I was awoken twice in the wee hours patients one a patient call and two a doctor’s office wanting a fax number. I was sufficiently awake the second time to put the phone on airplane mode. The first time I tried merely to turn off the ringer and failed. The second time it was 4 am. I’d not fallen asleep till after 1 pm because of the double expresso I had at the Festival Theatre where we enjoyed the Scottish Opera, Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Now I ache, I read for a couple of hours then slept a few hours then woke at 9 am. We must be up for the 10 am is the end of serving breakfast. I was having another of my dreams on the peninsula but this time it was in the rustic part in the mountains overlooking the harbour. I was in a trailer. I was with a beautiful loving woman. I’d spilt honey on the table, I longed to remain and learn more of the mystery of this place. I still felt insecure as a child but the others were self assured and there seemed no expectations of me. Even now after breakfast I feel a draw to that place. Maybe because I don’t hurt there. Here my back hurts and today my calves and feet hurt. The latter is good pain from exercise.
Since we’ve arrived here we spent the first day of the plane flight arrival eating pizza from a nearby shop and then watching bbc and sleeping
Next day we walked to shops on High Street buying Laura a cashmere pink tartan scarf , a red cashmere sweater for me and the marvellous Harris Tweed Hebrides Vest and red Argyle socks. We toured Edinburgh Castle and the War Museum after that. Then it was a walk down the Royal Mile stopping for soup of the day lunch at Edinburgh Cafe. At the shop next door I bought Laura a pink Harris Tweed tartan pack sack purse. Then she bought me the silver Celtic cross I’m wearing now around my neck. We were dragging but like good troopers continue down past the Scottish Parliament. I asked a couple of police with their distinctive black and white trimmed peaked caps where the entrance to Holyroodhouse was. They pointed the entrance.
Holyroodhouse is a working palace, the queen and family visiting each year. At the War Museum in the Castle Laura had bought a scarf for me I fancied because it was there she said the Unicorn was the National Animal of Scotland. I must have known that but it hit me like new knowledge and whimsically I felt it so appropriate as I am quite Fay and the animal of my ancestral nation was though a fanciful creature. I personally feel fairies and druids and good witches , a whole parallel universe exists that becomes evident each fall at Samhain. I’ve had confirmed telepathic experiences as a child in experiment and was seeing ghosts that turned up in old records unknown to home owners till I pointed them out. That’s when as a teen I was interested in Madame Blavatsky a veritable con and the Theosophical Society a more reputable forum. I used to attend their seances and their workshops. It was then that I was in contact with a Christian Rose group and read Tarot later talked about by Dr. Jung. I gravitated to SRF and Paramahansa Yognanda during my dance days. I’d lost the knack for astroprojection as a teen. People would tell me they saw me in their homes and as a waif in their dreams. I’d tell them about things I couldn’t know having never been in their homes. I’d later manage the smooth muscles of my body slowing my heart and meditating all day with monks. I loved learning medicine and general practicing, doing surgery and delivery ing babies. But hypnosis and psychosomatic medicine attracted me. Community medicine and the Northern Meeical Unit.
I remember Jack Hildes approaching me saying “I hear you’re considering being a missionary but there’s as much need in the north and I’ll pay you to go.” I threw in the community medicine day and study and sealed the deal. I’d later enter psychiatry and get caught up in the twisted vortices of Freud and intellectualism. I was glad to leave this later for the likes of Jung and Adler. I had Dr. White as a mentor and Christian leader and didn’t take advantage of what I had access to. His books moved me and personally he repeatedly said my questions were ‘spiritual questions’ but I expect he laid crumbs and I wasn’t ready to follow. It was years later I turned theological. I was first interested in the Taoist practices of tai chi and enlightenment through drugs and alcohol and sex. That was a path that said that if you survived it you’d be more quickly enlightened .It’s odd looking back now at that path. I really just wanted to have children and family and yet my marriages were to career women who didn’t have much desire or actual none to be pregnant.
Years of sobriety later and a life of study and service. My friend is a grandmother and devoted to children and pets and now we are friends decade later.
I’m living in this world. The sailing off shore was a whirlwind. All theses skills and competencies, surgery, medicine, psychiatry, addiction medicine and the sail boat and navigation and communication and Diesel engines and a wealth of interfacing with the earth till culmination in the world of earth and sky and wind, I did all that. I was so accomplished. Sailing solo through winter hurricanes North Pacific. Making igloos in the subarctic, Going though ice into the freezing water first in snow shoes and later in a ski doo on a mercy mission, The DC 3 crash and it’s broken wing like a wounded bird. All of that. Then motorcycling and riding the Harley to Sturges Then RV’s and towing and 4x4 and hunting big game and ocean fishing.
I’ve learned so much.
The bisexuality and theology and meditation and meetings and prayer, I’ve been a constant seeker. Always playing hide and seek with God and peekaboo.
Then covid and lockdowns and working days on end with Doxy.me and Oscar and zoom. I ve isolated. The annual doctors meeting of IDAA kept me in the specialist circle of friends and the feeling of collegiality lost when I was abused and my trust betrayed. I was so expecting to be an academic and then I was out of the university and serving as a clinician, So many people. So many moving parts..
I’m the last day of being 69 today.
We slept well after Holywoodhouse, taking a taxi home and eating room service fish and chips. Laura had macaroni. We had jet lag sleep disrupted but so enjoyed the Hilton Hotel breakfast with haggis and eggs and sausages.
We’ve just come from there,
Yesterday we toured the Scottish National Gallery and I loved the Wilkie and the Celtic revolution and the Glasgow boys while seeing more of Botticelli Titian and Degas . I love the Mother and Child. I talk more with my mother and aunt and sometimes my brother and my Dad. I wanted to go to Aberdeen to walk where my grandfather had come from,
We did the Scottish opera last night and Laura slept through the night while I was woken by the double expresso I had at Festival Theatre and then calls from patients and clinics, I’ve had coffee and am a wake.
Tomorrow I turn 70. I’d never have thought. I thought I would be dead by thirty. I’d toyed with the idea of suicide and been attacked and threatened so many times, knives and shot at and so many vehicle crashes and being held hostage and just so many close calls and now I’m suddenly old, I was surrounded by three swat teams young, falsely accused and mistaken identity. There are very bad men and women with power but also very good men and women with power, I’ve met both. I’m not surprised at the Zoroastrian and other dualistic ideas of God. Even Job has the Devil wagering with God. I feel so much a pawn. Buddha says desire is the root of suffering .The Hindus speak of Maya and I’ve loved the joy of C.S. Lewis. Now I don’t feel any closer to death.
Just older. My back has ached so much this year because I’ve gained weight and lain too much on the couch. Too many deaths. Too much grief. Physical injuries. Torn muscles and damaged ligaments and vehicular crashes. The last was the flipped ATV. I felt safer on the boat and loved sleeping at anchor. Perhaps I’ll return to the GIRI. I thought of summers on the lakes enjoying sailing closer to protected harbours with fresh water rather than salt water all around
Now I’m going to shower. We’re going to the National Scottish Museum today and the Scott Memorial. I loved seeing the Adam Smith and Hume Sculptuees and St. Giles Cathedral and the John Knox bronze and the Robert Burns glass window. Now I’m looking forward to seeing the Scott memorial I remember visiting that when I was last here 50 years ago.
I turn 70 tomorrow My mother lived ill 89 and my father 94. My aunt was in her 80’s too but my poor brother died young, I think it was all the stress of caring for young, me and his own children He was such a good man and so much larger than life but humble and fine and anxious as only a Hay can be anxious,
I’m a Hay and I’m going to be seeing the centre of the clan and the castles of the clan next week. Tomorrow I’ll have angus beef. I must book the train ride to Aberdeen too. Now for a shower . Another time I’ll call the patients who have been calling me.
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