I didn’t know how to write this. I kept going back through the voice notes I’ve been making on my walks, the tiny revelations I’ve been having. Wondering how to string them all together into something coherent. But sometimes, things are meant for just that moment. It makes no sense for me to try and force some order from the last six weeks. What I can do, is talk about where I am now, and reflect a little on how I got here.
I’m a fan of the up-close detail of things. Hence the previous posts on here, capturing feelings and thoughts whist I’m still in the midst of it. But I think it’s helpful, and enjoyable, to take a bigger picture view, occasionally. Particularly when we’re doing a lot of inner work—whether grappling with demons, or celebrating a diagnosis and what it means for us, or just trying to align with our values and passions. Things which pull our focus down. It can be helpful to see inside someone else’s lens and process, because it holds up a mirror, and allows us to see things in ourselves.
But today, I feel more like an observer, having been able to simply watch, rather than interrogate, this chunk of time since I last wrote. I’m in a better place, a gentler one. And it’s thanks to an opportunity I had to retreat from the world.
I had grand plans, folks.
I was going to write to you from my last-minute escape to the incredible Moniack Mhor, at the very end of January—but as it turned out, I just lived the experience instead. I let it absorb me, in an osmosis that can only happen in the ether of kindred spirits. Other creatives, who were there to focus on craft, on wellbeing, and gratefully, on connection. Our group was on the smaller side—the retreat has a capacity for fourteen or so people, and we had eight. It felt just right. Particularly given this was the first time I’d spent time away from home with a group of people (I’m autistic). We got to know each other quickly, sharing stories of our lives, of illness, love and loss, and of course, the woes of writing.
I arrived, a shell in the blackness of the night, bleary-eyed and exhausted. The welcome was warm, steamy (we arrived in the kitchen) and full of the glow from a roaring fire and candlelight. I didn’t have time to process as I was shown to my room, where I made a hurried attempt at unpacking and making myself presentable for dinner. A table-full of smiling faces greeted me as I entered the communal dining and living space, where we were introduced to the staff and each other, before being served a hearty meal. I tried to focus on the conversations around me, whilst grappling with the enormous feelings about being here, to write, just for me, at the kindness of others, and being so looked after.
It was like a giant hand had reached down from the sky, scooped me up and wrapped me in rose petals. Placed them gently over my bleeding wounds. For bleeding is how I felt, raw, after my parents simultaneously entering mental health crisis in the New Year. Being on high alert (an almost continuous state these last couple of years) had knocked the crap out my already smashed adrenal glands, to the point where my hormone pathways were not behaving as they should. And that affects everything else. I’ve been here before, of course. Many of you will understand what I’m talking about (waves to the people reading this who I know will get it).
My bodymind was demanding me to just stop.
I listened. Desperation pushed me throw caution to the wind.
And so it was, that I was able to sit with ghosts of my past in the peace and stillness of that expansive valley, cocooned in the warm silk of the shared experience of the beating hearts around me. Nestled between old walls that seem to have the capacity to leach away what ails you. I dug into the hardened dirt of my history, which I’ve had little cause to look at outside of therapy, and I teased it until it softened enough that I could make lines with it on the page.
Our days functioned around the kitchen clock, we’d write and then stop for sustenance; the help-yourself brekkie, glorious lunch spread and hearty dinner (prepared by a team of housemates, so each person only has to help out with cooking one night). Our evenings were spent chatting over coffee and cake at the table, before we retired to the couches by the fire. Everyone was interesting, everyone had a story to share. We all made recommendations to one another, and we made sure to circle and spend time, one-on-one with each person.
I was astonished to learn that the retreat is just along the road from Abriachan—a place I had long wanted to visit, since first reading Katherine Stewart’s ‘A Croft in the Hills’ many years ago. She’s a huge part of the reason why, along with childhood holidaying, I talk about my fantasies of living in a highland cottage in the woods. I can still remember the day I picked it up in the bookshop. I’d been scouring the shelves for something that might have the same magic as Gerry Durrell’s ‘My family and Other Animals’ or Lilian Beckwith’s hilarious ‘Loud Halo’ series, or Winifred Foley’s ‘Shiny Pennies and Grubby Pinafores’. Books my mum loved, and which I wanted to find more of. Entertaining, accessible reads. I saw A Croft in the Hills sitting front-faced, the title jumped at me, and I grabbed it, wondering if this was some shepherd’s tale of rearing his sheep, or something altogether different, and just right for me. It was the latter. The story of a young couple who had become depressed and tired of the oppression and mundanity of city living, who threw caution to the wind, and made the move to a northern highland croft, overlooking Loch Ness. I delighted in their stories about pigs in the garden, four-foot-deep snow blizzards, and the first sightings of larks in the spring. Katherine described the world I the way I experienced it—with wonder.
I overheard a fellow housemate mention the name in conversation with a neighbour of the retreat, who stayed in Abriachan. I almost choked on my lunch. They told me it was just a short drive away. I don’t have a car, and it was bitingly cold outside for a couple of hours walk, so I vowed to come here again so I could see it in warmer weather. But I got talking to the neighbour, Mairi McFadyen, who was chatting with Norman Bissell, an author on retreat to write about Geopoetics and leaders in the movement, one of whom was Katherine Stewart. It was one of those moments where you just feel like this was meant to happen.
There were many moments on the retreat where I felt like I was meant to be here, now, to meet this group of people, and we’ve become friends. Such is the gift of the time, space and support to write. The gift of a fireside, just asking us to sit a while, have a heart-to-heart. I was so comfortable I even played the retreat guitar, and sang ‘Green Grow the Rashes, O’ unaccompanied, bolstered by the incredible talent of other housemates. (I’ve played and sang my whole life, but never for other people.)
I stood alone in the darkening garden on our last night, watching the clouds drifting overhead, the warm lights from the centre and the little cottage and hobbit-house casting shadows on the ground. My fingers grew stiff around my coffee cup. The moon climbed higher, until by some fate, it hung directly above the house; ‘beautiful only when the mind is seeking beauty and the heart is loving’. The dancing, singing and fireside readings that came soon after were of deepest magic, memories I won’t soon forget.
It’s been the hardest thing, to carve out time for myself and for my creativity, these last two years with Inklusion. The hours ended up being full-time, though we only applied for funding for two days each a week, so we’ve been functioning underpaid and overstretched for most of that time. It takes a hefty toll. Creativity hasn’t had any room at all. The only reason I’m attempting to write a memoir now is because an amazing author asked if they could mentor me, when we met at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August. They wanted to start in October. I started talking myself out of it, worried about burnout, but I realised this was a thing you don’t say no to. More than that, I realised I am still a fucking writer, above anything else. I needed the accountability. And the guidance, because I knew what I wanted to write, how I wanted to write it, and that it was going to be one of the hardest things I’d do. I needed someone who knew the genre, and who could prepare me for the toughness of writing hard things.
And so we started, in November, after the guide was due to be out, and I found the threads. But things kept getting delayed with our partner publisher, knocking the edges of my brain. I think the not knowing about the state of things is worse for your headspace than knowing how long is still in front of you. I kept having to shift things around, when I was diving into some of the worst experiences of my past in my writing. Such efforts are rarely beneficial until some time after the process, and I was exhausted at the effort. By the time the end of January had rolled around, still in the midst of my parents crisis and still no guide, I felt hollowed-out. I did not want to give this up, I was so close. I’d had some of the most profound realisations about my life and my autonomy, in the short time I’d been mentored, crucial to the anatomy of the book.
Moniack Mhor was the beginning of something, some finding of myself when I was feeling like a ghost. It rebuilt me as a writer and a human, first and foremost. It reminded me that no matter how much people want from you, you must chose carefully what you give. In all aspects of your life. Surround yourself with people who value you.
It reminded me we all have a voice and it is valid. To write, is valid. A joy. An absolute necessity. I’ve said it a hundred times and I’ll say it a hundred more—who are we, without the media we consume? The music and the movies we so love. The self-help books, the memoirs that hold a mirror up to us, the romance that makes our toes curl, the sci-fi that takes us entirely out of ourselves, the video-game (Zelda fans, I nod to you) that transports us to another realm where we get to be the hero for days on end? There is a creator behind everything.
There are so many barriers preventing marginalised artists from creating work. I think we know by now we have the most to learn from the experiences that are wildly different to our own. That’s why it’s imperative that we seek and share marginalised voices and experiences. That we value them most highly in our regard, and do our utmost to dismantle barriers held against them. That we create spaces which nurture and support them.
I am deeply grateful to the wondrous team at Moniack Mhor who gave me the chance to come back to myself at a time of great need. Much like my mentor, I hope to pay it forward someday soon, by creating opportunities that support disabled writers, properly, and which recognise the impact of caring. As I’ve said before, sometimes the nurturer needs nurturing.
And because it seems to be the post with all the hyperlinks, I’ll once more remind you that if any of this hits home or resonates, know that you are not alone.
If you liked this read, please do hit the the heart icon at the top or bottom of the post. It would be great to hear from you, please say hi in the comments. Maybe we could share with each other, times when we’ve felt supported, or most challenged, what’s brought us back to ourselves, and what we’re fighting to keep? As always, I’d love if you could share it Xx