Picture This: The River Findhorn at Dulsie Bridge

Spring alone, where the northern Scottish light flutters into the firth. I have kept my breath about me, my wits long since left, wandering the cliffs of Banffshire, the Cairngorms mountains, and the fertile vales of Moray questing this octet of years for some truth whose nature’s never seen. Scotland’s beauty is strangely maddening for it calls into contrast all one’s ugly parts, the misunderstood pieces, the ill-fittings. I took these orphans to the River Findhorn beneath the Dulsie Bridge where I came on my honeymoon many moons ago.

The river snakes northeast and cracks like a whip when the rains are falling, especially at Dulsie Bridge’s rocky gorge where it vacillates between placid pool and raging torrent. I took its calm this day for a sign and followed the path to the viewpoint, then clambered down sandy earth and over precarious stones to the waters edge to wait for inspiration. Cool air blew beneath the arch, the dark water swirling and spinning like drunken dancers. I watched and listened, acutely aware that these moments had never happened before, when a glittering, pearlescent salmon leaped from the river. Was that you, wise Taliesin? A shiver akin to the rock spirals at Achnabreck, the Ring of Brodgar‘s tall stones, the mysticism of the fairy bridge overtook me. Another answer come into my pouch, waiting for the day I will decipher it with the others, a day I could feel coming soon.