Paula Evans / Downward facing mouths

So I have been back a few days and before we left we had a chat with Dave about ‘reintegration’. This was about how, having been away from the world for a week, we would leave Knoydart and nature behind and enter the world of technology again. I have to say that I was rather cynically chuckling to myself about this idea – How could that possibly be a problem – it had after all only, only been a week. I found myself singing ‘I’m gonna wash that place  (sic man) right outta my hair’ to myself as I made my way back to the lodge for our final night.

And indeed, largely I was unaffected upon my return. I was relieved that as the mobile signal returned I had missed text messages beeping through and the odd voicemail – I was less happy at the 100 odd work e-mails that took forever to upload. I went out for dinner, switched on the TV and settled into the cosy urban heaven that is my home.

However, on the Sunday, I got on the number 16 bus to go to my favourite coffee shop in Edinburgh and as I got on I looked at the faces of all of those around me. They looked absolutely miserable. Like there had been some mass depression and the whole bus was party to the same sad information. Then I remembered a story I once heard (now forgive me because I can’t remember who by and the details of this story might be ‘hazy’ i.e. wrong) where a man had spent over a year living in the jungle in relative impoverishment. He decided to return to his country but when on the plane started to get very worried by the faces of the people around him. It seemed as though some mass tragedy had struck and he became panicked only to realise that in fact no such thing had happened. That this was every day urban life – people were just miserable and it was him that had changed.

Now I was away a week – and in Knoydart and not a jungle (although it felt like it to me on occasion). I didn’t feel particularly different or fundamentally changed by camping out in the Highlands and Islands but sat on that bus I was aware of the greyness of an otherwise beautiful city and the drain that the grind had on the people sitting on the bus. While I am sure they must all be nice people with nice lives, they looked just miserable.

That led me to the happy thought that I must therefore not be as miserable and that shock horror – maybe there was an upside to this nature malarkey. I certainly enjoyed my full cooked breakfast, flat white and fresh orange juice that little bit more.

But on the way home I found myself wondering how long it would take for me to be assimilated and to become a ‘downward facing mouth’ again…..