Fairy Wishes

We’re staying on the north tip of the Isle of Skye at the very end of a road, at the beginning of the sea in a large, white house. The window of my bedroom has a wooden ledge big enough for me to sit comfortably upon to look out at the water rolling in, at the sheep grazing up on the hill, at the gulls fussing from their rocks, at the distant hills as blue as the fulfillment of a wish. It’s paradise. It’s perfect. My sister and I even get our own rooms.

As I’m sitting on the sill with the window wide open and the never-ending sunlight pouring in on me, I find myself having another one of those moments when I have to stop and ask, “How did I get to be this lucky?”

This time, though, I get to share the luck of my life with my parents and my older sister.

Here we all are. It’s happened.

Our first night here, having come in from Kirriemuir (the birthplace of J.M. Barrie, the author of  Peter Pan), my dad having safely driven us over 200 miles on the left side of the road (no small feat!), having stopped off at the smallest distillery in Scotland and taken a brief look around, having detoured through Dunkeld to get back to the A9 because the way we’d gone was closed for filming for the show Outlander, having visited Eilean Donan Castle (reported to be the most photographed castle in Scotland), and having seen the Highlands in all their glory (wow), I sit on the window ledge and watch the horizon turn purple with the setting sun. I listen to the gulls and the splash of the waves against the rocks and write really, really long sentences.

Watching the ocean is like watching myself. For there is the high tide, there is the low tide. There is the excitement I felt for this time with my family, there is the fear I felt that it would never happen. See there, the rising water lines and the watermarks that are left behind. See there, the history we have with each other and the memories we’re making in each new moment now.

I sit in my window watching the waves ebb and flow and I breathe. All the needless worry I’d had over the things I can’t control (travel, weather, road conditions, jet lag, happiness, the wellbeing of the world, time, mortality, everything, fate, anything) evaporates from my soul like mist off the ocean. We made it.

Here we are.

To prep us all for the trip I’d said to expect it to be raining all day, every day, all the time. I’d said to anticipate swarms of midges (the Scottish equivalent of the mosquito or black fly). I’d said to be prepared for the Isle to be packed elbow to elbow with tourists (probably all from America) because this is peak summer tourist season (and, well, here we are too).

But for now, with only a tiny exception, for the whole time we’re here we’re set to have warm and sunny weather. I haven’t met a single midge (though my sister says she encountered some on one of her walks), and our little north tip of the world is spacious and more or less free of tourists. One of our neighbors (from whom we stopped to ask directions) even invited us to come over at any time for tea.

How did we get this perfect weather? How did we get so lucky to have sunshine on the Isle of Skye? How did I get so lucky to have good neighbors wherever I go? How did we get the sea for a backyard?

I don’t know. But I’m thankful.

The morning we’re supposed to take a little boat tour to see puffins it’s a wee bit too blowsy so we have to reschedule for the next day when it’s supposed to be calmer weather.

Look up, there’s a little touch of rain. This is weather. This is the United Kingdom. Though it’s barely enough to wet the windshield, it is enough to bring in some seaborn clouds. And those clouds are something else.  Look at those clouds.

“Even if we don’t go,” my mom says, “Even if we don’t see the puffins, I’m happy.”

On this blowsy day, instead of seeing puffins we head off into the mist to visit the Fairy Glen.

There, I find magic. It’s subtle. It’s a soft shade of low-cloud green. It’s my dad finding a lone tree to sit with. It’s my mom pausing to take in the sights. It’s my sister in the center of the stone circle. It’s the rounded domes of fairy homes like castles, like moss covered palaces, like craggy rock-hewn homes, like a world with different, kinder rules, like a place where wishes come true.

My wish was for my mom to have a trip of her own. My wish was for my mom to travel away from caring for all of us, all the time. My wish. When it actually happened, when the tickets were bought, when the sites were chosen, she chose the Isle of Skye and I didn’t know what it would be like (too crowded, too wet, too midge-y?). In the end, the fairies must have listened, for my mom chose Skye and Skye has (so far) answered with perfect weather, perfect trails, insect-less walks, and peace.

There’s the sea. There are meandering walks. There are the gulls, the oystercatchers, and the rabbits. Here is the beginning of the sea. Here’s living in the everlasting daylight. Here’s the sounds of the waves saying, “Welcome, welcome, welcome home.”

There’s the soft, half-dusk blue of a long summer day’s wishes come true.

Thank you, Skye.

All that’s left now is to see the puffins.