One of my most favourite places in the UK that I now frequently visit in my mind, but one that I used to go to regularly for real before I developed ME/CFS around 13 years ago, is the Arboretum at West Dean Gardens in West Sussex.
The walk starts in West Dean Gardens itself, just by the Winterbourne stream that runs through the main garden. I can picture myself walking there now: I follow a track through pasture, often dotted with sheep. I can hear the sheep bleat as well, as I make my way up a gentle incline.
Gradually, I enter the trees at the top of the track. The trees are a collection from all over the world so there is lots of variety in shape, size and colour. Early on, there is a tree which, if you visit at the right time in spring, looks as if someone has dropped lots of white handkerchiefs on the grass at its base. This is a handkerchief tree!
The stony track now becomes a grass path that meanders gently through the woodland. The grass is so soft that I usually take my shoes off at this point and continue walking in my bare feet. Therefore, my memories of this place are very tactile as well as visual and walking on the bare grass connects me more strongly to this beautiful, peaceful place.
There are rarely other people up here – I think most stay down in the main gardens in the valley. So it always felt like a private, almost secret place in which to wander in my bare feet. I notice how the temperature of the grass shifts, depending on whether it is in the shade or in sunlight. In some places, there is still dew from the previous night.
I sometimes used to choose a special tree for the day and sit, leaning against it, listening to the sound of the wind through the branches. The deciduous trees make a different sound, when the wind blows through them, than the conifers do. One more rustling, the other more of a woosh, which reminds me of the conifers in the mountains in Austria, where I grew up.
Sometimes, when it is really quiet up here, I have seen deer delicately pick their way through the undergrowth. Once there was a tiny young calf with its mother, walking on incredibly long and thin legs that barely looked strong enough to carry it.
I often came here on my own, the final time was when I was already beginning to develop M,E. although I did not realise it at the time, and my legs felt as wobbly and weak as those of the deer I had just seen. That time, I became too weak to continue my walk and had to lie down in the grass for a long time before I had enough strength to return into the valley below. So it is also the place where I finally realised there was something wrong with me – even though it took many more years before I got a proper diagnosis or found helpful treatments.
It was in this place that I first encountered ticks. I was familiar with them from Austria and aware of the diseases they sadly carry and that threaten human health. But here was the first time I realised they were common in the UK, too. Ironically, I have just found out that chronic Lyme Disease and other tick-borne infections are part of what has caused my long term fatigue, pain, immune and endocrine deregulation and neurological problems that have been labelled “M.E.” So my favourite place even holds reminders of some of the root causes of my current health condition. But I remind myself that ticks, too, are part of nature and it is not their fault that they sometimes carry infections.
Earlier visits sometimes included other people: a first kiss, a long meditation with a friend under a tall tree, a picnic with friends sitting in a clearing among Oxeye daisies. I also brought my parents to the garden once, when they were visiting from Austria, so this place reminds me of them and my love for them. And once, when I knew myself to be completely alone and unobserved, I dared to dance here among the trees.
Now, I still have a season ticket to the gardens and am able to be taken round the lower level in my wheelchair, but ascending the track up and into the Arboretum has not been possible for me since I developed M.E. I often pause by the stream and look up along the track, hoping that, one day, I might be able to visit there once again.
