Tag / travel

by Isla

Fresh page

¡Feliz Año Nuevo!

Happy New Year to everyone! It’s been too long since I last wrote a post – I’ve had a veritable cornucopia of minor illnesses along with the usual cramping beast so I’m not sure I’ve felt even vaguely healthy since October. Fingers crossed for a good start to 2020!

I’m currently in the south of Spain, where evenings remain lengthy and skies are adamantly blue. I’m somewhat amusingly on a ski holiday, which is possibly the worst activity imaginable given my various body issues, so I’m enjoying the views and the atmosphere whilst keeping my feet as firmly adhered to the ground as possible. It’s been bizarre to walk down a snowy mountain in a t-shirt at the start of January.

It’s my first holiday in a long while, mostly because I get ill when I travel, and then get anxious about being ill when I travel, and then get ill because I’m anxious… and repeat.

I did get crampy and did have to spend the first couple days in bed, but it’s a relief to have ventured forth despite the fear. It also brought up memories of the last time I’d been in these mountains, and the changes in my health and wider life. Last time was back in the ibuprofen days when I had travel anxiety but didn’t really think much about getting ill, turns out I still wasn’t carefree even when I really could have been!

I’m now thoroughly appreciative of good health days, of my many patient friends, and of the kindness of my family. And I wish all of you a full complement of the same.

Here’s to 2020, with love.


by Isla

Raw

In which I’m a little sunburnt on the inside

The scent of the sewage works is sliding around the window. Not exactly offensive, just faintly organic. A nasal weathercock that signifies an easterly breeze.

It’s raining on the shed below (and, unsurprisingly, elsewhere), and each drop has its knees bent up, arms wrapped around for maximum velocity, and is making a satisfying thwack-splat on the plastic-wrapped roof.

Through the collisions of kamikaze rain come the sounds of planes, every takeoff and landing a slow, deep rumbling sigh in the contented chest of the heavens.

I can feel all those sounds in my bones, the smells trickle along vertebrae, and that grey light – so often loathed – offers a soft cloud buffer between the world and me. 

I’m a little raw today. 

Last night, I unlocked one of those boxes I keep in my head and spilled its contents out, despite my brain’s best efforts to squirm and wriggle out from under your mercilessly gentle spotlight. 

And under that light, the shadows of the Dread Shame might have faded a bit.

So I’m wrapping myself in greys and rumbles, bathing in the faint scent of sewage, and hoping I’ll have a while before doubt wheedles its way back in. 

by Isla

In time

In which we’ll meet again

Perhaps we’ll meet there

When the arches slump and weather

And strain to keep edge against edge.

The willows’ eyes will be dry by then,

Their hair will hang heavy in the water,

And gazes will fixate on stagnant twins.

Perhaps we’ll meet there

When these slabs no longer grind away

Under the patter of endless feet.

The stone lacework will have spindled 

Dark marks will marr the porcelain,

And safety bars will swing wild over water.

Perhaps we’ll meet there,

In air as thick as water, in the heat of a dying planet,

We’ll take flight against a purple sky.


by Isla

Tube Love

In which all is fair

The hearts in the air are visible.

Her hands are locked at the small of his back,

His arm snugged around her waist.

Unfortunately for the girl behind them, every besotted peck

Rams his shoulder into her grittedly neutral face. His lady’s

Scent courses up nostrils with the delicacy of turpentine,

Dissolving each follicle in its path.

At least I’m not that girl behind them, whose neutral façade is belayed by eyes that burn with a

Yearning to take her bag strap, wrap around cooing necks, pull.

by Isla

The moment

In which we visit the office (III)

Written on a particularly cheery day at a desk…

There comes a Moment,

Hurtling out of the morass of meaningless days.

Ululating its discontent, the Moment snaps at heels,

Ripping at sinews and seams until the morass

Stills. There, entwined in the purr of the Moment, it

Dawns on you that the sludge of your life is slithering away,

Another day. Another

Year. Gone.

by Isla

One of a kind

In which I dig out some travel photos

My degree was in Chinese studies so I spent a fair amount of time travelling around China.

One of the favourite things about China is the slightly unorthodox approach taken by museums and cultural displays.

Here’s a collection of some of my favourites (all time favourite being the half goat nailed to some planks).

by Isla

Ankles

In which we Rome around (IV)

Rome 17

On a modern-day teenage gladiator at the Colosseum, I salute her.

Cocooned in a padded jacket and still freezing, I traverse the old

Oval. My wind-teared and sun-squinted eyes

Latch on (in horror) to bare ankles accompanied by a sullen scowl.

‘Oh darling, I told you that you’d need a coat!’ The not-

So-

Subtle maternal ring of ‘I told you so’

Exacerbates the scowl.

“Um,” comes the response,

Mumbled through chattering teeth.

by Isla

Filigree

In which we Rome around (III)

On Castel Sant’Angelo and its contents.

Chest number four stands

As tall as tiptoed me, with

Sturdy stained panels warding off

Treasure-seeking fingers.

Elsewhere

Lies the worn steel

Dance of a sword hilt,

Accompanied by a polite sphere of cream filigree that

Nestles quietly against the pitch barrel of a pistol.

Generation after generation made this

Edifice their own, building into,

Layering

Over, growing with.

by Isla

Curlicues

In which we Rome around (II)

A poem written for the Vatican City, in all its ornate glory.

Vast quantities of g(u)ilt

At your service, Mr Pope, sir.

There’s no such thing as too much

Icing (particularly the fecund floral

Curlicue ceilinged-variety),

And we’ve got a truckload of figleaves at

No extra cost – the boys have their


Chisels at the ready.

It’ll pay for itself, sir, don’t you worry,

They’ll be lining up to see

Yon naked gents, just you wait.

by Isla

Diocletian

In which we Rome around

A poem written a few years ago about the Baths of Diocletian in Rome, formerly featured on Ma Kennedy’s blog. These sculptures were made to remember children who had passed away.

Dismembered heads seem entirely
Innocuous until the
Object in question is a
Child. Pale lips an eternal moment from speech,
Locks of hair unmoved by chill breeze, and
Eyes never carved to completion.
They loved this face enough to make it marble. While the laughing boy
Is now forgotten, love
Anchors to his every
Nick and fracture.

by Isla

Apron strings

In which I return to a memory

Hangzhou, China

Train station, China, Summer of 2011.

There are heaving queues of sweaty people outside ticket booths, long snakes made of shouting and shoving. 

She moves along them. Short, thin to the point of brittle, with old apple skin and grey hair pulled tightly back. 

Her voice cuts through the shouts, an endless lament of need that sends eyes to the floor or the ceiling with unerring aim.

She has him on her back. He must have at least two feet on her, his limp legs drag the floor behind her, while his head lolls above her shoulder with a vacancy that suggested he is spared the wail of her voice. He is thin too, but his body is soft, cheeks hanging down and jolting with each of her steps. His arms hang loose across her front, strapped to bony shoulders with frayed blue cord.

She moves steadily, for all his apparent weight, up and down each queue. Her calls part the crowd effortlessly but she draws no coin from any hand.

And when she moves on, the shouting picks up again in her wake, snapping back to fill the void. 

She never really left that train station in my memory. She just keeps walking through those queues over and over again, steps never faltering.

It might be a better fate than the one that reality actually holds for an aging mother dragging her adult son on her back in a country without a welfare state.

by Isla

Cloven

In which an unexpected cut gets made

Last night, my left hand cleaved myself in two.

The division was pleasingly symmetric, although it got a bit wonky along the spine (it’s not all that easy to do with a kitchen knife).

My left side had finally had enough of being the silent partner, the good one, the better half, always held back by its troublesome twin. All those shows it had to miss, the dinners it didn’t get to eat, and the sleep it could never recover.

My right side is the problem child. It throws tantrums until the whole body has to vomit, and it ruins everything. It gets all the attention: ‘Are you sitting comfortably? Do you need anything else? Shall I get you some ice?’

My left side just watched all the while.

I’m not sure what pushed it over the edge. Maybe the conversation I had with the doctor about having to wait even longer for another referral. Maybe the paddy my right side pulled that meant I missed Hamilton (left side really likes musicals).

It’s free now in any case. A bit wobbly on its newborn single sole, and with half a tongue poking through half a jaw of teeth whenever its hand tries to do anything fiddly. But it’ll get there.

No longer hidden backstage, my left side finally has the spotlight.

by Isla

Tube rage

In which we meet a special specimen

The Tube rage swells with every screech of rails. 

He’s stood at the end of an aisle with a backpack the size of a 1990s television hanging loosely from his shoulders. He’s getting repeated glances from those nearby, presumably because their teeth are rattling from the sound of the bass vibrating from his incongruently tiny earphones. Or possibly because he sniffs every three minutes, with a lengthy snarfing sound that makes it seem entirely possible that the entire carriage might disappear into the damp recesses of his nostrils. It’s possibly due to his cold (or allergy, or drug habit).

He’s doused himself in enough aftershave that nail varnish on the hands near him is starting to bubble and peel. A spark could result in conflagration, tearing through the wavering field of scent that surrounds him like a boxy Christmas pudding.

He’s got both hands out to grip a span of three hand holds, butt swaying back and forth with every crash from his thudding accompaniment. His backpack has been ramming repeatedly into the man behind him, who has apologetically slid closer and closer to the seat in front whilst attempting not to thrust his own crotch into someone’s face. His gymnastics have not been enough to save him from those hip thrusts.

Maybe backpack guy’s got rubbish sight. It would explain the blank way he ran his eyes over the woman next to him who’s been trying to reach a hand hold but has been forced to stretch on tiptoe because he’s still holding on to the grip in front of her. She’s too polite to say anything, she just keeps on stumbling backward and forward while he keeps right on looking through her. 

He finally gets a seat, much to the relief of the guy behind him and the woman next to him. As their frowns fade to relief, backpack guy plants his bag on the floor and promptly flings his thighs out to the sides. His elbows follow suit. 

He gives an almighty snort-sniff of contentment. 

And begins to hum.

by Isla

Nosedive

In which I recount a tale of woe and bile

*This is basically one long piece about vomiting, probably not a great accompaniment for food… (Unless that floats your boat).

Ah Cathay Pacific. Forever wedded to vomit in my mind. It was a very unhappy union.

I was on a long haul flight from China to London and had been cramping merrily for hours. Ibuprofen wasn’t making a dent, despite inadvisable dosages. 

My main mistake was choosing to eat airplane food in a belated attempt to line my stomach. 

My gorge rose with no warning. Gargantuan and whale like, it buckled my face in a wild bid for freedom. I attempted to keep all orifices closed but was scuppered by my nose, which released a high speed spray of tiny pasta bows – all over the business man next to me. 

His suit was wrapped in a lap blanket (he’d clearly done something right in a former life), but he didn’t seem particularly comforted. He reached to prod me, caught sight of my bulging cheeks, and wisely opted to call the air hostess instead. 

At this point, the flood gates opened. 

A stream of hostesses approached me in masks and gloves with dozens of tiny Cathay Pacific wet wipes, the scent of which promptly launched another volley of vomit. 

I assume they thought I was carrying some virulent disease that could land them all in quarantine, so I appreciate that they were willing to come close enough to drop the wet wipes off. 

Interminable hours later, I arrived in London on wobbly legs and in a nose-hair dissolving cloud of scent (though I had been wearing a mustard and brown striped jumper, which turns out to be the best vomit camouflage gear you could ask for). I was left very much alone on the coach back to Oxford, free to concentrate on willing my stomach contents to stay put.

My parents picked me up (they were even willing to make physical contact, which is a sign of true love), and watched me with worried faces as I wove toward the car. 

I arrived at the boot, and promptly booted over the back wheel – much to the shock of various tourists who clearly hadn’t spent much time in a university town before. 

My parents, ever the heroes, actually let me inside the car rather than strapping me to the top, and got me back to safety and a shower at record speed.

I still find Cathay Pacific wet wipes lurking amongst my things. A small plasticky reminder of this proud occasion.

That jumper got made into dust cloths.

by Isla

Even keeled

In which I send my love

It takes hundreds of miles for her to feel free. 

To chisel away at those layers of sediment worry,

Until she gleams beneath.

It takes a bitter wind to steal away her fears.

To rip at eyes and skin, until there is no room left to dread,

Only a world narrowed to a single, simple opposition.

It takes a problem solved to remind her of power.

Amid all those wicked chains that whip wild at the future,

This, alone, is in her hands. This she can do.

The sky folds down on every side,

Slicing through the heartstrings that she gifts so easily.

No longer pulled by faraway hands, she rocks on her feet, 

And takes her moment.