The wild places of the world, and the heart

Sometimes it's what you need, a week, some quieter time away to think. Not always about something in particular, but a chance to reset, to regain your centre. I found life so wonderfully busy with friends, work, and adventure, that it had been a while since I last stopped and cut loose a bit. Scotland has always been the perfect place for me to do that, to be however it is you happen to be, feeling sad, blue, hurting, happy, full of love. So I drove north in the low cloud and rain to Aviemore where my cousin & his family live. Staying with Al & Naomi has long been an incredibly warm experience - it is somewhere I feel so welcome, & totally accepted. You can't choose your family, but I'd choose the family I've already got anyway. 

I couldn't wait to get out running on the forest trails of the Cairngorms National Park, & within a few hours of arriving I had my head torch on down by Loch an Eilein. I couldn't see a lot of the magic, but I could still feel it. The smell of the pine, the sound of the last bits of ice cracking, and crashing into boulders. The cold spell had broken a few days previous, and the weather was now suddenly unseasonably warm. After the run I sat down on a bench, with the moon, looking up at Orion and wondering about my place in it all. Something so strong, and me, well I felt at once so connected but yet so distant and small. But I think that's probably how it's supposed to be, I think that's probably how it always really is. 

A few days later I headed to Glen Feshie, to once again experience the transcendence of that place. I ran out along by the river, heading into the wild places of the world, and the heart, to do battle with the wind, and my demons. I realised, at some point along the way, that there are things in life which are impossible to un-feel, and that the truth sometimes belongs to just one other person. You could tell it to everyone, but no one could possibly understand or even hear it. There were bridges here that had been washed away, and a landslide, from the storms of a year ago. But all such things can be overcome - cold, wet feet are a small price to pay, push on through. On the way back I headed up into the forest, to the hidden, magical waterfalls and pools. It was totally unplanned, and before I really knew what I was doing I had taken all my clothes off and gone in for a quick dip. It was cold, as expected, but invigorating and utterly liberating to be naked in the middle of the Scottish mountains. There was no one else about, I should probably add! 

On my last full day, I went for a run around and up by Loch Morlich. I had an overwhelming feeling of being engulfed by emptiness, in my legs, in my soul, and by the landscape. It was a struggle in more ways than I can relate, and when you get so worn down there is that tendency to dwell on your failures, mistakes, and above all (perhaps) the hurt you have caused people along the way. Redemption seemed a million miles away, and self-redemption was even further adrift. I sat and watched the sunset, sat and watched as an elderly couple scattered three bags of duck feed on the shore. For a moment it had all felt pretty final. But the things I thought I'd lost turned out to be impossible to lose, and any sense of loss was the sadness that often comes with love, and growth. I knew then that I'd be back, and in time, back again in every sense.