This Norman Rockwell painting hangs in my bedroom.  I see an “outsider” standing above the crowd, saying what’s true for him.  Courage.

Yesterday, standing up took on a new meaning.  I had my first gym session with a trainer named Maryna.  She is also my friend.

I had visions of free weight exercises, beyond my usual routine of strength training machines.  Nope.  Our hour focuses largely on me standing up.

I’ve stood up since I was a kid.  From a chair, I push down on the arms, or on the inside of my thighs, just above the knee … and up I go.  Not yesterday.  Maryna asked me to press down with the balls of my feet while leaving my arms dangling.  A pure movement – no assistance.

It was new

It was hard!

To do it easily, I need a strong core.  I don’t have one.  Humbling.  And fascinating.  I’ve spent 77 years standing up in a Bruce way … and I’m being asked to change.  So I can be stronger.  So I can continue living in my “fifty steps up” apartment till I’m 90.

I agreed to do it

I’m a work in progress, which is better than not being a work at all.  Later in the day, I was jolted awake by the presence of hands on thighs once more.  This morning, though, my rising from bed was unassisted.

I now sit in Lloyd Coffee Eatery.  Their chairs are comfy … and low.  I assess my chances of standing up without my hands as being approximately 0%, with the likelihood of pain 80%.

Let’s give ‘er a go, shall we?

(Praying)

I decided just now that I need emotional support.  So I told my story to the woman sitting at the next table.  She started cheering me on.

And …

Not even close!

I could barely get my bum off the seat.  Nowhere near achieving a vertical body.

However, some of Lloyd’s chairs are higher, the type you’d see in a cafeteria.

So I try again.

Yes!

Piece of cake

The woman smiled.

***

My task is clear.  Sometime in the next five years I will rise freely from a soft Lloyd chair.  Today is today.  Tomorrow is tomorrow.

A minute’s walk from my home sits the Zuivelbrug (“Dairy Bridge” in English).   The name comes from the nearby Botermarkt, where milk and cheese were sold for probably centuries.

The Leie River flows below.  And my friend the weeping willow says “Hi” every morning.

A few days ago it was windy and the light green branches waved in the breeze, their tips just above the surface of the water.  Ahh … but one touched the wetness.  I stood transfixed on the Zuivelbrug watching the dance, because that’s what it was.  Nature saying hello to the flow of human beings.

And another miracle.  Under the tree, on the tiniest island, sat a big black bird, preening him- or herself.  I came close for a picture.  No problem for the birdie.  There was still work to be done.

Ain’t life grand?

I like women more than men, with occasional exceptions.  So I was most thrilled yesterday to watch the women climb the Muur.

The legs pumping!  The heart throbbing!  And me watching!

It’s sad that the crowds were sparse compared to the men’s race.  All elite athletes should be appreciated.

I watched faces on the climb – torn, gasping for air, determined.

After all the women had come by, I turned to the right and took a photo of the uphill beyond.  The gradient here is about 18 percent.  That’s steep!  For the legs and lungs.

The iconic spot to watch the Omloop on the Muur is further up, in sight of the Oudenberg Chapel (English translation) at the peak.  The church was built in 1906, “though a place of worship has existed on this site since at least 1294.”

Here’s a photo from the Internet of Omloop action:

I had been in the middle of cheering and yelling but now my hand was on the door of the chapel.  Would it open?

Yes

I sat in the presence of candles, flowers and sacred statues.  Not a bicycle to be seen.  Not a sound to be heard.

***

It was a magnificent day

Brimming with the human spirit

I am enriched

It’s the first major cycling race of the season in Belgium.  It has cobblestones, brutal climbs, and distance (207 kilometres for the men and 137 for the women).

It starts right here near Gent’s ‘t Kuipke velodrome, which was built 99 years ago, destroyed in a fire in 1962, and rebuilt 59 years ago.

We’ve just finished the presentation of the men’s teams inside a full ‘t Kuipke.

At one point, the host invited us to take off our scarves and wave them in unison.  Hundreds of scarves were soaring.  Since I don’t wear a scarf, I had nothing to rotate … except my mind.

Wout Van Aert is the Belgian cycling hero.  He was supposed to battle The Netherlands’ Mathieu van der Poel today, but Wout got sick.  I’m sad that there’ll be no mano-a-mano.

However, we the ‘t Kuipke cycling fans sang to the absent hero:

We love you, Wout!  Oh yes we do

The melody burst through the velodrome and zoomed 90 kilometres to Wout’s home in Herentals, Belgium.

The men have set off on their 200 kilometre journey and I await the women’s team presentation.

***

Thunderous cheers in ‘t Kuipke as Lotte Kopecky rides up to the stage.  She’s another Belgian hero.

And now outside, for the beginning of the women’s race.

Moto drivers and riders ready to go … for race support.

They’re off!

Then the train to Geraardsbergen.  I sat with the parents of Alison Jackson, a Canadian cyclist who will tackle the Muur van Geraardsbergen about an hour from now.

Mathieu van der Poel on the Muur, just after breaking away from his two companions.  I just read that he won the race.

I’m sitting on the terrace of Café de Muur.  And I’m about to walk up the hill again to see the women grunt up the cobbles.

That’s all for today.  My finger is tired.  See you tomorrow.

What do we think of as we travel along?  Oh so very long …

Are there jewels in our eyes?  Or darkness in our rooms? 

Hope in what will be?  Or despair in what has been? 

The colours of the rainbow so gracefully displayed?  Or just plain black filling the world?

The opening out into a stream of light?  Or the closing in of the ceiling, walls and floor?

The moistness on the dewy leaves?  Or the cracking of the dry lips?

The gentle pull forward towards the new?  Or the retreat backward into TV reruns?

Soaring to the heavens?  Or ground under heel in the dirt?

A sweetly spoken “Yes”?  Or the dismissive grunt of “No”?

***

And so we choose

It’s a John Denver song that I’ve loved for a very long time.  It was written by John and Joe Henry.  I bet I’ve listened to it one hundred times … and I’ve sung it to people once.  In eight days, I’ll sing it at an open mic session in Gent.

Many of the words and phrases keep deepening in me.  Perhaps that will continue for the rest of my life.  So what chance does next week’s audience have to absorb the messages into their hearts?  I don’t know.  At least I will plant a seed.

And right now, when I give you a taste of the lyrics, will you feel a twinge of recognition, an unexplainable awe … or will it just be another song?  I don’t know again.

I could try to explain John and Joe’s words, but that’s silly.  It would be how they’ve landed in me.  Your listening may be far away from mine.

So here goes, with what I enjoy most in The Wings That Fly Us Home:

Is a jewel just a pebble that found a way to shine?
Is a hero’s blood more righteous than a hobo’s sip of wine?

…

I dreamed you were a prophet in a meadow
I dreamed I was a mountain in the wind

…

The vision of your goodness will sustain me through the cold
Take my hand now to remember when you find yourself alone
You’re never alone

….

And the spirit fills the darkness of the heavens
It fills the endless yearning of the soul
It lives within a star too far to dream of
It lives within each part and is the whole
It’s the fire and the wings that fly us home

***

Let’s go there together … home

Long ago, some professor told us about “content analysis”.  There were no doubt many layers of meaning but all I remember is the frequency of certain words in a written passage.

Or simply their presence.

I’m healthy … and old.  Death seeps into my thoughts.  Often I’m drawn to poetry rather than prose.  And so to Mary Oliver.  She has spoken to me for a very long time.  Mary opens me.

Here is a lovely poem called “Lead”.  If there’s a future time when I’ll no longer be able to compose or absorb sentences, perhaps I’ll be able to linger with certain words.  Mary’s creation has a few that I savour:

Here is a story
to break your heart
Are you willing?

This winter
the loons came to our harbor
and died, one by one
of nothing we could see

A friend told me
of one on the shore
that lifted its head and opened
the elegant beak and cried out
in the long, sweet savoring of its life
which, if you have heard it
you know is a sacred thing

The next morning
this loon, speckled
and iridescent and with a plan
to fly home
to some hidden lake
was dead on the shore

And for which, if you have not heard it
you had better hurry to where
they still sing and, believe me, tell no one
just where that is

I tell you this
to break your heart
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world

***

Maybe when I’m 95

This will be enough

I have two friends whose lives are especially shining right now.  One is 12-years-old, fighting for her life in a hospital.  The other is in her early 70s, wondering if death is near.

And there’s everyone in between, also leading vibrant lives, simply wanting to be happy.

There we all are in the photo.  It’s hard to pick out the individual lives.  The image is small even though the heart is big.  There are triumphs and disappointments, joys and sorrows, strength and weakness.

Let your eyes soften and see the tapestry here … swaths of light and dark, peppered with spots of colour.  It’s us.

I like the world “tapestry”.  Beyond “a wall hanging” is a musing …

In the tapestry of life, we’re all connected.  Each one of us is a gift to those around us helping each other be who we are, weaving a perfect picture together

***

The softness of the eyes

The softness of the heart

We are woven

A friend of mine sees her death on the horizon.  Medical staff are starting to use the word “hospice”.

Sad … yes.  And also magnificent.  What a life she’s had, contributing to the lives of thousands of people.

I just wrote to her …

Yuh done good

And really, haven’t we all?  Even those among us who appear to be mean-spirited have a sweetness of care beneath.  For some of us, the caring bursts forth every day, maybe every hour.  Effortless love.

I’m gazing at all the folks who have peopled my life, and imagining those yet to come.

Each and every one of you …

Yuh done good

All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you

(Gandalf to Frodo, The Lord of the Rings)

Take today, for instance.  I have very little energy for doing.  This post will likely be short.  I don’t appear to have the oomph to sit in my chair and meditate.  Going to the gym or practicing the cello reside in another universe.

The pain in my mouth is six days old.  It comes and goes.  And the coming part definitely gets my attention! 

I’ve made my bed ever since I was a kid … but not for the past few days.  Today I figure I’ll be slipping under the covers before noon.

So there’s not much doing in my immediate life.  Okay … how about being?

I’m sitting in Lloyd Coffee Eatery on the Langemunt.  It’s my favourite place for scribbling about life (actually tapping).  And here comes being … sipping on my flat white and taking in the beauty of folks in the coffee shop, and those walking in the rain outside.

I’ll be back in fifteen minutes or so …

***

Such variety!  Human beings left, right and centre.  Any adjective you can think of.  And I’m a part of this – joining, not separating.

And speaking of lingering in life, I spilled coffee on my jeans an hour ago.  I took my water bottle and splashed water on the stains.  And I just decided: I’ll sit here till my pants are dry.  Just for fun.

***

And then …

My pillow will call me home