I live on the second floor (third in North America) in a building with no elevator. About fifty steps to climb. Some folks are tired when they reach me. I want them to feel welcome.
Two years ago my friend Marieke did a small drawing of me and I put it beside my apartment door, announcing my presence inside. Now I want something new to adorn my entrance. But what?
I enjoy living in the “I don’t know” as the question meanders within my mind. It could take days. And so it has in this case.
Strangely perhaps, I’ve recently enjoyed putting jigsaw puzzles together. The finished ones are luminous – a sea turtle, a cat and an elephant.
I decided to go back to the Crafthub site and see if an image leapt off the screen for the pleasure of my visitors. And it did!
A Cavalier King Charles Spaniel
Are you ready for joy? Here it is …
I ordered the puzzle. The company expects it to arrive between March 30 and April 1. I fly to Canada on the 4th. And I’m determined …
To have Charles grace the wall beside my apartment door by then.
On Sunday I looked at my phone and saw this text from my Internet service provider:
Dear __________ customer, your payment promise has been registered. If you have not made the payment yet, please pay the amount of 538,94 euro to account number BE00 0000 0000 0000 using the reference 735/0392/11428. Bear in mind that your telephone, Internet and TV will be suspended if you do not honor this promise to pay.
Oi!
“How could this happen?” I agonized. “I pay by automatic debit.” I phoned the company but the billing department was closed on Sunday. And my mind continued to slump overnight with “What does it mean?”
On to Monday, talking on the phone to a company rep.
“I can’t find any reference to 538 euros, sir.”
“That’s strange. I’ll look it up.” I opened my text screen, and there was a text from the company on Sunday. Google Translate told me it said “We will call you back as soon as an employee is available.”
Huh?
I ran my finger down the screen. The third message indeed talked about 538 euros. The date?
December 9, 2023
Silly not-paying-attention me
The rep and I laughed. All was well, with the possible exception of my having tossed and turned for hours overnight.
***
On to the next:
I sang two songs at Minard last night. And now, determined to avoid the scourge of false modesty, I will say this:
I nailed it!
I invited the audience to join me in the chorus of “Day Is Done”. And now, determined to avoid the scourge of vanilla description, I will say this:
They sang!
Barely perceptible during the first chorus, softly during the second, and full-throated during the third. I was so happy. Having people sing with me is my favourite part of performing.
Then I sang one of my top five songs of all time … “The Rose”. Some of the best lyrics I’ve heard. What is love? The pain of not having any. Hope for the appearance of the beloved.
When the night has been too lonely And the road has been too long And you think that love is only For the lucky and the strong
Here I am on the black couch. A few minutes ago, I wondered what I would write about today. And then …
A group of school kids walked by, wearing their light green vests. “I’ll write about them!” Write about what – I don’t know.
Another thought: “I want a tour group to come by in the next half hour so I can take their picture and wonder aloud about them too.”
“And if the tour doesn’t show up, I’ll say something silly about that.”
***
I grew up in Toronto, and I remember the magic of some school trips, such as the two-hour bus we took to Stratford to watch a Shakespearean play. I had little clue what Bill Shakespeare was meaning with his words, but that was okay … I was somewhere new with my friends!
I was accepted. I was “part of”. May it be the same for each kid who just tripped by the Izy Coffee windows. No one left out. Everyone talked to. And talking.
I also have memories of being a teacher on these trips. Counting heads on and off the bus. Being vigilant about cars. Looking for any child who seemed “out of it” and saying something (anything) to them … with a smile. From my mind to theirs: I seeyou.
***
And now for the adult tour group. Have you seen them walk by? I sure haven’t. Perhaps I should scour the streets of Gent in search. And if I find them, I can say “Please walk over three streets and pass by the windows of Izy so I can take your picture and reflect on what your lives may be like.”
***
Still no one. Oh well.
I love guessing what country the group is from. Sometimes the leader holds up an umbrella with a flag attached as she or he walks along. Then I don’t have to guess.
Whether I know the country or not, I’m curious. “Do you have the same joys and sorrows as me? What can I learn from you? What can you learn from me?”
“Is it warm where you live? Do people sit outside on terraces? Is there a sweet energy in your town?”
***
Should I end this post now or continue to wait, showing infinite patience, my finger itching for a photo op? Decisions, decisions …
I know. I’ll set a time limit. It’s 10:32. If the tourists don’t make a magical appearance by 10:45 I’ll shut things down.
Something that makes someone who is sad or disappointed feel better
Words keep showing up in my life throughout its span, but usually I don’t pay attention. I first looked “consolation” in the eyes in the 1980’s when I was studying the thoughts of the spiritual teacher Da Free John.
Everyone is looking to be consoled. When your consolations are ripped off, you find something else to be consoled by – one thing after the next. The reason you do not surrender whatever you find consoling is that you do not recognize it for what it is.
As in “not the real thing”, a substitute, a booby prize, a lessening of what is possible.
Two years after my dear wife Jody died, I started looking around to see if the next love of my life was in the neighbourhood. I went on a dating site and had some dates.
I remember looking across the restaurant table at a woman and thinking “This could work”. Soon after, I woke up. Could, might, maybe – not the basis for an eternal love.
I sit here this morning reflecting on the consolations in my current life. Here are a few:
1. Watching action movies full of killing
2. Eating popcorn when I’m not hungry
3. Having a beer for its taste and gentle buzz, knowing that I’ll feel nauseous later
4. Remaining in a conversation for the company even though the other person is complaining about something
5. Remaining in bed, covers pulled up to my chin, even though I’m not tired and I want to get up
I’ve never known war … never fought, never hid in the bathroom during an air raid. The closest I’ve come to this fear was when the twin towers came down during 911.
I’ve fired a gun once in my life, at a target, and the vibration shuddered my arms. I’ve never hit anyone. Once, in anger, I threw a piece of chalk in a classroom of students. Thank God it missed everyone.
I have had a privileged life. Peace often accompanies me. I have enough food. I have enough friends.
Maybe you the reader have been through hell on the battlefield – watched your friends die, felt the blood seeping from a stomach wound. I’ve been protected from all this.
I read today about a young woman …
7 Oct 1943, Ottla Kafka, beloved sister of author Franz Kafka, was gassed on arrival at Auschwitz after volunteering to escort a group of orphans from the Terezin ghetto so they wouldn’t be afraid.
I’ve been kind to lots of human beings, but never when their lives were in danger. Ottla teaches me.
Three days ago I wrote about Patti Smith singing Bob Dylan’s song “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”. So surely I’m not going to write about the same thing so soon. That would be weird, irrational, boring. Well … I’m willing to be all those things!
Most months I sing at two open mic sessions – at Salvatore’s and at Minard. But in April I’m in Canada for those times.
So … my eyes narrow and my lips purse at the thought of Friday, May 2 at Salvatore’s.
“Rain” is a seven-minute song. How can I memorize something that long? I don’t know about the “how”. I just know about the “do”. There’s no way I’m going to stand there looking down at the words on a screen. My eyes belong to the audience.
Last night I started. I watched Bob on YouTube, singing the song as a young man in the 1960’s. I watched other artists cover his work. And I began memorizing.
The lyrics take up six pages in the Samsung Notes app. Yesterday I completed Level One memorizing of the first page.
Here it is:
Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall
Level One memorizing is that I can sing all these lines without any assistance. But an hour later, many of the words have floated away. I don’t know how many levels there are on the way to mastery, but that word is also elusive. It’s one thing to be smooth and free as I sing in my living room … and entirely another when faced with many eyes looking at me.
Still, I’m thrilled with my early progress. I’m imagining walking down the streets of Toronto singing page three out loud, or even page six! If Torontonians find that strange, too bad for them.
I felt the surges of Dylan’s melody last night. And even completing a few lines gave me a sense of the accumulating power of his words. Feeling this for seven minutes? Woh!
My next memorizing session will be tomorrow. Who knows what will be unleashed?
This photo was taken in 1968 by an astronaut as he orbited the moon. It’s one of the most famous pictures in history.
Bill Anders wasn’t a professional photographer. No matter. His image lives on, and will continue to do so.
It took place in a moment. It seems to me that there are a lot of those in a life. What if you … or me … did something stunning, or said something stunning, that changed life on this planet forever?! Such as singing a song, creating a work of art, writing a poem? Or …
What if a simple conversation we have with someone sends them on a brand new trajectory in their life?
It is possible.
Thirty-five years ago I gave a talk entitled “Mastery of the Moment”. I still carry in my wallet the little card I gave to participants. The word “mastery” doesn’t feel right anymore but “the moment” sure does.
Someday, I would like to go home. The exact location of this place, I don’t know, but someday I would like to go. There would be a pleasing feeling of familiarity and a sense of welcome in everything I saw. People would greet me warmly. They would remind me of the length of my absence and the thousands of miles I had travelled in those restless years, but mostly they would tell me that I had been missed, and that things were better now I had returned.
Autumn would come to this place of welcome, this place I would know to be home. Autumn would come and the air would grow cool, dry and magic, as it does that time of the year. At night, I would walk the streets but not feel lonely, for these are the streets of my hometown. These are the streets that I had thought about while far away, and now I was back, and all was as it should be.
The trees and the falling leaves would welcome me. I would look up at the moon, and remember seeing it in countries all over the world as I had restlessly journeyed for decades, never remembering it looking the same as when viewed from my hometown.
Henry Rollins
Leslie knows that I’ll be visiting Canada in April. The words she shared are a blessing.
“Visiting Canada” – what a strange expression for me. I lived there for seventy-four years. My return has virtually nothing to do with the geography and everything to do with the people. Yes, I’ll walk those autumn streets at night and feel comfy. But it’s the sofas and the window tables that draw me, where I will be accompanied by dear ones. They will no doubt tell me that I’ve been missed. We’ll become unwound together.
Home is people in Gent, in Toronto, and in London, Ontario. I’ll be staying in Canada for sixteen nights. Each one will be in the home of folks whom I love, and who love me. Such a lucky me!
The “someday” is every day, as long as I connect with at least one human being in the twenty-four hours. And why not go for ten?
I find it hard to memorize things. Too bad. I want to memorize things.
Bruce 1: “Okay, go ahead and memorize short songs, Bruce. You want to sing … so short ones will do nicely.”
Bruce 2: “But you don’t understand, Bruce. I also want to memorize long songs.”
Bruce 1: “Look, Bruce – at your age, with your declining brain, that’s pretty risky. What if you get three minutes into a seven-minute song and forget what’s next?”
Bruce 2: “Declining brain! Who do you think you are?”
Bruce 1: “I’m you!”
Bruce 2: “Well, so am I!”
(And then … We/me declared a truce)
Which brings me to Patti Smith. In 2016, Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Patti was asked to sing one of Bob’s songs at the award ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden. She chose “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”.
Partway through, Patti stopped. The words wouldn’t come …
“I’m sorry. I’m so nervous”
Humanity was fully on display for the audience and the TV. Many wrapped their hearts around her. It was magic.
Patti began again, hesitating a bit more but giving her soul to the song, and to the audience, and to Bob.
The music video is my favourite of all time.
Here are the words:
Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall
Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’
I saw a white ladder all covered withwater
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall
And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’
Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall
Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded with hatred
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall
Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a-goin’ back out ’fore the rain starts a-fallin’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets thedamp dirty prison
Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall
And here’s Patti afterwards …
The opening chords of the song were introduced, and I heard myself singing. The first verse was passable, a bit shaky, but I was certain I would settle. But instead I was struck with a plethora of emotions, avalanching with such intensity that I was unable to negotiate them. From the corner of my eye, I could see the huge boom stand of the television camera, and all the dignitaries upon the stage and the people beyond. Unaccustomed to such an overwhelming case of nerves, I was unable to continue. I hadn’t forgotten the words that were now a part of me. I was simply unable to draw them out.
This strange phenomenon did not diminish or pass but stayed cruelly with me. I was obliged to stop and ask pardon and then attempt again while in this state and sang with all my being, yet still stumbling. It was not lost on me that the narrative of the song begins with the words “I stumbled alongside of twelve misty mountains,” and ends with the line “And I’ll know my song well before I start singing.” As I took my seat, I felt the humiliating sting of failure, but also the strange realization that I had somehow entered and truly lived the world of the lyrics.
