Writing and Not-Writing on the QE2

Here is Part III in my mid-ocean writing crisis. Click to Part I and then scroll forward in time to read from the beginning.


Heavy seas woke us in the night, the room swinging. In the morning: a touch of seasickness, a staggering sweaty moment in the stairwell on the way to breakfast. I bought a pair of those little wristbands that are supposed to help. They did.

Then to a lecture on Wales, the country that is the theme of this crossing. Welsh historian Dr. Geraint Jenkins talked about how the people of Wales were for years not allowed speak their own language: they had English forced on them, and then began to adopt that foreign language. And yet, he said, they remained themselves. "We have our own personality and our own character ...Wales has still clung on." The Welsh have begun to reclaim their language.

...Which surely is what I am doing in my writing. I'm troubled, though, that I don't seem to have any choice in the matter. It is happening, no matter what I do.



Captain on the loudspeaker: we've traveled 644 miles since yesterday, passing the southernmost limits of the ice fields. "The QE2 will be steaming safely clear of the ice throughout the afternoon."
On a tour of the ship's galley, I met a novelist who intends to finish his new book on this six-day voyage. Peter Joseph--dark, intense, with typed pages protruding from his hip pocket. His novel is about Matisse's crossing these same waters on the Mauretania, titled Matisse in Deep Water. The QE2 is rich with good details for his story. "Are you a Southerner?" he asked, as we compared book notes. "Your accent is smothered," he said, "but it's still there."