Sally Evans,
Scotland
A Personal
Report for Sketchbook's Third Anniversary Issue
My son has been
living in Edinburgh since we left it in 2000, but today he is
in the air—off
to northern California for three months. He's about the age I
was when I took off to Italy. He is very self reliant and laid
back. I will be able to follow his progress on Facebook, which
is how I found out he was going. He'd been talking of this
trip, but I didn't know whether it was definite, or when.
Sally's son at
Callander Poetry Weekend (photo Colin Will)
He wrote that he
had not packed yet, reminding me strongly of frustrating
earlier days when he was a teenage student and I was his
chauffeur. He had never put even one thing in a box when I
arrived. This time it wasn't my problem.
On Monday he let
me know he was off today (Wednesday). No requests for taxi-ing
or other parental assistance. He dropped us an IM in the
middle of the night, thanking us for our good wishes for his
trip. He said he still hadn't finished packing, and was due to
leave at dawn. He was obviously happy and looking forward to
this new phase of his life. So he isn't in Edinburgh any more.
I was there today, meeting poet friends. A huge lorry shed its
bales of straw ahead of me on the motorway near Stirling. Not
much traffic at the time, and no damage done, but the result
was a
picturesque enough late autumn scene.
Sofas and coffee,
Edinburgh's Princes Street—
my son in the air
The first cold
spell, with leaves still falling from the trees at the first
frost. Leaf colour has been spectacular. You could have made a
weather map of Britain from the Facebook updates this morning—Adam
in Stroud reported frost, Jacqi in Birmingham and Eddie in
Aberdeen snow, Sally James blue sky in Bolton. I was looking
out on my first frosty lawn for about eight months, and said
so.
the first frost loosens
green, golden and brown beech leaves --
we stoop to the skies
Hard to believe that we have lived in Callander nearly nine
years. Where has it gone? All my experience of the internet is
in these years. Sketchbook has been here for the
last three. (The first three we were running our Edinburgh
shop as well. But what happened to the middle three?)
All this time, my computer has been here in the kitchen,
beside the cooker. Standing here I have talked to countless
friends—mostly
poet friends—worldwide,
while cooking supper or breakfast, awake in the night or here
for a few minutes during working daytime.
Cat on the
downstairs computer, taken outdoors with reflections
of the garden. (photo Morelle Smith)
Morelle and Colin
were two of the people I met today on my visit to Edinburgh.
I recently read at
a Chicago Calling festival event via Skype while standing
here. I have sent poems and comments, discussions and haiku
via email, websites, web lists, and groups, week after week to
all corners of the globe. And so have all these other people.
Meanwhile I am growing older (which is about the only thing
that is absolutely certain to happen to you). I travel less. I
don't often come to the cities. My world is as small as it has
ever been and at the same time larger than ever. Thank you
Sketchbook, thank you John and Karina for your
parts in this.
anniversaries
friends all over the planet
the grass grows
