Scotland, the gift that will forever keep me longing (Prompt 6)

It's been almost three years now since I came back from the land of outcasts known as Scotland. For those who haven't spent a considerable amount of time in the country and gotten to know what it means to be Scottish or at least for those of us who didn't have the luxury of having a class called 'Culture and Society in Modern Scotland' to explain to us this paradigm, let me provide some background.

I could go into the whole Bonnie Prince Charlie thing and the fact the English stole the throne from the Scots, but I was never very patient with history. Don't tell my girlfriend (the history whiz kid), but history, although important, bores me.  So here's the down and dirty of Scotland that helped me find a home at the very heart of a culture or at least helped shaped my world view. The true state of the modern Scottish psyche can be encapsulated by one single paragraph in Irvine Welsh' cult classic and dialectical roller coaster novel/collection of inter-related stories about heroin addiction, Trainspotting. At one point, the main narrator Mark Renton stops in the middle of the field to express his self-loathing as a Scotsmen, his says something along the lines of not hating the English for essentially making Scotland another colony, but instead hating is own Scottish heritage for allowing themselves to be taken over so easily by a bunch of wankers. The tone of this rant echoes through out contemporary writing and if ever a culture carried around a thinly veiled chip on its shoulder, it's the Scots. My professor was a renowned poet, Don Paterson. He pointed out to us what the Scots deal with and have come to accept on a daily basis which is that their very culture is a lie. The kilt is nothing more than a bit of folklore dredged up by Sir Walter Scott and the people of Edinburgh who hosted the English King at festival. Most clans, including William Wallace, most likely still wore the tartan that is so romanticized in travel brochures, but it wasn't the kind of kilt Mel Gibson wore in Braveheart. Ironically enough, the Scots don't even really own their own folk hero, William Wallace. At his monument in Stirling, it's Gibson image immortalized in a statue rather than what historical reports of Wallace's appearance conveyed. The culture is one searching for an identity. They are no longer the pastoral visages created by Burns' poetry or Scott's novels, but instead there is a seething frustration with not knowing what it truly means to be Scottish and this intrigued me.

I know I said that history lesson would be brief, but these feelings have been building up since the 1700s. The book we referenced was a history of Scotland from 1700 to 2007 and it did a lot to explain the why rather than just what events took place, but none of this really explains why I fell in love with Scotland and will never be able to let go what I found there. Of course there was all that golf that I played. I spent more time playing the Old Course than I spent in two semesters' worth of classes, but that's not what makes me want to go back. It's the smell of the North Sea settling over the cobble stone of St. Andrews and the sponginess of the ground that never really dried out while I was there. Most importantly, it the wind that comes from nowhere and everywhere. If this sounds a bit abstract, it's because it is. I love the way the Scots cling to an identity that they don't really believe. Honestly, how many times can you hear the bagpipes and actually discern what song is being played. It's about the peat earth and the purple heather between the treacherous gorse bushes which don't look nearly as threatening when they're in bloom, but don't be fooled. I love that the Scottish people are much like this gorse bush, a tangled mass of thorns that distracts from its dangers with bright yellow flowers. I love that the national whisky, Scotch, still contains the flavors of the very earth it comes from: peat, smoke and salt for the islay malts. The culture has been pre-packaged and in the very literal sense even bottled.

The land itself can be charming, green as far as the eye can see for most of the year and relatively moderate, at least to us north-easterners who are always prepared for cold streaks of subzero temperatures. The coldest night I remember as I trudged back from the pub, warm and tingling with singed throatful of Scotch and chips with cheese (french fries in a styrofoam container with shredded cheese, which one shakes until the cheese melts and then consumes while drunk) was about 20 degrees Fahrenheit and this was at the coldest point of the night. Most days in the winter were in the mid-thirties to low forties and in the 50s during fall and spring, although the potential to feel much colder than it really was is a unique feature of Scotland where the wind is always brewing with a damp cold that cuts right to your heart.

I know none of this may sound appealing. It does seem hopelessly bleak, but it's very real. It's the best of coastal Maine and Central Pennsylvania and if I ever earn enough money, I hope to move there where the North Sea laps below the cliff that holds the castle ruins directly across from the school's English building and poetry house. I know I said learning about history is boring, but living it or at least living in and around it, especially when it's an unfamiliar history that would scoff at what Americans call longevity...that's something more. The University of St. Andrews is at least twice as old as the U.S. and although it can be touristy with the golf courses and whatever, there's something genuine hidden just beneath the surface. Although the Scots put up a front, their identity is just waiting to be plucked from the gorse bush or uncovered on the West Sands. It can be picked up and embraced at any time, but what is most intriguing is that they don't necessarily even know what 's real anymore. It's all about a feeling that has yet to be absorbed as a nation and that potential volatility is just as thrilling as the landscape and attractions.

Place Blog #6

It's a still night, dark, except for the glow from family's watching tv in their houses or reading stories to kids who just can't fall asleep. There's no wind rustling the branches which remain bare despite a couple of warmer days. It's so still that I can hear the rumble of trains on the tracks almost a mile away. The only wildlife out here right now is me. Who else would be rambling around at this time of night?

That's just what I hope to find out. I came out tonight to find out what goes on in the world when I'm not around. We are such a self-centered species that we believe the world stands still without us. We expect everything to be in the same place we left it when we return, but night has a way of obscuring the familiar and that's why I'm out here. I want to find what's been obscured from view. I want to catch the sly saunter of the fox or watch the raccoons who topple our trash cans, but maybe they have a certain reverence for this stillness too.

I feel the light from my macbook is somehow in violation of the code of the evening. The click of my keys and the hard pop of me striking return is almost deafening because it's so close, too close. It drowns out the trains and keeps the animals away. I am standing in my own way of truly experiencing nature, but I can't close the lid. I can only hope that one creature is brave enough to explore this forbidden light that glows on my face.

Somebody's poisoned the water hole...

Where I currently work and will eventually move, if I can find a way to swing the rent and still pay tuition is lovingly referred to as Morrisons Cove or just simply the Cove to those who know it best. Ever since I started working there in late January, I've wondered how this area earned its name because I usually associate coves with some substantial body of water. Sure, there are ponds and irrigation run-off areas in this heavily agricultural area, but the real problem is the name but rather that the water itself is contaminated.

Some may know and others may not (myself included prior to starting my staff writing position at the Herald) that farming areas often have an excess of nitrates in the water. I've come to learn from my co-workers that high nitrates levels are often caused by areas where concentrated nitrogen can be found like septic systems, animals feeding grounds (farms, barns, pigpens, etc) and heavily fertilized fields. Too much nitrogen probably won't effect a healthy 24-year old like me, but it's particularly dangerous for the nursing mothers, pregnant women like my co-worker, Kazia, and infants. It's unsafe to use in an infant's formula, juice or drinking water and can lead to a variety of complications including blue baby syndrome in which child takes on a bluish hue.

A unique characteristic of nitrate contamination is that water cannot be treated by freezing, boiling or letting the water settle out. Actually, in some cases, the concentration can be intensified by boiling the water.  Many blame the contamination on area streams that are not properly secured from farm animals entering them on private farms. One of my co-workers was outraged when she saw a cow in a stream the other day because she said that the cow's uncleanliness and exposure to nitrates further contaminated the water.

This is not merely a local problem, but it was the extends to the entire Chesapeake Bay Watershed as there are a great many farming community between the Cove and the Bay.  According the press releases that brought this problem to light and prompted a few are nitrate treatment plants, as our water flows outward, not only does it carry with it our nitrate heavy water, but it also gathers nitrates from the other communities along the way.  The end result is that the nitrates are dumping into the Bay at a toxic levels and harming the wildlife throughout the entire watershed area. Fish and land wildlife are adversely affected by the contamination and many communities have been required by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to do something about it.

As I said, in Martinsburg they've built a Nitrate Removal Plant, but these things take time and money.  We've got all the time in the world, but money is a little tight in our region. The Plant which only makes a small dent in the problem cost the community four million dollars.  Right now, it's the best the community can do and it's unfortunate because Roaring Spring, a neighboring community is also effected because they bottle water and sell it throughout the area. I can't imagine this problem will be too good for business.

Everyday, I drink bottled water and do my best to avoid tap water, but the problem isn't going to go away.

Place # 5 Settling back in

It seems like the cold spell's broken or at least enough to be tolerable again. 45 degrees is doable rather than insufferable and the sun is shining which allows me to indulge in the delusion that it's really warmer than I feel sitting out here on the stump.  All the snow's disappeared again and I can only hope it's not just another quick tease. The tan grass is in its full bland glory and matted down in places like greasy bedhead.

I've seen a few birds out here the last couple days, but maybe that have wriggled free from their straw blankets yet this morning or maybe my seeing them was another bout of selective spring fever. Who knows? The wind is blowing but not enough to be oppressive and it smells like some one in my neighborhood is burning their wet leaves. I can see the milky smoke puffing upwards and unfolding like an afghan, but I don't have the necessary motivation to find the source.  Instead, I lean back, almost forgetting that my stump has no back and enjoy the smell that it disperses across my otherwise wasteland-like landscape.

I look at my shed and wonder when the rabbits will make their next appearance, but guess it's not really feasible in terms of food for them to be out and about yet, especially because none of my dad's flowers have started to bloom yet. It's a yearly battle between them and one I don't understand. He could just not make us plant them and then the rabbits would not terrorize his precious, but untended flora.

The quiet right now is a little eerie and doesn't match the overall look of the day. It's the kind of day that suggests activity, but there is little to see. My neighbor lets her dog out, some kind of miniature beagle or weiner dog with a lot of yap in him. He rails against the garbage truck that grinds to a halt between our houses and let's me know I'd better get inside. I've been putting off going to work because I was out so late covering a story last night, but I think I'm pushing the boundaries of acceptable comp. time and better get to it. That school board story isn't going to write itself and for that matter, I don't want to write it either...not on a day that holds so much promise.

As I walk through my back yard to my deck two little gray birds--sparrows, perhaps-- flit after one another before settling on the rain gutter. They watch as I close the door on one world to enter another.