July 9, 2016

Edinburgh, Scotland

In James Court, just off the Royal Mile, we are very close to Edinburgh Castle and the bagpipers who play for the mobs of tourists that crowd the street, but here in our second story flat in this building that smells of must and time, it is quiet. Tall windows look out onto the calm courtyard, where I can see trash bins for the small cafe in the courtyard and a corner of a raised seat. In the evenings it gets a bit noisy when modern day pied pipers lead bands of tourists into the courtyard. I cannot hear the stories, only the storyteller’s raised voice and the ebb and flow of laughter. Some of the listeners perch on the edges of the raised seat. Then the crowd moves on, and the court is quiet again.

At night I wake and look out the tall window at the foot of the bed. The window frames the opposite tenement building (for so these were in days gone by) and the twilight sky. It is never truly dark at night in July, this far north in Scotland. If you look at a globe, you will see that Scotland lies on the same meridian as Moscow. No one is siting on the seat in the courtyard. I return to bed, and to sleep.

In the morning I visit the courtyard and examine the square seat. It is three tiers of stone, topped  with a metal sculpture: a classic garden trug with what seems to be a parrot perched on the handle. At the base of the sculpture is an inscription:

Susannah Alice Stephen

1960-1997

Later I learn that Susannah was a Scottish landscape architect who died in a diving accident in the Galapagos Islands, the enchanted isles on the other side of the world that I have visited myself. Her friends erected this memorial for her.

Around the base of the second stone tier is another inscription. I walk around the stone slowly, reading the words:

“Turn your face to the sun

And the shadows will fall behind you.”

Five days from now will be the anniversary of Bill’s death. He has been gone almost six years.

Turn my face to the sun

And the shadows will fall behind me.