This is my 1500th post on WordPress.  I started writing them on June 20, 2014, the day after I retired from teaching.  A few years later, I began putting them on Facebook too.

“It’s a huge number!”

“No, it’s just a number”

Both are true.  It’s a lot of writing, almost all of which I can’t remember!  Endless topics that I felt drawn to – moments, people, places, feelings.

How strange that it all seems to have blown away in the breeze.  Nothing has accumulated.  And I want to keep doing it.  Probably I won’t remember these words tomorrow!

Somewhere in the world are folks who nodded in response to a post of mine … or vigorously shook their head “No!”  It’s all good.

I figure my hands are meant to be open, with my fingers unfurled.  Wrapping around and squeezing tight doesn’t sound like a good idea.  We need to breathe deeply.

Perhaps one of my thoughts will land lightly on someone’s palm, stay awhile and then float away.  I hope so.

What does it all mean?  Maybe nothing.  What if I live my life in the very centre of what I’m experiencing, without adding any conclusions?  No “and therefore …”

Sounds like fun to me

It’s such a need … to lie inside the melody and revel in the harmonies. It may be voices. It may be instruments.

When two strings of the cello are perfectly in tune, the vibration of the tones ceases. The air is still and the music is drawn out of the instrument in all its glory. The melody soars …

There are pristine voices, such as Jackie Evancho, and there are raspy ones, like Rod Stewart. What matters is the soul making its way up the throat and out into the air. And the eyes! They say so much.

I want to sing a cappella, without accompaniment. Naked for all to hear. It’s so direct, so laser-like. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a bit out of tune or if I stumble over some of the words. (Really!)

The question: Is there a transmission from singer to listener? Rod transmits.

I want to stand on my balcony overlooking the Oudburg and sing to the people below. So far I haven’t been brave enough to. Can you see me here?

And then there’s Speeltuin Sluizeken, a tiny sliver of park just steps from my apartment on the Oudburg. A particular bench invites me … and my cello. Can you see me here too?

I also need to see me

I mean touch with my heart, rather than my hand

Well, let’s add them up …

1 – A friend created a painting of me last night. I loved it. This morning I thanked her in a text. I believe she was pleased.

2 – Another friend, as well as a neighbour, sent me a photo of France’s lavender fields this morning. I replied, full of my yearning to be there.

3 – At breakfast, I talked with my server about her leaving the job next week. I also listened.

4 – At the grocery store, I thanked the young man who worked so hard to translate a product from Flemish to English. I needed bleach and that’s what I came home with.

5 – An employee of a Canadian company hung in with me on the phone for nearly an hour, helping me navigate the waters of finance. I saw his dedication and told him so.

6 – I invited another friend to go for coffee with me sometime. She sounded happy that I asked.

7 – Yet another friend coordinates the financial support that some young people in Senegal receive from us. I paid for a few months of a man’s tuition today. My friend smiled in her text.

8, 9, 10 – Including this one, I’ve written three blog posts today. Let’s be conservative and say that each one has reached one person.

***

That’s ten people!

I’ll take it

I’m happy

“Artisan was an English vocal harmony trio from Yorkshire, England, who sang a cappella from 1985 to 2005. They consisted of songwriter Brian Bedford, his wife Jacey Bedford, and Hilary Spencer.”

I saw Artisan at the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival in Nova Scotia, Canada in 2012.  Their songs, their harmonies and their spirit are with me still.

Here’s a song that says it for me: I am all of it.  Perhaps you are too

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=pXZdHa7K-jY&feature=share

I am weak and I am strong
I am right and I am wrong
I am the river and the dam
I am woman ... I am man 

I am wicked, I am good
I am spirit, I am blood
I am the years that I must span
I am woman ... I am man

I am love and I am hate
I am chance and I am fate
I am the race, the one who ran
I am woman ... I am man

I am oppressor and oppressed
I am the worst that cursed the best
I am disorder and the plan
I am woman ... I am man

I am wisdom, I am fool
I am tender, I am cruel
I am nation, I am clan
I am woman ... I am man

I am weak and I am strong
I am right and I am wrong
I am the river and the dam
I am woman ... I am man

I am peace and I am war
I am virgin, I am whore
I am the fire, the flame, the fan
I am woman ... I am man

I am master, I am beast
I am famine, fast and feast
I am the dream, the word "I am"
I am woman ... I am man

I am bold, I am free
I am more, I am me
I am ruler, I am slave
I am birth ... I am the grave

I will end as I began
I am woman ... I am man

I miss them.  In Canada, I volunteered for years in a class of 12-year-olds.  Before that, I was a teacher of blind and low vision kids and teens.  I was the visiting teacher, working with one child in a classroom of sighted students.

My favourite word in teaching is “conversation”.  That’s what I loved.  It didn’t matter the topic as long as there was a light in the child’s eyes.

Some of the kids were short.  I was tall.  But our eyes were level.  And often there was a lovely arched bridge between theirs and mine.

Now … no kids. Oh, I see lots of them on the street but they don’t know me. I’m probably seen as a tourist … here today, gone tomorrow. Actually approaching one second and disappearing the next.

Once in awhile there’s eye contact between a kid and me, maybe a little smile from them. May more of that show up down the road.

I have a challenge. How can I move children back into my life? I’ll sit with that for a few days or weeks. Now is not the moment to problem solve.

I can feel it … a richer life is coming my way

(Smile)

Is my skin the boundary of me?

Sounds logical but I wonder.  It looks like we’re all these enclosed entities wandering around, occasionally bumping into each other but mostly maintaining the space between.

Some of us have big personalities and cool shapes – like this:

Look how bright!  A riot of colours.  Maybe others say we’re “too much”.  These arms bursting as they reach out, so loud.  We’re noticed by less “out there” folks.

I guess this is good.  It’s cool to be throwing lots of energy out into the world.  Having lots to say and lots to do.

But here I am wondering again.  Perhaps me doesn’t stop at the accepted border.  Perhaps I’m not solid at all.

And then there’s the whole question of what “me” might mean.  Sometimes I look at “Bruce” and feel the letters separating.  No glue.  Over here there’s an “r” floating and way yonder an “e” is hanging in space.

Right now I feel wide open, being stretched ever outwards, flowing beyond the dotted lines.

There’s some sphere far larger than particular human beings.  It’s a container of all things individual.  It holds us in a rainbow embrace.

It may very well look like this:

All the room in the world

I speak.  You speak.  We have mouths

Whether you’re Christian or not, listen to what these faces say

And I wonder what that is …

Fifty years ago I was a young man, spreading my wings in Vancouver – the stunning marriage of mountains and the sea.

I lived only steps away from Stanley Park, a 1000-acre expanse of ancient trees, sand beaches and sunlight sparkling the inner worlds of the forest.

And I got a job!  As a bellman at the Pacific Palisades Hotel on Robson Street.  I carried the guests’ luggage and knocked on their doors with hot meals.  I saw my task as “Welcome”.

One day we learned that a Hollywood movie would be shot in Vancouver … and the cast would be staying at the hotel!  I was thrilled.

I had heard of the two leading actors and I hoped I would get to talk to them.  My young self-esteem was teetering on an edge.  I needed validation from famous people – actually from anybody.

They arrived.  I was the luggage guy.  The first celebrity was young and handsome. I was jealous of him but maybe some of his charisma would rub off on my tiny shoulders.

I won’t name this fellow because every day I felt his disdain.  Indeed I was tiny in his eyes.  He hardly ever looked in mine.  Our relationship was simple: “Do this.  Do that.”  >  “Yes, sir.”

My moments with the heartthrob were small and damaging.  I was sinking fast.

And yet there was another man.  Here he is:

Of course he didn’t look like this in Vancouver.  Ron Moody acted as Fagin in the movie Oliver! and later on Broadway.

What I remember is his smile, so often aimed at me.  His delight at seeing me.  His interest in my life.  Here’s a later version of Ron:

Ron never seemed in a hurry, though he no doubt had places to go, people to meet. His eyes met mine and were happy to linger awhile.

When the movie wrapped and the cast were leaving the Palisades, Ron came by … to each of us. He handed me a little porcelain object. It was to hold a toothpaste tube. For years I cranked it, especially when the tube was nearly empty. Thank you, Ron.

This morning I thought of Ron Moody, and I looked him up on Google. The dear man died in 2015. I felt the jolt of sorrow.

Thank you for helping this young guy find his way

I pray that I have been “Ron” for some young one along the way

I have the idea that completing a certain task will take “x” amount of time.  But over and over, the reality is “2x” … or even “5x”.

Many months ago, I told new friends in Ghent that I’d be living in Belgium by September.  I’d built in extra time in that calculation for visa problems.  The reality?  I landed at Brussels Airport on January 28.

Maybe five weeks ago, I started the process of selling my shares in a Canadian company.  “Should be simple,” I thought.  Today I was on the phone with three company reps for nearly two hours … and it looks like it’ll be a few more weeks before the money will enter my bank account.

As a symbol of the vast, my growing response to these challenges has been to smile (!)  What’s that about?

I don’t understand me, and that’s fine.  What mystery leads the corners of my mouth to turn upwards with my mind not involved in the process?

I’d be sitting like an innocent human being as a wave of sweetness started washing over, with no perceptible cause.  It’s strange … in a lovely way.

There’s just so much I don’t know

So much I’ll never know

(More smiling)

It’s 12:15 and I’ve only seen four seagulls.

Surely this nice little Buddhist guy can find peace within a simple reality.  Surely he smiles as infinity wraps around.

No!  Where are the gulls?  They can’t leave me.  Don’t they see my love?  Fly over Ghent please.

What if it all leaves? 

All the people I love turn their backs to me and walk away.  Sunsets are forever hidden by black clouds.  The streets are empty of children at play.

People speak to me but all I hear is silence.  My hip aches 24/7 and I can no longer climb the stairs at Oudburg 40.  There is no day and no night … just some middling greyness.

Birds no longer fly.  Pesto pasta can’t find my mouth.  The mirror shows nothing in its window.

Everything goes away

***

I know what this is called …

Death