James McDonald Reid and Friends

April 29 post by Katy (update)

How Beautiful Upon the Mountain

At two we all gathered to climb Arthur’s Seat. That morning we had explored Edinburgh Castle, and spent the early afternoon wandering the City as we chose.

The path was just a slightly worn trail in the soft grassy turf. It felt springy even through a multiplicity of layers of wool and nylon and rubber—soon, it just became too much. I, and the few hikers hanging back with me, rebelled against conventional footwear. With shoelaces tied together and slung through the straps of our packs, we continued on barefoot.

Of course, of course, within a few metres (see, I’m getting the hang of this British lingo!) the path turned rocky and pokey and all around hurty. But by then of course it was a matter of honor—if Sam and Frodo could hike barefoot to Mordor, then by golly, we could stick it out to the top of this old hill! I’ve never felt more like a hobbit.

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After all that walkin' and hikin' today, it was a long walk across the city to the house of Sandy and Isabelle Reid, but definitely worth it. Jamie played the pipes, sang, and told us stories, (difficult for some because of lingering jet lag),

and then he taught us a dance (here with Isabelle):

Sandy,

and James):

At the end we sang a couple of hymns for them as well, and Isabella sent us on our journey with her blessing. I hope some of the students will let me put their comments on the events of the day into the blog.

Everybody Made It

Update: Flying into Edinburgh, photo by Roxanne:

A lot of students are looking forward to a 13-hour sleep tonight, but others are going to a concert at St. Giles' Cathedral, and others out to sample the night life of Edinburgh. Before they left, we had soup made by Karla, Chris B, Christian, and Katy A. Also in the self-catering section of the youth hostel were a landscape historian from Aberdeen who John finagled into talking to us briefly about the history of Scotland, and a young family from Western Australia, here on a long holiday. We made too much soup. Tomorrow we hike to Edinburgh Castle, walk down the Royal Mile, climb Arthur's Seat, and watch Highland dancing in the evening. Hopefully also by then we will have more contributors (and more exciting photos) for the blog.

Christine has dinner:

The youth hostel is new and nice, just a block from Calton Hill and a couple of streets down from Princes Street. All the locals complain about the road construction for the trams (I should say I've heard three people complain). John found the nearest Sainsbury--packets of veggies for 89p--which seems wonderfully inexpensive if you think of them in terms of pennies, not pence.

Jet Lag

Everyone is arriving--and everyone looks extraordinarily good for the jetlag they're experiencing! We have another big group arriving in an hour or two--I'll keep you posted as they come. Here is a group at the youth hostel on Leith Street:

Hadrian's Wall (1997)

We rode the coach north and west [from Fountains Abbey], up and down hills on little winding roads, until everyone was car-sick. The hills grew higher and the valleys steeper--real forests appeared, not just tree plantations with the conifers planted in straight lines on the hillsides. We drove for miles beside the mounded remains of Hadrian's Wall with the ditch on the north side. Most of the Wall has been plundered to make the little pasture-walls that quilt the countryside, or the scattered shepherds' stone cots, now abandoned. We came to a high place on the Wall, with a wide view north to the Scottish border, and walked among the remains of a Roman fort, built a thousand years before the Abbey.

The little museum featured pictures of what the Commandant's quarters would have looked like, how the men slept in their barracks, the arrangement of the latrine. The museum didn't have many artifacts--a spear head, a Sicilian coin. It had a life-size model of a Roman on guard, wrapped in a wool cloak, eyes squinting against the wind. It was cold while we were there, even though the sun shone. Those soldiers were a long way from home.

In the end the Wall was not overrun but deserted, as the troops were called home to defend the Empire against attack closer to the capital. I suspect that many of the Romans just stayed here and contributed a Mediterranean strain to the mongrel English mix. [Then-three-year-old] Chris ran a half-mile along the top of the wall to where it disappeared in a copse of tall trees, and had to be brought back.

Church on Our Own

It's too far to find a way back to Glasgow for church on Sunday, so this is one of the few places we meet on our own, without visiting a formal ward or branch. We meet in the commons if it rains,

although you can still take a Sunday walk outside on a drizzly Sunday afternoon.
If it's sunny and warm, we meet out in the woods. Rowardennan hillside (2007):

Rose and Jordan are both talking about the Atonement. I still don't understand it. Or maybe I don't or can't accept it. The world, humankind--I--need healing. Maybe he (Jesus) is saying--don't suffer, let go the guilt, be happy. Repenting is required too--changing what I do when I do harm. It's something I need daily, as a process of life, rather than as one big event at the last, daily giving him my burdens, being grateful, thinking of him, following him. The muck of hurt and imperfection and mistake--just walk away from it, at the end of the day--walk away and leave it alone, don't dwell on it or stay in it or count it up or obsess on it. Just leave it and be happy.

St. Andrew's Cross (the Flag of Scotland)

Doing the Washing Up

We cook and clean up for ourselves for most of our meals on the trip. One day John had the students listen to Frasier reciting Robert Burns and I stayed behind washing up (2005):

While I was in the members' kitchen, a group of school-children came in, I'd guess between 6-10 years old, and enthusiastically began washing dishes in the sink next to me. One young man said he hoped to open a dishwashing shop, at 20p per dish. I said I wished I had such good helpers. A tiny girl said, "But you're from America, aren't you? I wouldn't want to go to America just to wash dishes!"

At which point I had several immediate and somewhat contradictory thoughts:

1. And I don't want to go to Scotland just to wash dishes!
2. Wherever you go, someone has to do the washing up, and the sooner you learn to do it yourself, the better.
3. A great many immigrants to America (and to Scotland) end up washing dishes, or doing similar jobs.

John Lennon (or somebody) said once, "Woman is the n___ of the world." That's one way to see it. But another way is that somebody has to gently encourage the children to do their washing up (both actually and metaphorically): to clean up after themselves, to not leave big messes behind, to treat the world gently, tread lightly, be mindful, take care. Learn to be a custodian, not an exploiter. If that's my job, I'm OK with it.

Rowardennan Youth Hostel

The Rowardennan Youth Hostel is typical of the places we stay in the countryside, although it is spectacular in its situation on the shore of the loch.
Dorms are pretty much the same everywhere, especially after a wet hike.
The big windows in the commons make a perfect place to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon
or attend class:There are always interesting people to meet and talk to:

Ben Lomond

The start of the trail:

Rest stop:

A bit breezy:

Photos at the summit:

John:

Loch Lomond:

Triumph!

Now we just have to hike back down.

Note: if the weather looks variable, it is--but I'm including photos from all three previous trips. I think you'll get a chilly breeze whether it's sunny or raining.

While the Others Climb Ben Lomond

I'm always the slowest as we walk, always at the back of the line. I dimly remember not being last--I remember being strong and quick as a child, running for the joy of it. But adulthood, motherhood, grandmotherhood, the passing of time, and I am slow and soft. At home I ride my Bike O' Death and swim in the BYU pool, strenuous efforts to delay further dissolution--but it's a holding pattern now, and the long slow decay.

Today I sit on a tussock of grass and moss at the edge of the lake, listening to birdsong, the sigh of wind in the trees, the never ending buzz and hum of traffic on the other side of the loch. I doze, still recovering from jet lag, and try to guess the kind of tree above my head; its tender spring leaves are serrated; its humped and knobby roots support my hummock of soil and small plants on the rock beach.

The lake water laps against the shore, sometimes silently, sometimes like a big wet kiss. The wind rises and chills despite the gentle sun. Across the loch the mountain sleeps, sides clad in dark evergreen and bright oak and charcoal heath and heather.

My knee is very sore from our walk along the lake yesterday. I wonder when the rhododendron buds will pop into wild magenta glory. I breathe quietly. I hum "On the Bonnie Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond." I look at the used condom package and cigarette butt at my feet, and kick the rocks and sand over them without getting up. I close my eyes.

I dream that I am floating, up past the serrated leaves and into the open sky, sharing the sunlit air with quick birds that dart in and out of the canopy. The weight of flesh is gone. I blow and puff and tumble in the breeze. I stretch into thin little wisps, wind-spun cloud-threads that vanish in the light. I am sun above and lake below--far below, a shining mirror reflecting only sky.

A fish leaps and splashes near the shore and I start awake. I am warm on the sun-side and chill on the shadow-side, like a planet. My knee aches a little--I feel the sciatic nerves down the backs of both my legs, stiffness in my shoulders from carrying my pack. I watch the reedy grass bend in the ripples of clear water. I must tilt my head to see things up close with my bifocals. I close my eyes entirely to hear a bagpipe from the village below. Faintly. Maybe I'm dreaming again.

The earth is old and heavy, lined and worn, but fecund, gravid with life. The planet breathes. Her veins run quick and blue with water, but deep inside, her red heat, dense and pressured, creates new islands in the sea and mountains on the land. Much of the earth is ugly, homely, negligable. She is both varied and regular in grandest geology and smallest detail. She tolerates colonization and parasites, she lets others use her, she bears with their hunger until they are gone. She is patient until she is not.

The earth is my mother, I am her child. I learn her dispassion, her solidity, her humor. Like her I have my seasons. Like her I will come to an end. Until then, I am warm and green in the sun. -2007-

The Loch

Ye Take the High Road...

..to the bonnie bonnie bank of Loch Lomond. Our first major walk, from Balmaha to Rowardennan.

Eating Out Of The Van

As we are often on the move in the middle of the day, with no fixed place of abode until evening, we eat out of the van. Here we eat next to Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh (2005), and here we have lunch at the park at Balmaha before hiking along the east shore of Loch Lomond to Rowardennan (2007):

The Major Form of Transportation

We go by plane, train, coach, ferry, city bus, and London Underground, but our main form of transportation is what we're standing on. Here's what mine felt like after three days in Edinburgh, and just before the hike into Rowardennan:

Notes on Edinburgh (from Arthur's Seat, 2003)

Edinburgh is a most lovely little city. How did this bit of European cosmopolity and British eccentricity arise in the cold North? Philosophers and religionists came of age here--the Athens of the North. Brit stubbornness and oddity, with a gentle, lyrical (and tribal, and warlike) overlay of Celt.

My patrilineal ancestors--the Esplins--came from Perth, not far from here. They were shipbuilders, supposedly, not clansmen or gentry, but peasants and craftsmen. But I'm not sure I really feel a kinship yet to the people here, or the land.

Edinburgh seems designed for dramatic tourist moments. Holyroodhouse maybe is just another royal residence, but the gardens are gorgeous emerald green, and the cute Scottish guard-guys with tams (or berets?) and ponytails talk to the students. It's all within walking distance and line-of-sight. Arthur's Seat is a short, steep, but do-able walk, and then a short, steep, but do-able climb, and there is the Firth of Forth laid out in front of us, the city round, the Castle, the Old Town and New Town, the various follies on Calton Hill. I want to draw it--a tidy schematic. I will when we get back. Now, wind gusts and rain spits at us from all directions. My glasses are covered with rain and foggy from sweating the climb.

Music, Poetry, and Stories

We often hear people who tell stories, sing, and dance:

Auld Reekie

The medieval city was built along and around the Royal Mile and the spine of the volcanic upthrust that culminates in the Castle. St. Giles Cathedral, the Writer's Museum, and many little pubs in nooks and crannies are there for exploring. One year we went on a literary pub crawl through Auld Reekie (smoke from coal fires?), which was probably a disappointment to the places selling Scotch whiskey and beer, but was fun for us: