Intersections: 018 — Home, Family, and a Little Place Called Scotland

December 6th, 2024

A preamble: This is a 10-minute read. I suggest grabbing a warm beverage and getting cozy.

Choo choo
Choo Choo Choo
Choo
Choo

This eloquent masterpiece of poetic expression, humour, and depth lights up into my DMs on a train edging into Scotland. Written by my distant cousin Eilidh, whom I first met twenty years ago when she came to visit Canada, it’s a poke of fun at me after my utterly failed attempt at a limerick.

With a sheepish smile, I look up from our buzzing WhatsApp group. The ocean’s blue winks through a window at my right. To the left, the rolling landscape shifts; getting rockier and sheepier the further north we get. The English border slides past without announcement, belying the contested history to define its shifting line.

The distance between us closes.

I’m here in Scotland. I’m HERE! In SCOTLAND! This has been a long time coming and feels surreal. A decade of promises preclude my arrival: the “of course” exclaimed into an invitation within a goodbye hug, the commitment to celebrate a marriage beyond a missed wedding day, and somewhere along the way a silent pact to myself to reconnect with ancestral dots. It feels good to fulfill these vows. Leg injury be damned, my feet are finally here on this ground.

An open embrace greets me at the Edinburgh train station - Allan and Ann, Eilidh’s parents. We’ve kept in touch after hitting it off many years ago at my sister’s wedding and my propitious pilgrimage is largely due to their encouragement. Their hearts are huge and personalities strong - each a force to be reckoned with in their own right.

Tongues flapping with so much to catch up on, there’s a moment of hesitation from everyone as I reach for the car’s door handle. Allan pokes fun at the eager Canadian looking to get behind the wheel. Oh - whoops. Hey, it’s not my fault they don’t drive on the right side of the road.

We roll out, first with a quick tour of the city, then onwards to the Fife countryside.

The primary focus of this trip is not the Royal Mile and its ilk; it’s to visit people. Some of them I know by distant bloodline and others by distant meeting. Regardless, these cousinfolk are my compass and orient me to this place, pointing out unseen connections to the land, history, and moment.

Tonight we eat and drink without restraint, celebrating this time together. Tomorrow we rise early, hop in a caravan, and all head up to the Isle of Skye where we will set up a basecamp for five nights together.

There’s nothing quite like a long drive to get to know each other better, and many hours on the road quickly proves to be an integral part of my Scottish education.

Here’s how the teaching system works:
1. The direct method: Talking, listening, pointing, asking dumb questions, fumbling my tongue around unfamiliar words, etc.
2. The embodied method: “Here, try an Irn Bru with that sandwich.”
3. The alternative method: A rotating set of music CDs featuring different Caledonia roots - some traditional, some pop, and many a mix of both.

A familiar riff tickles my ears. After a couple of bars, I turn to meet my partner’s wide eyes in the back seat. “Is this...Beyoncé!?” We silently exclaim to each other. Allan begins humming as the vocals kick in. Yes - kind of. It absolutely is the song ‘Crazy in Love’, but a Scottish-ified cover by a band named Snow Patrol. The road rolls on as we all hum along, Jay Z’s rapping interlude replaced with some lyrics about the BBC that I can’t quite make out.

I’m sucking wind and, especially with these repeated long travel days, grateful to have others to lean on. Unfamiliar scenery rolls by as we cross the country in a single day.

The further we get from the pulsing urban heart, the thinner the paved arteries get. Road shoulders disappear as we wind up and over the mountainous interior. Coasting down to the ocean, we squeeze onto a bridge that takes us from mainland to island. A left turn, then single track; each hilltop now a pullout to watch for oncoming traffic sharing the lonely expressway.

A pothole reminds me of home, though for the most part the roads are much better kept than in Canada. Our drive is smooth, except for the occasional tourist not knowing the etiquette.

We arrive at our destination before sunset: a croft (small working farm) where we will set up camp alongside highland cows and pigs (and other campers) for five nights.

It’s morning and I’m brushing my teeth at the communal bathroom. A grizzled old Scottish man shuffles in to join me, spitting out a squeaky, “HeLLO!” that surprises both of us. Flustered, he clears his throat and tries again, with a low and guttural, “Hello.”

I reflect back the manly greeting with a laugh and we continue to chat with exaggerated raspy voices and chuckles.

Skye is a huge island. Venturing a different direction each morning, we move from sea to sea to sea.

It feels good to get back on the feet after so many days in transit.

Over tea, we talk differences and similarities to our countries’ politics. Whisky is poured and I’m taught how to play dominoes. No leniency is granted to the tipsy new player, and so I learn the hard way.

A highland cow calls me over to take her twilight portrait.

“Her name’s Ginger,” a woman at the neighbouring croft explains, “And she has the worst temper I’ve ever seen on a highland cow.”

But damn, she sure knows how to pose.

The days are full and time slips past. Before we know it, Skye is in the rearview mirror and we’re saying goodbye-for-nows at the Armadale ferry terminal.

My leg has proved to be better on dirt than pavement and the weather forecast promises pleasantness, so we’re moving forward with the plan to hike the northern half of the West Highland Way.

Ushered by animals, we cross over to the mainland. I walk under the familiar glide of an eagle and touch its etched likeness on my belt for good luck. A pod of dolphins cuts the sun-soaked surface alongside our boat. Hoards of Harry Potter fans unload from a steam train as we take the regular ol’ train southwards to our hike’s starting point.

Highway, rail line, and trail conveniently intersect at the Bridge of Orchy, and we hop off to hook up with the West Highland Way.

The hotel here is an anomaly; a lone shelter amidst the tortured, boggy landscape that stretches from horizon to horizon to horizon. Its lounge is warm and filled with hikers finishing their day. Scattered across booths and tables and bar stools, all lift a glass in salute to the day’s last light.

Each character is as diverse as their hiking strategy. We are somewhere in the middle of the freshness scale - fresher than the grizzled folks who’ve been pitching tents, more wind-worn than groups following itineraries laid out by outfitters. It will be bunkhouses and B&Bs for us, village waylays cobbled together so that we can travel light.

The chatter in the room is a hum of voices, but as twilight settles in it takes on an anxious tone. A woman mutters something about “changing plans to get an early start” as she ducks out to look into pre-dawn checkout instructions.

That doesn’t sound right.

I refresh the forecast on my phone to...that doesn’t look right. A warning flashes an announcement that the promise of fair weather has been replaced with an unapologetic proclamation of “a deteriorating situation” for the region.

I look outside as I finish my whisky. Never trust a weather forecast.

The next few days and nights are moist. Everything is wet - a steady sideways rain finds impossible ways to penetrate through all waterproof layers, drip by unrelenting drip. Camera and journal stashed deep in my pack, I hike to keep warm through the boggy and treeless landscape with nigh a shelter in sight.

HERE COMES THE RAIN AGAIN
FALLING ON MY HEAD LIKE A MEMORY
FALLING ON MY HEAD LIKE A NEW EMOTIONnnnNNN
...

We shout the lyrics of ‘Here Comes the Rain Again’ by Annie Lennox into the wind. Two days ago, Allan spun up the song as we cheerfully drove through sunshowers on Skye. Now, treading water above sea level, it has become our living soundtrack as we submerge immerse ourselves in the full Scottish experience.

The bunkhouse is full of soaked hikers. Wet gear is hanging EVERYWHERE, turning the sanctuary into a humidor of stanky moistness - not doing much to dry any gear whatsoever.

One friendly roommate peeks out from the dirty socks lining his bunk to assure us that he doesn’t snore. Our other friendly roommate cheerily pipes in, assuring us that, he too, does not snore.

We fall asleep to a chorus of snores.

Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot...peaks and vistas are misted away in greyness, and the world pulls inwards. The mountains disappear into the infinite; so too the people we meet along the Way.

Much could be said of our days on trail, but the truth of the experience is much more embodied. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot...one step at a time. This is only this.

Andy insistently pours me a bath after joking about it for three days. As an outdoorsman and in-law, I suspect he knows a bit of what we’ve been through these past few weeks with both nature and family. That, or he’s simply reading the wear that’s plainly written on my face.

The hike is done, but I suppose I am still a bit dusty.

We’ve settled into Eilidh’s home in Dundee for a few nights; a proper visit that has been a long time coming. Her husband Andy welcomes us with open arms; so too their young daughter, who takes my hand, immediately becoming the shadow of her Canadian cousins.

All of us are coming off our own version of busyness: job transitions, studies...even the wee one has a cold that puts a cap on her otherwise bottomless well of energy (turning down ice cream is as true a sign of illness as I’ve ever seen). And so, loose plans are kept loose.

I top off the tub with hot water and settle in. The hesitant but forceful tones of small fingers marching through piano practice tintinnabulate the steamy air. The soft murmur of voices lays a steady baseline for harmonies of laughter.

I am safe. I am taken care of. I am grateful.

There was a joke about getting me in a kilt after this soak, but I’ll worry about that later.

“Did you know that the official animal of Scotland is the unicorn?” the five-year-old asks keenly of me. I do not. She goes on to tell me all about it, as she points up at the unicorn portrait hung on the wall of her pink (pastel pink on vivid pink on technicolour phosphorescent PINK) room.

I’ve fact-checked it and she’s actually not pulling my leg.

I am passed the last sip of whisky from the silver quaich - a special two handed drinking bowl from their wedding and brought out to share with honoured guests. We look through old prints of photographs of Eilidh with my mother in Canada, realizing it has been exactly twenty years since our first meeting.

“Where is home?” someone asks my partner across the dinner table. She points at me and its truth shakes my bones.

Ideas of home and family...these have always been complex ideas; more expansive IRL than in the clean box the dictionary tries to put around them. Mixed up with blood, and marriage, and intimate friendship, the ideas of aunt, and cousin, and brother are fluid titles for those we care about.

In my experience, family is the people you choose to spend your life with - whether connected by ancestry and/or heart, forming a Venn diagram different for each of us. Unconditional love is bullshit. Love is a daily choice that spills outward into our actions, relationships, and communities. It is generous and there is nothing passive about it.

Who do you trust to hold the fullness of your humanity, the finest and worst parts of you? That’s family. Who joyously celebrates your life, without jealousy and comparison? That’s family. Who has permission to call you out when you are your less than best self? That’s family.

And where do you feel safe? That’s home.

Distance on a family tree be damned, right now I’m home with family.

Today, Eilidh takes the lead; taking us from Dundee across the River Tay, to connect her roots to mine in Fife.

We pass through Guardsbridge. Eilidh’s grandfather worked at the pulp mill here. We continue on to Strathkinness, where her grandmother would watch for him driving home from a distance and have dinner ready just-in-time every evening. The wee one plays in the same playground that Eilidh did, back when she was a rambunctious five year old too.

Onward we wind through the Boarhills where our shared ancestors farmed and Andy used to jog to the university. We pass the chapel in which they got married, their stories intermingling.

A quote by Ikkyu floats to mind:

I didn’t see a single thing on my trip, but I breathed and everything I breathed was time.

I build sandcastles in the sand with my cousinfolk, near the homes of our ancestors past. The tide rises to wash away what we’ve built, but we walk on.