Isle of Skye, Virginia Giuffre, and tulips

On isolation and returning to the light

Every so often I get the idea that I want to move far away, to Scotland, perhaps, and get a big dog and maybe a goat, and my friends know this would not suit me at all and intervene and I come to my senses but then I float the idea again every few months like it's the first time I've ever thought of it.

The Fairy Glen in the Isle of Skye

You can move too far away, it turns out. When the world is burning and you feel as though you can't relate to the people in it and you've removed yourself from the world and the people in it, but the world keeps burning and you keep breathing and know it's possible to wake up one day, in your self-imposed isolation, and realize you are too alone. These are the thoughts I had last year in Wales as we stood on a grassy moor overlooking the sea surrounded only by sheep. I could move here, I thought. I could live amongst these sheep, with only the sea to keep me company, and I could find peace in my solitude away from the fires of the world. It's the same thought I had when we moved to Amsterdam almost 7 years ago. The impulse to move away — it's strong with me. But escape is not the perfect solution one might think. How far away is far enough away? How much isolation does one need before one is no longer living, merely existing? The world is still burning. "I think it's okay to be a tortured soul," James said to me that night in Wales as I was falling asleep, and I think it may be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.

I had these same thoughts last week in the Isle of Skye in Scotland when I heard the news that Virginia Giuffre had died by suicide. The news of her passing hit me hard. I read it on my phone as I was drinking my coffee before we were meant to head out to tour the island. “In the end, the toll of abuse is so heavy that it became unbearable for Virginia to handle its weight,” the statement from her family said. I read this sentence again and again. I looked out at the rain beating against the window in Portree, and tears rolled down my cheeks. I thought about how her courage had inspired other women to come forward with their own stories of abuse. I thought about the burden she carried.

“Rest, Virginia,” I said later that morning as I stood on a Scottish cliff overlooking the sea thinking about how isolated she must have felt.

We returned to sunny Amsterdam a few days later with the remnants of the King’s Day celebrations glittering the streets. Glitter, not litter. King’s Day is a celebration like no other and I was sad to miss it but my best friend Dorothy and her lovely mom Page were here in our house, visiting, ironically, from Virginia, and they gave us the full report. It was so good to come home and have my best friends here. We had the most wonderful week together and it was a stark contrast to the previous week’s thoughts and desires for isolation. Their love and friendship cleared the cobwebs in my heart. We went to Keukenhof to see the tulips, which we caught at peak bloom, and a few days later we drove the tulip route to see the tulips in the fields but we arrived at the same time as the plows that were topping the flowers. Beauty mowed down too early.

Like Virginia Giuffre.

It’s crazy that the farmers mow down the tulips in peak bloom but that’s how they preserve the energy to the bulbs, which is the point of the tulip fields. The bulbs get exported all over the world and that’s where most of the world’s tulips come from. I never get tired of seeing the tulips in bloom. They are truly spectacular.

Rest, Virginia. I will carry your beauty in my heart.