Scotland has been difficult for me on many levels.

No lie: I was expecting a bit more. We have preconceived notions about the land and what it will show us, as well as thoughts about the weather and the people and everything that makes the land so unique. Hold the bagpipes and the haggis.

I have learned a lot, but not in ways that I was expecting. I have learned about myself and my thought processes, how I behave and approach and where my boundaries lie. I have not necessarily learned to master these obstacles, but I am now aware of where these obstacles sit on my map. I thought I had some idea of what and where these were, but the environment here, isolation from everything familiar and being on a quick schedule has been immensely… useful.

It is strange to say, but I feel as though I have outgrown myself this week. To explain, consider how much a person can change over the course of a year. Though arbitrary, a year can provide the opportunity to transmute from night to day. This is a fairly optimistic analogy. The person I was comparing myself to one year ago came from a clean background, no habits and no knowledge. The person I am today is… not. You cannot expect yourself to be the person you once were, no matter how much easier and more pleasant the notion would be.

On Mull the roads remind me of the French story, The Little Prince. They are, to some, asphalt and sometimes unpaved dirt roads with pulloffs and expanses of single lane. To me, the stretches are snakes that have swallowed the fluffy fat sheep that stray off the rolling green hillsides. The mountains are stolid ancients, the trees their prickly fingers. While the land to me is a hard, masculine embodiment of the wild earth, the sky is a gentle, feminine eye with fickle emotions and shaded expressions. Perhaps this was just for us. The weather was impeccably dry: mild, dramatic only during brief snatches when we were turned the other way.

The town of Tobermory is so beautiful and quaint, complete with idyllic little boats and a perfect half moon harbor and an unpredictable tide. I have so many memories from this town, many of them good and some of them bad, but it was a shockingly colorful reality for this week. I will never look at Tobermory as a tourist because I was there on serious business. I looked inside myself and was not entirely pleased with what I saw, or what this town taught me about who I am. But miraculously I found the strength to push through and that is the most important lesson I have learned.

For first three days I wanted to throw something against the wall. I was blocked with a terrible emotional numbness that left me barren and cold. For days I wanted to scream, hit, and most of all rake my hands through my flesh and inject life and creativity through my soul. Like tilling hard soil and enriching the smothered earth with light and air, something inside me was thirsting for the land’s vitality to grow something new. I lacked that One Thing, whatever it is that distills the world around us into Art. And it hurt so deeply and so profoundly. I found myself beginning to resent and to hate.

I would look around me with shrouded eyes, see the wind tossing the grasses and the trees, breathe the briny air and hear the childish cry of lambs. And it was dead to me. I would stride in the opposite direction of my friends seeking knowledge and my lost hope, run fast across the peaty bogs and throw my backpack on the ground. I would sit on the stones and hop across the waters, waiting patiently for something. Anything. I waited for tears, for anger, for understanding and none of it would come. For three days my hands shook, my eyes stayed dry, and I felt betrayed by my camera, mind, and body.

I only know how to work one way, and that is alone. Regretful, since I enjoy the company of these people very much and wanted to be able to get to know them as real people. But priorities lie as they lie and I made my choice. I would sacrifice these good people to chase the art. Would I succeed? Was it worth it?

In the end I succumbed and became more at peace with the flow of my thoughts. I am not sure what the trigger was or how it happened. Perhaps it was Marc and his honest wisdom, a breaking point with my internal pain, or maybe it was just enough time to settle and get used to so much change.

Nonetheless, I will always remember Scotland. It was not as rough, ragged and beautiful to me as Ireland, nor was it perfect and peaceful and warm as central Europe. My experiences here will, however, always be colored with a certain amount of frustration, education, self-knowledge and in some ways, despair. Each tile of my mosaic has been painted and once I return home, step back and view them with clearer eyes perhaps I will not be too displeased with the image that I see.