Sometimes when I sit with someone I sense that their eyes are not quite with mine.  Just missing the target.  And so there’s no real connection.

Lovely are the other times, when there is a quiet union of two souls … perhaps in joy, perhaps in despair.  Whatever is there is shared.

I have two paintings at home that show the second way.  Here’s the first:

There is a line of light between the eyes.  The compassion of one for the suffering of the other, and a silent “Thank you” in return.

I was walking by Izy Coffee yesterday.  I recognized the barista through the big window.  I waved.  She waved back.  There was contact across the metres.  A panel of glass couldn’t stop it.  Only five seconds.  And enough.

Here’s my second painting.  Also the line …

Simple … brief … profound

And needed

I love curves … but straightness also has a place in my heart.  Take lines, for instance:

What does a vertical line mean?

How about a horizontal one?

Your meaning may be X while mine is Y.  All good.  I see the up-and-down as integrity, keeping my word, treating people well.  And the left-and-right as equality, inclusion and acting “on the level”.

Lines are everywhere, and so are my opportunities to reflect on the symbols they are for me.  May I spend more time thinking big and less thinking small.  I can live broadly and kindly, with big fat brushstrokes full of paint … or I can obsess with timid little lines of fear.

And then there’s architecture.  The Flanders region of Belgium is famous for its stepped gables.  From Google: “A gable is the triangular portion of a wall at the end of a building with a pitched roof.”

Here is the wonder of local gables.  Voilà …

This restaurant is about fifty metres from my apartment building.  Such beauty.  And steps to … where?

For you to respond

And me

I wonder if I’m on drugs.  No, I don’t think so.

On Thursday I had cataract surgery on my second eye.  So the right started the process that the left had a head start on.

What would be a good word to describe my head?  “Vacant” will do.  My distance vision is wayward.  I often stumble on the cobblestones and have trouble estimating the distance between me and objects, such as people.

After the surgery, my near vision was useless, so I bought cool orange-framed reading glasses at a drug store.  So I can see this screen.

The visual bottom line is that I will have excellent vision, with glasses for near and another for far, by August 15.  That’ll do nicely.

I woke up on Friday morning with my world feeling like an abstract painting … everything soft and blended.  I had a decision to make: go to Salvatore’s in the evening and sing … or stay home and lick my imagined wounds.

The ticking of the hours wasn’t bringing me closer to an answer.  I could feel passivity creeping over me … a yearning for the couch or bed.  But there was also a tiny spark: I want to sing!

What an excellent dilemma to be in.  Small or big.  Slumbering or alive.  Weak or brave.

I chose

Yes, I was worried about forgetting the words or singing out of tune as I sat talking in Salvatore’s before the eight or nine performances.  But I also smiled.  I’m here!  I didn’t give in to mediocrity.

I sang well … actually a song about singing.  I looked into the eyes of the fifteen souls in attendance as the words flowed from my mouth.  Many of them got the beauty of lyrics such as these:

When tyrants tremble sick with fear
And hear their death knell ringing
When friends rejoice both far and near
How can I keep from singing?

Afterwards I had a lovely conversation with a young woman.  We talked of life, about our shared sadness of often not being seen as the divine beings we are.

She was both spiritually and physically beautiful.  I had the strangest thought as we spoke – one I didn’t share with her:

She’s like The Elephant Man.  Many people only see the body … not the soul inside

***

Now it’s Sunday.  I’m glad I’m writing again

There is much to express

My glasses.  I’ve been possessive of them for eight years or so.  They’re so funky.  They’re so me.  And wonder of wonders, I bought them at Costco!

There’s a “have to” here.  My glasses need to be vibrant, full of colour, unusual.  As I see me.  Often.

Well … the end is near.  This is the last full day for my Costco frames.  What you see in the picture is only one lens: I had an optician remove the left one after last week’s cataract surgery.  The new lens in my eye would have battled with the eyeglass one.  In the last few days, I’ve had fun doing a party trick: sticking my finger through the hole.  Most people laugh.  (I worry about the others.)

Tomorrow, around 2:00 pm CET, I’ll have an artificial lens embedded in my right eye.  And Voilà!  Old glasses bye bye.

My face adornment has accompanied me on many a journey over the last eight years.  Times of ecstasy … times of despair.  The funk has remained through it all.

In four weeks, my ophthalmologist Dr. Kose will know what prescription I’ll need for my new glasses – one for far, one for near.  I’ve already picked out my frames – not as strange but still vivid.

Can’t wait for the clarity and beauty of the future

“We Shall Overcome” was written by someone sometime in the 1900’s.  It has been sung as a protest against the oppression of any group in society: divisions of race, religion, language …

The song brings people together.

We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome, someday
Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome, someday

We shall live in peace
We shall live in peace
We shall live in peace, someday
Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome, someday

We are not afraid
We are not afraid
We are not afraid, today
Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome, someday

We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome, someday
Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome, someday

***

I saw a marvelous movie a few days ago, directed by India Donaldson.   Good One shows the young speaking truth to power to the old, and the perils of relationship.  The story and the characters were real.

I read several reviews of the film, and one stood out.  Let’s just say I’m not going for coffee with the author anytime soon.

[Donaldson’s] debut length feature is, at its core, a character study that is interested in an immersive contemplative experience through the eyes of someone whose sensitivity might not be shared, not because of differences in what constitutes moral values, but because of a displacement in presumptions.  By reason of the object of perception not being equally perceived, different readings of it are born.  A decisive event in the movie articulates this difference in interpellation and renders what came before, our being with these characters and making our own assumptions after the time spent, something needing to be recontextualized.

It would be tempting to see in Good One anything but a reproduction of ideological discourses where the lines between good and evil are clearly drawn, and by doing so, something that voids reality from its complexities.  Nonetheless, its non-judgmental approach is more interested in exposition than it is in lecturing.  This is a story grounded in believable events and as such, said line could not be further from being drawn no matter how questionable some remarks might be interpreted.

***

Simple … Complex

Reaching Me … Not Doing So

Anaïs Nin was a French novelist and writer of erotica.  She died in 1977 but her spirit lives on in The Diary of Anaïs Nin, published in seven volumes.

As a young man, still living at home, I bought Volume I, touching on the years 1931-1934.  Immediately I was swept up into Anaïs’ prose … and her sexual life.

My mother found the book on my bedside table one day, and began reading.  She too was swept up … but not quite like I was!

Mom shared her horror with me, in a very direct way.  Here was her son, supposedly a good Christian boy, entering the halls of depravity.  I tried to explain, to have her understand, to connect, but it was not to be.  Hopefully mom didn’t lie on her deathbed thinking that I was immoral.  Actually I believe she mellowed over the span of years.

***

Anaïs had so much to say.  Here’s one of my favourite passages:

What surprises me most about humankind is that we get bored of our childhood, rush to grow up, and long to be children again.  That we lose our health to make money and then lose our money to restore our health.  That by thinking anxiously about the future, we forget the present, such that we live in neither the present nor the future.  That we live as if we’ll never die and die as though we’ve never lived.

P. S.  I just ordered The Diary of Anaïs Nin Volume One: 1931 – 1934.  Dejà vu!

What if all words had to be four letters long?

What if all colours had to be light brown?

What if all lines had to be straight?

What if all smells had to be warm apple pie?

What if all buildings had to be perfect rectangles?

What if everyone had to speak only English?

What if the sky had to be blue?

What if all people had to be young?

What if all punctuation had to be periods?

What if everyone had to smile … all of the time?

What if all posts had to be exactly ten sentences?

I’ve spent a good part of the day stumbling over the cobblestones of Bruges centrum (known as Brugge in Dutch).  The left eye is so different from the right until next week’s surgery.  And I smile at the rolling of life.

Here’s a quiet spot.  Except for the frequent tourist boats.  But that’s okay.  I waved to lots of them this afternoon, and many folks from worldly places waved back.

And now … a less quiet spot.  The Burg is a lovely square facing the Bruges Town Hall, which was built in the 1300’s.  Here I’m sitting in a park under the shade trees, accompanied by probably eighty humans on benches and chairs … out of the heat and looking towards what’s been called the soul of the city.

The coolest thing are these chairs.  I’ve counted about fifty of the olive green places of rest.  How marvelous for the Bruges city council to create this – free places to sit for lots of us.

I’m writing about three hours after the photo, in pretty much the same spot.  The carillon from the nearby Belfry is playing a merry tune that’s filling the Burg, and many hearts I expect.

Earlier I sat in two churches: the Basilica of the Holy Blood and Sint-Salvatorskathedraal.  Both contained many reverent people … not tourists snapping a picture then on to the next.  I felt at home in each sanctuary. 

In the Holy Blood, I gazed at the paintings of The Stations of the Cross, especially being moved by the eye contact in this one between Jesus and I’m guessing his mother Mary.

I sat quietly for a long time.  A priest came by, looked at my purple t-shirt and laughed:

I might be colorblind

But I know I look good in green

In the cathedral, I walked into a Mass spoken and sung in Dutch.  I hummed along.

***

It’s a good day

I’m sitting in the waiting room of the Psychiatry Department of the hospital.

No, wait a minute.  I got that wrong.  It’s the Ophthalmology Department.  I always get those two mixed up.  I’m here for my eyes, not my mind.

On the way to the elevator, I passed through the lobby of AZ Sint-Lucas.  And there it sat, adorned with a welcoming sign.  I was rushing to make my appointment on time so I didn’t sit on the stool and move my fingers … but I promise to do that after Dr. Kose sees me.

This is what life should be about:

Come over here and let’s talk

Express yourself with me …

The high notes and the low

I want to hear your music

I often ask people “What’s important to you?”  I’ll keep doing so.  And I hope they ask me too.

I haven’t written for a few days … so unusual for me.  But I’m smiling as I tap.  I let my vision problems and my esophagus problems be bigger than my desire to talk to you.  And that’s fine.

It’s time to start again.

***

I was watching a cycling race on TV yesterday and the announcer mentioned a famous cyclist who died years ago.  His words were “the late great …”  The three together stopped my mind.  And that’s a good thing.

I remember human beings who touched my life deeply before going somewhere else:

1.  Mel Cowie

I used to be a Mason, part of an organization that used secret symbols to teach spiritual wonders.  Mel was one of the few Masons who would sit down with me and talk about spirituality.  He was old.  I was young.  He was wise.  Me … not so much.

2.  Jim Bayly

In my early 20’s, I was a social work student at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.  I had a practicum in the family therapy unit of Kingston General Hospital.  Jim was one of my supervisors there.  He was a jolly guy with long, flowing grey hair.  He was old.  I was young.  And he saw me.

3.  Gina Sharpe

The truth is … I don’t know if Gina is still alive.  I’m guessing she’s not.  Either way, she touched me with her life.  I was a retreat participant at the Insight Meditation Society in the early 2010’s and Gina was one of the teachers.  Her words were like honey.  Her spirit filled the meditation hall.  Before or after, I’ve never experienced anything like it.  It didn’t seem to matter what she said.  Love flowed through every word.

***

Thank you

Absent ones who are still so present