Four years ago, Pippa Hirst had a dream job — working as Andie MacDowell’s on-set assistant during filming of the pilot for the Hallmark series Cedar Cove.
It was the biggest film-industry gig Hirst had snagged since she moved to Victoria from Toronto in 2004.
Hirst, 43, has since become homeless. It’s on the self-described nomadic artist’s own terms, however.
The road to the writer and artist’s new reality began in October 2014, more than a year after she moved back to Toronto, where she worked in the hospitality industry.
A stone’s throw from the front door of her apartment near Trinity Bellwoods Park, Hirst was punched in the face by a stranger, who fled with her bag.
“It shows how one event can change your life in a heartbeat, not just your circumstances, but your perspective,” recalled Hirst, who re-evaluated other aspects of her life while recovering from the trauma.
Hirst began to question why she was continuing to work up to 15 hours each day in a toxic work environment at a high-end restaurant.
“Why am I going to a job where my body is hurting every day just to pay the rent?” she said. Her life took another turn when she was evicted, which she came to regard as a blessing in disguise.
“I looked at it as this big hand coming out of the universe, taking me out of a bunch of toxic situations,” said Hirst, who majored in English and French at Western University in London, Ont., before entering the workforce.
“I’ve had more jobs than birthdays,” joked the Toronto-born Hirst, who has worked in the computer industry, at the Molson Indy and Air Canada Centre as a private suite host and in administration at Global TV.
During her eight years in Victoria, her jobs included work as Victoria Film Festival’s guest and event co-ordinator; front-of-house staffer at McPherson Playhouse and Royal Theatre; executive assistant at Victoria Symphony; and locations assistant on the Lifetime series Seven Deadly Sins. She also worked on Barbara Hager’s documentary Down2Earth and short films with Jeremy Lutter, and collaborated with David Parfit on a documentary about comedian Wes Borg.
After receiving a small inheritance, she lived for six months in Spain, where she began writing a book about her friend Madeleine Sherwood, the late actor of Cat On a Hot Tin Roof and The Flying Nun fame, whom she befriended at the film festival.
Upon Hirst’s return to Toronto, she was distressed to learn that renting an apartment cost twice as much as when she left, and that there was only a marginal increase in pay for temporary work, despite high inflation.
“There’s an amazing ad on the subway here,” she said. “It says $6.67 is how much a person coming to a food bank has after paying rent and housing costs. It’s just enough for a two-way fare on the TTC.”
With expensive housing out of the equation, a new lifestyle adventure began for Hirst, who has often relied since on the kindness of friends and strangers to provide shelter in exchange for services.
She is blogging and is also writing a book about her experiences titled Things I’ve Learned.
It will relate, for instance, how a wealthy friend hired Hirst to look after his daughter.
Hirst recalled how his friend’s wife, now a Facebook friend, reacted: “ ‘I think she’s a homeless person with a Facebook account,’ ” she said with a laugh.
Hirst said she feels fortunate that people are so accepting, even if they find her philosophy unusual. “I apparently don’t look homeless,” she said. “I think we have a preconceived idea of what that looks like.”
Hirst said she has been lucky enough to be able to wear a pink leather jacket and expensive boots while “spending a few nights in diners and sleeping in parks during the day,” her strategy for safety during tough times.
She has also thankful for her encounter in a healing-energy store with Rose Thivy, a retiree and hospice volunteer who offered Hirst her upscale condo while she went to India to scatter her husband’s ashes.
“It was an amazing gesture, one of those serendipitous moments in life,” she recalled.
Another blessing was when the operator of a neighbourhood yoga studio where she volunteered gave her a temporary crash pad and a part-time front-desk job with kung-fu and tai-chi classes as payment.
Other unexpected adventures include being given a bus ticket last summer to Harlem, where she lived while dog-sitting for a friend; and living in a Toronto apartment while looking after the occupant’s two cats.
It’s the continuation of a healing experience for Hirst, who, in her early 20s was, by her own admission, a negative person “experiencing depression” who took mood-altering drugs until she turned 30.
“I got off anti-depressants and away from things that were not conducive to me becoming a happier person,” recalled Hirst, whose therapy included meditation and improv acting.
“They’ve helped me manage situations like this with more grace,” she said. She remains inspired by an insight MacDowell shared after they crammed into a minivan to get to a set one day.
The film’s star, whom Hirst describes as “a lovely person,” seemed distracted, admitting this to Hirst and the hair, wardrobe and makeup crew.
“She said she’d been so focused on so many other things, she was missing out on what was right in front of her. She said sometimes we just need to be where we are.”
While Hirst doesn’t miss the film industry, she doesn’t rule out venturing back through her writing. For now, she’s continuing to embrace her destiny as a nomadic artist, even if she’s unsure how sustainable it might be. “We are not what happens to us. We are what we do with what happens to us,” she said, paraphrasing a Carl Jung quote that has helped shift her attitude from one of “depression and negativity” to hope.
