Annie Dillard wrote, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

On the first of each month, Catching Days hosts a guest writer in the series, “How We Spend Our Days.”

Today, please welcome writer

MAUREEN AITKEN

I am writing every day this month. I am writing in the early morning before the heat descends, before the first stultifying 95 degrees, followed by storms, then the second set of mid-90s temperatures, then the second storm, which takes out the power for one day, then the second day, then into the third. Out comes the generator, and the culling of food gone bad in the refrigerator. I am writing, too, when smoke from the fires of Ontario bear down, cast the sun orange, and make a simple walk impossible.

As is true in all frenetic times, I am using the Pomodoro method (25-minute sessions of focused writing using a timer) for one, two, sometimes three rounds in the day. Some of that writing is note taking about our collective now. Everything happening is so colossal, so large. It’s climate change, politics, war. It’s violence. It’s dismantling education. Pick any day, I’m taking notes to start, not because I plan to use it for anything, but I have to get it out of me and on the page. We have to bear witness to the details.

Then I turn to fiction, particularly works in progress. Because I wrote yesterday, I am picking up the bones, writing within a story, and there is the beauty, not the discipline, but the creative mind space that discipline brings. It offers some relief, just before I read the headline in The Atlantic, “The End of Reading is Here,” and I am back in the dull-witted feeling of oppressive heat.

There is only one day when I almost do not write. I am at Detroit’s Eastern Market, walking toward Shed #5 at the Detroit Festival of Books. I am signing The Patron Saint of Lost Girls for forty-five minutes at the Wayne State University Press table, then walking around to look at books.

The massive Eastern Market has many sheds, and a flurry of events on the weekend. Ahead of me, it looks like a party in front of Shed #5. Hundreds of people are packed in so tightly they can barely move. I hear laughter, and the bright, snappy sound of talking. I am early, so I walk toward the laughter.  As I close in on that section, I see it is another part of the Detroit Festival of Books, with outdoor vendors. It is the self-published writers holding up books with beautiful covers, the second-hand bookstores, the record shop, the publishers, the table for bookmarks and mugs. I’m overwhelmed by the warm energy of people here who are displaying, signing, and talking about books.

I move into Shed #5 with a DJ and his powerful beats at the main entrance. Wall-to-wall tables of booksellers and writers, and library folks talking and laughing for as far as I can see. The view would break open any reader’s heart. It is so crowded I stop five times because of human traffic jams. This day brings in 20,000 readers and 300 vendors. To give you a sense of how massive this is, Pine Knob concert venue nearby only seats 15,000 people. But here, on this day, there is no major performer. Books are the band. Readers are the groupies. The crowd itself is the proof, the beauty, and the main attraction.

It contrasts with one kind of truth published in The Atlantic article. But this is the proof of what I have witnessed in twenty years of teaching writing. Yes, the readership of books has decreased across the board in this country. But a part of our population reads more than ever. Maybe it is a response to book bans. Maybe it is in defiance of “end of reading” headlines. Maybe it is a protest against defunding education. But these are guesses. Here, on this day in Detroit, Michigan, I know one thing.

These days I’m reading to escape the worst kind of noise, the noise of manipulation. If the billionaires are taking over media and forcing a cultural narrative of division and hate, I’m turning more and more to books that offer me wisdom. Reading, like writing, brings camaraderie, stillness, and wonder. Books offer beauty in what feels like an oppressive time.

I get to the WSUP table, look out to the crowd, and know I am, in my reading habits anyway, not alone. The table is hopping. Many are in groups with t-shirts about libraries, their book clubs, or the book associations they work with. Two friends from grade school–grade school!–show up to say hello. Another friend, an amazing writer I’ve known since college, shows up, too. I sign books. Another friend brings me chocolate and a bookmark she made. I meet new readers.

My book sells out, as do many books at the WSUP booth. After the signing we wander around. I buy some books. We get pretzels and lemonade from a food truck vendor and talk on the street crowded with people, bikes, and other trucks.

On this day, I write one sentence, my minimum goal. But the events of the day will give me fuel for writing for all the days that follow. I grew up in Detroit and went to college at Wayne State University. The Detroit I grew up in instilled a quiet defiance that feels right for our time. If trends are against reading, who profits from that narrative? If reading is over, what are 20,000 people doing here?

These are days of volatility, of heat and storms.

But they don’t get our spirits. They don’t get our souls.

Tomorrow, I’ll be writing.

~

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THOSE SAME 3 NEW QUESTIONS…

1. What one word best describes your writing life?

• Curious.

2. Is there a book you’ve read over and over again?

• Foster by Claire Keegan.

3. What is your strangest obsession or habit?

• A month ago our cat escaped, and I discovered the dedication and passion people have for finding lost animals. About 70 percent of cats are found, and I learned not to give up. It can take two years. We used advice from a YouTube video, followed every step, and our cat, who was gone for three days, was caught within hours. Now I look at the posts where animals are lost and found, and I am hitting all the hearts. 

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By MAUREEN AITKEN

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—Other Writers in the Series—

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