‘Lavender’, Seed to Screen:One Writer's Journey.

July 11th, 2015

Lavender has wrapped. My first feature length script is becoming a film. It's a tremendous feeling. Humbling to see so many people investing time and money to bring a story I created to the big screen. It feels surreal. I am immensely grateful.  And it was quite a journey get to this point.

As a kid I loved scary stories. I would get them from the Picton Public Library children's section. But those stories weren't scary enough. I got a book of ghost stories from the adult section in the library, once, but couldn't read it so I asked my older brother to read a story to me. He and I didn't get along but I really wanted to hear the story and I think my parents and sister were worried about it giving me nightmares, which I'm sure it did.

At home in Cressy, a hamlet in Prince Edward County, where I grew up, there were old Alfred Hitchcock Presents magazines lying about. As I got older I read many of them. I also enjoyed the Alfred Hitchcock Presents (Hitchcock has always been one of my favourites) television shows, as well as Twilight Zone and Amazing Stories.

Then came VHS. I recall watching Poltergeist at a friend's birthday party. For my twelfth birthday I was allowed to rent American Werewolf in London. My friends came over and we watched it with all the lights out. That is until the family dog, Duke, howled and frightened us all half out of our wits, then the lights came on for the remainder of the movie. Everyone got a thrill out of being scared, or wouldn't admit otherwise.

We kept renting scary films and would try to make them scarier by doing things like walking through the corn after Children of the Corn, or we'd hop on our bicycles after watching ghosts, werewolves, witches, demons or vampires, and we'd cycle a couple of miles in the dark to sleep in the middle of the woods in a old bus that was converted into a camper.

We'd tell ghosts stories around a campfire fire, Most of those stories were local stories, about things that had happened to people we knew, or things we, ourselves, had seen and experienced. There was no shortage of ghosts in Cressy; real or imagined, it all depends on your point of view.

So when I decided to write a feature script it had to be a thriller. The idea developed over time. I re-watched all the films that had frightened me, and rented others that were well-known but I had neglected to see. The Haunting (1963 version), The Innocents, The Exorcist, The Shining, The Thing, Something Wicked This Way Comes, the first Friday the 13th, Halloween, the list goes on. One of the common factors in all the ones I enjoyed the most, and by enjoyed I mean that terrified me the most and stuck with me, was that there were children involved. That was a starting point. As the ideas formed I decided to research certain psychological conditions. I spent a lot of time at the Toronto Reference Library, still one of my favourite places in the world.

All of this was done when I was taking film at Humber College and working as an usher at Roy Thomson Hall. But I never actually put pen to paper until I was in Belfast. I had just finished my first job in film after working as a trainee assistant director on the film Divorcing Jack, written by Colin Bateman, directed by David Caffery, and staring David Thewlis and Rachel Griffiths. After that film wrapped I sat at the end of my bed in front of an electric fire place and started to make notes.  The real writing wouldn't be done until I returned to Canada and to the farm in Cressy. The rewriting didn't really begin until I was back in Toronto, and back at Roy Thomson Hall. That, I'm pretty sure, was in 1999. 

Continued here

I just found this on another site and really liked it so I wanted to share.

A Catholic Clergyman whose name escapes me was lured unsuccessfully into a war of semantics. He was asked the question, "You believe that your God is the One, True God, correct?"
"Yes," he replied.
"And so the Allah of the Muslims is a false god?"
"No, he is the same god."
"Ah, but they have it wrong.You are more correct than they, for if they were more correct, you would be worshipping their god, being a rational man."
The clergyman stopped for a moment, and then spoke:
"We stand at the edges of a vast, circular ballroom. In the centre, suspended from the ceiling, is the most beautiful chandelier ever created. It not only provides light and heat, it also allows us to see one another, and interact as equals. Each of us, where we stand, see a different aspect of that same chandelier. None is more correct than the other. We choose to view that part of the chandelier, because that aspect is pleasing to us, or actually more pleasing than any other part."
"Oh, and what of those who do not believe in God?"
"Then there are some who choose to not look at the light at all."

Pitfalls of a Brave Heart

You were in love.

Nothing can diminish that.

You gave your heart to another, trusted them to keep it and gave your word that you would be true, because you were. You took them at their word because you believed in something, someone, other than yourself.

Nothing can belittle the courage that took.

Even if that love wasn’t returned on anything more than a superficial level. 

Perhaps the other person wasn’t capable of giving you any more than that.

Loving when the love is returned in equal proportion is, one would assume, an easier task—though still daunting, I’m sure. Such responsibility.

Yet, you loved.

You may feel your relationship was built on, and destroyed by, lies. Though, to be honest with yourself, it was the truth that dealt the final blow. The lies just weakened it enough to make it a fatal one.

Maybe the one you loved gave their heart, body and soul to another, and then, another, while still smiling at you and telling you they loved you because that was what was easiest for them.

Still, you loved.

It may have been that their lies and cheating made you lose yourself. Your pain made you hurtful, your insecurity made you jealous, the person who’d brought out the best in you suddenly brought out the worst. You may have felt shattered, ground down, almost destroyed.

It’s okay. You loved.

If it’s easy to leave, you had no place being there to begin with.

If the wound takes years to heal because it cut as deeply as you felt, that is to be expected.

Sometimes the forest needs to burn to make way for new growth.

If the love you thought true turned out to be an illusion, but the void it left was real and you fell into it, and it into you, and the darkness still threatens to consume, hold on, you’ll get through.

Because, you loved.

If you feel that the person you fell in love with never truly existed. Not as you thought you knew them. That they were only playing a cruel game of pretended. If the marriage ended in divorce or you had the vows dissolved by an annulment but like salt in water it isn’t really gone, the water is just left undrinkable, try and recall how sweet it tasted before it was tainted. That was all you. 

You were the one who loved.

That fact shall remain.

You gave your heart to another, trusted them to keep it and gave your word that you would be true, because you were.

Nothing can ever belittle the courage that took.

Nothing can diminish that.

Someday, when your courage returns, so will love. An older love. A wiser love. One that is equally brave.

If it doesn’t, that’s okay, too.

Because you loved.

And no one can take that from you.

A Box Called Freedom

Why do you seek to control me?

Why not instead try to understand me?

I wish I could understand you.

But you speak little of yourself 

and instead talk about 

all that is wrong with me.

You seem to count that as one of your virtues.

You don’t tell me what you believe, 

you tell me what I believe. 

Then you dismantle it. 

Controlling both sides of the argument.

It is an exercise in vanity, 

not critical thinking.

Regardless of what others have told you, 

what you heard and are repeating with 

confidence and conviction, 

you are only saying 

what you believe 

I believe 

not what 

I actually believe.

In pointing out 

what you think is 

my ignorance 

you are,

in fact, 

revealing your own.

We may speak, but we have not spoken.

You say my world is small,

but you see a mere fraction of it,

only what your blinders allow, 

as you safely peek out of your box

— a box you named freedom.

You say I have no curiosity or wonder 

and yet when you talk at me 

I am curious 

as to how you can be so blind,

I wonder 

how to make you see.

Not to see as I see, 

but allow me to see differently than you 

and have you still acknowledge, 

perhaps even respect, 

my right to exist as my own person 

rather than being a reflection of you, 

who are just as much a product of your culture 

as you accuse me of being a product of mine.

Products can be so easily disposed of.

Not that I need your permission, 

which is something else 

you don’t seem to understand.

Christmas Excerpt from 'Just J' .

We used to make a big deal out of Christmas. Ours was always the largest tree on the block and on Christmas Eve we’d invite the whole neighborhood over. The outside of the house would be covered in lights and the inside with tinsel and fresh cut cedar boughs.

We live near a golf course and Mom would go there at night with Billy, me, a toboggan and a pair of clippers. She’d cut branches off the cedars that line the course and I’d pile them on and around Billy, who stayed on the toboggan. He’d do his best to hold onto them. Mom loved the smell; she’d sniff the end of each one after she cut it. Dad used to play the course, so he pretended that he didn’t approve, but he’d always tell Mom which trees needed trimming if she insisted on cutting them.

Everyone was at our Christmas parties. Not just people from the neighborhood but people from my parents’ work and my school friends too—back when I had friends. Mom would play the piano and sing Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Song for a Winter’s Night.’ I’d tell her she was awful and that it was embarrassing. She’d tell me not to take things so seriously and to stop worrying about what other people thought.

 Then she’d convince Dad to sing a duet of ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside.’  I’d always make it clear to my friends just how mortifying I found it.

Mom loved to laugh and have a good time. Entertaining was her thing. She and my dad would do a dramatic reading of  ‘Twas the night before Christmas,’ acting out the different parts—complete with wardrobe and props—grabbing some unsuspecting person out of the crowd to spin around with at the ‘turned with a jerk’ part.            

It was the very definition of corny, but all the younger kids and the adults—with the help of a little rum and eggnog—loved it. My friends and I would watch from the sidelines, making sure always to be laughing at, and never with, them.

On Christmas morning, Mom would be up before any of us, even Billy. Dean Martin’s ‘Silver Bells’ blasting from the stereo would awaken the rest of us. She’d spray fake snow everywhere as we came down the stairs and then we’d rip open the mound of presents. At least, I think that was us. I remember it all right, but not to touch, not to feel, just to watch like an old film. Last Christmas—now that I can still feel with painful clarity.

There was no party, there were no lights outside or cedar inside—only a touch of tinsel and a sad little tree for a sorry little Christmas. We all had to wait for Mom to wake up and for Dad to help her down the stairs to the chair by the fire. He wrapped her in a blanket, put a scarf around her neck and turned up the gas fireplace. He then straightened the knitted, pale yellow toque she’d been wearing since she lost her hair. After that he went into the kitchen, made her a cup of tea and handed it to her gingerly.

“Are you comfortable?” he asked her for the thousandth time.

“Yes, I’m fine. Just open your presents.”

“You’re sure?” he asked again.

“She’s fine! Now can we get on with it?” I answered for her. Dad gave me a dirty look but he didn’t say anything. 

I vividly remember Mom’s frailty and how not even the fire’s reflection could give her face any colour. I remember Dad’s patience and gentleness, Billy’s enthusiasm, my anger. I watched all of it with a great fury and I let that fury be known for the rest of the day. Why shouldn’t I have been angry? I had lost my Christmas.

I got to be in the school’s Christmas pageant, but I was the only one there without a parent. Dad arranged for me to get a ride with the neighbours and their kid, Martha.

Martha stuck to me all night like a bad smell—literally—and in doing so ensured the complete destruction of what remained of my social standing.

The thing about Martha, besides her “top student” marks, and her random, loud, snorting laugh, is that she will occasionally stick her hand down the back of her skirt, pull it out and sniff it. She did it that night, on stage!

 My perfect evening was complete when, on the way to the car, Martha grabbed my hand with the hand—Merry Christmas!

All I wanted was one morning—Christmas morning—just a couple of hours of normality. But Mom couldn’t even give us that. How hard would it have been? One hundred and twenty minutes of pretending everything was all right. That was it. That was all I wanted.

A Beautiful Thing (Hard as a Hockey Puck)

First performed, in 2001, at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, Toronto, Ontario, by Jason Leighfield: a great actor and an even better friend.

Charles backs onto the stage talking to unseen people in the wings.

“Oh yes I know, I know, the string section alone it was . . . I was taken away, I was truly taken away.”

He stops and turns to the audience. He takes out a pack of cigarettes and starts the fiddle with it while he talks.

It’s what we desire, it’s what we long for, it’s what we live for. The quest for beauty is at the core of our very being. It’s a need, a shared addiction. In every turn we try to find it, capture it. But if we succeed in getting a hold of it we must be sure not to hold it too close, because if we do then we’ll soon tire of it and the beauty will be lost.

Perhaps, that’s why the things that we secretly find the most appealing, what creates the deepest longing in us, are the things that are denied us: the chocolate bar in the back of the drawer, the magazine under the mattress, the blood on the pavement, the love unrequited. It’s all beautiful, in it’s own way, but we’re not about to admit it in public.

No, we praise the slender supermodel while longing for the renaissance women; denounce the violence while staring at the screen; compliment the vintage while longing for the hop; and God forbid anyone should light up.

He takes a cigarette out of the pack, looks around, looks at the cigarette; looks around, again, lifts the cigarette to his nose, smells it like it was a fine cigar, and *SIGHS*. He lowers the cigarette and returns it to the pack and the pack to his pocket. 

For years I have professed to finding beauty in artistic and intellectual pursuits: the sorrowful sounds of Sibelius, the mournful notes of the cello; or in the madness which lies in the brush stroke of a starry night; in the forms, and even the very blows of the sculptures chisel.

Other times I would say, with great depth, that man can not create true beauty. That true beauty lay’s only in nature and that man’s gift was to be able to recognize it. Then I would point out the irony in the fact that we, the only creatures that can appreciate the beauty that surrounds, are in turn the only ones destroying it. I feel ashamed at my arrogant rumblings, now. Now, that I am about to confess to you what my true imagining of beauty is. One defining image.

I was fourteen. Most of the truly beautiful things we experience in life happen when we are young; that's when we're most open to them. I was with my friends on the frozen lake playing hockey. This, in itself, was a beautiful experience. The sounds of the mental cutting frozen water, the wood hitting the ice, the yells of excitement, surrounded by friends, without a worry in the world and all with one a clear objective.

There was a rush at the our net. My team was fighting them off. I held back, half way up the ice. Their goalie was my best friend Peter’s little brother who couldn’t stop a puck to safe his life. I knew that if my team could just get the puck to me, I could score from centre.

Then it happened, the puck broke free and floated down the ice to meet its destiny at the end of my stick. I quickly got it under control, swung around, lined up, pulled back . . . then I saw her. Against the backdrop of the setting sun she was silhouetted by a sky ablaze with the same red passion that burned within me.

She, was Darlene—Peter’s older sister. She was just on the other side of the goal, practising her figure skating, wearing nothing but those beautiful white skates, pink tube socks, a toque and a scarf. Of course she wasn't really naked, it was -15 for god’s sake, but to me, she was in the buck. I guess I left her the toque and scarf to give the fantasy that touch of realism that made it all seem possible.

Oh, how the cold did such wonderful things to her porcelain skin with perfect red highlights, the pours all closed tight, everything so firm as she pirouetted. An airbrush can’t compare to the wondrous winter wind. It was amazing. Watching her somehow ripped me from this world made an interracial part of it all at the same time. I couldn't move or think; of course most of my blood was being quickly diverted away from brain to deal with more important matters.

The trance had such a hold one me that I stayed in it even when my feet were taken out from under me and I glided backward to the cold ice surface. There I lay, flat out. Well, not entirely.

With all the strength of adolescence one part of me defied gravity, as well as two pairs of long-johns, in order to remain standing. That part continued to stand proudly until Brad clipped its tip with his hockey stick.

As excruciatingly painful as that was I hold no ill will towards Brad. I came to realize, years later, that the only reason that Brad did what he did, was so that the others won’t see how captivating he found me. Through my eyes Darlene was the perfect Venice, and through Brad’s eyes I was the perfect David.

Of course, no one would have noticed Brad for they were all to caught up in the game. And Brad and I did our best to pretend that we were that caught up in it, too. That our vision was the same as everyone else's. But it wasn't.

Thinking of it now, though, I’m not sure if there ever was a true shared vision, or if everyone out there had their own dirty little pictures going through their minds—images that they kept tucked in the back of the drawer or under the mattress.

Years later when I kissed Darlene that still wasn't more beautiful. The all-night conversations and debates that lead to the kiss, when we first made love, our marriage, or the birth of our first child, which is what I tell everyone was the most beautiful sight I’d every seen:

“Nature, at it finest, working directly through us,” I’d say.

None of it comes close to seeing her on that ice, with nipples that could cut glass and me hard as a hockey puck and straight as a steel blade.

He pulls the cigarette pack back out of his pocket, takes a cigarette out of it with his teeth, lights it and takes a long drag. He exhales and watches the smoke drift away. 

That, my friends, was beautiful thing.


Copyright © Colin Frizzell 2001. All rights reserved.

THE COUNTY WRITES…THE COUNTY READS

SUNDAY ON THE COUNTY WRITES…THE COUNTY READS – following the news at noon. “Such Little Time”, Peggy and Art Frizzell’s love story in letters. Jamie Kennedy discusses his food philosophy and his new cookbook and County FM volunteer and writer, Ken Murray, narrates his story, “The Exception.” Listen on the radio or listen online www.993countyfm.ca

The Cassette.

Early November. We were supposed to have been in Toronto by November first. Things always take longer than you think they're going to, especially when you're moving. 

It's difficult for Mom to leave the house, even if it's just for the winter. But last winter was so hard and she will be turning 87 this year, she needs to be where she can keep active. Nonetheless, it's the only home she's known in Canada; her mother lived here for a time, also, when she first arrived and later when age made it too difficult for her to keep her apartment in Picton. Dad's mom, who he cared for, died in this house. Grandfather Frizzell died out by the barn, I believe. Dad wanted to die here, too, but had to go to the hospital in the end. Though his spirit does linger.  

I decided to give the grass one last cut. I wasn't going to, but Dad always gave it that one last low cut in the fall after letting it grow long. It was supposed to help keep the weeds down in the spring and make the first cut easier. The extra mulch was also good for the lawn. 

The headphone jack on my iphone had been damaged in September and my ipod was no longer holding a charge so I had resorted to using my Walkman (which I hadn't used in years and had only recently found one that worked) a few cuts ago. 

I grabbed three cassettes: Tony Apler, A Taste for Wine, a Fuji recordable tape without a label, and a cassette with a home-made label with Irish comedy written on it in green. I had found the Irish comedy tape in my office when I was packing the office up the day before; I didn't recognize it and I don't know where it come from. 

While cutting I listened to the wine tape, first. It gave pointers on tasting and cooking with wine and the joy of sharing it with friends etc.. I had always enjoyed drinking wine (since developing a taste for it, through necessity, as a teen. The necessity being that I was at a party and there was nothing else to drink.) After my native home, Prince Edward County, became a wine region, and I went to work at Rosehall Run and then Devil's Wishbone winery, my interest grew.

When Tony Aper had finished I put on the Fuji tape. It turned out to be Toad to Wet Sprocket, recorded back when I was in college. 

I finished the lawn quickly. Some parts, that were shaded by trees, hadn’t grown much since last time I cut it; not having to cut close to the trees sped things up considerably. 

“Dad would be happy,” I said, as came into the house. He was very proud of his well-kept lawn.

I had a cup of coffee. I checked my facebook and took a call. I went to go back out and put the lawnmower away for the winter.

I was on my way out the door when I turned back. It wouldn't take me long to put the lawnmower away, so it wasn't really worth getting wired for sound. Nonetheless, I picked up the Walkman, again. I felt I should check to see what was on the Irish Comedy cassette before it went into the back of a drawer and was again forgotten about.

I inserted the cassette into the yellow player. I pressed play. Nothing. I fast forwarded it a little bit. Nothing. I fast forwarded it a little bit more. Nothing. I was about to turn it off when I heard a crackle. I didn’t recognize that crackled, it’s been so long since I heard it, but it was the sound of someone pressing the record button.

I heard her start to sing, ‘The Mountains of Mourne’, and then I heard his voice. I can’t really describe in this moment what that moment was like. I needed to be sure I was hearing what I thought I was hearing. I walked into the room and held an ear bud to Mom’s ear.

She smiled slightly, tears came to her eyes.

“Is that you and Dad singing?” I asked.

She nodded.

I put the cassette into the stereo so we could hear it properly.

It was the first time hearing him in 11 years. Their singing filled the room, once more.

There was just the one song and then the tape went into an Irish Comedy routine that it was labelled for.

The cassette in is a protective case now. Dad’s name added to the label. It won’t be going into the back of a drawer. For a back-up I recorded it with my camera and am sharing it here, with you. It's only a minute, but it's a minute that crossed time, and the great divide, and it means so much. 

Book Launch

On August 21st, 2014, at 8:00 p.m., 51 years to the day that Peggy wrote her first letter, to Art, she will be launching the paperback version of her book, ‘Such Little Time: A Collection of Love Letters’, in the building where they first met, on Lake-on-the- Mountain, in a dance hall (affectionately known as the, ‘Bucket of Blood’), which is now, The Miller House Cafe-Brasserie. Please join us for the celebration as Peggy, at 86, becomes an author for the first time.

For more information click here.

Being Human

There was something that Pope Francis said a while ago, something like, “You can’t be human alone. You need others to be human with you.” That stuck with me. Isn’t that what many seek, someone to be human with? Isn’t that why we read stories? In the pages we find people who aren’t too frightened to love. Who aren’t afraid to be human.

The world often seems filled with cruel manipulations, thoughtless, uncaring people so removed from the human condition that you have to attempt to explain to them what it’s like to feel.  You can’t. You can’t break down what being human is. What it’s like to see someone you care about sick, ageing or dying and feel their pain and the ache inside you that demands you do something, or at least be there for them in whatever way you can.

You can’t explain to someone what loyalty is, or the pain of betrayal, or how much a broken heart hurts. You can’t quantify and qualify mercy or compassion or what it’s like to be alive on an emotional level. You simply can’t. If you get angry or upset when watching the news because of all the pain and needless suffering that people inflict on people; if all the indifference makes you feel a little ill and someone doesn’t get it because, hey, it doesn’t affect you directly so who cares? Or that sometimes you need to find a way to laugh at it all, because if you don't laugh it will break you, only to be condemned for being inappropriate. You can’t explain what it’s like to be human. 

I heard once that Jesus (who was Jewish, btw) didn’t come to teach us how to be gods; he came to show us how to be human. That so many misuse his teachings to remove themselves from their own humanity, and sit in the seat of judgement, is a discussion for another day. But, maybe, Jesus let himself be tortured and brutalised so horrendously in hopes to shock us into caring, to touch our heart and make us appalled by our own brutality, disturbed that people could do this to someone who did nothing but preach love and kindness, give out free health care, feed the poor and demand a more equal sharing of wealth; and say that we should treat each other with the same respect we want for ourselves. 

As the story goes, God so loved the world that he gave his only son. If we were a little more human, we never would have killed him—or so many others since. The sacrifice would have been unnecessary. He died for our sins and our sins were fear and indifference.

I’m rambling now, getting away from my original point. Life is an emotional journey and what I think most people want is someone to share that journey with, someone who allows them to feel, allows them to care and who doesn't belittle them for it. A person who won’t take advantage of our trust or kindness; who will give us the strength and courage to be vulnerable. Someone to be human with.

Love Letters Cross the Ocean Once More

Mom and Dad's love letters cross the ocean once more with, 'Such Little Time: A Collection of Love Letters', getting written up in both hometown papers: The Picton Gazette and the Newtownabbey Times. To read the full article from the Times click here. To read the full Gazette article click on accompanying photo.

Such Little Time: A Collection of Love Letters

This is a personal project that has gone through many stages to get to this point. As a writer, as with many jobs in the arts, only the most fortunate (and funded) get to do it full time. Since I discovered and began working with the original love letters I've worked as an usher/bartender at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, an office PA on Resident Evil: Apocalypse; I became a member of the Directors Guild of Canada (after getting the necessary signatures and completing their training course), and worked as a director's/producer's assistant on Confessions of an American Bride.

I received a grant, for Just J, from the Toronto Arts Council; was accepted, as a writer, into Ontario's Self-Employment Benefits Program, which gave me both business training and the time to complete and submit two novels, (Chill and Just J) which were published by Orca Book Publishers. With the books being published I was then able to join the Irish Writers' Union and the Writers' Union of Canada (allowing me the opportunity to do manuscript evaluations). I've had a screenplay optioned by friend and filmmaker Ed Gass-Donnelly; an audio play produced by Festival Players; worked as a writer-in-residence for six semesters with Now Hear This!'s S.W.A.T. (Students, Writer's And Teachers) program; completed Second City's improvisation program (which has been helpful for both writing and presenting); was named poet laureate for Small Pond Arts annual Stick Festival, and worked for Rosehall Run winery (if you'd like to see, and even try, some recipes I wrote for their blog click here.)

While doing that (there's more, and I'm still working at multiple places, but I think that's enough to give you a sense of the time that has past), I was always creating and being a part of other people's creative endeavors. But, these letters were never far from my mind and always in my heart.  All things in their own time, they say, and the ebook version of these love letters couldn't have come into being at a more perfect time—what would have been Mom and Dad's 50th wedding anniversary.

The books journey began 11 years ago after my dad died. I knew that Mom and Dad got engaged after only knowing each other for 4 days. I think I even knew that they had written each other during their engagement. What I didn't know was that my dad had kept all of Mom's letters and that Mom still had a few of Dad's. I didn't find that out until after his passing.

I read them all. I missed my dad and these letters help keep him close and allowed me to get to know more about him.

There's a bitter sweetness in trying to get to know more about your father after he died; on the one hand you're grateful for the chance, on the other you're filled with regret of not taking more time to do it when he was still alive. You're left with more questions than answers, left in longing.

I knew these letters were a treasure, something that could be handed down through the generations, for the grandchildren that were too young when he passed, and the ones that were yet to be born. Maybe even for great-grandchildren, great-great grandchildren, and so on. I took on the task of typing them all out.

Then I thought that they might interest others, too. In a world where love seems robbed of its devotion, loyalty, friendship and strength, reduced to a fleeting and meaningless emotion that flees when difficulties arises—and if you expect more you're a hopeless romantic, a dreamer—I thought some people might like to see that a lasting love can be very real, and to share in the journey. I talked to my mom, she was okay with it. However, publishers, although taken by the story, didn't feel the letters would draw enough interest. They might be right.

So, I took the letters and turned them into a book for the immediate family and gave it to them on Christmas in 2008. It might have ended there but the letters wouldn't leave me alone.

Loving another human being is a courageous act, it makes you vulnerable and holds in it the possibility of being hurt with a pain that runs so deep few can honestly talk about it outside of music, fiction and verse; to stay the course, through thick and thin, is nothing short of heroic. When anyone manages to make that commonly held, and so rarely realized, dream come true through their efforts, courage and devotion, I feel, it's a story worth sharing. Though, I'm aware that my opinion isn't, exactly, unbiased. It's my mom and dad, after-all, without their love I wouldn't have life. That's a big debt to pay. 

The audience might not be wide enough to interest a traditional publisher, but that doesn't matter. The letter's could still mean something to a few feeling hearts. 

So, I posted them on my blog and got some very positive feed back. Then the idea of an ebook came up. I pondered the notion, thought about making it available to a wider readership and how Mom, now 86, would get to see them published. Also, whenever I work on the letters I feel Dad closer to me, as I often do when I work in the barnyard.

Dad died less than a month after Mom and his 39th wedding anniversary. Today, June 6th, 2014 would have been their 50th. To mark the occasion the letters are being released as an ebook.

Mom found out on Mother's Day that her and Dad are now authors. There were tears shed. She has now pressed the button to make it official, making their letter's available to the world. Below you'll find the synopsis, forward and a letter from Peggy and one from Art. You can purchase the full book through Amazon. If there is interest it will be coming available in other formats. If not, well, some stories just need to be told. Love stories especially, because the world needs more of them.

 Such Little Time:

A Collection of Love Letters

 “The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves.”

— Thomas Merton

“Love consists of this: two solitudes that meet, protect and greet each other. ”

— Rainer Maria Rilke

FOREWORD

When I set out to write the introduction to these letters I went to the library to research 1963: the civil rights movement in the United States, the election of a new Liberal government in Canada after a non-confidence vote against Diefenbaker’s Conservatives over nuclear weapons, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) had yet to form in Northern Ireland, but the FLQ (Front de libération du Québec) were active in Quebec.

I was going to talk about how people had faith in being able to change the world and hope for a better future. Kennedy was in the White House, the Beatles had released their first album (Please, Please Me), Lawrence of Arabia was at the Oscars, Bond was at the box office, television was sending its first images by satellite and Martin Luther King made his I have a dream speech.

But, this story isn’t about that. This story is about a simpler dream. A dream which is shared by everyone and that, it seems, you have to give up on in order to find; once you find it, you have to take a leap of blind faith to have it and give it everything you’ve got to keep it.          

It began, as I’m sure you’ve surmised, in 1963—August to be exact. Peggy Strain was a 35 year-old Irish schoolteacher who had been single for the ten years since her first marriage was annulled—her faith in men had been dissolved with her vows.

She was on vacation with her mother, Elizabeth (Lily). After having visited Lily’s brother, Bill, his wife, Florrie, and their family, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, they went to Prince Edward Country, Ontario, to visit Lily’s cousin, Martha, or Mrs. Jarvis as she is referred to with proper respect in the letters.

While in Canada they were staying with Mrs. Jarvis’s son, Jack, his wife Grace, and daughters, Jeanne and Janice. Peggy had been over for visits before and those visits were greatly welcomed, especially by Janice who just loved her “Aunt” Peggy. Janice also very much loved her Uncle Art, her mother’s brother.

Art was a bit of a rogue and, at 40 years old, a confirmed bachelor. The youngest in a family of four, he had stayed on the farm to look after his mom, but he did so more out of obligation than a love of the land. His real love was people and he surrounded himself with them constantly and enjoyed the odd drink, for it helped keep the party and conversation flowing. 

Art was foot-loose and fancy free, as the saying goes, and he was quite happy to be that way. So, when his niece got her mother, Art’s sister, Grace, involved in setting him up with some strange Irishwoman that he’d never met, well, he wasn’t too keen. And Peggy, she went along with it as much to be a gracious guest as anything.         

There was to be a dance at the Lake-on-the-Mountain hall, which was owned and operated by Art’s older brother Hugh, and his wife Bernice. Art’s oldest brother, George, and his wife, Betty, were also going to be there. Grace would bring Peggy. Art would come with his brothers. But Art, having never meet Peggy, decided that she wouldn’t be his “type” and went into town to have a few drinks with, “the boys”.

After a few hours, Peggy was none too amused with this Canadian hospitality. Meanwhile, Art was getting pretty bored with town and decided to head home. Since Lake-on-the-Mountain was on his way he saw no harm in stopping by—this was when the small town country boy first learned of an Irish temper. He was instantly captivated and, though she didn’t show it, so was she.

Four days later they got engaged.

The catch was that Peggy had to go back to Ireland and stay there for eight months before she could return. The extra little wrinkle was that Peggy didn’t own a phone so the only way they could communicate was through letters. They wrote each other faithfully and often. Their obstacles became our treasures.

This is the story of Art and Peggy. It’s a tale of what all stories worth telling are about: love. Not just any kind of love, but a love which blooms in almost the first moment your eyes meet and lasts until your last breath and beyond. I grew up knowing this story but never appreciating its wonder, its rarity, and the courage that they both had in order to bring it to life.

Despite knowing the story, while reading the letters I still found myself wondering what the outcome would be, if they’d get together, if it would last, what was going to happen? Even though there are only seven of the seventy odd letters Art wrote—because of a pact that they both made and that Art, fortunately, broke and Peggy only partially held—the story still comes across. It not only shows the love and the longing that they had for each other at the time, but it echoes the longing that would return nearly four decades later when they were once again torn apart.

The letters didn’t just keep my attention; they also kept me calling my fiancée—who was 200 kilometres away at the time—and telling her how much I loved her.

My own marriage not working out has only made me appreciate this love story all the more. I understand, now, just how much care, work, and mutual devotion a loving marriage takes to survive—and how rare that truly is. 

I hope that you not only enjoy these letters as much as I do, but that you get as much from them—and more. That you squeeze your loved one’s hand just a little harder or give them an extra goodnight kiss. Most of all I hope you find the courage to do what is the bravest thing anyone one can do: give yourself, fully, to another, without losing who you are, while letting them be, fully, who they are—as Dad demanded in one of his letters.

A lasting love isn’t for the fickle or the faint of heart.

     1d Bracken Way

Rushpark

Newtownabbey

Co.Antrim

N. Ireland

21 August 1963

Dear Art,

I find it hard to believe that so many miles are separating us when it is such a short time since we were together. How I would just love to be able to call up and hear your voice—you see I miss you already. Yesterday morning in Picton I moved into mother’s bed as I felt cold (thermostat not working again) and when I woke up I felt something touching my back. For one wonderful moment I thought that we were married and that you were there beside me. Art, I do love you so. Ireland doesn’t seem home to me any more because you are not here. It is true when they say home is where the heart is.

We had a very pleasant flight back and other than waking up to eat supper and breakfast I slept most of the way. We were only 8 3/4hours in the air but when we landed at Belfast airport we had to remain on the plane for another hour as Customs and Immigration lounges were so busy. However, even so, we were back at the flat before 8 a.m.  We’ve had breakfast and Mother has gone to lie down as she did not sleep last night at all and very little the previous night.

I can’t remember if I thanked your mother for giving us such a wonderful engagement party. If not will you give her my thanks now.  I will treasure the memories of that important day all my life, together with the happiness I feel. I hope that you feel the same way, too. I wonder when we will be together again? I hope it is soon as I feel I will be impatient with any delay for moments we are apart seem wasted.

I have so many thoughts in my head, but I am finding difficulty in putting them down on paper, so I hope that you understand all that I am trying to say.

The weather here is cool and breezy just as I thought it would be. The sky is overcast and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some rain. What a change from the beautiful weather we left in Canada.

I will write again at the beginning of next week when I find out the details about how long I’ll have to work. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you are not to write until after you receive my next letter. I am waiting eagerly to hearing from you, so please write very soon. By the way I’m still known here as Mrs. Peggy Strain—but not for long I hope.

All my love forever

Peggy.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunday Aug. 25/63

RR#4

Picton

Ont.

My Darling Peggy,

I received your wonderful letter yesterday morning. I can’t tell you how happy I am to know that nothing has changed. I sometimes think it must have been just a wonderful dream. I guess I’ll not really believe it’s true until I hold you in my arms again. I love you very much and think of you constantly. If you feel as strongly as I do I am wondering how you can concentrate on your school work. My work on the farm requires very little concentration, it’s work I have done so much I can just do it more or less automatically.

Well honey I’m late again as usual. It is 12 o’clock Sunday night. I went church to-night and after church Betty and George and the boys came over. We had a lunch and have been visiting. They just left so I thought I had better write you to-night so I could send it by to-morrow’s mail. I only hope this letter means as much to you as your letter meant to me. I took quite a razzing at church to-night, but I find I rather enjoyed it. Cressy is still recovering from the shock of its No.1 bachelor getting engaged. However, I am sure when they meet you they will understand.

There has been very little going on around here since you left. How I wished last night that you could be here to go to the dance with me, but since you were not I had no desire to go, so I watched television. My darling I am so anxious to know how soon you will be able to come back to me, I miss you so much. I do hope it will be soon. The Cressy people are all very anxious for you to get back too. I don’t know whether they are thinking of our happiness or just want to have a party. There has been no marriage in Cressy for a couple of years and the natives are bubbling with anticipation. Betty got your address from me to-night. She wants to be able to inform you if I misbehave, but you know she doesn’t have to worry about that. Maybe she doesn’t realize the effect a love like ours can have on a wayward bachelor.

Like you Peggy there were many things I wanted to say, but since starting to write I can’t seem to bring them out. However since we both feel the same I guess it’s not necessary because we both know without saying. I do love you very much and Long for your safe return.

I have been trying to make some plans for our future, but I can do nothing without you. Sometimes things work out better if there are not too many plans made in advance, so I am just waiting until you are with me again. The weather has been very nice here lately and I wish you could be here to share it. To-morrow I will be picking tomatoes. I am sure then I will think of a thousand things that I wanted to tell you but right now it is like when we were together, I can only think of how much I love you. When I put the ring on your finger I would love, liked very much to have made a pretty speech and told you what was in my heart but the lump in my throat wouldn’t let me have said much even if I could have thought of it. I am sure you understand Peggy Darling. Well Peggy I guess this will have to do for now. I will try to do better next time.

Write soon. I love you.

Art.

P.S. I suppose I’ll have to address this as you instructed but I hate to think of you as Mrs. anybody. Except Mrs. Art Frizzell.

Love and Kisses

Art

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