The Grey Castle

 

I can`t forget the time we walked past Suilven, athough "walking past" doesn`t convey anything like the experience. More like "orbited" or "were almost pulled into the gravitational force of" Suilven.
This was our final day`s walking across Scotland from Bonar Bridge to Lochinver. East to west, and our trail through heady gorse and grazed grass, circumnavigated the mountain for miles. For hours. Smells of pine resin, sheep shit, ground almonds and vanilla. Sounds of bleating lambs, throaty ewes. Glimpses of blue horizon. The sun slowly beginning its descent from an immense sky into the midsummer sea.
I`ve spent a couple of frustrated evenings trying to pinpoint on a map and in my bank of memories the particular-to-me west highland coastline, with a  "salty tang". It`s been as elusive as a rainbow.
But then Suilven came to mind, and the wish to climb onto its back, and from there to see the world. It`s a Graham, rather than a Munro. It`s also a good walk from the nearest road, and so camping will be required. All the better. I`d like to coax my youngest son along. To share an arduous, exciting scramble up a seemingly insurmountable pillar. To experience our shadows jumping huge miles away from us (to borrow from Norman MacCaig).
And if he can`t be persuaded, I`ll go myself and enjoy the solitude, the cultivation of conversations with friends, in my head and heart. 
My first print would be a portrait of the mountain like a lion resting on his haunches in a grassland.
Another: the views from the top: Stac Pollaidh, Quinag,...of  the breathtaking immensities of space between each island/mountain.
Another: Suilven hovering above the fishing port of Lochinver.
And then I can roam around the coastline, revisiting Achmelvich, Achiltibuie, the Summer Isles. I can scribble and dawdle about the boats and rock pools. Like a salt sea tinker.
I can mull over this notion through the winter, setting off soon after the Spring equinox