Writing East

Today’s task: Writing East (Iain Macleod Higgins, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997).

Okay, the amount of self-scrutiny involved in this entry is crazy. Of course I haven’t got anything bad to say about it – it’s brilliant, and I actually feel like I understand it, which is marvelous to say the least. But can I just say (hi Dr. Higgins!) that it feels weird to comment on scholarship written by your supervisor?

I think it’s exacerbated by my general feeling of “who the hell am I to pursue an MA in English”. Let’s be honest. I’ve known from the start that I have no more than a fleeting interest in academia, and that only as something to observe – not something in which to participate. This is not a career-driven degree, nor is it even remotely related to my “real” work. I’m doing this out of love (seriously, don’t laugh) and though that is precisely what I need to validate my studies in my own mind, it typically gets me laughed out of the room by people with serious academic ambition.

What I mean to say is, I have a crisis of self-doubt just about every time I attempt to express an opinion about anything, because my level of academic street cred is low, man. But two things make the issue deeper. The first is that I’m commenting on something written by someone I know, who is often across the desk or on the other end of an email – someone whom I respect, who knows far more about this text than I ever will. That makes me feel strange. The second is that quite honestly, there is an art and a sort of poetry to the writing in this book that (to my mind) elevates it above all the other desiccated pieces of scholarship I work through each day. Somehow that changes things too.

All this anxiety is totally unnecessary at this particular moment, however, because I have nothing to say about it! Yes, my friends, I had an utterly unproductive day.

I read the first few chapters of Writing East in a Toronto snowstorm this past February, where I was visiting dear friends. Unfortunately “my” room in their house has a wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling shelf of amazing literature, so I got distracted and dropped off in the middle of the fifth chapter to pick up some pretty novels. Today I decided to start from the beginning.

At this particular moment, I am in Koeye, and I am taking care of a group of fifteen kids who are participating in a leadership camp. I skimmed over the introduction while my biscuits were in the oven and my glup stew was simmering (a thick, brothy dish full of fresh veggies and salmon cooked over an open fire – smoky and wonderful). However, I suspect I am still working some Haitian bug out of my system after my spectacular illness in Croix des Bouquets, and by late afternoon, I was waning.

I walked out to a lookout point that affords an unparalleled view of Fitzhugh and Hakai Pass, with the deepening blue sky and the dark blue water rushing together at the horizon line. I nestled into the moss under a huge old spruce tree, idly thumbing through the pages of the second chapter as I basked in the last sweet bits of sunshine trembling on the breeze. But I became completely distracted by an amazing fact:

The fat, ripe salal berries out on the point are the precise shade of blue shared by the cover of my copy of Writing East. It’s flawless. So I kept picking handfuls of berries to compare them, then slowly eating them as I watched humpback whales work the channel, and picking more just to double check. I will admit to a few purple stains on the paper, and a couple of unfortunate blackflies crushed between the pages. It’s true: the book belongs to Koeye now.

Anyhow, I eventually curled up like a dry leaf in the lee of a mossy log and fell hard asleep with the book for a pillow. I woke up refreshed but sunburned after a bizarre (if fitting) dream about how nice it would be to have a single large foot to give me shade from the sun. I waited until all my whales were holding their breath under water, then made my way back into the lodge to grab a cup of tea before falling into bed to sleep off the rest of this queasy mess. So, goodnight – I’ll revisit Writing East when my body and mind re-learn to work cooperatively.