Our event starts at 11 am on the 2nd floor of the Koffler House (569 Spadina Avenue). Come early for coffee and conversation at 10:30 am.
This Sunday we will have a book reading by author Jeff Schmidt.
His book POWER WITHIN begins with his seventy-fifth birthday celebration, held as a fundraiser, a practice that began after loss of his best friend to AIDS.
We are then taken to his first birthday memory at age three in wartime Germany, where the family was soon to be uprooted from a cozy home during severe winter weather.
Emigration to Canada as a child and an adolescence marked by struggles with sexual identity and fitting-in set the stage for a tumultuous life story. Accounts of partner relationships and arrests for gay sex are interwoven with tales of work in the fields of tourism, film acting and landscaping. Travel, painting and volunteering, highlighted by visits to orphanages in India and sponsoring two children, round out the story of later years.
Spiritual searching and meditation point the way to finding the silver lining—the positive—in overcoming difficult situations. Searching for an understanding of life, accepting what is and aiding our neighbour have become of utmost importance to the author, along with active participation in the gay community. Oscar Wilde’s words might sum it all up: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
Today, Jeff lives out his happy retirement in central Toronto. Travel, volunteering, painting, and now writing are his main interests. In 2012 he created a short video about his life for the Inside Out Film Festival also called “Power Within”.
For our musical performances we will have Willow Rutherford. Willow is a troubadour balladeer of folk, jazz, Celtic and traditional standards, with deep roots in the Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver indie music scene. She has composed soundtracks for documentaries and animated shorts. Willow sings in English, French and Spanish.
To RSVP to this event please visit our Meetup page.