I first met Jo Leath on Thursday, January 5th, 1984. It was a few days after my sixteenth birthday and my new year’s resolution was to finally show someone my writing, other than my mom, and what better place to do this than at The Writer’s Club of Kamloops. So, I packed up the manuscript of my blockbuster Science Fantasy novel and a couple of my better poems and headed off to the Elk’s Club downtown.
Jo entered the room shortly after I did. I had been showing some of my work to other members who were blinking at me in surprise that I had actually brought some of my work with me. Apparently there was no writing at this meeting of writers. When Jo and I were introduced, she was discussing with other members the absence of the President, wondering if something happened (Something did. It involves Death by Misadventure, a bondage scenario, and, eventually, significant jail time. I kid you not! But that’s another story for another day!). Like the others, she was startled that I had brought in some of my work for me to read, but she was also pleased.
I read from my manuscript and the group listened politely to me. As I packed up to leave Jo came by and said good night, then handed me a small slip of paper. I opened it before I left. “Fear not! There is hope. I will be starting another writing group very shortly. Call me!” I looked at the number and then at her, but she was already busy speaking with others in the room.
I did call her and she did start another group and we met regularly for a few years. But Jo became more than just a writing mentor. She and I became fast friends. It was strange, I guess, to connect with someone so quickly who was in a different stage of life than I was. But it happened. We were in theatrical productions and art events together and we spent many hours having coffee and discussing everything and anything.
A little over two years after I first met Jo, she moved away. She sought a new beginning and eventually found herself in Ontario. Might as well have been Mars as far as I was concerned. I missed her and figured that we would eventually lose contact with each other and live our separate paths.
In 1988 I contacted her because I was going to move to Toronto for school and she was the only person I knew in Toronto. She was the first person to greet me at Union Station upon my arrival. During my stay in Toronto she helped me restart my own life after having to leave school. She introduced me to The Royal Ontario Museum and The Ontario Art Gallery. And when I stumbled out of the closet so very suddenly, she caught me in her arms.
It was time of change for both of us. It did strain our relationship as we both went through some difficult life changes. But we never gave up on each other.
Then, she left my side again. Kind of. And, really, it can be argued that it was my fault.
You see, my cat had kittens. Three of them. And they were very cute.
I insisted that Jo finally come to my home with Eric and see our kittens because she had never been to my home before. I think I actually may have whined about it. In any case, whatever I did she eventually relented and came over to my house.
And met Eric’s mother, Branda.
It really was love at first sight. That whole “lighting the cigarette and looking into each other’s eyes over the flickering flame” kind of moment. If we had had curtains in our apartment I am positive they would have billowed.
Within a few months, Branda and Jo would move to New Brunswick, and then on to Nova Scotia and live their life together.
We would visit their farm near Middleton and the four of us would have such wonderful times. They had chickens wandering the property, each with unique names and personalities. Branda would serve them leftover crepes, running around the house flinging shreds of our breakfast behind her as the flock would leap and run after her. They would try to grow a variety of things on a piece of land that was not always cooperative. Once, I remembered, they considered hazelnuts. Every time we visited a parade of people would come by to meet us. Relatives of these fascinating women who were honest and proud of who they were to each other. A rainbow flag hung on a flagpole at the end of the driveway, chickens always pecking at the ground around its base. They lived in a small place, but it was perfect place to be with family.
We were four against the world. We were a family in every sense of the word. Eric and Branda were blood, but Jo and I were something unique. Something that nurtured itself in Kamloops, Toronto and onward. We were, the four of us, a single entity consisting of two couples and four individuals committed to each other.
Our family was difficult to explain to others, but it kept us warm. It protected us. It nurtured us.
We lost Branda in 2007. To say it was a blow is a gross understatement. And, yes, we stumbled during this time. But we stumbled together. And the three of us, somehow, became even more close.
This past Labour Day weekend Eric and I went to Nova Scotia for a very special reason. After being in the area for almost two decades, she has decided to make the move to Wakefield. She has decided that she wants to start a new chapter “with her boys”.
I lose my writing room in this deal, but never have I been more pleased to give up something for so wonderful a cause. This room was first earmarked to be our child’s room. As most of you know, the universe did not see fit to allow that to happen for us. My turning it into a writing room was to replace a scar with a creative space.
But now, it is a space of love and family. The way it was supposed to be. Maybe not how we wanted it, but a family space in any case.
We met with many of Jo’s friends, some new and others old. She took us on a final tour of the life she had built for herself after Branda’s passing. She was happy. She was excited. She was beautiful.
We stopped by the old farm. Long grass and overgrown trees now cover where chickens once meandered about, clucking contently. You would have difficulty running around the house today with or without strips of crepes in your hands. The flagpole is long gone and the house stands locked and empty. It reminded me of when I last saw Atwater, Saskatchewan; a town of my childhood that is all but abandoned now. A spectre of Once Was.
Ever the sentimental Irishman, I made sure to take one last look around. Jo did no such thing. She took a few pictures of Eric and I and we got in the car and drove off. She was talking about something else before we left the driveway. As I looked backwards to the house I couldn’t help but wonder if she needed to find more closure of this place.
But then I realised what Jo already knew I think. The warmth I remember of that place was not from the building. It was from us. We will take that with us. Branda does not haunt that farm. She was not being left behind. She was in the car with us...on our way home together.
I teach my students about synchronicity whenever we read Robertson Davies’ Fifth Business. The idea that our lives continue in this universal mechanism that brings people together through a variety of events and situations. Like the workings of a clock.
Jo was the first person to encourage my writing. I found her by chance for she did not attend the Writers Club of Kamloops for very long. We wrote together, but she also helped a shy, quiet, (really!) awkward teenager come into his own in a town that was not ready to accept him. And when that was done she left, only to be of use again as she guided me through the new beginning of my life. Then she met my partner’s mother and whatever relationship we had was solidified.
And now, this mentor, this friend, this confidante, this mother-from-a-previous-life, this...amazing woman is going to live with us. Oh, sure, we will have our challenges and adjustments and tense moments. Of course we will.
We’re family.
And so ends my summer travels for this year! Six countries, eleven states, four provinces, four flights, nine busses, countless hours in the car, one set of Mammoth Caves, one possible ghost girl, one destroyed water bottle, two massive and evil blisters, one Lucylympics, one Big Ass Poster Lady, fourteen students, seventy-eight gelatos, twenty-three hundred Elvis impersonators....sorry Elvis Tribute Artists...some amazing museums and works of art, more gumbo and biscuits than anyone should ever attempt to eat, and the best travelling companion a man could ever hope for later and I find myself finishing off my first week of school and fully ensconced into the real world!
The future includes possible trips to San Francisco, Death Valley, Disneyworld, the American Mid-West, the Quebec North Shore, England, and, once things calm down, Egypt.
In the meantime, this blog continues with the travels of everyday life. For me, there promises to be many changes.
Stuff happens. Might as well write about it.
