Hello all! Apologies for the silence of late but when you hear what I have been up to you will be forgiving. For now, just a quick heads up to my radio appearance TONIGHT 22.00 on The Alison Butterworth Show on BBC Radio Lancashire (I’ll be on from 22.30), chewing the fat with her over my astounding summer on the road. Do tune in, and if you miss it you can listen online for a few days.
How does one return to the familiar, when it all feels so strange? I see myself, I am seen by others, and we all agree I look different. A journey of the nature I embarked upon this summer is bound to cause some transformation, but that sloughing of old skin and growing of new is easier to wear when one is on the move; more awkward when one stops.
My re-entry into the ‘real’ world was a harsh one, when I found out the house we were to live in for the winter had fallen through. I had a week to find something else before going to reunite with my husband in Iceland – the first time I have seen him in two months. I didn’t find the house. I am particular. Though I am a traveller at my core, I am also a total home bird. I need a safe and beautiful nest to come back to, one that is a storied as my journeys, otherwise I feel numb to the place and therefore creatively undernourished.
But my journey did teach me, above all, TRUST. Trust that there are wonders around the corner that I do not yet know about. Trust that if I retain my open heart, good things will come.
So for now, all there is to do is to enjoy being with my man Orri, and the rolling in of autumn, and to start disentangling myself from my former life in Iceland. The weather is making it easy to do. At first we were blessed with stunning weather when he met me in the north and we took a late summer trip together. Enough to eat out (which means cooking foraged mushrooms over a fire in our world) and to sleep out…for one night only!
And then, we turned to the interior to visit an opaque turquoise hot lake that I’ve wanted to travel to for a long time. On the way, the weather forecast told of an unexpected bad storm, and we ended up running to the lake through a black sand desert at dusk to see it before the sandstorms blew in.
That night we are sure our camper van was blown so hard it went onto two wheels several times. We were eroded with pumice. The next morning, not wanting to miss a spectacular walk up the nearby gorge, we donned swimming goggles and kept it brief! Needless to say there are no photos of all this. My camera would not exist if I had taken it out.
The hot lake is called Viti. This means ‘Hell’ in Icelandic. I am now sitting safe and cosy in the kitchen of our Icelandic home, where on the wall there is this postcard. It’s not wrong.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged autumn, gathering, Iceland, journeying, reflection, reintegration, reunion, transformation | 8 Comments »
Welcome all who have followed me here from http://www.ajourneyonfoot.com and hello again to those who have waited patiently for me to return from my summer Wayfaring for Penguin Books.
It has been a phenomenal experience, which I have much more to say about here in due course.
For now though I must find a house to live in, so I urge you to indulge yourselves and bask in the goodness of summer at your leisure over at ajourneyonfoot.com and if anyone knows of a characterful 1 or 2 bedroomed house to rent in or near Kendal please get in touch via the comments. Until soon…
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Coming home, turning in, wayfaring, www.ajourneyonfoot.com | 2 Comments »
Throughout July and August I shall be travelling around Britain as the Penguin Summer Wayfarer. It will be tricky being in many places at once, so for the time being, please come and follow my wanderings over at A Journey On Foot.
See you on the road!
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Great news! Author Robert Macfarlane kindly selected my entry ‘Going out I found I was really going in’ in the Penguin Books’ competition to become their Summer Wayfarer!
You can watch my winning entry here.
Robert described my film as ‘a tiny gem: beautifully shot and scripted, and weaving together a complex sense of landscape’s living histories, deep pasts and subtle scripts. It testifies to her experience as an anthropologist and a film-maker, but also to a life lived keenly in and through places.‘
How wonderful! I shall now spend the next two months travelling the ways of Britain and bringing my vision of it to you here and at http://www.ajourneyonfoot.com. Infinite thanks to all those who supported me in getting to this most wonderful of opportunities. See you on the road!
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged film maker, Penguin Wayfarer Competition, Sarah Thomas, writer | Leave a Comment »
Enormous gratitude goes out to all who voted for and supported me in my quest to become Penguin Books’ Summer Wayfarer. It was such an interesting journey just to participate – calling on friends and strangers through many different means to go and take a look at something that may make their day more beautiful, and choose it. And I was bowled over by the efforts some people went to to get the votes in, not least my own mother! I was fortunate enough, through an amazing stroke of good fortune, to meet someone who knew someone at BBC Radio Lancashire on the very day that I’d decided that’s what I needed. They kindly squeezed in an interview half an hour before the voting deadline, and it warmed my heart to imagine listeners lying in bed, reaching for their phones to watch my film – the last thing they did that day. I wonder what kind of dreams they had?
The Wayfarer, selected by Robert Macfarlane, will be announced on Friday 28th June, and you shall be hearing about it here should that person be me. In the meantime, I just wanted to share a beautiful message a family friend wrote to my mother, upon seeing my film. When you make art you make it mostly for yourself, and of yourself. But reading how it has touched another makes the joy of its creation so much more significant in manifold ways.
A still from my film ‘Going out I found I was really going in’ (available to view in previous post)
I love the idea of going out to know that you are going in. It is only in
going out that you can arrive
Going out is the first effort
The going itself is the movement
I love what what Sarah has done with the port hole. It is as though it were a
lens through which she has entered another world.
The love is in a way her lens the point of view changes once you enter the
hole. It is an eye into the infinite
A little bit like Alice in Wonderland entering another dimension
When I am in the wonder of things, other aspects are revealed. It is
theophanic. And open minded
Sarah’s story is about the cold, the challenges of the cold of minimalistic
living. Where resources are scarce
So different from the lush English
country side walking along the river, protected, not challenged.
I remember her entries a s a child in art competitions, you always
encouraged her to participate
Now it is bearing fruit
Always participate, you never know where it will take you.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Going out I found I was really going in, gratitude, Penguin Wayfarer Competition, Robert Macfarlane | Leave a Comment »
Greetings readers old and new! This is my entry for ajourneyonfoot.com, for which I am currently in 8th place and need to stay there until midnight tonight (UK time).
If you have voted for my video, thank you so much. If you haven’t, please do go over there now and cast your vote for me, if you’d like to see more of my journeys in between in word and image – singing the unsung in UK this summer!
Many thanks to all of you!
Sarah
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged John Muir, Penguin Wayfarer Competition, Sarah Thomas, wayfaring, www.ajourneyonfoot.com | 1 Comment »
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LATELY…
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