Five fields. A cliff tagged with some graffiti too old for me to recognise. The sound of a clicking bug that worsens in the summer. The odd tent. Numerous snapped rope swings.
These woods had seen me through every aspect of my life since I was three. The looming trees (the names of which I’ve never learned) heard me complain that I couldn’t walk anymore as my parents dragged little me on a walk. They listened to my delighted shrieks as I discovered that if I walked far enough, I’d find the zoo’s wallaby enclosure.
They heard my sniffles as I walked my dog and bawled alone about how I just couldn’t learn Higher Maths over Zoom during lockdown. They heard me ramble to my dad when I was too scared of going back to uni.
Not to sound self-pitiful and all woe is me, but this time last year, Stirling was the last place on earth I wanted to be. I was so scared of leaving the house every day that I never ate breakfast from January to May, because the anxiety brewing inside me every time someone looked in my direction made me believe I’d throw up everything I’d ever eaten. So home, and by extension, the woods, is where you’d find me whenever a timetable didn’t force me to be on campus.
At first it was out of obligation. I was home and dogs needed walked. So I begrudgingly climbed a rockier-than-I-remember hill, just peaked at the top, and tried not to let two very attentive but in my opinion, overly excited dogs, pull me down and off my feet as we passed the old bunker. Bish bash bosh, home before its dark (4pm in January).
Then one day, I forgot my headphones. There was no Siouxsie and the Banshees or Fleetwood Mac or Pulp to walk in time to. So instead of turning back after enough music, I just didn’t stop walking.
I’d spent the last five months of my life training myself to be wherever no one could see me. But all of a sudden, those looming branches that watched me grow up were shielding me from Edinburgh’s skyline just like they did for me as a preteen. And despite not having walked this far into the woods since I was a Hunger Games obsessed 12 year old, I felt this peculiar security that I hadn’t felt in years.
I don’t know it as well as I used to. I think if I went with another person to reduce the fear of getting kidnapped in the woods, I could wander long enough to find the old tower. I could definitely find the zebras, if not the wallabies. But I did find a way to shut up every screeching “you were right!” that echoed in my head every time I opened my phone. And that happens to be by ensuring that I wander under some trees at least once a day.
This article formed part of BRAW Magazine Issue 5: Mind, Mood, Mentality. You can read more of Issue 5 here.
Featured Image Credit: Jess Urquhart