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.
I watched two amazing cycling races on TV yesterday – Strade Bianche women’s and men’s in Italy. “White Roads” … as in gravel.
I love one of the riders – Puck Pieterse from the Netherlands. She’s brimming with life, friendly and pretty. If I had a daughter, I hope she’d be like Puck.
(Photo removed)
Near the end of the race, the riders climb an incredibly steep street – Via Santa Caterina. Before I turned on the TV, I had this vision of Puck fighting for the lead on this slope.
Now I realize, one more time, that I create sporting heroes and I cheer them so loudly that it dominates my experience of the event. Such as yesterday.
The truth was that Puck wasn’t near the lead. Instead it was head-to-head between Demi Vollering and Anna van der Breggen. Puck finished seventh, nearly two minutes down.
Thus morning I felt a lingering sadness that Puck wasn’t at the front. How silly of me. Wake up, Bruce.
***
All of this brings me back about twenty-five years. My idol of the decade was Canadian golfer Mike Weir. Just like with Puck, I had moments when my happiness rose and fell with the successes and failures of Mike. So much for evolving, at least in my relationship to beloved athletes.
And now the sadness …
Jody and I were on vacation in Montreal, a vibrant international city. On a Sunday, Mike was playing the last round of one of the biggest golf tournaments – the PGA Championship.
What did this immature Bruce do? He insisted on staying in the hotel for hours and hours so he could watch a Canadian hit a little white ball over green lawns. Arghh! I was so unkind to my dear wife.
I sang two songs at Salvatore’s on Sint-Salvatorstraat last night. My usual goals were full in my mind:
1. Sing with passion … fill the room.
2. Sing in tune.
3. Remember all the words.
1. (check) 2. (check) 3. (check)
Ahh … and there was a Number 4. > Get the audience to sing the choruses with me.
It’s been a dream of mine to bring a choir into being. And it happened!
First I taught the thirty folks the chorus to “Day Is Done”, famously sung by Peter, Paul and Mary, an American folk music trio.
And if you take my hand, my son All will be well when the day is done And if you take my hand, my son All will be well when the day is done
Day is done, day is done Day is done, day is done
Simple words. But would they do it? The first chorus opportunity gave me a soft response. But it was fuller the second time. And it filled the room on the third.
I gave my audience a huge smile as the last note hung in the air. I put my palms together and bowed. I was thrilled.
The second song was a classic – Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind”. And the chorus …
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind The answer is blowin’ in the wind
As for the second, sometimes I find myself walking in a mist, with the solidity of life obscured. Or I’m standing at an intersection in some unknown town and there aren’t any names on the street signs.
Something is opening in me … and it’s not a psychotic breakdown. It’s big and grand.
Speaking of big, I often think of the universe. Solar systems and galaxies are cool but they’re not the universe. Consider the Milky Way for instance. There’s a border between MW and no MW. Just like the human skin. Just like a town sign.
However …
Here’s a question for you:
Where does the universe end?
And another:
If it ends, what the heck is outside of it?
***
My brain is trembling. My structured world is being threatened. “I know” is floating away into the ether of “I don’t know”.
And the word “Bruce” is beckoning. It too is morphing …
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