The Same River Twice
No McCracken's an island
One of the odd things about using events from one’s own travels for otherwise non-autobiographical fiction (as I’ve taken to doing) is the odd feeling that you’re recreating your own short story. For instance: this past week me & mine were on the Isle of Mull with some dear old friends, and seven years ago me & mine were on the Isle of Mull, and in between I wrote a short story in which characters who resemble nobody I know go to Mull, and take a boat trip to see the puffins on Lunga, and then to Staffa to peer into Fingal’s Cave, and then end up standing on the beach in Tobermory Harbor as the pipers come down from the Highland Games, all of which I did seven years ago.
Last week I did the same things, but in reverse order: beach and pipers, Fingal’s Cave, puffins. Mostly I was on earth doing the thing itself; sometimes I remembered the actual events of seven years ago; every now and then I remembered my characters’ versions. My kid and I peered into a rock formation and saw a pair of nesting shags—a sort of cormorant who is also part gardening shears—just as we did seven years ago, and just as one of my characters does in the short story (though I think he might misidentify them as something else).
Above, a terrifying shag. Below, a delightful puffin.
I followed the advice of the wonderful Nancy Franklin, a friend I know only from Twitter, who is a Mull enthusiast and expert. Tomorrow I will meet another friend I only know from Twitter. I’ve been lamenting the end of Twitter a long time now, but it seems it’s actually going, or won’t be Twitter any longer.
Twitter has been deeply meaningful to me over the years. Sometimes I’ve been put in the position of defending it to friends who hate it but aren’t on it, and I suppose I can’t, but when it was good it was delightful. Years ago I felt the difference between Twitter and Facebook is that they were both like block parties, but on Facebook you went onto each other’s porches for conversation whereas on Twitter everyone just got together and bantered and argued and constructed running jokes in the middle of the street. Both are unpleasant in their own ways. I made friends. I once wrote back to a group of high school students who used it in order to complain about having to read some of my work. I once posted a picture of a tiny wooden bust of Bob Hope and another writer, not of my acquaintance, admired it so I bought and sent it off to him. I met
there before she became a dear pal in real life and convinced me to take in a pandemic cat. I loved those running jokes, the book recommendations. I liked the chronological nature of it rushing past. The pure verbosity of it! Other social media platforms are fine, but I am not a visual person. I am a a shy and socially awkward person, which means I like big parties much better than small parties, the better to disappear into, to find, as well, a private conversation amid the clamor.
Twitter has been such a vibrant community for me — I came across your posts, which compelled me to look up your stories, which led to a good chunk of shelf dedicated to your work (including the collection with the short story gestured toward here). I too will miss the verbosity of Twitter and the way a bookish and somewhat awkward person like myself could open a silly little app and read wonderful jokes and stories and send a few of my own skipping across its surface. Now it’s mostly dry creek.
I miss old Twitter, but I left for good. Made a lot of good friends there, found you through it, but I can't. Substack Notes isn't a replacement, but sometimes it feels right.
Also, thank you for the photo of the shag! I just read Tarka the Otter, and Williamson gives them menace. I looked them up, saw "cormorant" and dismissed them. How wrong I was. It's like a cormorant involved with organized crime. The one sent to cut off your finger if you renege on a bet.