Time marches on, always, annoyingly, in the same direction. Winter is finally setting up camp, settling in for its months-long occupation. It seems unjust to complain - until this week things have been quite unseasonably gorgeous, for far longer than folks in this part of the world have any right to expect. Over a month ago, I recall, I was sitting in a Starbucks staring out over a parking lot, watching a dark, swirling spider-cloud loom over the city, dangling cold tentacles, lashing the afternoon shoppers with snow . I had just come back from the sun-drenched red-and-gold fall splendor of the east, and it felt, then, that I was already watching winter's armoured columns rolling in. It had been a good, long summer, but with a familiar, resigned sadness, we would have to hunker down, pull up our collars, and accept that it was over.

Its not so much winter, but the drab pre-winter that bugs me, like the drab post-winter that follows it - The time after the last sun-golden leaves have fluttered to the ground, the grass is dead, and nature starts to almost blend in with the concrete - before it all gets refinished in icy, sparkling white.

Now that it is truly here, I remember that winter has its beauty - A stark, sad beauty- one that mourns the loss of long, warm summer days and the fleeting colours of fall, a beauty that waits, filled with a quiet yearning for the renewed glories of spring.

Ghosts

I am in Kitchener for a DTS reunion. The “official” gatherings seem to be on the weekend, but in the meantime I have found a few faces from the past to revisit, and, thanks to my hostess’ acute sensibility to nostalgia, the reminiscing has begun. It’s strange. I feel detached from all this. I recognize familiar objects and faces, but…little remains of the base itself, in its place a slick, soulless condo development, the architectural equivalent of a smoking crater. The basic shape of the streets feels…familiar. The landscape is utterly transformed, yet it doesn’t feel like more than a decade since I was here. When I identify some old haunt, it seems perfectly ordinary, like the streets I walk everyday. People, too, have acquired lines on their faces, wives, husbands, babies, families. Yet, in some ways, it could seem like no time at all has passed. We are right back there, talking about the people, the place, that strange territory in time, space, and life that we mutually occupied thirteen years ago. In other ways, that once incredibly significant time seems perfectly unreal to me, as if unconnected, as if I am visiting places I’ve read about, meeting characters from a book. I suppose I must have mythologized these people, to some extent, yet so far, there have been few surprises. Few glaring discrepancies between the person in my memory and person as they now exist. The Characters are playing out their story arcs, and I recognize them instantly. And though I think I look different, and I FEEL very, very different, but they all recognize me. Thirteen years ago, at more or less this time of year, I was a gangly Nineteen-year old hopping off a bus in my thrift store leather jacket , lugging a battered guitar I couldn’t play. It’s funny. People keep bringing up their memories of those tumultuous months, and I remember it when they bring it up, but it still feels like all those things were experienced by someone else. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that I was THERE. That skinny blond kid in the pictures is me.

I couldn’t see here from there, I couldn’t imagine it. But I can look back and see there from here, albeit at some distance. It’s an interesting view.

I step into my past, and I step into, literally, a different Identity. A different name. People here call me J.T. It was, initially, simply a device to differentiate me from another Jeremy, but it may have become a way for me to differentiate myself from the Jeremy I left behind in Edmonton, the one I tried to slip back into years later, but was unable to find. I picked up the name again, but the person, by that time, was long gone. And, in these parts, his initials seem to be the way he was remembered.

I have a bit of time here. I wander, taking pictures of ancient, mossy trees, old stone, and weathered brick. I remember why I love the east. Everything is older here. And, as I have long known, a thing usually needs a bit of history to have much character….

From July 1, 2008

Today Canada turns 140- something. Or so it says. I'm pretty sure its been calling itself 139 for years...but anyway. A couple days ago, my Father turned 70. Tomorrow, my brother turns 35. We are all getting older, me, us, our young nation, this ancient land, this vast, silent land that took our ancestors and gave them its loneliness.

I drove, yesterday. Sometimes Porthos just needs to run, and his owner with him. Just picked a direction and went, drove until I found a road that looked interesting, and followed it until I found a good place to stop. As it happened, I wound up driving into a storm. It sat there for hours, perched on the horizon like a hunting beast, the rest of the cloudless blue sky drenched in light, while I hurtled towards it in my little car. Eventually we begin to catch up to it, and that dark patch slowly swallows the sky, and the blazing summer afternoon becomes an odd-coloured twilight. I find a lake and stand on it. The little beach is deserted, sandcastles left half-made, pock-marked from the passing rain. Thunder rumbles intermittently in the distance, flickering through patches of cloud. Nervous ducks float on the lake, a gently rippling image of the half-lit sky.

I did this, turned the phone off and ran, because I had a sudden compelling need to be away from people, as I frequently do. On this empty lake in a mostly empty land...it all feels strangely unnecessary.

A wee bit of affirmation...

Considering the preceding ambivalence about the quality of my performance ...while affecting the audience is what is all about, really, it doesn't hurt when members of the audience go away and write their praise in public places, either.

"Trevor Schmidt’s Mockingbird Close, however, is the tightly written, well-explored highlight of both evenings. Like a Grimm fairy tale set in middle-class suburbia, it spins a dark, poetic tale of Iris and Hank’s routine suburban life gone horribly awry after their child disappears. Performers Jeremy Thomson and Tiana Leonty nail their multiple-personality performances, switching from creepy neighbour to lonely, horny neighbour and back. Schmidt has an uncanny knack for giving each brief little character snippet unexpected depth, too, making every encounter much more gripping. It’s the best show in the two night collection, and one of the most gripping one acts I’ve ever seen. "

PAUL BLINOV - Vue Weekly


There you have it. I'm going to stop talking about how much I suck now. The actor serves the story, after all, and if the story works...

I'm not sure how long I was There. Sucked into the story. Carried away. Caring about characters who are unknown to me, who don't even exist, who are inventions of the author's odd mind. Characters in circumstances that, I'm pretty sure, aren't even remotely possible, made to feel real, or at least feel real to me. This, a good story can do - transport its reader to another place, suspend time, put you in another world for a while, living other people's lives, seeing what they see and feeling what they feel...

Theatre, too, can do this. Last night a woman claimed it happened to her, watching our play, the one I'm in. She felt she was in the story, lost in it, carried away...

If so, then we're doing something right.

I wonder how many times I'll have to hear it before I start to believe it...

Theatrical Illusion

My play opens tonight. Well, not MY play, as in, I didn't write it. But I'm in it. On stage, for a straight hour, sink or swim, just me, the script, my wits, my instincts and an audience, waiting to be impressed. Four months of hard work, four months of learning things I thought I already knew, four humbling months that have brought me perilously close to dragging a thick, black magic marker through "Acting" on the dwindling list of "Things Jeremy likes to think he has some skill at"...

I don't know. A couple of friends turned up, unexpectedly, at the free preview Tuesday night. They had nothing but glowing praise, and I can't deny that it felt good, after four months of our director not even bothering to TRY to hide his exasperation with my failure to deliver the performance he wanted. Hearing that at least SOMEBODY doesn't think I suck does do a bit to fan my flickering embers of enthusiasm for this project.

The City in Rain

Sam used to say that a city felt more like a city when it was raining. Of course, Sam was from London, so he would say that. But I know what he meant. Streetlights reflecting in wet pavement, the sound of passing cars a rhythmic hiss of water. And nearly every time I am in a city, and it is raining, I still think of Sam, and him saying that. Odd things, the triggers to our memories.

I remember there was a time when I had a "Sam" story for everything. So much so, in fact, that some friends, subjected to more than a few of these, began to question whether this person had ever truly existed, or was just a creative invention of mine, a character developed to inhabit stories too preposterous to pass as my own experiences, too colourful, even, to be assigned to someone as bland as another Canadian. It is true that the details of Sam's story, as I learned it from him, were more than just a little bit incredible. Even that which failed to stray into the rare or miraculous would raise eyebrows simply by suggesting that one person could have been and done and experienced so many things in such a short life. It had, of course, all happened in distant England, making it rather difficult for any of us to confirm, and I can't say, myself, that I have never nursed the suspicion that this little hobbit-like Irishman was having us all on, telling his earnest tales with an inner smirk, having a secret laugh at the expense of credulous Canadians, like me telling kids in North Carolina that I did, in fact, live in an Igloo...

But Sam's history remained remarkably consistent throughout its many tellings, and bits of it did sometimes return to invade our shared present, like the call that came to the base from English Doctors, wondering when he would be back in England, still wanting to do tests, still searching for an explanation for what had happened to him, still looking for any explanation other than the one they simply could not accept, the one that was dark to them, the one they would have to admit was utterly beyond their reach - scientists devoted to UNDERSTANDING things faced with something that could not be understood.

At least, I liked that idea, and I still do, so I wanted to believe it.

I did meet his Hobbit parents, on several occasions, and they certainly had their opportunities to laugh and say " Oh, my! What has he been telling you?" and my friend displayed none of the awkwardness one might expect from someone in the presence of those with the power to scuttle carefully constructed myths. Sam, a creative person, was indeed susceptible to "exuberant embellishment" and I don't at all doubt that some of his adventures were coloured by it. But the most extraordinary aspects of the story would be pretty ballsy invention, if invention they were.
His parents could confirm he had, in fact, been in a certain state, and we could all clearly see that this was no longer the case.

At any rate, I relayed the stories as received. I suspect that the best of the Sam Stories are real, and the fact that they lie completely outside my own experience is not, to me, sufficient reason to change that suspicion. Of necessity, a great many things must fall outside of any one person's experience. "There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio..."

But such things remain mysteries to me. They are not pillars of my belief. My belief rests on things much closer to home, things both more mundane, and, to me, far more miraculous.

Things like the laughter of children and a city in rain.

The existence of evil, suffering, and despair does not seem to me to argue against God. My formative years did not condition me to expect much else. It is, rather, the existence of any goodness at all, subtle as its outbreaks might be, that argues, achingly, FOR Him.

A pause to reflect on what could yet be saved, what might yet be revived, what is lost forever, and what never was to begin with.

In no particular order...

Earlier that day, I got my car stuck. Somewhat foolishly, without thought, I attempted a three point turn on a snowy country road that didn’t seem to be going anywhere. The deep snow adequately disguised where flat road ended and ditch began, and, in an instant, I realize one rear wheel hangs off the edge, resting in nothing but snow. The front wheels spin uselessly on an undercoat of ice, powerless to bring even this one wheel over that small hurdle and back onto the road. I turn my wheels. I rock the car from forward to reverse and back. I try a little gas. I try too much, spraying plumes of snow and mud high above my windows. I have done this before. I know the car will not move, except to fall further backwards into the meter-deep snow of the ditch, where it will beyond all hope of recovery, save with a 4x4 truck and a winch. I am in the middle of nowhere. That precious cell-phone, friend of stranded motorists, shows no bars. I am a very long walk from any known outposts of civilization. Even so, it is warm. The sun is bright. It is midday. I am in little real danger. But I have no intention of spending my day in this fashion. I am not leaving my car here. I simply do not accept the situation. This lack of acceptance is not gracefully expressed. Curses are uttered. In multiples. At high Volumes. There is no one to shock and offend but the trees. The honor and intrinsic worth of my automobile are called into question in most impolite terms. I open my door and push. The car is small. I can rock it substantially without the assistance of the engine. Surely, it only needs just a little bit more…I am in the ditch, snow up to my waist, sharp metal cutting my hands, trying, as if it were possible, to lift the offending wheel back into the road. I am back on the road, viciously attacking snow with a flimsy plastic shovel. I am cut, drips of blood staining my pants. I am covered in mud. I am heedless. I try many things. I have sharp bundles of metal “wool”, shred from the lathes at work, in the back of my car (for my own reasons). I reason these ought to provide traction- but the wheels fling them, without hesitation, into the ditch. I also have, (for my own reasons) a heavy, flat chunk of rough, rusted steel. Eventually, it dawns on me to try jamming this down in front of one wheel, and sure enough, with a mighty (engine) roar and a high plume of snow, the wheel lurches forward over the piece of steel and pulls its rear fellow back onto solid ground. Wheels spinning, the little car fishtails back and forth in the wet snow till it falls into the relative safety of ruts worn by the last foolish visitors to pass this way. Panting, bloody, mud spattered, hoarse from shouted obscenities, flushed from defiant fury, but triumphant, I get out and walk back down the road to retrieve the faithful chunk of steel and the shovel hurled away for in the heat of my rage.

I stand on the lake. I watch the storm come towards me. I see the ominous cloud building, slowly obliterating the sun, moving across the lake like a fat, lumbering beast. I see its dangling, wispy tentacles and know they bring wind and stinging snow. I do not move. I do not run back for the warmth of the fireplace and the hostel, I do not run for the car to make good my escape before this monster arrives. I stand there, on the lake, wind chilling my ears and my bald head, snow whipping past, waiting for it…waiting …daring it to move me.

And here I am, watching squirrels chase each other, atop the shining, crusted snow, through the silent trees, beneath the afternoon sun…

At the eleventh hour, in the morning, I come out to you, walking on the lake. I begin to be afraid, I start to sink, I reach out to you…

you smile and say “Why did you doubt? Next time, use the snowshoes…”

I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.

Macbeth. ACT I Scene 7.

Also quoted, in Hugo Weaving's mellifluous voice, in V for Vendetta.

Oddly enough, I heard it from both sources within one weekend. It remains stuck in my head.
It comes off better from V, because, of course, very shortly after spouting this bold declaration of manly restraint, our man Macbeth dares all sorts of things that most likely do not become a man.

Sigh.

I'm sure nobody would ever do the WRONG thing if doing the right thing seemed like it would be as much fun.

Rust. I am covered in rust. Fine, red dust like ancient sun-baked earth, the dust we come from and to which this steel will eventually return, and with it, one supposes, the cities it built.

I stand facing my slice of Prairie, its shadowed skin of snow, flecked with wispy hair of dry grass, stretching away from the fence to the setting sun. The illusion of open space. The illusion of freedom.

Back in the yard, more un-cut pipe beckons, lying cradled in severed, rusty bands reaching skyward like the decaying ribs of some great, dead beast....

Filler

All this overtime will eventually result in a handsome paycheck, but, in the meantime, doesn't leave me a lot at the end of a day for things like blogging. But I have found time to begin magically converting my old travel pics into shiny digital. A few of these, for lack of anything better to do, have found their way to a curious site going by the name The Mad Nomad, which , by happy coincidence, seems to be linked to this one (under Photos). For those whose very purpose in life hangs on my regular updates - first...get help. Seriously, you need it. But if you really need to see something new from me...I personally think some of these are kinda cool, and I'm throwing more up every few days...so, as the two of you wait in eager anticipation for my next profound discourse, check it out. Or not. Really, its still kind of a free country....

My chariot awaits...

He shall be a faithful steed, and bear me fearlessly into all sorts of mayhem. I think I shall call him "Porthos". (I don't know why,but while ships may be girls, cars are always male, to me. Figure that out.)

I grumble because of what I do not have. But, just possibly, I do not have because I do not ask. And when I ask, I ask amiss.
......


Thank you. You are, incredibly, still there. You do not hide. Perhaps you are done hiding, or perhaps, you have taught me better ways to look. You wait for me to come around, to come home. You are patient. You can afford to be. You know I can’t write without you. I am only honest, I am only myself, I am only at home with you, and I can only write from home. Everything I attempt from that split self trails off in a realization of its own redundancy, knowing that no matter how I smash the words together, I can’t make them say anything. You know who I am, and I know who I am only when I stand in that one spot, the familiar one, where I see things in their places, and you in the one that is naturally yours – filling all of it, expanding, frighteningly fast, beyond the edges of visible space...that direction I can face, only for a second, and must look away. You know I have seen too much. I have known you, my God, and you know I will never be content, not now, not with anything else. Not with anything less. You can be patient. You know I’ll come back. I scream and rage, I tire myself out…and your answer comes quietly. You move silently, in the night…and I wake to find my monsters slain. I thank you. After storm, whirlwind, fire, thunder and shattered rock...I hear that whisper, faint beneath thought, stronger than the certainty of death - Yet I hear it. I crawl out of my cave, and, again, I find you. I hear you. You speak.

This is a good day. “ Behold, I make all things new…” Today, at least, I believe it…

Waking in one household, and stopping , briefly, at another – strikingly illustrates for me the different places one can live their life from. In one house for no more than 5 minutes, and those are filled with bitterness, curses, anger and complaints. In the other, the sort of chaos only children can produce…but it is chaos with laughter, and though I must leave in a hurry, I leave with an odd feeling rising inside…something perilously close to Joy. Peace. All may not be right in the world, but, at least in this little world…all is pretty darn close. And I, a guest only, am warmed by being here, and carry that with me. The five minute tirade at my other stop is a jarring contrast, like finding broken beer bottles and fast food garbage in a sunlit mountain meadow. An icy blast of winter wind in a warm and happy room. But not enough to smother this. Not today.