A small fiery particle thrown off from a fire

A small flash of light produced by a sudden disruptive electrical discharge through the air

A sense of liveliness and excitement

Any of those meanings will do nicely.

See the little dot of light in each eye?  We all have them.  Check out your friends and neighbours.  They all have the sudden glow that reaches out from their face to the world.

Or at least it’s designed to reach.  Some of us keep the dot to ourselves.  And that’s a waste of good light.

***

Our eyes are meant to be noticed

We are meant to sparkle

We are meant to join

And many of us do

Yesterday was talk.  Today I’m really here … in the Gent Sint-Pieters train station.

After lingering over my mandarins and yogurt in the main lobby, feeling the art on the walls, here I sit in Starbucks.  More old paintings, some coloured drawings and three domed mosaic ceilings.  Voilà:

I love the curves above.  It feels like they’re blessing me.

***

At the far end of the room stands this clock.  Minute by minute the hand progresses.

And to translate the Latin:

It escapes … irretrievable time

Ahh yes.  On we go, and go and go.  My cappuccino feels eternal and universal.  The sipping may be through anyone’s mouth – past, present … or future.

***

The lobby showed me the world.  Straight up in the middle of the ceiling, there’s a swirl of steam and speed.  Trains have always taken people to their destinations.  There’s a lift under our wings as we go out and about.

The image is mesmerizing … and way up high.

***

Soon after entering the station, I sought my home – the city of Gent.  And it found me:

The churches of centrum, the gabled roofs, the curving hats of Rabot – the painter saw them long ago.  I see them now.  And may young kids grow into adults who still look up … at the walls of Gent Sint-Pieters.

There is much to see

Gent has a stunning train station – Gent Sint-Pieters.  The art deserves long looks.

Typically and naturally, I travel to the station to go somewhere.  Not necessarily in a rush but in transit.  And being on the move, I miss a lot.

There is much to linger over.  All I need to do is look up.  Such as the city of Oostende on the English Channel:

Or the paintings of Antwerp and Brabant:

I’ve been to Antwerp but I don’t know what Brabant is.  All in good time I will discover my new country.

Have I gone to Gent Sint-Pieters to sit and behold?  No.  I’ve simply written about it here and now and taken some images off the Internet.  That feels like cheating.

So … tomorrow I’ll take the tram to the train station and give you the real deal.  An immersion rather than dancing around the edges.

I might even venture into the American icon Starbucks.  A friend told me there’s something spectacular inside.

See you then

I often say “The last time I looked, I was 25.”  Life flows out by the day, month and year.  Et voilà … here I am at 75.

I had breakfast in Le Pain Quotidien on the Korenmarkt this morning.  After eating, I pulled my pills and supplements from my backpack, plus my water bottle.  I unscrewed the cap and out spilled some water on the wooden table. 

Since the table wasn’t perfectly flat, the tiny puddle became a flow.  I watched the inching towards the edge.  And then I watched some more.

The sun shone on the table … and I contemplated life evaporating.  Eventually I swept my hand through the water.  At one point I thought of taking some pictures to show the darkness receding.  Here’s the second one:

Feel the momentum of the sun … the flowing towards … the inevitability

For us all

Fifteen minutes ago I walked into Izy Coffee on the Langemunt, having decided to sit there and watch for couples holding hands on the street.

I had just started dripping stevia into my cappuccino when I looked up to see mom, dad and young son bouncing along … hands linked.  Talk about an intention becoming real!

My wife Jody died ten years ago.  What I especially miss is holding hands as we strolled along.  We were in sync, rather than “two solitudes”, or one ahead and one behind.

***

Okay.  Back to the experiment.  If I sit here for another half hour, how many couples or families will I see holding hands?

It’s 10:18.

10:21 – Already six male/female couples have walked by, none holding hands.  (Sigh)

10:22 – Mom and ten-year-old daughter!

10:23 – Two m/f couples pass each other

10:24 – Another!

10:25 – One more.  The hand holders are all pretty young so far, in the 30’s or 20’s.

10:28 – I’m getting tired of the timed tally so I’ll switch gears.  Now I’m seeking a couple in their 60’s or older who are holding hands.  Stay tuned.

A woman on the left, a man on the right.  He holds a shopping bag in his left hand.  It’s not available for her right hand.

10:50 – That’s half-an-hour of observation.  Several older couples have walked by, just two of them holding hands.

No conclusions here.  I simply feel sad when there’s no touch and so happy when there is.

It’s a tenderness that I want to feel again

It’s a three-day party in my neighbourhood of Patershol.  I forgot to take pictures yesterday but this one from the Internet gives you a good idea of what my street looked like last night.

If you look at the black sky, you may be able to pick out my balcony on the right.  Be prepared for very slow walking!

In the late afternoon, I sat with Belgian friends in front of a community centre in Patershol.  It’s a Friday afternoon tradition for them, and often for me. 

I treated myself to a Patershol coffee, deepened by the presence of jenever, a liqueur from the juniper berry.  The whipped cream on top was pretty cool too.

The true cream, however, was sitting with folks who accepted this English-speaking newbie.  Yes, I’m learning Dutch but mostly I didn’t know what my friends were saying.  They spoke fast, and so I was told, in a dialect centred in the Gent area.  I smiled when I recognized a few words.  Actually I also smiled when I didn’t.

At one point, two in the group were really going at it in discussion.  I thought they were arguing but actually they were agreeing with each other that recent street closures to cars in Gent were bad.

Somehow, with my stuttering Dutch and bursts of English, I made people laugh.  I love doing that.  The world needs more raised cheeks and upturned mouths.

As I sipped my jenever coffee and tongued away whipped cream from my upper lip, a gentleman approached.  He was dressed in a military uniform and carried a large bell.  A jolly chap … one of the three town criers in Gent.  He was on the terrace to officially open the Feesten.

There’s an international town criers association.  They even hold world championships.  Our visitor said he knew some town criers from Canada.  I asked if he remembered my dear friend Bill Paul who for many years was the crier in London, Ontario, Canada.  He did!

Sadly Bill died a few years ago.  He was such a kind man, standing on street corners and creating balloon animals for kids young and old.

Two town criers who bring joy to folks walking by … linking my past and present.  And here comes the future.

***

I’m home here in Gent

In my address, my feet and my heart

Yesterday I wrote about heading to Amal for their Conversation Table … and being so scared to speak Dutch in a group.

Amal is a marvelous organization for newcomers to Belgium.  The sign says it all (almost): welcome to people of all nationalities, religions, ages (leeftijden), sexual orientations, gender identifications, folks with or without limits (met en zonder beperking).

And … all Dutch-speaking abilities.

I’m low down on that scale.  But I’m on it.

It was my fifth time at the Table.  One would hope that there’d be progress but it was the worst experience I’ve had there.

At my table there was a native Dutch-speaking facilitator and six learners from various parts of the world.  Here’s what’s true about my two hours:

1.  I didn’t understand a lot of what people were saying.  I could pick out words but I didn’t grasp the sentences.  Afterwards the facilitator told me that some of the speakers weren’t speaking “good Dutch”.  Whatever that means.

2.  I couldn’t hear three of the participants.  They spoke softly.

3.  I had trouble filtering out the conversations coming from other tables.

4.  The facilitator spoke pretty quickly.

5.  When I tried composing sentences, two or three good-intentioned participants tried to help.  I was brought to silence in my confusion.

I had told myself before the session to love my Dutch partners while we spoke, no matter the problems I was having.  There were moments when this happened, but they were few.  My head often dropped.  I sighed a lot.  I deflated.

In the evening I was on a Zoom call with the Evolutionary Collective.  I knew I had to speak about my afternoon angst, about being thoroughly not good at something.  If I hadn’t, the unspoken would have intruded into the practice I would do later with a randomly-selected EC partner.  And that wouldn’t be fair to them.

So I spoke in the large group.  The truth works.

I often write “On we go” in these posts.  Some disappointment, fear, sadness, etc. arises.  My choice is to fade away or continue.

I continue

I woke up this morning swimming in fear.  When I could breathe again, I had the thought that this was strange for a spiritually evolving human being.  But in truth … not so.  The human part of the being continues on its roller coaster.

The source of my fear is two hours of my afternoon.  I’m heading back to the Dutch Conversation Table at Amal – newcomers to the language trying out their speaking and listening.

Here I go again, for the fifth time, throwing myself into a situation where largely I don’t know.  I’m going towards the tension, the exasperation, the despair.  Does this make me a masochist?  No.  It says that I am brave.

***

I say words to myself.  They help me stay in the experiences I want for my life.  They assist me in having many moments of my day be animated, shone upon, vivid, true.

Love the fear

Hug the fear

In my better moments, I “go towards” whatever and whomever is with me.  That won’t be easy today at Amal but I shall persist.  I’ll be tender with my terror.  The image of lingering in a hug helps me.

Love them

Hug them in my mind

Everyone.  Every soul who passes before my eyes today.  The ones at Jagger’s, Et Alors, Amal, on the street, on the evening Evolutionary Collective Zoom call.  Wishing them great happiness.  No one left out, not even the ones who are mean or distant.  Not even … Donald Trump.

Loving me

Hugging me

I need to do this a lot.  It’s so easy to forget about this particular person.  He too is part of the human family.

“You’re never too much!”

That’s what a friend of mine said awhile back.  I know what she meant … that my expression of who I am need not be diminished.  Fear of being considered weird is just not worth it.  If I’m being kind and true to people, let the light shine.  No dimmer switch.

Of course my outpouring into the world must not include meanness.  Our planet doesn’t need any more of that.

***

Now here’s another discussion:  How much can I expect of myself physically?  How deep are my energy reserves?

Yesterday afternoon I went to an Amal Conversation Table – one native Dutch speaker and six newbies to the language.  For me it was two hours of intense focus – trying to understand, trying to compose sentences.

Three hours later I showed up on Zoom for a special ninety-minute meeting of the Evolutionary Collective.  Patricia Albere, the founder of the EC, was introducing new material and inviting us into practices – sometimes with one other person, sometimes with three.  I was fully engaged the whole time.

Immediately thereafter, I was the Zoom host for one of the regular EC calls.  The teacher teaches and I make sure everything works well technically.

I did pretty well but I made a few mistakes in areas where it’s usually easy for me. 

***

Hmm …

I wonder if there’s a lesson here.  Where does “too much” come in?  Maybe it’s all in my head, rather than my prolonged ability to concentrate.

Perhaps I’ll leave it up to the “mystery” of living a life.  Or maybe I’ll make changes.

Questions feel bigger than answers

What a great word.  Rising above the earth.  Feeling the toes wiggle in the air.  Untethered.  Flying.

There is something beyond as we breathe in the sweet air.  We are free.

In the last two days I’ve watched two soaring Olympic athletes.  Gifts received.

Watch Yaroslava Mahuchikh of Ukraine bend above:

The mouth, the fingers, the feet about to snap upwards.  Poetry.

***

Here’s more bending, this time with the pole of Sweden’s Mondo Duplantis:

We climb to the heights alongside Mondo, waiting for the explosion of arms and feet.  What a blessing.

***

Perhaps we’re all Olympians for each other