REBECCA SHARP: Self-Directed Residency, 2014

Inshriach horror tree - Rebecca Sharp

Birch, birch; I never knew there were two of you.
Until I found it wasn’t the trees I was peering through,
seeing and not seeing in shutters of bark,
but my own hands that hid the view.

So I did things differently.
I spent the short January days walking and making sound recordings – found sounds and my own chattering; dogs in the distance and birds.  I listened back and typed up my notes at night (worth lugging the typewriter up the hill).  I read Nan Shepherd and Hamish Fulton.  I played hide and seek.  I hate taking pictures; I put moss in a jar.  I got very lost only once.

I wished I knew the names of things.
I missed my dog.

Imagine that I found you there, leaves veined with silver, seeping silver,
branches swooping low to silver-tip the soil.  To lead us underground
to the tiny lit pools of what we might have thought was missing. 

 On the train away from Aviemore, the keenest thing I noticed was the clean laundry smell of other people’s clothes.

www.rebeccajoysharp.com

Many thanks to Bobby and Walter.
Text © Rebecca Sharp 2014
(Reluctant) images, RS.

bothy, typewriter - Rebecca Sharp