Trip to Edinburgh!

So I did a crazy thing, and left my kids for 11 days and went to Scotland to the Dorothy Dunnett Centenary where I gave a paper and met up with my sister Katie because life is short and mortality is looming and we’re alive, briefly, gorgeously, so why not. 

Wait, back up.

So Katie has fucking cancer and she is okay for the moment but it’s fucking ocular melanoma and that fucking kills people fast once it metastasizes. And it hasn’t metastasized yet, but it will, that’s what it does. Fucking CANCER, she’s 38, Jesus FUCK--

Wait, back up further. 

So my mom had cancer, breast cancer, that she found when she was 29 or 30, and she battled it off thru metastasis for years, and died at 41 when I was 17 and Katie was 12 and Liz was 10. And she got cancer that early because of a fucking BRCA mutation that Katie inherited, along with a bunch of other cousins in the Pratt family. 

So, fuck cancer.

Also, the world shifted and Katie is-- we can’t count on her being here next year, or next time, or when the kids are bigger, or when it’s easier, or when I have the money for travel-- We don’t know, we can’t delay this stuff.

So when we saw that there was a big Dorothy Dunnett Centenary celebration in Edinburgh, we said, “well, obviously we have to do it!” So we signed up, because life is reeeeeeally fucking short, and you just have no idea if you’ll have another chance.

And in that same fugue-state of “sure, why the fuck not,” when the Dorothy Dunnett society sent out a call for papers for the academic conference preceding the DDS centenary event, I thought, “sure, I bet I can cobble something together from my random interests relevant to the theme of ‘Diversity in the 15th and 16th century’, why not--” and then, oops. My abstract got accepted. And that’s when it very slowly began to dawn on me that I had signed up to do something I was totally unprepared to do, which was present on a paper *WHICH I HAD NOT YET WRITTEN* Hah! Classic blunder!!! 

So I scrambled and started researching, at first to just find evidence for what I thought I already knew, and then with dawning awe, researching for what is actually there, and then researching for things I had no idea were out there in the world, these little historical gems captured in story and myth and poetry and rumor and ecclesiastic record and court reports and art and, my GOD, obscene erotic peruvian POTTERY! And it was fantastic-- over and over again my assumptions fell apart as I got new data-- new vistas opened before me as I realized, “oh no, I don’t know ANYTHING about ANYTHING--” It was like trying to condense a master’s degree worth of work down into a few months of frantic writing and researching. It was GREAT fun and made me wonder if there’s any way I could do it for a job-- could I publish books? Work for a university? Be a professor??? Dunno. Whatever. One thing at a time. 

I wrote up a presentation about looking for queer interiority in the renaissance, rather than the reductive historical records of either pornography or executions. And I cracked sex jokes in front of a distinguished audience of Octogenarian Scottish Intellectuals.

But wait, I’m not there yet.

First, I had to leave my kids.

Okay, going back. I’m a single-- so VERY VERY single-- mom. Matt’s death traumatized us all and cauterized us into one, as my unkind ex Joe said, “dysfunctional amoeba.” Which is  a great phrase, but not accurate since I think we are quite functional, thanks. It’s just that our functionality… looks maybe a little different. As in, we are generally comfortable with each other, and generally UNcomfortable with anyone else. Together: Content Cats. Other people: Prickly Porcupines.

I am confident that will change and evolve with time-- Makani went to Europe with a school group over Spring Break and that was awesome for his chrysalis cracking-- and Maile is 13 and wiggling a little against those bonds of mother-daughter affection and irritation that tie her to me, both glaring at me and leaning on me heavily-- it’s freaking ADORABLE how predictably teen it is. And Liko’s life experience has been so different from the others-- she doesn’t remember leaving Kaua’i, barely remembers leaving Utah and our dear Grandma Betty Jo, doesn’t remember losing her dad-- she was just so wee for all of it! So she doesn’t have the same kind of shock-and-awe us-vs-them bond that I think perhaps maybe the older kids and I have. I’m glad of that for her-- I don’t want to see her traumatized, the way my poor little 6 year old Maile was-- just raw and ragged and shocked and furious, grappling with suicide at that age, haaaaaating the world, wanting to die herself--

Fuck. 

Anyway.

It’s been bad. 

And our subsequent lives, post Matt’s suicide, have reinforced the idea that we are on our own, we can’t rely on or trust anyone to come through. That it doesn’t matter how nice someone seems, or how vociferously they promise to stay, they will fail us, and they will leave.

I don’t WANT to feel that this is true. I don’t want my kids to believe this.

But…. we kinda do.

So, to ask my dad to come stay with the kids (he was so willing and happy to, because he is a kind and good person, and he loves us and is happy to help) it was still a scary leap of trust for me. Yes, I know he SAYS he’ll keep the kids alive, but people SAY all kinds of crap! It will all fall apart the second I’m not there to keep it altogether with the living mesh of my anxious attention!!!! 

Anxiety yelleth. Trauma stompeth.

But, Scotland, and Katie, and Dunnett! Once in a lifetime adventure! In a very very short lifetime!! 

Anxiety be darned to heck, I was going. 

So I made all kinds of over the top charts and bingo-games and rewards and chores and calendars and contact lists, exerting as much order over the future as I could (all while feeling sure that either I was going to die or the kids were, and were my things in order, was my embarrassing stuff all hidden away) and I bullied Liko into sleeping in her own room instead of with me and I told the older kids to please check on each other, please check on Liko, listen to their grandpa, be friendly….

And then my sweet dad drove all the way from Utah and dropped me off at the airport and then… I was off! 

First to the weird Eugene airport, then the Seattle airport, and I got to listen to music and read fic and just….be! And the first little guilty tendrils of giddiness set in. It was… so easy! So simple! I just had my one wee bag, my one checked back, both underfilled so I’d have plenty of souvenir space-- my headphones, my waterbottle, and a charger and---- 

Hours and hours and hours of time to just…. Look around! To notice the people around me, all of us curved over our phones, the foyers quiet. I got a coffee and exchanged money and then set out to AMSTERDAM!!!
I had been on a sleep deficit for, oh I dunno, 17 years, so even though it was only about 1 pm Oregon time, I took a melatonin and then slept for 7 glorious hours. When I got up, it was early morning at Schipol and I sat in a giant delft blau teacup and had poffertjes en een koffeetje and wandered through the airport shops and eavesdropped on the Dutch and pondered how things have changed, how things in Holland are different, like the absolutely gezellig “Schipol Library Nook” with a wide variety of books about Holland, lots of plugs for phones, great lighting and comfy chairs-- so people can just sit and wait out their transfers and read about how great The Netherlands is. Yes! Yes it is great!!! I’m in!!!!

My phone, non-functional for a week before the trip, rallied just enough to tell me my ATM card and my main travel credit card had been hacked, so they were locked down for the duration. My non-functioning phone definitely couldn’t handle the complexities of calling international customer service lines. I bowed my head to mercury, laughed at his little joke, patted the folded up printed paper itinerary in my pocket and the wad of back up cash, and hoped for the best. Then at last, to Edinburgh, a tiny airport, much like Eugene-- small, a little grimy, with only one exit, and that to the Airlink 100 bus, which, with a magical tap of my (last remaining functioning credit card, thanks mercury retrograde) whisked me to Edinburgh, on the New Town side, parallel to the Royal Mile. 

Me: dazzled, sleepy, fighting off a cold, rattling my purple roller case behind me, every inch and pound a tourist: “BEST!!! DAY!!! EVER!!!!!”

I found my posh little hotel with two neat twin beds and the world's wee-est kitchenette, unpacked my things and then wandered up and down the royal mile. The cobblestones! The statues! Every little shaded alley and Close and nook detailed with graffiti ancient and modern: gargoyles and grimacing faces and spray-painted ejaculations. 

For dinner I elbowed my way into a narrow little spot with seafood, had a glass of white wine (normally contraband because apparently my liver is somewhat billious I guess) and a plate of perfect brine-pouch oysters and seared tuna, and eavesdropped on the conversation of the extremely young, rich, and pretty women to my left, and watched the silence between the older american couple on my right-- tired, and plucking listlessly at the $300 pile of lobster and langoustine and oysters between them, without saying a word.

My paper was the next day. The night before, I refrained from editing it. I had read and reread it outloud to anyone who was willing to sit still for long enough, with my little timer going to make sure it stayed under the 45 minute mark. So I went back to the hotel, sent my kids pictures and hugs and kisses over the flickering filament of digital connection, and fell asleep at 7 pm.

I woke up, all confused, with the sky overcast outside. I looked at the clock--8:00. Morning? Evening? I couldn’t tell. I slept again, this time till real morning.

The conference began at 9, and I was anxious to get there early enough to try out the technology, give everything a chance to break before it was really GO time. I descended like a mad thing on the hotel breakfast-- cappucino!! Pain au chocolait!! Muesli!! Eggs, bacons, bangers, beans!!! 

I was nervous, but reminded myself, over and over-- stop. Relax. Let it go. Drop the shoulders, Exhale. This last year I’ve spun myself up into such a state of anxiety that I get sick. I refused this time-- I would NOT get sick on this trip. If that meant I had to relax my body and think *chill* thoughts, great. If my youtube playlist included such works of art as “Relaxing Study Chill Session In a Train Car,” fine. I’m not ashamed.

I made my way up the royal mile, across the bridge, through the park past the very whompy-looking willow, and through the posh shopping streets of new town to the beautiful hotel that hosted the conference. Pitchers of lemon and cucumber water, bright warm atrium full of tropical plants, long tables spread with pastries and snacks and tea and coffee-- and then conference hall. All around, DUNNETTITES!! Or Dunnetteers!! (Do we need Disney-esque mickey ears? Yes. We do.) Average age? 75. Mostly women, mostly from the UK. All of them---- ASTONISHING. GLORIOUS. Understated geniuses. You’d chat with an unobtrusive lady and then in her quiet way she’d say, “well when I was undersecretary to the prime minister” or “when I was the head of admissions at Oxford” or “when I was curating the collection of fiber artifacts at the victoria and albert museum” or “When I first shopped this screenplay to the BBC” ET CETERA ET CETERA-- absolutely DELIGHTFUL.

It was a room full of understated, gray-haired MARVELS. Valkeries of the brain and heart. And all there out of passion for fiction, for literature, for romance, for history-- It made me teary, the feeling of homecoming, very much like first stepping into a Watson’s Tin’s Box Meeting. Ah, These Are My People. 

Julia Hart, who had been my correspondent by email beforehand, opened the conference with grace, humor, even competence, and style (we later learned that she is an Episcopalian minister and ahhhh, that makes sense.) And then… it began!

The first speaker, Kit, was just wonderful. A tall handsome guy, with a gentle expression and a too-charming English accent, who apologized at the beginning if he had to sit down half-way through, because he was five months pregnant. They introduced such a wise and intelligent and kind and fair approach to the study of gender in history. That you can study trans history without stating, “oh this person WAS trans.” That the history of gender can belong to queer people now. 

YES! They stated it so elegantly, it made it seem obvious. It was an idea that I had been wrestling with for MONTHS as I wrote my own paper. I had nearly gotten there-- focusing on interiority that we identify with rather than taxonomy which may be too time-locked to be useful-- but the way Kit flipped it totally solved the problem that I had been trying to articulate.

I listened to his talk in mild panic-- “please don’t say anything that I’m about to say, also, please don’t say anything that directly contradicts what I’m about to say, please don’t let my talk actually be stupid and obvious----” Luckily he stuck to the UK, where my talk careened all around the world.

And then it was my turn!! I wore red lipstick, the kind that doesn’t wipe off, and water-proof mascara, and a pareo around my shoulders like an emotional and spiritual shield-- I plugged in my laptop (It had emerged from my backpack with the screen separated from the keyboard, the guts ominously hanging out, I yelped and clicked it back together, and it’s still working till this moment, so har-har Mercury, you’re a funny funny kidder?) Shuffled my paper print-out (always have a paper printout), projected my opening slides up onto the screen, and started in!

It was fun! 

I made gay sex jokes to a room of 300 British geniuses and they laughed. I told stories about China and Japan and Hawaii and Florence and The Ottoman, probably way too fast because (FORTY FIVE MINUTE LIMIT!!!!!) Then I have no idea what happened next, but Katie arrived, my glorious little sister, littler than ever. She’s lost weight-- on purpose-- not sick or anything, but she’s been working out and she looked gorgeous, even after a delay in heathrow and a long flight. I felt like a LOOMED over her, she was so wee! There was a little refreshment break and a serious-faced american guy came up to me and said, “I have a few issues with what you said.”

“Okay,” I said, “Let’s hear it.”

“I went to Kamehameha School in the 60s before the Hawaiian Renaissance and the term Mahu was a derogatory term.”

“Yep, that’s right,” I said. “I like your aloha shirt. Dietrich Valdez, right? The Hilo artist? He’s great.” And then we were friends-- Uncle Kelly and his sweeeeeet very quiet wife Olive. Over the week we often ended up with them, and we swapped pidgin jokes and nightmarcher stories. He was that kind of smart old guy who starts every conversation like a confrontation, but, like, in a nice way? I dunno. They were cool. 

And a bunch of folks came up to me and said, “CUTSLEEVE?? ARE YOU A MXTX FAN????” So we made a secret hui of Dunnett/Danmei fans, and then Julia called us to order for a Q and A, and I got to sit next to Kit and try to improvise answers that made at least some kind of sense.

Then the conference marched on! It was such a relief to present right at the beginning, so I could just sit back and be a spectator for most of the rest of the time (one more Q&A panel on the second day, with all of us crammed up onto the stage along one side of a long table “like the last supper” Julia quipped-- I leaned next to the art historian with long gray hair on my right and whispered-- don’t let anyone kiss you, and she laughed. That was the tenor of the whole event. You could just… SAY the crazy reference, the wild leap of logic, the weird non-sequitur. These are DUNNETTEERS, they’re with you! And if not, they’ll be fascinated and curious while they catch up!

The other talks ranged from Lithuanian-Orthodox church alliances and modern Russian/Ukrainian politics, Croatian revenge poetry by a single 30 yo woman in Italy, Spanish blood purity laws, influential women (“If you were lucky, your husband died early and left you a wealthy widow!” Katie and I jostled elbows and cackled.) Italian depictions of Ottomans, Gypsy and Romani identity markers, Scottish international trade routes, and the nasty way the Scottish reformation redefined the definition of “everyone” in order to sidestep the Christian imperative to “help everyone.” Okay, everyone except jews, gypsies, the poor, immigrants, vagrants, etc etc etc. The more things change, something something. Katie and I became immediate fangirls of the last speaker, Kristin, who merged rants and pop culture with art history with personal anecdotes-- she painted a portrait of Margaret Lennox that reframed her completely for me. She was absolutely at the center of the webbing of Tudor power-- niece, daughter, mother, wife of royalty. 

It fed my brain, woke up rusty old neurons and fired off sputtering old neurons to hear such fantastic talks, especially about things I had no context for. Lithuanian…. Religious….agreements? Ah, the horizons widen and there’s that sweet hit of euphoric humility: I know nothing. The world is vast. Ahhhh, lovely. 

They wined and dined us, too. Fancy tea snacks and lovely luncheon spreads, and in the evening of the first night, canapes at the calleigh (where three long-suffering conscripted Australian teenagers agreed to dance Scottish dances and Katie and I were VISCERALLY reminded of our many many worldwide Fiddlesticks gigs), and the next night a wonderful three course meal, where Katie sat next to a glorious woman named Elizabeth and compared crossword puzzle and Wordl notes and Elizabeth in an understated way described her truly impressive career, and I sat next to an astonishing woman named Ann who told me all about Scottish nationalism and the Gaelic language, and how it has divided the country, down to families and couples-- much the way American politics has since Trump-- where the very air chills when you bring up certain topics of Scottish independence.

Such a shame, I think, that an indigenous language be jingo-ized and weaponised in such a cheap and divisive way! Languages and cultures are too complex to be reduced to a symbol. Ironically-- or fittingly? That was exactly the topic of one of the talks: symbols of the highlands, as wild untamed lands full of virulent savages, being used by Scottish nobility in the Renaissance as a reminder of their own strength. Heraldry with Picts, as symbolic as lions. The more things change, something something. 

Two days of Academic conference, and then one more day of Dunnett conference. Three days of sitting in chairs with fresh pens and fresh notepads and lovely lunches and blue-lanyard nametags and tea breaks and luncheon spread-- it was just DIVINE. 

The third day, the real Dunnetty part of the event, took on a tenor of a tent revival meeting. We were broken into little groups and talked to each other about-- “how did you find Dunnett? What’s your favorite?” Wonderful testimonials about discovering them out of order, or being tricked by the covers, or being trapped on an overnight bus with nothing else to read-- it generated the same devotional energy as a testimony meeting, but without the barriers to entry. Although there was some joshing and ribbing (You haven’t read Niccolo yet?? You must!!)  (You don’t like King Hereafter????) it didn’t feel competitive at all. Just-- here we all are! We love this stuff!

In our little breakout group, one lady asked, “What is it that brings us all together? What makes someone into a devoted Dunnett reader, where others just don’t get it?”

Katie said, sotto voce, “It’s the ‘tism. Juuuust the little pinch of the ‘tism.” 

And that seemed true of the event. All these intense, overly smart, sometimes RANTING people, all colliding happily with eachother, mutually ranting about our favorite stuff--

Happy flapping all around!!!

***

Usually, when I travel, I want to strike out on my own-- find the little hidden gems, wander across churches or shrines or markets on my own schedule. This was very different. We had signed up for three days of set tours-- two on buses, heading out early in the morning! 

I have to say, it was great. Simply arrive, be whisked away to a castle or a museum or a monastery, have tea in the village, and be whisked home. 

Early in the morning, we speed walked up the royal mile and over to the meeting place for the buses, and got cozy for an hour or two’s windy ride out to the countryside with 50 or so of our new dear friends.

We stormed Stirling castle (Wow. Marie de Guise must have been pretty shocked. Coming from renaissance France, with all the gorgeous art and fine things, out to this stony mountain-top keep, with rough-hewn art and big ship-built roofs in the throne room? It was vivid.)  We went to Mary of Scot’s place Linlithgow and, surreally, heard a band playing “It’s a small world after all” over the graveyard as the boy and girl Scouts had a service in the church.

We sat down for some tea in a little pub with a lady from Wales who fell from the stairs and hit her head and a stern-looking law librarian from NYC who softened when she smiled and talked about Dunnett.

And then… and here’s the really wild part… we went back to our hotel and TOOK A REST. 

Katie and I haven’t traveled alone together before. We’ve collided briefly here and there, but always with lots of family in tow, and our own children and spouses to either herd or look to or monitor. I was nervous, I’ll admit now. We had epic conflicts as teenagers--once storming apart from each other in Auckland, New Zealand, and not speaking for MONTHS. It was stormy.

But since we’ve lived apart, we’ve been close-- she’s my best friend, and we speak almost daily. But… living together for a week? I was curious how it would go.

Turns out, it was GREAT. We could say things like, “how bout some hotel introvert recovery time?” And then other person would go, “yessssss I love vacationssssss” And we could go zone out in our hotel rooms for a minute, or nap, or text people, or in my case read a devastatingly wonderful fic about MDZS but retold with His Dark Materials-Universe DEAMONS, 600k words, I read the whole thing by the time I got home, I laughed, I cried, I’d write fic of this fic it was so good.)

We figured out a rhythm and it was so nice-- we made ourselves go get dinner even if we “weren’t hungry” because yes we were-- and thus we discovered an AMAZING Italian place with the freshest, squooshiest mozzarella, and the richest earthiest risotto; and later a WONDERFUL Spanish tapas place with thick hot chocolate and crunchy crusty tomato toasts, and a Schezuan place with spicy mabodofu and crisp veggies.

And it was fun to walk up and down and stop in the little shops, pick up little presents for ourselves and our people at home, notice how we were different and how we were the same-- I hope it was as fun for her as it was for me, because it was SOOO fun for me.

Although we did have some moments where we were…. Very tired. 

One day we boarded a bus out to a wee village that houses a museum for “The Tapestry of Scotland”-- a modern work of embroidered art telling the story of scotland up to the year 2000. It was really amazing-- an impressive effort of coordination and creativity. We got to hear from the Head Stitcher herself-- another unassuming but AMAZING gray-haired dame-- who described the various problems of attempting something like this. 

We trailed slowly up and down the rays of the aisles that displayed all the panels. Snaggle-toothed vikings in armor, sailing their dragon-faced ships. Witches burning, Ewan McGregor with a lightsaber-- everything, everything-- and all in Scottish Wool on Scottish Linen. Although thousands of people worked on it, the selection of the colors and materials, and the cartoon-work by one artist gave it all coherence. It was very cool. For like, 2 hours. 2 hours was a LUXURIOUS amount of time to spend with it. 

But then, the bus wasn’t due for another two hours. Fine, no problem! Let’s go explore the village! We did. There was a second hand shop and I bought Maile a skirt… then another second hand shop, and another…. And then a creepy statue of a little girl and a candy salesman… and that was the end of the street.

We were wearing thin. I was tempted to lie down on the floor of the museum cafe. We bought a cappuccino. Another. All of us Dunneteers were fading, slumping in corners, staring glassy-eyed at the space where the bus wasn’t.

At last, it came back for us!! But then there was another stop, in an unbearably beautiful little hamlet. We wandered blearily around the wrecks of Melrose Abbey. One lady said, “this is nice, I am waiting in the bus.”

Katie and I got the terrible giggles. The flopsy wopsies. The oopsie nopesies. The-- this is the point where we begin ANNOYING OTHER PASSENGERS levels of sleepy goofiness. 

“BEWARE MEDIEVAL CULVERTS” Bwaaaaaaahahahhahahaaaaaaaaaaaa

“This is amazing,” we slurred to each other.

“Life changing,” we groaned back, slumping onto a bench.

“Glorious, I’m so happy to be here,” we moaned. It was glorious! It was! But our vital qi had all been sapped by the 19 hours we spent that morning at the Tapestry (not a tapestry) of Scotland. 

Hah!

One of the absolute highlights was going to the Archive at the National Library. We won two of the coveted slots-- apparently there was a lottery to get a pass-- and got signed in at the front and then carefully ushered back through a warren of lockers (no pens! No keys!) and hallways with electronic keycards, to a broad and sunny conference room with a huge table spread over with Dorothy Dunnett’s notes, journals, references, notebooks, family trees, doodles, correspondence, drafts, manuscripts----------

It was

It was bliss. Sheer, transformative, heart-stabbing bliss. I stopped at the first notebook (the one just LAYING NEXT TO NICOLAS DE NICOLAI’S ACTUAL ORIGINAL 440 YEAR OLD MAP OF SCOTLAND JUST RIGHT THERE 440 YEARS OLD AND JUST RIGHT THERE, ME BREATHING ON IT AND SURE YEAH GO AHEAD AND PAW IT FEEL FREE) and then just stood there for our whole allotted hour, poring over her notes, the tiny meticulous copies of scraps of persian poetry, of recipes, of items for making cosmetics, for items for sale at a 16th century market in Turkey, in Greece, in Istanbul; ingredients for cosmetics, types of hats, types of turbans, ranks and orders of the janissaries---

All of the research notes were in tiny handwriting written double-stacked on the lined paper, two lines of writing per printed line. But then there were wild paragraphs in a mad dashing hand, aggressively slanted across the page, transgressing the printed lines and the margins, wild tangents sprouting at angels away from the main sentences, clauses modifying prepositions in crazy vines.

She was plotting Pawn in Frankincense. 

I love that book. It’s the hardest but it’s also the prettiest, the most exotic, and the most we get of Philippa when she’s still unformed. We get adorable Kuzum in the jam, and we get all of Lymond’s fucked up sexuality, and the messed up dynamic between Lymond, Marta, and Jerrott-- it’s all my favorite stuff. 

So I just stood at that one notebook and took pictures of every page. Oooh, it was like sipping from the champagne fountain of her brain!!!

So that was marvelous-- seeing her work in its unformed, pupal, shaggy state.

***

There were some events that were odes to Dunnett that expanded upon her glorious work and perfected it. There was the Renaissance Music Concert at St. Giles Cathedral, with a Renaissance choir from the University of Edinburgh, a church soprano, and a lute player, playing songs mentioned in the texts of Lymond and Niccolo. 

The tall ceilings, the stained glass dimming as the sun set, the echoing vowels, those sweet pure notes-- so beautiful I wanted to cry.

And then the READINGS. Diccon Chancellor, drowned, with his son, his shoes on. His burial in the sea, witness to his last dawn. 

I cried. One word into the reading, the echoing words off the stones, the choir, and Diccon!! Drowned, wasted. And Lymond again bereaved, bereft of another of his few friends. 

The experience washed my brain.

****

We had a few days of non-Dunnett adventures, wandering around the National Museum of Scotland through the Scottish history levels, admiring the gorgeous intricate work of the Picts and the people 2000 years ago, in gold, jewelry, stone, bone-- and then the bizarre dumbing down of the arts by the 1550s. Seriously, the potato-faced bagpipe tooters carved into poor Mary of Guise’s cupboard! The bizarre wonky royal portraits carved into barrel lids and hung on the ceiling at Stirling castle! I mean, I find them totally charming, in a ham-fisted way-- but it was just bizarre to see that a thousand years before, there was really fine celtic handwork happening. 

What happened?

We have a theory. So, each successive layer of colonization eradicated the previous civilization. How can you learn from the Picts if you don’t integrate them, you slaughter them? The Roman empire, the Ottoman, weren’t they a bit broader minded about incorporating local beliefs, symbols and technology into their Imperial toolkit? That seems much much smarter. If not, if you just go in to take the land and annihilate the language and belief systems and technology, because you are so confident that your way is the best possible way and there’s nothing you could possibly learn from these primitives, then you have to reinvent the wheel with each successive colonization! 

No wonder, no wonder there was that terrible template for the New World. Kill them all, let God sort them out. Don’t bother to understand WHY they do things the way they do, or how to use the technology that allows their nations to be self-sustaining-- just assume you know better and go in and take their land.

That was….a grim thought. I wonder if it checks out. Are there stories where colonizing forces do successfully absorb the conquered technology? Where colonized places keep their identities but add an over-loyalty to a greater entity? Maybe, maybe. Time for research!

The more things change… something something something.

After the museum, we wandered around Edinburgh, up and down the cute little pedestrian streets with art shops and book shops and tartan kitsch, and meandered through Greyfriars cemetery and tried to read the names-- Katie even found some of Sam’s actual factual ancestors, right there!! 

At the exit there was a thick stone wall, with a double-bolted gate of iron bars. We peeked through the bars to see a squat mausoleum of dark stone, with a porch overhung with a heavy cantilevered ceiling. In the deep shadows of the porch, a figure stood-- a stone man with a swirling stone cloak around his ankles, his fists clenched, and expression stern from where he glowered out from underneath the shadows.

We read the description: The executioner was buried alongside his victims.

Goosebumps! Nope! We RAN!!!

****

We managed to meet up with a few non Dorothy Dunnett friends. Katie’s friend Fiona came down from Inverness and we chatted over hot chocolates about art (she’s an amazing printmaker) and books (she’s writing one-- recreating a lady’s travel guide from the 1800s) and music (she’s a fiddler and has been touring for years)-- also she was charming and lovely and so kind. I love it when my favorite people let me meet their favorite people because then they become my favorite people too! My friend Donnie came and met us for Indian food one night-- she’s in Scotland doing a Fulbright on mental health in education, and it was fantastic to reconnect, to be so impressed with this big hard project she’s tackling. Katie said afterwards, yup, smart mormon women are my people. It doesn’t matter if they’re ex-mo, anti-mo, post-mo, active-mo, questioning-mo-- those are my people. 

I agree. There’s such a sense of homecoming to have that shared origin, with all the weird and good stuff that entails.

Speaking of MASONIC RITUALS…..

Okay, so here’s a thought.

Did the Scottish actually just invent… everything? Like the way we do everything when we’re trying to be formal and exact, is that just Scottish normalness? Let me explain. No, too long. Let me ramble.

So one of the conference days included the annual member meeting of the Dorothy Dunnett Society, which Katie and I technically are (although so far all that has meant for us is receiving the truly GORGEOUS quarterly magazine Whispering Gallery.

Well, this was at the end of a long day, at the end of a long weekend, under the shadow of gnarly jetlag, right? So it should have been just bone-gnawingly boring, right? And… it WAS. It was SO BORING. 

BUT THAT’S NOT THE IMPORTANT PART. The important part was that… I have never seen such a well-run organization. This is a volunteer-run organization! Everything, the fundraising, promotion, organizing, publishing, research support, events, and the magazine-- it’s done to this amazing level of exactitude and excellence, and it’s all just… people’s love and their spare time! 

It was a lesson for me to sit through this (SO boring) meeting and see, oohhhh, this is the machinery. This is why this functions, because they are meticulous. There is accountability. There is transparency. Not as BS filler words, but actual, boring, “here’s all the numbers and the minutes” transparency.

It was such a balm to my soul! I’ve never seen an organization-- a workplace, a volunteer group, a school-- run as well as this society. I want to get involved, to take notes, to learn how this is done. I feel like it will make me a much more functional people to see how this works first hand.

Another, ah-hah! Moment. You know Robbie Burns’ dinners? I host one every January, since Matt’s birthday falls the day after RB’s himself. It’s very set-- toasts and parades and salutes and honors and courses, all in a predetermined order. 

How fascinating, how quaint! I always thought it was unique.

Turns out, nope. Not unique. Just SCOTTISH.

We had the fanciest dinner of all, the GALA, in honor of Dorothy Dunnett herself, at, I think, the Sheraton. It was a huge ballroom, with name-tags on the place settings, and everyone in their sequins and finery (Katie and I rating them: tiny blue velvet dress with cutouts. 10/10. fishnet stockings. 12/10. Neon sequins. 15/10.) And then there was a piper who piped us in to our places, and there were toasts, and gifts, and speeches, and thanks and ohhhhhh, it dawned on me. This is not a format unique to Burns’ night. This is just how the Scottish DO! 

They did the DO indeed. We sat between Olive and Kelly, and Julia Hart, who we told how much we adored her. She said she has kids and grandkids, but she doesn’t want to bother them by calling, so she just checks in on them on facebook. I said, maybe a little watery, that I would be beside myself with joy if any of my elderly relatives on facebook gave me a call. 

She blinked, “alright,” she said, “I can be your elderly relative!” 

“OHHH YESSSS,” Katie and I said, “NO TAKE-BACKSIES!!!!!!” “We can and WILL make this weird.”

****

Another fun night: The Orkney night! We congregated at a posh place, went through a high-ceilinged blue-lit fancy bar, and then down a green hall and down pink-lit marble stairs, and down more stairs, and past an antique printing press, and through a long blue waiting hall, and then into another atrium with fancy scotch-based cocktails (juice? And fizzy? And whiskey?? yummmm) and at last into a dining room. And then lovely food-- lobsters and fish and haggis and potatoes and all kinds of tasty traditional-ish Scottish vittles. While two professors from the University of the Highlands told us about their research in to 10th century Orkney place name, and then told us stories about 10th century heroes and kings, curse banners, the noorn, and battles with terrible bloodshed! The storyteller was norwegian and spoke with such a delicious viking lilt, gleeful about every head on a spike, every valkeries screeching from the sky. Also she taught us a wee little Orkney dance: you link arms and go, right step right step left step. Right step right step left step. And it looks so cute and shuffly and you sing about arterial spray and the hills drinking the blood of the fallen.

That was April 26, my anniversary-- what would have been my 20th wedding anniversary. I feel so…. I dunno about that. I feel old and sad and far away from those kids who got married and hoped to live happily ever after, to be taken care of cherished and grow up and raise a family together. What’s that feeling, disappointment? Sadness? Grief?

I didn’t want to be feeling grief. I wanted to be having fun. I have done grief already. I do grief all the time. My year is pockmarked with painful reminders, anniversary days that just keep swinging around to knock me down. My grandma, my mom, my husband, other family and friends whose losses gouge and claw at the smooth surface of the year.

Grief, like the honey badger, don’t care. Grief don’t give a damn.

We were giggling and right-step right-step, left--shuffling down the royal mile when Katie stopped at a place where two musicians were singing in the window. We had seen them the other night, the fiddler switching between his violin and his viola. 

They sounded good-- the singer crooning Scottish folk music from the 70s, the good stuff, from the big celtic revival era, like the Tannahil Weavers. They were playing songs Matt used to listen to, that he used to sing and play. We went in, Katie shepherded me. I went to the bar, and feeling very tired and middle-aged, said, “If I’m only going to have one glass of whiskey while I’m in Edinburgh, what should I have?” 

The bar-tender, handsome, tall, long-haired, considered my question seriously, as if it’s not something he’s asked 79 times a night by American tourists feeling maudlin about their roots. 

“What do you like?”

“Hmm, I’ve had a really lovely smokey whiskey before…”

He surveyed the shelves and made a great show of sniffing a bottle, swishing it this way and that, nodding to himself and pouring it out for me.

“Here you go, it’s a ********.” (I immediately forgot the name.) “It’s one of my favorites, I think you’ll like it.”

I thanked him and paid and sat at a table in the front. 

It was noisy in the pub, but the musicians were playing their hearts out, expressive and in synch. The lanky singer’s voice had that wrecked folk-singer quality, like he’s been living on cigarettes and stout for 30 years. 

I tasted the (totally ordinary) whiskey, smelled the mouth-ful-of-smokey-peat flavor of it, watched the way the “legs” dripped down the side of the glass from where I swirled it. And abruptly, it was too much. 

Matt would have loved this, so much. He would have loved the stringy singer; he would have known the names of the songs and who wrote them and who recorded them and why, the inside jokes and the hidden feuds and the cultural influences-- he would have mentioned this stuff in passing, as if he assumed you knew it all too. He would have traded insider knowledge with the musicians and relished the whiskies and known what kind of ask for, and how to ask for water in it and how much, what to ask for to show that he was a REAL whiskey drinker, that he knew what he was asking for.

He would have made Katie laugh, and would have told me how awesome it was and how much he loved being there-- 

He should have been there, he should have been in Edinburgh drinking whiskey and listening to musicians, telling us about the history of the castles, and crying over old photographs of Scottish regiments in Africa and India, and railing for or against whichever 18th century political agenda led to whatever modern travesty--

I don’t know, I don’t know, I can’t fake what he knew because it’s lost.

Sharp (cheap) whiskey on my tongue, I cried. I tried not too-- I’d been holding myself together. Katie is at the eye (hah) of the tornado now, and I didn’t want our time together to get sucked into the all-consuming black hole of the complex suicide grief morass that Matt left behind. 

But for a few minutes, for a few songs, for a small glass of whiskey, for “The Wild Mountain Thyme,” I let myself cry and miss him and curse the world that would let him leave it, the bizarre branch in the time-space continuum that led to this place where we are now.

I harmonized along: 

I will build my love a bower

By yon clear and crystal fountain

And on it, I will pile

All the flowers of the mountain

Deep breath, drain the glass. They played some silly songs, and then wrapped up their set. I tipped them a tenner, hugged my sister, and we went to bed. 

The last night, there was the big farewell dinner. It was the whole upper floor of some impressive old building, while a mostly-intact old pipe organ making up one entire wall. Course after course, glasses of wine, coffee, tea-- folks chatting and exchanging information and wishing each other well. We hugged our new friends-- the amazing 80 year olds and the cool 30 something movers and shakers (Oh what do you do? Work for the UN making sure there is water for humanity?  Cool, cool. Oh, you represent child brides escaping from slavery? Cool. Oh, you are his majesty’s private masseuse? Neat, nice. Oh me? Literally nothing, lol.) It was so fun, and Katie was such a natural friendly people-connector, and I’m pretty sure she got herself at least one job offer and a sailing trip to switzerland by the end of the evening.

There was much hugging and praising and thanking-- we were sitting by the door and got to watch as people left, promising to share photos on facebook, to keep in touch, to “see you in Istanbul!”

We informed Julia that, like it or not, she is now our matriarch, and she bid us adieu with, “Thank you, Granddaughters!!” 

No, we’re serious, Julia. You’re ours now. We’re gonna make it weird.

We packed up, sitting on our creaking suitcases, squashing purchases into shoes and expanding bags to their furthest extent, and then early in the morning, Katie called an uber and we swerved away from Ediburgh, away from the Dorothy Dunnett Centenary, and towards home. 

“See ya!” we said. “See ya! This was the best! See ya! Let’s come back next year!!” I didn’t let myself get tremulous. I hate goodbyes-- I’m so afraid of what’s going to happen next. But that’s the future, this is now.

“See ya, love ya, you’re the best!! Fly safe!!”

And off we flew.

***

I got home to the Eugene airport 24 gritty hours later, at midnight Eugene time, so tired I was smelling colors and hearing smells. I was entranced with how every car in the airport pickup line had a wee dog inside. “Cute wee dogs,” I thought. “Fourteen out of ten.”

Then there was my dad, his hair all curly from the Oregon humidity! All was well, all the kids happy and healthy, and he had used his particular Cragislist skills to find me a new free fridge and a new free drier, and his handyman skills to get them all (more or less) up and working (once they got the live mouse and its nest out of the new fridge, but don’t worry, that’s all cleaned up now, it’s a nice fridge, and anyway the mouse was in the MACHINERY, never the inside where the food goes).

Liko ADORED him, spent every minute with him and his youngest (and unquestionably the coolest) Zina, who patiently went to parks and hosted tea parties and scooped ice cream and dealt with melt-down.

I got home, trying to tiptoe so late at night, but Maile appeared, wide-eyed and blinking like a bush-baby, and she let me hug her and rock back and forth and say how much I missed her. 

“Nh,” she said, nodding, which is Maile language for “I know you did and I missed you too but it’s kimazui to say such things outloud but I know you get it.”  And I hugged Makani and he said “Welcome home!!” and then I went to sleep in Liko’s room, and she woke up and grabbed me with her long arms and legs, and she just clung like a bony little monkey, and we squeeeeeeezed each other. 

“I missed you soooooo much and I had so much fun with grandpaaaaaaaaa” she said seven billion times. 

In the morning I distributed the little keychains and magnets and postcards I had gathered, and the second-hand-shop sweaters and the stuffed highland coo, and we fell upon the chocolate like mad things and I heard all of their adventures and they heard all of mine and I battled the terrible brain-fog that is jetlag and I felt the immediacy of the adventure, of Scotland, of Edinburgh, of the gray-haired marvels of the DDS, of Katie’s fashionable wittiness, of the whiskey and music, the grey skies and the swooping seagulls, the hail on the cobblestones, the stuffy ballrooms and the cool night air-- all becoming two-dimensional. 

When I was there, it was 100% real, unforgettable, vivid. My brain woke up fully. And slowly, being home, I feel the sundown-creep of numb forgetting, the stupidity of ordinary life creeping in.

So I write, I write. I record, I notate, I scribble it down in an effort to gather those moments into some kind of permanency. Like the circles we got tattooed onto our arms at the little shop on the Royal mile.

And that’s the story of my trip to Edinburgh!