On a brisk September Saturday morning, I hurried downtown. My mission? The Word on the Street Festival, a yearly event hosted by the Lethbridge Public Library. I particularly wanted to hear Sharon Butala, having recently read her book Where I live Now: A Journey through Love and Loss to Healing and Hope — remembering my delight in The Perfection of the Morning, her 1994 memoir detailing the transition from her urban life to living on the vast Butala ranch. I had hopes of actually meeting her, getting her to autograph my copy of Where I live Now and getting her contact information. When Suddenly Single Survival Guide starts to do podcasts she is on our ‘to interview’ list!
I parked and walked quickly to the venue, wishing I’d dressed warmer. I arrived and a volunteer handed me a booklet with the schedule. I said, “I just came to hear Sharon Butala. The volunteer pointed “just around that corner — right now”. I hurried to the authors tent and took the last seat available. I quickly realized that I had sat down by a woman who I had met both a number of years ago and again months ago, a woman who I knew was also a widow. Someone with whom I could share impressions with later. The tent was standing room only.
Sharon (if I can be bold enough to refer her by her first name rather than Mrs. or Ms., neither of which seem to fit for this post) read us passages from Where I live Now, beginning with the one where she describes the actual time of her husband’s passing. Her voice broke as she painted us a picture of life leaving his body and his face changing into someone she barely recognized. She apologized for her emotion, saying she had thought she could now, after ten years, read these lines aloud. We easily forgave her.
“At the end of the bed I looked again, my final look, and saw that it was still that same unrecognizable face, not Peter at all, not the man I had known.”
She read to us about how not knowing what to do with that first rush of grief, she had gone back to her French Catholic roots, sat in a church, which was next door to the hospital, and then, went home — and scrubbed the kitchen floor, waiting for family to arrive.
“While I waited, having no other idea of what to do to pass the time, trying to outrun the wall of emotion I fear would overcome me if I gave it room, I got down on my knees and washed the kitchen floor, all the while saying to myself, “My husband is dead; my husband is dead,” as if by rehearsing this I might be able finally to believe it.”
Where I live Now is another exquisitely written memoir, the continuing story of a writer’s life unfolding as well as one of love and loss. It tells us the story of the creation and growth of one of Canada’s beloved authors. She read us her I-am-a-writer story which began in childhood with the writing of her first novel at age 9, a gripping ten page tale of a child being kidnapped — with a quick resolution and happy ending.
Having married and moved to the ranch, Sharon Butala found herself in her late 30s, desiring again to be a writer — if only to capture the new world in which she was now living. She wrote, in longhand until …
“one day Peter in his riding boots clomped into the front room of the old frame house at the ranch, shoving open the permanently stuck door, and said to me, “Here.” I was sitting on the sofa, absorbed in a book and only then noticed he had come in. I looked up: He had brought me a typewriter.”
After attempting another novel — which she later destroyed — she experimented with, and successfully published, short stories and another novel. She found her voice, however, when she began to seriously explore what became her subject, the Great Plains of Canada.
What was my take home from a too-short author’s talk?
Her genuineness. That she trusted her audience enough to just be real. Her lack of a I-am-a-writer facade.
Having just finished reading Where I live Now, I appreciated again how her written words flow with a lifetime of practiced nuance and so enjoyed hearing her read them aloud with the same fluent ease. Her quip “I must be good. I made myself laugh”, and her voice cracking as she took us back to those most painful moments, sent those who did not already own Where I live Now: A Journey Through Love and Loss straight to the bookstore tent to buy a copy.
And yes, I did get Sharon Butala’s contact information. Stay tuned.
