what will you do with your tragedy?

Last night was a house concert in Edmonton—a perfect party of beautiful people and attentive listeners. The room was so comfortable that it was easy to sink into the music and be in the right space to deliver a great performance.

Now I’ve got a few days in Edmonton before the next series of concerts in Calgary. And I remembered that he lives here after all, and I should give him a call. Before I left Saskatoon, I was so consumed with moving and business and the business of moving that I didn’t get a chance to let some friends know I’d be in town. But on the other side of that business, it seems silly that I didn’t have time to call. Where is the humanity in that balance?

As I think about calling him, I remember a story he told us when he visited Saskatoon last. Is this true or am I remembering it wrong? His brother was killed when he was very young. A boating accident—is that right? Over the course of the conversation, he revealed how the events of his life have been touched by this tragedy. I remember how profound and beautiful that conversation was—so personal and trusting and intimate. But the details elude me now. It was an isolated incident that returns to me now.

What did you do with your tragedy?

Everyone has one, and I want to know what you did with yours. It was a birth or death or love affair or accident or disease. It was a war. It challenged your humanity and exposed your weaknesses. If you survived the moment to know that you could survive other moments like it, you became beautiful with a new wisdom. Does it show? I’m not sure. Still I want to know—what did you do with your tragedy?

A couple lost their daughter a few years ago. She was at the lake with friends, dove off the boat, and never surfaced. There was no body to mourn over. There was no autopsy to examine. God took everything this time.

What did those parents do with their tragedy?

They dug a well. They went to the Africa, to the town of a foster child their family had sponsored for years. They went to this child’s town and with money they raised themselves, they dug a well for the town. They filled the well with their tears and gave the gift of water to a town.

What is your gift? How will you transform your tragedy?

I only ask because I’m still deciding what to do with mine.

I would have liked to meet your mother

All the experiences of his life can be grouped and divided. There are those that occurred before his mother’s death and those that occurred after. That the categories of his life circulate about this single event is not a secret to others or to himself. He is aware of how many times he interrupts a story by saying, “that was before my mother’s death” or “my mother had died by this time.” But he can’t help it. It is simply the easiest way of conveying the context of his experiences, even though his listeners have no idea how this event changed him or what the context implies.

We are sitting across the table from each other, strangers at a dinner party. I’m enraptured by his animated storytelling, distracted occasionally by my own clumsiness. I’ve already dropped food on the table and twice scraped my plate with my knife to produce ear-piercing shrieks. Is it the wine? I’m distracted by the delicious bites, and the pottery plates, and the way the faces around the table glow with good food and candlelight. But always, my attention returns to him.

His face is familiar (and I rarely remember faces). So familiar that I begin to ponder those theories that connect familiarity in this life with shared experiences in past lives. The notion is silly but compelling, and I choose to believe in it for the moment, if just for the sake of believing. I may not believe in reincarnation, but it’s the best way I have to explain this connection with a man I’ve never met before.

His favorite author is Timothy Findlay, whom I’ve had a lingering obsession with. Suddenly I want to reread Famous Last Words, or perhaps just the opening scene. In fact, I realize that I am starving to read everything he’s read. I’m practically salivating over the list of authors and titles that punctuate his conversation.

Give me poetry. I’ve just decided to be an artist again, and I need . . . more words.

I’ve missed the first part of his story, but he is talking about how he wishes his mother had read the book before she died. Which book was that? He would have loved to ask her about how the male author portrayed the female experience and what she thought of it.

I would have liked to know your mother, I think to myself. It’s odd to think this about a person I’ve only just met. Then again, I think this all the time—I would like to know your mother. It seems to me that you can learn so much about a person by meeting his or her mother. If we’re not trying to escape our family, we’re trying to emulate them, probably doing both most of the time.

I know nothing about the way his mother died, but someday I will. For now, I imagine she drowned, communed with the water and accidentally got caught up in the moment. Nothing intentional about it, but beautiful and sad.

Home sweet home and a house concert to boot!

I've been waiting for a home for awhile. I don't just mean waiting to GET home from the last tour, the latest stint on the road. For the last year, I really haven't had a home to return to. I've been waiting for my new home to be livable--it's an old warehouse that's been blessed with new life and renovation. New rooms built. Old bricks discovered. Old floors refinished. New walls erected. Old windows salvaged. And while this building purges itself of old ghosts and subjects itself to the relentless inspection of city planners, developers, contractors, and the like, I've been homeless.

So I’ve been itching to rediscover that space that reflects one’s values, opinions, identities, routines, curiosities, loves, passions. I want a floor that is scuffed and marked with the heels of all my visitors. A kitchen countertop marked from use, the edges of knives, and the war wounds of dinner parties. I want a space that is alive with stories and stains, parties and spills, musings and markings.

But my home (my space) is shared. My passions, practices, book collection, and preferable shelf height overlaps, intersects, and conflicts with the loves, routines, and color choices of a roommate, a friend, a lover, a soulmate. It’s a wild fusion indeed—this space and all its collections and unpredictable corners. I’ve been waiting for a long time to rediscover it.

Inevitably, the space will be filled with music. So we planned the inaugural house concert—it’s a strange shift being the host and not the performer. Our friends Dave Lang and Geoff Berner are going to break in the new space. As things look now, that could very well be the first night we spend there—a true housewarming. I’ll keep you posted with scandalous party pictures and the like. . .