6th February
The sun spills warmth upon the earth and the air is quiet, other than birds pouring their bright verses into the breeze. The same breeze glides over the lochan, a calm lapping clashes with the light that hurls itself against the surface, shattering into silver fragments. Time is drifting, unhurried, upon the water’s skin. I’m here, by the water, and I have nowhere to be.
Pine and winter heather, blue lochan and pinky-brown hills, the colours all make sense and are so familiar now. Even in winter, when frost settles, green remains, threading through the heather and clinging to the earth, unyielding. It is forever there in the mosses, and in blaeberry and cowberry stems.
I locate the path, and move upwards. Straight and tall reaching pines are intermittently disrupted by the characterful ones. The ones not following the crowd and dancing to their own unheard music. I think about how each bend is an external force, the unseen pressures of wind and time, the weight of storms that pressed upon them. How they have been pushed and how they have yielded, forever altered by elements beyond their control.
As I continue, storm damage is apparent, and beautiful pines lay along the path, uprooted. Some cut to clear the route. But, even in their stillness, they carry the weight of life. Evidence of their living lies in their still-green needles and clinging pine cones. I wonder how likely the new seedlings from these cones will prosper and grow here. I think their odds are good. It feels like a good place to grow up.
From the top, familiar views open up. The lochans glowing out of the ground, discs of blue amongst the winter green pine. Colours I can see vividly whenever and wherever I close my eyes. The heartstrings of this place – pine, water, heather.
Before leaving I return to the loch-side. I can’t help it, a moth to the moon. And it is here and now that everything comes full circle. The water is rhythmic and hypnotising, the sun glint makes me feel drunk with life. I feel like I am returning to source – water, star energy, a strange silence. Right now, I am only visualising the molecules. Taking everything back to the beginning, before time gave me a heart or blood vessels. The invisible breeze signals the collision of particles and everything makes sense, but is equally utterly incomprehensible.
22nd February
“Begin as the laughter of stars. As ice.
waltz lazy orbits around the rock with no name
and watch, and watch. Here; a planet is being born.
A heartbeat starts – hydrogen gasps – you melt.“
~ Ella Standage, How to be an Ocean
27th February
My seeking this morning is too forceful. I force myself to the river. I force myself to look.
It’s gone to spate, too early I think. There should be snow and ice deep on the mountains, but its absence is notable. The blue hare and ptarmigan will be like white specks in the brown heather, exposed where they should be hidden, out of place in a landscape that is shifting too soon.
Everything feels very loud and stirred up. It unsettles me and unsettles the ground. I turn back, walking home with a quiet regret.
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