It is supposed that the Romans called Scotland ‘Caledonia’ because of it’s harsh, rocky landscape. However, when I think of Scotland, an incredibly rich caleidoscope begins; I watch my feet disappear into mossy, lichen-filled grass, I look out at endless expanses of woods and too many shades of green to ever be able to describe. I can hear babbling brooks and gurgling streams and just catch a glimpse of an elusive deer and a secretive red squirrel jumping between branches.
Scotland and Aye
Scotland will always represent the first time that I truly connected with nature, in it’s pure form. Scotland is atmospheric, it contains everything you can imagine. In one way, it anchors you to your life and at the same time, it liberates you from it. The twenty-first century has put all it’s energy into relentlessly and frantically chasing technology and the future which can make us so tired and more confused than ever before...Scotland made me stop.
This extract from my book ‘Scotland and Aye’ best describes the moment which led me to jump into life in Scotland:
“I cannot say which happened first…the recognition of the desire to try a different life, or the way my partner and I kind of stumbled into each other’s lives. I was fresh out of university and still religiously wore a hat whenever I didn’t see the need to wash my hair. I hadn’t more than my collection of English literature books to my name and was famed for carting about my worldly possessions in my silver suitcase which accompanied me on all adventures. At exactly this moment of precipices and, crossroads, indecision and endless possibilities I encountered a towering, handsome and much older Scotsman. The attraction was immediate…chemistry led the way.”
So began a year-long ‘experiment’ of life in a Scottish hamlet. It was so remote, so far from the mainstream world of action. The concept of time suddenly took on a whole new dimension as I inhabited this new reality:
‘Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I cannot believe that this is my life, it feels simultaneously so grounded and yet, so surreal…By far the most disconcerting phenomena is the way time seems to pass more slowly, and yet in a day it does not seem possible to accomplish much more than walking the dog and cooking the day’s repasts’.
My first words in Ladyholm I’ve spoken were: “I belong to be here!!” It was a profound commitment, which completely dismissed my earlier worries of ‘What is home? Is it a place? Is it a feeling? Is it the people?’ I kept reminding myself of the mantra; make the place you live, the place you love. If the geography of a place corresponds with the geography of your soul, you have won the lottery and you can stop feeling homesick, as some people do all their lives. Sometimes this special place has nothing to do with where you were born or what you have known all your life. I observed Scotland for a long time until I became familiar with it. Then I surrendered to its natural rhythms:
‘All of a sudden, I become tired with the fading sun and able to rise with the dawn of a new day – this is all very new to me. In the past, I have preferred a rather more noctural mode of existence (my room at university was referred to as ‘the den’), but apparently all that can change.’
My everyday life started shifting between the ordinary and the extraordinary. I can’t compare the life of a London girl to the life of a Scottish ‘lass’. I can only try to describe what life in Scotland gave me. We all know what life in a big city like London can do to young dreamers; their psyche, their health, their hearts and their hopes, it breeds twenty-first century soulless robots!
I am older than I was when I wrote my book, and in some ways I am less innocent and less soft, after having tasted more of life’s surprises and catastrophes. The important thing about our past is not really what happened, but what we did with what happened and how it contributes to who we are today. I was lucky enough to have taken my first steps in grown-up life against the backdrop of the Scottish countryside. I discovered the beauty of silence, a gift which I take with me everywhere I go. It does not matter so much that my first attempt at trying out my idealised version of adult life came to an end, because I know for sure, that I will always find my way home. Home is within us and if you choose to rest there, you’ll find peace in any storm. Scotland was the first place where I felt that constant search subside. The meaning of the past is that it got me here, where I am now. It taught me most vital lesson, that in every community, every place we find ourselves, there are lessons to be learnt and wonderful people to be met. My Scottish existence was often challenging. It revealed my own secret to me about how strong I really am and how to find emotional stability in life’s passing dramas. I shall carry the landscape of Scotland with me forever.