I woke up and made coffee as per my usual routine; it was a nice morning. My wife and daughter were living in Bemidji in those days. Alone in the house, I called some friends at a coffee shop in Roseau, just to see who was around, when Jill answered the phone, her attention somewhere else; about which I jokingly commented something I don't recall and she said, quite impatiently: "DON'T YOU KNOW?? TWO AIRPLANES HAVE CRASHED INTO THE WORLD TRADES CENTER!! THOUSANDS HAVE BEEN KILLED!! TURN ON YOUR RADIO!!" Then she hung up. Radio programming was intermittent; I couldn't make sense of it as I hurriedly dressed for the drive to Roseau, 20 miles away. The car radio was the same way; describing the unbelievable unfolding scene in New York City. I swung into the Riverfront gas station in Wannaska to fill on gasoline; they had a TV... The woman affirmed the worse; two airliners full of people had slammed into the two World Trade Center t...
Reading your post I hear two comments about silence: The first is about a writer’s typical lack of feedback i.e., silence from readers; and the second, to seek silence, as non-Indigenous peoples, in the midst of our typically chaotic lives. As a nearly life-long writer of 72-years of age, and self-publisher of a northwestern Minnesota magazine for 24 years, I know a lot about what you said that, “‘ ... being a writer is like shouting from inside a glass box: you can see the people moving out there, but you have no idea if they hear you.’” And is why I kept the little scribbled notes attached to re-subscriptions; feedback that was sent out-of-the-blue after reading something that resonated with them; or emailed us over the course of years as positive comment or criticism -- any feedback is better than no feedback. And as for experiencing silence about oneself, too much silence is intimidating to my wife and her family who man, woman and child ...