I happen to catch him on the phone.
“I’m passing the prison farm at the moment,” he tells me. “I’ll be right there.”
“Great,” I reply. “I’ll put on some pants.”
Less than four minutes later Doug Phillips is through my back door and the kettle is whistling. Ostensibly, he’s here to talk about chimneys, fireplaces and wood inserts, but ten minutes on we haven’t left the kitchen. We’ve exhausted Six Degrees of Separation and are moving to Guess My Profession.
In Doug’s case, what you see is not exactly what you get.
While the trades own his hands, the other parts of his mind, body and inner workings belong to the theatre. An actor and playwright, he came to his avocations just six years ago, with an energy and passion that could swamp a less sturdy listener. (Luckily for both of us, theatre is another of my favourite topics.) He apologizes for his scruffy appearance and scrolls through his phone to show a poster for his upcoming production, Empire of Dirt. Yup, it’s him alright.
He says he doesn’t write sweetness and light and he’s not that into Shakespeare. What he loves are the difficult, modern stories of painful experience, of the nitty-gritty homeliness swept under the couch. In Empire of Dirt, there is grittiness in spades: When Derek, a husband, father and alcoholic becomes dependent on prescription drugs, how will his wife and daughter survive this new dynamic?
Doug leaves, running late for a client who’s had the nerve to book an appointment. I feel no guilt about being a buttinsky and jacking his time. He is the second of four strangers who have walked in my door, hailed me over, engaged in conversation, or sat down next to me just this week.
And what I’ve been reminded of is this: Strangers give something, take something and create something utterly unique for each of us. They are our Scheherezades and our Solomons. They are not stones that we trip over, but the treasure we search for.
The thing is, with strangers, you can only meet them if first you let them in.
