Driving country roads

and encounters with deer

I live on the edge of Ashdown Forest in Sussex, UK. When I drive at night, I have to watch out for deer. I am vigilant and scan the verges as I go. Cars often overtake me. I know the usual crossing points and slow down a little when I get close. It is a beautiful sight to witness one waiting and watching at the roadside. Also, if I see one cross, I know there are likely to be more behind it. But sometimes the deer catch me unawares. They may be young or I may be on an unfamiliar stretch of road.

This week, on a night when the almost full moon hung low and round in the sky in a gap between the houses, further on, as the houses gave way to fields, there was a large adult deer lying dead in the middle of a country road. I drove past and reported it when it was safe to do so. But the image has stayed with me. Its black eye and lifeless body. I am writing this but I don’t even know if I want to share it all the same. I wanted to stop and cry over it. I wanted to make sure that the rest of its family knew. I wanted to stay and make sure someone took it away, was kind to it in the end. But I drove on and passed on the message.

So much happens in a week, in a day, it can be hard to take time to process everything. Until something catches you unawares and you do stop and cry and you remember everything that has happened up until that point. Oh maybe that’s why, you say to yourself. My morning pages don’t cover the half of it, but they can be such an important reflective tool for me as I look back at my week.

This morning, at Gentle Book Writing Club, someone asked me about my practice of morning pages. All I can say is that it is something I do now. Some people find them useful, some don’t and that’s okay. But I have so many overlapping thoughts, I find writing them down so useful to help in the untangling. I didn’t know I was going to write about the deer in this newsletter until I opened up this space.

I’ve written more about morning pages here:

Julia Cameron's morning pages

But now I’ve mentioned it (and sticking with it), I’ll tell you that I Googled a dead deer as a symbol (while questioning the ridiculousness of me doing this) and I found that the spiritual message could be: pause, reflect, embrace gentleness, sensitivity and trust in intuition. Which, in a way, makes sense. I didn’t take time earlier in the week to pause with everything going on. But now, I am paying attention to the images in my head that have stayed with me from the week. Maybe those are the ones that have the most to teach us.

Other thoughts about morning pages including another encounter with a deer:

Five Things

So in the spirit of pausing and noticing, I want to also share that in Gentle Book Writing Club (my new name for My Book Writing Adventure) this morning, we gave each other space to acknowledge our writing process and this was so valuable. To be in a room with other writers experiencing similar things and talking about it without the pressure to write or perform in any other way is so validating and motivating.

We had an initial chat, then split into pairs with the prompts:

I feel most confident when…

The thing that lights me up the most is…

And then we came back together to share a gentle next step on our writing projects.

Interestingly, the thing that lights me up about writing is new ideas and connections and the messiness of this, but the time I feel most confident is when all of those are corralled in neat, organised documents. The part of me that likes to feel in control despairs at the part of me that loves to scribble on post-its and A3 paper with felt tips! But most of all, I get frustrated at the millions of documents that seem to come up when I search for that particular idea I had a few years ago. I am getting organised with Notion. So within this, I still need to give my creative self space to breathe.

My gentle intention for the rest of this month is to record some summer descriptions - whether this is a journal of things I do or just some garden moments. Last night was the buck moon and so I’ll begin with the deer.

What about you? What’s your gentle intention?
What lights you up about writing?

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In person

Becoming a Writer: Monthly Creative Writing Group

A monthly creative writing workshop for beginners. Plenty of fun writing prompts, games and activities to get your creative juices flowing.

Chequer Mead, East Grinstead

Tuesday 15 July | 7-9pm

Click here to find out more and to book a place.

For autumn dates, click here.

Until next time…