Connections - Place, Writers, Poetry, Spain, Nature

My mom says she likes her “jumps” - by jumps she means “jumping” from one topic to another, which are sometimes difficult to follow for the uninitiated listener.

These jumps are connections - Mom’s brain works really fast and she doesn’t always explain the connections, so her listeners can get lost.

I love the ways thoughts jump from one to another - I love these connections.

An example of the other day’s jumps:

I borrowed a book from the library called Hiking the Gulf Islands of British Colubmia - I haven’t explored the Gulf Islands much at all, and want to become familiar with their topography and plan future trips. I got excited when reading about the islands because so many of them have Spanish names, due to the Spanish exploration of the west coast of the North American continent in the 1700s. My sis and I recently spent two weeks in Spain - I liked the connection.

Reading about the Gulf Islands reminded me of a chance meeting I had with Eleanor Wachtel in summer 2017, when we were both heading to BC. We talked about Zadie Smith, who I’d seen Eleanor interview the previous winter at the Toronto Reference Library, and how Eleanor has a house on Mayne Island (one of the islands featured in my book).

So I Googled Eleanor Wachtel (yet again) and lamented the fact that I wasn't alive in the 70s, when Eleanor was a freelance journalist and adjunct professor in Vancouver, before embarking on her career as a journalist with the CBC in Toronto.

This led me to the Writers and Company website, which led me to listen to Eleanor Wachtel’s interview with Raymond Antrobus, an absolutely brilliant British Jamaican deaf poet whose words are magic and fire. One of Raymond’s poems references La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. He and Eleanor talk about his experience there and what it means to hear the angels, especially when you’re deaf. My sis and I walked past that church a couple of weeks ago.

Raymond’s experiences of growing up in London with connections to Jamaica reminded me of Zadie Smith. I started chatting with my incredible friend Abi about Eleanor Wachtel and Zadie Smith and how we need to go hang out in Northwest London.

Then, I listened to Eleanor’s Wachtel’s interview with Annie Proulx, whose latest novel, Barkskins, spans 300 years and weaves together themes of deforestation and climate change and the history of the North America logging industry. Annie talks about the importance of place, how this affects what you eat, who you marry, what you do, how you die. Geographic determinism. Her mom was a naturalist. Climate change and the environment are a major focus of my reading lately.

Annie now lives in the Pacific Northwest, in Port Townsend, Washington.

I truly truly love full circle.