A Forkful of Change
By Rachel Hudson
I stared at it once more.
It was still there, unmoving, innocuous enough.
I had just overcome one of the longest days of my life, so filled with ups and downs and traveling and changes and disappointments and luck… And my body, now very starved for calories, was reminding me of its needs. The berry pancakes I’d eaten simply weren’t enough.
Maybe I could just try it…
I tentatively reached across the table with my fork to my fiancé’s mostly-empty breakfast plate. On his plate remained a small, innocent-looking pile of something dark and fluffy… something my body was telling me it really wanted, if only for the assumption that the pile of fluff was, in theory, edible. On a single tine of my fork, I carefully lifted one microscopic particle of haggis off my fiancé’s plate, and gingerly placed the particle into my mouth.
Strangely, I found nothing offensive about the particle… it had a lovely soft texture, much like fine couscous, and the taste was unexpectedly holiday-ish, to me. My fiancé said the only reason he didn’t finish it was because he preferred the spices in the haggis he serves at his workplace instead. I went back for a larger, cautious bite. And, once again, I was pleasantly surprised. There was no foul taste, no chewy texture, no “mystery bits”…. Instead, the haggis I now found myself happily devouring was quite wonderful, so soft and warm and savory, yet spiced like how Christmas smells, with cinnamon and nutmeg. (Ah, that would be why he didn’t like it… he doesn’t care for cinnamon, I thought.) It tasted amazing—everything I had heard regarding haggis, everything I had let myself believe for so long… was wrong.
It can be very difficult for me, along with many other people, to accept sudden changes or things that are very different from how I’d always thought. Schedules, routines, and familiarity are necessary, comforting, and easy for me to comprehend. Even longer-term changes can be hard to take gracefully, as I tend to overthink, over-research, over-stress…. But lately, I’ve found myself more open to change. The initial shock can still overwhelm me, but I’ve noticed myself bouncing back rapidly, yearning to continue on the new path laid before me. In my most recent trip across Scotland, there were many sudden changes to both my plans and my understandings. But as time went on, it became less about sticking to what I knew, and more about trying new things and enjoying the new experiences that came with them.
For example, after one particularly long night and morning spent dealing with buses in one city that were always late or never arrived at all, my fiancé and I were quite tired, hot, and bird-less, as the birds we had specifically gone out to find in one village had completely eluded us. The plan then was to catch the next bus back into the main part of town, where we would then carry on to our next birding destination via another bus. (We were traveling from Glasgow to Stromness on the Orkney Islands solely via public transport and walking.) We were waiting in the strong heat and sunshine at the village bus stop for no more than 10 minutes when a stranger, an older gentleman in a small car, pulled up next to us on the narrow, one-lane street.
“Where are you headed?” He asked us. We told him just the name of the main city. He replied, “The buses here are absolutely terrible; I’m heading that way if you want a lift!” My fiancé and I looked at each other, wondering if we should trust this complete stranger, this sudden change to our plan, not to mention a sharp contrast to the “safer” option. In our exhausted state, and keenly aware now of the awful bus situation, we agreed. “Yes, please!” As it turned out, the man was not only a bird-and-nature-lover himself, but he was also ultimately headed to the exact spot by our next birding destination where we would have gotten off the second bus, if we had taken it! The three of us had a wonderful time on our way there, and the kind gentleman shared many stories from his life that we greatly enjoyed. This sudden change to what I had carefully planned—I had even set a timer on my phone to alert us when the next bus was scheduled to arrive (if it dared to actually follow its schedule)—ended up becoming one of many beautiful experiences I got to enjoy on our adventure, which I would never have lived through were it not for an unexpected change.
When we arrived at our B&B that same night in another city farther north, I got an email informing me that our room reservation in one of the towns we would be in later that week had been cancelled “due to overbooking”. What sudden stress and shock that brought… that was the smallest town we were visiting, and I didn’t think it possible to find another place to stay with such short notice. However, there was one place with a good room left in our price range, so I quickly booked it. It was in a slightly different area, but hopefully that change would be all right.
If only I had known that, once again, a sudden change would bring such joy and wonder…. The new place I had booked was quiet and spacious, with a massive bath in which I could rest my exhausted bones. Not only that, but the new location was right by the ocean cliffs… and there, flocks(!) of Northern Fulmars soared, often right within touching distance! I couldn’t believe it. I enjoyed my time on the cliffs with the Fulmars so much that we went back out there the following morning and spent more time with them before we had to catch our train to the next town. While we were enjoying the seabirds, our Lifer Great Skua soared right over our heads! If this change of lodging hadn’t happened, we probably would have taken a different trail and not gotten to enjoy the close encounters we had with such wonderful birds.
After over a week of travel, averaging more than 5 miles of walking a day and many hours of trains and buses, we were about to check in for our final destination: a ferry trip to the Orkney Islands. I had envisioned us being able to easily get many ocean birds from the ferry. However, something unexpected occurred yet again… we were completely socked in with dense, unyielding fog. We couldn’t see the other side of the ferry, much less any birds in the waters around it. However, that change meant that once we were in Stromness, we got to take things slowly. We wandered the neighborhoods, and I enjoyed photographing interesting historical points and beautiful flowers along the stone walls. It was cool and quiet. European Goldfinches landed quite close to us in one spot, allowing for lovely views. And a Common Redshank, excruciatingly common for us at that point, was standing at the edge of the water, calm and close, letting us have a better look at the sleek little shorebird we had been seeing so many of on our journey here. As we walked on, we could smell something delicious… and we found a miniscule little bakery, with two kind women happily making breakfast and brunch foods for people in this peaceful area. I got to try my first Haggis and Mince Pie, a wonderful grab-and-go savory pie much like a handheld chicken pot pie, but with a haggis-topped, thick beef stew-like filling. It was lovely for my fiancé and I to enjoy a quiet breakfast on the side of the hill in the enveloping fog.
As one local lady had promised us, the fog lifted around midday, and we left the summit of the hill we had climbed and returned to town. If the fog hadn’t been there, we might have walked a different direction at first in pursuit of the ocean birds we had wanted to see… we would have missed the Redshank, the food, and the quiet walk up the tall hill to our viewpoint, where we got to watch the islands appear before us for the very first time.
Change can be hard to grasp at first. It can be scary; after all, there are just so many unknowns, and fear of the unknown is common. In today’s world, change happens so quickly that even I find myself falling “behind the times” without realizing it. Some things change that I had been comfortable with throughout my life, and sometimes accepting the changes takes quite a lot of thought. The hesitancy, the fear, the potential loss of what we know as “safe”—it can be challenging to find the courage to proceed. But what if we gave something different and scary… a try? Just one tiny forkful… who knows, you just might like it!
Photos by Rachel Hudson. Top, Northern Fulmar at the ocean cliffs. Bottom: Common Redshank on the shore in Stromness.
