Roadcombing

I posted an image on instagram recently of my son standing on the central reservation of the M6, with the words ‘This is a place too’, and commented on how motorways can feel like non-places, but when we get a rare chance to stop we can experience them more fully.

I mentioned in the post how I’m intrigued by the idea of having miniature residences on roundabouts. There’s something about the little green islands (not so much the tarmac ones) that people whizz past in their sealed car bubbles that is calling out to be noticed and explored.

I’ve always had a thing for islands, and other small, defined spaces where I can be alone with non-human company, and in some ways roundabouts (the wooded ones especially) have a similar feel. I have camped on Great Blasket Island off the west coast of Ireland by myself in the past, in the days when all the buildings were ruined and empty, and I had it all to myself, apart from the Grey Seals of the beach, the seabirds and pods of distant dolphins.

And on Whitsunday Island in Australia too, where goannas clawed at my tent and I could watch Green Turtles from my sleeping bag, and when daytrppers left, it was just me and the other animals alone on the beach. I appreciate that the car noise, fumes and threats of being run over on a roundabout wouldn’t be quite as relaxing, but I’m still tempted.

I’ve been thinking about how recent experiences relate to my Neuroqueer Ecologies research, which I decided to host here on the Queer River site, extending Queer Ecologies research to include the Neuroqueer too.

I’m starting to consider the ways that neurodivergent people perceive/experience our environment, what we notice and how we experience it.

So, bringing all this together, today I thought I’d take a walk along the road from my house and focus on the road itself. Rather than just using it as a way to reach the woods or river, to actually notice the road surface, and the objects and patterns that it has accumulated, and share my discoveries here. It’s a narrow road with no pavements, but a quiet one that connects together villages in the Pewsey Vale in Wiltshire.

The walk made me think of the times when I walked with my Urban Rural Exchange collaborator Karen Wood, around her local patch of East London, and her well established practice of noticing, recording and responding to road markings, street furniture, skips etc.

I was going to call this post Roadwalks, a bit like Roadworks I guess, with scope for wordplay as well as collecting and photo taking. But as I walked, I noticed the objects fallen or thrown from cars and pushed to the edge by wheels, and the clusters of plant material washed down the gutter and gathered together by the recent rain, and it felt like walking along a tideline, combing the eroded tarmac for treasures.

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On the subject of islands and collecting, I read a wonderful book recently that I’d recommend, Sea Bean by Sally Huband, based in Shetland. I’m now also reading The Outrun by Amy Liptrot, on her experience of growing up on the Orkney Islands and returning as an adult recovering from alcoholism.