Landlines

by Raynor Winn

Time, it’s an elusive thing. Hours can pass like days, but months can feel like moments. It’s all a matter of how you fill it.

‘We do the same thing every time we hang on a rope. We hope. Hope we’ll get to the top, hope the protection will hold, hope this will be the perfect climb. Hope. It’s powerful; it can change things. But you’ve got to put yourself in the way of it, let yourself feel it. Let the power of it lift you up. That’s what you’re doing: putting yourself in the way of hope. Do that and anything can happen. Start from here! Who needs the Cape? It’s stunning here.’ ‘Not

Connection to the land doesn’t come from ownership; it’s not something you buy. It comes from time spent immersed in the smell of the earth, the feel of the rocks beneath your feet. It’s a physical feeling, an understanding that comes without thought or contemplation. But the loss of it has the power of a bereavement.

Normality has slipped from us as surely as butter from a hot knife. We haven’t counted hours or days but have simply fallen into a state of being, a place that exists when our ordinary civilized world loosens its grip and our wild state creeps in.

‘That I don’t have to go to the top of the moors to touch the wilderness. It’s already here, imprinted on me, inside me.’ ‘Like you’re no longer in the landscape, you’re part of it, you are the landscape.’ ‘Yes. You know what I mean then?’ ‘Yes, I know it.’

I realize that we don’t always have to seek out the easiest path, or take the one that’s presented to us; sometimes it’s the hardest one that holds the greatest riches.