Category Archives: Uncategorized

Sing Me a Love Song

“Play your guitar.”  Although the request was from my lovely wife Jodiette, I gulped.  It had been so long.  But why had it been so long?  I took group lessons in Ottawa in 1972.  During the spring of 1974, I often took my guitar out to the beach in Vancouver.  And in the summer of 1975, when I was managing the laundry at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton Lakes National Park, me and my guitar were pretty much joined at the hip.  I played in a staff talent show, and later that year sang “Hello In There” to folks who were with me on Vancouver Island at a workshop called “Coming Alive”.  So why did I let the musical zest seep away?  I don’t know.

A few nights ago, I played “For You” for Jody, complete with not-quite-right-on chords and a questionable approximation of the melodies.  Jody loved it.  She cried.  And I loved hearing my voice again.  I went to the Internet and found the lyrics and chords for some old favourites:  “The Mary Ellen Carter”, “How Can I Tell You That I Love You?”, “Help Me Make It Through The Night”.  And somehow I made it through the songs, with the finger burn making me stop eventually.  But it was a very sweet hour.

Over the last few days, I’ve forgiven myself for having let the guitar go, for not singing to my darling all these years.  I vaguely remembered having a thick file folder full of songs but I had no idea where it was.  Jody said, “Look in the piano bench.”  And lo and behold, there it was.  I also found eight sheets of paper, dated February, 1997, with the title “Songs I Want to Learn” … 115 in all (sadly, none of them learned).

Such a strange journey we’re on, full of imperfect choices and odd diminishments of aliveness, having had no intention of doing so.  It’s as if I’ve been asleep at times, in some sort of trance, walking the expected walk through the events of the day.  Jody has asked me to wake up.  And so I am, with many stories, melodies, harmonies and chords to come.

May ABBA teach us all:

Thank you for the music, the songs I’m singing
Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing
Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty
What would life be?
Without a song or a dance what are we?
So I say thank you for the music
For giving it to me

Complete

Last night, Jody was sitting up on her side of the bed, and I was in a chair beside her.  Right in front of me was the tiny wooden table that holds her Kleenex, water bottle and a bowl for meds.  I looked at the light brown hand towel that covers the table, and especially at the tag hanging from it, the one with washing instructions.  My forehead wrinkled, and inside I said “No”.  I wanted the towel to be pure towel.  I wanted the essence of towel to be all I saw.  I knew that the towel didn’t need the adornment of “Machine wash in cold water.  Tumble dry low.  Remove promptly.”  It was a diminishment of towelness.

I feel the same way about meatloaf.  Don’t want the heavy gravy.  I need to sense the beef itself, and the spices the chef used.  Sometimes I get strange looks from people, implying that I’m not dressing up my food appropriately.  “So boring, Bruce.”  Oh well … it just feels like a different drummer, wanting to taste all the subtleties.  No better and no worse than anybody else.

The beauty of the blue spruce tree in our backyard is just so “balanced”, symmetrical.  And the light turquoise tips blend naturally with the brownish needles closer to the trunk.  It is enough.  At Christmas, our neighbour festoons his spruce tree on the front lawn with strings of multi-coloured lights.  In that context, I see this too as “sufficient unto the day”, with its own beauty.  But some folks add blinking lights to their display … and that draws forth another “No” from me.

I’ve always enjoyed watching movies in theatres.  I went to Expo 67 in Montreal as a teenager, and one day was watching a film outdoors with hundreds of others.  Suddenly something happened that I had never experienced before – instead of one image on the screen, there were now two!  A collective gasp filled the space.  I enjoyed the novelty, and actually was shocked by it, but the fact that I needed my eyes to go back and forth to see both movies started feeling like … no.  In 2014, many advertisements have pictures flashing by every second, assaulting my sense of now.  I don’t like it.

Perhaps I have a towel, tree, light and film idiosyncrasy.  I don’t mind.

Smiles

I study smiles.  Have for a long time.  Would you believe that I have a subsciption to The National Enquirer and that I reflect on the faces therein?  Well, whatever the magazine or newspaper, I’ve noticed that very few people in advertisements, stories or obituaries really smile.  I look at each face and say either “Yes” or No”.  Is it a truly genuine smile that shows the spirit within?  Is there a shining forth?  Too often, there is great pain revealed through the upturned mouth.  It makes me sad.  What are those lives like, and what about the loved ones who live beside that pain?

In my travels to many schools, I met countless faces.  I’m thinking of one woman, a secretary, whom I’ve known for many years.  Over perhaps fifty visits to her school, I had never seen her smile.  It’s been my hobby to say or do silly things, trying to make people smile or even laugh.  “Mary” never did.  None of my twistings and turnings worked.  And I was sad some more.  Last fall, actually just a few weeks before I stopped teaching and went on short term disability, I was leaving Mary’s school near the end of lunch hour.  There were big windows near the entrance, and I saw Mary coming in from the parking lot.  Timing my approach perfectly, I opened the door as she was about to reach for it, bowed, and said, “Welcome to ______ School, ma’am.”  Guess what?  Mary smiled.  It wasn’t a big one but it was there.  It made me happy.

One of the best parts of the World Cup for me is when the camera catches fans up close and personal.  A person will see themselves on the JumboTron and a brilliant smile lights their face.  One of those genuine types.  The shift in my well-being is huge … I’m so happy that they’re happy.  And it’s even more intense when they spot the camera operator and look straight into the lens.  Ahh.

May I smile even on my deathbed.  People deserve to be on the receiving end.

 

John Sings to Jody

Last night, Jody and I sat up on our bed, watching “The Wildlife Concert” on her laptop.  The singer was John Denver.  Such a voice, such a presence.  I looked at his face, and it was just about transparent.  Radiant he was, and the words of the songs covered us both.  After a half hour of holding each other, Jody asked me to put on “the love one’.  And so I did.

John was at the piano, accompanied by four women – two playing the violin, one the viola, and one the cello.  He sang “For You” … through the laptop screen … to Jody.  The strings swelled, the piano fingers drifted along, and all was right with the world.  Jody was crying.  I think John knew.

Here are the lyrics.  I wonder if you can sense the melody through them.  I wonder how deep they’ll drop into you.  I wonder if they’ll draw you even closer to your loved one.  And if right now you don’t have a loved one, may the music open your eyes to another soul.

For You

Just to look in your eyes again, just to lay in your arms
Just to be the first one always there for you
Just to live in your laughter, just to sing in your heart
Just to be every one of your dreams come true
Just to sit by your window, just to touch in the night
Just to offer a prayer each day for you
Just to long for your kisses, just to dream of your sighs
Just to know that I’d give my life for you

For you, all the rest of my life
For you, all the best of my life
For you alone, only for you

Just to wake up each morning, just to have you by my side
Just to know that you’re never really far away
Just a reason for living, just to say “I adore”
Just to know that you’re here in my heart to stay

For you, all the rest of my life
For you, all the best of my life
For you alone, only for you

Just the words of a love song, just the beat of my heart
Just the pledge of my life, my love, for you

Facing Death in 1970

I can only think of three times when death has been at my door, and they all happened during the summer of 1970, when I was working as a bus boy at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta.  What was that all about?  What was I being asked to see?  Here’s one of the days that changed my life:

I loved hiking with friends in the mountains.  Our group had just passed over the Carthew Summit, a low point on Carthew Ridge, and were heading down to the three Carthew Lakes.  Bare scree slopes and below that we could see meadows of tiny white and yellow wildflowers.  What could be more beautiful?   Some of us were fast.  Carol, Paul and I, however, were drinking in the sights.  Off to the left, we saw about ten bighorn sheep,  and the curls on those horns were sure new to us rookie mountaineers.  A bit scary too.  Even more scary when the sheep started ambling towards us.

I panicked.  I didn’t know anything about sheep.  I had us run downhill towards some big rocks.  Between them, the scree slope gave way to a steep snowfield.  We nipped into the cleft between the rock and the snow, breathing hard.  I poked my head out from our sanctuary and saw a bighorn just above.  “They’re coming!”  I grabbed Carol’s hand and pulled her onto the 45 degree snow.  We were wearing running shoes.  I caught a glimpse of the turquoise lake perhaps 100 feet below – the snow dove right into it.

I lost my footing and started sliding on my stomach.  I smashed my runners into the snow and grabbed Carol’s ankles as she fell above me.  “Toes in!  Toes in!”  I didn’t think that but I guess my body did.  We somehow stopped, and I held Carol, as the white pressed against our faces and hands.  And there we stayed, with the numbness slowly taking over.

“My God, I’m going to die,” said my brain.  “I can’t swim and I’m going to die.  Carol too.”  As I let a likely death flood over me, I heard Paul above us say “I’m coming down.”  With rescue on his mind, Paul took a few steps onto the snow … and down he went.  The toes didn’t work for him.  He slid past us, way past us, and plunged into the lake.  Paul had told me at some point that he was a strong swimmer but that didn’t help him much now.  Carol and I heard huge inhales of air, and over my shoulder I watched him struggle in slow motion towards the shore.  His head went under a couple of times.  “O my God, I’m dead,” came from within, as Paul collapsed at the edge of Upper Carthew Lake.

Minutes later, once Paul had dragged himself upright, he said that he was going to run to Middle Carthew Lake to get the others.  Someone with hiking boots would save us.  And off he went.  Carol and I continued our numb embrace of the snow.  How long could I hold her up?  Would she just fall into me and take me into the water with her?

Finally, we saw little dots running up the trail towards us.  Once they reached the edge of the snow slope, they just stared at us for a bit, and then someone uttered some words of encouragement.  The snowfield must have been 100 yards long, and Carol and I were somewhere in the middle, about 40 feet above the water.

Ron, one of the hotel bellmen, said “I’m coming to get you.”  He started gouging steps in the snow with his hiking boots, and worked his way across with infinite care and slowness.  When he reached us, Ron cut steps just downslope from my feet.  I edged into them, and together we lowered Carol into other footholds.  She and I were dazed but standing up at last.  Ron turned back, and led Carol and then me across the face of the snow.  So slow.  As we got within conversation distance of our friends, a supremely loud “Crack!” noise assaulted our ears and the whole 100 yards of snow fell away into the lake with a “Thwump!”  I watched the snow crack away no more than two feet to the left of my left foot, and we later saw that the fallaway was undercut below our precious footholds.  We all ran … into the arms of our friends.

To be almost dead is to be very much alive – in the body and in the heart.  Forty-four years later, I often relive our Carthew adventure.  It wasn’t time for me to be taken.  There was a lot of living and giving to be done.  And there still is.

 

Listen Fall See Act

Since the 1980s, I’ve collected quotations – about 6000 of them so far.  Every single one resonates inside all there is of me.  If the words don’t sing, I pass them by.  I’ve never kept track of who says what.  I just liked what the person had to say.  I suppose if I ever published all these cool thoughts, someone would get mad because I wouldn’t have listed the authors.  Oh well.

Way back when, I came across LFSA, as I’ve abbreviated the term.  I hoped that by making it short, like “this”, I’d let the wonder of it all percolate through my innermost spaces.  But it hasn’t happened.  And that makes me sad.  I’ve too often let the affairs of my world take me away from what’s important.  I’m writing about LFSA today, in hopes that it takes hold, and holds me tenderly for the rest of my days.

It’s a sequence, those four words.  What would happen if I let them flow, one after another?

Listen

Meandering through the events that come my way, it’s possible for me to stop and listen, not to sounds necessarily, but to something big that wraps itself around all the people, all the things, all the moments.  I “hear” that something when I’m quiet.  No picture comes to mind.  But there’s a stirring where my heart is.  The air seems to vibrate.  I have no desire to move, or move away from what’s here.

It’s not a quick thing, this sequence.  When I am present, it takes its time.  To listen is to float on my back in the embrace of the ocean.  I could look up at the sky all day.

Fall

I can feel a mixed metaphor coming.  From the mirrored surface of the sea … I am falling.  Not underwater.  The “no parachute, but then again no ground” kind of falling.  No fear to be found, just the gentlest of breezes coming up to say hi.  I’ve never skydived, but I’ve fallen, even if infrequently.  Nowhere to go.  Nothing to do.  Just watch whatever’s touching me deepen and deepen some more.  Closing my eyes.  Like those trust exercises in the encounter groups of the 60s.  Letting go and knowing that the group will catch you.  They will.

See

And then the inner eyes open without plan or effort.  The whole world is animated -from the Latin “anima”, meaning “breath”.  To breathe life into the moment.  But actually, that seems too active a phrase.  Maybe for the moment to be breathed into.  However I say it, the seeing reveals a beauty and grace that can’t be described.  The mouth opens, the heart quivers, and all that is beheld shines like the sun.  The moments linger together.

Act

Seeing like this, there is only one way to act … with love.  Anything else would be ridiculous.  No options, no doubt, no problem.  Love them all.  Light the world.

***

Thank you.  I needed that.

 

 

Extra

Improving myself

Hurrying

Creeping forward at a red light

Groaning

Thinking about standing up Jean Deeth when we were 18

Preferring one life experience to another

Labelling someone

Worrying about what people think of me

Pushing someone or something away

Calculating what my next move should be

Harming any living being

Comparing me to you

Trying

Weighing myself every second day

Rehearsing what I want to say

Slamming myself for being terrified during a case conference about a child

Planning my day, my retirement, my life

Being jealous of other men for their good looks

Analyzing why I did something

Saying “I’m sorry” for doing something that really doesn’t hurt the other person

Craving chocolate, popularity, anything that will make me “better”

Hovering around someone

Reading tabloid articles

Explaining why I feel this way

Continuing to go down a tunnel with no cheese

Laughing at someone

Having to be right

Disagreeing

Having an opinion

Escaping from anything

Making sure that the toilet paper falls down the front of the roll, not behind it

Protecting myself

Checking whether I turned off the lights

Hating

Pretending to be someone I’m not

Trying to impress someone

Ruining someone else’s fun

Interrupting someone

Gossiping

Skipping steps to get the job done faster

Memorizing anything

Pleasing people

Complaining about politicians

Resisting

Preaching to anyone about anything

Changing what someone else thinks

Rescuing people when they can handle it themselves

Separating beings who love each other

Moaning about “poor me”

Diminishing the well-being of others

Wasting the moments

Making sure that my blog posts are “long enough”, whatever that means

 

Flat and Distant

For those of you who read my post yesterday, I got six hours sleep last night – just what I had hoped for after cutting back on sleeping pills on Saturday.  Still, my mind has been cloudy most of the day.  Guess you could say that I’ve been experiencing a different level of consciousness while getting a clear picture of what I’m all about in life.

Lots of errands for Jody in the car.  I’ve been listening to Stephen King’s Insomnia while motoring along.  Great book, but not today.  I’ve loved the elderly hero Ralph Roberts, but this morning I didn’t care about him.  Ouch.  Down somewhere among my functioning brain cells, I knew that I care deeply about other human beings.  But I just couldn’t cope with Ralph.  During my glimmers of alertness, I was shocked.  “Not me!  Not me!”  Except that it was.  And how arid that felt.  How could I possibly stay sane if this was my daily grind?

One of my early stops was at “Canada’s Finest Coffee” in London, to pick up some Keurig K-cups.  I got out of Hugo and was walking to the store when along came a woman.  I virtually always say “Hi” at these moments, and there’s no effort to do so.  It’s just like rolling off a log.  But as she got closer, I had to push myself with all my might to meet her eyes, smile, and say hello.  And push I did.  I just couldn’t look the other way and pass on by.  So … that’s good.  But what must it be like if that’s what you do minute by minute and day by day?  It’s horrifying to think about what that does to a person.

Inside the store, I was talking to an employee named Holly about different coffees that were on the Keurig website.  Another monumental effort.  I mentioned that Jody was sick and we talked some about cancer, which has touched both of us.  But I wasn’t there.  It was just a blur of words coming out of me that hopefully made some sense.  Where, o where, was my commitment to “be with” people?  Some place where I wasn’t.

Then on to Costco (awfully tired of Ralph en route), where I know a lot of the staff members and demonstrators.  I usually love the banter.  But today, I just wanted to stay away from people.  No visit to to the Vision Centre, nor to Customer Service.  I picked a cashier that I didn’t know, and was the basic transaction-oriented customer.  How yucky.

Finally on my journey of dimness, I walked into the Real Canadian SuperStore to buy just one item: silver polish.  As I was about to plunk the little can down on the express conveyor belt, the darkness lifted.  I had me back.  So I placed my Silvo beside the groceries of the fellow in front, and said to him, “Do you mind if I put my silver polish here when you’re not looking?”  He laughed.  The cashier laughed.  I thanked God.

I can’t live like that morning guy.  It hurts too much.

Drugs

I’ve used pills to get to sleep, and to stay asleep, for many years.  I may see myself as a nice little Buddhist guy, so majorly peaceful, but the truth is that I haven’t known how to handle the stresses of teaching.  I taught visually impaired kids until my recent retirement, usually going to about twenty schools a year on a regular basis.  Some days were golden, and some were not.

I worried so much that I didn’t know enough about eye conditions, and how to assess a particular child.  I struggled with a “To Do”list that never seemed to fall below 100 items.  I did my best to deal with the wide variety of personalities that came my way in the school system.  And I didn’t sleep very well.

So it’s been a regime of Trazodone (1) and Lorazepam (2) for many moons.  Even with the meds, there were some Sunday nights when I didn’t sleep at all.  Such overwhelming fear.  For part of the time when Jody was in the hospital in February and March, it took three Lorazepam for me to get five or six hours.

My spiritual life and my drug consumption tossed me back and forth in the wind.  “Should’s” abounded.  Really evolved human beings wouldn’t need all those pills.  But the more I’ve thought about it, the intense focus and the multitasking required in so many careers is just unnatural.  Society says “X” but my heart and body say “Y”.  And “Project Pension” has seemed so essential.  I really think that the insomnia of the last decade is not about any deficiency in me.  I bought into the context of achievement, of comparison with others, of the importance of knowing stuff.

As of June 19, my employment life is over.  So I took a step last night: one Trazodone and just one Lorazepam.  And the result, ladies and gentlemen, was four hours of sleep, plus a daytime dullness that’s worlds away from the mindfulness I treasure.  I wonder if you can see that dullness in these paragraphs.  Maybe I’m good at hiding it or maybe it’s clear as day.

I don’t want to live this way, not being present to the enchanting moments of life.  I guess, though, that I need to pass through days like this on my journey to pilllessness.

What I want is to be a large contribution to the people in my life, to be a beacon of love and presence.  And without the ego of “Look at me”.  So I travel on.

How about six hours tonight?

Speedo

Actually, Speedo plural.  I own seven of them, one of which I wore today. Pauline,  our personal support worker, and I took Jody to the Port Stanley beach – a couple of miles of white sand looking out on Erie Ocean.  So named because I can’t see Pennsylvania (or is it Ohio?) on the far side.

Some ingenious man or woman invented the beach wheelchair, a comfy contraption with huge balloon tires that make rolling across sand a snap. The Port lifeguard service has one of the vehicles available for handicapped folks, and there’s no charge.  Yay for humanity!  Jody was so excited about the trip and absolutely thrilled when she got to dangle her feet in the water.

What to wear … what to wear.  One of the seven brief splashes of colour, of course -the orange and black one, as a matter of fact.  But I knew what would be coming … lots of stares, lots of guffaws among knots of more stylish humans, and general discomfort.  I’ve never understood – women in string bikinis revealing plenty of cheek, and men with trunks that almost reach the knee.  Doesn’t seem fair.

With the beach umbrella  and chairs set up, and Jody all set for the water, it was time to take off my t-shirt and shorts.  Gulp.  An aching fear coursed through me.  Why should I be so afraid of a hundred eyes turning my way?  Well, it doesn’t matter why, I just was.  And so what?  A healthy dose of fear, that’s all.  Good for the soul.  So off came the outers.  And somehow the gods of proper attire did not strike me dead.

Revealed in all my glory, I watched the fear roam around inside.  It was really hot today, so I suppose I was sweating already.  I listened to my breath and it took maybe five minutes for it to settle down.  Then Pauline and I brought Jody to the lapping waves.  With the wheels soon underwater, I was behind Jody widening my stance and gripping the handlebars tight to prevent her from tipping.  “Okay, Bruce.  Now your total backside, complete with whatever muscle definition you can muster, is on display for the towel and umbrella set.”  Happily, no one tapped me on the shoulder, to hand out a ticket for unlawful use of a Speedo.

Several times during our shore sojourn, when Jody was back on the sand, I walked around, once to fetch a kid’s hat that a mom had dropped, and once to put garbage in the big can, 50 feet way, just to see if I would have a heart attack or something.  Nope to the cardiac emergency.  Eventually, we returned to the car, with all my body parts intact.  What a roller coaster.

By the way, is your mind as strange as mine?