Something’s different after the tour. Am I in love? Am I in
love with being on tour? With the feeling of reading to and the sumptuous quiet
of being listened to? Not that the personal moments around the reading were as fabulous
as I was hoping for. I felt abandoned after reading in Kingston. Waiting for
audience members to approach me. And so I
did. I waited. In Ottawa there were more takers, I felt less exposed.
Last month, at the Toronto launch, Lynn said my reading was
endearing. I was surprised by that. Endearing?
On the road I noticed so many people gathering around and
talking to Jason. Jim too arrived like an illustrious gunslinger with an
audience of renowned poets ready to take him in. And Sarah, with this her third
novel, her voice, how Sarah’s voice pushes through clear and fierce when she
reads, and then how whatever that clarity is, attracts audience members towards
it and her like a magnet.
Something happened along the way making me stop feeling
jealous against their success. In the car on the road a lot of talk, perhaps
even gossip. Who better at gossip then writers? Me, my part of the
conversation, sharp clever digs, like how I am, like how I write, and the
others, they generous sharers of themselves and their perspectives, how they sometimes
didn’t quite know how to take me, my unevenness needing an editorial hand, how
to read me.
Which made me feel weak. Lesser than. Made me wonder about
the stuff my writing is made of. And even if my being this way made me think that
they, Stuart, Jim, Sarah and Jason must be judging me, somehow it didn’t
matter, because all of it, the driving up to reading venues, the being dropped
off at billets or hotels, the going out for Chinese or bar food after, even including
the not being approached by as many people as I would have liked; what these moments
added up to was that it was all only the sidelines, the glad shuffling around
the edges of, it - the worlds of our creations, the ones we write in, read
from, where we live.
1 comment:
Jim not so much an illustrious gunslinger, as a Rooster Cogburn cantankerous old fart (or, god forbid, the Shootist).
These trips and tours and long rides help us find our voice.
You'll find yours and it will be great.
In the meantime, hope you enjoyed the road & the company - I sure did! And you were a part of it!
Likely easy to guess this was submitted by the aforesaid Rooster Cogburn Smith hisself.
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