"For what its worth: its never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change, or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing" F.Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
I guess as we age we reminisce more and look back, as there is more back than forward. I do a bit of that these days. I also do look forward quite a bit as there is I hope quite a bit of it left! I am goal oriented needing a progression or something to aim forward at. Preferably without a ball, but certainly needing engagement. My teachers at school certainly thought I had a short attention span. But I didn't I was just bored with rote learning. Primary education was fairly strict in our wee Highland village school St Mary's Episcopal. At St Mary's you got the three "R's" or the belt, often times both. In fairness I could be a wee shite but aren't all boys now and again when bored. We had some Gaelic and minor Scottish history at school in among the revisionist clap trap of glorious English history, 1066 and all that. Its not so much that Scottish history was ignored, it just seemed a footnote to the Great British empire and revisionist myths. Little did we realise at the time that our history and culture, Neolithic, Celtic, Dalriadan, Celtic Warrior Priests, Vikings, Jacobite's and Scottish enlightenment was both our local and National history that had far reaching influence, European and World. Darien to the Heights of Abraham, Hanseatic League to the Somme and extirpation of the menfolk of the Cabrach.
Secondary School up the road at Kinlochleven was just a travail among some burnt out bullies for teachers and de motivated kids. For me it was class room days of longing to be out with a fishing rod on a hill loch or wandering the river. I had not read "Highland River" by Neil Gunn then, but later on reading it I found Kenn the protagonist and I shared many childhood wonderings and wanderings. The source for me was always high in the mountains of the Glen. Filling me with terror and longing at the same time. Highland River is a quest. The salmon symbolising knowledge from the Druid/Celtic mythology of An Bradán Feasa. Fishing was and still is a wander with a rod. Less about what you catch (these days I put them back if I can) and more about what you feel see and think along the way - perhaps an enlightenment. I can partly be defined as an angler, and I hope now also a conservationist.
The source for Kenn on high moorland, for me up high among austere Dalriadan rock and Andesite. When exotic "climbers" such as Ian and Nicki Clough bought an old house to do up in the village I got my first exposure to folk who went up into the mountains as climbers. As a clueless teen along with another local lad we started exploring these high places and had adventures. I became a hillwalker and wannabe climber. Several adventures and misadventures later I was in the mountain rescue team. I was still very much a wannabe climber and in no way competent enough, but folk were patient and I got strong. Then, and for several years after, the team were working hill men and climbers who went on rescues. It was fairly informal and just expected that you or a competent visiting climbing friend would help out if someone was in trouble. Later as I became a better mountaineer and rescues became frequent it became less informal, and to meet the improvements in pre hospital care mountain rescue also changed. I also discovered I was a wee bit cleverer than my teachers had indicated and entered adult education with a gusto never felt in my younger days when I bailed out of school at 14 and didn't go back. No regrets. Carpenter, Lumberjack, Mountaineering and Ski Instructor, Paramedic, Husband and Father. Success in life isn't money, property or status. Its only quantifiable in love. The more pain love causes in its loss the more depth it has. Learning to embrace that is a spiritual journey. Only loss of love, grief and pain awakens us to how fragile we all are, how little material goods matter and that money is a token.
I write. Probably not very well. Some are tales of rescue and of its great characters and legends. I still rescue day shift as a ski rescuer working ski patrol with a group of great folk up at Glencoe Mountain. Every time that damn helicopter fly's over I wonder what's happening with the MRT and think of the new young stalwarts of the team, remembering getting my head around the trauma and relating it to my own ambitions on some of the same climbing routes of the fallen. MR can stealthily grip and steal away the mountaineer, substituting a trauma junky. Pedalling the hit of helicopters, kudos and the excitement of the unknown. As potent as heroin to the adrenaline junky of which I was and maybe still am one.
I do feel very much a climber again even if it's clipping bolts or several grades down my old trad abilities. I love wandering with a rod or exploring an old coffin route on a mountain bike. We are the sum of all past things, but it does not mean a future only looking back along some cursus of where we have come. Does it?
Be it a journey of the mind or a piece of rock there is plenty out ahead if you reach for it. That reaching is a hard journey but I have light ahead up that magic mountain.
Kahil Gibran
