The Kilt

When I was in the 4th grade, a friend of my parents gave me a kilt that had belonged to their daughter when she was a child. These friends traveled a lot and had purchased the kilt at Harrods in London, which I was to visit two years later when I was 12. The kilt was heavy and wool, the colours of Tartan blue and green. I had never seen a real kilt before other than in story books and on television,  I was very excited, but unsure how to wear it. So, my 10 year old mind ended up wearing it to school backwards, with a bright turquoise leather jacket I had also inherited from our friends' daughter who was in her twenties by then. I was very lucky, in that a girl in my class, who did not particularly care for me, told me to turn the kilt around, so the pleats were in the back, not the front. She said this as a matter of fact, without contempt or judgment. I was very grateful. My parents were non plussed, but my story of where the pleats were to be, was confirmed by my parents' friends. In spite of the awkward introduction to the kilt, it became my favorite garment for a number of years. I liked its heavy feel and I liked that it was Scottish, having read several stories depicting heroic and very romantic characters dressed in very beautiful kilts, riding horses through the mysterious Highlands, hair blowing in the wind, swords at hand. I was smitten by all things Scottish. I recently watched the first season of a show called "Outlander", about a woman , a war nurse, who accidentally time travels from 1943 to 1743, during a visit to the Highlands at the occasion of her second honeymoon. The emphasis on family, on clan, on belonging and loyalty, strikes a deep chord in me. I realize how important family is, and how much happiness comes from being part of a clan, a family, and how hard it is to live without it, or at the edges of it. It seems I still wear my kilt backwards, struggling very determinedly to build securely my small clan with my husband and son. The woman in "Outlander" literally fell through a time warp into a very protective and caring Scottish clan, and in real life many a bride or groom has fallen happily into a gregarious clan. It was not my destiny, and it was not my husband's destiny. I have several friends who were born in trying circumstances or born without a family, abandoned at birth. A very difficult path, I know from their testimony and witnessing their life. I have some friends who chose to immigrate, like me, to a different country and that takes courage, to walk away from your clan. Some of my friends have done so very happily and successfully, others not so much. I am not sure if luck has anything to do with it, or character, or circumstance or destiny, or a bit of all of these factors play a part. I certainly have no clear insight into my own circumstances as to my life as an immigrant, other than in part I have been extraordinarily lucky in my marriage, and very sorely tried by my own family. There is no denying that to belong to a supportive, nurturing clan, a family, is a key ingredient to well being. That clan can be blood family, or an adopted clan, it can be a group of friends who think alike artistically, or intellectually, or even simply socially and emotionally. To go it alone takes great stamina, resourcefulness and a fair amount of grace to guarantee happiness and purpose. True, some people are loners by choice, but to be a loner by edict, so to speak, can be a difficult and painful way to go. I have found great joy in opening up my heart to the building of a secondary clan by adopting homeless pets for close to 30 years now, as neglected and abused animals too are victims of finding themselves without a clan to protect them. I never realized just how deeply I feel about that until recently, because it is a way to give animals back a home that betrayed or eluded them, the way I was betrayed or led astray by deceit and twisted interests. When I watch or read a story about the Scottish Highlands and the history of the clans, I wish I still had my kilt. It seemed to have been willing to give me a second chance at dignity, at belonging, tolerating the backwards insult the way it did. I did get a second chance, and it is cool to think about the kilt, that perhaps was a mysterious sign that backwards or not, if you hang in there, and with a little help, things can work out allright, in the end and in some measure, you get to go home again.