Exploring

I've been exploring which seems kind of apt given I live in the town who's most famous son is one of the country's mos famous explorers. But where he cut a road through unknown Africa I made a slight paper cut on the route to his home. No lions on my charted path, only the odd ned. In is though my own little adventure pushing out into woodland I have not been through before. Inch by little inch I push a little more.

All journeys, however short, start with a map. Livingstone didn't have a map and he certainly didn't have the excellent google maps that I seem to find myself scanning through more and more looking for little routes to take me further. The fact I am doing this, and excited about it, shows little signs of progress.

Today I found myself pushing down through some woodland. It was quiet apart from the odd dog walker. Not that the dog walker I saw was odd. I was the odd one in truth. Odd by my own thoughts and admission. A lone dog walked was high above me. A long female. When I say walker she was not actually walking. A dog stander doesn't quite sound right though. She must have walked the dog there and then back home but for the duration I was there I guess she stood roughly in the same spot as I never saw her move except to throw something for her pet. Odd thoughts. Paranoid thoughts I should not be having. I felt like a threat. A lone female, a strange acting male and noone around. So this made me paranoid to an extent and unwilling to linger for fear of unsettling her.

Odd, maybe justified though. I go back some time to this area, February 2010. An incident, police and possibly a paranoid lone female dog walker (or stander) unsettled by my presence. Unjustifiably so really. I am no threat to anyone- male, female or any other. I am no threat at all. We live in an age through where we are bombarded by news- nearly all of it bad. Attacks, sex attacks, violent attacks, murders, kidnap and all the rest. We are fuelled to fear by the barrage of alarming news. Many story of lone females being attacked. In instances such as these I think of my wife and ask myself would I be happy if she was down here herself with noone around and a lone male appeared? No, I wouldn't. I am fed the same news too.

Anyway it was actually the presence of this woman that pushed me on. I go down a long road from home to a path. Its actually the route to the train station but instead of going down the woodland path to there I go on under a rail bridge and into a clearing. Only when I am through there do I see if the clearing is inhabited or not. And it was not. Paranoia again. I felt it would look suspect if I just about turned which was my plan. Threatening even because this is one of only two exits. The only exit in truth as the other is a longer way off. The immediate exit. So me suddenly appearing and then disappearing back where I came so quickly might look both suspect and bring a fear that I was hanging around the exit at hand. Or is that just all in my head?

Anyways, I walked on and I walked to where I was sure a path was as the lone female stood about 20 feet away. I didn't look up. As I neared where I thought the path was into the woodland I started to think I had got it wrong because it looked like a cliff edge. I could see beyond but not below. Half right. As I got to the edge there was a path down- almost verticle. I had stood here only once before and that previous time the world was white and it didn't look so steep. Or maybe it was because previously I had gone as far as I could and after a quick glance hurried back home. As reluctant as I was to do so I descended the steps leading down. Going down was not the problem. Getting back up was the worry.

I got down to the bottom and felt a little peace- nowhere near complete. I was still aware of the female above and the anxiety was kicking high can-can style bordering into panic. There was a stone wall to sit on thought, Ahead of me was all woodland with two paths. One was a softer descent from where the female was past where I was and around in a loop ascending high up the other side in front of me through all the trees. The other was straight ahead of me. A tiny footbridge to a similar steep descent of stairs. No way was I going up those.

I stayed a few moments longer remembering the CBT: wait until the anxiety drops by half. Leaving the situation while anxiety is still at a high level only attaches those feeling to that memory and so re-enforces the belief that the situation is anxiety provoking and creates high anticipatory anxiety, apprehension, on a return there. Yes I see the logic. Yes I waited some more. No the anxiety didn't drop. My head in truth was buzzing with thoughts on the physical sensations like breathlessness as well as irrational thoughts on the lone female above who in my head was on her mobile calling the police to report the suspicious character lingering in the woodlands. Beware the lurker. Yes irrational but it was all there in my head and seemed real at the time and my thoughts were then to being in panic and being stopped by police and looking even more suspect in the jittery mess trying to escape. But I sat. And I tried to be mindful. I looked around me: textures, colours, items, etc. Sounds: movement, creatures, passing train, hum of the nearby river. Mindful, not. Still all really in my head. So I took out my camera and took some photos and moved about a little taking more trying to absorb myself in that while allowing the anxiety to exist. When that was done I sat again. Long enough. The anxiety was not subsiding. Thoughts were mainly focused on getting home and every time they came at me the road home seemed longer and longer. Filled with that need again to just get it over with and not wait any longer. So I left.

That was my little adventure over. The climb had me breathless but I still managed to greet the doggy who came my way and say hello to the lone female feeling I could now that I was leaving- at pace. And I ventured home.

A little adventure. For me at least. In comparison to what has gone before in my little banged up little confinement. Many adventures in fact. They are growing. I hope they are leading me somewhere and if not they are at least leading me to hope. And if that were not enough then it is at least an improvement on being at home looking at the world go by. Mindfulness. I think of this again. Connecting with the external world. As opposed to being internal. These years I have been too internal. I need to be out in the world, not locked away from it. Only there can I be mindful. These little adventures of the not so great explorer can at least take me there slowly.