Would you believe that’s me on the bike? No, I didn’t think so. Actually it’s Wout van Aert, a legend in the world of Belgian cycling.
Today I went to the cyclocross races in Dendermonde, east of Gent. Rain decided to accompany me on the journey. It inundated the women’s race and the first half of the men’s.
And the happy mixture of water and dirt creates this:
These men and women are my heroes, persisting through the elements because they love racing their bicycles. So strong, so unwilling to give up.
Here’s the civilized part of the proceedings: fans out of the rain, well lubricated with good Belgian beer, eardrums throbbing with the music coming from the vicinity of those blue lights at the far end.
I was so cold for so long … feet slurping through the mud and hands sometimes mittless to take photos or to check my phone for the current placings of the riders.
After the women’s race, I left my position at the rail to wander back to the tent. I saw immediately that I needed some momentum. If I stepped too slowly in the mud, my feet would get stuck! Then I’d crank a foot up with a “schlop!” sound and build up some speed.
Once reaching shelter from the (sometimes) downpour, I noticed that my mitts were off. You’ll be pleased to know that it took me around five minutes to get them on. The first thing was I couldn’t get my thumb into its compartment. I wiggled and wiggled to finally accomplish the task. Then my job was to pull and pull to get my entire hand covered. Five minutes … not bad. I felt like an athlete.
More pics! A woman from the front and another from the back. There’s a common theme here … and it’s dark brown:
I’m back home now, after lengthy transportation adventures. And I’m warm!
It was a hoot – my afternoon in Dendermonde. I’m so happy I did what it took to get there and to thrive during the two races. Two separate orders of fries with mayonnaise helped a lot. And Pepsi Zero. Plus smiles from my newfound companions.
My friends Cara, Petra and Pascal went out to dinner with me last night at Urfa on the Sleepstraat. We talked easy, we laughed and Cara gave me a Christmas gift – a t-shirt that says “I’m not old … I’m classic”. I’ve always wanted to be classic!
When the group of us go out, Pascal has the bad habit of paying for everything. Not last night. As I got up to go to the bathroom, I looked fiercely at him and said “Don’t you dare pay while I’m gone!”
I paid.
After dinner we walked over to Salvatore’s on Sint-Salvatorstraat, where I would be singing a song. I loved that my friends were coming to hear me but their presence also scared me.
I talked about being nervous. Petra said she admired my courage, and told us a story. As an 11-year-old, she had to stand in front of her classmates and sing a song. Afterwards the teacher told the kids that the lowest mark she gives for the singing is 2 out of 5. Petra received a 2 … and never sang in public again.
Teachers are so important. They have the power to lift up a child or to squish them. I’m sad that Petra had to experience this.
I stood in front of twenty people at Salvatore’s and told them a story. A Buddhist monk announced that he was going to die soon. The students sitting in front of him lowered their heads in despair, some of them crying.
Suddenly a voice was heard – someone laughing wildly. It was the monk. “I could die tonight!” Shock and awe from the devotees.
Then I sang “The Parting Glass”. The monk’s story has inspired me for years. Slowly I’ve realized that as my moment of death approaches, I want to sing this song for my loved ones.
It’s a goodbye, where my friends are raising a glass to me, and I to them, and all of us to life.
I sang. I felt the tenderness of dying. I met faces. I reached faces.
And I sang the last line as if I was breathing my last …
The drawing takes a swipe at Americans for their lack of knowledge about world geography. It’s such a stereotype about US consciousness.
Many of us, from wherever on the planet, don’t know people whose lives are different from ours … whether they live down the street or on the other side of the world. Too many humans aren’t even curious about other cultures, races, languages, personalities, perspectives. “I like staying home.”
When I lived in Canada, I sometimes heard questions such as “Is Alberta a nice city to visit?” (Alberta is a province) I’d laugh inside (not outside) about the person’s “ignorance”. Sadly, I’d occasionally fall into the definition called “stupid” rather than “not knowing”. Today I feel guilty about those moments of unkindness.
This morning I was reading a story about the opening of the 2025 professional road cycling season in Australia:
The final chapter of the top-level early season racing in Australia takes the peloton further east, with riders this time taking the flight from Adelaide to Victoria.
I asked myself “I wonder what those two cities are like.” Touché! (Victoria is an Australian province) If I’d shared my thought with someone from Adelaide, they’d probably be laughing (on the inside, kindly).
Look at how much fun this girl is having! It’s taken me 60-odd years to discover the glow that’s in her eyes as pen meets paper (or finger meets phone). Good for her.
And good for me. Jetpack tells me that I’ve posted there and on Facebook for 123 days in a row. Today will be 124. I love what I’m doing. My heart soars when an idea comes … and my finger leads the way in the meandering.
I’m a fan boy of Philip Pullman, the author of His Dark Materials novels. They are Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass.
I just had a thought: You’re blogging toomuch aboutPhilip. The man himself would be “tut tutting” at me for such words. “If you’re drawn to it, say it.”
Here are some Pullman thoughts aimed at kids, and my responses …
***
I learned to become a conduit for what came to my imagination.
I love that word! Something is flowing through me and demanding the fresh air of the outside world.
***
In one direction, the writer has complete control over his work, and in another, he’s fully accepting of the fickleness of his muse.
Who knows what thought will show up next in the story of my day? I often have no idea. My brain might be saying “Walk left” but my feet may have another idea.
***
Write what you want to write, be the next big thing and not another iteration of a phase that will pass.
Well I don’t want to be “the next big thing”. My thing may be large or small. As long as someone is listening, I’m happy.
***
Kid: “Why do you think it’s so important that young people read?”
For the same reason that I think it’s important that they breathe, eat, drink, sleep, run about, fool around, and have people who love and look after them. It’s part of what makes us fully human. Some people manage to get through life without reading. But I know that if I’d had to do that, an enormous part of my mind, or my soul if you like, would be missing. No one should be without the chance to let their soul grow.
Some of us stay in this world. Some of us also explore other ones. I meet new people on the street and on the page.
I love flesh-and-blood people in my life and characters who slip out from between the covers.
***
Kid: “How do you choose your themes and storylines?”
I don’t exactly choose them so much as surrender to them. I couldn’t write at all if I had to choose, in a sort of cold-blooded way, between this idea and that one. If they both excite me, I’ll write about them both.
The expression I love is “Does it make my heart sing?” Whether it’s a person or a song or a place, do I want to be close? Writing demands contact with what is loved.
***
Kid: “What advice would you give to anyone who wants to be a writer?”
Some people would say “Always write about what you know”. I don’t think that’s good advice at all. Nor is the advice to write what you think people will like. I think that’s just silly. We shouldn’t bother about other people at all when we write. It’s none of their business what we write.
A wee bit of me wants folks to like what I write. A huge part of me wants them to be touched, jolted … their eyes opened wide.
First of all, my eyes need to open wide.
***
Kid: “I cried when I read ‘The Amber Spyglass’. Have you ever cried while reading or writing a book?”
Oh yes. If I write something sad, I cry. If I write something funny, I laugh. If I write something boring I . . . What do I do then? I cross it out and try again.
Once in awhile I cry as I write. Perhaps I’m being touched gently on the forehead or torn apart by a savage beast. A person or a story can do that to me.
***
Kid: “When you wrote ‘Northern Lights’ did you already know the plot of the other two books in the trilogy?”
No – at least, not in any detail. I had a rough idea of where it was all going, and I knew a few things about some places I wanted to stop at on the way. I knew it had to end in a garden. I wanted to bring in the hornbeam trees along Sunderland Avenue in Oxford, where I live. I thought I might have to go to the world of the dead. That’s all. I discovered most of it as I went along.
Sounds like life … “I discovered most of it as I went along.”
***
I read “The Lord of the Rings” when I was 18. I read it greedily, lapping it up, eager for more. But I haven’t read it since then, though I’ve tried. It doesn’t satisfy me any more, and I think that’s because Tolkien, who created this marvellous vehicle, doesn’t go anywhere in it. He just sits where he is. What I mean by that is that he always seems to be looking backwards, to a greater and more golden past. And what’s more, he doesn’t allow girls orwomen any important part in the story at all. Life is bigger and more interesting than “The Lord of the Rings” thinks it is.
Please, Lord, help me write about the “big”. And often I don’t know what that means. I just know I need to go there.
And yes … women and girls need to be centre stage.
***
Work every day. Get into the habit of it. Work when you don’t feel like it, when you’ve just broken up with your girlfriend or boyfriend, when you’re feeling ill, when you’ve got homework to do. Put your work first. Habit is your greatest ally. Get into the habit of writing when you’re young and it’ll stay with you. Sixteen is a very good age to start.
123 and counting, Philip. Also 75 and counting.
***
Don’t listen to anyone who tells you you should study what the public wants, and give it to them. They don’t know what they want, or they’d be writing it themselves. It’s not their job to tell you what to write. It’s your job to write something they could never have thought of, and then offer it to them.
I write for you, trusting that what I say has goodness in it. But really the whole thing is a mystery.
The world says that it’s good to get better, day by day, until we die. Take any quality, such as playing the guitar. We’ll gradually play the chords more accurately and sweetly, plus we’ll learn new chords. And our right hand will grow into skilled finger-picking.
That’s one vision … but there’s another. Take the current state of your skill and let yourself stay there. Fall deeply into what is here and now. Let the music take you into realms unknown.
I love turquoise. Here are many shades:
Pick one of the vertical strips. Let’s say that’s where you are now, and you like it. Then look at the one immediately to the right. That’s the turquoise I want!
And so begins the rest of your life, yearning for that better shade. Plus forgetting the beauty that’s before you now.
***
One way to live is stretching to the left or right. Sometimes that’s me
At other times, I rest into going down, letting the deeper embrace me
They flew throughout the night. The stars wheeled around them, and faded and vanished as the dawn seeped up from the east. The world burst into brilliance as the sun’s rim appeared, and they were flying through blue sky and clear air, fresh and sweet and moist.
(The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman)
The white canvas sits on the easel … untouched. And the paint brush rests in our hand.
I’ve said this for a year or more, without really “getting” it. It was in the realm of a wise thing to say. There’s been an undercurrent of ego, a touch of “look at me”.
Today feels different.
Before I dive in, I know there are times when the statement isn’t true. If I’m sick in the hospital, it’s crucial what the doctor brings back to me. His or her knowledge will assist me back to wellness.
Also, the bar three floors down from my apartment has entered into an agreement with me: Their terrace, which is below my bedroom, will be quiet at midnight. For me to sleep, it’s important that they keep their word.
Now back to the main idea …
I experience myself as love. I throw it out into the world. May it fall on all shoulders. What if I’m totally unaffected by what returns, or if anything returns? I mean it – totally. My eyes grow wide at the thought. I would be free.
***
Here’s one of my favourite stories:
John and Harry were imprisoned together for many years. They were both abused by Nick, their jailor.
Finally they’re released. Months later they go for a coffee.
Yesterday I watched one of my favourite Christmas movies: It’s A Wonderful Life. It’s the story of a good man who’s falling apart … George Bailey. Financial disaster. Yelling at his wife and kids, who hardly recognize him anymore. All is lost.
Clarence Odbody is an angel who has been sent down to Earth to help George weather the storm.
Clarence is also a good man. He has something for George to experience … disappearing from the planet.
“You’ve been given a great gift, George … a chance to see what the world would be like without you.”
No George. No one to rescue his kid brother from a fall through the ice. And so the 9-year-old boy dies. No one to carry on the Bailey Brothers Building and Loan after his father dies. And so no one to give poor families a break on their loans.
No one to be kind to everyone he meets
And what about you and me? Who has been touched by our kindness? Whose lives would have been diminished if we’d never come along?
I ask you to look back through the years and see the faces who are smiling when they think of you. Faces that will remember you even as death approaches. Really get that you matter.
She is Mary Oliver. Many words have been written about her, but not today by me. The most precious words are those that flowed from her hand and heart.
Here is one of Mary’s gems:
What Is the Greatest Gift?
What is the greatest gift? Could it be the world itself – the oceans, the meadowlark The patience of the trees in the wind? Could it be love, with its sweet clamor of passion?
Something else – something else entirely holds me in thrall That you have a life that I wonder about more than I wonder about my own That you have a life – courteous, intelligent – that I wonder about more than I wonder about my own That you have a soul – your own, no one else’s That I wonder about more than I wonder about my own So that I find my soul clapping its hands for yours More than my own
Yesterday’s cyclocross race in Gavere was won by Fem van Empel from The Netherlands. Here she is:
She’s a pretty young woman. But beauty is far beyond youth and high cheek bones. What do the eyes say? Because I think true beauty resides there. There is determination in her gaze. “I will not give up.”
And what about perfect skin? Specks of mud do not diminish her. Nor the red spots where her cycling glasses were rubbing.
And now even more dirt:
The smile cannot be extinguished by exhaustion and cold and mud.
For the truest beauty, it takes two. Loving each other, celebrating each other. “We did it!”
And a cycling image from the road. Beauty in an 81-year-old:
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