Writer and children’s services consultant, Heather Stack, considers how writing weaves a thread through our lives, uniting past, present and future, and affirming our creative sense of self.

“Been walking my mind to an easy time
My back turned towards the sun
Lord knows, when the cold wind blows
It'll turn your head around”

Fire and Rain, James Taylor

The Summer of my Larkhall sojourn was hot and turbulent. I recall a scent in the night sky that brought to my mind walks in Lake Garda, many years before. A strange mix of fragrant garden flowers, and a lingering heavy heat from the Azores High nestling amidst garbage, waiting on collection.

It was my annus horribilis. A house move had fallen through. My belongings and dearly beloved possessions were held in storage scattered across two counties. My life was in transit. Yet amidst this time of uncertainty, the anxiety, the hope held hostage to regret, there were pockets of joy and unexpected delight. Evening walks with my son and his Labrador puppy, the glorious North Somerset landscape, new to my eyes, and the warmth of a never-ending Summer.

I joined a small writers’ group and carved out one morning a week to write, talk and listen to other writers. I shared my work. Fables for children, save we never did agree if they were fables, or fairy stories, or tales, or just short stories. That was my writing mood at the time. The Man Who Loved Clouds, Electra and the God of Wind and Air, Willow and the Forest of Dreams. Each story somehow emerging almost complete, as if the words had fled my weary self and fallen on the page unaided by human intervention.

I began to see these stories as a resurgence of my former self, one who was younger, more optimistic, who had time for creative ventures. Or made time. I did not realise then, how hard won, and slender in duration, can be this freedom. There had been many years when I did not write.

My Larkhall stories gave me hope. They were born of fortitude.

I had a mind to commit time for writing over a two-day hike, immersing myself in nature, breathing inspiration from the landscape. I settled on a stretch of the hundred-mile Cotswold Way, Kings Stanley to Old Sodbury as restorative me-time and as a challenge to myself. It was my first solo long walk. It was more importantly, a chance to restore a confidence in myself that I’d lost somewhere along the way in my rush to start a new life in Bath.

I acquiesced to the offer of a ridiculously heavy army rucksack, a loan from my son, in that spirit of beggars can’t be choosers. With its frame, dry bag and multiple compartments, it had a substantial weight in its own right. A sketch pad, copious drawing and writing materials and books occupied the top section. A change of clothes, wet weather gear and energy snacks, settled in the dry bag. Water bottles filled every side pocket.

I discovered long solo walks pleased my soul. I settled into the rhythm of the landscape. I walked many hours in silence, only infrequently encountering a fellow walker, generally heading the opposite direction. I ate berries from the hedgerow, followed bird song and scanned the skies for the call of birds whose names I did not know. I found my own desire paths, in the spirit of Robert Macfarlane.

Yet time and again, when I stopped for a break (from son, ‘keep your breaks short, or you won’t want to get up again’), my journal and sketch pad remained firmly packed away. There was too much to absorb, my senses assailed in all directions. Practically, there were many miles to my Air BnB destination.

I thought about writing. I thought a million words and perfect phrases. Those lovely moments when words tumble together and you know not why, other than that they capture a sentiment that’s plagued the mind and been elusive the while. But I did not write.

At my Air BnB in Wotton under Edge, a great weariness overcame me, and it was all I could do to remove my rucksack, stand upright, and make my way to a local pub for supper. I was too tired to read, too fatigued to write. This wasn’t my plan. It was an outcome of not paying attention to those tiny little lines that denote contours on a map, dividing my walking miles by choice of accommodation, and throwing far too much into a rucksack designed for men half my age and ten times my fitness.

Yet despite my frustrations, on the second day I awoke in a different mood. In place of uncertainty, there was confidence. In place of hesitation, there was determination. My wayfinding skills may be poor to negligible, but I no longer doubted my ability to get myself from place to place, alone, and on foot. I felt triumphant at the top of long, murderous inclines that held close their rewards until new and wondrous vistas revealed themselves.

On my return home to Larkhall, my son greeted me with enthusiasm. ‘Well that’s a bit more interesting to write about than which supermarket you’ve shopped in this week!’

I’ve written continuously since then. And though I may be poorly disciplined, begin one project before I’ve finished another, experiment with different genres and then abandon my experiments, despite all this, my journals are swelling in number, my ideas more honed, my projects more sharply defined. I accept that my affections encompass multiple forms of creative writing. I am conscious of my writing voice.

I have often felt alone in my quiet despair, lamenting a lack of progress in my writing ambitions. Regretting the long periods when writing has not featured in my life because this need has taken priority, or that.

And I’m too dog-tired at the end of my days to write.

Now I see it differently. We should not fear or resent these temporary frustrations. They are here for a reason. It’s important not to give up hope. To wait, to be patient, to be curious always. To read and be inspired.

And one day, in silence as soft as falling snow, you’ll wake to discover the words you’ve dearly coveted are set out before you, in all their glorious, quirky, random ways, waiting only to be gathered. From silence to clamorous joy.

Heather Stack is a children’s services consultant, change strategist and passionate advocate of the arts and cultural engagement. She has lived in Bath since 2018. She has written poetry, short stories and screenplays for many years. Her short film, One Summer, was a third-round qualifier in the British Short Screenplay Competition 2010, in the same year she gained film rights for her adaptation of The Bell, by the estate of Iris Murdoch. She has had poetry published in Whispers on the Breeze (United Press) and Dreamcatcher Magazine.

She is writing a narrative non-fiction novel, Belonging, Notes From A Small Life, on the theme of what it means to belong and how we attach ourselves to place. She is also compiling a collection of stories, An Appropriate Age & Other Stories. Inspired by Dialect Writer’s Retreat and by the Bloomsbury Festival 2022, she is seeking an agent, and wider audience for her creative work. She is currently submitting to The Commonwealth Short Story Prize and The National Poetry Competition.

Heather can be found on Twitter @hmstack & on Instagram @heatherstack1899

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