I sang last night during the open mic session at Minard.  My friend Rani came along to cheer … so kind of her.

Each time I’ve been there, an artist sits off to the side, drawing each performer.  And we the audience get to see the creations unfolding on a screen.  So cool.

The fellow with the pencil took care to draw the first presenter of the evening – a poet with a shine in her eyes and a smile that wouldn’t go away.  But the artist drew her as if he was standing behind.  “Strange,” I thought, but a fun new interpretation.

There followed a cavalcade of poets, singers, comedians and a guitarist.  And later … me!  I often glanced at the screen but no new human beings appeared.  Instead what emerged is what you see in the photo:

A scary audience!

Those teeth … ripping to shreds anyone brave enough to step on the stage.  And those eyes … burning holes into flesh.

Huh?

As I stood before about fifty folks, the drawing was nowhere near what I experienced.  I felt them leaning into the words of the song, soft eyes lingering with mine.  Even though I was some nervous, I felt buoyed up by the human beings accompanying me.

Of course there are tyrants here on Earth, and the occasional person who hopes I fall on my face, but almost all of the people I meet have a goodness that breaks through the surface to see the light of day.

Like them, I will lift the world

This morning I noticed something that I’ve probably been doing unconsciously for years.  When I sit down at a restaurant and there’s a menu card on the table, I get rid of it.  As in putting it on the floor or on another table.

I want space.

At that same restaurant, I always pick a chair that gives me a long view, out into the room, rather than facing the wall – even a gorgeous wall.

I’ve gone on many meditation retreats at a centre in Massachusetts.  And there’s a walk among fields and forest that I’ve done many times.  At one point the road stretches forward in a straight line that goes on forever.  That always gave me a thrill.  I would stop and gaze … “the long road”.

A version of hell that has lived in my mind for decades is being inside one of those huge refrigerator boxes – my arms tight against the sides, the top brushing my hair.  No room to dance.

In my better dancing moments, I whirl and throw my arms around.  Freedom is knowing that my fingers won’t bump into a wall, that my flowing will continue to express unimpeded.

Speaking of fingers, they are certainly wise.  They know both the joy of being nestled together and of bursting out into the world, with great spaces between.

Room to roam

Now I consider my remaining time on this Earth.  As the poet Mary Oliver said:

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Good question, Mary.

Many things come to mind.  At the top of the mountain stands singing.  I want to sing.  I want to sing for people.

I don’t want to write songs.  I want to sing ones that have already been written, ones that have already touched hearts.

I’ve composed a list of my favourite songs – 70 of them.  Actually, there are a few other ones that also reach me, but they require a vocal range beyond what I can currently express.  So I doubt if I’ll ever learn them.

Seventy is a very large number.  I’ve already learned five of them.  Only 65 to go!  My ability to memorize has declined over the years but that doesn’t mean it’s stopped.  And just think of all the exercise my senior brain will get!

***

Yesterday the song that’s the next for me to learn entered my mind – Angel.  It’s sung so wondrously by Sarah McLachlan.

Here it is:

Spend all your time waiting
For that second chance
For a break that would make it okay
There’s always some reason
To feel not good enough
And it’s hard at the end of the day

I need some distraction
Oh … a beautiful release
Memories seep from my veins
Let me be empty
And weightless … and maybe
I’ll find some peace tonight

In the arms of the angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You’re in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort here

So tired of the straight line
And everywhere you turn
There’s vultures and thieves at your back
And the storm keeps on twisting
You keep on building the lies
That you make up for all that you lack

It don’t make no difference
Escaping one last time
It’s easier to believe
In this sweet madness
Oh this glorious sadness
That brings me to my knees

In the arms of the angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You’re in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort here

You’re in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort here

I get the song.  It says such a sweet “Hi” to me.  I don’t want to analyze why I like it so much, other than mentioning a few phrases that have me quiver …

And it’s hard at the end of the day

From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear

You keep on building the lies
That you make up for all that you lack

Oh this glorious sadness
That brings me to my knees

Yes.  These words are for me.  And I trust they’ll be for some of the folks listening to me.

I begin

I was sitting last night with some young people before a concert started.  About five of them, in their early 20’s I’d say.

It was easy, which made me so happy.  We were separated by age but not by spirit.

Our conversation roamed around our lives.  For awhile the topic was Ghent, about how our city is a pocket of delight within Belgium, about so many residents being open to each other, to life.

I asked them a skill-testing question: “When I took my first computer course in 1968, how big was the computer?”  Guesses included the size of a car, of a fridge …  Truth was that the beast took up most of a very large room.  Their eyes opened wide.

At one point, our words ventured into the mysterious process of peeing and pooping. I think that was a first for me.  Clearly my young friends knew and enjoyed each other.  I was thrilled to be included.

And then …

A quiet moment in my head led to …

My eyes opening wide

“We’ve been speaking English” 

(Spoken silently)

All this time, these women and men had let go of Dutch in favour of English.  Because I was in their midst.  Such quiet kindness.  Thank you, young ones.

I was watching a Netflix movie on Wednesday evening.  Suddenly the image froze and “0%” appeared onscreen and stayed there.

And so it remains … no Netflix, Disney Plus or Prime Video.  I’m sad.  I enjoy watching cool stories.

In the larger scheme of things, there are far deeper losses: a loved one dies, friendships end, health declines, self-esteem withers away.

But still …

I’m attached.

Here’s a sign promoting the elimination of television from our lives:

I’m not strong enough to say goodbye.  Or wise enough?  I’ve often had a thought bubble up: “I’m free.”  Maybe not.

The problem of my smart TV no longer being connected to the Internet will no doubt be solved.  The problem of needing TV in my life will take longer to fix.

I wonder if I’ll ever get there

I was sitting in a restaurant yesterday, watching my stomach billow out over my belt.  I didn’t like it.  Even though I make jokes about having the perfect U-shaped body, my ego still compares mine to younger, slimmer bodies.

For years three pairs of jeans hung in my closet in Canada.  They didn’t make it to my legs because they were for a 32-inch waist, and I had become a 34.  Hope sprang eternal that a rigorous program of fitness and healthy eating would reduce my middle.  Ha!  Never happened.  And I eventually donated the pants to Goodwill.

A few months ago, I read that the composition of the male body changes as we age … more belly fat.  That sort of made me feel better, but not really.

As I pondered my increased roundness yesterday, a number came into my head – 36.  It had been there before, in the spirit of revulsion.  But this time, a mysterious smile came along for the ride. 

If your waist really is 36 now

Why not celebrate it?

And buy new pants

And so I did.  A marvelous sales guy searched high and low for 36 jeans with a 30 length … and now they’re in my closet.  Except the one that now rides on my hips.  Love it!  I’ll call it personal growth … 36 inches as a friend rather than an enemy.

I also bought a longer belt.  So I’m all set for moving and grooving into life’s next adventures.  Comfy in my emerging body.

I watched the film Powder last night. 

Oh my God …

One reviewer tells the story:

Fantasy and drama combine in the story of a teenager known as Powder for his snow-white skin.  Powder is introduced into a tiny Texas community after spending his entire life in his grandparents’ basement.  He’s a wise genius, but an outcast, alienated by those who misunderstand and fear him.  When a schoolmaster and science teacher discover that Powder has a capacity for empathic insight and possesses the power to control electricity, the unusual boy becomes a tragic Christ-like figure – peaceful, prophetic and perhaps too good to survive in the real world.

Sweetness, goodness, supreme empathy.  Can such a one thrive, even survive, in our world of “Me first”?  Powder stands tall in the face of rejection.  He reaches out to those who are hurting.

A male classmate:  Why you look like that?  You look like some kind of vampire from outer space or something.  There’s not much fight in you, is there freak show?  You really think you could be like us?

The white skin, the soft eyes, the hat covering the baldness … all incomprehensible to these Texas teenagers – and adults.  Powder is other.

The science teacher:  It has become appallingly clear that our technology has surpassed our humanity. 

We’re stumbling around in a very dark age basically trying not to kill each other … I think you have a mind that we won’t evolve to for like thousands of years – you’re maybe the man of the future right here and now.

Perhaps there are many such future human beings walking the Earth today, “too good” for the smallness, the divisions, the “I’m right and you’re wrong.”  They are ambassadors of what can be, how a life can be lived.

Here’s what Powder has to say:

Inside most people there’s a feeling of being separate, separated from everything.  And they’re not.  They’re part of absolutely everyone, and everything.

What a concept … you and I are connected, and there’s a way that we can find each other’s divinity.  We can truly be together.

It’s possible to talk to someone without any lies, with no sarcasms, no deceptions, no exaggerations or any of the things that people use to confuse the truth.

There’s so much that is possible …

I want to go home.  Do you understand that?  I want to go home.

A real home, where we can cuddle, put our feet up on the couch, pass the bag of popcorn back and forth.

Powder meets a girl who sees beyond differences to the pearl being revealed.  She is a gift … and sees him that way too.

I don’t know what I think when I look at you.  But sometimes I think, I think you’re the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen.

Indeed

Beauty beyond the norm

Beyond the known

Shining

In the Evolutionary Collective, we have been considering the words of The Mother.

Just now I was looking for a photo of her, and I was bombarded by images of Jennifer Lopez.  She starred in the recent Netflix movie of the same name.  The world knows JLo … The Mother not at all.

She was born Mirra Alfassa in 1878 in Paris.  At age 36 she went to India and met Sri Aurobindo, a mystic and spiritual teacher.  She died there at 95, having lived a deeply spiritual life.  She was deemed to have been “the mother” of a new way of being.

Here are some of her words:

Nothing must ever be done that cannot be done before the Divine.

Hmm … the idea of living a life like that shines like a candle before my eyes.

It is not by running away from the world that you will change it.  It is by working there, modestly, humbly but with a fire in the heart, something that burns like an offering.

A modest fire.  Yes, sometimes that’s me.  And sometimes not.

Sri Aurobindo often talked of The Mother:

There is one divine Force which acts in the universe and in the individual and is also beyond the individual and the universe. The Mother stands for all these, but she is working here in the body to bring down something not yet expressed in this material world so as to transform life here.

Am I willing to embrace something so radically new?

I wonder

It’s the day after and I’m so tired.  And so happy.  I went to the most famous bicycle race in Belgium.  I found a spot right against the barrier on the Oude Kwaremont, one of the cobbled climbs.  The men came by twice, and the women once.  Each time I got to see riders for maybe five minutes … and then they were gone up the road.  But it was so worth it.

I loved the faces flashing by.  They were splattered with mud, mouths open sucking in oxygen, legs churning on the pedals.  I was in awe.  These women rode for 163 kilometres, the men 270 – often in the rain.

On the train to the start in Oudenaarde, where the race started, I sat with a young couple from the U.K.  He had ridden the entire race route yesterday.  So that’s all the climbs, with the gradient occasionally reaching 20%.  “I’m so jealous of you.  You’re young and incredibly fit.  I’m old and far less fit.”  He smiled … and actually so did I.

Before the race, I watched each team being presented on the stage.  The hosts interviewed one or two riders.  They asked cool questions, sometimes funny ones, and got engaged answers – in Dutch, French or English.

There were hundreds of us watching, including a line of VIPs on the balcony of Oudenaarde’s ancient city hall.

I love the colours of bike races – the jerseys of the teams and the brilliance of their bikes.

The big problem I had all day was standing for long times – at the presentation, on the bus to the Oude Kwaremont, the hours of waiting there for the cyclists, the long lineup to catch the shuttle bus back to Oudenaarde.  The legs got tighter and tighter.  But so what?  I was there.

I snuck a picture of the guys on the far side of the cobbled route.  They were having well lubricated fun.

Here’s a shot of the Kwaremont to my right, where I’d see riders’ backsides before they disappeared around the bend.  There’d be a rolling roar of yelling and clapping as each athlete rode by.

And just for you, a close-up of the cobbles.  They were so slippery that on the steep climb called the Koppenberg, some cyclists had to dismount and run up the hill.

The final stretch of the race featured a trio of racers fighting for the top step of the podium: Shirin van Anrooij from the Netherlands, Kasia Niewiadoma from Poland and Elisa Longo Borghini from Italy.  I was glued to my phone from the Oude Kwaremont.  A sprint …

Elisa !

***

I’m not the athlete that Elisa is

But her outstretched arms paint the picture

Of my yesterday