A density of sentences

Anyway, routine returns.

Every day I read one book of poetry and one novel to be recharged by a density of sentences. I stretch and strength-train and walk for two hours a day so I can sit at my desk again for long periods of time.

Light and Thread, by Han Kang, is a short book of nonfiction that includes her Nobel lecture, as well as poems, images, reflections, and journal entries — meditations on writing, on living while writing, or not writing. (The spareness of it calls to mind The White Book.) 

For someone familiar with Kang's novels, these snippets speak to how she fully embodies her writing: she researches deeply, thinks deeply, feels deeply. 

My favourite section is "North-Facing Garden," in which Kang describes her plot of land, and the subsequent journal documenting her struggle with to plant up and maintain a garden 180 centimetres long by 40 centimetres wide. 

The biggest challenge is to maximize light — she uses mirrors to ensure the light falls on all sides equally.

While in itself the garden diary is not of great literary value, it manifests practicality and calm. Every aspect reflects an author who acts with mindfulness and intention.

I am inspired to tend my own garden — observe it, document it, learn how to nurture it. I've had four years here to begin to know the rhythm of the light, and watch how the snails, birds, squirrels move through this patch of the ruelle verte. The construction next door will be complete this summer, and then the vehicles and debris will be cleared out. I'll take stock: one lilac tree destroyed, but one left standing; a raspberry bush trampled; I'll cut back the grape vine. And then, then I can sow the seeds of what is yet to bloom.

Excerpt

No matter how small a garden, it's still a garden, so it will require a good deal of tending.