nature – Running Ink

Beauty is in the awe of the beholder

The shift we require to experience awe isn’t in location, but in attitude…

I admit it. I’m one of those people who bristles at the overuse of the word ‘awesome’ to mean ‘good’ or ‘great.’ Awesome literally means to inspire awe or wonder, and should be reserved to describe things that do exactly that. But a recent study on the benefits of ‘awe walks’ gave me a new perspective on what might qualify as awe-inspiring. In the study, one group of people were assigned to a weekly outdoor walk somewhere new to them and encouraged to try to look at everything with ‘fresh eyes.’ A control group were assigned a weekly outdoor walk, with no further instructions.

The group that did eight weeks’ worth of ‘awe’ walks experienced more positive emotions and suffered less emotional distress compared to the control group, despite the fact that they’d both been getting the same amount of physical activity outdoors. They also smiled more.

It’s not news that physical activity benefits mental health, nor that natural environments can be uplifting and restorative. But what this study adds to what we already know is the idea that mindset can influence the experience we have during outdoor activities.

Just by asking the walkers to visit somewhere new in their locality and to really ‘pay attention’ to what they saw, the researchers fostered a sense of curiosity and adventure that made the walkers’ experiences more meaningful and rewarding. Rather than nature being a ‘green backdrop’ to a walk, it became part of the experience itself.

Another important aspect of the study is that while the awe walks took place in locations unfamiliar to the participants, they weren’t necessarily locations that would be billed as stunning or ‘awesome’. What this teaches us – or perhaps, reminds us – is that we don’t need to be standing by the Grand Canyon or witnessing the Northern Lights to experience awe. We can find it in the colours of an autumn leaf or the passage of clouds across the sky or the green sweep of a hillside. The shift we require isn’t in location, but in attitude.

I think the reason this study resonates so strongly with me is because this is a year in which I feel I have really woken up to nature, and most particularly, the nature on my own East Sussex doorstep. I know the same is true for many people, and frankly it couldn’t be more timely; not just because Covid-19-related restrictions on movement are likely to remain for some time, but because just as we need nature, nature needs us – perhaps now more than ever – to halt the decline in biodiversity and address the climate crisis. When something we hold dear is threatened, we find the will to act. But it may take a walk – or run – with those ‘fresh eyes’ to realise just how much there is to cherish.

Slowly down the river

Each time I retrace my steps along this river bank, I notice more.

Nature moves fast at this time of year. At the start of lockdown, my daily runs were cheered by a landscape awash with the sunshine yellow of rapeseed.

Those flowers are now mostly spent, turning the fields a duller shade; but the hedgerows that border them have erupted with the white blossom of the abundant hawthorn, or ‘may’.

This is the may of maypoles and may queens – traditions that celebrate a time of year when everything should be bursting with life – the cusp of spring and summer. Its unruly branches cut jaunty angles against the sky; its petals swirl like confetti in the breeze.

I skirt the fields that drop down towards the river, muttering ‘welcome back,’ to a pair of swallows (it’s not as if anyone will hear me…) as they glide and swoop in a joyful dance that doubles as an aerial buffet of tasty insects.

This stretch of the River Rother floats through a wide, flat-bottomed valley of lush pasture, crisscrossed with ditches and canals. A parade of pylons march along its far bank; the nearside is crowded with reeds and rushes. I used to find it a dull place to run – flat, monotonous. But these days, the river’s sedate pace instils me with a sense of calm. I slow… walk… stop… And each time I retrace my steps along this river bank, I notice more.

A heron motionless, its neck a fierce italic ‘S’. A flash of blue butterfly wings on the meadow grass. The acid-house pips and bleeps of an ascending lark asserting his territory.

A pair of swans have taken residence on one of the tributaries. I always look out for them, keen to see if there’s any sign of cygnets yet – earning an angry shake of the tailfeathers. Yesterday, there were four new arrivals.

The Rother runs a lot further than I do – 35 miles from source to mouth. I leave the riverbank at Iden Lock, a couple of miles from Rye, to close my loop, climbing the steep hillside that was once part of the coastal cliffs that extend all the way to Dover.

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In a broad ribbon of woodland, where the last few bluebells remain, I stop to listen to a cuckoo’s resonant call and the creaky-saw song of a great tit. I seem to have lost the urge to hurry during lockdown.

Pastures new

Remembering all the things I yearned to do at the beginning of this trip when the vast, blank slate was mine to fill, I spend the first fortnight at Incheoch attempting to cram them all in.

It’s our final month in Scotland. Edging closer to a return to reality, we decide that we need somewhere less isolated than our previous locations in order to re-familiarise ourselves with things like, er, other people, cars, towns and places that boast more than one shop.

We head for Perthshire (or more correctly, the County of Perth) in central Scotland at the start of a snowy January.

With an expectation of spending more time indoors, we prioritise comfort and cosiness over wild surroundings when we choose the farm cottage at Incheoch as our base. It’s a working farm, and although our next-door neighbours (pictured below) are generally quiet they do occasionally like to lick our windows.

But in a repeat of our experience on Luing, a place that first appeared to be relatively limited in terms of inspiring walking and running routes turns out to be an unexpected gem. From nearby Alyth Hill there are 360-degree views over moors and farmland; the broad valley floors filled with a patchwork of fields in muted shades of green and yellow.

Our cottage is just a stone’s throw from the Cateran Trail, a 64-mile circular walking route that connects up the trails used by cattle drovers – and cattle thieves – in the 17th century; immediately opening up route possibilities in two directions. A couple of miles away, a precarious path through woodland leads to the waterfall at Reekie Linn – modest in drop, but thunderous in power.

The hills may be lower, the lochs fewer and the forests smaller but gradually, on foot and by bike, we discover the beautifully bleak moorland north of Kilry, the wooded Bamff Estate, where beavers have been reintroduced (we didn’t see any but there is plenty of evidence of their presence – including gnawed tree trunks and impressive dams), and the riverside trails in the Den O’ Alyth.

Although our intention is to continue with the daily routine that’s served us so well up until now, it feels harder to settle. There’s a slight shift in the atmosphere. We know we’re going home soon and that creates a mix of excitement and anxiety. Are we ready?

Remembering all the things I yearned to do at the beginning of this trip when the vast, blank slate was mine to fill, I spend the first fortnight at Incheoch attempting to cram them all in. One minute I’m on acoustic guitar lesson one, the next I’m mastering some new core stability moves, taking part in a creative writing webinar or updating myself on the latest running coaching science. It’s quite exhausting and unsurprisingly, stressful. One evening I’m lying on the floor, foam rolling my calves when I spot the set of acrylic paints I got for Christmas eyeing me reproachfully from the shelf: you haven’t used us yet, they whisper. Enough already, I scold myself. I make a concerted effort after that to remind myself that I am not going back to a 9-5 job – I still have time, I still have freedom and opportunity. It’s not over.

Perthshire is the most populated place we’ve stayed in Scotland (apart from Edinburgh, of course). So, as part of our ‘unwilding’, we do stuff like drink beer at craft breweries and go for coffee. We go to look at the newly built V&A museum in Dundee, run the Parkrun in Perth a couple of times, go training with Perth Road Runners one evening and do our weekly food shop in the nearby town of Blairgowrie.

One day, we walk into Alyth on the Cateran Trail and, finding no cafe that allows dogs, take a punt on the grand mansion that is the Lands of Loyal Hotel, on the outskirts of town. We end up sitting in our scruffy walking gear in the magnificent ‘Great Hall’ drinking coffee in front of a roaring fire.

Tomorrow, we are packing up. We’ll go for one last dog walk, one last run, and then load up the van with the crates and boxes that have been our mobile wardrobes, pantry, bathroom cabinet and library since we moved out of our house back in July.

We’ll put the kayaks on the roof rack, cram the bikes in, along with Jeff’s snowboard (used once) and my guitar (I’m up to lesson four). On that walk, I’ll keep my eyes open for the hare that crouches in the field at the foot of the hill until we get too close and then bounds away, making speed look effortless. And when I run, I’ll head up to the top of the hill to marvel at the vastness of land and sky in every direction.

When I get back to the cottage, the seemingly threadbare hedge will be alive with birds, as it always is. Bullfinches announce themselves with a repetitive ‘pew,’ their breast feathers the colour of wild salmon, their crowns jet-black. There are chaffinches, wrens and sparrows darting and chirruping, too.

I guess the same will be true in my garden at home. I just haven’t noticed it before. Now I will, and I feel comforted by the thought that wherever I am, I’ll be able to touch a little wildness now and then. It may not be red kites soaring, otters swimming or stags roaring, but it’s still enough to remind me that the natural world – and the pause for thought and wonder it offers – is never far away.