The secret life of writing
Life without others
The next portion of my life (from July 1980 to July 1982) deserves a preface, or perhaps an apology, or better yet, an essay on solitude, because these two years contain almost no action, no social life. It was a sort of hibernation, living in my Mother’s basement for free, doing nothing but reading and after nine months (when my unemployment checks ran out) taking on a do-nothing job on Clifton hill in a small motel, working midnight to eight A.M., mostly sleeping, with the usual wide reading and journal writing my waking hours. My mind kept busy, but my life was spent in a chair or a bed, alone the vast majority of that time, except for the hour I spent each night at my mother’s enjoying her excellent dinners. We had fine conversations, a glass of wine apiece, then I was off to my den. I’m surprised I didn’t grow fat in those two years, as I took no notice of exercise. My only walks were to the library and back, maybe once a week. My entire social life for two years comprised of two nights out with Scott, the valet from the Foxhead and three days visiting my cousin, Peter John, in Toronto.
I took a few English lit. courses at Brock, our nearby university, for no other reason than the teacher was a friend of my brother-in-law whom I’d chanced to meet at a party at my sister’s house and he cornered me and pleaded that he needed students, so I volunteered. One course was in Victorian novels and another in creative writing. I learned nothing new and read a few novels, all forgettable. I took one Latin course, (since I was there) reading selections of prose and poetry, but it was far too easy. I could do my assignments in the ten minutes before class started, and sometimes translated off-the-cuff more accurately than my middle-aged teacher. I knew it and so did he.
The depth and quality of academic learning between Berkeley and Canadian Universities compared, is pathetic. What they thought hard, I considered remedial. And the students I met read little on their own, nothing not assigned. They were content to be life-long slackers, thinking a degree from Brock was a badge of knowledge and an easy job. I quickly realized this talking to them. It was never books but movies or T.V. shows that excited their interest.
I sometimes think there’s more learning and intelligence walking through the doorway of Moe’s bookstore on Telegraph avenue in Berkeley than in the fullest lecture halls of any academic building in Canada. The acumen shown in the selection of books in Moe’s bookstore puts Canadian libraries to shame. They may have all the same core books, acquired through common lists, but they bury them in haystacks of crap, worthless works because they can’t discern the difference. So the students sink in the manure, often over their heads. Moe’s buyers know books, decide their caliber and only let the good ones in, saving their customers a huge waste of time.
I made no friends while there, met no one I wanted as a friend. I took a pop quiz one day, uninterested, in translating an epigram of Martial, an author I disliked and never much read because he dealt in petty jealousies and low-brow jokes. I’m surprised his book survived the dark ages, copied by monks over and over. It was so ephemeral and lowbrow. I gave the epigram an almost disinterested glance and handed in my translation a few minutes later, not knowing this was a nationwide contest. I came out second best, receiving a shiny, paper award and kudos for Brock. My teacher was all aglow announcing it. If I’d put half my mind to it (I considered it some joke quiz) I’m sure I could have come out first. But he didn’t tell us it was a trans-Canada contest.
What I did begin during this retreat, besides voluminous, miscellaneous reading in all my free time was the practice of writing. First came a children’s book idea, ‘Ryan’s Day’, a poem recounting one day in the life of my nine-year-old nephew, started in late November at a lazy pace, but which sped up as the whole idea congealed, so I could present it as a Christmas present, finely copied out, dip pen and ink, in a little blank book and illustrated with pictures, some thirty pages long. The last few weeks were an enjoyable literary frenzy, working twelve hours a day to finish and illustrate it, which I did late on Christmas eve.
The gift made for an unexpected surprise when unwrapped the next morning, passed around a room full of people I was happy to impress, Father and Mother, Muriel, Janet and Bob. The rhyme was good, flowing, clever, sometimes beautiful, the story mundane, with a few clever detours, the story some thirty pages long, one or two stanzas to a page. Everyone praised it as a unique and rare gift. But what people don’t realize is that in gifts like this, made with so much labor of heart and mind, the giver receives the greatest share of pleasure. It was my creation, my pride, given to another. That’s the beauty of artistic creations. They impart joy to the audience for a while, but a far more lasting joy to the person who made it out of little more than a flash in his mind. He then gives it a body, a pleasing shape forever. It’s an accomplishment no one can take away from you, a pride in your heart that adds dignity to your self-esteem, because you made something all by yourself that would never have existed without you. You created it out of nothing, out of the void, like a God.
