When I am alone in the wild water, nothing matters except this one, perfect moment. 💧🏞💦🌍 📷 @andyrgarside Subscribe to Patreon (link here) for two new chapters of the OUTSIDER book each month (14th & 28th) starting from June. Each chapter includes a more in-depth piece of writing as well as a photojournal by Andy Garside and a new recipe or poem. Exclusive only for Patreon supporters. Follow these travels for as little as $1a month. Please support this writer…
On a day when the clouds mop all the water from a billowing sky to wring liquid greyness into my head, I follow a single trail along the riverbank. The water is a renaissance painting: greens frill & flow beneath a surface of softly shimmering glass. I am reminded of The Wind in the Willows & my grandfather who gifted the audiobook I played for endless months as a child. Still, the rain falls relentless, outside & in. I scramble…
Post-run cool-down-wash. These days I’m braver with getting in the water wherever we are. Why does it feel so odd immersing in water if there’s people around? Especially if they’re in winter padded coats & hiking boots 🙈. When did it become weird to wash in a stream so that bathrooms are the only option? Increasingly I want to sit in the water naked. Not to show off flesh – I’m a long time past that – but to feel…
Went swimming with swans for the first time today (can’t believe it took coming to Slovenia for this to happen!). At first I was a bit nervous especially as some swans seemed slightly confrontational. Sitting on the jetty I calmed the heart by swirling hands and feet in the icy river. As soon as the swans realised I was getting in the water their attitude change from one of ‘stay away’ to reserved curiosity. As I swam in circles, more…
Conversations with water: wherever we visit it is difficult to settle until I have connected with the water. Usually I do this through swimming, and we drink the local tap water, but where possible I’ll drink from streams too. The water here tastes like snow. Gloriously ice-cold & glacial. These routines are part of a simple water ceremony but if anybody has any to share I’d love to hear them? Living in a van makes us acutely aware of our…
Ephemera in Aquamarine: a triptych. This water springs from a glacial cave 500meters higher up and doesn’t warm much during descent. A short, fierce, exhilarating blast of energy. I couldn’t stay in overly long – the body stops functioning properly. Afterwards, drinking hot mint tea, I think on the beautiful duality of water. Both a few seconds of raindrop, & universe-old. I dream of being the water-cycle: always changing, never tiring 💙🌧💧🌊💦 📷 @andyrgarside 🌿 (Slovenia)…
I love him because he says ‘let’s get the bodyboards and surfboard and wetsuits out,’ even when the waves look a bit big. I love him because he can’t swim very well but still catches more waves than me. I love that we laugh so much we gulp saltwater and choke until it runs in rivers out of our noses. I have a bruised knee and two swollen big toes. We are such surf amateurs but we have so much…
Watching my body, I am beginning to understand all the ways in which I shut her down; all the tiny actions each day that negate what she is communicating. This evening, intuition called for a swim and I dithered because it was getting dark and the water was cold, but I’ve learned that when I close off this voice, and a potential positive action, I create a void that instead is filled with negativity. Today, intuition and body led me…
Wild water on naked skin is utterly sublime. Stumbling across this hidden cove on our hike today was a gift I could not turn down. Feeling thoroughly grateful and inspired by the Cretian landscape at the moment. I look at the land & know she is beautiful: with her barren, angular rocks & scars, or her deep round basins of water & carpets of white & lilac wildflowers. I am learning to think of my body & mind in this…