"This hat is three years old..."

 

Sherlockians tend to wear a lot of hats within the Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle appreciation community. We volunteer, we step up, we care about people, places and things. I'm no exception, although I have cut my number of hats back in the last few years. Some hats are worn seemingly forever (Peter Blau and his monthly newsletter for 50+ years) and some only for a short time (me, writing a column for Sherlock's Spotlight Gazette for a year). My general rule of thumb is to volunteer for one year for any one specific task and then reassess year by year thereafter. Three years in any one role is generally my max. 

 

This month I am at a three year mark as co-editor for the ACD Society Terror of Blue John Gap annotation project. With the page ten annotations finished and coming to you soon, our project is exactly three years old and about half finished. Is it time for me to leave? The question has been twirling around in my brain since January. Am I going to continue wearing this hat?

When first approached by Ross Davies to co-edit (with the brilliant Nancy Holder) the very unusual project, I had to have a stern talk with myself about the ramifications of considering a seven-year run. It was hard to imagine staying in the work for seven years, despite the quality of the team members. Ross and Nancy are mega-quality teammates but my attention wanders and I don't want to find myself bored with something to the point I'm not producing my best work. If I find myself going through the motions, then I know it is time to get out of the way so someone with fresh ideas and energy can take my place. 

 

When looking back over the work we've done in the last three years, I see myself as having been somewhat as Watson described Holmes in "The Adventure of the Dancing Men":

Sometimes he was making progress, and whistled and sang at his work; sometimes he was puzzled and would sit for a long spell with a furrowed brow and a vacant eye.

The work has been interesting, fun and occasionally annoying. Every page of Doyle's manuscript has taught me something about his world and his writing. Working on the pages with a wide-range of annotators has taught me a great deal about how people work in our time and how we write today. We've worked with people that fascinate me and, in all honesty, we've had one or two who infuriated me a little. 

 

With humans being humans and the conditions in our world, I know I have to take a generous view with the people who volunteer for us. Most of the people we approach to write for the project say yes and then follow through. Now and again, one will say yes, and then forget about us entirely but it doesn't happen too often. A very, very small number never reply to our invitations at all. We are lucky. The rest of this year's work for the project is already in motion; we should finish this fourth year in a good way.  

 

I suppose in the process of writing these few paragraphs I've convinced myself to keep this hat. Perhaps ruminating here is a little like Sherlock Holmes talking to Watson:

 At least I have a grip of the essential facts of the case. I shall enumerate them to you, for nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person, and I can hardly expect your co-operation if I do not show you the position from which we start.

 

"To put colour and life into each of your statements..."

 

"You have erred, perhaps," he observed, taking up a glowing cinder with the tongs, and lighting with it the long cherrywood pipe which was wont to replace his clay when he was in a disputatious rather than a meditative mood - "you have erred, perhaps, in attempting to put colour and life into each of your statements, instead of confining yourself to the task of placing upon record that severe reasoning from cause to effect which is really the only notable feature about the thing."

I sat down at the desk tonight to write about the ending of the Kick starter for Sherlock Holmes Into the Fire. I wanted to talk about how much fun I've had working with the marvelous writers who contributed to the book. Even with my grumbling about the countless rounds of editing, I've had a good experience with this project. I wanted to talk about how grateful I am for the opportunity to celebrate some of the work of Arthur Conan Doyle, the Round the Fire collection, and some marvelous new stories written in homage to that collection. I wanted to talk about how grateful I am for the many people who supported us via the campaign. I know how incredibly lucky I am. I hoped to write something full of  "colour and life."

And while I know I feel all these things, I simply can't find it in myself to touch the joy tonight. I look at the state of our country and the world and my heart is heavy. I think I have to regroup. Perhaps in a few days I'll find my way back to writing about the every day things that are wonderful in my Doyle- and-Holmes-and-Watson-saturated life. 

At the opening of "The Man with the Twisted Lip", Watson writes about how he and his wife attempted to help Kate Whitney in her sadness about her husband, "We soothed and comforted her by such words as we could find." I need some comfort from Watson's words tonight. I'm going to turn off the electronics and read, read, read. Perhaps  "...the footprints of a gigantic hound" will help tonight, or maybe, "...a very seedy and disreputable hard felt hat, much the worse for wear, and cracked in several places." 

I'm not sure yet what I will read, but I know that sometimes Watson is the "...the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known." Sherlock Holmes can bugger off with his complaints about Watson's words. I like and need Watson's colour and life and comfort.