Breathing Space

It was all too much, my brain tired, my emotions battered.  Hauling myself out of bed at 4.30pm on a Monday afternoon, it was sink or swim. On autopilot I found my way into Tesco, a robot directed by the list in its hand. I was numb.

Another list: bivvy bag, stove, petrol, clothes, food. Squashing things smaller, discarding superfluous shit. How many nights? I don't know. I don't want to come back. The bag seems heavy, I don't know what else I can leave behind. 

In the morning, all I have to do is put the bag in the car. I'm driving in a bubble. I park where has been suggested. I walk. The bag is heavy. It is hot, I am not moving quickly. I don't care about speed, I don't really care where I am going, one foot in front of the other. People say hello. I don't want to engage. Someone says 'It's a beautiful view from up there.'.

The sun on my skin, the breeze in my face, the mountains around me. The numbness begins to lift but I am tired inside. I keep walking. I am alone. I am lost in my thoughts, talking out loud in a conversation with someone who isn't even there. I have lost what I think, I'm not sure what I feel. I talk and I think and it starts to make sense. I think.

I run out of water. I want a cup of tea. So I wander across the hillside until I find somewhere to hide, sheltered and nestled amongst the rocks. My phone signal is shit. This is a good thing. I'm only staying for the night, my hand forced by external forces. Perhaps that's for the best. I put the kettle on and as I relax in my soft nest, I cry. It all starts to come out. I eat a weird dinner, I have cous cous in my second cup of tea. I don't want to eat, it's a mechanical, necessary process. It's fuel, that's all.

Medicinal tea

Watching the sunset, the Herdwick sheep surround me, one looks at me, its head cocked to one side, an expression of curiosity on her face. It's like a huge release of emotion. Things I've bottled up for months. It all pours out. I am still talking, having that conversation through floods of tears, alone on a hillock watching the sun dogs in the sky.

I climb into my bivvy bag, everything illuminated by the moon, I miss all this caged up in my house in West Yorkshire. I look up to the stars, I don't know what the constellations are, I think of someone who would. The wind has dropped and lying there looking up at that huge moon and those beautiful stars and planets, I am struck by the beauty of the world. I tuck my little pillow under my head and  I sleep. Better than I have slept in months. 

Dawn