Two days ago I was walking in Gent.  Across the street was a store called “De Punten”.  The wall was deep blue, and covered with huge sprawling words handpainted in yellow.

I stopped and stared.  I don’t remember any people being around.  Strangely for me, that didn’t matter.  I stared some more, thinking this place was important.

I smelled urine.  “Huh?”

Yesterday I’d occasionally mutter “De Punten”.  But I couldn’t remember what street it was on.  And then the store faded from my mind …

I awoke this morning with the same words on my lips.  When I thought “blue wall”, all that came up was the magnificent Italian restaurant Osteria.  “What’s happening here?”

I realized that “De Punten” were words in Dutch.  I checked Google Translate and found “the points”.  “What’s that have to do with anything?”

And as for the street, surely Google Maps could help.  Inputting “De Punten” gave me “Püntendamm” in Nordhorn, Germany.  Another “Huh?”

Okay, I’ll try your basic Google.  I searched for “Punten Gent” and up came “Post NL Pakketpunt” – a Netherlands mail service pick-up point.

***

What can I say?

Two nights ago I had a dream?

And last night the same one?

I wonder what is real

I’m going in April.  And then I’m coming back home to Gent.

Canada is still home … but it’s looser.  There are places I love – Vancouver, Waterton Lakes National Park, Long Beach on Vancouver Island, and I’ll stay happy if I never see them again.  It’s not about geography.

I miss my friends

And so I go to see them

I like choosing a photo to accompany my posts.  This time, the Internet offered a multitude of classic Canadian scenes.  But they didn’t draw me.  This does:

Philosopher’s Walk in Toronto.  Many a time I’ve strolled the path, sat on the benches and lingered by the memorial to the fourteen women murdered at Montreal’s École Polytechnique in 1989.

As a young man, I stood under the windows of the Royal Conservatory of Music and listened to the melodies descending.

In April I shall return.  May the music return with me.

My life is people.  Places without people don’t interest me.  Nor does having lots of money, being famous or being smart.  Give me the contact, please.

Seven of my sixteen days will be at the bed-and-breakfast of my dear friends Anne and Ihor in Toronto.  The other nine will be sprinkled around the homes of dear ones in the London area, and in Lion’s Head.

Yesterday I texted or e-mailed those whose hearts join with mine:

I have a question, and please, please, please say no if it doesn’t work for you.  May I stay with you for one night sometime between April 7 and 15 inclusive?

Already five of them have said yes!  With joy in their replies.  Makes me happy.

My heart warms towards April.  There will be happy reunions.  Real conversations.  Love.

Across the big pond I will go

I wonder why images crowd into my head, over and over again … for years.  Maybe I should stop wondering and just fall into the wonder of it all.  To enjoy the moments that appear unbidden.

One of those pictures of my life is the patchwork quilt.  Ancient.  Hand-sewn.  Lovely.

A floral blouse fading from Christmas green to pastel green.  A pair of jeans wearing out at the knees.  A checked tablecloth that has seen better days.  All viewed with the eyes of an artist, seen anew.

So many squares, revealing chapters in a life, asking to be reborn into something warm and comforting.  So a human being can soon pull the softness and thickness to the chin, inviting slumber. 

Maybe each piece of fabric is alive, yearning for company, for contact, so that together they can contribute to the world.

There may be many weeks of stitching squares to their neighbours, the hand feeling the needle and thread fulfilling their mission – to create beauty.

Squares of course have their own distinct shape … but what colours!  What patterns!  What swirls and dots and butterflies and lines and moons!

And flowers

As in “To what place?”  Is there a destination or do I simply travel for the rest of my life?

Listen to Tolkien’s thoughts:

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began
Now far ahead the Road has gone
And I must follow, if I can
Pursuing it with weary feet
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet
And whither then?  I cannot say

J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings:
The Fellowship of the Ring

Perhaps my future wanderings are of the heart and mind rather than country.  I truly don’t know the way.  And the smile now appearing says that’s okay.  Maybe the road ahead peters out and I’ll stumble across a field of rock … or stroll over a lawn of green.

Mystery – there’s another good word. 

“Something that baffles our understanding and cannot be explained”

Yes, the mystery surrounds me.  Take yesterday, for instance.  In our Evolutionary Collective Zoom calls, we sometimes are paired up with one person for 30 minutes, and sometimes with two people for 15 minutes each.  And here comes the unknown …

Almost always, when it’s 15 and 15, I get to the end of the second practice and I can’t remember who I practiced with the first time.  Oi!

So what incomprehensible journey does this represent?  Early onset something-or-other?  (I doubt it)  Not caring about the first human being?  (No!)  Being carried on the winds of time?  (Maybe)

The path is long.  Ten years ago, I was fanatic about playing golf and watching it on TV.  And now … it means nothing to me.  So how about ten years from now?  What vivid new thing will have brightened my soul by then?  I don’t know … and of course I don’t know.  It hasn’t showed up yet!

Okay, I’ll guess.  Some outrageous future.  Not an augmentation of a past joy.  Something new!

Hmm …

I will design clothes

You know the story.  You’re thinking about something that aches in your heart.  And then … Think about something else!  Good luck on that.

It’s the same when I consider what to write.  There’s a burning issue that demands expression.  But No!  Not that.  Go somewhere safer.

How about the book I’m absorbing right now?  Inkheart.  It chronicles the adventures of daughter Meggie and father Mo.  There’s lots I could say.  But every word would be false to the moment.  Oh, I could make it interesting.  You’d probably like it.  Maybe you’d even buy the book.

But it wouldn’t be real

Ultimately useless in the world

***

Yesterday my cello teacher Lieven told Anja, “Marie” and me about two of his university-level cellists.  The school had changed their class schedules and they could no longer come for their lesson at the usual time.  Actually the only period the young men could show up was at our time – Thursday at 4:00.

(Sigh)

So the four of us sat down and struggled to come up with solutions.  It was great to see how each of us was committed to the well-being of everyone.

The result?  My lesson now is Tuesday at 4:00, with an adult male student I’ve never met.

The sadness rolls over me.  I will no longer be in lessons with my two musical colleagues.  And I will no longer be talking to the three teenagers who come into the room as we’re leaving.

I’m such a social person.  I see friendships ebbing away.  I see opportunities to contribute to the lives of three teen cellists … leaving.  They’re virtually the only “kids” I know here.  I reached so many in Canada.

(Sigh again)

Maybe I’ll approach schools about volunteer opportunities

Even though my Dutch is minimal

But right now, I’ll invite the sadness to sit quietly with me on the couch

“Would you like some coffee?”

Yesterday I was doing the Mutual Awakening practice with another participant on an Evolutionary Collective Zoom call.  Our hearts were opening.  The connection was real.

And then something new …

My eyes were narrowing rather than widening.  My forehead was wrinkling.  My jaw was set.

When it was my turn to speak, it felt like I was speeding up.  And the volume was climbing.  I was spitting out nouns and verbs.  And then … Am I yelling?!

That’s not me.  Except in the moment it was.  Bruce as fierce?  How can that be?  Surely I’m the nice little Buddhist guy I’ve known for years.  Well … maybe not!

In my mind, I saw my hand pounding the table.  I flew back to the 1960’s, when Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the USSR, was angry with the words of a Philippines delegate at a United Nations meeting.  He banged his desk repeatedly with his fist, and later shouted from the podium.

I’m not angry.  I’m determined.  For however many years I have left, I vow to live big.  To have countless conversations that actually mean something to the heart.  To sing my guts out – songs that tell the stories of our lives.  To love deeply, asking nothing in return.  To walk tall.

I owe it to me

I owe it to the world

It was Music Theory class this morning and my confusion reigned once more.

The class is full of Dutch speakers, and then there’s me … with merely a light dusting of the language.  The naming of the notes in different clefs, the intervals between notes, the rhythms – mostly they’re difficult for me.  And the teaching is in Nederlands, as it should be.

There were so many moments of “not knowing” today, of sorrow in the absence of “getting it”.  It didn’t matter to me how well my seven classmates were absorbing the knowledge.  I was lost.

Symbols covered the white board … incomprehensible to this human being.

There’s a nakedness in this, having my soul exposed to the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” – no protection.

As I wallowed in the despair, I was suddenly flooded with a bolt of ecstasy (!)  Eyes opened wide, mouth dropped open.  Another kind of lost.

Deeply … all was well.  Cradled in a love.  In a realm far beyond accomplishment and skill. 

I didn’t know where I was

And I still don’t

I saw an old friend at a concert last night.  I’ll call her Brigitte.  The trouble was I haven’t called her a friend for the last year.

Before then, I had asked her to go for coffee many times, and she always said no.  One of the last things she said to me was “We’ll see each other around.”  I was sad.

From that point on, I turned my back on her … and I didn’t even notice (!)  I was unconscious.  And I’ve remained so for at least twelve months. 

And last night, before the music began, there she was.

Talk to her, Bruce!  Apologize

And so I did.

I told Brigitte the truth.  I felt hurt.  I rejected her.  I have been avoiding her.  We were no longer friends.  In the words of probably the Buddha, I threw you out of my heart.  I had promised to never do that to another human being, and I did it to you.

I apologize.  I’m sorry.

And then … the release.  It’s like I had been holding my breath for a year when I thought of Brigitte.  Ahhh …

This morning I looked up the quote on the Internet.  Turns out it was Kabir who said it.

Do what you do with another human being but never put them out of your heart

Thank you, Kabir.  Thank you, Brigitte.  We hugged for the new beginning.  There may never be coffee in our future … but there is peace.

In our Evolutionary Collective Zoom meetings, each of us is paired randomly with another participant to do a practice which takes 15 or 30 minutes.

The main question we ask each other is “What are you experiencing?”  Responses typically focus not on thinking, feelings or body sensations … but on simple adjectives, verbs, images. 

What frequently comes to me in those moments is something hanging above me and us … often a mysterious cloud.  Sometimes shimmering, alive in its gentleness, a blessing from above.  The tiny droplets fall upon us and moisten our foreheads.

This morning, as I walked on the Oudburg, my home street, I looked up.  Above the turquoise walls of Number 55 sat six beings.  I’d been aware of them for months but I’d never really seen them.

Six kids, left to right: sucking her thumb, holding a finger to the cheek in wonder, spreading the fingers wide, punching the air, and two letting the sunshine caress their faces.

It was the same as many of my EC practices … goodness descending, a young spirit, well-wishing.

***

I am accompanied in life

By marvelous human beings

And by others …

My dear wife Jody used to describe my spasms of strangeness as “idiot-syncrasies”.  Perhaps she was right.  Perhaps she still is.

Exhibit A:

See the folded hand towel on the left.  I have a ritual as I wait for the shower water to heat up.  The day before, I’ve made sure that the tag faces me … so it’s on the lower half of the towel.  This is important.

I hold the low edge with my right hand and gently pull.  Too little force and the towel stays where it is, just a little down on the rack.  Too much force and the little one immediately falls.

Ahh … but there’s the mystical middle ground!  My pull has lowered the right side of the bottom edge a little.  Slowly, almost imperceptably, the line of the edge moves to horizontal.  So slightly lower, moment by moment …

And as the water continues to bathe the cubicle, the towel … gives way, falling into my waiting hand. 

Yes!

After the initial pulling, the process of descent could take twenty seconds.  I patiently wait, yearning for the moment of ecstasy.

***

That’s enough for today.  There is no Exhibit B

And maybe Jody was on to something