You’re a good friend, Joe Black

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/02/2012 (5159 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Most think writers draw inspiration from the new, the unexpected, the never-seen-before.

Not me. Mystery is easy. I want the familiar.

This is why my favourite spot in Winnipeg is the building at 2037 Portage Avenue. Today it’s called Joe Black Coffee Bar. Before this, it’s been other coffee spots and even a bike shop. I hope this version sticks. It’s locally owned by four Winnipeggers, the staff is great (Nancy is a joy), and the coffee is the best in town.

You know it. Over the footbridge from Assiniboine Park, it’s where you stop for a drink instead of ice cream. Where you sit on the patio in the summer, warm up in the winter, sip a beverage or look out on the Assiniboine River. As a kid, I used to sit on the front pavement during Canada Day and watch the fireworks. Now my daughter does.

I come here to re-create. I don’t craft first drafts here, nor experiment with new styles or projects. I never invent new worlds here, I revisit where I’ve been.

It’s where I grapple with the hardest duty of a writer’s life: editing. Writing is easy. Rebuilding and remaking are what make good writing great.

I face the windows — the best part of the building. They’re like great big murals of the outside world, living paintings of a world on the move. I see the stress and struggle of communities and cars enveloped by hundreds of trees. Overlooking this, a glass tower in the park keeps watch.

It’s weird. Nothing I see is new, but I watch anyway as the people and landscape ebb and flow before my eyes.

I see a couple holding hands in that new-love way; a car accident; a lost dog; a sleepy father pushing a stroller. Just like the river in the backdrop, stories float in and out of my view as the afternoon wears on.

In a world forever moving, I sit in my quiet front row seat to witness it.

Here, I wrestle with sentences, blow them up and reconstruct paragraphs word by word. I take blurry images and push them into high definition. I sand ideas until they are condensed, compact, and clear. I finish pieces — like this one.

I redefine myself.

For no matter the different sights, smells, and names, here is where I rediscover the known. Where I draw inspiration and write myself into life. Miigwech.

Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair is Anishinabe, a faculty member at the University of Manitoba, and co-editor of Manitowapow: Aboriginal Writings from the Land of Water — now available from Highwater Press.