Life in Lockdown - Adventuring at Home (Dr Heidi Smith)

Life in Lockdown - Adventuring at Home

By Dr Heidi Smith

I have always considered myself a global citizen. I’ve been called a traveller since I can remember. If I settle too long in one place, those who know me best ask…are you moving soon? Prior to my most recent move I had been in one place for 15 years. I put down roots, and found my home in Tasmania, Australia. When I announced I was leaving, most said, ‘it’s about time’. I smiled. It was.

Ever since I departed my homeland for the far north and landed here in Scotland I have dreamed of an adventure by campervan. I was booked for 2 weeks of uninterrupted exploration and adventure. I had asked anyone who would listen, where should I go? Initially I wanted to visit all the islands, but I soon acquiesced that I had to focus on a few, so my heart and eyes went towards the Inner and Outer Hebridean Islands. I was to drive north from Edinburgh to the far North West, and then make my way slowly south criss-crossing the islands and mainland. The only time bound destination: the return of the campervan.

I had been putting in long days and nights at work, so that I could walk away and leave work behind for those 2 weeks. The weather I knew would be glorious. A mixture of everything I’ve come to expect, and yet it is often sunny where I roam. #alwayssunny I attach to my social media posts that I share with friends across the globe. Yet, even when the winds slow my progress and the rains provide any skin not covered with a free dermal abrasion, it is me that is #alwayssunny. Travel, adventure and exploration are core to who I am.

But instead of heading off, I had to cancel this adventure. The decision lay heavy on my soul. While I knew this decision highlighted my privilege to even have this decision to make, my heart ached. It ached for the movement, the adventures big and small I’d have along the way. The long restful sleeps between long days of walking in no particular direction. The long driving days with spectacular vistas in every direction.

Instead, I find myself at home. A comfy, cosy place I’ve made my own. I’m good at making a place my home. I enjoy reinventing what home means for me when I land somewhere new. Once I’d made the decision, I felt a great relief lift from my body. I looked around and knew how wonderful the next few months would be, as I adventured in this space. Close to home.

In these past 6 weeks, I have found new ways of being adventurous. Daily I dive into podcasts of myths and legends of Scotland. In short spurts I travel the landscape daily and meet the people and places, and the stories that belong there. I find wool that has been lovingly dyed to represent these stories and landscapes by local Scottish women. Through knitting these colours, and reading the stories they come from I find myself connecting to places I’ve never seen; relating to place and landscape through knitting. I teach myself how to knit intricate Celtic knot work, which now drapes my shoulders as I type these words. It warms me while I sit in my home office working to deadlines like nothing has changed. And yet everything has changed.

Where I live on the East Coast, somewhere between Edinburgh and North Berwick, the high walled gardens and courtyard of my home have always made me feel safe and nurtured. Now, all the more so. The sun streams in through my window and I eat lunch with the sun at my back. When I venture outside, outside the walls that contain us here in this safe cocoon, I feel strange. It’s been many weeks now, and only going out once a day feels like a new kind of adventure. The wide expanse of the sky and water as I ride along the Firth of Forth calls to me, encourages me to ride further. My body is keen. But it lies to me. When I return home, I feel the aches, the injuries. A new normal for me, but one I’m yet to accept. It doesn’t stop me from venturing out, day after day. But some days I ride slower, less far, and stop more often to enjoy the views. I find new places, look for routes where no one is. Follow paths and roads absent of people. Along the water, that’s where most people go. I’ve stopped going there, keen to find places without people. By the time I return to my cocoon, I feel a sense of relief. A homecoming to the cocoon within these walls. I can hardly wait to return to my needles, wool and stories.

While listening to ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ (Robin Wall Kimmerer), she talks about how we might become indigenous to a new place, in the absence of misappropriation. Through coming to know and care for the land, we are connecting to place. In conversation with a friend in Scotland, he turns me to the words of Jim Hunter, and how becoming local is a commitment to living and being in place. Hearing these things I feel more confident that I will achieve this goal of mine, to become connected to this new land, place, home. As the needles click and the scarf grows longer, I wonder how I might achieve this while being bound by these walls. Unable to venture too far from home. While I am coming to know this place intimately, I still long for the far-flung places I am always drawn to. The places I was meant to be discovering right now.

And then, in an exchange on Facebook, it comes to me. I lament that I miss the Southern Sky. Whenever I walk out at night, my face moves towards the sky and searches out the Southern Cross. It’s an automatic response, I can’t stop it. I don’t know that I want to. Instead what stares down at me is a foreign sky. My friend responds, ‘another (Aboriginal) story I just read says when you know your sky, you know your country. It’s a mirror image of all the things and events relevant’. This speaks to me more keenly that anything else, and somehow it brings together my adventures and frustrations of the past 6 weeks.

I’m now adventuring in the sky. I’m paying close attention to the sky during the day – noticing its brightness, greyness, moodiness. And at night, I’m learning about the constellations, the moons, the stories that connect them. Getting to know the sky, so that when I am let free of these walls and able to adventure again on the landscape of Scotland, I will come to it with a knowing of a different kind. While never leaving home, I am coming to know this place I now call home, in a way I never would have, had I not been confined. Re-defining adventure along the way, as I read, listen, ride, walk, knit my way across the landscape and the sky. I’m grateful for the privilege I hold in this opportunity to grow.

Dr Heidi Smith

A human finding their way along the path of life. Having conversations and building connections with people, places, and the more than human kin I meet along the way. I work at the University of Edinburgh as a lecturer in Outdoor Environmental Education. Originally from Australia, now of Scotland.

Find Heidi on Twitter @drheidismith

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