Luanne Armstrong is a multi-award-winning author. She has written twenty-five books and has co-written or edited many others. Her most recent memoir A Bright and Steady Flame, was published by Caitlin Press in 2018. Her new book of essays, Going to Ground came out in 2022.
In this meditative collection, Armstrong weaves together nature-inspired philosophy and social critique to help us make sense of living. Topics include complicated relationships between aging parents and their adult children, the changes brought about by climate change and technology, and the surprise of getting older.
Interview by Yvonne Blomer
Yvonne Blomer (YB): Luanne, Going to Ground is set on Kootenay Lake, on your family farm where you now live on your own. The book captures moments from your life including two car accidents which lead to chronic pain, an aging body, aging dog and cat, climate change, the slow degradation or reclamation of the family farm by the natural world, and many other things. Thank you, first of all, for this gorgeous book that is so full of pain, and longing, and distress and honesty. We will all age, no matter what else, unless we die young, and your losses and your deep engagement is truly felt.
Between the writing of the book and now, with climate change in mind, and especially while we are in the throes of the worst fire summer, I wonder if you have new insights into life on the land?
Luanne Armstrong (LA): People who are outside, actively working and living with land, tend to notice small important changes. Farmers who depend on the state of their land pay very close attention to weather.
I walk twice a day, every day, usually in familiar places. I walk slowly, study things, notice how the new trees are doing, when particular birds or animals arrive or leave, trees that have sprouted or died. This summer, the number of dying trees along the east shore of Kootenay Lake was particularly startling. Everyone I knew was on edge because of the possibility of fires. When the smoke came into this valley, the birds went silent, so not only was it hard to breathe but it was weirdly silent. So often, in the reporting of fires and weather, the lives of animals and the wreckage of ecological systems are never mentioned and yet they are so important.
YB: I know that your dog recently died, and I confess to liking the idea of you there with a dog rather than without. You speak of how animals come to you, has another dog come? You write, “A farm without a dog is a fool kind of place”.
LA: Yes, my beautiful Sable died. She was sixteen, she chased off her last bear and then came home and collapsed. When she stopped drinking water, I knew she was done and I sat with her as she died. What a mooch she was. She did the rounds of the neighbours at the farm every morning to get treats and pats. I still have a dog, a young dog, who is always with me, and upon whom I depend to tell me who is around, deer, bears, turkeys. I have always had a dog with me since I was five and for me, a dog is an extension of my eyes and ears and nose. Dogs are partners of farmers; they need to know their job and be trained properly, but if you pay attention, a dog will always tell you things you need to know.
YB: The essays in Going to Ground move around in time, encompass these late days on the land. Can you talk a little about how you wrote, folding so much in?
LA: I have always written in the midst of chaos and I have simply trained myself to keep writing whenever I could. I was a single parent mom with four kids, living in a trailer and growing a market garden when I began seriously writing, So I always had farm work, housework, and kids around. I would write in 20-minute increments when I was at the laundromat. These days, I have much more time and less chaos but I still have three writing groups to manage and an active editing practice. Writing just shows up when it’s time for it.
YB: Often you use “head on fire” to speak of varying emotions, such as anger, frustration, pain and inspiration as well as clarity, seeing and beauty. Can you speak a little more to the idea of “head on fire” and the varying ways you use it?
LA: The head on fire metaphor came from having a brain injury from a car accident, which resulted in incredibly painful headaches, but then it morphed into the feeling I have, usually when I am walking, when a word, an idea, a thought, a story, floats into my brain and I get excited about it. I actually planned out most of the ideas for Going to Ground during a two-hour drive to the hospital. Took another three years to write it though. Part of the recovery from the brain injury also involved very stormy moments when I was overcome with grief, or anger, or memories, or bitterness, but even these moments would be useful when I finally came out of them. They were odd and intense, like emotional seizures, and then they would let go, and I could think about what they had shown me and write it down.
YB: Can you speak a little about writing during pain and what writing does for body and mind in that negotiation of pain and distress? Touch on your notions of “the price of slow” and the “peace of slow”.
LA: My father taught me to work when I was five by giving me responsibility for caring for the chickens at the farm. I wanted to be just like him, so I pushed myself to keep up with him. I am definitely a workaholic but I love my work. So one of the ways of dealing with pain was to work long enough for the pain to become unbearable. Then I would either lie down for a couple of hours and read, or I would take the pain for a walk. My physiotherapist said that pain nerves were slower than movement nerves and that I could out walk pain. I could, but it would be waiting for me back at the house. But my mind kept showing me things to write so I kept writing. My cat showed me how to go for slow walks, I learned a lot from her. The peace of slow is just not having the pressure now, to go, go, go, when I wake up in the morning. I love slow mornings.