The thing about Scotland in October is RAIN. Because RAIN. All RAIN. More RAIN. So I found myself wondering about the metaphor I, we, are walking in this watery landscape. What are the learning properties of rain? What do they have to teach me?
Soaking: The wetness has been penetrating. It seeps under the skin no matter how I try to prevent it. The hair that I spend a tidy sum to color and keep healthy is drenched, tangled, and knotted. My toes, which were exposed to the elements in my Chacos (big mistake!) today, became pruney, red, and numb in the cold drizzle. And despite the fact that my waterproof coat kept the rain out, I was quickly drenched in sweat . I was soaked head to toe. Feeling this bath around and within, the word that held steady in my mind was flow. Do I flow? Do I fight the currents in my life or ride with them? What does this the wet teach me?
Two miles out of Bridge of Orchy on the road to Kingshouse, some possibilities formed: 1) don't fight the wet, accept, let the wetness penetrate and change your composition. If I am 99 percent water, let flow take me to 100. Rather than tense and fight the damp and cold, release into it, become part of it.
Creativity comes in that space of letting go, letting the wet in. And sometimes it comes at the point of drowning. And sometimes it comes at the point of hating the bloody rain. Always it comes with a downpour.
Slanting: The rain today hit hard from the left side, it came slanted and pushed by a howling wind. My question in response: What is coming at me from just outside my peripheral view? Am I prepared for it? What must I shift to weather a one-sided rain?
It was hard to see much of the scenery as we navigated the slanting pellets; it was difficult to keep our eyes wide open for the stinging of the raindrops. Much of today's walk was spent looking down at our feet. But, what if we stopped for a moment in the slanting rains and just felt it? What if we simply let the drops fall and hit us from whatever direction they wished.
I did that. What I felt was a sort of union with this piece of nature; a cleansing of the left side -- the reason side of my body, the logical side of my brain, the sticky parts of my life.
I guess sometimes one side or the other requires the muck to be hosed off; we need the slanting rain.
On/Off, On/Offing
Those first 2 miles felt steep and slow, although my aunt Mary looked like a gazelle bounding ahead. She is as spirited as a fairy on these roads. I admit I’m a little jealous. The other writers walked three tough miles and then rode forward. I am grateful for their determination to be on the road today.
On all the rain-slicked days of this journey thus far, the water has hit us intermittently. It will fall like sleet for five minutes, and then, quite suddenly, disappear and a bright sunbeam will wind through the clouds and fall in crisp golden tendrils to illuminate a valley or mountaintop in the distance. It will mist and we might get lost in fog for an hour only to be greeted by a blue sky for a short time and then, again, the slanting rain.
This on again, off again pattern is also part of the rain lesson Perhaps its part is only this: the dark, the gray, the cold, the cloudy parts of life -- for example my struggles in love, wordless writing days, missing my children -- are necessary but not forever. And neither are the good, the bright, the sunny. Every moment is fleeting. The on/off, on/off rain of these days then is simply a reminder to seek balance; to not give either side of the scale too much power.
After a long lumbering uphill trek the pathway opened into a wide-open wildness (if you blotted-out the highway in the distance). Knowing my friends were safe in a taxi barreling towards Kingshouse, I made a decision to stop fighting and give in to all the elements. Like a child in her first rain, I stomped through the puddles causing water to fly around me. I splashed in the mud and it squish through my toes. I took off my rain hat and let my hair get soaked and welcome the stinging drops beating across my face.
None of that made the path any shorter, but it became so much more enjoyable. I've heard so many references to the “inner child” we all are purported to carry. I’ve been a little skeptical of what has seem like a cliche bit of psychobabble. But then I met her here today. She came out to play in the wet. Is it the refusal to welcome the child which keeps us from fully enjoying life and nature in all its mucky wonder?
As I dragged myself into the Kingshouse Hotel I felt an upswell of happiness and let out a whimper for joy at the site of a well-stoked fireplace. I stood there like a wet and tired puppy.
The puppy perked up soon enough with a wee dram of Glengoyne (the distillery we stopped by on day one) we and a bit of Earl Grey tea. Apparently my inner child is a lush and easily soothed.
The writings today were amazing, deep and true. Whether they were fiction or memoir or poetry. Whether the writers walked the whole route or none today, these women caught the power of a glorious storm.
More from the writers tomorrow.
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