[Absence] II
This week we share a reflection from Andy Harrod, a PhD student at Lancaster University (follow Andy on Twitter @AndyHarrod79). Andy says:
“[Absence] II is a reflection of my encounter with a moorland landscape, emerging from it the entanglement of the human and the other-than-human nature in the co-construction of a (un)therapeutic landscape. As I walked that day and during my writing, layers of memory, emotion and history emerged, disowned by me and displaced as properties of the landscape. Leaving behind a landscape I found (and still find) haunting and yet the material nature of the moorland hasn’t changed over the time I have known it, the risks of bog, of rock, of getting lost remain the same. It is my gaze that has shifted and continues to shift as I grapple with my emotions and my existential questions of purpose, of meaning, of being. How much I am willing to let this landscape in, depends on the story I am telling myself.”
You can listen using the player above or read in full below.
The wind is squeezed
through hollow tubes of bone.
As disembodied feet squelch through sodden leaf litter,
alongside water rushes, jarring against my rhythms of fear.
The gate creaks as I enter and there is a burst of meadow pipits, yo-yoing low to the ground. Their calls piercing the hum of motorway traffic. I take the right fork. The marsh is as I remember, a borderland. I leave the familiar behind as I cross a fenceless stile and begin my ascent. The pulsating sound of cascading water to my right as I manoeuvre myself between the entangled gorse, a few yellow flowers still flaring. A pair of silver birches lay fallen, as if cleaved apart, their roots touch, their leafless branches, like bronchi, fan out in symmetry. I leave this lace of oak, birch and gorse, taking the deep cut paths through the dying bracken.
I walk along a sodden path, the sound of running water seeping underground, like the presence of this place under my skin. I am drawn here - memories collide, unsettling, foreboding – making my engagements with the terrain fleeting as I rush through a landscape I hold at arm’s length. Ultimately it is a fear of disorientation. For this is a place that speaks of absences. I follow the blinding sun.
Unmarked on the map, you call ‘go back, go back’.
The words ‘I don’t belong here’ surface, upon
the black sheen of peat.
With every step
I erode. The scarring opens.
I hear him first. He stands atop his rock, his warning building. His eye staring, topped with a red eyebrow, but there is nothing comical about this sight, just a tragedy waiting to happen. Further long squawks now registering and ignoring their warnings I follow the sound of a pair of whirring wings. Upon reaching Clougha Pike, relief hits, founded on a sense that I don’t know this land, but its fragility resonates, that is what has led me here today.
Leaving the summit, I follow a path of exposed peat and gritstone. This is not how I remember this place. The moorland opens out and this is somewhere. I notice the shadows cast by the sun and for a moment the day is bright. An almost silence provides solace, rather than a reminder of isolation. This is no wilderness, but it is wild. A wild I have fused with fear, decay, death, but in this moment this expanse of blanket bog doesn’t feel desolate. It is alive.
Alive with claws reaching out from the dark peat, as snakes slither and fragments of bone litter the smooth inviting surfaces. The deep imprints of boots mark the allure. No, this place is correct in my memory. With each step I add to the erosion, crunching the heather underfoot. What is it that I am offering by being here?
Peat hags summon, one, two, three.
Memories probing
– Fat drops of oxygenated red
smack against the grey gritstone – their tendrils snare me.
Enchanted, I venture onto Cabin Flat, pass the line of shooting butts, pulled forward by a desire – equal parts human, rock, bog, and the faces in the pools. Stopping, I peer into the crystal-clear water, submerged green plants reach out. I step forward, the soft moss yielding, water tops my boots. Her hand reaches out, I tear my eyes away, and notice that to my left the vegetation has been trodden down. There is the way.
I slip beyond a veil, standing mesmerised by the expanse of blanket bog and upland heath. I am no longer just moving through space, but witnessing this vast place full of life. A smile spreads, though this is no place for a gentle stroll, I find it reaches in and pulls out my tangled threads of thoughts and feelings. I am left exposed as it strips away my masks, my isolation, leaving me wild with my grief. Beyond this veil, there is no deception, there is a joining with the other-than-human nature, there is peace, if only I’d let go of my grief. The presence I feel here, which leaves me shivering, feels like a refusal to attend to the emotions drawn from me, leaving behind a sorrow that hangs over these hills. A sorrow that fuses to the deception that this place is empty.
Alone, I rest against Ward’s Stone. A
disenfranchised scream reverberates.
I never aimed for here.
A rush down &
a wish to leave the ethereal behind.
I have come far enough. I take in the views, they are indeed beautiful, but I don’t stand in wonder and awe. Feeling spent, I lean back against a stone, sheltering from the wind. Then there is a guttural roar and an overwhelming desire to leave takes hold. I rush back over Cabin Flat. Disorientated. I force myself back across the veil, the desire I felt now gone. Back to feeling abandonment creeping along my skin. I have lost that sense of being part of this landscape, as if I have stopped myself from accepting a part of me.
The crunch of rock under boot and I remember a Saturday afternoon. I had dragged myself here for a run. I wanted to run, but I also wanted nothing more than to stop, disappear and return to a world where I didn’t know this grief. I ran, I stopped, I ran, I stopped. Alone, on the gravel tracks I let out screams of anger, of despair, of sadness. Red grouse flew up and away. Those roars still echo. Roars, I need to let go of. This place is littered with my un-cried tears. The sadness of not being able to have children contained inside of me and projected out, casting this place in shadow. Here became isolating, frightening, because I was isolated and frightened, rattling with the question what could life be without children? I forced myself to hold myself together and it was all I could do to keep moving.
