Lost

Sometimes my consciousness is “normal”, with me addressing the daily tasks of life.  Sometimes it’s spacious, as the flow of awareness and compassion holds me.  And sometimes there’s a jolt of disorientation as something completely new floods my being.

In the early 70s, I travelled with my girlfriend and her dad from Vancouver to the slopes of Mount Baker in Washington.  They were skiers.  I was not.  I strapped on my snowshoes and set off up a hill on my own.  Partly I was thrilled to be exploring solo, but there was an itsy bitsy parcel of fear as well. Soon the lodge was out of sight and it started to snow.  Gosh, what a winter wonderland!  I plodded onward, being careful to make my steps wide so that one snowshoe wouldn’t overlap the other.  At one point, I looked up and saw that the nearby trees were dimming … and then some more … and then gone. Everything was gone, in all directions.  I had walked into a whiteout.

There I stood.  Nowhere to go.  Not knowing uphill from down.  No idea how long it would last.  Stunned to silence and immobility.  All my insides were stunned as well – mind, heart and soul.  Would I survive this?  Is this the end of Bruce as we know him?  All the structures I had built around my humanity were gone, irrelevant.  It was like A, B, C, … Ψ.

I stood for at least twenty minutes.  Then the snow cleared.  But I was changed.

In August, 2010, Jody and I were driving back from Nova Scotia through the States.  After crossing back into Canada at Buffalo, we headed west on Highway 3, a secondary road.  I knew that sooner or later we’d catch a glimpse of Lake Erie on our left.  A couple of hours more and we’d be home. That trip was a lot of time behind the wheel, and I was tired.  On and on we went until there was a huge lake up ahead … on our right.  I pulled over and gazed out the window at the blue.  Huh?  Does not compute.  Actually, I wasn’t doing any computing.  I just sat there with my mouth open. Completely fried.  All functions having ground to a halt.  Stunned again.

There was a big empty space where brains should have been.  It had to be another planet I was on.  All thoughts of reason, of a gradual accumulation of life experience, frittered away.  Only many minutes later did Jody and I figure out how to get back to Earth.  For a short distance, Highway 3 curved to the right and headed north.  The idea was to turn left at a certain intersection to resume the westward trip.  I missed the turn.  And continued until I came upon … Lake Ontario.

A total break in the head
A discontinuity of consciousness
A plummet into the unknown
Lovely

Our Children

On one level of existence, we don’t have any young’uns.  But hey, why stick with just one version of life?  After we got married in 1988, Jody and I decided that we wouldn’t have any kids.  Instead we would do a lot of travelling.  But I can’t help imagining how it could have been …

Fifteen years ago, our reality snapped, and lo and behold, we were parents.  I don’t know how it happened.  Divine introspection perhaps.  Jody and I were blessed to welcome our son Dollop to the planet.  Such a fine lad, and he’s grown to be a quality dishwasher and lawn cutter.

Just before Dollop was born, I remember thinking that having one child was just the right amount.

Two years later, along came our darling Puce.  A brother needs a sister, right? She was so sweet, and still is.  From Barbies to boys, it’s been a long road, and such a pleasant one.  Someday, I’m going to walk her down the aisle.

Just before Puce was born, friends and neighbours told us they were green with envy that we were about to have a daughter.

In 2010, we were both super busy, but gosh – there’s always time for childbirth.  I was holding Jody’s hand in the delivery room as Inkling emerged into the world.  Soon red hair and a fiery personality joined us at the breakfast table.  One of a kind you are, my dear.

Just before Inkling was born, I had an idea that there was a princess on the way.

With the foundation of a really good housekeeping team in place, Jody and I were delighted that Squirm decided to join us … out of the blue.  Unexpected but not neglected, we loved her to bits.  A very active child, she’s always enjoyed life’s twists and turns.  Lovely.

Just before Squirm was born, I remember feeling really antsy.  How would we cope with four kids?  As it’s turned out, no problemo.

We both thought that was it.  For years the Kerrs were a scintillating sixsome.  And then just last week, Santa, the Easter Bunny or maybe David Letterman plopped a new being in our laps.  Imagine – Jody at 54 and me at 65!  Thank you, Somersault.  Seven of us.  Aren’t we a lucky family?  And who knows what this young boy will become?

Just before Somersault was born, I woke up in the middle of the night, absolutely flipping out.  I’ve calmed down since.

So there you have it, folks.  We’re very proud.  I’ll send you a photo sometime.

 

ta-pocketa

It was 1964 and I wasn’t liking much of Grade 10.  A notable exception to the muddy flow of life was Miss Bruce (no relation).  She was our easy-to-look-at young English teacher.  The source of many a fantasy for Bruce Archer Kerr. Plus we got to read a lot of cool stuff in her class.

These days I ask myself what I remember from high school studies.  Not very much of a pleasant nature, I’m afraid.  But there was a short story by James Thurber that has stayed with me all these years: “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”. Now it’s a movie, and I read recently that it doesn’t keep to the story very well.  I don’t know … haven’t seen it.

From the very beginning, I’ve yearned to be a hero, and in Grade 10 Walter was my guy.  Henpecked by his semi-lovely wife, he sought solace in his mind.  As a navy pilot in the heart of a hurricane.  As a renowned surgeon inserting a fountain pen into a damaged anesthetizer.  As a World War II flying ace in a pitched battle with the Germans.

And in each desperate situation, there was the noise of a machine in the background, urging Mitty/Kerr on to victory.

“I’m not asking you, Lieutenant Berg,” said the Commander.  “Throw on the power lights!  Rev her up to 8,500!  We’re going through!”  The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa.

I stood taller after selected English classes.  Never mind the acne.  Never mind the monosyllables with girls.  Never mind the nude swimming classes for a terrified non-swimmer.  Inside, Kerr of the Yukon forged his way through the great northern wilderness.

In 2000 or so, Jody and I bought titanium road bikes.  I had the choice of keeping the frame’s metallic sheen or having it painted.  I chose a blended red and yellow.  The bike shop owner also said that I could have a name printed in black on the top tube.  So yes to that too.  Not “Bruce”.  Not “Road Warrior”.  Certainly not “B Kerr”.  You know what bubbled to the surface of my latently heroic mind.

As senior citizenship has somehow snuck up on me, Walter is alive and well. A spiritual teacher speaking to hundreds in Boston’s Beacon Theater.  A humble Canadian author stepping onto the stage in Stockholm, Sweden to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Roger “Bruce” Bannister circling the Iffley Road Track in Oxford, England four times on May 6, 1954, hitting the tape in a time of 3:59.4, the first human being to break the four-minute mile.  The crowd went nuts.  Bruce acknowledged them with a tiny wave.

I love being in the here and now.  There and then isn’t bad either.

 

 

Laughing with Kabir

Kabir was a mystic poet in India during the 1400s.  He rejected the rigidities of Hinduism and Islam, and wrote ecstatic poetry about experiencing union with God.  He also chuckled a lot, sometimes enjoying the presence of others, and sometimes gently mocking the world’s foibles.  Here are a few choice quotes:

The caller calls in a loud voice to the Holy One at dusk
Why?  Surely the Holy One is not deaf
He hears the delicate anklets that ring on the feet of an insect as it walks

Why should I flail about with words
When love has made the space inside me full of light?

I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty
You don’t grasp the fact that what is most alive of all is inside your own house
And so you walk from one holy city to the next with a confused look!

Do you have a body?  Don’t sit on the porch!  Go out and walk in the rain!

It is time to put up a love-swing!
Tie the body and tie the mind
So that they swing between the arms of the Secret One you love

The Sacred Books of the East are nothing but words
I looked through their covers one day sideways
What Kabir talks of is only what he has lived through
If you have not lived through something, it is not true

Don’t go outside your house to see flowers
My friend, don’t bother with that excursion
Inside your body there are flowers
One flower has a thousand petals
That will do for a place to sit

Suppose you scrub your ethical skin until it shines but inside there is no music
Then what?
Mohammed’s son pores over words and points out this and that
But if his chest is not soaked dark with love
Then what?

Then what, indeed.  Not what this life is intended to be.  I have so many spiritual books but they only touch me if I in turn breathe life into them. Along with Kabir, “if you have not lived through something, it is not true.” Each day, then, I listen inside for the sweet ring of “yes”.  If the package I hold in my hands sings to me, then I place it gently on my shelf so that I may enjoy it another day as well.

And as for the lightness of life, where do I find people who laugh and laugh and then laugh some more?  Who open and open and open some more?  I bet Kabir would say …

Oh, we ain’t got a barrel of money
Maybe we’re ragged and funny
But we travel along
Singing a song, side by side

Oh, we don’t know what’s coming tomorrow
Maybe it’s trouble and sorrow
But we’ll travel the road
Sharing our load, side by side

Many Over the Land

I was driving back from south London’s Costco this afternoon, having accumulated a good share of groceries and meds for Jody.  After rounding the Glanworth Curve, I saw some dots of white far up on the right.  As I got closer, I saw that the dots were seagulls, feeding on the dark brown of a farmer’s field.  Perhaps a thousand of them.  I was struck by the beauty, by the white and brown contrast, and by something else.  Something unspoken but so clearly present in the moment.  All these beings on God’s brown earth.

Five minutes later, far up on the left, was an orange stippling of the ground. Soon I could see that pumpkins protected part of another field.  The contrast this time was orange on brown, but no less lovely.  The gourds were another type of being, resting gently on the soil, waiting for pies and Jack O’ Lanterns.  Struck again.

Why did these displays draw me so?  And why did they happen one after the other?

My brain transported me back to 1992.  October.  The sixth game of the World Series, between the Atlanta Braves and my beloved Toronto Blue Jays.  I and 47,000 other faithful showed up at the SkyDome to watch the festivities. Except there was no baseball in Toronto that day, nothing happening on the field.  The game was in Atlanta, and we were watching it on the JumboTron.  I spent a lot of time looking at my fellow parishioners, worshipping at the shrine of the slider and the long ball.  Look at all of us, watching TV!  I loved them a bit.  They were my family of the evening.  And the moving sway of multicoloured dots filled nearly every seat.

As Mike Timlin threw the ball to first for the final out, we rose as one body, cheering and high fiving … the Blue Jays had won their first ever World Series.  Minutes later, maybe 20,000 of us were walking noisily up Yonge St. Such a flow.  Such joy.  And no looting, no overturned cars.  I walked north for the seven miles it took to get home, feeling the loss of the folks who turned left here and turned right there.  Family.

During the summer of 2008, Jody and I took the train to Quebec City to help celebrate the city’s 400th anniversary.  We decided to go see an evening concert on the Plains of Abraham, the site where the British defeated the French in 1759.  “Simple Plan” was playing.  We started up the trail which left the boardwalk by the Chateau Frontenac Hotel.  As we climbed higher, we could hear the band above us.  Finally it felt like the next rise would be our last … and it was.  As we reached the peak, we gazed down at a tiny stage very far away.  Between us and the band sat and stood and danced 100,000 people. So said the paper the next day.  Knolls of folks.  Meadows of folks.  A rolling blanket of humanity scattered on the plain.  I was struck dumb.  The music was fine but the spirit among us was … big.  So infinitely big.  I rocked and rolled inside my soul for hours.

Seagulls, pumpkins, baseball fans and concertgoers – spreading out to cover the planet.

Comforts

Especially now that Jody is sick, I grasp onto the little pleasures that come my way.  It’s almost like sucking my thumb when I was a kid.  I did that until Grade 5, accompanied by my teddy bear Teddy.  I remember the overwhelming sadness I felt when Teddy’s head fell off.  Soon after that, my thumb started morphing into other pursuits – showing appreciation, creative twiddling, and eventually hitchhiking.

Today, I still need my teddy.  The first one is the London Free Press sports section.  I start on the front page, looking for stories that show human beings being human.  Let’s say it’s an article about the London Knights Junior A hockey team (young guys between 16 and 20).  If the article continues on page 3, I go there to finish it.  Generally though, I start on the first page and proceed on from there in order.  A lovely ritual or a deviant rigidity?  Who cares?  It makes me feel cozy.

I also love rows of sports stats, usually printed in the tiniest of fonts.  Jody has always called this particular passion my idiotsyncrasy.  Hey, it’s okay if it is.

I have a favourite ceramic mug.  Actually, I’m looking at it right now.  It’s tall and blends from a dark blue glaze at the bottom to a delicate pink one at the top.  And it feels just perfect in my hand.  Once my coffee or tea cools down a bit, I like wrapping both hands around.  The warmth spreads through me.  Ahhh.

I’ve mentioned my man chair before in these posts.  It’s a green upholstered Lazy Boy.  (And I just remembered that it’s featured in my photo for WordPress.)  I love pulling the lever to get the footrest to push out and the head to go back.  I get my knees up and prop my book against them.  More bliss.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been sleeping on a foam pad next to Jody’s hospital bed.  I lay a flat sheet on the pad and cover myself with a second sheet and a blanket.  Then I arrange things by my neck just so.  The edge of the top sheet has to curl back over the blanket so the sheet is what I feel.  Since the sheet and blanket are loose at the bottom, I then throw my legs into the air, so the covers fall over my toes.  When I bring my legs back down, I’m snug as a bug in a rug.  Yum.

That’s all the symbols of soothing I can think of right now.  I’ll let you know if other ones float down upon me.

The Five Precepts

The Buddha had some pretty good ideas about how to lead a life.  Much of his wisdom focused on what he called the five precepts.  Here they are:

Do no harm to anyone
Take nothing that is not freely given
Speak truthfully and helpfully
Use my sexual energy wisely
And keep my mind clear

Can my happiness really be as simple as this?   Maybe I don’t have to read 1000-page texts written centuries ago.  Maybe I don’t have to dedicate an hour or more a day to formal sitting meditation practice.  Maybe I don’t have to remember a single phrase of liberated understanding.  How about if I just do five little things?

***

Don’t hurt anyone or anything.  Not even an insect.  Not even someone who talks rudely to me.  Not even someone who sees me as a “thing” to be ignored or brushed past.  Don’t get angry.  Don’t get even.  Love the transgressor as the victim they are.

Don’t misuse other people’s property or time.  Allow them to come towards me if they choose, and to stay away if that better meets their needs.  If they love someone else far more than loving me, even if I deeply desire that love, have that be okay.

Let go of the words of anger (antagonism, outrage, hatred, impatience, resentment, …) and deception (falsehood, hypocrisy, trickery, craftiness, guile, …) and embrace the words of love (tenderness, appreciation, fondness, cherishing, friendship, …) and kindness (altruism, sweetness, good will, gentleness, benevolence, …).

Let my erotica be I-Thou, you more than me, companions, making love, connection, transparency, without boundary, pleasuring, enfolding, caressing, allowing, joining and giving.

No Coors Light, no Cabernet Merlot, no Mai Tai, no shot glasses, no pitchers, no carafes, no woozy, no tipsy, no plastered.

***

Smart guy

Last Time

I like those two words so much that I often use them as my user name on Internet sites.  (Don’t tell anyone, please.)  I realize that any given moment could be the very last time I see someone or something, I do something, I experience something.  We just don’t know.

Yesterday Jody spent many hours being disoriented.  She slept well, thanks to an increased dose of her sedative.  When she awoke this morning (with me lying beside her bed on a foam pad), I sensed that Jody was “there” as she asked for water.  I wondered whether this was the last time we would have an oriented conversation.  And so, I began:

“I love you, my dear.”

“I love you too.”

“I’m glad you’re my wife.”

“I’m glad you’re my wife … (smiles) … husband.”

“Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

To be so present right then was stunning and truly wonderful.  Oh, if only I could be this way always with everyone, not knowing if this time is our last.  I’m thinking of an old friend Linda, whom I palled (or is that “paled” – no, that’s not right) around with at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Alberta, and later in Vancouver.  We had such good talks.  Linda was the older sister I never had.  And then we lost touch.  Miraculously, years later, I saw her on the streets of Calgary and introduced her to Jody.  And then she was gone, and she remains so.  Was I present to our moment of departure from each other?  I fear not.

***

When will be the last time that I:

– ride my bike ta-pocketa?

– eat pumpkin pie?

– go dancing?

– write a post in Bruce’s Blog?

– walk in the mountains?

– tell someone I love them?

– sing a song and play guitar?

– sit cozied up in my man chair, reading a good book?

– set foot in my home … 6265 Bostwick Road, Union, Ontario?

– wear a t-shirt and shorts?

– say something silly?

– speak?

– shave?

– be on a beach in the Caribbean?

– drive a car?

– josh around with people at Costco?

– make love?

– watch “The Razor’s Edge” and “Titanic”?  (my two favourite movies)

– am with Jody?

– awaken?

***

The mystery unfoldeth

 

Voices

I think that voices can heal.  It’s not just the pitch, the inflection, the flow. Something can reside behind those, and can reach out and touch us, if we have ears and souls to hear.  Like this:

He began with a simple song, something in Gaelic with a strong rhyming chime to the lines, accompanied by the merest touch of his harp strings, so that each plucked string seemed by its vibration to carry the echo of the words from one line to the next.  The voice was also deceptively simple.  You thought at first there was nothing much to it – pleasant, but without much strength.  And then you found that the sound went straight through you, and each syllable was crystal clear, whether you understood it or not, echoing poignantly inside your head.

It’s good to have the sound go straight through you.  And to be affected profoundly, whether you’re conscious of that or not.

Here are two voices that have moved me:

Frank Muller was the narrator of many audio books, including “The Body” by Stephen King.  I was right there with him as four young boys went in search of a dead body by the railroad tracks.  Those four guys seeped inside me, thanks to Stephen and Frank.  Here is what Mr. Muller had to say about his art:

Building to crescendos, weaving the arc of a story over so many hours, requires total perspective and sure sense of direction.  And intimacy.  An audio book is a very intimate one-on-one relationship between reader and listener.  The microphone is the ear of the listener.  I often imagine that I’m sitting on a comfortable couch speaking the narrative text into the listener’s ear.  When the characters speak, they parade around in front of us, and we watch them together.

Patrick Stewart was the actor who portrayed Captain Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”.  Sure he had a Shakespearean background, but he mesmerized me far beyond that.  He seemed to stop, to sit in the middle of the present moment, when he spoke.  He often used few words, with my favourites being “Make it so”.  His rich baritone enveloped me.  And then there were the inexpressibles … about which therefore there is nothing to say.

I like my voice.  I don’t try to make it “good”.  I just speak.  And I do believe it reaches people.  I want to embrace the world in any way I can … by eyes, ears, fingers and mouth.

Lost and Found

Since bedtime last night, Jody has been crying a lot and angry a lot about what looks like oncoming death.  Such profound despair.  And such a natural reaction.

What can I do?  From way down inside comes “I don’t know”.  When Jody is lucid, I think my words make some difference.  When she’s not, all they seem to do is feed the flames of her anguish.  When I read to Jody, it seems that my voice soothes her.  And I brush her hair.  She softens then.  Last night, she didn’t want me to touch her, so I sadly withdrew my hand.  I tried to breathe in her pain and breathe out my love for her, but I was too lost to keep that up for long.  So I just sat beside.  I was in her presence.  She was in mine.

Often it feels like I’m being ripped apart, or disassembled.  What I’ve taken to be Bruce (happy, witty, determined, spontaneous) seems to be dissolving.  You know, that person, that separate entity walking the earth.  As Jody’s crying goes on for an hour or more, there’s a profound letting go in me.  Something remains after the personality fades.  I don’t know what it is.  I guess it’s okay to not know.

Do I need these moments of heartbreak to open to what’s next for me?  Perhaps.  It feels like a cleansing, maybe more like a violent dermal abrasion in that it hurts while it heals.

I love Jody so much.  At times like these, it doesn’t seem important what comes back from her.  It doesn’t seem like there’s much of a me for it to come back to.  Beneath my sadness is a big open space and immense quiet.  The intensity of my need for the usuals falls away: quality conversations, high self-esteem, physical comfort, getting enough good food, having alone time, breaking an hour for the time trial on my bike ta-pocketa, reading a good book.  Okay without that.

No movement away from the present moment
No deficiency
No needs