Where do the ideas come from?

Why do I write what I write? 

Sometimes, the idea lands in my mind more or less formed, and it is simply a matter of pulling the words together to give that clear idea some shape and flow on the page. 

Sometimes, the deadline drives the process. The clock is ticking and I dig and sift for ideas to shape into form on the page and meaning for my readers. 

Sometimes, a spark is received and it sits in the back of my mind, percolating away, drifting through my imagination until, in one happy moment, I realize what I have to write about. So it was this week for me. 

The spark came in the form of, literally, the first 'spark' shared for the 4-session Spark your Writing group that gathered for the first time this past Sunday. My co-facilitator (Debbie) and I compile the sparks, so what landed in my email inbox was not a surprise to me. But it sparked my thoughts, nonetheless, in a direction I was not expecting. When my words ignited, I sat down and wrote. The piece below is a refined version of that first draft. 

As is often the case for me, putting the words on the page and shaping them for sharing with the group on Sunday helped me gain clarity about my thoughts and my feelings. This piece speaks to current affairs — very current affairs, horrifying current affairs, to which I feel obliged, as a citizen of the world, to pay attention and to witness (if only via the nightly news). 

Writing is my way of trying to make sense of what I witness. I try to bring, if not a definitive analysis, at least a sharpness of critique to the seeping chaos in so many corners on this planet.

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This was the Week One spark: “…We’ve got to put the past behind us and try…you can’t alter the past, but because of the past, everything that comes after is altered. Something happens, a deed is done, and the consequences just go rolling on…” from Other People’s Children, a novel by Joanna Trollope

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This is my response to that spark:

Consequences: A one-way conversation 
after September 22, 2023
in the House of Commons, Ottawa, Canada

You lived a long life here in Canada. I wonder if you expected that. You came, you settled, you prospered. And then, just the other day, they stood and applauded you. Apparently, you were not expecting this, your daughter told a neighbour, and if she had known it would happen, she would not have brought you to that building representing so much, symbolic to so many of freedom and honour and peace.

But it happened.

They stood. Applauded. Honoured you.

You stood. Appeared touched, moved, open to receiving such honour, worthy of it.

And then the shit hit the fan. No other way to describe the fallout from that action, your actions.

It turns out your past, though documented, was not known by those who stood to honour you. Their ignorance, one man’s original dreadful mistake, brought shame to that building representing so much, symbolic to so many of freedom and honour and peace.

Your original dreadful mistake was made voluntarily, it seems: to fight communism but nazi fascism the conduit for your zeal, your beliefs, your courage. Maybe all three, maybe none of those. We don’t know. Do you?

I have never been a student of history; I missed that subject through transatlantic moves during my secondary school years. The gaps in my learning didn’t seem critical. I was living my life. What happened in the past was interesting, yes, but not vital to me, not core to navigating the future unscathed.

But scathed we are by ignorance.

Ignorance means ‘lack of knowledge or information’, means chasms of not knowing and therefore not possibly understanding.

So it is with the most recent news of geopolitical horror and chaos playing out in the Middle East. It has taken me to atlases and maps to learn, finally, where the man-made borders are in that part of the world. I need to know in order to have even a slim chance of understanding. And that chance feels slim indeed.

But know we must.

Because when we don’t, what happened decades ago comes back to haunt — to taunt — us, through standing ovations wrongly given to a man whose past holds terrible darkness of deeds.

We cannot put the past behind us. The consequences just go rolling on.

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

Floating feather Photo by Javardh on Unsplash