The nature of one writer's thoughts
Nature has always been a very significant part of my life; I was lucky enough to grow up in a rural area where the forests were my playground and nature was everywhere I looked and, in the case of the deer that peeked through our window and the bats that hid in the bathroom, was impossible to ignore. The seasons in particular felt so distinct, with warm balmy summer walks and winters spent sledging in the snowy woodlands. I feel that being raised like this has really shaped my outlook as an adult, if that isn’t false advertising to call myself that as opposed to a hyperactive toddler who just happens to have a bank card and weirdly good taste in music. I’ve always been keen to learn more about environmental causes and explore the outdoors, and I think this is a direct result of my upbringing, which I wouldn’t change for the world.
But being so isolated meant I always felt that I was missing out. The countryside and forest weren’t exactly the social hub of the local area, and long distances to places and people meant I spent a bit more time on my own than I’d have liked. Moving to the city felt like such an exciting change, plus accessible bus routes and central heating were a massive bonus.
Around this time, I started taking the writing I had always loved more seriously, enrolling on the Creative Writing modules my degree course offered and spending more time coming up with and creating ideas. I loved having more time to write, and to be honest, my writing probably benefitted from tutors making me write as opposed to doing my previous approach of bashing out the odd half a page when the mood struck me. Honestly, it’s a miracle I’ve got this far into this piece. My attention span really is something else. The combination of moving and rediscovering writing meant I was quite enamoured with the idea of writing in the city, wandering the streets and taking inspiration from the people I saw and sipping overpriced coffee in hipster cafes while I scribbled in a notebook and watched the world go by. There was just something about gaining inspiration from the city and its life that I loved the idea of, and this approach to writing had stuck with me for a while. I guess I’m interested in capturing people’s character and seeing a snapshot of life, which is so much easier to do in places that are much busier.
But one day I came across the idea of writhing a nature journal, noting observations big or small, about the natural world and everything you could see and hear. At first I thought the idea was interesting but not something I’d try, but one day I went to take my dog for a walk and thought I’d take a notebook and pen with me. At first it seemed peculiar to document things going on around me, but noticing even the tiniest details helped me to see the world in a new light. My mind isn’t my best ally generally, but at a time when lockdown was in full flow and my brain seemed particularly full of negativity, it was so cathartic and soothing to take stock of all the beautiful things going on in the natural world around me. Trying to observe the world and the details instead of letting it pass me by helped to find life and vitality even in the strangest of places. When my mind was preoccupied with sadness or panic, or just running at a hundred miles a minute, it helped to break down such complicated feelings and emotions. Noting the sun shining on me or the crisp air, the colours of the flowers on the path where I walk my dog and the birdsongs from the trees is a much better list than all the things wrong with the world, and helped to set me up with looking for the positive.
I recently found the notebook I’d kept my journal in at that time and read through it again, and my descriptions of what I could see and hear and feel proved the ammunition I needed for writing. That’s what I’d aimed for. What I didn’t expect was to see my emotions played out. The days when everything I’d seen had seemed so exciting and those when everything seemed dead. The gaps when I hadn’t written anything at all. It was like I could see what was going on through my interpretations of the world.
I think writing journals is helpful for all writers, about whatever and wherever you seek your inspiration from. But I think that when we’re becoming more conscious and trying to have more respect for the world taking stock of nature and the beauty of what we have can’t be a bad thing. In the words from Tolkien’s Silmarillion, ‘They will love first the things made by their own hands... They will delve in the earth, and the things that grow and live upon the earth they will not need. Many a tree shall feel the bite of their iron without pity’, and maybe by writing about nature we will finally see we need it.