The writer carried his laptop and coffee onto the balcony of his Toronto apartment and sat facing Lake Ontario. He looked pleased with himself. Humans often do when they believe they have chosen the perfect place to live. The lake glittered below him, the islands rested in the distance, and for a few minutes he imagined that beauty had arranged itself for the sole purpose of helping him write.
Then the smoke arrived.
At first, he tried to ignore it. Soon his eyes began to sting, the sky turned a dirty brown, and the sun appeared above the lake like an angry red disc. He gathered his laptop and coffee and retreated indoors, closing the balcony door behind him.
We will leave the writer there for now. I will return to him later. This story is not really about him.
It is about a man who does not run from burned things.
My name is of no importance. I am an old maple in Snyder’s Flats, where Jameson walks his dogs. People who examine me estimate that I am somewhere between 150 and 250 years old. They are mistaken. I am older than that.
Humans count our rings and imagine they have counted our years. They forget the seasons when a tree grows so little that time leaves almost no mark. I have learned that not every year becomes visible, though it may still change us.
I am no longer a handsome tree, at least not by ordinary standards. Disease has entered me. Parts of my body have decayed, and some of my largest limbs have fallen. Yet I continue to grow. I have not become stronger in trunk or branch, but as my body has weakened, my determination to remain has deepened.
In recent years, I have fought harder. Perhaps that is because of Jameson.
Remnant Vessel. This is a cut, carved, burned, and reassembled disc sculpture (Jameson Schaefer).
Many people have passed beneath me. They notice my wounds, my empty spaces and the branches I have lost. Jameson saw them too, but his eyes did not stop at the damage.
About four years ago, one of my fallen limbs lay on the ground, hollowed by rot. Most people would have carried it to a firepit or left it to disappear into the earth. Jameson picked it up.
When he took that piece of me away, I remained rooted in Snyder’s Flats, but some part of me travelled with him. That is the secret of wood: separation does not always mean an ending.
Jameson had returned to Kitchener after living for about ten years in Port Colborne, beside Lake Erie. There, he had painted. Moving cost him his painting space, but it gave him a large garage and, with it, the opportunity to begin the woodworking he had wanted to pursue for years.
He also had what he called a bill-paying job. At work, he thought about his studio. The moment he got into his car to go home, he left the workday behind. When he stepped into his garage, his thoughts finally fell quiet.
I understood that silence. Trees know what it is to live without needing to fill every moment with words.
In the garage, Jameson examined my fallen limb. Most of its interior had already decayed, leaving little more than an outer shell. He carved away only what could no longer remain. He did not try to hide every wound or force me into the appearance of perfection. From what survived, he created a simple centrepiece.
Ripples And Rays. I was at my favourite spot with my dogs on a cloudy day, and as we sat on the banks of the Grand River, the clouds broke, and sunlight shimmered across the river's small ripples. I tried to capture that quiet moment(Jameson Schaefer).
He did not repair me. He gave form to what remained.
That is how he works. His sculptures are made from reclaimed, salvaged and found wood: fallen trees, abandoned furniture and pieces others consider useless. He rarely begins with a finished plan. He removes what has rotted and waits to see what is revealed. A crack changes the direction of his hands. An unexpected hollow becomes part of the form. He listens until the wood lets him know the work is complete.
Some humans call this wabi-sabi: beauty found in imperfection, impermanence and incompleteness. I had lived by that philosophy long before anyone gave it a name.
Working with damaged materials also changed how Jameson looked at people. At 54, he understood that everyone has been broken in some way. If all you see in a person is the broken part, he believes, you will miss everything else that person might offer.
He also uses fire.
There is always danger in putting a flame to something you have worked to preserve. But Jameson is not afraid of failure. He has ruined pieces before. If that happens, he begins again. His task is to recognize the moment when transformation is about to become destruction.
Perhaps the difference between an artist’s flame and a wildfire is simply knowing when to stop.
Around the time smoke from the northern Ontario fires reached Kitchener, Jameson found part of a discarded tabletop beside the road. He stripped away its veneer, uncertain whether he would discover real wood or useless pressed board beneath it. He found wood.
Fractured. This sculpture is my depiction of how fractured our world and us as a species have become (Jameson Schaefer).
The next morning, smoke covered the city. The sky turned a filthy brown, and the sun became an ugly red disc—the same sun the writer would later see above Lake Ontario.
Jameson carried that image into his studio and gave it form in the abandoned tabletop.
He believes a painting tells a story, while a sculpture makes a statement and waits for the viewer to bring the story. Someone looking at that red sun may see burning forests. Another may remember a frightening afternoon in Toronto. Someone else may see an old wound that never entirely healed.
Now we can return to the writer.
The air outside his apartment has improved. He is back on the balcony, facing the lake, with his laptop open. He is writing about Jameson: about his life, his art and his belief that apparent brokenness does not erase value.
But he is writing the story in my voice—the voice of an older man still standing in Snyder’s Flats, older than humans imagine and less complete than I once was.
That day, the writer thought the smoke had merely driven him indoors. He did not yet know that it had travelled over burning forests, passed through Jameson’s sky in Kitchener and reached him on his balcony in Toronto.
I wish there were always gentler ways for lives to meet.
But sometimes, unfortunately, smoke connects us.
YF, September 25, 2026
Note: This story is based on an interview with Jameson Schaefer and was shaped by the writer using literary storytelling techniques.
To learn more about Jameson, please visit the link below:
The Story Only You Can Tell Is there a memory or life experience you’ve always wanted to put into words? In QAF Story Lab, I’ll help you turn it into a short story, with personal feedback along the way. With each writer’s permission, we’ll also select stories to publish for our audience of more than 2,000 readers. If you’re interested, click the button below to learn more.
