Our big small world

and the gifts when we sit down and write

Sometimes a zoom moment can also look like this - azaleas, Japanese maples, oyster mushrooms, radishes, brushes, watercolours, Dave’s table and a laptop

I’ve recently discovered something about myself that I have come to accept. In order to sit and write longer than it takes to make an egg sandwich,¹ I have to get on zoom and write with a bunch of strangers from all over the world. This is called co-writing, or an accountability hour, or, as I call it, a focused blitz that will likely lead to further writing, because once there, why stop? The intention isn’t to share your work with others, it’s simply to say hello then put yourself on mute and write for an hour with the knowledge that you’re on camera with other people, also on camera, writing. Presumably no one is looking at you- they too are writing- but this performative detail keeps me showing up for others with enthusiasm and teeth brushed, in a way I will not show up for myself. I was this way when running early in the morning when the boys were little. I had a friend waiting in the cold darkness of the early morning, and I couldn’t let her down. It is this way with the gym. I have friends waiting for me, I can’t let them down. And so it goes with dog walks. Coffee dates. Sunday dinners. When someone is waiting, I organize myself around that time and show up with aplomb. When someone isn’t waiting, when the structure is absent, time stretches and slackens and before I know it, my window is smaller, or worse, it has gone.

So here I am, sitting in front of my computer on a zoom call with strangers who have also signed up for this time slot to write with strangers.² My desk is in the corner of the guest room at the front of the house. The maple tree outside my window is bursting with fresh, chartreuse coloured leaves. Soon the leaves will obscure the crow’s nest, just at eye level. But for now I can see the jagged, scratchy sticks nestled perfectly in the crotch of the tree. A man places pylons over pot holes on the street below while his truck idles beside him. Cars rush past. And here I write, because I said I would be here, because I signed up and paid and I have friends waiting for me. I haven’t met them yet, but in my head, they are friends. Whatever it takes for me to sink into this moment longer than it takes to make an egg sandwich, despite the leaves and the cars and the birds and the blue sky above.

Every morning when we log on, the host greets us with a cheery voice and encourages us to ‘drop in the chat’ our intentions for the hour. Comments flow in quickly: I’m making revisions on my novel. Exploring a scene. Researching medieval medicine. Writing a substack. I scroll over the comments, enjoying the diversity of writers and the warmth that comes with this shared experience. This morning, just before I turn back to my writing, a comment catches my eye: I am writing my cookery column. It was posted by Elisabeth Luard, Elisabeth with an S. The word ‘cookery’ implies the writer is English. It must be her.

Elisabeth Luard is an English food writer I’ve followed since reading her memoir, Family Life, in my late twenties while living in London. That book, her words, have had a profound effect on my life. In the summer of 2021 I re-read Family Life, and wrote about the experience (while making hodge podge with my mom and sister) in my notebook.

And as it often goes with writing, I scrap my intention (to work on a larger project that someday I will hopefully be able to share) and instead I write about this moment, writing on zoom with Elisabeth Luard.

—

From August, 2021 -

I’m re-reading a book called Family Life, a memoir by food writer Elisabeth Luard. I was twenty-eight when I first read it, curled up in a window seat flying home to Nova Scotia for a summer visit. I was working at a cookbook store in London at the time, and chose the book from the shop’s new-to-me food writing section. It was an angsty time in my life; I was a journalism graduate working in a bookstore, overwhelmed by a city filled with purpose and possibility. I felt like I was watching a game of schoolyard double-dutch, swaying slightly as the ropes came around, but not sure how to jump in. Then my eyes locked on the back of Luard’s memoir, the part where she says she didn’t start writing until after her kids had grown, after she had lived a little. I remember burning through the pages on the plane, delighted by her bohemian ways (she sent her children to school on a donkey when they lived in Andalusia) and crying quietly when tragedy struck. As we exited the plane, a woman seated nearby asked what I was reading. “I want to feel all the things you were feeling,” she said.

This time around it’s different. I understand the nuance in Luard’s writing; the furtive references to her husband’s drinking, the poverty that I originally read as frugality, the life adventures that were undoubtedly shrouded in loneliness. I also notice the similes when describing her children: “when in hot water, they hung together like unstirred macaroni.”

My kids are hanging together around the pot of simmering vegetables, wondering what protein will be served alongside the Hodge Podge. “It’s a perfectly good vegetarian meal, we’ve always served it all by itself,” explains my mother. They laugh as they root through the freezer for frozen sausages. We’re evolving as a family.

Over Hodge Podge and grilled sausages, my sister reminisces about her childhood as a double-dutch champion. She had the rhythm, and once she jumped in, she could stay the longest. “But once you’re in,” she said, “you can’t get out.”

Luard gave me permission not to jump in. Permission to try another way. Permission to enjoy the seasons, and to eat Hodge Podge with sausages on the side.³

—

Before we sign off from writing together, we post our progress in the chat. The comments flow by quickly, but the last comment, written by Luard, lingers -

Fermentation. Happens to prose when let to its own devices, if you’re lucky. And patient.⁴

1. A reference to the letter I wrote a few weeks ago while my son made an egg sandwich. Sometimes that’s all it takes, but often writing calls for more time to sink deeper into the words, and I’m learning how to do that.

2. Today and I am writing with London Writers’ Salon. I also hop on a few days a week with Caroline Donahue’s Your Writing Year, a supportive, more intimate writing community that also offers co-writing sessions.

3. Find the whole story over here - Second Reads

4. Shared with permission from Elisabeth Luard