Email regret, Faha rain, and my friendships with Ed and Niall.
I got an email from Ed Pyle this morning. It arrived with perfect timing and placement, in the middle of my stack of electronic junk mail just as I was settling in with my sunrise coffee. Ed’s note rescued me from the spam before my mind got busy with to-do lists, before the day got cluttered.
Ed rarely sends me emails and his subject heading was everything a good headline should be, curious and intriguing: “Email and THE book”, it read. Otherwise, the message content was just a link with no greeting, no explanation, and no signature.
Wary 21st-century cyber sleuth that I am I was suspicious that it might be a phishing lure and not a note from my friend. Knowing better than to click on unexpected links I followed the clue visible in the URL to a thoughtful New York Times article by best-selling author Ann Patchett.
Here it is: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/15/opinion/ann-patchett-regret-email.html
Sadly the Times has a paywall so I’ll give you a summary in case you don’t have or want a subscription.
Patchett was asked to admit a single regret and she thought long and hard before deciding her greatest regret in the past 30 years is email. Her explanation cited my favorite book This Is Happiness by Irish novelist Niall Williams.
“As though an infinite store had been discovered, more and more stars kept appearing,” Noe says about the nights in Faha. “The sky grew immense. Although you couldn’t see it, you could smell the sea.”
That’s the way it was in Provincetown, the way it was in Ireland, and I’m sure that’s the way it is now, except that if I were now in Provincetown or Ireland on a clear night, I’d probably be at my computer checking my email. I love email, and I hate email.
Our modern toys and magical conveniences have ensnared us. That’s Patchett’s point and the understated subplot of This Is Happiness. Ed Pyle sent me a pristine hardbound first edition when it came out a few years ago and we are both still enchanted by it.
…unashamed romance for a nostalgic tradition of storytelling, where exaggeration and eye twinkles might in fact just bring you closer to the truth. Sublime.’
—Hilary White, IRISH INDEPENDENT
Ed was my boss before he became my friend. It wasn’t until a few years after we parted daily company in a radio station newsroom that we began swapping notes on Facebook. They led to mutual affection for our shared sense of humor and search for insight.
This Is Happiness satisfied my hunger but it also made me crave more of Williams’ unhurried talent for meandering through a story without jolts and flashes of overwrought drama. His stories don’t grab you, they seep in like a soft nourishing Irish rain. I quickly read everything Niall Williams has ever written and fell in love with the writer and maybe the man himself.
Then I took an online fiction writing class from Niall, a weekly meeting inside his Kiltumper home via real-time face-to-face encounters with the author and some ten or twelve other students. He taught us to write by writing. We read our work to the class and Niall shared with us his wisdom.
That was happiness.
The brevity of Ed’s email and the terms of Patchett’s regret made me realize I need to spend more time reaching out to friends in person when possible or by phone and less often by computer. I am vowing to use text messaging only for “Yes,” “No,” and “Can I call you?” And while I love nothing more than sitting at my keyboard, spilling my thoughts as I feed my mind, I will save time every day for engaging the world outside. I will continue to talk with my prized hibiscus. Dog walkers will get a wave and a greeting from me. Conversations will be ignited and strangers will become rewarding acquaintances.
Some may even become cherished friends like Ed, Niall, and me.