The whole thing hit me like a peyote flashback dipped in Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, the moment I walked into the Sybil Goldstein art show. The room vibrating the way ghosts make molecules bounce. And there was my favourite surprise, Andy Patterson painted as John Diefenbaker. Who would have thought? She got it so right, I don’t know how artist’s do that when they do that. I never met her, I looked at her photograph and heard she worked at he Cameron where I spent as many years as any other 80s Queen street player but her image wasn’t familiar. Herb told me about her last spring and summer and now this winter. He’s the type of friend every artist needs especially after death. I met Herb’s daughter who he introduced as his biological daughter. They met not during her growing up. I don’t know the whole story but she tracked him down and everyone lives happily ever after.

All of us leave behind some kind of trail. Sometimes it’s art. Sometimes it’s clutter. Sometimes it is a few boxes that no one knows what to do with. I caught myself wondering about my own leftovers. Old recordings, notebooks of ideas that never made sense, posters from gigs I barely remember. None of it would stop traffic, but someone in the future might pull one of those scraps out of a box and feel a small flicker of curiosity. Maybe that is enough.