STK: Shaun Kadlec's Fulbright Journal
Journal: December 12th, 2002
Hey, y'all,
Here it is. An alternative to mass e-mail, started a bit late, yes, but promised to continue with unflagging enthusiasm. It may be that to the same degree mass email can seem impersonal, self-important and insincere, this web journal also might seem impersonal, self-important and insincere—with a nice icing of Pretense to finish it off. I guess we'll have to wait and see. At the very least I won't be cluttering your slender inboxes with long messages, photos and poems you don't have space for; and rest assured that I will not adopt a sterile "letter to the world" tone (unless we're talking Martha Graham, "Kick," etc. ), and I promise to be utterly, bleedingly sincere all of the time. All. Of. The. Time. And the pretense you're used to, so no need to fuss about that. I should also warn you that this update has a lot of description of my project itself, which is probably less interesting than colorful life-in-Sri Lanka sketches. But y'all are a sturdy lot, and I know you'll persevere.
What am I up to right now? My goodness, thank you for asking. I'm dividing my "work" time between writing, reading, and meeting with writers and scholars. After I became oriented, I went through a period of indecision about how I should actually undertake this project. I felt nagged by a sense of duty to put research and "scholarly" work first, and of course that makes sense because it is what I said I would do in my proposal. My uncertainty intensified, though, as I began to discover that there may not actually be enough new writing of extraordinarily high quality to construct a aesthetically driven, book-length anthology. Which is not to say that there isn't a lot of fascinating creative work being done that raises all sorts of sociological and critical questions—but it seems to make more sense to do sociological and critical analysis of it rather than to package if for consumption by an international audience or even to even to delve into the lives of the artists for biographical illumination. It would be fascinating to create life histories of a varied crew of Sri Lankans that incorporate their own creative work, for example. I'm afraid I don't have the drive to be a critical biographer, however.
Fulbright grants, I have come to realize, are extremely flexible little critters. Our only requirements are that we write up two evaluative reports on our work and on the Sri Lankan Fulbright bureaucracy, and we definitely have the freedom to recast our paths. The result of all of this rationalization is that I'm taking the opportunity to rank creative work first on my priority-o-meter. Which means that I'm writing several hours every day and LOVING IT. I've been working on older poems, polishing them up for submission to journals both here and in the states; also generating new drafts, trying to incorporate my Sri Lankan experience. In the realm of research, I'm still scoping out newer writing and trying to figure out what the younger generation of writers is up to. This year's conference of the Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (the "commonwealth" being the former British empire. Just roll your eyes if you didn't need that), is being held in Colombo and Kandy in January, and I'm hoping to have a paper ready to present by then. It's a great deadline, and it will be nice to get some critical work underway. I suspect that I would otherwise save it for the end. I'm still refining the topic, but it's looking like I'll either be looking at underground literature dealing with gender and sexuality (though I haven't yet located enough to support a paper) contrasted with Shyam Selvadurai's articulation of gay identity. Selvadurai is the only "out" Sri Lankan writer who has addressed sexuality directly in his published writing. I'm also thinking about looking at "shame" in later 20th century Sri Lankan writing as one of the many cultural forces keeping alternative voices from speaking. I don't know. Something like that. I need to be working on the paper full time if I have any hope of finishing it in January.
I'm discovering that time, seclusion and comfort are extraordinarily conducive to keeping a hearty writing schedule. I can't believe that this is the first time I've ever lived alone. Distraction seems to come naturally to me, so not having other people around (no offense to former roommates) is great for focus. It also means that I'm not doing quite as much in situ improvisatory learning with other folks. Since my apartment is pretty far out of town, I tend not to want to leave unless I have several things to do while I'm away. Maybe I'm getting closer to that ideal of the writer's life where one has intense, visceral, emotionally charged and problematic interactions with the world and then flees to a comfortably furnished mountaintop citadel to think it all over and use the newly gathered material to craft revolutionary narratives and prickly metaphors. And many elegiac ballads of longing. Of course.
My little retreat is a spacious one bedroom apartment (or "annex," as it shares a wall with a larger home) split into two floors with boudoir and wraparound verandah above and a nice kitchen (lavishly Western by Sri Lankan standards) and sitting room/dining room below. It came more or less fully and more or less tastefully furnished, so moving in was pretty easy. It's on the ridge of a hill overlooking the Mahaweli river, and because of the elevation and the thick jungle canopy, the weather is extraordinarily comfortable. A lot like Santa Barbara, but with more shade, higher humidity and more rain. A small Buddhist temple is just down the road. When I'm on my way to town I sometimes catch the notice of the second-in-command monk, who must be just about my age, barefoot and clad in burnt orange robe, who comes to the edge of the raised compound and demands, smiling but aggressive, "Where are you going?!" My instinct is to say, "I don't know you, and it's none of your damn business, monk-o!" But then I remember that he's actually being friendly and using one of those common greetings in Sinhala that doesn't quite translate into English—not in mood, at least. And it also isn't nice to curse at monks, so I politely reply that I'm on my way to town, wishing him a good day.
Speaking of good days: I've been getting up pretty early—6 or 7—unless I've been out drinking or cavorting. I make the bed, which consists of folding the single sheet I sleep under. Doesn't get very cold, and there are almost no mosquitoes up here on the mountain. A cup of tea usually starts the day, and I've also been on an oatmeal kick for the past week. I found a very expensive, imported tin of Quaker Oats gathering dust at the little corner store and couldn't resist. You could buy about 9 perfect pineapples or a truckload of bananas for the price (250 rupees; about $2.65. I know, it's not much money, but I'm getting used to local standards.) I'm trying to get into the habit of doing a little housework every morning. Washing a few articles of clothing or making a curry. It seems like a great idea. A very nice neighborhood gentleman comes every Monday to help me with the heavy duty cleaning and washing. It's true that I'm living a life very different from my days as a domestic in Santa Barbara.
Let me end with a little overdue catching up: on the way to Sri Lanka I sashayed from Cali to Minnesota where Brian Dever and I went on a fantastic canoe trip in the Boundary waters. Also caught up with the ultrafab urban heartland boys Vaughn, Jer, Mark, Jackson. From there I went to North Carolina with my parents to visit Aunt Phil (in a seaside long term care facility) and Aunt Donnie Sue; then through DC (where I was privileged to catch dinner with Alden, Paul and Sarah King during an Amtrak layover) to Boston where I stayed with Camilla and reveled in haute cambridgeness—O! utterly aware austere erudite Cambridge!—while preparing for the big departure. A lot of last minute gift and medicine shopping was done in Harvard Square.
My first two weeks in Sri Lanka were entirely consumed by recovering from jetlag, attending program orientations, looking for and securing housing, and patiently navigating arcane bureaucratic mazes in order to get a residence visa, university affiliation, bank account, library card. Also meeting up with old friends, trying to brush up on Sinhala, making new friends. Then I spent a week apartment-hunting and a couple of weeks staying with the Nandasenas, Sinhala-only speaking friends from my last time here. All the time reading up on Sri Lankan literature and current events. After that the project picked up speed, and I've already filled you in on that.
Until next time, please heed the wishes of our Father of the Prairie Garrison Keillor: be well, do good work, and keep in touch,
shaun