Dear Yuri
I was driving back to London from the Outer Hebrides, where I was ten days into a six-week RSA art residency on the island of Lewis. Due to the lockdown and being suddenly classified as an ‘essential traveller’, I was permitted to take the 15.00 hours ferry, that day, from Stornoway to Ullapool.
The low spring light over the Minch and views of the Summer Isles were spectacular. Once on mainland Scotland, I drove south/east via Inverness and onto the A9 towards Edinburgh.
It was pitch black by the time I reached the Cairngorms and I had deliberately chosen to listen to Nan Shepherd’s ‘The Living Mountain’ (spoken by Tilda Swinton) about these actual mountains, when next traveling through them. However, I had never planned on doing this in compete darkness. So, her words emotionally navigated me and added enormously to my own cut off capsule like experience in the car. Shepherd’s intimate and poetic understanding, plus sensory observations of the Cairngorms imaginatively amplified what I was unable to see.
As I continued south, all I could view was the endless stream of laden lorries with their dazzling headlights, driving north and in the opposite direction, carrying vital provisions to the Highlands and Islands.
It was a meaningful and solitary journey full of thoughts, worries and hopes. One that will abide with me and remind me of travelling through and trusting in the ‘deep time’ of those mountains and the legacy of the wise words of those no longer here.