I live where time holds little value
beyond night and day, the seasons, or the ebb and flow of the wilderness
surrounding me. It has been here that has allowed me to freely write more than
anything else. It is place that has facilitated a schedule full of leisure,
where writing is a pursuit among many. So rather than a break down of a “typical”
day, I will colour in where and how I am able to write daily, followed by a
shade of my writing methods.
It is the fourth year of living in the
woods with my partner and two teenaged kids. The closest village is seventeen
kilometres away, the closest neighbour one. We live in a 1960ish, 10×24 foot
mobile home. There is no running water, unless one counts the natural spring a
couple of hundred feet away. We are off-grid; in the winter there is hardly
electricity to charge phones, in the summer no one is inside to use
electricity. The cell service is which ever way the wind blows and no highspeed
internet is available. We heat with wood, and we grow/forage the majority of
our food, plant and animal. We are also constructing a stone home using older building
methods with local and found rock. Everything is either second-hand, homemade,
or jimmy-rigged.
One would think that the lack of space and
time would be prohibitive to writing, but honestly there is both in plenitude.
As long as a small portion of everyday is given to essentials (ie. firewood,
weeding, getting water, etc.), one has more leisure compared to typical
employment and the outdoors is hardly claustrophobic. We are thriving on 90%
less, than we did 4 years ago living in Toronto treading financial water with
rent. We have no bills now, except for the phone, this was begrudgingly taken
on, and a $60/year property tax. There is very little to compel one to reenter
the economy once freedom has been tasted.
I use to work 50 hours a week, six days a
week as a mason specialising in heritage restoration and stone carving. It was
extremely physical work, and I would come home and pass out. I wrote nothing
but a few scribbles here or there, maybe some marginalia in the single book I
could finish each year. We were urban normal, eating out, going to sporting
events or shows, this was how time was spent,
further accruing red ink and dissatisfaction. At the time a semblance of
self, social and environmental awareness would present in things like urban
harvesting, guerrilla gardening, and owning contraband chickens. Chickens that
became the catalyst for the extreme lifestyle change. Chickens and a fear (read
lazy) of doing taxes. Now being that I live in Canada, when we filed our taxes
after five years of evasion and all was settled, there were benifits that were
unclaimed over those years. At the same time the city of Toronto had come and
demanded we get rid of the chickens (ironically that neighbourhood is now
allowed to own chickens). Our tax return was enough to buy literally the cheapest 100
acres in the country, which is the Chipman area of New Brunswick, and a one way
ticket to get there with only camping gear, family keepsakes, and books. There
was nothing here but nature. We lived in a tent for over three months. Over the
few years we've managed to scar around an acre for ourselves, the rest being
left woods, ponds and bog. This is where I plan to live, a permanent outsider,
until I die.
Of writing method then. My space is
multipurpose, I write with a 2mm mechanical pencil and type/submit with my
phone in a room that is bed/living/dining/kitchen. There is only one rule that
I use, and that is that there must always be a rule to exaggerate, deflect,
obscure, and/or defer the meaning. I am under the belief that if one is trying
to describe the indescribable, then being unable to do so may infact achieve a
better resemblance of this indescribable, or at least leave the text open
enough for different readings. The rules are centered around metre, form, etc.
and I keep on using a set of rules until points of resolution and dissolution
are found, changing the rules as they begin to resonate or not. Reading is the
backbone and often provides the moment of entry into a particular constellation
of thoughts. I read more than I write, and writing is almost solely in response
to what I am reading, positive or negative - I read almost as much of what I
don’t agree with, as what I do and read books repetitively. Generally, I
concern myself with philosophy, poetry, theatre, and history. I am always
working on more then one project and reading multiple books, if I am not
distracting myself with my other amature persuits like, painting, astronomy,
collecting specimens to study or eat, or just staring at the sky or ceiling
(weather permitting). My writing has affected my house building though. So
currently I am attempting to merge intellectual activities with physical
activities over the next building season in efforts to finish the one thing
that is guarantied to out live me by generations - a stone house.
Russell Carisse (anarchist/poet/mason/pretender)
lives with their family of people and animals in New Brunswick, Canada. They
are preserving 100 acres of wood and wetlands, where they are building a handmade
stone house, growing food, and scribbling. Russell’s debut collection of
poetry, Nomography, is forthcoming
Feb 2020. Freedom is a priori and Art need always be free.
No comments:
Post a Comment