You are your friends

Shawn Sorensen and co-worker

Not every day you get to hang out with one of the coolest cats in the country; a guy who, at age 16, came up to me after he had just ripped up the stage with a great performance and said, "We don't know each other, but I've heard you're pretty cool, so we're going to be friends."

Shawn and I were part of the same group of thespians to come out of the Comox Valley at the turn of the millennium, though I left a few years early. Since taking Shawn on a rambling walkabout of the Exchange District, I've been wondering about that mid-high school move. Where and who would I be if I stayed in British Columbia?

And I think I'd be pretty much the same person. Living different circumstances, yes. But I think who you are is largely determined by the people you hang out with. And I've developed a talent for finding the very best people and declaring, at least in my mind, "Hey - we're going to be friends!"

I had a good early tutor.


PS: Winnipeg artistic directors - hire this stage manager. He guides a nine-month-long TYFA tour from Halifax to Vancouver to San Francisco to Philadelphia without breaking a sweat while blogging about it the whole time