Landscape and Layers
Figuring out what I'm really doing with this PhD
What do I want to write about today? It’s definitely time, more than time, that I published another Substack post. But the days pass so quickly, and I have so many thoughts and ideas, so many demands from the PhD, and so my Substack remains neglected. I’m sure there is no-one waiting with bated breath for my next post (!) but it helps to keep myself accountable and to take stock every now and then so here are some thoughts …
I’m seven months into my PhD journey and it feels as though I started last week. Embarking on the project, though it took a LOT of soul searching to make the decision, has been absolutely the right choice. There have been ups and downs, lots of doubts about my ability and wandering in a fog of confusion but generally it’s been brilliant. For the first time in my life I feel aligned to how I spend my days. After a whole career of not quite fitting I’d begun to think that wouldn’t be possible. Just writing that down makes me nervous in case I jinx it!
I still definitely feel as though I’m at the beginning of the journey and that next week or next month is when I’ll properly get into the swing of the research. But actually, if I look back I can see how far I’ve come, how much I’ve learned and grown in confidence. Most of my time so far has been spent in working out what exactly my research is about, the purpose of it all. I’ve read lots of books and academic papers, going down some rabbit holes but gradually homing in on what I want to do, to find out.
Through the writing of a novel I aim to try out different creative approaches to the local landscape and archive, synthesising the two to tell the story of the Isle of Axholme. Through my reading I’ve come to see how the Isle, and northern Lincolnshire in general, have been marginalised, both culturally and politically. Passed between different local government structures, the archive has been dispersed and infrastructure projects have been imposed, sending a clear message that this is a place and a landscape which isn’t worth protecting.
In my research I want to look at why that might be? Why hasn’t the artistic and authorial gaze fallen more on this land? I’ve noticed a certain apologetic tone when people, including me, say they love this landscape. ‘I know it doesn’t have any hills,’ ‘I think it’s beautiful but ...’ Always a ‘but’. As though there is something shameful in loving a place which doesn’t have the drama of mountains or rolling hills.
Personally, I feel trapped by hills and think that mountains block the view. I luxuriate in skyscapes, never seeing the same view two days, two hours, two minutes together. This landscape is restless with the shadows of clouds moving like expressions across a face. Weather matters here. When I’ve stayed in a city for any length of time I’ve stopped noticing the weather, shut in by buildings it’s just warm or cold, wet or dry. Here the weather has impact – on whether the crops grow, on the whether the birds and insects thrive, on the wellbeing of the people who live here.
The more I observe the landscape and, through this project, try to peel back its layers, the more I realise I am observing myself and trying to peel back my own layers. My moods pass like the wind across the fields, my energy levels rise and fall with the sun, I am energised and refreshed by the rain. When I feel low it tends to be when the sky itself low and grey and I feel distant from the land.
I’m still figuring out how this feeds my writing. The novel is turning out more autobiographical than I’d originally planned because somehow I find it hard to write about this place without writing about myself. There is perhaps a reason why the majority of contemporary landscape writing is non-fiction and often very personal, charting a journey through the land but also through the authors’ lives, bringing them closer to an understanding of both. My challenge is to see how that can be achieved in fiction. I’m so lucky I get to spend my days figuring this out.