I walk most days in the little strip of woodland near my home. It clears my head, generates ideas and allows me to breathe, creatively speaking. I walk this path in all weathers and seasons and I’ve walked it for many years, from when my children were little. On this occasion, not long after the death of my husband, I was thinking of these times and thinking of the journey of life. Big thoughts. Heavy thoughts. But also good memories.
My usual creative life is all about writing plays for the theatre and often that is what my head is working on during a walk. But on this walk I found a poem forming and took some film, on my phone, to match the words.
It’s not a finely tuned and groomed artwork. But it came from the heart.
Sylvia Dow is a Scottish playwright and occasional short story writer. Her commissions include those from Greyscale Theatre Co. (A Beginning, A Middle and an End), Traverse Theatre (Blinded by the Light), Stellar Quines
(Threads), Solar Bear (A Guid Blether), Oran Mor (It’s Only Words), Asylon (I’ve Been Looking for You All My Life) and Sylvian Productions (Stuff).
Some of her shorter work has been seen in London, Mexico and Turkey, and she has had many rehearsed readings of her plays in various festivals and venues in Scotland. Her current play Woman Walking has its first public reading at Perth Theatre in October 2021.