[Notes Towards Beauty #3] “Brute beauty and valour and act . . . the fire that breaks . . . dangerous . . . O my chevalier!” — Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘The Windhover’.

When I first moved to Scotland, I couldn’t see beauty — I saw terror; I saw threat. The weather conditions were very challenging for me: physically, I was always cold and damp; mentally, I was struggling to accept that I would have to live in these conditions. (The inability to see beauty is linked to depression — something I’m exploring in my research for the MSc Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes — I’ve shared some notes in my newsletter.)

Yet, the skies revealed colours I’d never seen before. I would take photos of Henri and, because phone cameras can’t ever capture what I see, I would edit them with a phone app to add the colour and drama I could see, if not in reality, in my mind. Here is how I beheld the lands and skies around Loch Ryan in southwest Scotland where I live.

I took this photo in April 2020.