbane, Sconser, Uig, Storr, Bernisdale, Torvaig) or suggest the names of planets that may feature in some Star Trek franchise (Valtos, Carbost, Duntulm, Flodigarry). I guess some of the names could cut across both tv genres …
“Captain, the Valtos ship is attempting to hail us.”
“Officer Torvaig, open a communications channel. I am Captain James T. Edinbane, commander of the USS Bernisdale. Please state your intentions.”
“Captain Edinbane, I am Flodigarry, leader of an all-female scouting vessel. We require humanoid males to help repopulate our planet.”
“Engineer Sconser, beam me right over. I’ll handle this one myself.”
Frustratingly though, I am finding little time to indulge in such flights of fancy. My job is shockingly all consuming and I am keenly feeling the distance I have put between myself and my loved ones. As I drive my buses around this iconic island I realise having a home and a job here, hell even a job that allows me to traverse the island’s most stunning locations, has given me no sense of the anticipated fulfilment. On the contrary, I am not engaging with the landscape beyond a superficial need to steer buses over the roads. I am finding little to enjoy here. Fragments and glimpses of what the island has to offer make no impact on me. I am way too tired and over-worked even to feel disappointment.
Instead, I’m like one of those mad scientists from a cheesy B movie who’s trying to make life in the laboratory. I believe I’ve mixed all the necessary ingredients: amino acids, proteins, lipids, sugars, a sprinkling of precious metals. I’ve bathed my solution in ultra-violet light and dunked in a couple of electrodes. The work involved has been ferocious and has exacted a heavy toll physically, mentally, and financially.
And yet, nothing.
I’m left staring at a beaker of chemical soup, and all I feel is a kind of denial of the reality. Life, god dammit, where are you?
Spiritually however, there have been gains. I have met some nice people and forged new friendships which may yet endure. That’s been a good thing, but I have also learned a great lesson. Many of us make journeys in life for all sorts of reasons. Often, they are made in search of something that is hard for us to quantify. This is particularly so on a pilgrimage. Such wanderings allow us to free our minds of the day-to-day mundanities that bog us down and, to that end are helpful of course, but the truth of the matter is the real gems of discovery are to be found inside of us. There isn’t always a need to actually go anywhere. We just need to explore the inner realms. Many of us are reluctant to do that.
I’ve always been a bit of a loner and have thought nothing of it. For much of my life I have perhaps placed more emphasis on the value of place over people but now find myself yearning to be in a place where I am close to the people I love and to the people who love me. I recognise this change in myself, that I now firmly value people over place. My inner sense is telling me it matters less where I am and more who I am surrounded by.
Maybe the missing ingredient for my chemical soup is simply time. If I stay here long enough I will fill the missing gaps in my life with new friends, new experiences and memories. Sure, I have done this several times over in my life. But time is not a luxury to take for granted. Futures are not guaranteed and I no longer find myself willing to wait things out. It has taken me moving to live on one to finally understand that no man is an island. I have no regrets about this. Regrets shouldn’t be expressed over the things you do but are better left confined to all those things you didn’t do. I guess I needed to move here to finally find this out. Wrong place; right time.
So, if you don’t mind, someone else can go help repopulate the planet Valtos. I rather fancy I will make better use of whatever time I have left.
“Officer Torvaig, set co-ordinates for home. Warp speed 9!”
