Aug 20, 2016

Hey folks,

We’ve got a few new people on the list! Thanks, everybody, for following the book. I’ve chosen the next section to chapterize. It’ll be about 2800 words, and it opens up some of the history between Anna and Will. 

As I said in an earlier update, I’m aiming for 2:1 words written:posted, so I’ll have to add almost 6000 words to get this next bit to you. My goal is to do that by next weekend. It’ll require some pretty productive evenings of writing, but I feel good about it. 

I spent today walking around downtown St. John’s and thinking about Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip. Tonight is the last time the Hip will play, on account of Gord having terminal brain cancer. They’ve been touring a new album despite that bad news, and the national public broadcaster, CBC, is giving the entire nation a chance to watch this last show.

It’s not something I can find an analog for anywhere in my memory. The Hip are singular - a band that most of the people I’ve ever known will listen to to one extent or another, a band that is famous in Canada and nowhere else. Canada is infamous for coming to appreciate their biggest stars - Celine, Drake, Nickelback (JK!) - after someone else has made them popular, but the Tragically Hip are undeniably the exception. Their music defines a piece of what it is to be Canadian in the last quarter century.

All across the country, people are gathering tonight - in homes, in clubs, and in outdoor venues - to watch this concert. I wish that you could see this from the inside, everybody else. This is one of those moments where something terrible is being turned into something amazing, something unifying. A gift from a dying man to a bunch of people who probably don’t deserve it, but who are receiving it gratefully and hungrily.

I was diagnosed with cancer five years ago. It’s not like Gord’s, of course. I like to say I had the easiest possible version of the experience - they cut a piece out, I get followups regularly, and now I’m five years out, which means I’m about as safe as anyone else from the big C. 

But I understand from that experience a little about mortality. I understand a bit about wanting to leave some trace in the world. I’m grateful and hungry for tonight’s show, for the thing itself and for the light it will leave behind. 

Maybe it’ll help with the writing. Maybe I can pass secondhand pieces of Gord to those of you who aren’t receiving him first-hand tonight. I can only dream of being as mysterious, as poetically incredible, as substantial as him. But it’s a worthy dream. A beautiful dream. I hope like the dickens I can bring a bit of it to you all.

Hope you’re well.
mgb