Monique Sliedrecht: Step out and see the real beauty of Caithness
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Northern Drift by Monique Sliedrecht
A couple of weeks ago, my brother came to visit. It was his first time in Caithness, first time in Scotland! We had a wonderful time walking the cliffs and exploring the bays.
At one such bay, in Brough Harbour, we came across a whole group of seals basking on the rocks in the sunshine.
Only a few metres of rocks separated us from them. It was a sight to behold, and we managed to see them fairly close up without them slipping away under the water. They were curious, yet cautious, as they lounged in the warmth of the sun.
After much busyness in the days prior, that afternoon felt like a gift, timeless even, as we walked and stopped, watched and wondered.
Seeing our surroundings through someone else’s eyes gives us an opportunity to “re-see” our own experiences and capture appreciation for what we have lost or never had to begin with, and to marvel at the seemingly mundane.
Accompanied by my brother for whom everything is new, I found myself suddenly intrigued by the things I had driven past a thousand times – the beautifully built stone piers, the dune grasses gently moving in the wind, the curlew flying overhead, and the stoat slipping through the branches of the honeysuckle bush.
WB Yeats said: “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
It is easy to bypass the beauty and wonder in the busyness of everyday life. We become so entrenched in our routines and full lives that we miss the magic things.
And it’s not just the routines and habits we develop in everyday life that stop us from marvelling at the artistry around us. In this internet age, we have a world of information at our fingertips.
While very useful at times, it has also become a huge distraction to many of us, grabbing our attention and preventing us from stepping out into reality, to participate in the wonder – an unbeatable experience.
What would it take for us to allow ourselves to become genuinely surprised, interested, intrigued again by what we see around us?
The secret to being fascinated – to seeing the world once again through the innocent eyes of a child – is to not whip out your smartphone and hit the search button. A search may deliver an answer, but what it cannot give us is a feeling.
Despite the advances of modern technology, we still yearn for the exhilaration of climbing a mountain, swimming in the sea, or hearing the cacophony of birds on the cliff edges as we breathe in the salty air.
The great German poet Goethe once said that to marvel is the greatest achievement of mankind. Plato saw the ability to be fascinated by the world around us as the root of all philosophy.
Being confronted with new and unexpected things was, he believed, essential for our desire as humans to acquire new knowledge.
Can we learn to see the world once again through the eyes of a child?
From the haze of the Milky Way to the sun reflecting on the cliffs, to the seals basking on rocks – Caithness is full of riches yet to be discovered or "re-seen".
- Monique Sliedrecht is an artist, blogger and podcaster based at Freswick – www.moniquesliedrecht.com
