This moment. The stage set with all the microphones and cords and gear for Valdy. For all of us.
Blu Hopkins, who worked as sound tech standing there behind his big beard patiently calculating prior to showtime.
The night before we flippantly asked Alan Harrison, the Mayor of Salmon Arm, to keep it concise, so I could use the short time deliver the keynote with confidence (!). We were tongue-n-cheek. He had invited Gord to play tennis at 9 AM and Gord is nothing if not obsessed with tennis. I had desperately wanted him instead, to sit as audience for me, Keynote Speaker. In my mind: Stay with me. Listen in your director’s head about what works and what doesn’t. The doubles players teased him: tennis? or marriage?
So he got behind the cell phone camera and took this one for ‘Keynote Caitlin’ as he began to call me. Five minutes to opening, and I could only try to be calm; wondering what the delay? not realizing that the Mayor had not yet arrived. Soon the stage was cleared.
So they introduced Louis Thomas, Knowledge Keeper of the WEYTYK, as the first speaker and he spoke about ‘truth telling’ writing. By this time, the mayor arrived. He wished us well and then I stepped onstage to deliver my essay, “Why We Write”. Afterwards, Louis and I, we congratulated each other. My keynote speech: a virtual homage to “things that cannot be said”.
Kevin Gooden, the man pointing in the top pic, featured in my subsequent workshop “What’s Your Story?” with a tale of his own.
The other person in this photo is Ray Hudson, friends with all, who carried around the lenses, the black heavy camera, and throughout Friday’s activities, stared close up, at everyone’s faces as they read, as they performed. He had the closest look to capture us and in doing so, celebrate us. He had been scheduled at the gala Saturday event to perform as M.C. How long after this photo was taken did a stroke collapse him in the middle of everything?Throughout the rest of the festival, he just held on in intensive care. Everyone who knew him whispered, sorrow and dread and love in their voices. Is he still with us?
