A Field Guide for Immersion Writing: Memoir, Journalism, and Travel

Conclusion: Say What You See

In the restaurant of the Presidente Hotel in Havana, Cuba, tourists from various countries mingle around the familiar breakfast buffet : meats and cheeses for the Europeans, a coffee machine for café latte, cappuccino, and espresso, a plate of guava, pineapple, and some kind of melon, a German guy sitting with a Havana Club T-shirt with the usual picture of Che emblazoned on it, a group of Russians by the pool to my left. I’m here because I’m on a scouting trip for a workshop I’m going to be leading six months from now. Last week, I was in Poland attending the largest Jewish festival in the world, a festival founded by non-Jews twenty-three years ago. I’m working on a documentary about the festival with a young filmmaker. Next week, I’ll be in Australia planning a nonfiction conference there. Granted, my schedule is a little insane. I suppose I’m the type of person who can’t sit still, though I must have done so at some point or another to have written my books. The pull of the world is great on me, but I also love the solitude of writing. Sure, I had the requisite daiquiri at the Floridita Bar, where Hemingway used to hang out, but most nights I’ve stayed in and have simply written my impressions of what I’ve been seeing, trying to make sense of what I’ve experienced during the day. For me, writing is always a collaborative act, finally. While I have to do the heavy lifting, as it were, the people I meet are my collaborators, as are the books I read. Xavier de Maistre and I are kindred spirits. As he wrote, “And why Conclusion Say What You See 186 Conclusion would [you] turn down the pleasures that are scattered along life’s difficultpath ? They aresofewandfarbetween,sothinontheground,that you’d need to be mad not to stop, and even turn away from your path, and pick up all of those that lie within your reach” (7). For me, the joy is in grabbing those opportunities. In his book Still Life with Oysters and Lemon Mark Doty says it best, I think: We think that to find ourselves we need turn inward, examining the intricacies of origin, the shaping forces of personality. But “I” is just as much to be found in the world; looking outward, we experience the one who does the seeing. Say what you see and you experience yourself through your style of seeing and saying. (67) In the introduction to this book, I tried to make the case for the value of the I. The rest of this book has tried to make a case for the value of the world outside of the I, or perhaps for a melding of the I and the world. It’s not a matter of being self-indulgent. It’s a matter of being honest, of writing reliably, and with humility. “Say what you see” is actually a rather bold command. Think of all the people throughout history who have been put to death for just that—for saying what they saw. Often, it’s a matter of permission to become an authority or to bear witness, the notion that the individual with no credentials other than her individuality can see the world in a way that others might find value in. Obviously, it’s not easy. I think I’ve made that abundantly clear, but the rewards far outweigh the difficulties, I believe. To be a writer out in the world is to be a student of the world. While writing is nearly always a solitary act in which we necessarily come face to face with our deficiencies and our demons (and hopefully conquer them), the immersion writer makes the world part of his text. There are inherent narratives in anyone’s life, and it’s your job to discover and sometimes convey these narratives to the reader. I recently learned that the Japanese word sensei doesn’t mean “teacher” in the simple sense as I have long believed, but is better translated as “one who has gone before.” It’s in this spirit that I have written Conclusion 187 this book and used the examples I’ve threaded throughout—it helps to know that others have gone before. When I’m driving in a storm or at night...