September Scotland

If there is one thought from this time in Scotland, it is that Scotland is kind—unexpectedly, and almost overwhelmingly so, as though we are aliens, still in tact, swallowed by the earth beneath, and beneficiaries of a graciousness that needs no words. Its landscape was quite different from my expectations; less sheer cliffs and jagged rock, and more rolling hills and soft, smooth waters. The colours are gentle, the rain gentle, the sheep gentle. The people, too, and more so than anything else. There is a notion that the weather here is a ravaging monster with a soul of its own. Perhaps that is true—September says nothing of extremes—but even in the rains, without cover and up into the heights of the Fairy Pools, the heavens still feel to be a caressing hand upon this land, and I can’t see that to be otherwise. And so it is with these places so dear to the earth. It is not only a ruggedness borne out in such environments; it is an understanding, an acknowledgement of our place here, and what it means to be a part of this world. And that, too, is what it means to be gentle.