VOICE & VISION

The sky is full of puffy white clouds, like the froth on a cup of cappuccino. I gaze out of the bus window, making stories up in my head again, inspired by the shapes of the clouds. There is a large cloud in the centre, surrounded by several smaller clouds, like a school teacher surrounded by her pupils.

“Now, children, come to the front of the classroom.

Gather around the blackboard. I want you to take turns and draw me a picture of your favourite tree. Tell me which one is yours when you’ve finished, and I’ll put your initials beside it. Who knows what I mean by initials?”

“I do,” a small voice breaks the silence.

“Yes, Anna, and what are initials?”

“They are the beginning letters of your name, the big letters. Mine are A.J., for Anna Jensen.”

“Well done, Anna. You can go first. Choose a chalk, any colour, and draw me a tree. Just do a small drawing, in sketch form.”

“What’s a sketch?” asked a boy at the back.

“It’s like this,” the teacher said, and drew a sketch of a pine tree up at the top of the blackboard. “See, it’s just a simple drawing.”

“What do we do while we wait for our turn to do a drawing?” asked a tall girl.

“Go over to the library corner and find a book on trees. You might have to share a book. All right, let’s get started. Anna, you can do your drawing now. The rest of you, follow me.”

Mrs Brown led the children over to the library corner.

“Now what’s the golden rule in a library?”

“We have to be quiet,” a shy Maori boy said bravely.

“Very good, Hongi. You can do your drawing after Anna.”

The teacher watched the class choose their books. They sooke quietly to each other. She smiled with satisfaction; the class was coming together well, she realised.

“I’ve finished, Mrs Brown, ” Anna said in a soft voice.

“Good, now you can go over to the library corner and find a book to read.”

“Thank you for letting me go first.”

“That’s all right, Anna.”

I looked out of the bus window. The clouds had changed, and the group of clouds was further away. Both the clouds and the bus had moved while I had been making up my story. We were near the Point Chev. turn-off, The vista of sun, sea, and sky was now behind us, and the clouds were becoming partly obscured by buildings.

My day at Toi Ora was about to begin…

Our people lived in turbulent times – we were caught up in one of the bloodiest periods in the history of Scotland – the struggle between the English and the Scottish Highlanders. We were at Glencoe Massacre; we were at the Battle of Culloden. Unlike many, we survived; we endured the horror and the hardships of those times. We are gone now, but we left our imprint – we left descendants, to tell our story.

You are one of those descendants. Who are we? We are your ancestors, the forgotten people.

The “Highland problem,” otherwise known as the “Scottish problem”, was only resolved by our exodus – to the U.S.A., to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. We thrived in our new environment, but we never forgot our homelan – or our customs. Now we could gather to hear the skirl of the bagpipes without fear of reprisal; we could toss the caber at the Highland Games, sing the old songs a t a ceildh (gathering), and wear the tartan plaid garments worn by our forebears.
The accursed English forebad all those things when we lost the Battle of Culloden in 1745 (which became known as “the ’45″).

The problem for the English was that ours is a stubborn race – we don’t give in easily. This is especially true of the Highland Scots – your ancestors. Whenever we were defeated, we would return to our Highland homes, live quietly until our wounds were healed, and then make another raid on the English, our sworn enemies.

At the same time, we were fighting each other. That was our great weakness – the clan squabbles which tore us apart, and kept us from uniting as a strong force against the English. But nothing could stop us from fighting – it’s as much part of us as the fine Highland mist we breathed…

In the end it was the defeat on Culloden Moor that broke us apart. Bonnie Prince Charlie, our leader, took bad advice from an Italian, and agreed to fight the battle on a moor which is mostly peat bog. We were overwhelmed by a superior force – yes’ that’s the truth. Too many of us died that day, and “Butcher” Cumberland, in the pay of the English, pursued the survivors relentlessly. Men, women, and children were burned alive in their humble cottages. But some of us were able to escape, and this is our story of survival.

We fled, on foot and in secret, to places like Edinburgh. There we stayed for a time, blending into the life of the city. We hid our tartan plaids, kilts, and material, and wore the humble clothes of the common folk. Our homes were in the poorer part of the city. We made our living any way we could. Our dream was to escape, to leave Scotland for ever. That seemed to be the only hope for our future survival. Your father’s people are descended from such folk. John was from Edinburgh, and Helen was from Linlithgow. Mary, Queen of Scots and her father James V were born in the now ruined Linlithgow Palace. As you know, John and Helen met as children on the ship that took them to Dunedin in New Zealand. They were part of the plan to take ship for the colonies, and begin life anew…

I stand beside Culloden Field, in front of the grave marker. A large stone, it bears a simple inscription: “Clan Chattan.
Here lie those killed on Culloden Moor in 1745.”  Something pulls me, makes me want to remain standing here, and a mist covers me. I hear the sounds of battle, and the screams of the wounded and the dying.
Gary re-appears, looking worried. He grabs me by the hand, and gently leads me away. I feel strangely disconnected from reality, and keep turning and looking back as I slowly walk away. It’s only a memorial stone, commemorating those who were slain in battle, but it has some strange sort of power over me. I start, as the voice of the English tour guide echoes in my ears. In response to a question from someone in the tour group, she says:

“That massacre was the greatest act of genocide the English have ever committed on their own people.”
I am stunned – this is the first time I’ve ever heard an English person admit that what happened on Culloden Moor that day,and the butchery that followed afterwards, was wrong.

Later that day Gary found a booklet on Clan Davidson, my clan. They were based near Inverness, not far from Culloden, and at least one of my ancestors would have fought that day – and may have been killed. That explained why that gra ve marker was so powerful – the ghosts of my ancestors were calling to me…

Your clan, Clan Davidson, was one of the clans in the large group known as Clan Chattan. The Davison Clan is made up of Highlanders with the surnames Davison, Davis, Davidson, Ross, and Kay.

Your ancestor was a Kay, a small family group. Belonging to a clan gave you protection from your enemies, and the security provided by membership of a larger group. Be proud of your connections – Scotland is a peaceful place now, but it is haunted by its bloody past. We were that past – we escaped to found new families, but never forget that our past is also your past. Your task is to write our story, so that others will know about us. When that happens, our spirits will no longer be troubled, and we will not be the forgotten people.

We bear the shame and humiliation of our defeat at Culloden; you can ease our burden by telling our story. The pain of that defeat will be softened by your words, and we will be strengthened by the telling of our story. Our troubled spirits called to you from the mass grave on Culloden Moor that day. We lost the battle,but we did win the battle of life – we survived. Our descendants sailed for the colonies in the mid-1800′s. The new lands of the U.S.A., Canada (especially Newfoundland), Australia, and New Zealand gave them a chance to have a new beginning.  With great sadness, we said farewell to our homeland, and set sail for an unknown land, and an unknown future…

I felt like I had come home, although my real home is far away. The pull of Scotland was always part of my life, right from early childhood. I remember my father and his family talking about Scotland as if it was their home – and they were born and raised in New Zealand. Those Scottish mists were embedded in my subconscious memory, in that mysterious place where a person’s genetic inheritance mingles with the tales of the places from which their ancestors came.I had dreamed of going to Scotland since I was five years old – and now I was here. Its past haunted me – the past that was, in a way, also my past.

It was so peaceful – no bloody battles, just sunshine and silence, because our trip coincided with the Foot and Mouth outbreak in Britain in 2001. The hills were silent and the farms were empty – all cloven-hooved animals had been killed and burned in large numbers to try and stop the spread of the disease. But the silence was not complete – I could hear the soft voices of the people who had survived Culloden. Some were descendants of those who were victims of the Glencoe Massacre; a few people had managed to flee from Glencoe before the slaughter began.

The terrible event at Glencoe was in 1692; the ghosts of the victims were all around us the day we drove down the valley to Glencoe. We stopped at the Information Centre and walked in silence around the commemorative display. The Campbells (“the bloodthirsty, treacherous Campbells” whispered a voice from the past) invited the MacDonalds to a banquet. The hosts then proceeded to massacre their guests as they slept in their beds. Some survivors fled into the snow, where most died in the harsh Highland winter. Only a few survived – they had escaped earlier, mistrusting the Campbells.

I could feel their presence as I stood in the display area. Coming out into the sunny afternoon was a shock. It was hard to believe that such a savage event had taken place all those years ago…

We kept ourselves well hidden, only moving by night. They hunted us as if we were foxes – we were their prey. But we were cunning – and this was our ancestral land. Slowly we made our way to safety – most of us had fled when we heard the dreaded name “Campbell.”

“Those Campbells – they would sell their own mothers if the price was right, and it suited their own evil schemes,” my grandfather had said.

“Never trust a Campbell.”

“Why?”  I asked, with the innocent trust of the child I was then.

“Because they have also been known to make deals with the English, deals that betray us,” he replied, and spat into the fire.

I never forgot that lesson – or his words. Who am I?  I am the grandson of the laird’s chief gamesman. My name is Dougall Kean, and my family is part of Clan MacDonald of Glencoe. That raid was brutal, and my grandfather died trying to protect his laird (lord). I was able to escape by fleeing into the hills when I saw the men of the Campbell Clan approaching. The laird sent me to welcome them, but I was too scared to face all those fierce men. I was only ten at the time, and I bid my grandfather, and my father, goodbye, not knowing what their fate would be. My mother told me to be brave and I hugged my brothers and sisters with desparation. My father gently pushed me towards the castle entrance, and I whispered goodbye. That was the last time I saw them alive.

I  made my way to my friends’ cottage, hidden in the foothills. They sheltered me in the hidden room beneath their floor, and fed me when they could. Idon’t know how many days I spent in hiding, but eventually the harsh winter turned into spring, and the snow melted. I emerged into a different world, one transformed by the melting snow and new life of spring. The fierce men had gone – no-one noticed my disappearance; I was only a servant boy. Slowly I made my way south to Clan MacDugal lands. My biggest regret was leaving behind my plaid and my kilt – the tartan would have given me away. I hid them carefully where no-one would find them, and borrowed the simple clothes of a poor peasant boy. I turned and looked towards Glencoe, sighed, and resolutely headed south, leaving the land of my birth behind me…

The date was 23rd October, 2008. Three days before his mother’s birthday, and four days before his father’s birthday, my first grandchild arrived. Zoran’s arrival came twenty-five years after we’d last had a baby in our family. Becoming a grandmother changed my life.

I can remember holding a small baby, and looking at a tiny face very like his father’s face as a newborn baby. Shaun was smaller, being premature, but there was definitely a likeness. Zoran’s skin was the same colour as his mother’s, revealing his Slavic ancestry. Vanda is from Belgrade, with a Serbian father and a Croatian mother. She was raised in the fromer Communist country of Yugoslavia. I gazed at my grandchild and thought of the wider implications of his birth. Our knowledge of what it was like for his mother to grow up in that country is limited, due to the fact that our news media didn’t pay much attention to that part of the world. However, when Yugoslavia broke up and a series of civil wars broke out the news media sat up and took notice. As I watched over the sleeping grandchild in my arms, I realised he was a child of both Eastern and Western Europe. His Slavic blood mingles with Celtic and Scandinavian ancestry, as well as French and English. He is truly a child of Europe.

I really enjoy being a grandmother. When you are a parent, you are very busy with the daily activities and problems associated with children, from infancy right up to their teenage years. A grandparent is step back, a generation away from that. Right from the start, I noticed little things I didn’t see when our children were babies. The curling of small fingers around your own fingers, the little snuffly noises as he breathed, followed sometimes by a sigh…signs of the miracle of new life. I looked at him and wondered what the world would be like when he was as old as me.

When he is older, I can tell him about a time when there were no supermarts, no mobile phones, no computer or information technology, and T.V. was black and white. I was a country child. We had our mail, milk and bread delivered by a van, which also took our mail to be delivered. Your letter box had a metal “flag” which was raised if you had mail to be delivered. The triangular piece at one end, the “flag,” was painted red. Before that, when I was four years old, I can remember getting our milk from the farm ac ross the road, in a billy can. I can also remember the “safe” we had before we had a refrigerator. It hung from a branch in our large privet tree; privet wasn’t considered a pest then!  I smiled to myself at the memory.

Now my grandson is three years old. He is bilingual, speaking both Serbian and English. (His mother and her father have spoken Serbian to him from birth.)  Often, he speaks English to his father and Serbian to his mother. He is a bright little boy, full of energy and life. His arrival just over three years ago marked a new direction in the journey of my life. To me, being a grandmother is wonderful – all the joys of parenthood without the stress of wondering if you’re a good parent. It’s a different kind of journey. I have to refrain from interfering – he’s not my child. But I do give him the greatest gift of all – my undying love and acceptance.

Duality is ambidexterity, using my left hand for some things, my right hand for others – left hand for sport, right hand for writing.
Duality is two sides of bipolar affective disorder – moods like love/hate; happy/sad; angry/calm; anxious/confident – it’s a mood disorder.
Duality is not seeing things in black or white, but all the shades of grey in between.
Duality is being decisive and letting the prevailing mood decide my choices, or being indecisive and dithering over several choices.
Duality is being torn by two main conflicting desires, feeling like a boat adrift in a stormy sea.

We live in the Northern Hemisphere,
so our seasons are different.

Winter starts our year,
with bare branches against
a dull white sky,
and everything hushed and sleeping.

Spring follows, with its promise
of  new life to come,
with green leaves and blossom.

Summer coaxes tiny buds
to ripen into luscious fruit -
peaches, plums, apricots.

Autumn is the season of richness,
of apples and pears,
and the colours of dying leaves.

We live in the Southern Hemisphere,
and our seasons are different.

Our year begins with Summer,
with berries and stone fruit -
strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and peaches, plums, nectarines, apricots.

Autumn follows, more mellow and gentle
than our hot southern Summer.
Apples and pears ripen,
and leaves fall gently to the ground.

Winter comes next – the  quiet season -
bare-limbed trees against a brooding sky, but there’s still work to be done – pruning and checking the trees for pests and diseases.

Spring, my favourite season, appears next – rows of trees in bridal dress, white flowers for the bride, shades of pink for her attendants, and creamy white for her mother.

I’ve forgotten the other main crop -
citrus fruit, appearing in Winter -
oranges, grapefruit, lemons, mandarins,
and the cross-over varietieslike
tangelo, tangerine, and others.

With its warm colours of orange and yellow, citrus fruit brightens a bleak winter day, and its juice provides Vitamin C – to ward off the miseries of colds and ‘flu.

An orchardist’s year is never quiet,
there’s always a task to be done,
and the daily walk around the trees
to check for pests and disease.

Red is the colour of anger
blazing like a fire within
consuming everything in its path.

It snaps and crackles and roars
as I shout and roar
while my fury rages.

Red is the colour of my hair
burning hot and bright
lit by the fire of the sun.

My red hair is like a fire
on the top of my head,
a fire echoed by the fire within
lit by the spark of anger.

Red is the colour of anger
started by a small spark
that grows into a raging torrent.

Unstoppable until its force is spent,
until the fire burns out,
and I am exhausted.

No energy to punch or kick,
no words left,
no sounds remain,
as I collapse in tears.

Red is the colour of anger
and black is the colour
of my despair afterwards.

There was something strange that day. The smoke from the fire was still drifting in the air, wafting up from the hotspots in the bush. Our house had survived but some of our neighbours had lost their homes. Silently I joined one of the groups of people sifting through the ruins. No one spoke – their shock was too deep. We were all reliving the horror.

I kept hearing the sound of breaking glass, over and over, as windows shattered with the heat. Slowly I picked up pieces of my neighbours’ memories. Some I put aside, others I stacked in a pile on the ground. Something Sparkled, and I reached forward. Carefully I pulled it out from the rubble. It was a picture of a lake, its glass cracked. The picture beneath was still visible. I shivered at the contrast – the serene waters of the lake in the picture and the horror we were caught up in. Water, lakes are full of water, I thought irrationally. Maybe more could have been savrd if we’d had more water.

As I picked up the picture something moved beneath it. Grey and dusty and covered with a layer of fine ash, it didn’t seem to be anything much. Something made me pick it up. I shook it gently, and carefully brushed the ash from its surface. A hint of colour started to appear. I kept brushing it clean, over and over, my movements deliberate. This scrap of material became very important. Finally, it was clean enough to see the colour. It was a deep blue, vivid and glowing dully. I touched the soft velvet, remembering. I knew the story of that ribbon. Emma’s grandfather had given it to her grandmother when they were young. She had always treasured it. I laid the little piece of the past on top of the picture of the lake, and anchored it with a small stone so that it wouldn’t blow away.

“Come over here. Look what I’ve found.”

Emma came over to me, her face resigned. She looked at me closely.

“Oh, it’s you, Ellie. Hi.”

“Here, Emma, on the picture.”

“Grandmother’s ribbon, the velvet one. You know how she got this, don’t you?”

“Tell me again.”

“Well, grandfather knocked on her door, and asked if he could borrow a cup of sugar.True. I know it sounds corny, biut he did. She gave it to him, and he came back the next day. He handed her a piece of blue tissue paper with something inside. She opened it carefully and found the velvet ribbon. They started going out together, and the rest is…”

“History,” I interrupted.”

We smiled at each other, and then laughed. She reached out to me and hugged me. A small piece of joy had come out of the ashes left by the bushfire.

My father is a gambler in New Orleans, and my mother is a tailor. They told me to stay away from the “Red Light District.”  I’m just sixteen, and full of youthful self-importance. I’m a healthy young man – I can handle anything. I’ve made up my mind – I’m going to explore the “Red Light District.”  I’ll have to sneak off when they don’t see me.

Tonight is the night. The sun is setting, painting the sky red and orange. I wait until my mother is busy with her sewing. My dad has already gone out, off to his favourite gambling den. I go quietly to the front door, open it, and soon I’m swallowed up by the advancing night…

I’m on a luxurious bed, with a blowsy woman beside me. She’s already taken the only money I had on me. I’m in the House of the Rising Sun. Now I know what my folks meant. But it’s too late. I’m trapped here, in my sin and misery, for ever…

You want to know how I got into this mess?  Well, my dad met my mother in one of those “houses of ill repute.”  He eloped with her, leaving an envelope full of money on the bed. Times were hard then, and the rest of the money from his latest win from gambling kept them happy…while it lasted. She took in sewing, while he lived off his gambling skills…and he was good, you know. But they didn’t want me to go down there, they wanted something better for me. I was cocky, you know.

When I got there, it was quite different from the ramshackle old house we lived in. I was peeping through one of the windows, when a big hand came down hard on my shoulder, just like in the movies, you know. I spun around and almost fainted from shock. The guy was so big. He marched me in the front door, to the reception area, and told me to wait, or…Then the madam appeared, beautifully dressed and with a lot of her cleavage showing. I kept staring at it, and she smiled knowingly.  “Time to educate you, little virgin boy,” she said. “Money first, everything you’ve got on you. Hand it over.”

I gave her all my money, and she called Cecile…

Now I’m educated, and I crave more, and I can’t leave…I just need to find more money. Maybe I’ll do what Dad does; I’ll find someone to teach me the card games…can’t be too hard…

I have ideas forming in my head. There is an exhibition in the offing, and I would like to plug into the mainstream art world with my stuff. Sometimes I feel that I am standing still with my art. I long to be part of the mainstream art world, to be recognised for talent and for my creations. Sculptures with distorted bodies and expressions of torment on their faces sit mutely on the shelves of my studio. My paintings reveal the inner me, tossed from mood to mood by my illness. How I long to be like a bird, to soar above this city and its noise, riding the air currents of freedom.

I’ve always had this thing about flying, you know. You can criticise me, and say we cannot escape our lives – but why can’t we try? And what’s wrong with flying, anyway? I can fly in my dreams – I’m a wonderful bird, a large eagle. My feathers are gold-tipped, and my wing span is huge. I soar effortlessly above mountains, deserts, farmland, and oceans. My life is one long restless journey. I cross land and sea, searching for a mate. There are only a few of us left, you see. Without young, our species will die out. This is a recurrent dream, and fills me with both joy and sadness. But I always wake up, trapped in my human body, only able to fly in my dreams.

I try to remember that feeling of freedom as I fly over earth and sea in my bird form. With brush and paint, I cover my canvas with strokes of freedom. Most of my paintings are birds like the one in my dreams. Usually the birds are eagles, but sometimes I paint hawks, or falcons. They are always birds of prey. Someone could no doubt find some meaning in that fact, but I don’t feel the need to analyse my paintings. I paint them because I want to put that wonderful feeling of flying down on canvas, so that others may see what I see – the freedom of a bird, and a world far removed from  our own.

My sculptures reveal my inner torment, as the changing moods plague me. That familiar plunge into the depths of despair, down into the pit of pain, as the Beast Within takes control over me. Their tortured faces mirror my facial expression when depression overwhelms me. The distorted bodies of my sculptures reflect the way my body is distorted by the ravages of bipolar disorder, something from which there is no escape.

But there are days of sunshine and light, too. On those days I paint sunsets, over tropical beaches or touching a barren desert with fire. Sometimes I paint the sunrise, with a glowing sun lighting up a dark world. The sun appears behind darkened hills or buildings. On those days my mood is bright and sunny, and I’m high with happiness. I feel strong and invincible. I don’t paint birds in this phase. I paint mythical unicorns with glowing golden horns. They gallop across my canvas – beautiful and a little bit mysterious.

I transform everyday “junk” some days, turning it into a work of art. I make pictures out of “found objects,” decorate cardboard boxes with decoupage, or create weird animals. They are all kind of quirky, which is my style. I don’t know how I’m going to make the the transition from “outsider artist” to mainstream artist, but I have to move beyond my present world to get known by more people. Someone told me the exhibition might be going on tour as well, so I have to make enquiries about that. And I’m going to put my work up for consideration in the exhibition. It might even go on tour. That would be great. I live in hope…

She walked slowly to her writing desk, and reached for her notepad. Muttering to herself, she searched for her faourite pen in the collection of pens in an old jam jar. She sighed with relief as she found the pen. To you and me, it looked like an ordinary ballpoint pen. But to the elderly woman with the unruly grey hair it was essential that this was the only pen she could use for her very important task.

Lowering herself carefully into the chair in front of the writing desk, she pulled the pad towards herself and began to write. Every so often she stopped and cast a wild-eyed glance around her, as if checking for something unseen. Satisfied, she resumed writing, page after page of neat and orderly words. An hour later, she sighed again and put the pen down. She started muttering again, then raised her voice. The words became a chant, an old chant to ward off those who would harm her.

Suddenly she was quiet, her eyes staring at the window. A look of horror appeared on her wrinkled face. She stood up, pushed the chair back, and strode to the window. With a sharp tug she pulled the curtains across the window, blocking out the object of her fears.

She hurried across the room to the side cabinet, and pulled a drawer open. When she closed the drawer again a small bag was in her left hand. She took a large mug from the sideboard, opened the bag, and poured its contents into the mug. Muttering to herself again, she walked quickly to the kitchen and put the jug on. While she waited for it to boil, she began chanting again, her voice becoming steadily louder. She stopped abruptly when she heard the jug boil. As she poured the water into the mug a strange smell filled the house. It smelled of herbs and earth, and something vaguely familiar but unidentifiable.

Picking up the mug with its pungent brew she returned to the writing desk and sat down on her chair. Her face glazed over as she sipped the brew. A wild look in her eyes replaced the glazed look as the brew took hold. She began screaming, louder and louder,and she got up suddenly, thrusting the chair from her. She stared at each corner of the room, spinning round to face each corner.

The wild look changed to an expression of fear. She crouched down on the thick carpet, blubbering and whispering softly to herself. Flinging her hands up to defend herself, she collapsed completely. Her fears overtook her reason. When they found her she was a quivering creature, all her wildness gone, and hysterical with fear. Her madness had banished her sanity to the four corners of the room.  Suddenly she changed, and she smiled at the creatures lurking in each corner of the room. Then she beckoned them to come nearer…