Rainbows and re-seeing

Last Sunday I arrived back in Edinburgh from a weekend away in the nick of time to catch a spectacular rainbow arch over the sky at Canonmills. The sun broke through the clouds on an overcast, drizzle soaked early evening and there it was. Shoppers trailing out of Tescos stopped their trolleys to stare and walkers and cyclists on the adjacent bike path paused to gaze up at the sky. And I liked the moment of stopping, pausing a journey and looking, really looking, at a view I pass every day.

A few days later I took part in en-route, one of the Traverse theatre’s Edinburgh Fringe shows created by one step at a time like this. Like the rainbow, this performance also invited me to stop and look. However, much more than merely a moment of re seeing a familiar view, this hour and half long guided journey through Edinburgh lead me through back alleyways, famous streets, a car park, a shopping centre, an iconic hotel, a phone box and much more. All accompanied by a narrative and a sound track and instructions drip fed through the likes of text messages, found maps, arrows on the pavement and envelopes filled with instructions.

The key to making this experience work, and seeing the city afresh, as ‘en route’ invites you to, is to trust it. To be led one step at a time. To be ok about not knowing where you are going. As someone who writes travel guidebooks this goes against the grain of everything I’m meant to do – locate the reader, give clear directions, make sure people know what to expect, where they are and where they are going. In the process I often feel complicit in supplying everyone with the same experience of a destination and retelling the same stories. And try as travel writers do to find a new angle, we never give visitors the opportunity to get lost or residents the chance to see afresh the views they look at every day.

I’m now, more than ever, unsure what the rules of travel writing are. Where the responsibilities, expectations and boundaries lie. Do travel writers have permission to dislocate the reader and challenge their expectations of a city? Would this be entering territory a travel writer is not meant to explore? I have no idea. But both the rainbow over Canonmills and en route have inspired me to find out.