My neighbour lent me a book. Because it was only on loan, it made me read it properly and within a time frame suitable for a kindly loan. The book is ‘Notes from an Island’ – Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietila. It is hard back, it is beautiful, it is illustrated both with washy paintings and words.
I have been in love with Tove Jansson ever since I read The Summer Book, which remains one of my most favourite ever reads. I have used her line on ‘moss’ with my apprenticeship students at the Uni when they built a pillow of moss and transported it to a wasteland on the edge of Sheffield. Their little film of moving the moss pillow book was gorgeous and reminded me of Tove – which, in turn, reminded me of the moss gardens in Kyoto – so revered and respected. You see, life does this, from one book to another, from a line in a book to a presentation from young women at Uni, to the Zen temples of Kyoto and it is when this juncture, almost collision of past moments happen, that I feel alive.
Here is Tove’s line on Moss – ‘Only farmers and summer guests walk on the moss. What they don’t know – and it cannot be repeated too often – is that moss is terribly frail. Step on it once and it rises the next time it rains. The second time, it doesn’t rise back up. And the third time you step on moss, it dies’
Kyoto
What I am trying to reflect on here, is that ‘Notes from an Island’ reminded me of my own brief island life on Shetland. And what the loan of the book did for me, is to read every word properly and enjoy how those words sink in.
I was interested to read that Tove and Tuulikki (Tooti) gave small island treasures away to other people on other small islands so that they could create their own island museums, and they wrote long lists for leaving the island. It reminded of when I was leaving and how I did the same. I sold stuff and gave away so many things – including my grandmothers Wilson Peck, Sheffield made, cabinet gramophone and the old 78’s to the Old folks home in Lerwick, where it was restored so that the people staying their could play 78’s and it would jog their own memories – I went to visit it in situ, just before leaving the Island, and they put on a Shetland jig 78 for me and I cried at the joy of where that gramophone was now homed. I see so many similarities in the life of Tove Jansson of that small island. The sea, the ever present sea and the changing sky. I noted that in the 200 year old house that I bought, that some things had never changed – the doors, the floors, the window framing the view and the sounds. Sounds of the winds howling, sounds of the birds, the deadening sound of fog – carried in the same was as 200 years ago.
I gave the woman who bought my house the most beautiful old Saltware jug with pewter lid belonging to Susan Halcrow, who had lived in the house from 1876 to 1960. Below is the last hour in the croft house, all packed up but the jug left in the kitchen where it had once belonged to Susan. I hoped that the new owner would love it as much as I had and that it would carry Susan into the house still but when I saw that she was selling Smola, and that she had ripped down the front wall to park her car and then ripped down the barn and byre, my heart broke. I had handed over a gem and it was altered beyond recognition. I felt that the jug had meant nothing and I should have treasured it myself.
In this reading of the borrowed book, I remembered how beautiful it was to live in Shetland, and how I was a different person when leaving – actually, a shell of myself. How I had moved through such joy and excitement to needing to leave was a quick shift. If you are interested in reading such a life on an island, or if you are a woman thinking of living on an island in isolation as I did, or, if you are interested in Shetland itself, then I have posted my Shetland life on Patreon in monthly posts which align with the month that we are in. I have just posted the May chapter. If you join now, you will also get all the previous months to read too. I loved my house in Shetland, I loved how freeing it was at the beginning and now, I can look back with love and respect of an island that shapes its people
tracey doxey 