Wild places
In a city it’s easy to forget about your basic needs. Our basic needs are re-told and re-sold to us every day in billboards and adverts online. Wrapped up in choices and options for things we know nothing about but we are swayed by what’s on display.
Being in a wild place feels like no one is asking for anything from you.
Every year, and more so as I get older, I am struck by the variety of colour in Winter. It’s so often described as ‘bleak’ or seen as ‘dreary’ and ‘dull’. As the years pile on, my appreciation for the vibrancy of Winter only grows. I’ve always loved the endless variety of tone and hue within the colour brown itself, but the landscape offers up so much in addition. Not only is it full of colour - burnt orange ferns, purple silver birch trunks, grasses of rusty red or gold - but it’s full of texture too.
Even in a city like London, which is notorious for being unfriendly and hostile to strangers (a case which I don’t find to be the whole truth), a stranger asking for nothing from you is still an expectation. It’s not that I feel the weight of these expectations, but I do feel their absence, and it’s bliss.
I recently read Belonging, by Amanda Thomson. It’s wholly a personal account of her family and the landscape of Scotland. One line that struck me was about her feeling most herself whilst being surrounded by nature. Although I’ve always known this about myself, somehow seeing it written down felt poignant. I have previously thought of this feeling of ‘home’, but Thomson’s depiction is more accurate, it’s meeting your most authentic self.
Observing and feeling the shapes and tones around me; I feel I have become a part of the landscape. It speaks to me, it knows me, and I know it back.
I would love to know where or when you feel most yourself?
I also find winter to be a time full of colour, at least when you’re in nature. There are so many hues of brown, orange and red and even some plants are at their most beautiful in winter. I think I’ve always felt most myself by the sea. There’s just something about that salty air and being able to see the horizon that calms my soul like nothing else.
I struggle with winter. Here in the NW United States, we still have a lot of snow with more on the way. I have been doing a lot of sketching from map crunch which has helped me see shapes and color in winter landscapes. I feel it’s helped me have a better perspective about winter. Although I am more than ready for spring!