From a Window On Aðalstræti
Tears fall in all the rivers. Again the driver Pulls on his gloves and in a blinding snowstorm starts Upon his deadly journey; and again the writer Runs howling to his art. -from W.H. Auden’s Letters From Iceland
If you knew my story word for word, had all of my history,
would you go around with someone like me?
-from Peter Bjorn and John’s “Young Folks”Across the street from me there lives a fascinating man, mysterious and enigmatic. I see him gardening at night sometimes, or watering the 24 snake plants that line his 8 small windows. He wears a mask on his face and a hat pulled down to just above his eyes; his coat is always zipped up to his chin and his hands are always in gloves—no matter the weather; even in his backyard, even when taking out the trash. I sit at my desk everyday, so I see a lot. I can’t help it. And some things just appeal to my curious nature—like a man gardening at night, his face covered with a mask in his own backyard. The days that I see him are rare, but always a highlight. Only once have I seen him out front. I was on my way back from a walk; he was checking his mailbox for mail. Upon seeing him, I doubled my pace and started crossing the street toward him. I was determined to introduce myself, to say hello. But before I could, he rushed inside and closed the door behind him. I heard the click of the latch as I finished crossing the street. On a video call with one of my sons one evening, the night-gardener appeared in his yard and I turned my camera around and told my son about my neighbour. He looks like a murderer, said my son. No, I said, he’s just a private man and also a night-gardener. A friend here periodically sends me texts that simply read: Have you seen him lately? And I know who she is referring to. (I originally wrote that as “…to whom she is referring” but I made myself go back and change it.)
I had a conversation with someone recently about a writer’s right to borrow and steal from the lives of the people around them versus the rights of those people to a private life. It’s thorny, to be sure! And we were coming at it from two very different points of view. I am pro borrowing and stealing but, like, respectfully? When I put it like that, it’s true that it doesn’t sound great. But it’s not as bad as all that. I explained to this person that if I do my job right, what happens is that I take those external—let’s call them observations, and I make something new from them, something that no longer resembles the original source. That’s the creative act; that’s fiction. I don’t make the rules!
It's a different story when it comes to writing personal essays, though. Yes, I’m writing about my life, but my life is entangled with the lives of many other people. That’s living! I’m working on something now that is about me—but also about someone else. Navigating this essay has been tricky, has been fraught. Names are changed; some details are obscured but it has still been a nerve-racking venture. The essay will only provide a snapshot, and within that snapshot: there is me, making decisions about what to include and what to leave out. It’s a somewhat embarrassing and humiliating story—for me. But for some reason I feel compelled to write it. At its most basic level, writing it out is how I come to understand something, how I come to make sense of it. So there’s that. It’s also about connection: here’s this thing that happened that maybe you can also relate to. It has been my experience so far with these essays that readers do relate and have reached out to tell me so. That is heartening! And that sense of connection is one more way to not feel alone in this world. So of course I feel compelled to write these things.
One important part of this process for me is ensuring that these essays are not just about looking inward. They need to be about more than just some dumb thing I did as a kid (or as an adult!), they need to reach beyond me—somehow, even if only in some small way. And that invariably means other people will be involved in these stories—my friends, my family. That’s the trick of it all. Well, that and not upsetting the people around me. A gauge I have been using to determine what I’m willing to write about for this book is whether or not I’m willing to engage in conversations about the subjects of these essays. Most times, the answer is that yes, I am willing to have these conversations. And I even think that in some cases that’s why I’m writing them—to provoke these conversations. Conversely, that is definitely also why I’m not writing about some things—there have been some subjects that feel too raw, too thorny to write about! For now. And that’s okay.
A cruise ship was in town the other day and I saw some tourists standing outside the night gardener’s home. They were looking at his windows and taking photos. One man leaned over the night gardener’s fence and peered into the yard. More tourists stopped and looked in the windows—or tried to, the curtains are always closed. Nevertheless, I became protective and wanted to shout at them to move along. That’s someone’s home, I wanted to say. Not some exhibit for you to take photos of! And as that thought entered my brain, presynaptic neurons were firing off signals to postsynaptic neurons1 in my hippocampus reminding me that I’ve been sitting here for two months staring at this man’s home, and at him whenever he’s outside. Am I any different? Am I any better? I’d like to think so, yes, but here I am writing about him.
And that’s the thorniness of it.2
“Postsynaptic neurons”?! Who do I think I am, Oliver Sacks?
I had an entirely different post written and ready to go when I sat down this morning—also about looking out my window at the people passing by —but then I found myself writing about this instead. I follow whims!