An Open Letter to the Hummingbird Doctor

Dear Jasḵwaan, When I listened to Chief 7idansuu, James Hart, speak last year at the Audain Art Museum, he said that sometimes carvers on Haida Gwaii, himself included, work into the early hours of the morning, or sometimes all night. This was a rich image for a writer. I imagined these men and women with their tools, carving into the red cedar, the sound of sculpting wood; the smell of the carpet of wood chips accumulating beneath their feet, a dark black sky, maybe even a howling cold wind or ocean breeze. I know that Franz Kafka wrote late into the night, sometimes until morning. Massimo Recalcati offers another beautiful image. In a lecture on love, he tells the story of Jean-Paul Sartre walking through Paris at night, passing along the street where Albert Camus lived. Sartre would look up toward Camus's study from the street, to see whether the light was on. And when he saw the light shining through the window, he felt happiness. Recalcati describes what that light meant to…