Gratitude Friday 04 25 25 – My Back to the Old Man of Stoer as a Young Man

The Old Man of Stoer, Trotternish Peninsula, Isle of Skye Scotland

I love to travel. Julie and I have done less of it in recent years for a number of reasons, including less “extra” money. We were very fortunate to do a fair amount of travel in earlier decades, including four trips to Scotland. Julie’s first trip was when she was a student at the Tyler School of Art and spent a summer traveling around Scotland with the Glasgow School or Art, she wanted to do our honeymoon there and that is exactly what we did. She said yes and then did I.

One of the trips we made over the years included a lot of time on the Isle of Skye. Incidentally, the first time we went, the Skye Bridge was not yet complete, (it was completed in 1995), so we went over the sea to Skye. I am aware that there are a number of ferry’s still operational but the most common way on to the island now is the Bridge. Recently, the trip we made to Skye in 1998 has been on my mind. A few things stand out. One being that this was the era before cell phones, and one night we got into one of those old, red UK phone booths and called back to the states to check on our dog, Haggis. I have this weird thing in which I tend to remember places and maps well. I am certain the phone booth was on the A855 between Duntulm and Kilamlaug and sure enough when I look at the map, the Shulista Phone Box is still there and on the google map! Julie and I were jammed into this little red box talking to our dog sitter when a herd of sheep ran around the phone booth, and I can still hear the sound in hoofs made in my head and see the Border Collie and Crofter heading them together with hand signals.

One of the other things that is etched into my memory was a walk up to the Old Man of Stoer, which I did alone as Julie was not feeling keen on a walk on that day in May of 1998. The name Stoer comes from a small promontory to the west of the village of Stoer, in Assynt, Sutherland (at 58.201°N 5.349°W). From the road, (also A855) just north of Loch Leathan as it circles the upper quadrant of Skye called the Trotternish, it did not look that far or high up. I do recall the walk as strenuous for two reasons, one being that it does have a significant elevation gain which may be hard to detect as there are few trees which makes it harder to get perspective, the second is that the “trail” is an incline of wet spongy peatmoss. So it was wet and similar to walking uphill in sand. Trickier than I was used to.

The Stoer is this amazing rock formation which I have learned is known as the Stac Fada Member towards the top of the Mesoproterozoic Bay of Stoer Formation, part of the Stoer Group (lowermost Torridonian Supergroup) in northwest Scotland. There is evidence in this region that around 60 million years ago that there was a meteor strike that left trace minerals not previously found on earth. One of the reasons I have grown to love Scotland so much is how unique it is and the Storr is one of those really magical places.

I have a really strong and visceral memory of sitting with my back against the tallest spike like formation in this picture looking out into the body of water called the Minch. The body of water to the North of Skye between it, the mainland and the Isle of Lewis, which we also visited on that same trip, and saw the Callanish Stones. I wonder why some memories that dig themselves deeper into the file banks of your brain than others. This was one of those moments. The picture above may give some indication about just how beautiful it was. I can recall thinking about my life and how fortunate I was that just over a decade into recovery I was able to sit with my back against that stone formation and take in peace and serenity. That moment is a clear gift of recovery, impossible for me in my life in any other way.

One of things I found was a page talking about core memories. They note that you can have many or a few and that you have little control over what gets etched in or not. I am very grateful this is one of those memories for me. Nothing in my early life could have predicted my rendezvous with that stone pillar on the Isle of Skye in this relatively early chapter in my life (I was 33). I have some really great core memories and a few traumas hanging about too.

Nothing in that moment could for me have predicted the course of my life beyond that point, including the good, the bad and the ugly. That is how life unfolds. Part of me, is still sitting with my back against the Stoer, overlooking the Minch and being at peace with the world. I can always return there if only in my mind. As I wrote about a few months back in Memory Gospel, we may get a playback reel at the end as the curtain falls and Julie and I in the phone box with the sheep hooves reverberating through the ground and my on at the Stoer will be on that reel, at least I hope. I also hope to add a few more special clips in those core memories.

I will not sit here and claim that all of life is beautiful. I see a lot of ugly in the world and I have to exercise the search for beauty and gratitude in the world to not become jaded. This is in part why I write this weekly post and why I take pictures of nature. We see more of what we train our brain to look for and I have to work on seeing the best that life has to offer, including moments like these. I am incredibly grateful for that day in May half a lifetime ago. What are some of your fondest memories?

What are you grateful for today?