Fraser

While writing that last post, memories began to flood back into my mind. Actually, they weren't memories exactly, they were more like faces. Face after face after face of people I've met in those places I mentioned last post. These people run continually through my mind and have played significant roles in my life, though they likely don't remember me at all. I think that for the sake of remembering, I'm going to occasionally record what I details I can recall. First up is Fraser.

We met darling Fraser in Rowardennon, a tiny town in Scotland right on the banks of Loch Lomand. He worked the the hostel at the foot of Ben Lomand as a gardener and groundskeeper. Here is a picture of John (my uncle-like-professor) sitting on Fraser's stone chair in his garden.


I remember when I first saw Fraser. I hadn't ever been outside of the US (besides a few days in the Bahamas and a day in Canada at Niagra Falls) so Scotland was a whole different world for me. The people I met fascinated me and I remember quietly mimicking their accents to myself, muttering under my breath as I tried to perfect the pronunciation. In hindsight I realize that the Scots probably thought I was a wee bit crazy. Anyway, we approached the hostel after a day of hiking and we were tired and hungry. I saw Fraser and he seemed to me the symbol of my foreign experience. I couldn't understand him in the slightest, yet I sat there staring, a happy smile on my face. I watching him working in his garden he kept to the side of the hostel and gave a little laugh (the kind where you just blow small bursts of air out of your nose as you kind of shrug your shoulders) while I watched. He had long hair that was pulled back in to a careless ponytail and had a skinny single braid on the side of his face that hung just past his chin. His face was wet, no doubt due to the misty rain cloud that had just drifted away, and he had dirt smudged on his nose and face. When we approached him, he made no effort to wipe it off and smiled widely as he came to greet us. I noted his rolled "r" when he introduced himself in his thick scottish accent and I remember softly repeating his name with the rolled "r" to myself when he wasn't looking. He had kind brown eyes that were filled with something I can only describe as tranquility. That intrigued me. We saw Fraser several times over the nest few days we were in Rowardennon at our stone cottage hostel with the dark red trim and enormous windows.


I remember sitting on one side of those windows watching Fraser weed in the dirt on the other side. I practiced my Scottish accent while I watched him and everything behind him. The tiny islands in the middle of Loch Lomand had sunken slightly over time so it looked like trees were growing right out of the water. Misty fog covered the tops of the scottish hills behind the loch. The green in Scotland is greener than normal green. Fraser fit in so well with his surroundings: innocent and rustic. We soon noticed that he wore the same plaid pants every day. They looked like pajamas and had plaid cargo pockets and a drawstring that wasn't ever tied. He usually tucked these pants into sheepskin boots. I'd say that Fraser was the trend-setter behind Ugg boots over jeans but that would go entirely against what he stood for. He wore a blue striped shirt that clashed terribly with his plaid pants.


I remember going into my room that night and putting on brown fleece pants with a black fleece jacket, cringing at the lack of color coordination. But I wanted to be like Fraser. I talked to him about knights and dragons and wizards before dinner and I felt like I was seven again. During class the next morning in the common room surrounded by enormous windows, John asked Fraser to come in and read some poetry by Robert Burns for us. I'd never enjoyed Robbie's poetry so much in my life.


Late one night as we sat outside eating warm cookies and watching the sun set behind the scottish hills, he came out with his wooden walking stick I'd seen him using. Before I knew what was happening, he put that walking stick to his lips and covered a few carved holes with his fingers and transformed that walking stick in to a hand-carved flute.


The sound was incredible. Scottish melodies floated out over the water and we sat listening, absolutely mesmerized. Janelle had her guitar out and he asked if he could play. She nodded enthusiastically and he delightedly strummed a few chords.


Then he began singing the song written for the lake upon who's banks we sat. As he sang about the bonnie bonnie banks of Loch Lomand, we anxiously awaited the chorus when we could join in .

Oh! ye'll take the high road and I'll take the low road,
And I'll be in Scotland afore ye;
But me and my true love will never meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.

He played well into the night and I stared into the green green grass and thought, "Where am I? This is like a dream." It got chilly and we were huddling together. The music had stopped and we thought Fraser was done when he suddenly put down the walking stick and began to dance around singing a song he might have just made up, we had no idea.

Well it'isn't is worm is it'wuz,
It'isn't is worm is it'wuz,
T'isn't is worm, t'isn't is worm,
T'isn't is worm is it'wuz!

We all laughed as we watched him perform his little jig and ditty about it not being as warm as it was. I think he liked the attention. I know we loved giving it.

Late that night after everyone had gone to bed, I stayed awake (as is my custom) in the common room made of large windows, curled up in an overstuffed armchair in front of the warm fireplace with my journal. I wrote of this man who spent hours every day in his garden. Fraser decided to spend his life maintaining the grounds of a hostel in the middle of nowhere so that he could lead the simple and quiet life he wanted. If you were to look at him, you'd see someone at whom the corporate American would turn their nose up: unkempt, free as a bird, poor, perhaps not the most educated, groomed, or ambitious. But when I looked at him, I saw inspiration. He was someone who knew who he was and what he wanted to achieve and couldn't care less what others though. He found joy in the smallest of pleasures, like making himself a walking stick-flute or watching his vegetables grow. In Rowardennon, I forgot all about the stresses of school, of dating, of church callings, of responsibilities, of decisions, of uncertainties, of life. I wrote in my journal that night that after Rowardennon that all I wanted to do was move to my family's cabin in the woods and read books and write essays and make my own walking stick-flute.

I came home, I returned to the stresses and complexities of life, and I'm happy. But I learned from Fraser the importance of simplicity. It's a lesson I was reminded of by watching the way some people lived in Italy, by studying Thoreau, by listening to Elder Perry's last conference talk. But I learned it first from Fraser.