Two Movies on a Sunday Afternoon

Off to the Hyland Cinema in London for stories about life.

***

First up was Phantom Thread, about a famous dressmaker who becomes entranced by a young waitress.  And she too is mesmerized.  She comes to work for him and waits for Reynolds to fall in love.  But it’s a hard go.  He’s obsessed with his work and she places a distant second.  It was sad to see the distance between, a buffer so obvious in many couples.

Alma isn’t allowed to be herself.  Breakfast for Reynolds needs to be a quiet time, and Alma’s noisy buttering of toast and dripping of orange juice into glass just won’t do.  The household of family and employees jump to his every whim, and Alma needs to follow suit.

Reynolds is “obsessed with perfection” and Alma finally has had enough.  She poisons him with a toxic mushroom – not enough to kill him but plenty to make him sweat and shake.  It feels like Alma wounds him so she can nurse him back to health, on her own, without a roomful of design associates in the scene.  Through all his insensitivities, she loves the man.

This is messy love … two human beings with flaws and spites.  Not a saint to be seen, but a tenderness hiding under the gowns and dress shirts.  Hey, there’s hope for all of us imperfect ones, hope for connection with the beloved.

***

After a suitable interlude, which I spent reflecting on life and the bliss of popcorn, along came Darkest Hour.  This is the story of Winston Churchill at the height of Hitler’s power, when it looked like Great Britain was about to be invaded.  Three hundred thousand British soldiers were near Dunkirk in France, with the massive German army closing in.  Churchill asked his cabinet what the plan was for rescuing these men.  The response?  “There is no plan.”  So Churchill came up with one – recruiting the pleasure boats of countless British citizens to pluck the soldiers from Dunkirk’s beaches.  And it worked.

I watched the agony of the man as he struggled with how to serve his people.  His colleagues pushed for peace talks with Hitler, and threatened a vote of non-confidence if he refused.  But Churchill knew in his heart that the end result would be the swastika flying over Buckingham Palace.

To see the courage of the man was inspiring.  He seemed alone in his resolve to fight, save for his wife and secretary.  He was called “delusional” and seen to be sacrificing the lives of 4,000 soldiers at Calais.  How to be yourself, and true to your beliefs, when the world was collapsing around him.  Oh to have such steadfastness.  When his commitment started to flag, Churchill fled his home on Downing Street, snuck into the underground, asked a passenger for directions to the station nearest to Parliament, and got onto the subway.

Churchill then asked his travelling companions what the country should do.  “Fight!”  What about entering into peace negotiations with Hitler?  “Never!”  The Prime Minister then got off at the appropriate station, marched into the government building, and hours later addressed Parliament:

“Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous states have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail.  We shall go on to the end.  We shall fight in France.  We shall fight on the seas and oceans.  We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air.  We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be.  We shall fight on the beaches.  We shall fight on the landing grounds.  We shall fight in the fields and in the streets.  We shall fight in the hills.  We shall never surrender.”

Oh my.  I was stunned silent to hear his words.  And to think what hung in the balance if Churchill chose to flag or fail.

***

Cinema as an eye opener
Twice in one day

How shall I lead my life?
Will love and courage lead my way?
They must

Senegal

I was sitting on a bench on the Alberta prairie in July, 2017, admiring the mountains to the west.  I was alone, and very much looking forward to the sunset.  Along come four hikers.  We smile.  We say hi.  They sit down.  Turns out that they’re all from Belgium and are revelling in the grandeur of the Rockies.  One couple says nearly nothing.  The other one enjoy chatting with this Canadian guy.

After awhile, the folks head on up the trail, showering me with friendly goodbyes.  A half hour later, I set off too, having immersed myself in oranges and pinks.  The trail enters some trees.  Soon I’m back in the wide open spaces.  I look ahead and there’s another bench in the distance.  Two people are sitting there.  After a bit, I can make out my talkative new friends.  “They’re waiting for me.”  And indeed they were.

Lydia and Jo welcomed me to the new bench and we start talking about life in all its beauty and disappointment.  They tell me that they have about 20 foster children … in Senegal.  Lydia whips out her phone and shows me smiling photos and videos.  Those kids are so alive, so real.  I’m loving this.

Maybe an hour later, Lydia has something to say:

“Bruce, we go every Christmas to see our kids for two weeks.  Would you like to join us sometime?”

Oh my.  Did she just say that?  My small mind goes off into small thoughts.  “But we just met.”  “I can’t afford that.”  “I like being home for Christmas.”

Happily, my big mind held sway.  “Yes, I’ll go with you to Africa to meet your children … in December, 2018.”

Too soon, we were saying goodbye.  Lance’s family and I were heading off in the morning.  I hugged Lydia and Jo and it felt right.

Back home in Ontario, I had lots of thinking to do.  “I said yes.  I really did.”  Well, not knowing how many years I have left on the planet, isn’t it about time that I stretch my wings?  Yes it is.  I wondered if my Belgian friends thought I’d really follow through.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I’m here to tell you that Jo and Lydia and I and a few other fine people are flying from Brussels to Dakar on December 23, returning to Belgium on January 4.  Although I haven’t arranged my flight to Brussels yet, I intend to spend a week visiting my friends and seeing the sights before we fly to the kids.

This is real
I’ve never been to Europe
I’ve never been to Africa
This is real

Look at me now, a world traveller.  Also a lover of humankind in all its diversity.  Belmont is so cool.  I’m sure the rest of the world is too.  As Cat Stevens was fond of saying:

Well I left my happy home
To see what I could find out
I left my folk and friends
With the aim to clear my mind out
Well I hit the rowdy road
And many kinds I met there
And many stories told me on the way to get there
So on and on I go, the seconds tick the time out
So much left to know, and I’m on the road to find out

Thank you, Mr. Cat

On and On and On

I sat down to meditate this afternoon.  In my meditation chair in my bedroom.  And opened my eyes again two hours and fifty minutes later.  I’d never experienced anything like it.

Within a few minutes (I guess), everything stopped.  My head dropped.  I was fully aware but there was this huge space inside my head.  Thoughts would occasionally come but they had no power.  All was quiet.

Sometimes I had the thought “I should stop.”  But why?  I was in my comfy chair.  No back pain.  Slumping into a deep silence.  Keep going.  Keep letting it unfold.

Two hours later, I had to pee, and the feeling built.  Eventually I gave in and opened my eyes.  Almost three hours.

How long could I have gone on?  I don’t know.  With pre-urination, I suppose it could have been hours more.

Everything was so quiet.  I heard the snowplow outside, dealing with the winter dump of snow.  The furnace came on.  Nothing was important.  Time stretched on effortlessly.

Sometimes there were words.  “Love.”  And that brought a little smile to my face.  “I am free.”  And the head bowed again.  The sweetest times were when I was in love with people.  Less so when I felt into my ease.  But all of it was fine.

This is a very long time.  No tension.  Just floating.  “Please don’t have this end” sat beside “It’s perfectly fine when this ends.”  They were friends.

It’s by grace that all this came upon me.  Will it ever come back again, to the tune of 2:50?  Maybe not.  But what a blessing for a Friday afternoon.  Thank you, o mysterious powers of the universe.

Space

I’ve long been a fan of Chris Hadfield, a Canadian astronaut.  He took his guitar onto the space station and favoured the world with a soulful rendition of David Bowie’s Space Oddity.

I’m stepping through the door
And I’m floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today
For here am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do

I was just listening to a program on CBC Radio.  Nicole Stott, a retired astronaut, was talking about space.  She thinks that most of her fellow space travellers have a spiritual life.  Something about seeing our little blue marble from the window of a spaceship.  One astronaut, Edgar Mitchell, had a spiritual epiphany while flying back to Earth.  As Nicole says, perhaps we should invite our political leaders to a space station vacation and see if a change in perspective rears its lovely head.

A few days ago, a Grade 6 girl, knowing of my reverence for Mr. Hadfield, lent me a book of his space photos.  Such lovely images and such a lovely thing to do.

Something spacious is calling me and Chris seems to be an instrument of my freedom.  There’s a loosening inside me, some epiphany of my own on the way.  I’ll look out into the vastness and may be very surprised by what I see.

A walk beyond my personal ship beckons.

You Are Free

It feels like I wrote about this same topic a few weeks ago.  My yappy voice says that therefore I shouldn’t repeat myself.  But I don’t care.  I was walking home from breakfast at the Belmont Diner today when this thought once more exploded in my brain:

It doesn’t matter what comes back to you in life
All that matters is what you put out there

It feels like a cozy new age message but no, it’s a world beyond that.  As I sauntered down the snowy sidewalk, joy wrapped itself around.  “It doesn’t matter.”  The pains will continue when they do.  The sadness, the fear, the loneliness will still come calling.  And none of that directs me.  Waves of energy roamed behind my eyes on Main Street and fell down my face.  “You are free,” spoke the quietness inside.

“No, I’m not free.  That’s ridiculous”

“You are free”

“No.  I’m bound by self-esteem issues”

“You are free”

“No.  I’m bound by what other people say and do”

“You are free”

“No.  I’m bound by what my body chooses to do”

“You are free”

“No”

“Yes”

***

I’m sitting on my couch, thinking about going to yoga class tonight.  The mouth tightens.

“I’m so inflexible … can’t get my knees anywhere near the floor”

“You are free”

“You’re not strong enough to do most of these poses”

“You are free”

“You can’t even balance on one leg”

“You are free”

“Your fellow yogists see your flaws, and are critical”

“You are free”

***

“And about that bike ride of yours this summer … you suck”

“You are free”

“You don’t even have the balance to get your water bottle out of its cage”

“You are free”

“Too old, too weak, too far”

“You are free”

***

“You’re alone in life”

“You are free”

“You’ll never be in a committed relationship again”

“You are free”

“You’ll never have sex again”

“You are free”

***

Quite a persistent voice, wouldn’t you say?
Perhaps I should listen

Australian Folk

I’m sitting in the main room of the London Music Club with about 40 other folkies, awaiting the songs of Daniel Champagne.  He’s from Australia, and clearly well thought of:

“Daniel Champagne exudes a natural ease onstage, as he sings poignant lyrics and beautifully crafted melodies that invariably whisk the heart up with grand romanticism.  Coupled with an exhilarating guitar talent that transcends mere acoustic playing to replicate a whole band, Champagne is just magical.”

Wow.  I want to meet this guy.  And now five folks have joined me at our table for six.  I don’t know them.  They’re all friends.  Plus they’re all friendly.  The way life should be.

Daniel smiles his way to the microphone and starts hitting his guitar with a whirl of hands – one sound on the wooden back, another on the neck, and an atonal strumming of strings way up by the tuning pegs.  And it’s all amplified!  Almost like gunshots.  I’ve never heard anything like it.

Often Daniel jumps up and down as he plays, and stomps his feet.  Then he’ll hoist the guitar skyward, the strings vertical.  He’ll look way up and still crank out the melodies.  My jaw dropped, again and again.

Daniel wrote a song called Nightingale.  One time he was playing it at a venue in Australia.  A woman who was at the concert wrote him later that the chorus of that song inspired her to go home and tell her boyfriend for the first time that she loved him.  Years later, Daniel sang the song as she walked up the aisle on her wedding day.  Lovely.

Sometimes when he played for us, Daniel would twist a tuning peg to gradually change the note of a string, and then start singing in that new key.  Often I couldn’t hear the words but his whole body seemed to exude joy – the voice forced itself into my mind while his head and body jerked here and there.  Getting the lyrics wasn’t important.

Daniel’s grandmother liked drinking and partying.  His friends loved partying with her.  And she loved Don McLean, the American songwriter who penned American Pie.  Daniel sang us another of Don’s songs – Vincent, an ode to the painter Vincent van Gogh.  When he sang “This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you,” I melted.  Lost in the moment.

Mr. Champagne was just so darned alive, and all six of us felt it.  As did the rest of the audience, judging by the standing ovation that he received.  Often the music was quirky, the guitar playing outrageous, and the words unknown, but Daniel truly entertained us.  We were in the presence of a full human being.

Kind Athletes

I’m my own person, and although I love being loved, I don’t need other folks to validate my existence.  Having said that, I still have heroes.  Most of them are humanitarians, such as Martin Luther King, but some are from the arena of sports.  For me, there’s something about striving to the depths of your sinews to get the job done on the ice, on the tennis court, or on the playing field.  I love the instant replays of sweet passing plays, great saves or the long home run ball.

But there’s something else.  I so much want my heroes to be nice people.  I want to imagine feeling comfy while having a coffee with the Dalai Lama, Meryl Streep or Dave Keon.  I want to know that they’re “just folks”, not some highfalutin’ celebrity full of themselves.

This morning I was reading the sports section of The Toronto Sun.  And I came across words that made me smile.  Larry Walker was an outstanding baseball player with the old Montreal Expos team.  Pedro Martinez, a Hall of Fame pitcher, was talking about why Larry too should be in the Hall.  Beyond the man’s performance stats was this:

Your boy was the best guy, the most outgoing veteran, the easiest to deal with.  He was like a big kid all the time.  He was always playing and trying to make you smile.

Okay, there’s a fellow I’d like to know.  Anyone who can augment the world’s output of smiles is just fine in my books.  The great plays are to be applauded but so is the kind heart.

Another article spoke of Rasual Butler, a retired player from the National Basketball Association.  Rasual and his wife were killed in a car crash a few days ago.  Sadness has flowed through the NBA this week.

He was a wonderful young man, a pure heart.  That’s why people felt about him the way they did.  He was genuine.  There was no fake about him whatsoever … The news hit Lowry hard, reinforcing how fragile life is and how every moment must be cherished. 

Ahh … to have a giving heart, one that continually reaches out while not sacrificing one’s own well-being.  And to know that the person isn’t putting up a wall, that he or she is giving you all of them.  Oh yes.  I’d love to sit in Tim Hortons with such a one.

I still love the highlight reels and the world records.  But a quiet word with a full human being is even better.

So Tired, So Happy

I told the Grade 5/6 kids at school yesterday that I planned on riding the elliptical for three hours today – 11:00 – 12:00, 12:30 – 1:30 and 2:00 – 3:00. I said I’d text “Jayne”, their teacher, to report on my progress.  Nice to have an audience.

Fifteen minutes before showtime, I was at the gym’s water fountain, ready to mix up my electrolyte drink.  I bent down to get the bag of powder from my backpack.  When I started to stand up, I schmucked my head on the corner of the fountain.  Woo.  Dizzy.  I was staggering a bit and a woman asked me if I was all right.  “Sort of.”

A few minutes later, adequately recovered, I began to laugh.  My great athletic day … off to an inauspicious start.

Once I had gathered my essential life forces, I put on t-shirt and shorts and texted Jayne.  In response, she shared how the kids laughed at my predicament.  I’d told them that I was fine.

The first hour, I went slow, in the spirit of a marathon rather than a sprint.  I told the crew afterwards that I was “pleasantly” tired, not an adverb I usually associate with fatigue.  The response from Cyberland?  “Go, Mr. Kerr, go!  You can do it.”  That felt good.  And I was proud of myself, schussing along at a moderate pace, keeping my heart rate under control.

Hour number two was far more of a grunt, and the breathing was heavy. Plus pain behind my right knee.  I waited to see if it would mellow, and five minutes later it did.  When the second 60 minutes were up, I felt “unpleasantly” tired, but happily still vertical.  Once the bod had returned to some version of normal, I texted Jayne and the kids, in advance of my 2:00 pm relaunch.  “What will happen if I’m completely pooped at 2:30?  I’ll do what comes naturally – I’ll think of you!”

And the response: “You can do it!!  They’re all cheering!”  I wasn’t so sure I could do it but you gotta go with what those young people say.

The third hour was a slog, but strangely and wonderfully, I didn’t once think of quitting.  Twenty-five young humans, and one older one, were cheering me on.  Around 2:45, I really needed the support.  Everything was slowing, except my heartbeat.  The breath was a gasp.  But lo and behold, 59 minutes turned into 60, and I’d done it!  The equivalent of 60 kilometres, 15 more than I had done before.  Yay!

It’s three hours later now and I’m sitting in a London library.  I feel slow and weak.  “Well, Bruce, what exactly did you expect?  You’re not a machine, you know.”  True.  And whatever I am, having a lot of kids pulling for me got me over the top.  Thank you.

Strong Enough?

Last week I Skyped with Bud and Margot, the organizers of the Tour du Canada.  On June 18, I’ll be setting off from Victoria, BC, and riding my bicycle ta-pocketa across the country, arriving in St. John’s, Newfoundland on August 31.  An average of 130 kilometres a day.

I started training for the ride after I got back from my meditation retreat in December.  I’ve been on the elliptical in the gym.  I know that typically I can cover 20-22 k’s in an hour of riding, burning between 600 and 700 calories.  I was worried that this speed wouldn’t be fast enough but Bud and Margot said it would be fine.

My hour-long elliptical sessions also burn calories to the tune of 600-700.  So I’ve declared that each session is the equivalent of 20 k’s.  Seems fair.  By that reckoning, I’ve ridden 665 kilometres since December 15, well on my way to the standard of 2000 km that each rider needs to accumulate by mid-June.  So all of this is good.

My longest equivalent distance covered over the last month-and-a-half is 45 k.  Nowhere near 130.  So I’m nervous.  The oldest person ever to have completed this ride was 73, and I’m 69.  The mind shouts out “too old”, “too weak” and “too far”.  But that’s just the mind.  I smile, listen respectfully and let the restrictive thoughts go.

Tomorrow I’ve promised myself that I’ll do 60 kilometres, or fall off the elliptical … exhausted.  “But Bruce, that’s three hours on the beast!”  >  “I’ll take half hour breaks”  >  “You’ll never make it”  >  “Oh yes I will.”

And so proceeds the banter back and forth.  It’s a good conversation.

I’ll tell you tomorrow how it went.  And I’ll try to keep way back in my head the fact that 130 k equals six-and-a-half hours on the elliptical.  Am I crazy or just majorly committed to realizing a long held dream?  I’ll take the latter, thank you.

***

P.S.  This is my 600th post on “Bruce’s Blog”.  Yay!

Bad Stuff … Good Stuff

On Sunday, I received an e-mail with a negative tone.  On Monday, I received another one, from a different person.  Both sent me into a spin.  Both had great impact on me.  I asked myself what I was feeling in response, and the answers came quickly … fear, sadness and then grief.

There followed the classic question “Now what?”  How do I hold all this?  What would the Buddha do?

I sat with me and let myself feel those feelings.  To really let them in.  And they were most willing to come in.  Soon I was crying.  A day later, not so much, but the underlying current is still woe.

The Buddha was a pretty smart guy.  He talked about the Eight Vicissitudes: pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, and fame and disrepute.  He essentially said that we can be the most happy and kind creatures on Earth, and still we’ll experience the negative halves of those pairs.  So the loss is vivid and the pain intense.  What’s to be done except let it be there?  “Go away” is useless.  Covering it over with alcohol, food or TV goes nowhere.  Wearing a fake smile is transparent to the rest of the world.

So, “Hello, loss.  Thanks for coming by.  Stay as long as you like.  I realize you’ll go when you’re ready to.  After all, you’re just a visitor here.  This is not your true home.”

After yesterday’s e-mail, I was walking along Bloor St. in Toronto, quite lost.  My head had dipped down.  Happily, I noticed this.  Again and again, as the crowds surged around me, I said “Lift your chin up.”  Each time it felt good to do that, to let go of “I’m bad” and realize that there’s a lot of living to be done.  A lot of people to contribute to.  And a depressed human being doesn’t do much of that.

Here I sit, tapping away.  My chin is up.  My fingers are down.  And I have no clue who will come my way tomorrow.  What I do know is that I’ll be ready for them.