Jan Carson's Blog, page 26

Portland Postcard Stories – Part Two

13th September 2014 – Hilary Copeland

 “Christine is also writing a book about Native American myths. She tells no one at work. Native American myth books are a dime a dozen at the library, almost as popular as Sci Fi and crime fiction. All the other librarians are writing books about motor vehicles and Republicanism, exploiting the unexplored margins of Portland life. Christine stays late at work most evenings, sketching dream catchers and fierce-faced wolf children by flashlight, for fear that the other librarians will find her and mock her quietly in the reference section.”

14th September 2014 – Claire Buswell

 “I work in a store which sells only doors. There are dozens of doors –both indoor and outdoor varieties- mounted against our walls, suspended on strings from our ceiling, like portals to another dimension. Late at night, when the store is shut, I work my way from the front to the back, opening every door in turn and there is nothing behind our doors but walls and other doors in a variety of colours and designs. Yet the inclination to knock and enter has never left me.”

15th September 2014 – Andy and Holly Eaton

 “On the last hot day of summer she spent an entire afternoon wandering the fiction aisles at Powell’s City of Books. Spying old enemies and paperback friends, alphabetized on the shelves, she left notes between their pages. “This one’s a war,” and “this one will feel like a slow hand shake,” and so on, and so on, ‘til her pen ran out of ink and she hoped they would be discovered by people who had also lost their way home.”

15th September 2014 – Helena Waldron

“Can you tell me about your veggie burger?” asks the lady in the diner.

She is ordering for her 3 year old, who is otherwise preoccupied, pouring the contents of his water glass over the napkin dispenser.

“Umm,” replies the server, “it’s just like a regular veggie burger. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

(This, it should be noted, in cities less progressive than Portland, Oregon, would be considered a perfectly adequate response). The woman orders sweet potato fries with ranch dressing, on the side.”

“Inside the Museums” – An Afternoon in Hibbing, Minnesota

This morning I had toast for breakfast. I wrote for an hour, thought about packing my suitcase, didn’t bother and then Don picked me up and we drove to Hibbing, Minnesota to see where Bob Dylan grew up.

For the longest time Hibbing has been a holy place to me, like Mecca, Lourdes and Disneyland all rolled into one. There are only so many books about Bob Dylan you can read, ( and i’ve read a lot, somewhere between 40 and 50 at last count), before you start obsessing about what it would be like to see the place where he grew up firsthand. This afternoon I had the chance to actually visit some of the places I’ve only ever read about before, and I am still reeling from the experience. I’m very grateful to my tour guide Don, who not only drove me to Hibbing but also guided me round town, gave me a little background on the iron range, (where he himself grew up), and also fuelled me with French Toast for the journey.

Hibbing is a small town in Minnesota, situated on the iron range around 90 minutes North of Duluth. It has a population of about 16,000 and, though current mining practices may be slowly shifting, the demographic, has traditionally been home to the folks who make a living off iron ore mining. Bob Dylan, (or Bobby Zimmerman as he was back then), moved to Hibbing from Duluth at the age of six. Mr Zimmerman senior had contracted polio and, no longer capable of continuing in his line of work took a job in the family electrical equipment business situated in downtown Hibbing. Long before the Zimmerman exodus Hibbing had made its own difficult journey from one side of the city limits to the other. In 1917, having discovered a rich iron seam beneath the actual town, a local mining company convinced the residents to take up their houses and businesses and shift several miles sideways so the iron might be extracted from beneath their basements. The locals were to be generously compensated for their inconvenience with the construction of a High School to end all High Schools, a palace of learning unlike any other in the whole state.

 

Our adventure today began inside Hibbing High the school which Bob attended for much of his teenage life. It’s an imposing building from the outside and from inside is nothing short of magnificent. We checked in with the school office, got our hall passes and were free to explore the building for almost an hour. The auditorium at the heart of the school building is actually a concert hall to rival any turn of the century performance space I’ve seen in my years working at the Ulster Hall. It seats almost 2,000 people, has genuine Austrian-made chandeliers and the most beautiful ceiling art and fittings I’ve ever seen in a school environment.

 

The students who were about to take to the stage for a drama rehearsal were extremely welcoming and a very friendly and well-informed young tour guide in training, named Madi gave me a great tour of the space, particularly pointing out the various haunted parts of the auditorium. In the library, (which is also an incredibly impressive space), a lovely librarian was kind enough to get the Dylan year books out and let us flick through and I discovered that Bob had been a somewhat unlikely member of the Latin club.  The best past of visiting Hibbing High, however, was being allowed to stand on the auditorium stage, right in the spot where Bob infamously shocked teachers and pupils alike with a very progressive performance on the school piano during the annual talent show. I hadn’t even expected to get inside the building and to be given such a warm welcome by students and staff members who are clearly just as passionate about their beautiful building as we are about the Ulster Hall, made for an incredibly memorable day.

 

After school we took a quick tour around the town of Hibbing, visiting iconic buildings such as the hotel where Bob’s Bar Mitzvah was held, the spot where Bob and his girlfriend, (the fabulously named Echo Helstrom), had their first date and of course, the Zimmerman home where Bob spent most of his formative years. I’m so glad I got to visit Hibbing. Many of the Dylan books wrongly paint it as a bleak and almost depressing place to grow up. It definitely is quite isolated. When you consider just how far you’d need to travel to get to the next big city you can understand why a young Bob, hungry for music, art and culture, might have been frustrated in Hibbing. However, it’s also a beautiful example of small town America. It felt like a friendly kind of place to live with a real sense of community. The neighbourhoods are, for the most part, populated with exactly the kind of green lawn and picket fence houses you’d expect in a small, family-centric town. On the main street, though most have now closed down or changed hands, you can still see the buildings which housed family businesses, small cafes and shops back in the 1950s. It was a beautiful Fall day today and I can only imagine that the town might have looked a little different under several feet of snow but I’m so glad I had the opportunity to visit Hibbing and get a more accurate picture of where Bob Dylan began.

On The Road (The Bits Kerouac Doesn’t Mention)

I’ve been on the road, traveling round America for a month tomorrow. I can’t believe the time has gone so quickly and yet when I think back over all the people I’ve met, the places I’ve read and the cheeseburgers I’ve eaten I can definitely account for every one of those thirty days. I thought there’d be lows. There have actually been no lows. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every second of this adventure and can’t wait for the next seventeen days but I’ve definitely learnt a few harsh realities which will make me a little kinder to the next touring rock band I cross paths with. The road can be a harsh place. Here’s what I’ve learnt about the transient life so far.

You will develop a love hate relationship with the limited wardrobe you’re carrying around with you. You will tire of every single thing in your suitcase. You will find yourself pairing together increasingly eclectic items out of sheer boredom. You will wake up each morning and sniff your clothes trying to tell the difference between something already worn and something which has taken on the distinctive aroma of airplane cargo hold. You will, for the first time in your life, faced with one month old suitcase crinkles, lament your lack of a travel iron. You will dream, in glorious, detailed technicolour of the clothes waiting for you in your wardrobe at home and curse that one stupid jacket you’ve carried half way round the world only to realise it only goes with that one other item in your wardrobe. You will wish you brought a belt.
Your first thought upon entering each new building, no matter how unlikely, will be, where can I find working wifi?
You will, with some embarrassment, begin to experience a brief 30 second time-lapse between looking at your host or hostess’s face and recalling their name. During this half minute or so, your mind will skip frantically through various Facebook profile pictures, like some demented version of Who’s Who? as you try to connect a name to the face of one of the twenty something individual persons who have lately offered you a bed and a selection of guest towels.
You will wake in the night and, confused, step out the wrong side of the bed and crown yourself against a wall/bedside table/giant flat screen television.
You will tire of Starbucks’ pastry selection and finally admit that this is no fit substitute for a proper breakfast.
You will fear stairs in public transport facilities like you fear Hell itself and all its fiery repercussions. You will wake in the night sweating over a premonition of yourself lugging, two suitcases, twenty nine paperback novels, a backpack and various holiday souvenirs from one side of the New York subway system to the other.
You will say to yourself each morning, “today I will eat only salad and apples,” and by lunchtime have succumbed to yet another tempting cheeseburger and subsequently console yourself with the mistaken belief that a burger pickle should count as one of your five a day and strawberry milkshake is the same as actual strawberries.
You will grow accustomed to the peculiar stench of the Greyhound bus. You will even be able to consume food in its caustic presence.
You will stop viewing old ladies who wear kaftans and sit next to you in coffee shops, talking for up to forty five minutes, uninterrupted about their wasted youth in Greenwich Village as quaint and intriguing. You will refrain from asking them about the Chelsea Hotel and Washington Square and Mr Dylan. You will begin to see them as ten a penny distractions from the novel you are trying, unsuccessfully to write, in public spaces.
You will think about all those episodes of Casualty and Holby and various ITV3 crime dramas which have screened in your absence. You will feel actual physical loss, like a death in the family and curse those chosen few who’ve seen things you will never see, (even on Iplayer).

Portland Postcard Stories- Part One

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10th September 2014 – Anne Weinhold

“On the corner of 12th and Burnside he found a miniature city, no bigger than a nickel. He picked it up, and holding it close to his face, recognized Portland in the tiny details. The smell of hemp and damp wool was pervasive. He placed the miniature city in his pocket and forgot about it for almost a month. Four weeks of movement had snapped the Burnside Bridge in two, erased the Willamette, ground each individual cyclist down to dust and good intentions. Miniature Portland was indistinguishable from every other miniature American city.”

11th September 2014 – Michael Nolan

“There were no seats left so she stood and in standing found herself angled over a young man’s shoulder, able to read, as he read, the first few pages of Catch 22. She noted the way he’d underlined several sentences in red; a section he wished to understand and, as yet, didn’t. The sense in her, a measured Northern shrug, knew to hold her tongue, understanding that some truths could not be explained, only journeyed on trains and airplanes and, occasionally, downtown buses.”

12th September 2014 – Amberlea Neely

“Jan and Marge have found each other on the Greyhound from Portland to Spokane, Washington. They swap seats to sit next to one another. They are ladies of a certain age. Jan has recently vacationed in Hawaii; Marge, in Monterey, California. Jan has 9 grandchildren; Marge, a mere 7. Both have recently lost their mothers. They knit as they talk and, by the time they reach Hood River, are tangled together, incapable of picking Jan’s sweet threads from Marge’s.”

13th September 2014 – Orla McAdam

“There were four hens in the coop: one white, one brown, and two mottled black and white like zebras blurring behind the fog. The hen with the crazy hair was named Dorothy after her late mother, who, in her final years had struggled to see the point in forcing her fine-toothed comb, reluctant as it was, from forehead to scalp, to the base of her neck, where the hair had grown thin and whispery as cotton candy. The hens rarely laid though she checked for eggs each morning, slipping her indoor shoes on the doorstep to walk barefoot across the sprinklered lawns. Eggs, she reminded herself, were not the only reasons for keeping hens.”

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Madison, Wisconsin

I approached and passed the half way point of this incredible seven week adventure in Madison, Wisconsin. The Midwest proved to be the perfect place to rest, recuperate and gather my resolve for the second half of the journey. For me, the Midwest has always been the comfortable old sweater of America. It’s so like Northern Ireland; so well-churched, so farm-based, so small-town-thinking, it’s nothing short of a home away from home for the travelling Ulster woman. After four full weeks on the road it’s impossible to explain how deeply comforting it was to slip into a familiar way of living and feel like I actually spoke the local cultural lingo, (albeit pronounced, in these parts, with a little more nasal intonation than I’m used to).

Familiarity begins with food. There is a lot of cheese here. The locals are almost as passionate about cheddar as the good folks of Coleraine. Wisconsin runs on cheese and, after less than twenty four hours in town, I found myself in the cheesy heart of America at the annual Monroe Cheese Festival and Parade. I thought we did parades in Northern Ireland. I now stand corrected. Perhaps if we could get over our political differences, instead of shouty parades and disputes over traditional routes we could unite both sides of the Northern Irish divide and have one grand parade celebrating something we actually agree on, like cheese for example, or potato bread. We could, like Monroe, invite every small business, every school, church, charity and affiliated organisation to march round town for up to four hours doing back flips and throwing Tootsie Rolls at the expectant crowds who’ve lined the streets on deck chairs and fishing stools. Monroe, should be offered as an example to all parade-plagued towns, of how marching should actually be done. Over the course of a single weekend each year almost half a million cheese obsessives descend upon this small town in rural, Wisconsin. They eat every variety of cheese known to man and a fair few peculiarities known only to  die hard Midwestern cheesemongers: chocolate dipped cheese, garlic bread cheese and cheese curds which are these strange little nuggets of rubbery leftover cheese which squeak with pleasure every time you sink your teeth in. They cheer the bands, drink beer and, at the end of the weekend, return to their towns and villages, happy, peaceful and so full of cheese they’ll be constipated for at least a week. Surely this is the future of parading.

Familiarity also extends to people and it was such a treat and blessing to spend some quality time with Noah, Katie, Hudson, (who has recently grown into his wonderful Wisconsin accent) and little Charlie whom I’d never met before. Hospitality has been the thread sewing this whole trip together and i’ve been overwhelmed by how old friends and new friends have generously opened up their lives to share their homes, friends and time with me on my travels. Hudson even shared his bunk bed and whilst he was somewhat concerned that i’d break it, I’m happy to report that I didn’t and actually managed to get a ton of writing completed whilst curled up on his bottom bunk. I also received an incredibly warm welcome at Mystery to Me, a fantastic book store, independently owned by a lovely lady called Joanne. Though the crowd was small, I think this might have been my favourite reading of the tour so far as Joanne’s warm hospitality encouraged people to linger after the reading swapping stories and book recommendations and it was great to actually meet some listeners. We’re so spoilt in Belfast to have No Alibis, (a book store which is much more than a book store to so many people), and it was fabulous to stumble upon another similar treasure in Madison.

I left Wisconsin, well rested on a Greyhound bus. This city has been exceptionally kind to me and I could have stayed so much longer. It was an uncharacteristically warm September and the corn fields were still golden as I pulled out of town, the leaves on the trees just beginning to fold into autumnal shades. I suspect this little part of the world would be absolutely stunning when it finally committed to Fall. I have every intention of returning to find out.

Inside Bob Dylan’s House, or Jan Carson’s 115th Dream, or Disneyland Substitutes For Over-Read, White, Middle Class, Girls Of A Certain Age

Today around twenty percent of my dreams came true. It would be ridiculous to say all my dreams came true as I’m only thirty four and fully intend to invent new things to aspire to every year for at least another half decade. However, in the grand scheme of things, today was still pretty monumental.

The day started out reasonably well. I slept in, ate some toast, finally finished a short story for the Sunday Times epic, £30,000 winning short story prize, drank some pretty great coffee at the Duluth Coffee Company, sat on the beach in the sunshine, reading Garrison Keillor and drinking a hot fudge, cookie dough malt, (has to be sampled to be believed). I had a lovely chat with a native American lady who was also enjoying an ice cream on the beach. It was her birthday. She said sweet and encouraging things to me as we waited in line for our ice creams. I thought the day had given me all it had to offer and I wasn’t even disappointed.

Then I met John. John has been hosting a Dylan-themed radio show on a local Duluth radio station for over twenty three years, (he has yet to run out of music). John has a masters degree in picking locks and is both an incredible magician, (as demonstrated at the dining table), an escape artist and a worldwide expert on Houdini. Finally, and perhaps most marvellously of all, John is also a fourth grade teacher. It was suggested several times this evening, that perhaps I should quit writing my book about Bob and switch topics to John who, it has to be agreed, has had a life to envy the great man himself. John had managed to convince five fellow Dylanophiles, (some of the Duluthites responsible for the annual Dylan Days festival), to meet me for a meal in a local brewhouse.

Amongst the group was Susan, a thoroughly lovely lady who had been in the same High School class as Bob, knew his first girlfriend, (the wonderfully named Echo Hellstrom), and had been present at the infamous High school talent show when a young Bob’s interpretation of a piano recital was a little too rock n’ roll modern for the officiating principal. Susan’s late husband was also the promoter who organised the now infamous Buddy Holly concert in Duluth just a few days before the singer’s tragic death. Many Dylan scholars claim this concert to have been the moment when Bob first saw his future in music as a possibility worth pursuing. Susan was a wonderful woman to talk to, full of anecdotes and stories from her happy childhood days in Hibbing. It was an incredible treat to meet someone who’d actually known Bob way back in his Zimmerman days.

I also had the good fortune to spend some time with Bill. Bill owns one of the largest collections of Dylan memorabilia in the world. He has an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of Dylan dates and facts and is in the process of faithfully restoring Bob’s childhood home in Duluth. This, it should be noted, is no mean feat. For years the house has been in the hands of tenants and landlords unaware of its incredible significance and was badly neglected when it came into Bill’s ownership.

I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited about entering a house, (not even my own first purchase in East Belfast), as I was tonight, entering the unassuming, little white house by the right door, walking up those curling steps and arriving in the tiny first floor apartment where Bob spent his first six years. I saw Dylan’s bathtub, the box room he would come to share with his baby brother, his old-fashioned high chair and perhaps, most poignantly of all the tiny mezuzah which the Zimmermans had fixed to the doorpost leading down to their basement, now painted over with layer upon layer of gloss paint. I stood on the porch outside the family’s living room and even in the dark could make out the hospital where Bob was born and the great, glum grayness of Lake Superior, dozing darkly through the Autumn night.

And I thought, this is one of those rare moments when I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be. And I also wondered, why are these people being so incredibly kind and generous with their stories and their precious things? And I decided that even if the rest of this trip is thoroughly unremarkable and I don’t sell a single book from here to New York, even if every plane is delayed and my passport gets stolen and I develop food poisoning in Philadelphia, I will still have stood on Bob Dylan’s porch and everything will have been utterly worthwhile for this one lifetime moment.

Why I Am Never Getting A Kindle

Today seems just as good a day as any to set out, my not particularly intellectual, reasons for not owning a Kindle, (or any other electronic pseudo-book device). I am currently on a Greyhound bus travelling towards Duluth, Minnesota at a reasonable clip. I have been on this bus (with a drunk shouty lady and an Asian man who claps in swimming goggles and the upper section of a tuxedo), for eight hours and fifteen minutes. I have around ninety more minutes to endure before I am permitted to leave this bus. I have not been able to feel my own legs since the parking lot of MacDonald’s on the outskirts of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Yes, the seats are reasonably cramped on a Greyhound and yes, I do have burly Americans reclining in front and behind me. However, the main reason for my current discomfort is the twenty nine paperback novels I am currently hauling in boxes and backpacks and low-hanging satchels, (like some kind of literary version of Buckaroo), all around North America.

I have been told that in order to make the Kindle an environmentally worthwhile purchase, more meaningful than say, buying your books from an independent bookstore, you need to read an average of twenty seven books per year. Most people don’t even read seven books per year. I have twenty nine strapped to me right now. You’d think I might be tempted by a Kindle. Add to this the fact that the fifteen copies of Malcolm Orange Disappears I’m transporting to Duluth in an unmarked, cardboard box, have just created a security breach in Minneapolis bus station where I stumbled out of the Greyhound in search of vending machine Doritos only to find three uniformed men poking at my books with gloved fingers and threatening to, “rip it apart.” You’d think after this, and the embarrassment of trying to coerce an average-sized bookcase into an overhead locker on  many many airplanes, both domestic and international, or up several flights of stairs on the underground or into the pocket-sized trunk of the benevolent mini cooper driver who offered me a ride to the train station; you’d think I might concede to buying a Kindle, if only for travelling.

But no! I refuse. Electronic books are not books to me. They don’t smell like the fiction room at Powell’s. They don’t dog ear. They don’t keep fantastic independent bookstores like Mystery to Me in Madison, Wisconsin, (where I read last night), alive and flicking from one story to the next. They can’t be lent or swapped. They refuse to fall into alphabetical order on my bookshelf. They don’t grow old and familiar like friends you’ve known since High school and drop in on every so often. They simply are not bookish enough for me. And so I will continue to haul my paperback treasury around America. I will slip a disk and sacrifice shoes at the check in desk before I leave a single book behind. And when I get back to East Belfast, and arrange my new books, (all forty two of them for I feel like New York will be where my buying resolves capitulates entirely), in alphabetical order, across my living room walls they will be clear and present for as long as I want them to be and not just ’til the battery runs out. And no matter how much my shoulders hurt and my legs cramp I will be glad, like all those American actors in Saving Private Ryan, that I did not leave a single man behind.

Postcard Stories – Los Angeles

6th September – Heather Thomas

“On the morning after his birthday he woke suddenly, thick with the first ambitious thought of his entire life. Beginning in the South of the city he would proceed North eating breakfast, lunch and evening meal in a different restaurant every day until there was not an eatery in Los Angeles left unsampled. This would be a simple dream, precisely executed. It was only on the evening of his 75th as he ordered pineapple rice from a Thai waitress on the corner of 29th that he realized this, and other unknown ambitions, would never be fulfilled. And he wished to begin again, earlier, with a young man’s appetite.”

7th September – Heather Wilson

“At cruising altitude LA is a continent stretching from one side of the wing tip to the other and long beyond. 6 million people live here in cars and one storey houses with swimming pools. The woman in the seat behind me is talking to her cellular phone, ordering two dozen pumpkin iced cookies. Her name is Ruth Lowe. She will pick them up at 2pm. I look out the window and worry for. “Needle in a haystack,” I think, “24 cup-sized cookies in a kingdom of fresh-baked goods.” How could she be anything but lost down there.”

8th September – Karen Kelly 

“On her last day in Los Angeles it rained. The ground, unaccustomed to anything wetter than a gentle sweat was a hard act to follow. On the freeways and concrete flyovers the raining water pooled and curdled in oily sheets. Most people did not own umbrellas and consequently drenched. And while this did not ruin everything she had to admit it was harder to have faith in a damp cactus, almost impossible to believe the Hollywood sign was still there, holy and hidden behind three miles of Northern drizzle.”

Over the Border

And onwards to my fifth city on this whistlestop tour of North America. On Tuesday afternoon I caught the train from Union Station, Portland, through Seattle and over the border to Vancouver, Canada. Despite the fact that this trip sliced nine precious hours, (pretty much a whole day), off my trip, it was completely worth it just to watch the sun dipping down over the Puget Sound as the train crept up the Pacific North West Coastline. Besides, trains in America are reliable and luxurious in a fashion far removed from the Translink Belfast to Ballymena service.

My host in Vancouver was the lovely Melanie Brown and we stayed in the UBC campus area of the city, landing in the middle of what I can only presume to have been Fresher’s Week, so everything within a ten block radius of the university felt a little like stumbling unto the Saved by the Bell set. Mel is currently studying theology at Regent College and the fine folk there graciously hosted a reading of Malcolm Orange Disappears on Thursday evening. There is, I soon discovered, nothing quite like a Q and A with theology students to make you wonder what exactly you meant when you were writing a story. At the end of the evening I left with several new theories about my own book and a desire to dive back into my old theology books. Sometimes it’s great to be stretched with questions which don’t circle round the habitual themes of writing habits and influences.

Vancouver is possibly the only city in the world where it rains just as much as Belfast and perhaps because of this, the people are a similar breed; stoic, friendly, inclined to administer warm hospitality in order to combat the nullifying effects of almost constant drizzle. I had wonderful meals and conversations with old friends and new, incredible hospitality, (I honestly think, short of offering one of their own kidneys, the people of Vancouver could not have been more kind or generous), and quiet moments with good coffee where I was able to get back on top of my writing schedule, (finishing up Roundabouts seems to have been taking something of a backseat to being social recently).

I had the brunch of my life with Wendy Bateman, (breakfast paella, please hold me to the fact that I intend to recreate this when I get back to Belfast), sat inside the most beautiful art installation I’ve ever seen at Vancouver art museum, (a room with a thunder, lightning and rain storm trapped inside it), pretended to be a millionaire home buyer at a swanky real estate party and stumbled upon a library sale where I got to snap up some fifty cent book bargains for the road. Vancouver is the kind of city I could actually see myself living in and I really hope to return there very soon. That’s me done with the West Coast now. I’m heading inland towards the Midwest and looking forward to updating you from the US side of the border next time.

On Missing Culture Night

So, I have to be honest. I’m not the biggest fan of Culture Night. It’s not Belfast. It’s me. I’m a quietish sort of person who tends to like their art reserved and introspective; ideally whilst sitting on a comfortable chair. Culture Night has always been a bit of a stretch for me. It’s noisy. It’s spontaneous. It’s so packed to the gills with people that the average Belfast resident will struggle to make it from one end of the Cathedral Quarter to the other without encountering around half a million familiar faces. There are drums and fire jugglers and sometimes I feel a little like everything is happening all at once, right in my face. Culture Night has always been a shock to my measured little soul, and yet it’s a shock I’ve come to value and look forward to every September. Adam and the team behind Culture Night have done such an amazing job of pushing our city to the absolute limits of its creative potential and showcasing not only some of the best artist and cultural organisations who operate in Belfast, but also highlighting Belfast people as the most warm, imaginative and enthusiastic folk in the world. Culture Night is a celebration of all that is best about our city. It’s been incredible to watch it grow and develop across the last few years, to programme events and get the most out of the evening, albeit usually the quieter corners.

Last night I wasn’t at Culture Night for the first time in as long as I can remember. I was in Vancouver, Canada eating some of the best Chinese food I’ve ever had, awkwardly, with chopsticks, (it was the kind of restaurant where you had to wonder if forks were even available on the premises and how much dumpling you’d have to drop on the floor before it outweighed the shame of asking for something as philistine as a fork). It was a great night. The food was immense, the conversation even better. And yet as I ate, and ate, and continued to eat until we actually closed down the restaurant, my heart wasn’t in Vancouver. It was in Belfast with the thousands of people swarming round the city centre.

I’ve been on the road for almost three weeks now. I’ve met some amazing people; some fantastic artists and creative thinkers; a collection of the most hospitable people in North America; but I’ve yet to meet a community of artists whom I love and admire as much as the good folks of Belfast. Familiarity is supposed to breed contempt and yet after almost five years programming and creating in Belfast I am just as inspired, enthused and graciously supported by the people who keep our arts and cultural sector trundling along, as I was when I first arrived back in the city.

Belfast’s not perfect of course. We’ve a long road ahead of us if our artists and arts programme is to reach its full potential and become sustainable. I’d love to see Belfast synonymous worldwide with good art and imaginative thinking rather than some of the more negative attributes we’ve been known for in the past and whilst we’re definitely moving forwards rather than backwards in this arena, there’s much hard, hard work to be done. Money is tight, resources are stretched, prevailing attitudes towards the arts can often seem like they’ve become lodged firmly somewhere in the early 60s. It would be easy to give up or give in to crass cynicism and yet, every September, during Culture Night, I’m reminded of just how far we’ve come in such a short time. The little part of me that has become worn down by all the red tape and those infuriating naysayers who circle round the edge of our community is invigorated, enthused, given a timely kick up the backside. Good things are happening in Belfast and there are more good things to come.

So, I’m missing Culture Night tonight and this makes me a little homesick. But on the other side of the world I am quietly proud of everyone who turned out and made magic happen on our streets and in our venues. And, as I travel around America, I am preaching the good gospel of our artists, our cultural organisations, our imagineers and enthusiastic attenders who are pushing, dragging, coercing and carrying Belfast, bravely into its next season. Well done all, keep the good work going and maybe tonight put your feet up, have a glass of wine and enjoy a well-deserved rest.

(*this is my sad, missing Culture Night face. Am also sad because it’s raining in Vancouver and I hear the weather is actually glorious in the homeland).