There was only one place Samra Habib could write her memoir: the home where she came into queerness
To tell her story, she had to embrace feeling truly alone in her writing space
Leading up to Canada Reads, CBC Arts is bringing you daily essays about where this year's authors write. This edition features We Have Always Been Here author Samra Habib.
One of the many James Baldwin quotes I love is, "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." Before I set out to write my memoir, I knew there was a lot I had to face. But I knew the payoff would be worth it. I would come out of the process having a better understanding of what I had been carrying with me, psychologically. I would be able to move on and become someone I would be proud of. Writing is the process through which I examine the world I live in. Now was the time to examine myself.
The place where I was able to reflect on my life was the apartment I lived in for most of my 30s, the very place where I came into my queerness. It protected me as I loved and healed. The apartment had a chalkboard wall that I would periodically gaze at as I wrote the book. On it were love notes from friends and ex-lovers who were just passing through. Some I even wrote about in the book.
I lined the living room with Post-it notes for each chapter. Sometimes I would shift the notes around, moving them to another chapter, and sometimes I would get rid of them altogether. When my editor David asked me if I had been thinking about what the name of the book could be, I stared at a Post-it note with We Have Always Been Here for a week. When it continued to feel right on day eight, I sent the title to David. I was delighted to learn that he felt as connected to it as I did.
I'm always in awe of people who can write in public spaces, since I find even the sound of my own typing distracting. That's when earphones came in handy. I need complete silence in order to process my thoughts through my writing. Writing the book has solidified my belief that I'm really only my best from 5am to noon. There's something so spiritual about writing and thinking when the entire world is asleep. Sometimes, when it was really quiet, I would hear the sounds of waves from the nearby Lake Ontario.
I truly felt alone, and I wanted it that way. I stopped seeing my friends and working full-time so that writing the book would be my only priority. My girlfriend often jokes how in those early days of our relationship, I had advised her to not text me a lot. Although that probably sounded harsh, the truth is, I couldn't have participated in the amount of texting expected from modern courtship. The only words I could conceive of typing were for my book that was due to be delivered to Penguin Random House in six months.
Originally, my desk faced the window. When the sunny weather became too distracting as I became confined to my apartment, I moved my desk to face the wall of Post-its. I wanted to be reminded of the bigger picture every day. Missing out on summer was a small price to pay for writing the book I had always wanted to read.
On my desk were objects that would help me when I got stuck: a half-used bottle of jasmine oil my father would dab on his wrists in Pakistan every Friday before prayer, childhood pictures and books that made me fall in love with writing over and over again. Books by James Baldwin, Durga Chew-Bose and Hilton Als were constant companions.
The month the book came out, I moved out of the one-bedroom apartment that supported my bachelor lifestyle and moved in with my girlfriend and her two cats. The leaving felt symbolic, as if I was ready to move on spiritually and psychologically. I was ready to experience the new requirements of a monogamous lesbian partnership. I wanted someone to answer to, someone to be accountable for. My old apartment had started to feel like an old friend I had outgrown; I barely recognized her. In this new home, I welcomed the new person I came to be as a result of confronting my old self.
