A New Sense of Home

It has been such a while since I’ve written here, I’m almost a bit apprehensive about beginning, as if my fingers on the keys might lose their way or the words won’t flow as they once did.

If you’ve seen some of my posts on Instagram very recently then you’ll know that I’ve moved - we’ve moved - because this past 18 months has seen a lot of change, in ways I wasn’t expecting when I decided to head off to Edinburgh late 2018! First finding others on my wavelength around nature connection and creativity but from many different backgrounds, while studying the MA Art, Space & Nature at Edinburgh College of Art. Rediscovering that textiles and writing are intuitive ways of processing, expressing and communicating for me.

Then there was St Monans in Fife, which I absolutely loved, and had a wonderful summer exploring the coast there, out in the sun, barefoot over rocks everyday I could, with the seawater cooling and grounding me. Feeling into the ebb and flow of the tide, recognising the same in my life over the years and now content to go with it.

That same summer working at Pillars of Hercules Organic Farm, Shop & Cafe by Falkland. Meeting even more people with whom I connected around landscape, nature, healing and creativity. Sensing a transition period, a kind of no-man’s-land when the MA finished and I decided to return home to Shetland. Trying to understand why ‘home’ no longer felt like the place I was to be. Wondering at the connection made with one of those people at Pillars and trying to understand it’s timing.

You may have seen from my posts that I did return to Fife. To Burntisland, a very different kind of seaside location which didn’t quite seem to fit but was where I was to be for a while at least.

Around that decision to move back to the mainland more permanently, though there were very many unknowns, events fell into place to make it happen. In a way, everything has moved quite quickly since Edinburgh. That is, when I look back to my life prior to that, and the only difference I can see, is that I leapt. And when I consider any big change, or when life has seemed to flow of it’s own accord, so smoothly yet often unexpectedly, when I have been in awe of how opportunities and people have appeared - that is always the difference - I leapt.

Learning to have faith, to trust that life is for you, is so very powerful.

So, now, we - myself and the one with whom I made that seemingly odd-timed connection - are creating our own sense of home. We opened up to what was unfolding, even though it triggered some fear - and it has lead us to this place which feels so much like home already, after such a short time.

Our new landscape! I’m so happy to have moved further north again - I’ve even found a couple of old crofthouses already.

We’re based in Cortachy, north Angus, with the Glens right on our doorstep. I’m looking forward to sharing more with you soon, however the next few months will have my focus in a slightly different place - though always connecting with that feeling of home.

Yes, there is a baby in there! Though only for a few more weeks :)