stories we tell

So today we arrived in Oban. I had the extreme pleasure of meeting my first fellow blipper face to face.The generous and fab weeflecky and we shared some stories about ourselves, about our children and one of the things she asked was whether I'd been to Oban before.
I have: when I was really wee. And arriving straight off the train today with the kids I had a whoosh of memory as we walked towards the harbour. It hit me what trace of Oban I have carried all these years.
It is the memory of seeing a head bob just out of the water and its two knowing eyes meeting mine and scrutinising me as much as I was it. It was a seal, yet it looked utterly like a human head watching me from the brim of the water. I related this to my dad who replied, "It's no human, it's a seal ya eejit !"
But that gaze stayed with me and I soon learned about Scottish folklore and selkies. Creatures who shed their seal skin and come ashore in human form to entice women into their underwater kingdoms. It altered the way I see the world. The possibilities of stories and their deeper meanings and connections. How they define us as humans.

The photo then is of Dog Stone. Bran, the dog of giant Fionn mac Cumhaill, was tied there and was so anxious to be free and serve his master in battle, that he circled and circled the rock until the pre-historic conglomerate was worn to the shape we see it in the photo. So when myself and the kids approached it we had this thunder of Celtic folklore resonating through the ages, through our every step towards it. We tried to imagine how great a dog Bran was to carve the rock like this.
And this is the power of stories. Their magic. Their connection. Their deep truth that is perhaps the one truth we can say about ourselves: we humans are storytellers. This is the way we find shape in the world. This is the way we tell of ourselves, our people, our land. This is the way we feel the lives of others, how these stories give wings to empathy, that divine entity that nestles within our souls.
So we walked. We walked the stories of deep past. We walked the story of our recent happenings. We walked the story unfolding. The early evening sun on our faces, on the Dog Stone, a-shimmer on the sparkling sea where a pair of eyes gaze at our progress from the brim of its depths. We were sharing this same story all. How deep these footsteps taken, how fathomless the eternal moment.