Abbs explores some forgotten stories of women who found freedom, strength, consolation and creative inspiration in walking, or what our American friends would call 'hiking.' Most of these women walked along rivers and across mountains at a time when long-distance walking was considered an exclusively masculine preserve. Georgia O'Keeffe gloried in the wide empty plains of Texas, while Simone de Beauvoir soothed her soul by walking through French forests. I had heard of Nan Shepherd's writing about the Scottish wilds, and seen her quoted by other writers I admire, like Robert Macfarlane, but I hadn't known her biography: she was one of the 1920s so-called 'surplus' women after the Great War, who would have expected to marry and have children. Instead, she taught, and walked, and wrote, though her writing wasn't fully appreciated till after her death. Painters, writers, philosophers, all found a new sense of self and purpose through walking.
At one point Abbs talks about the strangely liberating, sense-enhancing experience of night walking, an experience that is too often denied to women, barred to us for our own safety. When you think of all the men down through history who have enjoyed the thrill and oddness of walking at night, it's so unfair that this is something that most women will never be able to do with the same sense of freedom and power. I remember as a student the joys of walking the streets around the university by night -- it was a pretty safe area, but we never went alone.
Windswept is an invigorating and thoughtful book, and it makes me think I ought to get out in nature more. I'm relishing my short suburban morning walks, but perhaps I need to strike out into something more challenging...
