Monthly Archives: July 2014

Driving (Part One)

You learn a lot about people when you’re on the road.  Like myself, for instance.  I had the thought that since I’ve been meditating for years, it should all be smooth sailing (mixed metaphor, I know).  Oh well.

All it takes is for me to be approaching an intersection with an oncoming green, but with the orange “Don’t Walk” light flashing.  I can feel my body tensing up.  Not so long ago, I’d press the gas pedal hard to get through but I finally realized that the constant rhythm of speeding up and slowing down wasn’t what I wanted in life.  So now I lighten my foot and the yellow or green happens.  But the tightness remains.  I figure that I’ve many years of driving still ahead of me, so how cool that I’ll have all these future intersections to practice my mindfulness.

I first attended a retreat at the Insight Meditation Society in 2010.  I wanted to drive.  I wanted to be alone for a couple of days, and experience having no one know exactly where I was on planet Earth at any given moment, until I phoned Jody from my daily destination.  As I set out, already enjoying my aloneness, I felt peaceful.  I wanted the driving to be a preamable to the meditation.

My plan was to take secondary highways all the way from Union, Ontario to Barre, Massachusetts.  Nice two-lane blacktop.  And I left home with one assumption: in Ontario, all the way to Fort Erie, Canadian drivers would happily drive the speed limit with me (80 kilometres per hour, or 50 mph).  But once I’d cross the Niagara River into Buffalo, those darned Americans would tailgate me all the way across New York if I kept to 55 mph (or 90 kph).

It was early morning, not another car on the road.  A bit later, here comes someone from behind.  Coming fast, as a matter of fact.  And voila – there he or she was, stuck to my bumper.  After probably only a few seconds of that, the driver pulled the wheel right and zoomed noisily past me.  By mid-morning, Highway 3 was filling up, and the “car five feet behind my rear bumper” scenario was repeated over and over.  With fewer chances to pass, some drivers would jerk their auto to the centre line, looking for a break in the traffic.  Overall, I let my mindfulness fritter away.  I was shocked that we Canadians were so pushy, so “me, not you”.  That’s not who I am, is it?  After reflection, the answer came: “No, it’s not”.

Once I was off the mandatory section of Buffalo freeway, I found Highway 20 towards Albany and settled into my moderate journey across the state.  Or more accurately, prepared for the onslaught from the rear …  …  …

Guess what?  There was none.  I’d be toodling along at 55, glance into the rearview mirror, and see a driver several car lengths behind, matching my speed.  Oh, the bliss of space.  I got to look around at the world – the farmers’ fields, the cows, the heightening hills and the cutesy towns.  It seemed that half the houses were displaying the Stars and Stripes, and that made me happy.  Through New York and half of Massachusetts, I hardly ever encountered an impatient driver.  So much for stereotypes.  How wrong I was.

Then a week of slowness and silence at the retreat centre.  Sometime, I’ll tell you about it.  Coming back home, nothing on the road fazed me.  That tension at potentially yellowing lights was non-existent.  And out in the country, on a long series of rolling hills, another opportunity arose.  A semi-trailer was having trouble on the upslopes.  Sometimes his speed would drop to 20 mph.  Not only did I not care, it seemed that the four drivers between the truck and me didn’t either.  No darting over the centre line to see what’s ahead.  No bumper games.  Just five of us keeping a respectful distance from the vehicle ahead.  And there was another feeling … love for the human beings in those cars and that truck.  People doing their best, people okay with what the moment was giving them.  At one little town, one of my friends turned off the road, leaving four followers.  I missed that person.  There was a hole.

What if I could bring my mindfulness to all travelling moments?  Why not to all moments, period?  Not just when I’m sitting in a meditation hall, but when I’m living my life.  Sounds cozy.

 

 

Gosh, if Canadians were like this

Home County

I drove into London today to listen to some of the workshops at the Home County Music and Art Festival.  It was a gorgeous sunny day in Victoria Park – ten acres of mature trees and wide spreads of grass.

Here are some moments from the folk festival that took me beyond the world of form:

***

A woman leaning back against a big tree, her head nodding to the music, and her backside caressing the bark

A young black singer deep into a gospel song, standing at a stationary microphone without an instrument, opening her mouth so wide as she sang, her fingers opening and closing in the air

James Keelaghan telling us that his dog died last Friday and then singing “Sinatra and I”, an ode to his four-legged travelling companion.  All in a deep baritone

Nathan Rogers moving forward and back in his chair, as he channelled the storytelling energy of his dearly departed father Stan, with words such as “The mountains moved inside of him”

A young woman guitarist, resplendent in a white fedora, Shirley Temple curls and an all-black outfit, sending the melody to heights unknown with the vibrato in her fingers

The audience clapping and smiling after each fiddle, mandolin and electric bass solo

Connie Kaldor singing a song about a nightclub in France for dogs, and a woman in the audience standing up, moving to the stage with her white terrier in her arms, and dancing big circles with her doggie

The fingers of a bass guitar player making love to his strings as he took over from the vocals

A woman crooning the lyrics “With my aspirin, my soul begins to slip” (or so I thought), when she really was saying “With my last breath, my soul begins to sleep”

And more words from elsewhere:

The way she sang was magic
Of the things we know are real

Riding the dark train to heaven

It was a winter of record-breaking lows for me

***

The music lies within us all, and seeks to open our hearts.  May we listen.

The Eight Vicissitudes

Pleasure and Pain
Gain and Loss
Praise and Blame
Fame and Disrepute

“Vicissitude” is a pretty fancy word, and I used to think of it as somethng bad – a trial, a testing of the soul.  The Buddha had another idea, however, basically that the word represents all the changes in our life.  Positive changes and negative changes … or are those two terms even valid?

I grew up wanting just half of the pie – pleasure, gain, praise and fame.  I thought if I worked hard enough, was nice enough to people, and just plain had luck on my side, life would always roll along tickety boo.  Except it never seemed that simple.  Bad stuff intruded on my daily round.  And it was bad that it did.

The Buddha said that all eight of these experiences are a part of life.  Or as the old song says:

Used to think that love would be so simple
Just happy ever after one another
Sometimes it’s hot to trot
And sometimes it’s the old cold shoulder
Oh, you can’t have one without the other, brother
No, you can’t have one without the other

Was that Frank Sinatra?  Can’t remember.

Here’s my take on the eight:

Pleasure   Lying on the beach with Jody near Playa del Carmen, Mexico.  The water was turquoise; we were drinking beer in plastic glasses under the thatched roof of a tiny hut; I was reading an exciting novel; we were in love.

Pain   Having the stitches taken out a few weeks after tendon transfer surgery on my right ankle.  They should have been removed days earlier.  The skin had started to grow over them.  Agony, screams, 9/10 on the pain scale.

Gain   Just last week, handing the teller a cheque for $4500 from my school board, a bonus paid to teachers who retired this year.

Loss   Waking up one morning decades ago, umemployed, realizing that I was out of shampoo and didn’t have any money to buy more.

Praise   Standing up at the annual meeting of the Order of the Eastern Star sometime in the 1980s, walking to the microphone, and speaking to approximately 800 people about the need for the Star to attract younger members.  Received a standing ovation.

Blame   Several years later, attending a disciplinary hearing at work, and being the target of intense criticism while one official recorded every word I said.

Fame   Winning a nationwide contest for “Written Expressions” in celebration of Canada’s 125th birthday in 1992.

Disrepute   Being accused (wrongly) by a teenaged girl of abusing her sexually.  I was declared innocent, a victim of an emotionally disturbed young person.

How have I become the human being I am today?  Part of the goodness that I believe I bring to the world was forged in the heat of physical pain, poverty, poor job performance and accusation.  I know that’s true.

Do I wish those experiences for anyone else?  No
Am I open to having similar events befall me in the future?  Yes

Fat Blue Legs

It was nearly eleven years ago that I had tendon transfer surgery on my right ankle.  I ruptured that tendon in a school hallway, colliding with a kid.  I spent seventeen weeks on crutches and felt profound sadness, especially when looking down a stairwell and knowing that for the forseeable future I was an elevator guy.  So much pain, so many drugs, so immobile.  I just felt old and decrepit and depressed.

Once the cast was off and the air boot was on, I got a chance to look at my lower leg.  Parts of it were black for awhile and then morphed into a rust colour.  But what struck me the most was the swelling, pretty much up to the knee.  Jody and I laughed about my “fatty foot”, but the smile didn’t move up to my eyes.  That long thing on the end of my body just couldn’t be me.  “That’s not the Bruce I know.  I refuse to accept this.”  And the thing was, it never went away.  For many years, I woke up to a fairly normal looking leg, but by noon it would be all puffed up.  My refusal to let it be caused great emotional distress.

In the spring of 2012, I woke up one morning to find that I couldn’t stand on my left leg without huge pain.  A few hours later, tests showed that I had a blood clot which went from my groin to my calf.  Untreated, I could have died.  Happily I got the blood thinner medication I needed, and I’ll be taking it for the rest of my life.

My right leg was still swelling up after the 2003 surgery and now my left one was just as bloated.  Part of the treatment was to wear compression stockings which stretched almost to my knee.  I picked the blue ones.  I now had two huge legs cleverly disguised by the nerdiest socks I’d ever worn.  And so sank my self-esteem some more.  I just couldn’t get that these physical changes didn’t touch the essence of me.

In August, 2012, Jody and I jetted west to Alberta to visit her brother Lance and his family.  There was no way I was going to wear those compression stockings, so I left them at home.  People would stare at me.  I’d look about a hundred years old!  So I went hiking in the Rockies with bare skin down below.  One day, we were descending a gradual sidehill trail towards a lake.  I got partway down and stopped.  The pain was too much.  I stood there like a stricken statue, agonizing over my apparent disability and remembering my years of travelling off-trail in the mountains.  Jody had to come back up and help me.  Oh, my.  How can this be happening?  Such overwhelming woe.  There were no more trails for this guy that summer.

Back in Ontario, there I was: swollen legs and feet hidden inside nylon and Spandex, only to expand to their abnormal size once I took the stockings off in the evening.  I  went to the beach in my blues, and if ever there’s a double meaning, that was it.  I watched people watch me.  I swirled within a collapsing self.  Heck, I was just plain sorry for myself.

How, I ask you, could I let my well-being be reduced to folds of flesh and tight lengths of fabric?  So stupid (or perhaps so human).  I hypnotized myself into letting it happen.

There’s a strange ending to this story.  From late 2012 until October, 2013, the feet and the legs continued as before.  Then Jody was diagnosed with lung cancer, a collapsed lung (twice), and blood clots in her chest.  And … my fatty feet disappeared, not overnight but within a few weeks.  I haven’t worn the compression stockings for months.

Do I understand how life works?  Do I comprehend the mystery?  Not really.

 

Just a T-Shirt

Jody and I were sitting in a breezy beach restaurant in St. Lucia in 1995, sipping our tropical creations.  Such fun.  The bikinis were scenic and colours were everywhere.  I glanced over at a black woman on the far side of the room.  She was wearing a classy black dress, and was sitting alone.  She was also looking at me.

We had just got off the sand after a major tanning and reading session, and were garbed in t-shirts and shorts, me with a “London Road Race” logo on display.  Whatever that cream drink I ordered was, it was yummy. And everything just seemed so … slow.  Perfect.  Sometimes Jody and I talked but much of the time we were silent.

I looked up again to see the elegant woman walking towards our table.  She smiled and said, “Excuse me.  Are you folks from London, Ontario, Canada?”

“Why, yes we are.”

“Did you graduate from UWO [our local university]?”

“No, but Jody did.”

“So did I.  You must come to dinner.”

We talked for a few minutes, with smiles all around.  The woman’s daughter would pick us up at our hotel at 5:00.  Fine with us.  I had a twinge of fear, but it floated away into the brilliant blue sky.

Five o’clock it was, and we were being whisked along the byways in a fancy Mitsubishi sedan.  Very talkative and friendly, the young lady.  Mom and daughter’s home was laden with art and soft leather.  Dinner was exceptional and our hostess offered us a fine red wine, vinted many years before.  The best though, was the talk.  Old friends reminiscing about London landmarks, party times and the rigours of study.  Turns out that our hostess was from a wealthy family and came to Canada to get an education.  We also learned that she was currently a member of the St. Lucia Senate.  Certainly a powerful woman but far more importantly a nice person.

Over dessert, there was a knock at the door, and in walked a tall, elegant black gentleman, dressed in a white suit.  (I sure wish I could remember these people’s names, but they’re not coming to me.  Oh well.)  He was a most gracious fellow, gentle and soft of conversation, and he clearly was good friends with the senator. Eventually, he got up to leave, and actually bowed to us as he bid us adieu.  “So I’ll be seeing you later.”  And he was gone.

What did that mean?  “It means that he’s invited us to his place for drinks,” smiled our new friend.  An hour later, we were back in that Misubishi, wafting our way to an unknown residence.  Miss Senator told us on the way that the man was the only importer of cars in St. Lucia, and as a result was extremely wealthy.  Okay.

Along the nighttime roads we rolled, finally making a turn onto a steeply uphill dirt track.  And up we went, seemingly on a spiral around a high hill, till we reached the top … manicured lawns, tropical trees and the white glow of a home that seemed to have no exterior walls.  After we had stopped, the woman told us not to get out of the car.  Soon there were three really big dogs right up against the doors.  Mr. Mitsubishi, still in white like his house, was strolling towards us.  With a snap of his fingers, the dogs were gone.  More smiles.

There were indeed no exterior walls, and filmy curtains floated within the sweetest breeze.  I remember a huge living room, vibrant with the white and the tropical colours.  This can’t be real, my brain poked at me.  Except it was.  More soft couches, more fascinating talk and mellow drinks.  Just little old me and little old Jody from Canada being welcomed to the Caribbean.

I kept looking at the grand piano in the centre of the room.  Our male friend noticed, and asked “Would you like to play?”

“Yes, I would.”

So the curtains stirred, the candles glowed and I got to tickle the ivories.  Simple stuff, but it made everyone happy.

That evening was nearly twenty years ago, but it remains vivid for me.  We never saw those fine people again.  And that’s okay.  A gift they had given.

Serendipity

 

Windows

You look out.  I look in
I look out.  You look in

I do a lot of driving and I pass by many buildings.  Sometimes I look at their windows … and wonder.  There are people behind those windows – making breakfast, having meetings, serving customers, sitting on the couch with their precious ones.  Folks who are really just like me, all of us yearning to love and be loved; to do well at something; to gather some creature comforts; and to have an impact, perhaps beyond our lifetimes.  At night, I often peer in at these lives and see those human beings moving around, or maybe sitting still.  And it’s like they’re friends.

At home on Hallowe’en, I turn the light out in our computer room and watch the kids coming up the driveway, all fancied up as storybook princesses or the latest superheroes.  What are your lives like, young ones?  Thank you for coming to my door.

Just as I’m looking, so are you.  What do you see inside that man who’s driving a Honda CRV named Hugo?  Or that scary guy dressed up for his trick-or-treaters?  Do you get a glimpse of what’s within?  I hope so.

I remember a bed and breakfast that Jody and I stayed at, near Bayfield, Ontario.  We were on the second floor of a century home, and I got to sit on the window seat, watching the breeze riffle through the tree outside, and lifting my eyes to the field of grain across the way.  Cozy.  And I was a part of what I beheld.

More recently, I was in an office on the 14th floor of a London skyscaper, gazing out of floor-to-ceiling windows to the sweep of the city below.  Functional conference room furniture.  Far less cozy but still there was a reaching out.

On our home road (Bostwick Road, that is), I love waving to the cars approaching.  Sometimes people wave back, and that contact feels good.  Often though, the oncoming tinted glass masks any trace of humanity.  I don’t wave, and that makes me feel sad.

The Retreat Center at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts was formerly a Christian venue, perhaps a convent.  In the room leading to the meditation hall, there’s a large stained glass window depicting the disciple John, with his arm around Jesus’ shoulder and his head tucked in close to Jesus’ neck.  The look on John’s face is of absolute love.  I’ve lingered many a time before this scene.  There’s no seeing through the glass, but there is a seeing.

Windows all, holding the secrets of our multicoloured lives.  May we continue to look.

Better and Worse

Yesterday I worked myself through five sports sections of the London Free Press – Tuesday to Saturday.  I had finally caught up enough in my PVR viewing of the World Cup to do the deed.  (I still can’t look at the Monday, Tuesday and now Wednesday editions since I haven’t seen the championship game.)  What strangeness to pick up the paper from the mailbox, fold it in half and then religiously avoid looking at any print as I walk up the driveway. Inside the house, I stuff it under some other papers to make sure I don’t see any headlines.  And then all the personal support workers in our home need to be coached about never leaving the sports section exposed on the dining room table.  Such a lot of work!

My conclusion has been that it’s better for me to not know who won a certain game.  The surprise moments need to be experienced.  It’s not good enough for me to enjoy the flow of the game, armed with knowledge of the result.  But maybe I’m wrong.  What does it do to me to walk around with a “this, but not that” stance in life?  Well, for one thing, I know it can create some horribly tense moments.  One of out PSWs walked in a few days ago with a big smile on her face.  “The only thing I’m going to tell you is that Brazil plays Argentina today.”  Reaction inside the bod: “No!”  Outside: “Oh.”  Just that dissonance is enough to rip a guy apart.

So I immediately launched into a series of calculations that led me to an inescapable conclusion – both Brazil and Argentina lost their Semi-Final games and would have met in the third place game this last Saturday.  Grrr.  Dear PSW, how could you ruin my day like that?  Eventually, I watched the Argentina-Netherlands Semi-Final, and guess what – Argentina won at the very last moment with their final penalty kick.  All this angst about someone blabbing a soccer result … and she was just kidding!

“How do [I] do what [I] do to me?  If I only knew.”  So goes the song, sort of.  Then there’s my forays out into the community, committed to not knowing.  Yesterday was the dentist again, and the first thing I said to the sole occupant of the waiting room was “Please don’t tell me who won the World Cup.”  He smiled and said “I won’t.”  And this was 48 hours after the game had been played.  In the examination room, my first move was to ask for the remote.  No news station for me, with its twelve discreet bits of information staring at me every second … I retreated to a cartoon channel, where happily the characters didn’t mention soccer at all.

Last night, as the freezing started coming out, I was pretty groggy.  Of course, three fillings and a cleaning had their effect, as did the bike ride I went on in the morning,  but a basic choice I’ve been making was in the mix too.  All that psychic energy expended, all that contraction, all that strategizing … no thanks.

May I Suggest

In August, 2010, Jody and I drove to Nova Scotia to drink in the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival.  Some of my favourite singer-songwriters were performing: David Francey, James Keelaghan and the Barra MacNeils.  Five days of glorious folk music, with the evening concerts, in a huge white tent, running from 7:00 till midnight.

There were lots of workshops during the day at various venues in town.  We sat down one afternoon in the Lunenburg Opera House to hear groups who harmonized beautifully.

And along came Red Molly, three women based in New York City.  They favoured us (so true) with blissful vocals and a haunting message entitled “May I Suggest”.  Another one of those wide open mouth moments.  The song has stayed with me ever since, and it will continue to do so.

YouTube can help you experience the joy.  A search will yield several performances.  I recommend you listen to “Red Molly In Concert – May I Suggest”, the one indicating “by betsyfollystudios”.  Susan Werner wrote the song.  Would I ever like to sit down for a coffee with her.

See what you think:

May I Suggest

May I suggest
May I suggest to you
May I suggest this is the best part of your life
May I suggest
This time is blessed for you
This time is blessed and shining almost blinding bright
Just turn your head
And you’ll begin to see
The thousand reasons that were just beyond your sight
The reasons why
Why I suggest to you
Why I suggest this is the best part of your life

How about if this very moment is blessed for me, no matter what’s happening or how I’m feeling?  How about if I can access timelessness and untold beauty right now, with no effort?  How about if light of a very subtle kind surrounds me (and you) always?  If all this is just beyond my sight, maybe I just need to turn my head a bit.  Maybe just look up a bit.  I know it’s there.

There is a world
That’s been addressed to you
Addressed to you, intended only for your eyes
A secret world
Like a treasure chest to you
Of private scenes and brilliant dreams that mesmerise
A lover’s trusting smile
A tiny baby’s hands
The million stars that fill the turning sky at night
Oh I suggest
Oh I suggest to you
Oh I suggest this is the best part of your life

I am loved.  So are you.  Something unnameable, I’ll call it Spirit with a capital S, is waiting, ready to open a door that I didn’t know was there.  And when I see what’s inside the room revealed, I’m sure that those smiles and hands and stars will stop me in my tracks.  And close my mouth.  Simply awe.

There is a hope
That’s been expressed in you
The hope of seven generations, maybe more
And this is the faith
That they invest in you
It’s that you’ll do one better than was done before
Inside you know
Inside you understand
Inside you know what’s yours to finally set right
And I suggest
And I suggest to you
And I suggest this is the best part of your life

I think of my grandpa, of sitting at his knee on the cement porch of his farmhouse,  listening to the stories pour out.  Grandpa gave me his heart and soul, though he would never have expressed it that way.  And now to pass it on.  Better?  I don’t know.  How could I possibly add to grandpa waving his hand around at the peak of the tale, looking me right in the eye as he scared me, or moved me, or made me smile?

This is a song
Comes from the west to you
Comes from the west, comes from the slowly setting sun
With a request
With a request of you
To see how very short the endless days will run
And when they’re gone
And when the dark descends
Oh we’d give anything for one more hour of light

There are a few Internet passwords I like.  One is “lasttime”.  Because I never know if tonight will be the final time I’ll say “Good night, Jodiette.  Sweet dreams”, or tomorrow smiling at a stranger, or sitting at the edge of the field watching turkey vultures soar.  Please may I have many more hours of light.  There is much to give.

And I suggest this is the best part of your life

July 14, 2014 at 7:53 pm will do just fine.

 

Christ the Redeemer

It’s a 125-foot statue of Jesus that looks down on the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and its harbour.  If you go to Google Images, you’ll find many stunning photos of this wonder of the world.  For many years, its beauty has held a sacred spot in some nook of my brain, but TV coverage of the World Cup has moved it to front and centre.

Christ the Redeemer draws forth a spirit from me.  Words stop and I just look.  I don’t analyze and I don’t compare.  Having said that, I guess that what I’m about to say is creating words and suggesting an analysis.  But whatever I say will fall short of the silence.  That’s okay.  I’ll just point to something that’s very, very big.

Jesus stands tall.  He’s erect but without strain.  He’s reaching his full height.  I can live an upright life as well, neither swaying to the left nor right, as the world presses me to.  I can be morally true, responding to others in ways that honour their being.

Jesus holds his arms out wide, his fingers gently extended, apparently needing no effort to hold the pose.  Horizontal.  I too can be level in my life, treating all people with the same respect, compassion and love.  No one better and no one worse.

Jesus bows his head, not pushing himself forward.  Instead, “I bow to the divine in you.”  I am not inferior to you, nor superior.  I’m not even “equal”.  You and I are simply waves on the ocean, one no more wet than the other.

Although I’m not sure, I thinks that Jesus’ eyes are closed, so that he can touch a power beyond, and bring it back to us frail residents of planet Earth.  I  close my eyes in meditation, bringing forth something beyond space and time.

Thank you to Heitor da Silva Costa for designing the statue, and to Paul Landowski for sculpting it.  Their work is a gift to all human beings, of any religion or none.

Namaste

Defeat and Triumph

I’m a bit behind in my World Cup watching on the PVR.  This morning I took in the Brazil-Germany Semi-Final that was played on Tuesday.  I’ve been absolutely committed to avoiding any soccer news – hiding the sports section on myself, having a friend set up the PVR for a game featuring teams I didn’t know were playing, prepping the hygienist at the dental office to make sure the overhead TV wasn’t on a sports channel.  Such dedication to the world of surprise.

And the game today was one shocking surprise.  In the first half, Germany scored four goals in six minutes on its way to a 7-1 thrashing of the host country.  Such a match is virtually unheard of, and created a lot of hurt among the 58,000 mostly Brazilian fans.

There was so much to see during those 90 minutes.  It seemed that all of human nature was on display:

***

The Brazilian team, mouths wide open as they sang their national anthem

A young Brazilian woman, face painted in her country’s colours, tears flowing

German fans, all decked out in red, black and yellow, jumping up and up and up

German players playing less aggressively in the second half, showing some mercy

Brazilian fans, late in the game, shouting “Ole!” after each successful German pass

Fred, one of Brazil’s star players, being booed lustily when he was replaced

Andre Schurrle launching a ball into the tiniest space of the top left corner … Goal!

A section of Brazilian fans, their faces dead, applauding Schurrle for his brilliance

Near the end, a Brazilian player helping a German player to his feet after a collision

Feeling the agony of 200,000,000 Brazilians after the team’s worst ever defeat

***

Such a magnifying glass … sports.  Showing us our fragility, heartbreak, joy.  Arms straight up or face buried in hands, it’s the human condition.  Whether we’re German, Brazilian or Canadian, we know the story.