Once, in the northern part of the Cairngorms forest in Scotland, there was a castle, a house named Newe after the family that lived there.
There were balls and hunts and days spent ice skating outdoors. The castle walls had small alcoves in them, where fires could be lit to heat the stones, allowing peaches to grow on trees that hugged them.
For over one hundred years, visitors left records of their time there in a book: photographs, drawings, signatures, stories.
And while the castle no longer stands, the guestbook is still being filled.
When I was asked to sign it, I felt the weight of all the years on me. I am no artist, so I gave the only thing I could: my words. I wrote of how everything I encountered there spoke another language: the trees, the fields, the mountains, the stones. I wrote of how often they speak and how I was just beginning to understand.
Even now returned, I am still just beginning to understand.
{photographs taken by me}
