Friday Five: Bucket List

SingingOwl over at RevGalBlogPals suggests that we offer our personal "bucket lists" for the traditional Friday Five. I never saw the Bucket List movie, so the words brought something different to my scattered mind:

"There's a hole in the bucket, Dear Liza, Dear Liza..."

I loved that song when I was a child. It seemed endlessly funny, the way each problem on the ol' homestead sent Liza and Henry farther into the Slough of Despond...all 'cause there was a dad-blamed hole in the gosh-darn bucket.

Now that I live on a homestead myself, the song ain't so funny--just achingly familiar. In my life, a "bucket list" is likely to involve an actual bucket, and if'n it don't have a hole, well, the side may be split or the handle near to coming off.

Och, but enough whinging and whining. The sun's come out to warm the weary earth, and I shall plant peas in the garden today. This morning I said goodbye to The Piper's Son, who is headed off across the country to a new job and the unfettered freedom of young adult life. I'm thankful, today, for the extraordinary gift of his help this past year as we turned our old woodshop into a genuinely lovely little house. I'm also excited for him, fresh-faced and ready to discover his place in the world. Oh, and this morning, after he left? After wiping away a few sentimental tears, I got out the utility knife and the drill and put up the last piece of drywall in our bathroom, bringing the house that much closer to being done.

Now, about that bucket list:

1) Restore this old farm and open a Bed & Breakfast with a Celtic theme. I'd cook sumptuous Celtic breakfasts, all ingredients homegrown and/or fresh from other local farms. The Bagpiper would provide evening entertainment and, for those who request it, an unforgettable wake-up call! Instead of being isolated and exhausted by the hard work of farming, we'll be constantly invigorated by the stream of vibrant visitors who come to appreciate this farm's unique blessings and gifts. We'll hold Celtic Spirituality retreats for church groups, Farm Discovery weekends for armchair homesteaders, Writers & Artists retreats for weary professional women (BTW, I count caregiving of any kind as a profession, so just about all women would be qualified)...

2) Become fluent--or at least comfortably conversant--in Scottish Gaelic. (I started learning this beautiful, soulful language several years ago, but had to end my classes when I left for seminary.) Of course, to continue my studies, I'd need to spend a fair amount of time in, well, SCOTLAND! Ah, home of my ancestors and my Spirit's Other Home... Tir Mo Ghraidh! There I would sing with the seals, wander the moors, caper at the ceilidhs, wrap myself with the mountain mists and eerie, ancient peace of the isles...and the Bagpiper would travel along, sometimes choosing a different path for her own musical pursuits, but always joining me to bless moonrise and sunrise, to share our stories at the start and end of each day.

3) In keeping with #2: Make music such a central & powerful part of our shared life that it continues to heal & energize us. Ideally, it should also open opportunities for us to travel and make music in the places--and with the people--we most love. (Also, ideally, we would develop a corps of sturdy & steadfast farmhands, available to mind the farm when we depart on occasional musical jaunts!)

4) One other journey: to travel and explore some spiritual, as well as cultural roots. I'd like to see some of the Continental Celtic strongholds and archeological sites in Brittany, Austria, and Galicia. I also want to take a side trip to Ravenna, Italy, to see the church mosaics there--especially the one where there's a lifesize procession of the Church Mothers. I've been intrigued ever since I heard of these mosaics. In one, there's supposedly a woman with the title "bishop" above her head!

5) I've been a caregiver--to siblings and other people's children--much of my life. There has always been a bittersweet element of release in this work. The children always return to their parents at the end of the day, and my guidance and gifts have always been secondary. That can be a good thing--to leave the "hard part" to others--but still I'd dearly love the chance to "have a wee bairn or twa" all my own. There is so much joy and mystery that I'd love to share, as well as the shared work and earthly delights of this beloved farm. I'd like to raise up a child who sings freely, works earnestly, laughs readily, and lives fruitfully.

Speaking of being fruitful, ain't nobody gonna be fruitful around here if'n I don't get out to the garden and plant those peas!

If it's nae Scottish...

Ah'm...weel...gobsmacked!

Maine is the landing-place of my immigrant ancestors. My journey here has echoed theirs, in a way, as my settlement here came at the end of a month-long pilgrimage through Scotland's Highlands & Islands, a graduation gift from Celtophile friends. (That was the only time I've ever been to Scotland, but it felt eerily like home. I flew into Glasgow, took the train north, and blythely wandered from one island to the next, taking Gaelic language and music courses along the way.)

Although I will always be "from away," as the locals say, this place has drawn me back and caused me to put down roots. As my circle of Maine friends has grown, so has my delight in the state's strong Celtic connections. I discovered that Cornish fishermen were among the first European settlers in the early 1600s. I found place names like "Edinburg" and "Belfast" and "Wales." Thanks to a long line of Celtic travelers and settlers, Celtic concepts and ideas permeate the fabric of our state's culture and history. Scots words like "muckle" remain in regular usage, though the meaning has shifted. Knowing these things, and knowing my own family's history of immigration from the Scottish port of Ayr to the Maine town of Livermore Falls, I found myself moved to write. My mother's forebears--Border Reivers, rebels and patriots both--demanded a broadside ballad or a song in praise of the homeland. My father's forebears sternly recalled their heredity as brieves or law-keepers. Their ghosts called for justice, for memory's long reach.

English words didn't suit the task. I chose to write in Scots--which felt strangely comfortable, after listening to Scottish folk music and reading Scottish literature for years. Poet David Whyte once described the task thusly: "poetry is the art of saying something to yourself that you find it impossible to go back upon." I read and re-read my work to make sure it fit Whyte's description...and it did. But then I decided to submit it to a poetry contest--the only Scots-language poetry contest of which I knew, a contest that happened to be in, well, SCOTLAND.

Now the poem had to meet a more serious standard. There would be hours of fact-checking before I could take the bold and brazen step of sending the poor shivering little thing to its judgment and probable death. I searched Scots language websites, flipped back and forth through phrasebooks and dictionaries, and feshed michtily ower whether Ah'd done it richt. Finally, I sent the poem off by e-mail, expecting it to be quietly engulfed by, and lost among, the hundreds of other contest entries. It was enough to feel that I'd done something to honor my ancestors, and that I'd put great effort into doing it as well as possible with the tools I had at hand.

Here's the poem I wrote, with a caveat that you may need a good Scots dictionary nearby in order to understand it!

Screevins Frae a Bothy in Maine

Oot ayont Lewis, ayont the last lintin wing-tip
o skirlin seabirds, careenin aff craigs
whaur dings doon the ruddy Western sun,
Oot ayont strath an glen, the Border’s rollin hills,
Cap & Goon Toons & kenspeckle kirkyairds,
(Care-wairn & keekin thro lum-reek,
ash o anthracite, orange pips an chippie-wraps),

Oot ayont Ayr, anely-kent port o farin
For forebears kythed, aye, & aince mair mislaid:
(Anither muddle amang the hantle
O “Mester Robert Morrisons” on the leet…)
West o Edin(burgh), but East o the wind-
scourit Nebraska plains, the Idaho cattle-range,
an Puget Sound’s ain/ither Western Isles,
(Grossets in the kailyairds, rhodies on the braes),
Jiggin frae ane tae the neist, us unsettled settlers,
greetin gaberlunzies & sillerless sangsters seekin
Oor ain bit land:

Here, we upbigg the noo, we wabbit crofters,
Gowkin an pawky by turns,
Gang at it, ettlin, same as ilka Scot, dreyin oor ain weird on the wrang shore,
Jalousin some Grait Trowth
ayont the lint-dross, stanes an slaistered muck o History…
Kythin oor native place wis nivir wrestit, an
Kythin oor anely hame’s aye here:
The far-flung, sky-boundit ruim
O the hale blessit yirth.

--copyright MaineCelt
January 4th, 2008

Earlier this week, an e-mail came from a woman who works at the Glasgow Herald newspaper. Aye, that's Glasgow, Scotland, not just another funny Maine place-name. The poem placed second in their international contest, the first overseas entry to ever win a prize. "Astounded" doesn't begin to describe my response. There are a hantle of Scots words that suit my feelings better, but I'd start with our household favorite, "Gobsmacked."

The poem will be read aloud at a celebratory event in Scotland in November. Although I heartily wish I could attend in person, I don't plan to spend my winnings on a ticket to Scotland--it would go against certain ancestral traditions of frugality, as well as our tightly-controlled farm budget. Instead, I plan to put the prize towards the purchase of a decent laptop computer with the hope that good tools and much practice will produce a better--and more frequent--writer!