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Glenlyon, said to be the world’s longest, loveliest and loneliest Glen.
We visited as a part of our family, just three of us at the start of August. Three days and two nights only… Blissful and peaceful. A tiny cottage gifted for this short time of tranquil haven. Moth trap mornings and walks aplenty.
Nature powers solace for me. Gentle pace implied by being outside. As per tradition, no television. Instead binoculars and birds, the deer on hill top high. The playing of cards. Reading in silence and writing. Blessed and needed, this break was the tonic I needed.
Not just a holiday, but in senses, a feeling of closure created. Feeling close, at once, to my Mum and Dad. Full circle from the family holidays I had as a child. We stopped to see where we used to stay, Camusvrachan Cottage. Took in the changes and also, what had not changed.
The rope swing tree now fallen. The cottage now made much bigger by way of extension and change. More light evident, and big windows now in place, where once just sash and case.
We stayed at a cottage by Milton Eonan Waterfall. A special place for my parents, which in turn is a special place for me.
Indeed when my husband and I first met, I took him there. Just as my father had taken my Mum. Chilly day. All wrapped up. The waterfall in sound and sight.
I love to hear the sound of water as I sleep. The burn at Camusvrachan, a tributary to the River Lyon nearby, when I was little. Whispering through the night of its passage and flow. I remember once home again, back to Tifty, the world felt empty. The water sound no longer there to hear. At Milton, that sound was there again. Within touching distance it felt.
Mel, the owner, gave us the loan of two moth traps. Borrowed from a friend of hers, and placed close by to her home and to ours at day end. Opening them each morning I felt like a little girl at Christmas. So many varieties, tiny souls. So many to note down, photograph and wonder over.
Gentle touch of fragile body and wings in shimmer, these moths stayed for us to witness. Like gilded wonder, each one a treasure of sorts.
It was such a gift, the time we spent there. All too fast, but somehow within the memories which came flooding back, thick and fast, the tangible timeline felt moldable and although the time was short, it somehow felt like ages.
Time. A tricky customer, whereby we never know how much time we have. Seasons pass, and still we stay relatively still. Jobs, day to day, the chores and the tick boxes. Bed and rise. Breakfast, lunch, tea, on repeat. Monotonous. There is so much to see, so much to do.
Spending time by water, I wrote the following. Contemplating the way time changes us, and makes us who we are. As well as the land around us.
“ Passage of time and paths eroded
The world wears around us
Ways through stone face and
gaps in situ.
Scrolling swirls,
Froth water in circles
Spinning.
Rampaging.
Settling in deep rounded trough.
Stone carved, fissures and crevice
Linear way markers of what was
Way worn
Life envelopes and retreats
With passage of time
Eroding our edges
A softening
The Glen whispers us back,
‘Come home…
Be here…
Stay a while…’
Like the water that travels
In always gentle constant
Channels etched
into stone, by time
Lines on face.
Ours… Theirs…
Mirror the landscape
And it all continues.
Begins again
Where it started.
A new”
Words inspired by water. Other words inspired by the Split Rock, and of the moths. Each set of words separate, but also of the same. Place lingering so heavily, like a morning mist, veiling and surrounding their very essence.
Time waits for no-one. Loss has taught me this the hard way. Possibly though, the hardest way teaches us this lesson the most.
To live. To make the most of the time we have with those we love the most. To be.
Within the Glen, or away from those steep sloped hills. I am still a girl of the Glen at heart. It resonates greatly in me, and of me. A bell toll.
Perhaps the very bell from within Innerwick Kirk. True and loud. Resonating. Resounding. It will ring in me always.
~Jenna
