Author Archives: Bruce

Beyond

Since getting home in December from my long retreat, I’ve started lifting weights.  I want to be strong.  My hours of meditation in Massachusetts were often sublime, often other-worldly peaceful.  But doing the chest press at World Gym is bringing something else out of me.

Marcin, my personal trainer, tells me that I need to “explode” on the push and then go slow on the release.  I tried exploding but it was more like a little sparkler catching fire.  Until a few days ago.  Something inside me ramped up.  My lips set tight.  I almost growled.  “I’m doing this!”  And today I did it some more, with a fierceness that I didn’t recognize.  Talk about the yin and the yang … meditation and determination, both lighting up the present moment.

Way back in my brain cells, I remembered a woman staggering to the finish in an Olympic marathon.  The awe from long ago seeped into today.  So I Googled, and here’s what I found:

Gabriela Andersen-Schiess is a former Swiss long-distance runner who participated in the first women’s Olympic marathon at the 1984 Summer Olympics.  Though living in Idaho and working as a ski instructor at the time, Andersen-Schiess represented Switzerland in the 1984 Los Angeles Games.

Fourteen minutes into the 1984 Olympic marathon, Joan Benoit began to pull away from the rest of the pack.  She went on to win in a time of 2 hours, 24 minutes, and 52 seconds.  Twenty minutes after Benoit finished, then 39-year-old Andersen-Schiess entered the stadium.

The crowd gasped in horror as she staggered onto the track, her torso twisted, her left arm limp, her right leg mostly seized.  She waved away medical personnel who rushed to help her, knowing that, if they touched her, she would be disqualified.  The L.A. Coliseum crowd applauded and cheered as she limped around the track in the race’s final 400 meters, occasionally stopping and holding her head.

While the effects of her heat exhaustion were plainly evident, trackside medics saw that she was perspiring, which meant that her body still had some disposable fluids, and let her continue her march to the finish line.  At the completion of this final lap—which took Andersen-Schiess five minutes and 44 seconds—she fell across the finish line.  She finished 37th, ahead of seven other runners.

Oh my.  You can see Gabriela on several YouTube videos.  Infinitely beyond the chest press but really they both have the same incredible intensity.  I think we humans need to express some of that.  And we need to be moved to tears sometimes when others stretch themselves, as thousands of folks were in that California stadium 32 years ago.

Love Entrancing

I went to a movie last night … The Danish Girl.  It’s the story of a young man in Copenhagen who knows that in his soul he is a woman.  He becomes Lili – emotionally, spiritually, and then physically.  The critics are raving about Eddie Redmayne in the title role but I was overwhelmed with Alicia Vikander as his wife.

Here’s what the Palm Springs International Film Festival had to say:

“In The Danish Girl, Alicia Vikander delivers a superb performance as Gerda Wegener, the wife of transgender pioneer Lili Elbe,” said Film Festival Chairman Harold Matzner.  “She projects so much love and pain as she goes on a journey with Lili during an era when there was no precedent for it.  Gerda’s own transformation as a character speaks to the story’s themes of courage and self-acceptance.  For her astonishing screen presence and masterful performance, we are delighted to present Alicia Vikander with the 2016 Rising Star Award.”

Like you, I’ve seen love masterfully presented in many films, but nothing like this.  And for me it’s not about how good an actress Alicia is.  She so thoroughly becomes Gerda that it’s her love doing the speaking.  She continues to treasure her husband as Einar becomes Lili.  She sees their sexual intimacy floating away but doesn’t stop adoring another human being.  Gerda calls her partner “Lili” as she kisses her cheek.  Her face is magical.

I’m going to buy the DVD when it comes out so I can play four or five scenes over and over, to remind myself what loving is.  Many are the times when I felt the same reverence coming from my dear wife Jody to me.  I just need to be reminded … often.

May I again experience the astonishing caring that Gerda gave to her loved one.

Horror No More?

Stephen King is my favourite author.  Yes, he’s a horror guy, but he’s also a master of character development, making them so real that I fall in love, even with the bad guys.  They too have a pilot light of goodness.  Books of terror, such as The Shining and Pet Semetary, have always been enthralling for me as well as scary.

Yesterday I started King’s novel The Regulators.  In the first hundred pages, the occupants of vibrantly coloured vans are terrorizing the residents of a suburban street.  They’ve already killed a man, a woman, a boy and a dog.  Despite all this, I loved reading about the dynamics of the neighbourhood … who’s doing what.  Who’s saying what about whom.

I slept poorly last night.  I’m still pretty dopey.  Stephen, did you have anything to do with this?

I see myself as a spiritual person.  Am I moving towards letting go of the 6:00 pm news, gossip in the coffee shop, and perhaps Mr. King’s depictions of murder?  As for the author, I read fiction and go to international movies to see life vividly displayed in front of me.  I want real people feeling real things.  I want stunning moments between two people.  I want love, sadness, anger … the full meal deal.

No, I’ve just decided.  I won’t stop reading Stephen King.  There are too many “ah hah” moments within those pages, where I recognize humankind, and pause to consider my world view.  To consider what’s important in my life.  To learn.

Bring it on, Stephen.  Teach me.

 

Geometry

Are they just lines or is there a hidden glory within them?

1.  A Circle

No beginning, no end.  But doesn’t everything start and later stop?  Perhaps not.  What if there is an essence within me that’s been there since before my parents’ eyes twinkled at each other?  And will be there after the cremation oven warms me up?  And what if there’s nothing I can do to make that essence show up … because it’s always there?  I just have to listen for it.  Nowhere to get to.  Just living in the circle.

2.  A Horizontal Line

No one better and no one worse, despite the kindness and the meanness in the world.  No looking up to someone or looking down at someone.  Young and old.  Male and female.  Physically attractive and plain.  Just folks, all doing their best to be happy.  All to be loved.

3.  A Vertical Line

Being upright in life, neither leaning to the left or right, towards indulgence or asceticism.  Balanced.  Moral.  Not needing to be propped up by any external person or thing.  Unshakeably kind and appropriate.  Doing what I say I’ll do.  Speaking the truth.  Standing up for myself and others.

4.  A Curved Line

Honouring the risings and fallings of life.  The golf ball soaring off the clubhead and then falling back to the earth.  The growing of energy and beauty and the later diminishing.  The climbing of self and the returning to source.  Strong and weak.  Happy and sad.  Embracing the rhythms.

5.  A Triangle

Three people, all loving each other.  Sometimes feeling revered, and sometimes feeling left out.  Opening to relationships beyond me and mine.  Feeling the strength and stability of deep friendship.  Letting the other two take centre stage for awhile.

***

The power of mathematics is often to change one thing into another
To change geometry into language

Marcus du Sautoy

To Cuddle

Such a great word.

I was sitting in the Family Circle restaurant this afternoon, having lunch with my friend Renato.  He went outside for a smoke and I sat at our window table, watching the snow fall on Wellington Road.

Three women were in the booth behind me.  I thought I heard “cuddle”, one of my favourite words.  So I listened some more.  “I wish we could fall asleep with my head on his chest.”  Oh my.  How lovely.  The conversation wasn’t about sex.  It was about being close.  There was sweetness and some sadness in the voices.  There was a tenderness shared with friends.  It was a privilege to witness this.

How I miss holding Jodiette’s hand as we walked through life.  How I miss rubbing her feet as we sat on the couch watching a movie.  How I miss spooning in bed.  The best moments.  Quiet ones.  Just you and me.

I know that I’ll have cuddling in my life again.  I wish it was today.  Maybe it will be next week, next month or next year.  I’ll smile at the touch.  And cry.

Loving Still

Jody and I still talk a lot, 14 months after her death.  A lot of love passes between us.

My dear wife tells me, “We will be together again in this physical life.”  And I sit open to this possibility, even when my rational brain is poo-pooing the idea.  I so much want to hold Jodiette again.

I heard Jane Lewis in concert a couple of nights ago.  She wrote a song called “Tend Me Like A Garden” and I’ve cried every time I’ve played it in the car.

Tend me, tend me like a garden
Love me, love me like the rain
I will give you all that you can harvest
‘Til the first frost steals me away

The coldness of death has indeed stolen my love away.  I’m lonely without my wife.  She loved me like the rain, and still does.

I will love you through all of the seasons
I’ll weather what the fall and summer bring
I may lay fallow in the winter
But I swear that I’ll remember you in spring

“Remember me, Jodiette, until we meet again.”

“I certainly will, Brucio … with great love.”

Would You Like A Cup Of Coffee?

So I heard as I sat in my pedorthist’s office this morning as I waited to have my orthotics adjusted.  Such a simple gesture of friendliness, and yet so profound.  It was as if I was blessed with these words:

Is there something I can do to lighten your load?

May I bring a touch of coziness into your life?

May I serve you?

I said yes to the coffee, not really needing the beverage, but seeing the moment in front of me, and wanting to allow the completion of the giving.  I was presented with a smile, and with a grey china mug full of the hot stuff.  I wrapped my hands around it and felt the warmth from cup and human being.  This point in time was sufficient.

Long ago, I walked into a Woodstock, Ontario elementary school for the first time, to visit a visually impaired student.  An educational assistant came up to me in the hallway.  I didn’t know her.  “Would you like a cup of coffee?”  The same welcoming, the same honouring, the same inclusion.  How lovely across the years.

May I have the eyes to see the things people do to show me I matter
And may I return the favour

Creating Happiness

 

A few days ago, I went to a London Lightning basketball game with two friends.  Last night, I was at a London Knights hockey game on my own.  I didn’t like either game.

I’ve always loved seeing sports events but clearly “always” no longer fits.  It’s more of the same internal conversation that I’ve been having with myself since coming back from the meditation retreat – “Bruce is …” > “Actually no, he isn’t.”

There weren’t many people at the basketball game.  “That’s it.  I feed off the crowd’s energy.  No wonder I was flat.”  But there were 9000 souls in Budweiser Gardens last night.  Lots of crowd noise.  Except for the guy sitting in Section 303, Row H, Seat 6.

“I need to share the experience with someone.”  Jody and I went to lots of Knights games and had a good time.  Well, my friends were right beside me at the basketball game but none of us “entered the excitement”.

Last night, I was way up high in the arena.  It was a good view, but the players looked really small.  “Okay then, I need to be close to the action, to feel the thrill of Mitch Marner exploding down the ice and blasting a shot into the net.”  However, we sat only ten rows from the court at the basketball game.

Well, Bruce.  You know this.  Happiness is an inside job.  You can keep adding marvelous events to your life, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  Actually that’s exactly what you’re doing in the next few months … Toronto; Cuba; Haida Gwaii; Cambridge, Ontario.  But what will you bring forth in those strings of moments?  That’s up to you.  It appears that team sports no longer draw you, even though you enjoy the sports section of the newspaper.  But the experiences that currently animate your life – lovely friends, concerts, beaches, tall ships and golf tournaments – are all on the outside.  Bring forth you.

Still The Same

Such a wonderful face, their mother’s.  As a younger woman she’d been beautiful, far more beautiful than Laurel, more so than any of her daughters, with the possible exception of Daphne.  She certainly wouldn’t have had directors pushing her towards character roles.  But one thing you could bank on was that beauty – the sort that came with youth – didn’t last, and their mother had grown old.  Her skin had sagged, spots had appeared, along with mysterious puckers and discolorations.  Her bones had seemed to subside as the rest of her shrank and her hair frayed to nothing.  But still that face remained, every aspect bright with mischief, even now.  Her eyes, though tired, had the glint of one who never stopped expecting to be amused, and her mouth turned up at the corners as if she’d just remembered a joke.  It was the sort of face that drew strangers, that enchanted them and made them want to know her better.  The way she had of making you feel, with a slight twitch of the jaw, that she too had suffered as you did, that everything would be better now simply for having come within her orbit.  That was her real beauty – her presence, her joy, her magnetism.  That, and her splendid appetite for make-believe.

(I wrote this down more than a year ago, but I can’t remember the author.)

***

Old French Lane

Seven jewels lie in the channel
South of England’s shores
Where you and I once walked together
Where I’ll walk no more

Hand in hand we would go
In the sun and in the rain
Through the streets of St. Helier
Down the Old French Lane

With Jersey sunshine falling on your hair
Shines in strands of red and gold
And eyes of green like the emerald sheen
Of your ancestral home

That was so long ago
Red and gold turn silver now
But eyes of green will never change
In my memory somehow

***

“She’s an attractive woman.”  So said a friend about another friend, who’s in her 50’s.  Yes, our faces are no longer as smooth and upright as a 20-year-old’s.  Under the chin, the skin dangles.  But the eyes still shine.  The smile appears at the flimsiest excuse.  And the soul so often comes to the surface for all to see.

Lifesaving

Just south of me is the village of Port Stanley, Ontario, on the north shore of Lake Erie.  Jackson’s Fish Market is a local landmark, and one of its exterior walls is graced by a large mural – about 20 feet long and 10 feet high.  It depicts a rowboat heading out in wild seas to a stricken ship offshore.  Here is the inscription:

On October 29, 1902, in a savage Lake Erie gale, the three-masted American schooner Mineral State went aground and started to break up off the high clay bluffs east of the Port Stanley harbour.  The gallant Port Stanley lifesaving crew, watched by a large crowd of Port Stanley residents, braved the towering waves and rescued the entire crew of the schooner just as dusk was falling.  In recognition of their bravery, the lifesaving crew all received gold medals from US President Theodore Roosevelt.

I studied the painting.  The gold of sunset lit up the waves and the sky, as well as the faces of adults and kids who were watching the rescue.  The wind blew back their hair.  In the rowboat, a helmsman urged on the six rowers, who were cranking on their oars and straining in their faces.  On the horizon, the schooner’s masts were tilted at a 45 degree angle.

Oh, the fear that must have coursed through those men!  Was this the end?  Would their names be added to the list of fatalities?  How would their families carry on?

As I sat in my cosy car, I wondered how I’d react in an emergency.  I’ve never saved anyone’s life.  In the moment, would I have the courage to do that?  Or would I fold my tent and slink away, comforting myself with thoughts about the people in this world who needed me to stay alive?

Right now, I yearn for the chance to save someone.  And in the next breath, I hope never to face such a crisis, such a call for action.

And when the moment comes …?