MacPhail

The constancy of landscape contrasting with the moving cycles of our own lives is a phenomenon that has long fascinated me and never ceases to have an effect when visiting places that have been important in previous times of life.

This is never felt more keenly that when returning to the areas that were significant when growing up. There is no doubt that periods of separation from home accentuate these contrasts, and to an extent it is that very separation that gives the perspective that fuels these particular emotions and makes more clear the human changes against the enduring geography.

The embryonic stages of the song Walking on the Waves was conceived from that concept of transitional lives changing against the background of a constant landscape. In a very different context, John MacLean, The Balemartin Bard (1827-1895) wrote powerfully of it in one of the verses of the protest song Oran anitoba when he described people as ‘strangers on the face of the Earth’.

Last weekend, I was home on Tiree for a few days and it was neither romance nor forced emigration that was the nature of the human changes being contemplated, but the ageing process and the changing roles that come with it.

My auntie was home from California, where she now lives, and as we had done many times before over the years, we went for a walk along the Balephuil side of Kenevara and over the edge of the hill to the stony beaches on the south-eastern tip to have a picnic.

Although this is the more accessible side of the hill when compared with the deep gorges, sea caves and cliffs of the western edge, it is still strewn with small gullies and obstacles that make it potentially dangerous for those walking.

The last time I did this walk with my mum and Auntie Teen would have been around 20 years ago and the contrast in the role of responsibility was clear. Now in her middle seventies, mum is not as agile as she used to be and, rather than her worrying about where her mischievous child was and what dangers he might be bringing upon himself among the cliffs and crevices, I was the one doing the worrying – trying to find the easiest route in and out of the beach, fretting that we didn’t have a phone signal if anything untoward happened and having moments of thinking that that the whole escapade was a bit irresponsible.

We even worried at points that we may indeed have to float her out on a high tide if she couldn’t make it back up the steep climb from the shore!

Thankfully, with a prod now and again and heave here and there, accompanied by much hilarity, we made it over the hill to Teampull Phàraig that marked the beginning of the easy and level walk back to the car. A great day was had and the effort needed and the wee bit of worry made it all the more rewarding.

The landscape was exactly the same as the last time we were there together but the human beings were very different. The cycle of life never ceases to move.