There was a forest I once knew called “The Pines.” There was no subtlety to its name: all the trees were red pine. They had been planted, years ago, and now they grew in meticulous rows. Wide avenues stretched, side by side, between the ranks of trunks. The first branches emerged from the trees twenty feet above your head; any lower down and they would be hopeless to catch any of the sun’s life-giving rays. It was a strange feeling, to walk in a wood that was so evidently unnatural. Not a bad feeling, but strange. Subconsciously, you knew that trees did not grow in such regimented lines. I would compare it to walking through a maze of mirrors as a child. If you looked one way, you saw something completely ordinary and expected. But if you turned your head just a little, a new perspective would show you that all was not quite right – or at least, not quite as it seemed. Forests are wild, close, and natural; The Pines was planned, airy, and surreal.
Because the trees were planted in rows, and every row looked the same as the next, it was hard to make a trail through The Pines. There was no underbrush to speak of – the trees leeched all moisture and nutrients from the soil, and the uniform canopy blocked all sunlight from reaching the floor. Attempts were made to mark a path by sweeping aside the fallen needles, but of course more needles fell. Eventually, people began to paint stones in bright hues – every colour of the rainbow – and place them along the path. Like permanent breadcrumbs, they marked the way for travelers.
There was only one path through The Pines. It led from the forest’s edge to a clearing at its center. In the clearing were benches, an altar, and a simple cross: a small chapel in the wilderness. Here, where there were no trees, the sun shone. People gathered at the chapel to reflect, to sing, and to be together. The chapel was the Purpose of the forest. It was why it had been planted. It existed out of time, out of place. It was an oasis. Whether you came upon it unexpectedly, or you had seen it a thousand times, it caused your breath to catch in your throat. It was rustic, and beautiful.
***** A few years ago, there was a storm. The Pines was scarred. Trunks cracked and split. Trees fell over the path and into the chapel. Entire swathes of the forest which had been dense and full were laid low, leaving wounds in the canopy. Wind and ice sent signposts and lanterns and the homes of birds and forest creatures crashing to the ground in an unforgiving tempest. The very things which made The Pines unique – its evenly spaced rows of planted trees – proved to be its downfall, as winds whipped down the avenues to the very heart of the forest. The spirit of the wood was broken.
There was much work to be done. Months passed before the path and the chapel were clear enough to use again. It was even longer before the rest of the forest had been cleared of hanging branches and nearly-felled trees and was once again safe to explore. Those who had loved the forest for its otherworldly symmetry and uniform beauty cried to see the damage that nature had done. Where so often man has destroyed, The Pines had been an example of humanity trying to give back – to sow instead of reap. And now it lay crippled and bleeding.
But. Years have passed, and with time has come healing. When I walk through The Pines today, it is not the wood I knew. Gone is the predictability of planted trees, row upon immaculate row. New life grows now in the patches of sun that reach the forest floor through the marks of the storm’s destruction. Today the forest is filled to bursting with wild raspberries. The sweet scent of ripe fruit falling unpicked from the bushes floats on a breeze that drifts through the open spaces. Beyond the bushes, the chapel is still there. Where once it gave the illusion of having walls made of gently swaying trunks, now it is much more open – more of a glade than a hall.
The colourful stones that mark the path are no longer necessary. Many have been swallowed by the encroaching bush, and those that are still visible now line a path carved through underbrush and shrubs. The long-ago efforts of young people who have since grown up will be slowly swallowed by the relentless reclamation of nature – perhaps to be rediscovered some day if tragedy befalls The Pines again. Perhaps another storm, or the ceaseless destruction of industry. I hope they stay hidden forever, a secret known by a shrinking few until they are forgotten.
And so The Pines survives. It is not the forest I once knew; it has changed, evolved, persevered, and it lives on. Out of calamity came beauty and renewal. Nature has won, in the end. It has revitalized itself and come back stronger. But we have won as well. Somewhere in the world is a new forest to learn and to explore, to become acquainted with and to love.
Growing up within driving distance of North America’s third largest metropolitan city, there are many people who, when asked “where are you from,” just say “Toronto”. It is easier that way. Rather than having to explain where Guelph is in relation to the Big City, and where your small town is in relation to that, you just say you’re from Toronto. As urban sprawl has continued to consume more and more communities into the “Greater Toronto Area,” it is no longer that inaccurate either. And besides, chances are the person you are speaking to was just asking to be polite – they likely don’t care all that much anyway. Of course, other communities in the region are beginning to make a name for themselves outside of the Ontario bubble. Someone from my small town nowadays may well say they are from Waterloo, which has become known for its growing tech and startup communities.
I am not from Toronto. I am not from Waterloo. I am not from Guelph.
I am from Fergus.
Emblems of Fergus’ Scottish heritage are everywhere. Tributes to the many freed slaves who were among the area’s first settlers are decidedly fewer.
Being from Fergus is as essential to who I am as my name, or the colour of my eyes, or the way my voice sounds. Fergus made me. I am not just from Fergus; I am of Fergus. When my parents moved us in a few weeks after I was born in 1991, Fergus was barely more than a village of 8,000 people. In the 27 years since, the population has more than doubled (more than 20,000 at last count), and I have grown with it. I haven’t lived in Fergus full-time for a number of years now – first leaving for school, then work, then marriage – but I still feel daily the impact that growing up there had on my personhood.
I would like to take you on a tour, if you’ll come. Not a tour of Fergus, per se – though there are some excellent historical walking tours available if you are ever in town. I want to take you on a tour of my Fergus – the Fergus of my memory. I will do no fact-checking, present no history nor anthropology. If you are interested in those sorts of things, the town seems to have a fairly complete Wikipedia page. My goal is not to educate or drive tourism. This is not a list of Places To Stay or Things To Do. This is my hometown – the one that made me who I am – the way I remember it.
Our first family home was here, on Philip Court.
This is where it all began. Philip Court – the street I grew up on. The trees are bigger now. Our first house is just down the road, on the right. From here, my universe expanded. First our house, then the yard, then the street, the neighbourhood, the town itself. There’s never traffic on a road to nowhere, so my brother and I were safe to play up and down the street with the kids of the other young families who had all moved in together as development was completed. In the winter, I can remember the plow piling snow on the raised circle in the middle of the court, creating a mountain beyond our wildest imagination. Today, kids are probably discouraged from tunneling into large piles of snow, for fear of collapse; but back then, we turned that mountain into an anthill of caves and passageways, and stayed out until the lights came on. I didn’t learn what it was to be a neighbour from Mr Rogers; I learned it here, where everyone knew and looked out for one another.
This may be the first trail I ever “hiked”.
This walking trail passes by the old neighbourhood. At some point, it runs (or ran, once) through a dense thicket of trees and brush. That section of the path may have run all of 20 metres from end to end. Based on the omnipresent trash that littered the spot, it was probably a popular hangout for teenagers at the time; I don’t think I was ever there at night to find out for sure. But whenever we walked as a family, we insisted on taking the path, so we could walk through this magical fairy forest just down the road. Most of the stories and games we imagined as kids can find their roots among those trees.
The facade is crumbling and the grass is overgrown at the original St Joseph’s Catholic Church
This is the church where I was baptized, and which we attended every Sunday until it got to be too small and a new one was built. The church parking lot was a social hub; here we planned many impromptu sleepovers, sprung on our parents after mass and completely throwing off their Sunday plans. One Sunday a month, there were cookies in the parish hall. I always thought it was a little spooky that there were unmarked pioneer graves nearby.
By my count, I must have spent more than 10,000 hours in this building over 9 years.
Of course, the majority of my waking hours growing up seemed to be spent at school. My mom even taught here for the first couple of years, until my second brother was born and she decided to take some time off with three (eventually four) young kids at home. I could tell a million stories of friendships that began here (and continue to today), or teachers whom I idolized (and still do), or of course the lessons learned (and some forgotten); I was undoubtedly and indelibly shaped by all of these. My most vivid childhood memory took place here, though, and had little at all to do with school.
I remember with picture-perfect clarity a morning over 20 years ago – I must have been in kindergarten or shortly thereafter. My dad drove me to school, and I did not remember until we pulled into the parking lot that I had show-and-tell that day. There was no time to go back home and find some precious item for me to share. My dad, being resourceful, pulled a large photo plaque out of the back of the car. It showed a mountain slope covered in fresh, powdery snow; skiers had descended the mountain in pairs, carving perfect patterns of criss-crossing curves down the steep incline. It was an interesting photo, and my dad explained how it was created and offered it to me to show the class. I said thanks (or at least I hope I did) but declined. I would just tell my teacher I had forgotten, and bring something the next time. I said goodbye, and immediately felt a wave of devastation wash over me as he drove away. I felt ashamed and overwhelmed with sadness that I had turned down the picture. It suddenly occurred to me that it may have been my dad’s prized possession (it wasn’t) or something he was really excited to share with me (I’m pretty sure it was just quick problem solving), and I had rejected it out of hand. I may have been 6 at the time, but I can still feel the dread and shame I felt the rest of that day that I may have made my father sad. I still get a lump in my throat writing about it now. I think about that morning more often than is believable. I have never talked to him about it – I don’t even know that he would remember. But it is seared into my memory like a brand. That one story probably says more about me than anything else I will write here.
The Fergus library: safehouse, seat of all knowledge, shelter from the elements.
The first place I can ever remember walking by myself (besides school – and the first time I walked there alone I believe I got lost) is the library. They have remodeled the inside since I moved away, but the outside is still the same; perks of being an historic landmark. The library was air conditioned, which our house never was. I remember walking downtown in the morning on a hot summer day to find a book (or six), and not wanting to leave the cool oasis of the library. I would sit and read an entire book in an old leather chair through the height of the afternoon heat, and then as the evening cooled off I would check out the rest of my stack and walk home. It is a testament to both my parents and Fergus itself that in those days before cell phones, if I told my mom I was going to the library and then didn’t come home for hours, there was never any panic. At least none I knew of.
Before it was a marketplace, it was just a market – the greatest in the world
This old foundry building used to house the Fergus Market. It has been converted into self-contained shops now, but back in the day it housed wonders. I have nothing against the current tenants of course, but to my knowledge none of them sell pewter wizards or steam-emitting dragons or farm-fresh meats, or that holiest of grails: hockey cards. Somehow, the farmer’s market in our small town was home to not one but two collectibles vendors. I don’t ever remember having a formal “allowance” like some kids have – but there were few things my parents could leverage to motivate us more than a trip with dad to pick up a few packs of hockey cards, and spend the rest of the day trading, sorting, and admiring. My cards are still at my parents’ house (much to their chagrin) and will likely hit Kijiji soon. But the market is also gone, so it’s alright.
The scene of one of very few childhood traumas.
Of course, even the most idyllic of towns has an insidious side. In later grades, my friends and I were too old to take the bus to school, so we rode our bikes. I remember one day discovering that my bike, which I had left outside of the garage the night before, had been stolen. We never found it. In the meantime, I still had to get to school, so I rode my mom’s bike instead. One day, as my friends and I raced down this hill on the way home, the right pedal fell off. I remember time standing still as my forward momentum shifted sideways and I fell to the road, leaving most of the skin of my knee behind me on the pavement. The pain was agonizing, as was the dread of telling my mom I had broken her bike. My friends walked with me the rest of the way home as I bled into my sock. They are still among my closest friends today.
The sign and the books are all gone now.
I wrote a few months ago about visiting Roxanne’s Reflections, the local bookstore, for the last time before it closed. I won’t go into it again here – the sadness is still close to the surface. I drove past the other day – the space is now home to the reelection office for the local Progressive Conservative candidate in the upcoming provincial election. He’s a neighbour of my parents, and by all accounts a gentleman. The books are all gone, though.
The Grand Theatre, formerly the Theatre on the Grand. 70 years before it changed my life, it was opened as a movie house.
Second best for second last: my second home, the Fergus Grand Theatre. It got a facelift recently, restoring some of its original glory; to my eyes, it has never looked better. When I was nine, my mom signed me up for the local children’s drama club. This is one of a handful of truly pivotal moments around which the rest of my life orbits. I played basketball growing up, but I never dreamed of playing professionally, or even in college. But from the moment the stage lights hit me for the first time in this 250-seat theatre in Fergus, I was convinced that nothing else would ever bring me joy. Time, money, and life have a way of sobering dreams – I didn’t end up going to school for acting, I chose jobs over shows, and eventually I came to accept that performing was probably in the past for me. A few years ago, things came full circle as I got to return to the Grand to play Peter Pan, the role of a lifetime for me. If I never do another show, I will be happy knowing that my last play was that one, back where it all began.
I proposed, with a ring I bought at the local jewellery store, here beside the Grand River.
The last stop on a tour of my Fergus is here, on a small rock shelf beside a waterfall. This is where I proposed to my wife, Angela. She fell in love with Fergus as I fell in love with her; and even without the rose coloured glasses of sentimentalism, she loves it for so many of the same reasons I do. We hope, one day, that our lives will lead us back here as we look ahead to a family of our own. It seemed fitting, when I thought about how I wanted to ask her to marry me, that it should be here. In a way, I had shown her myself by showing her my Fergus. I was saying, “Here is where I’m from; here is who I am.” We were married a year and a half later, at the new church they built to replace the one that was too small.
I do hasten back, whenever I can.
I am not from Toronto, or Guelph, or Waterloo. I am from Fergus. To walk in my shoes, you have to walk here. It is changed and unchanged, timeless and yet intrinsically tied to a very specific time in my life. You can no longer grab a scoop of ice cream at the Cherry Bomb, or play 5-pin at the Fergus Bowling Lanes, or swim in the old outdoor pool; but those things existed, once, and still do for me. Fergus is my hometown. Maybe it’s like yours, maybe it isn’t. Maybe it was exactly as I remember, maybe it wasn’t. But when I hold a mirror up to that town, I see myself looking back.
Last summer, as part of a resolution to reacquaint myself with the joys and pleasures of Shakespeare, I took in the Stratford Festival‘s production of Romeo and Juliet. Earlier in the year, I reread the complete works, along with a number of books on all manner of subjects related to the Bard. Besides the plays, sonnets, and epics, I read books on Shakespeare’s female characters, Shakespeare and sex, and Shakespearean philosophy, to name a few. Perhaps I will find time, some day, to compile some thoughts on the best and most interesting Shakespeare scholarship being published today.
But the culmination of what I was calling in my own head “my year with Shakespeare” was finally getting back to the hallowed ground of Stratford, Ontario, home to one of the premiere Shakespearean stages in the world, to take in Shakespeare as it was meant to be: performed. Angela and I drove out on a rainy day in September to catch the festival’s 2017 production of Romeo and Juliet late in its run, and it was well worth the trip. I could never have anticipated the rush of feelings and emotions brought on by what I have always proclaimed to be one of, if not absolutely, my least favourite plays in the canon.
I had the opportunity to revisit the production this weekend, as a filmed version of the performance is now being played in cinemas across Canada. Since I walked breathlessly back into the sunshine from the dark of the theatre, a million thoughts have once again been swirling through my head. They take on no coherent shape; there is no central point or argument I wish to make, no essay I wish to write. They are just thoughts – on Shakespeare, on Romeo and Juliet, on theatre, and on myself. I will try to document them here, as best I can, before they slip away.
I understand better, now, why Romeo and Juliet is so often the first play introduced to students studying Shakespeare. It’s a joke, you see. English teachers are presenting 14-year-olds with a perfect caricature of themselves, what with Romeo forgetting Rosaline as soon as he sees Juliet, the bawdy humour, the ridiculous, flighty poetry that is often all surface. But by the end there is real emotion as well. Real love, real loss. It both pokes fun at the emotional volatility of children, and gives them credit for being more than adults imagine them to be. To Ms. Piteo, my high school English teacher – as always, you knew best.
The appeal is in the inevitability, right? Though it may be the perfect gateway for students to discover the Bard, I don’t think it is arguable that old Bill wrote better plays than this, so I have been struggling to reconcile what makes this such a standard. Why can people who have never read a lick of Shakespeare give a passable facsimile of Romeo and Juliet‘s plot and movement, but tell you nothing of Lear or Richard III? I still don’t know, but I have a hunch that it has to do with the fact that you know from the chorus’ opening sonnet that these poor lovers must die.
Speaking of that opening sonnet, it absolutely belongs in the oft-tread conversation of “the greatest opening lines in literature”. It should take its place in the echelons of “Call me Ishmael,” “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” and the rest.
“I am fortune’s fool” is perhaps the most relatable sentiment ever written.
I am unspeakably fortunate to have grown up within a short drive of one of the best centres for Shakespeare performance in the world. Stratford has played host to Alec Guinness, Christopher Plummer, Maggie Smith, William Shatner, Jessica Tandy, Peter Ustinov, and so many more. Every year, people travel much greater distances on their pilgrimage to see the finest stage actors of today and tomorrow come together to perform the greatest works of the English language – I am ashamed that it took me so many years to go back.
Speaking of fine actors, I once had the opportunity to share a (much smaller) stage with John Watson, an incredible Canadian actor who has tread the boards at Stratford, and his wife Jane, an incredible actress in her own right. I often look back at that community theatre production of Peter Pan, in which I played Peter to John’s Captain Hook, as a highlight of my creative life. Sharing ideas and building a show with actors who have honed their craft at the highest levels was beyond the dreams of a small town player like myself. They were so clearly on a different echelon than the rest of our cast, but not for a moment did they make us feel that way. They were the most generous, supportive actors it was ever my privilege to work with. Seeing Romeo and Juliet brought back the warm glow of those feelings, and made me grateful for that time in my own life.
Of course there is a bittersweetness as well in seeing Shakespeare performed, as someone who once fostered dreams that I could take a run at acting as a career. It is hard to describe the feeling of performing Shakespeare. It combines the familiar rush of performance and bringing a character to life with a genuine sense of privilege. Any time I have been part of a production of the Bard’s work, I have been overwhelmed with the feeling that I am blessed beyond imagining to be allowed to speak those words, to perform that material. There is a sacred nature to it, which is why it has endured beyond any other work. And so to see others partaking of that incomparable joy is thrilling – but still I cannot help the slightest twinge of jealousy.
No doubt there is a recency bias, but Mercutio may be among my top 5 “dream roles” in the canon. I am tempted to go back through and create a definitive list, just to see.
Romeo and Juliet is a filthy play. Its comedic characters go well beyond the realm of innuendo into blatant, no-holds-barred sex comedy – and this production in particular leaned right into it. The driving forces behind the bawdy humour are Mercutio and the Nurse, expertly played by Evan Buliung and Seana McKenna; both managed to take the audience to the very edge of they-can’t-say-that vulgarity while still delivering evocative, stirring performances in the show’s darkest moments. The show and its players have remarkable range.
All of this is to say, I have to go back. I have already begun to look at this year’s festival, and how I can see the most shows possible. But I feel that other itch, that other calling as well. I find myself wondering more and more these days if I could truly be happy knowing that I had performed my last show, and that I will never act again. I don’t know that I can accept that just yet. Who knows what the future may hold.
So there you have it – 10 disorganized thoughts about Romeo and Juliet. There will be more Shakespeare in this space in coming weeks, but in the meantime:
“…What we are concerned with here is the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.” – Dirk Gently
Once every not very often, something makes itself present in your life at precisely the right moment – whether by chance or providence, such a precisely timed experience cannot help but send a shiver down your spine and cause you to wonder about the way we experience the world. It could be a song or a book or a film or a new acquaintance that perfectly accounts for the way in which you exist at the moment you first hear it – whatever the medium, these rare glimpses of luck or predestination or divine intervention can change your perspective entirely. Let me tell you about one such encounter.
I spent four days recently on a canoe trip in Ontario’s beautiful Algonquin Provincial Park. The park is as picturesque and breathtaking a place as still exists in this world. It remains largely and miraculously untouched just a few hours north of the ever-expanding influence of Toronto. Camping has always been my escape of choice. Time moves differently when there is no schedule to keep, no cell phone service, nothing but good company and your own wit to occupy your time. We paddled in to a peaceful, isolated site on Canisbay Lake, along the Highway 60 corridor through the park. We spent four glorious days swimming from our own private, sandy stretch of beach, eating oatmeal out of plastic bags, worrying about black bear sightings in the area, and enjoying being off the grid in this hallowed place. It was, in short, pure bliss.
The disconnect from my usual world of media and technology consumption also gave me a much needed kick to get back to reading. I have been making excuses to myself of late as to why I haven’t had time to read, but of course it isn’t that I haven’t had time – it is that I make conscious choices to spend my time doing other things, only to wish later that I had spent the time reading. Being away from all of that, in a camp chair on the edge of a pristine lake, with my toes in the warm, clear water, there was nothing to do but read, and read I did. The book I brought with me was one I had never read before, surprisingly. It was Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by that most brilliant of British comedic authors, philosophers, and observers of the absurd beauty of life, Douglas Adams. I have, of course, been a big fan of Adams and his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series for some time, but I had never gotten around to reading his other series. I figured, with a few days of unadulterated free time before me, I would bring something not too heavy or dry, something light and joyful to pass the time – a bill perfectly fit by my previous encounters with Douglas Adams.
Dirk Gently, it must be said, is not Hitchhiker’s. It is not silly, at least not in the way that the Guide is silly. It is still science fiction, but it is much heavier on the fiction than the science. It is still high-concept comedy, and it still reads in Adams’ brilliant, unparalleled voice of truth, but it is undoubtedly a very different book. Having gone into it with the expectation that it would be a delightful romp full of laughing-so-hard-I-am-crying moments (which I still experience no matter how many times I read Hitchhiker’s), I was at first disappointed that they were so different. Don’t get me wrong, I was enjoying the book. I was just enjoying it differently.
Eventually, however, I came to the quotation above, about the interconnectedness of things. That is, in a way, what the book is about (also time travel and a murder most foul, but those things are interconnected too). And that idea, that interconnectedness of everything that has been, that is, and that will be, took root in my brain and began to grow. I realized, as I contemplated correlation and causality, that there, at Algonquin, was the place in the world where I most felt that interconnectedness of things. The utter rationality of times and seasons and weather and nature blends there with the utter irrationality of beauty and existence. There, I am perfectly in tune with everything around me. There, my body adjusts its internal clock to arise with the sun and feel tired at dusk. There, my body feels the energy of nature course trough it as I hike carefully preserved trails which thousands of people have hiked before me for a hundred years. There, all I have learned about living in society takes a backseat to my instincts for survival, preservation, and conservation. At home, where I can work and get things done and be social and interact with the world in a hundred different ways, it seems wasteful to sit in a chair for hours on end without doing a single thing. In the heart of nature, in the bosom of my amazing country’s greatest resource, its natural beauty, spending a few hours simply existing seems like the most desirable thing in the world. To simply let the world spin for a while, content to observe it without the need to change it or impact it, simply to be a part of the great program of life, is the reason I go to Algonquin.
And so I went from mildly enjoying my chosen reading material to a much deeper reading. The book came to me, through whatever guidance, at a time when I would most appreciate its beautiful observations. The book’s protagonist is a software programmer who believes that, hidden in the mathematics and algorithms of natural occurrences, there is music – if only you know how to find it. Algonquin Park is where I feel connected to everything around me, seen and unseen. It is where I hear nature’s sweet song, in which I am just one note.
“He knew he had been listening to the music of life itself. The music of light dancing on water that rippled with the wind and the tides, of the life that moved through the water, of the life that moved on the land, warmed by the light.” – Douglas Adams
An Awfully Big Adventure 