Hello Again 4 AM

Hi Everyone,

The Okanagan skies are low these days. Mist and fog cling to the hills. I know many people are yearning for glimpses of blue and sun, but right now I’m quite comfortable with the snug cloud cover and unthreatening weather that brings with it much-needed moisture. It feels somehow cozy. And it’s good thinking time.

I was well into writing the first draft of my new book project, about a third of the way through, when the story stopped talking to me a few weeks ago. When that happens, it means that it’s time for me to leave it alone for a while. So I closed the file and turned to my reading pile. Since then I’ve read eight books, some fiction, some non-fiction. Choosing what books to read is a little like following a trail of breadcrumbs. I pick one and it leads me to another which leads me to another, and so on. Some don’t linger long in my mind when I’m done with them, but others stick around for a while.

At the moment, five of the eight books I recently read are having random conversations with each other in my head, which is fine, but their timing is terrible. They are at their loudest at about 4 am. It’s still pitch-dark at that time. If it were spring or early summer, I’d simply get up, go to my desk, and write myself into the light of the coming day. Instead, I lie in my warm bed and let the noise romp around unrestrained. When it becomes too much, I read until the eastern sky begins to lift towards day.

For this stretch of reading, I started off with Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake. Patchett is a very reliable writer and she doesn’t disappoint with this one. Like several of the books I’m reading right now, this is her Covid project. A family gathers at their cherry orchard property in Northern Michigan to isolate together. As they adjust to the enforced intimacy of the early pandemic, the three adult daughters implore their mother to tell them the story of a love affair she had long ago with an actor who became super-famous. The story is warm and seductive as it eases into an exploration about how much we’re willing to tell our children about our personal lives before they came along.

From there, I turned to Waubgeshig Rice’s new novel, Moon of the Turning Leaves, the sequel to Moon of the Crusted Snow. Ten years after an Anishinaabe community in Northern Ontario mysteriously lost their power, the survivors realize they have to move away from where they settled to survive. They discover that the apocalyptic end of capitalism has indeed come to pass. The premise sounds horrific, and it is, but Waub’s gentle treatment of his beloved characters make the story sing.

Then there was Off With Her Head by Eleanor Herman. It was the sub-title that made me pick up this one: 3000 years of Demonizing Women in Power. Moving through the centuries, from Cleopatra to Hillary Clinton, Herman shows how powerful women are inevitably torn down by what she calls “the Patriarchy, a concept so towering it must be capitalized.” She calls out society’s deeply ingrained misogyny in a serious investigation lightened by a wry tone and regular interjections of ironic humour. I found myself laughing out loud at times, and burning with fury at others.

After that, I moved on to Joan Thomas’s Wild Hope, a work of literary fiction that turns into an eco-mystery in the second half and held me spellbound. At the end, I wanted to ask Thomas if the hope of her title is wild because these days rational hope is unlikely. Set in a remote part of Ontario’s Georgian Bay, in today’s world of what Thomas herself calls “a grotesque version of capitalism,” I want to tell her how brilliant her beautiful home-schooled chef protagonist is. I loved this book because wild hope is what I seek these days. I found relief in Thomas’s version as we continue to face the consequences of decades of ecological madness.

Joan Thomas has said that she was inspired to write Wild Hope after reading Nathaniel Rich’s Losing Earth, so that’s where I went next. It was astonishing to realize how the decisions of a powerful few have condemned us all to dealing with the catastrophes of today. Yes, those powerful few, who were many in number — the oil and gas industry, the economists, the environmentalists, and the politicians — all knew back then, from the undeniable scientific evidence they held in their hands more than four decades ago, that continued burning of fossil fuels would definitely cause global warming and a climate change that would be detrimental to life on this planet. Losing Earth is a clinical history of one defined decade, 1979-89, a time when the world almost came together to create a unified approach to dealing with the situation back when it wasn’t too late. It’s hard to read from here in 2024, but it’s not surprising to see who scuttled the deal. At the end of the book, Rich’s “Afterword,” is one of the most powerful pieces of environmental writing I’ve ever come across.

Yes, I can hear what you’re probably saying, that maybe it’s time I turned to something lighter. So it was a wonderful day when the newest book from a writer I adore showed up in my mailbox. I sat down with it immediately. Hearing Shawna Lemay’s calm voice in Apples on a Windowsill talk about living the creative life and making still life art and living in a long artistic partnership and telling stories about what she finds comfort in was just what I needed. I immediately wanted to make a still life.

Next, I went back in time, to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and the words that caused President John F. Kennedy to take note back in 1962. Carson’s landmark book began the environmental movement that continues today. When it was published, the multimillion-dollar chemical industry that was poisoning the ground with profitable pesticides reacted typically. The suits howled and flung their usual insults at Rachel Carson, typical Off With Her Head stuff: “she was unqualified, she was a romantic spinster, a hysterical woman out of control, a bird and bunny lover.” Carson herself wasn’t surprised that the towering Patriarchy’s toadies followed their established path of demonizing a woman doing powerful work.

So, you can see how my mind gets a bit overloaded as all these writers coffee-klatch in my head each night at 4 am. Which is why, sometime before 4 pm every day, or most days, I go for a long silent walk and take photos of blackbirds in bare-branched trees and unfrozen lagoons and street lamps glowing in the snow drizzle of night fall.

Thanks for reading through my meanderings. If you enjoyed this issue of Me Who Writes, please share it with a friend or three. I’ll be back here in a few weeks, likely more than two, less than three. Like my reading path, my writing schedule is a touch meander-ish these days. Stay well.