It is said that “a picture is worth a thousand words”. Well, maybe. Sometimes. I think that, often, the words are actually worth the words. They excavate deep feeling and understanding. They create impossible images in our mind. They force us to remember.

When I was small, I wanted to be an archaeologist. I don’t know why. Why does any youngster decide at such an early age what they want to be when they grow up? I had a lot of books about dinosaurs, books about old temples and buildings that had been unearthed by archaeologists, books about the Egyptians and the discovery of King Tut’s tomb. It was with endless fascination that I looked at the pictures of old civilizations and tried to imagine what it must have been like to live so long ago, to look at those long-gone animals with wonder at how big they were. I have always been amazed at how many youngsters are still also fascinated by dinosaurs, how a three- year old can so easily say those complicated names and know what they ate and when they lived. Is it, perhaps, a molecular memory that we all possess, buried deep inside us, that our past lives are still so close to the surface when we are very young? Ask a small child of three or four “What do you remember?” Don’t prompt them and listen to what they say. I’ve done it a number of times and am always confounded by the clarity and assuredness of the response. As time goes on, we lose that connection to the “past”, to what we remember.

In 1966, I began my Journals. Don’t know what prompted me to do
that, but I did (actually I do know but that’s another story). A few days ago, I decided to go through some old boxes in the storage at my house. On my computer, I have about 500 pages dating back to June of 2005, but I wanted to look back at what I had written over the years. It took a while to dig out all the Journals. They were scattered through dozens of boxes and that is what brought the title of this entry to mind – I was unearthing the past and having to work for it. My back can attest to that! Above is a photo of the result of my digging, thousands of pages, some handwritten, some in dot matrix (when was the last time you used that term?) written on and printed from my Commodore 64 (!!) and the rest from my laser printer.

As you can see here, the early Journals, the first ones from 1966-67, are much the worse for wear. They have been through a lot in the half century since the entries were made – a flood or two, multiple cross-country moves- and they now reside in a Ziploc bag so they won’t deteriorate any further. Opening them a few days ago was like handling the Dead Sea Scrolls. The pages were brittle and broken and partially disintegrating, but then I began to read – from the beginning. None of the entries were dated back then, but I knew the time frames from the events I had referenced.

I honestly don’t know how to describe the feeling that began  to well up inside me. It was a combination of embarrassment, humility, humiliation, surprise, compassion, curiosity, anger and, above everything else, oddly, fear. I found myself, with great trepidation,  gingerly turning pages to learn what happened next. While I remember most of what I read, I didn’t remember the order in which events had happened. I was reliving a part of my foggy past, some parts of which I didn’t want to relive, but I read on anyway and that’s where some of the embarrassment kicked in. I have long since forgiven myself for ever being 21 but, from this chronological  distance, I got pissed off at my naivete,  at my lack of perspective and process. Of course, all those reactions were from the “me” now and I had to realize that these words were the words of an honest, young and inexperienced me in those long-ago moments. They were important words then. That was the humbling part, to realize that I have come a very long way since.

There were the crazy, heady days of Expo ’67 in the middle of the St. Lawrence River one glorious summer. The remnants of that event still stand in the middle of Ile St. Helene. Nostalgia wells up inside me whenever I think of that time. I wonder what happened to all the close friends I made then. I know some of them are gone now, sadly. But we move on. After Expo, the Corporation sent us, free of charge, to anywhere Air France flew. We started in Paris and spent a month darting about the continent! More nostalgia.

Then to the West Coast and a new life in Vancouver after the FLQ began putting bombs in mailboxes in Westmount. Years of performing in Burlesque at Isy’s Supper Club on Georgia Street followed (bet a lot of folks didn’t know that about me!). Then to Portland Oregon and the incredible years at Portland Civic Theatre. Then to New York and Lincoln Center … as a Tour Guide, not a performer, unfortunately. Then Winnipeg (for 27 years) and finally, now, to this beautiful city. Squeezing 50 years into a couple of paragraphs makes one aware of how small we are in the great expanse of time that surrounds us. But those are just a few sign posts. It is the myriad of details, large and small, secret and public, that give dimension to a life. What is our mark? What impression have we make and who have we affected by our existence? I’m glad I have saved this record of my little time here. The question now is what becomes of my words? Who really cares to know all the details of my life? What does it matter? Should I burn the Journals or should I give them to someone? But to what end?

I think I’ve become cynical as time has gone on. I have found myself beaten at times by my own impatience, my own dishonesty and by ageism (and that’s a hard one to get my head around). I have misplaced the enthusiasm and vitality of the long-ago-me, and mourn that loss. But the unearthing of the past in those Journals brings a perspective on the present. The luxury of remembering lessons recorded along the way is something we don’t always have. Merely blundering through an existence can’t be all that rewarding, I would think. Having tangible connections to remind us who we were and how we have changed is, I can report hundreds of thousands of my own words later, deeply rewarding. “I am what I am”, ‘Zaza’ says in “La Cage Aux Folles” and I am grateful to myself for keeping the Journals. Whether long ago or yesterday, I’m all there for the reading!

So, bear with me here for a bit.

We’re back at the Banff School and I’m in my second summer there (1963 now), this time in the newly formed Musical Theatre Division, headed by Theatre Giant Brian MacDonald, with Billy Solly and John Stanzl (all still an amazing memory). There were about twenty of us sitting on the floor in a studio one day. I had been asked a question by Brian and started to answer. He said, “Stop!” I stopped mid-sentence and my heart stopped beating. “Do you hear your ess’s?” “Yes”, I said, becoming very aware of my sibilance. “Well, STOP IT!!” he shouted at me and continued on with the class.

Flash forward to Sir George Williams University in Montreal and my second year in the Theatre Department. The University had just moved into the new Building on Maisonneuve Boulevarde and we were in the brand new Douglas Burns Theatre (there’s nothing like a new Theatre!). Canadian Theatre Legend, Norma Springford (and she WAS legendary!) was our teacher, a tiny, oh-so-elegant lady with her hair always pulled back in a tight bun and with huge glasses perched at the end of her nose. The class was preparing for some scene work and moving furniture around the room. A loud screech from a table being dragged across the floor pierced the air. “Hold on!” yelled Norma (as much as Norma ever “yelled”), shedding her elegance for a moment! Everyone froze. She slowly folded her arms looked around the room and then looked down at the floor. Words of wisdom were now to follow. She looked up at us and quietly stated, “We always LIFT in the Theatre”. (Pause) Continue”. The scene change took place in silence.

There was Mr. Harding, my high school English Teacher, a disheveled, highly enthusiastic Welshman who never did a great job shaving and always had dried blood on his neck and chin from razor nicks but masterfully made us aware of the detail and luxury of the words of Charles Dickens. There was Mr. Scott, my high school Music Teacher, a fiery Presbyterian Scotsman, bald, with a moustache, and gnarled hands that would slam into a desktop if the all-boy chorus was not singing “Guide Me, Oh Thou Great Jehovah” loud enough to make the fixtures in the Choir Room rattle and for the entire school beyond to hear us. There was Professor O’Brian who taught English 101 in my first year of University, a very dapper Englishman who read us Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” in Middle English and urged us to learn it that way. (I can still recite the opening lines – “Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote/The droghte of March hath pierced to the roote” – in Middle English). They all left their impressions indelibly upon me.

Years later, I accidentally fell into teaching myself. I had acquired a modicum of success as an actor on stages in Portland, Oregon, and was constantly being asked if I was teaching any classes. Thanks to a lifelong friend, Isabella Chappell, who was the GM of Portland Civic Theatre at the time, I began some workshops at the Theatre. (I eventually became Head of the revitalized School and ended up with an incredible Staff and almost a thousand people a year going through all kinds of Performing Arts classes). Suddenly thrown into the deep end, I had to come up with some kind of approach to “teaching” acting, and I began to think about my school experiences. Why had those particular teachers stuck with me for so many years? Rather slowly, I came to the realization that it was not WHAT they had taught me, but rather HOW they had taught me. Their approaches stay with me even now, viscerally, even after a half-century. Their passion for what they did was certainly a foundation for their careers, but it seemed to me that connecting directly with a student and making them “aware” was the answer, making the experience of learning come to life by somehow, mystically, focusing our minds. It was never a case of them telling someone what to think, but rather of provoking someone to think.

Focus and awareness are difficult challenges to the learning experience. Actually, they are difficult challenges in everyday life. Just think of a group of high school or college students these days … one word – “iphone”! So I began to develop exercises that would address, if only for the moments in the class, those two challenges. One exercise that I still use today is a “Chaos Exercise”. The class arranges itself in an inward facing circle. The first of the continuous instructions is to simply breathe, regularly, quietly. Now, of course, I can hear the minds thinking, “What is this nonsense?”, “Geez, we’ve done all this before!”, “What is this jerk making us do this for?” The next instruction asks them to let sound of the breath be heard. Next, make a quiet vocal sound on the breath. The focus starts to shift a bit now because there are specifics being required. They’re relaxing, but there are still wandering minds – “Where should I go for lunch?”, “What’s on TV tonight?” The next instruction asks the individuals to quietly sing a musical note on the breath, any note. The final instruction goes like this: “Now, on “three”, I want you all to sing the SAME note. One …Two … STOP!”  In the space between “one” and “two” the temperature in the room rises as I hear the mental collective yell “Wait, WHAT?”, and between “two” and “STOP”, a palpable tension (“What? How? Huh  …?”) becomes very apparent. There is suspended moment after “STOP” and the room suddenly lets out its tension and breaks into chatter. For a moment, a communal awareness and pinpoint focus was achieved. It is like the Hadron Collider of Theatre where everything coincides, all thoughts are the same and energies are defined and specific toward a singular goal. Yes, the path toward the achievement was through some chicanery and manipulative. But the focus was real. The awareness was real, if only for those few seconds. The engagement of the group was profound.

We always talk following that particular exercise. The expressions of the mental upheaval, chaos, surprise and apprehension in the lead up to being told to “stop” always have laughter associated with them, a laughter that comes from the realization that one has created a momentary reality out of something artificial and seemingly inconsequential.

There are constant moments in everyday life when we are suspended, moments that last for only a nano-second when you must decide, when you have to choose between stay or go, turn right or turn left, accept or reject. Those are the moments when we’re most engaged, when living becomes vital and full, when we decide to “Stop!”, “Lift!” and “Sing Louder!” We reach our best in those moments because we think and feel inside our personal Chaos and, amazingly, create Order.

(And just so you know, the exercise is repeated twice more during the class. The second time, they are told, again, to “Stop” before reaching the sung note. The atmosphere leading to that moment is very different from the first time because they now know what the objective is. The third time, they are given the “Three”. What happens then is … well, try it and see!)

More later.

(Okay, it took some time to technically get to this point, but I’m sort of there now and can begin. I’ll probably tweak some formatting things as time
goes on, but we’ll see.)

Now, you can consider all of the above as static like you’re trying to dial in to a particular station on a radio. Now my voice is clear(figuratively) but we’ll be going into some vagaries and ramblings from time to time so it might get foggy and blurred. But the best place to start is at the beginning.

My name is Richard Hurst  I was born in Montreal just over seven decades ago and I’ve lived in Vancouver, Portland, OR., New York, Winnipeg and am now in Victoria, BC. Perhaps that’s enough “history” for the moment. More will come out as time goes on.

(And just a wee disclaimer: I’m definitely NOT “nearly dead”. There’s a phrase said to apply to where I live “Victoria: Home to the Newly Wed and Nearly Dead”. Certainly I’m closer to my end now than when I began this sentence, but I think I might have a bit more to go. Just sayin’.)

It took a while to decide to do this and then I had to decide what to write about. Getting some things down in this format seemed like a good idea. I’ve learned a bunch of stuff over the years, done a bunch of thinking, and even come to a few of conclusions. I promise not to be pretentious (or at least, I’ll try not to be) and maybe, along the way, amuse you a little.

When I was 17 (in 1962) I took a train from Montreal to Banff, Alberta for the first of four summers at the Banff School of Fine Arts. I was in the Opera Division and the School was MUCH different than it is today. The students lived in “chalets” scattered about the grounds. We all ate our meals at the same time at long tables (picture meal time at Hogwarts) and Donald Cameron, the School Director, said grace before food was passed from the end of the tables. I met some incredible people in these years, many of whom are gone now. It was Eden in every way. The physical environment, the mountains, the classes, the faculty, everything so focused on a creative and, dare I say, a spiritual experience. But there were times when I was homesick. I would write letters home and my Mother would write back. At the end of every letter, Mom would write “Be a good boy and act intelligently”, just a sign-off then but, in time, words that became so meaningful. Looking back and realizing that she was only in her late thirties at that point, I’ve come to understand how incredibly generous and considerate a woman she was for one so young, being mindful enough to caution a young son a thousand miles away to think about what he was doing and why he was doing it. Those words were at the end of every letter I ever received from her – and there were a lot of them.  And they are the foundation of how I have tried to live my life. “Good” and “intelligent” are easy words to say but are much harder to put into action.

As the years went by, Mom rose mightily in her career, getting a PhD in Organizational Theory and breaking some, but not all, glass ceilings in the corporate world. I, too, rose in my life in the Theatre. I became the National Vice-President of Canadian Actors Equity Association and our worlds converged because we were both now dealing with organizational structures and dynamics. We had many conversations and, connected to the sign-off in her letters, she often talked about Core Values and Core Beliefs as they related to the people in our careers. When she passed a couple of years ago, all this came flooding back to me – how creating an environment for positive things to happen have their basis in “good” and “intelligent” and in Core Values and Core Beliefs. I wish we had talked more about this. I’ve read a lot about these concepts over the years and  it seems to me that Core Values, the things we use to make decisions, like trust and compassion and maybe honesty, the WHO-we-are at our very center that we need to feel a sense of well-being, can be related to Core Beliefs or the results of what we have learned, what experiences we’ve had, the HOW-we-operate in our lives. The one conclusion I’ve reached is that Core Beliefs without Core Values as the foundation is nothing more than propaganda, commercials and, unfortunately, politics. The past year and a half has been jangling when juxtaposed against these concepts. I wonder what has become of our humanity. Its a quandary to which I can find no comfortable response. Its frustrating and maddening and I don’t like feeling that way. My trust has been eroded and my compassion compromised. I still feel badly when I see a defenseless  animal abused or people herded into camps because they come from somewhere else. But I don’t feel the same way when I hear and see people attacking each other verbally on television (and you all know what I’m talking about). Where are my Values then? What are my Beliefs and why aren’t they meshing with those of someone else? And, perhaps, therein lies the difference. My life experience has been based (as much as I can make it so) in “good” and “intelligence”.  My sensibilities are the difference, all of which have been guided by the Core Values that influence everything else. My Beliefs are BASED in my Values. Why can’t everyone be that way??!! The Community all those years ago at the Banff School and in various other Group involvements during my life has always been focused on the greater “good” and fed by considered “intelligent” discourse, and the chief desire I continue to have is that others may have that experience in theirs. I’m going to leave it there for the moment. I’ll probably come back to this in the time ahead if anything new springs to mind.

So, there it is, the first entry. I wish I had a crystal ball to see where all this is going. But for the moment, I’ll be satisfied that I’ve begun another trek. There’s a lot to write about. But I’ll keep you in suspense.

More later!!!