Back to walking and writing – sort of

It’s been a while. A few weeks of I’m not quite sure what. Less walking than usual, for sure; or at least, less walking in places where I’d like to be walking. But also less creative feeling, less inspiration: walks where my mind is already busy, less willing or able to enjoy what’s around, and so less ideas to bring to paper.

I’m not really sure why. It’s been hot – record June hot – so maybe the focus has been more on staying cool than on having an urge to keep walking. And when I have walked, maybe there’s something in the idea that heat deadens the mind. Or maybe it’s not my mind that’s not working, and it’s more that there’s something in the idea that the heat is deadening my surroundings: earth scorched, colours fading, wildlife resting quiet. The gentle sun of a gentle English summer becoming more the harsh sun of its fierce Mediterranean equivalent.

If it’s not the heat, perhaps it’s one of those periods where I’ve got too much important stuff to deal with – worrying about schools, and the prospect of leaving my job soon. There’s an irony that in part I started to write as a way of transporting myself away from work to the places that I’m happiest, and now that I will be finishing, I’m finding it to get those happier places, both literally and figuratively.

And if it’s not the important stuff, maybe it’s because I can’t find a good book to read, one I can both relate to and be inspired by. My most recent reading has been about walking, but walking based out of obligation and often fear – a World War Two escapee crossing France to reach freedom, Central American migrants Mexico to reach the promised land of the US. It feels trite to compare my walking to their experiences.

So when I do finally find some time to get out, I feel as though I’m on a mission of rediscovery, remembering what it is to roam happily through our landscapes knotted with chaotic routes footpaths, bridleways and byways.

Remembering the frustrations of too many views hidden behind hedgerows, to the quirks of blink-and-you-miss gaps and signposts to keep you in the right direction, to the joys of having what feels like a whole world to yourself and wondering (happily) why nobody else would want to share in this.

And remembering how to let my mind run free, so that I can translate these experiences into something creative to share. Initially, it’s all a bit clunky, much like the sights along my route: a random breeze block house for two goats; a small house set incongruously in the middle of a golf course, itself set incongruously in the middle of farmland; a bench positioned for a view of precisely nothing other than a patch of woodland ten metres ahead.

But then, slowly, slowly, something more starts to emerge, as I wander through the early evening mix of lengthening shadows and golden glows cast by the sun. My path leads me through these contrasts: first, a barren field, stripped completely bare, brown earth darkened further by the shadows, and then, through a hole in the hedge, I’m into the next field, lined by tall stalks of golden wheat, their tops drifting in the gentle breeze and glinting in the waning sun. I feel I’ve found the end of a rainbow, where all the world’s riches have been dug out of the first field and planted in the next.

More importantly, I feel as though I’ve got something working again – so that hopefully next time it isn’t just about remembering what is to be walking properly and thinking clearly, but it’s back to what it was before, where hopefully every walk will bring new stories to tell.