Category Archives: Uncategorized

Categories – Part 1

It all started back in 1973.  I had just moved to Vancouver and was hanging around used book stores.  I found myself gravitating to the “Religion” section, with an emphasis on “Eastern”.  I bought a book called The Importance of Living, written in 1937 by Lin Yutang, and was enthralled.  Many more purchases followed.

At some point, I began to write down quotations that resonated with me.  And I’ve never stopped.  By the mid-1980s, it was time to computerize all these little pieces of paper.  Jody and I had bought a desktop computer (no laptops then) plus the WordStar word processing program.  I started typing.  Many months later, all the insights I’d collected were on my hard drive.  I backed them up on 3.5″ diskettes.

Next, I needed to organize these thousands of ideas.  So I created my categories, an effort to make the world’s wisdom (or my view of it) accessible.  Here were my A’s:

5     Abiding, Standing, Resting, Stillness / Motion
10   The Absolute
15   Accepting, Letting, Allowing / Resisting, Rejecting, Analyzing, Judging
20   Action, Doing, Expression
30   Always Already, Prior To
37   Anger, Upset
38   Animation, Life, Aliveness
39   Annihilation / Survival
43   Appropriate, “Right”
55   Attention
75   Awakening, Being Awake / Being Asleep, Dreaming
77   Awareness, Sensitivity, Being Conscious, Listening, Hearing
78   Awe, Wonder

Perhaps some explanation would be appropriate.  “Always Already” refers to a state of being spiritually awake, one that we don’t need to reach for.  It’s within us at all times, waiting to be uncovered.  “Annihilation” points to a letting go of a sense of “me” or “mine”, while still acknowledging that I need to navigate through the challenges that society presents.

The task then before me was to plug each quote into a category, or maybe more than one.  I called them “Transformational Subjects”.  I don’t know how long that took, probably more than a year.  What I was left with was two huge blue binders full of thoughts, each page cradled within a clear, yellow-bordered page protector.  I remember asking Jody if she would buy me page protectors for my birthday.  She did.

Sometime in my past, one of the binders disappeared.  So sad.  Just now, I looked through the one I have left … 248 pages of double-spaced vibrating words.  When Jody and I eventually bought Microsoft Word, I used to wonder how I’d convert the old WordStar files.

Last fall, I found all the diskettes, but when I inserted them into the disc drive of our desktop computer, all I saw on the screen was gibberish.  WordStar was long gone.  What intense sadness.  Why, oh why, had I done all this decades ago?

The story continues tomorrow.

Clothes

I started one day a month ago but I couldn’t handle it.  I stopped.  And this morning I began again.

I know that I need to get Jody’s clothes out of the house, but it’s hard.  So many memories of my darling wife enjoying her bright ensemble.  One of the first items I looked at was Jody’s wedding dress.  What a fine day that was … June 25, 1988.  My sister-in-law Nona said that I could put the dress in storage, but that didn’t feel right, and it still doesn’t.  I’m going to give all of Jody’s clothes to Goodwill.  Right now, I’m looking at a 24×36″ poster of my lovely wife that’s hanging on our family room wall.  She’s beautifully wrapped in the dress and veil.  But all that whiteness is not the woman I love.  “Let go of my clothes, Bruce.  They’re not me.”  Okay, Jodiette.

My favourite photo of Jody is of her sitting in a Quebec City restaurant, looking at me.  She’s wearing a short-sleeved top, with horizontal stripes of light and dark blue.  When I found it hanging in our closet a month ago, I held it to my chest and cried.  “Let it go, Bruce.”  So I did, folding it gently and adding it to the pile in a huge clear plastic bag.  Sigh.

This morning, I made an agreement with myself to work on Jody’s clothes for an hour.  I kept my word.  But now I’m exhausted.  An hour in a closet … remembering, crying and packing.  Also marvelling at the beauty of Jodiette’s tops and pants and dresses.  The colours of the rainbow, reflecting my girl’s embracing of life.  How I miss you, dear one.

I held a scalloped green-turquoise-black dress, adorned with glitter.

“You’re so pretty in these pretty clothes, life wife.”

“Thank you, husband.”

 

Ordinary

A diligent young student lived across the river from his Master.  One day the student sent an inspired enlightenment poem to his teacher, proudly announcing “Sitting still upon the purple golden lotus, the eight winds cannot move me.”  In response, the Master wrote the word “fart” across the poem and sent it back.

Full of indignation, the student rushed out of his house and ordered the ferry to take him quickly to the other shore.  Outraged, he felt he deserved an apology.  When he got to his Master’s door, he found a note saying “The eight winds cannot move me, and yet one fart blows me across the river.”  Deflated and humbled, the young student realized how blinded he was by his so-called spiritual “attainment”.

As recounted by Kittisaro, in Listening to the Heart, written by Kittisaro and Thanissara

[According to the Buddha, the eight winds are gain and loss, pleasure and pain, praise and blame, and fame and disrepute.]

It’s so easy for me to fall into the trap of seeing myself as special, evolved and wise.  After all, I’m now an author, right? …  Just so much blather.  Not at all what is true.  I choose to let go rather than puff up, to float rather than press, to smile at the heavens rather than wave my arms.

False modesty?  I don’t think so.  Those words aren’t even in the realm of my being.  All I have to do is look in your eyes, and hold my gaze there for a bit, to see that we’re the same, you and I.  The same wants, the same beauty, the same essence peeking out from behind our worldly clothes.

Off to the Printer

So here I am … an author.  Jodiette: My Lovely Wife is a reality.  I won’t have a proof copy for a week or two, but the deed is done.  Earlier today, I did my last little bit of proofreading.  All the words are as I want them.  And they’re spelled right.  The commas are where I would like them to be.  The front cover (Jody in Quebec City), the back cover (a gorgeous painting called “Cosmic Tree”, created by Kym Brundritt), italics, centering, lots of space around the entries … It’s all there!  Happy am I.

What impact will the recent story of Jody and me have in the world?  Large maybe.  Or small.  I do know that the book will reach people’s hearts.  And those hearts will extend to other human beings.  If something that Jody said or did can foster an opening in someone – wonderful.  Waydago, my darling wife.  Your courage and love and kindness will live on.  You live in me every day, dear one.

Somewhere around March 15, 500 copies will arrive on my doorstep.  This was the number that came into my head months ago.  I sit here right now and smile, knowing that all of those books will find their way into the hands of folks who want to read them.  Perhaps it will take years for that to happen.  I don’t care.  Jody touches.

I’m giving the book away.  It’s the right thing to do.  It makes me happy.

 

 

 

My Surprising Wife

Aren’t human beings supposed to be predictable, regular and measured?  Well … not the one called Jody Kerr.  In this lifetime, my dearest Jodiette hatched a few plans and smiled her biggest smile when they came together beautifully.  Let me give you a few examples:

***

It was after Christmas and the world was cold.  Jody announced that we were going on a trip over the long weekend.  Actually a winter camping trip.  (Huh?)  “That’s right, Bruce, get out your woolies and your long underwear.  We’re heading to a park near Sarnia” (an hour west of London).  As I scrounged through my underwear drawer, bewildered, I heard Jody in the kitchen, pulling out pots and pans.

“But it’s too cold!”

“Nonsense.  Get packed.”

The next morning, we drove north from Union, through St. Thomas, and angled towards the 402, a westward freeway that would deposit us in Sarnia.  Before the 402, however, was the 401, another east-west road (east to Toronto, west to Windsor).  At the last second, Jody points to the right and yells “I want to go there,” that is the eastbound ramp leading to TO.  I obligingly jerked the wheel and a-curving we did go.

“What about winter camping?”

“Still on.  Just elsewhere.”

Gracefully dodging the bulks of semi-trailers, I took us east … past Ingersoll, Woodstock and Kitchener.  As I approached the exit ramp to Guelph – Guess what? – “I want to go there!”  Okay, winter camping in Guelph, I guess.

As we’re motoring north towards the city, we come to a traffic light.  I’m waiting in the left lane on the red when Jody says “I don’t want to go here.  Turn around.”  A silent “What?” in response.  But I’m a dutiful husband, so I turned left, turned around, and back to the 401 we went.

“Go here.”  As in back onto the easterly lanes of the freeway.  And on to the suburbs of Toronto, whose skyscrapers had me thinking about the unlikely likelihood of sleeping in the snow.

Grinning continually, Jody directed me downtown, where we eventually pulled up in front of the Delta Chelsea Hotel.  Oh my God.  Something’s a-brewin’ in my lovely wife’s head.

In the hotel room, I had eyes for only the fancy bottle of red wine sitting on the coffee table.  I poured Jody a glass, totally oblivious to the bottle’s label, and to a few small signs that were posted about the room.  What a silly boy am I.  Good wine, though.

After breakie the next day, Jody and I decided to walk the eight blocks or so to the St. Lawrence Market, an old Toronto tradition of food and craft vendors in a cozy brick building.  But the wind.  And the cold!  We were boogieing down Yonge St, hunkering down inside our clothes, when we came upon the Pantages Theatre.  I had to stop and look through the glass door to see the opulence inside.  “Oh, I want to go in there some day!”  But I was too cold to notice Jody’s reaction.

After munchies here and munchies there at the market, Jody announced that we needed to go back to the hotel room.  A silent “Why?” in return.  So off we went, risking fingers and toes in the holy pursuit of warmth and wine.  No sooner were we well established on the love seat when Jody shared that we had an appointment at 2:00 pm, and it was important to dress for the occasion.  She reached into her suitcase and pulled out … my suit!  “Put this on.”

Visions of a fancy meal flooded me, and I protested – out loud this time – “I’m not hungry, you know.  There’s no way I’m going to some hoity-toity restaurant!”  Jody smiled and held out my dress shirt.  In a half hour, we were both dolled up and ready for the wilds of Yonge St. again.  So cold.  Head down, I really wasn’t noticing my environment.

And then …

“Stop, Bruce!  We’re here.”

I looked to my left, and there it was – the Pantages Theatre.  The doorman in his long red coat was grinning at us both.  Shock and incomprehensibility from yours truly.  The gentleman held the door open and Jody and I entered a world of golds and reds, arm-in-arm.  After depositing coats, we strolled Titanic-like down the double staircase.  Jody so happy.  Me so dumbfounded.  We kissed.

Jody gave our tickets to the usher, and we followed her into the theatre … down and down and down the aisle till we ended up six rows from the front, in the middle.  I love my wife.

At intermission, Jody leaned over and asked “Well, what do you think?”  As our eyes met, there was only one answer … “It’s wonderful!”  So was holding my darling’s hand.

***

Another year, another Christmas.  Or leading up to one.  Jody told me in November that she was taking me on a surprise trip.  On a Saturday morning, we were having breakfast at the Lakeview Restaurant in Port Stanley, and I was plying her with clever questions.  At one point, I got it.  I knew where we were going.

“You’re taking me to Disney World, aren’t you?”

(Wifely face sinking)

“Well, that’s good.  I really want to see Mickey.”

And so I prepared myself, emotionally and physically, for the big Florida show.  Did I have enough t-shirts?  Of course, I love t-shirts.  But Mickey ears … now there was a deficit.

On December 23, it was another trip to Toronto, this time to stay at the Holiday Inn Airport, before catching the early morning shuttle.  As we zoomed down the 401, I reminded Jody of the importance of me getting Mickey ears before we took off.

“We’ve got to go to the Disney store in Yorkdale.”

“Oh, Bruce.  It’ll be a madhouse in there today.  Why don’t you wait until Florida and buy them there?”

“No, no, no.  I need them now.”

Magically, I found a parking space and later returned to it with a new type of hat for my head.  I was so enamoured with my ears that I wore them in the hotel lounge that evening.  The next morning, I was bringing my suitcase down to the lobby (with appropriate Mickeyness), when I saw Jody and the desk clerk standing at the checkout counter, laughing.  Clearly, he was caught up in the joy of approaching Disney.

In the shuttle, my ears sat proudly on my head, much to the amusement of several passengers.  And then the arrival.  I wheeled my suitcase through the opening doors and started looking for the airline counter.  Jody, however, had other plans.

“Let’s sit down.”

“Sit down?  You don’t sit down at the airport.  You line up.”

“C’mon, Bruce.  Humour me.”

So I sat … light yellow coat, big ears, and furrowed brow.  Jody stood in front of me, with her right hand behind her back.

“Where are we going, Bruce?”

“Disney World!”

“No, Bruce, we’re going to Playa del Carmen, Mexico.”

˅
˅
˅
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“No Mickey?”

And there was my semi-lovely wife, whipping out the camera and immortalizing my pain on film.  Oh, the sorrow.  Minutes later, however, I was gobbling up the brochure description of the Riu Tequila Hotel in Mexico.  Gosh, it looked sort of nice.

The vacation was stunning.  Pristine white sand beach.  Awesome evening entertainment.  All sorts of yummables.  And my Jodiette by my side all the time, loving me.  I was a happy man.  Still am.

***

Way back when, in the days before marriage, Jody and I had the thought that we might just be able to afford a down payment for a small home.  There was a new subdivision in Lethbridge, Alberta, and we decided to wander over to a Sunday open house.

We walked in.  I checked out the living room, cram-packed with weekend browsers.  Looked good.  Unknown to me, Jody had gone upstairs to see the master bedroom.  It was a strange design up there.  In the middle of one wall was a large rectangular hole, which looked down on the living room.

My musings came to a screeching halt when I heard …

“Brucio, Brucio.  Wherefore are thou, Brucio?”

Gazing upwards, there was my precious pre-wife, arms wide.

Naturally, I followed suit.  Down on one knee and hands to the sky of Jody.

“Jodiette, Jodiette.  Sweet, sweet Jodiette.”

So we became Jodiette and Brucio
And evermore shall be

I love you, my dear girl

Pressing Down and Allowing to Rise

The hand is a wonder.  It can contract and force, putting pressure on your world, making things happen.  Or it can open, palm up, letting a small bird light upon it.

And so goes energy.  Do I really want one without the other?  If I kept the fist tight throughout my life, or if my hands always reached to the sky, is that true to life?  I think not.  There is a time for action and a time for contemplation.  The two need each other, I believe.

There was a time in my life when doing dominated me.  I wanted to be an accountant, a social worker, an artist, a real estate agent, a life insurance agent and a teacher.  I strove for excellence.  I studied.  I stretched.  I pushed.  I made noise.

More recently, I’ve allowed myself to open to a vastness that falls around me, like a gentle rain.  I’ve let myself not know.  I’ve turned to the quiet.

There is indeed a place for both.  Right now, as I reread all the e-mails and blog posts I’ve written about Jody over the last year, Spirit opens me and love flows out beside the tears.  There is space around the words, helping me see how deeply I’m connected to you.  But the yang of that yin is my need to create a result … called a book which I hope will reach people near and far, a book which will show love and be a bridge to more love in the world.  I need to know about font styles, font sizes, line spacing, paper quality, the use of blank space, per unit cost, timelines and shipping realities.

I need to both focus and blossom, because that is the way of life.  To be in this world but not of this world, engaged and floating free, of the furrowed brow and the radiant heart.  It’s all me.

Blurb Burps

I’ve seen books created through the Blurb self-publishing website, and they’ve been magnificent – quality paper and binding, vibrant colours and the blackest of blacks.  I’m so looking forward to Jody’s book getting into people’s hands, so that it may contribute to many lives.

But like any exciting project, there are some hiccups along the way.  I’m including 66 e-mails and 27 blog posts about Jody in her book, plus some new stuff.  I’d say about 95% of the content has been written, but how oh how to get it into Blurb’s BookWright program!  Well, I can get it in there, but the spacing between the lines in one paragraph is different from the spacing in the next one.

Am I too picky?  No.  Jody deserves the best.  I learned long ago that if my work has typos, grammatical mistakes, poor punctuation, or if it looks deficient visually, my message is less likely to hit home.  And I want the love that Jody and I share to reach people unimpeded.  Handle the details, Bruce.

The Blurb rep I’ve been in contact with has been great.  He’s been so willing to consult folks with more technical expertise than him.  I know my problem will be solved, and that Jody will be smiling when she sees the result.  But for now … patience please.

And then there have been the dreams.  A recurring one is that someone else has written a submission that absolutely must be included in the book.  In fact, it should be inserted several times.  I don’t know who the author is, but I often wake up fretting about the unknown content.  Jodiette, is it you, wanting to share your current thinking?  If so, let me know what you’d like, my dear.

I woke up this morning with another dilemma.  A group of kids were working with me on how to describe the book to folks who might like a copy.  We were going to give a presentation to interested booklovers, and ideas were flashing across the room as we prepped for it.  But no one would write down the insights!  Not this kid, not that kid, not the one over there.  C’mon, guys and gals, a volunteer please.  Nope.

That’s okay.  No need to put the cart before the horse.  I can handle any dream that comes my way, but first I’ll continue the editing, write up the new material, and wait for my friends at Blurb to solve my spacing situation.

All for a good cause … Jody reaching the world.

Billowing

As I was driving north towards London this afternoon, I noticed a black mushroom cloud rising above the trees to the northwest, trailed by a yellowish mass of something against the blue sky.

Mushroom cloud?  I didn’t think of Armageddon, but rather I imagined a horrible traffic accident on the 401, our local freeway.  “Oh my God, please let there be no lives lost.”  As I passed over the 401 fifteen minutes later, the scenario I’d created faded from view.  But the black cloud was huge.  It looked like smoke.

I decided to turn west and investigate.  “What was that about?” I asked of my decision.  Needing to be up close and personal with death and destruction?  No, of course not.  I just wanted to experience the intensity.  Soon I rounded a curve and saw a farmstead about a kilometre away in the middle of a field, with one building fully ablaze.  I pulled Hugo onto the shoulder, opened my window, and looked.

The flames licked well above the roof.  The rolls of black smoke climbed so fast and so high before floating off to the south.  And there was silence.  I was protected from the immediacy of the fire.  Still, I prayed: “Please God, may there be no one in that building!  And may that building be a barn, not the family’s home.”

My eyes were transfixed by the blackness.  Sure, I’d watched such scenes on TV, but this was different.  There was such power rising from the flames.  I was reminded of photos I’d seen of an ash cloud after Mount St. Helens blew its top.  Stunning in a book.  Overwhelming  right now in person.

I saw a road that would get me nearer the farm, and I set off to get close.  This time I was maybe 500 metres away.  When I opened my window, I heard the fire.  I heard things popping.  I saw long streams of water arcing towards the blaze.  And the black smoke roiled and boiled right in front of me.  With the sounds, I pretended it was a nice controlled campfire … “Oh, Bruce.  Wake up.  This is immense.  Lives could be lost.”

I saw ambulances with their lights flashing, but they seemed to be waiting, rather than caring for burn victims.  Maybe everybody was okay.  I sure hope so.  Guess I’ll find out in the paper tomorrow.

Do I need such striking moments to really see what’s important in life?  No, I don’t think that’s true.  I vow to keep my eyes wide open, so that I may experience the defeats and triumphs, large and small, that come upon us all.

Doesn’t Matter What You Do

Feel the air around you.  Notice that the air places no pressure or force on you.  It wants nothing from you and allows you total freedom here and now.  It simply surrounds, envelops, and holds you timelessly within itself.  Now substitute awareness for the air and allow the feeling of being unconditionally held to replace the sensation of air.  This very roughly approximates unconditional love.

Can I be that type of person, asking nothing from my fellows?

***

You don’t have to smile at me

You don’t have to say kind things

You don’t have to laugh at my silliness

You don’t have to like my e-mails

You don’t have to read my e-mails

You didn’t have to come to Jody’s Celebration of Life

You don’t have to spend any time with me

You don’t have to think that Buddhism is okay

You don’t have to like folk music

You don’t have to have coffee with me

You don’t have to walk beside me down the road

You don’t have to think that The Razor’s Edge is a cool movie

You don’t have to ask me for a copy of the book I’m writing about Jodiette

You don’t have to think I look good in a Speedo

You don’t have to let me into your lane

You don’t have to help me when I fall

You don’t have to come over when I’m in great physical pain

You don’t have to give me a senior discount

You don’t have to stay alive on this planet

You don’t have to hold my hand

You don’t have to visit me

You don’t have to like getting high on mountains

You don’t have to say another thing to me for the rest of your life

You don’t have to love me

You don’t even have to like me

***

I’ll love you anyway

All Else Pales

 

An eight-year-old boy died Monday trying to rescue his disabled grandpa from a fire after saving six others.  CNN reports that East Rochester’s Tyler Doohan was staying with relatives in Penfield, New York when he saw a fire in their trailer early Monday morning.  By the time firefighters arrived, Tyler had woken six people, including two toddlers.  It appeared Tyler was trying to lift his grandpa from bed when both died from smoke inhalation.

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath.  It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes
The Merchant Of Venice Act 4, scene 1

There are so many things I could be doing with my life right now … drinking beer, studying my investments, reading the sports section.  Nothing wrong with any of them.  But loves outstrips them all.  Whether it’s trying to carry someone who weighs three times as much as you, or holding the door for someone, or just gazing at the photo of my wife on the wall, the energy is clear.  It’s unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced.  There’s no sense of exchanging my good deed for yours.  No premeditation of possible consequences.  Just pure action, pure contact, pure service.

I’ve bought a lot of DVDs over the years, and that’s nice.  I’ve received the accolades of my peers, and that’s even nicer.  But the moments where I have loved – nakedly loved – stand apart.  You can keep your riches and high self-esteem and multiple proficiencies.  I know how I want my moments to play out, whether in the grocery store, at school, or on the couch.

Love lives in the hearts of us all
Leaking from our pores to water the wide world
Please let me have the eyes to see
The need for love in each lonely boy and girl