On one of those balmy days in April, 2015, I received a message. "You free for a short walk?" my friend, Mag had texted. Swift and sure-footed as a mountain goat, she sped, as usual, through all manner of terrain that forms part of The Wicklow Way.
The path took us through deep forest and then opened into a wide expanse of rolling hills, with Brockagh Mountain rising to our left. Suddenly, Mag took off, up through the thicket, extracting her camera from its bag, slung around her neck. “Come on,” she called, as I picked my way through squishy peat. Soon, I was on all fours, sweating. I stopped for a breather, tears flowing as exhilaration mixed with ancient, unresolved grief rushed to the surface. Mag’s voice carried on the stiff, easterly wind, from somewhere above. “Come on. No-one said it was going to be easy!”
When I crawled, legs buckling, towards a giant, white rock, with specks of quartz glistening in the Spring sunshine, and looked down on the valley of Glendalough, I was overwhelmed by such a feeling of awe that I began to tremble. I could not believe that I had left it until now to see this magnificence!
Having grown up in this place, famous throughout the world for its beauty, I had taken it for granted; merely looking at the surface of the place, concerned only with acquiring even more skills for survival in the ‘real’ world’.
I was the indoor type: a homemaker. Marriage and motherhood had brought responsibilities that filled my days and when my children went to school, financial circumstances took me back to the workforce. In the early 1980s, I was diagnosed with depression, referred to a psychiatrist and given anti-depressants. The medication kept me awake at night and after three days, I flushed the tablets down the toilet.
My pastimes were writing and painting but rather than expose myself to the literary world, I made do with committing my thoughts to a journal and felt safer behind a desk, providing administrative and literary support to others – shrinking from attention, in case I didn’t measure up to others’ expectations.
Throughout my late twenties and early thirties, I was plagued by a variety of physical ailments and on yet another visit to the GP, during which he remarked that my current condition was stress-related, I wondered what ‘stress’ meant! Initial investigations increased my appetite for further education and a year later, I was back with my head in the books, studying psychotherapy and stress management. Upon graduation, I facilitated life-skills programmes for people with learning difficulties and over the next five years, I taught courses with other educational bodies.
In 2006, I was asked to ghost-write a memoir. Two publishers showed an interest and a deal was signed with one. The book was launched in 2008 and my confidence as a writer took a small step forward. But bereavement, a broken ankle, three house-moves, living on benefit, and with time on my hands, I was feeling isolated and lonely. I began attending a weekly meditation and relaxation group. During the final session, before the summer recess, two things occurred to me: firstly, that instead of living, I had been coping, and secondly, that I needed to return to painting. Compliments from friends gave me the confidence to approach a gallery and within a year all of my pictures sold.
But by this time, I had gained a lot of weight and my energy was lower than ever. The grief of losing my younger brother to cancer and the multiple ankle fractures that I sustained in a fall – both in 2009 – had taken their toll, physically and mentally. My training proved invaluable but I needed the company and support of family and friends. In 2013, I moved back to the place where I had grown up.
‘The short walk’ up Brockagh gave me a new lease of life. I was coaxed outdoors regularly by the music of nature – from birdsong and the sound of gentle brooks, cascading waterfalls and lake water lapping the shoreline, to cathedral silence on forest paths. I stared in wonder at wild deer grazing, unperturbed by camera-toting tourists, on the slopes, shaggy, mountain goats nibbling the low-slung tree branches, rabbit, hare and majestic birds of prey. I began to feel more flexible, my sleep improved and the tactile, sensual contact with the landscape also provided inspiration for my painting. I was beginning to heal – in mind, body and soul – and to reconnect with the person from whom I had lived at a distance all my life.
In the past, I paid little attention to my surroundings. That has changed. I am more aware of the changes in light, from minute to minute and to the seasonal changes in the trees, grasses, fern, gorse and heather. I feel the earth awaken from frost-encrusted, brittle brown to yielding, moss-sprung suppleness.
The Brockagh experience was a revelation. No, it wasn’t easy but, after a lifetime of illnesses and very little physical activity, I had climbed a mountain! I haven’t morphed into a true outdoor type, but a walk in the hills quickly restores my energy and fills my soul with peace.
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