Amy Liptrot: ‘To the plane’s passengers I am a lone figure in waterproofs walking the coastline day after day’

An extract from Amy Liptrot's memoir The Outrun, in which she maintains her sobriety by banishing herself to her home island to walk and write

" Read Amy Liptrot on the process of writing The Outrun here

A few years ago, I drunkenly got into an argument with someone I shouldn't have. She retorted by calling me "washed up". It stung because at that point it was fairly true. I was out of work, living in a tiny room in east London, not getting invited out, heartbroken and drinking alone. My once promising future, for which I'd moved to London, was turning into bitterness and frustration. My options were ever decreasing and I didn't know where to turn, desperately seeking comfort in sexual encounters and obsessive memories. My life had become unmanageable.

When I first came back to Orkney I felt like the strandings of jellyfish, laid out on the rocks for all to see. I was washed up: no longer buoyant, battered and storm-tossed. I think of the things I have lost: my compass, stolen laptop, two shoes - one in the canal, one out of the door of a moving car - my boyfriend. But I also think of the things I have found from the sea: the fishing boat, the seal, the "ambergris". These things were worn out and washed up but they were not always useless. They had tales to tell.