Touristic.  No, that’s not what I want.  However, when it comes to Gent and me, I was one of those from May, 2022 to January, 2023.  After that?  I live here!

I love my music school … the Poel.  I’ve been hoping to find some local spot nearby for a beer and a meal.  The food has eluded me but several times I’ve walked into Café de Poel.

Darlene runs the place.  It’s taken a few visits for her to warm up to me but now we’re there.  She knows my name and that I love Westmalle Tripel.

Here’s a photo of the interior.  I’d like to say that all these folks are smiling at me but I found this pic on the Internet.  In the background you can see window tables.  I love sitting there, watching people, buses and seagulls float by.

And the street in the background – that’s also “Poel”.  It curves so wondrously.  (I love curves)

It seems that it’s mostly middle-aged to old men that walk through the door, at least when I’ve been there.  And English is largely an unknown quantity.  So … a perfect place for me to practice my Dutch skills!

As I watch the gentlemen sipping and chatting, I sense this is a home for them.  Darlene welcomes each regular and they make sure to say goodbye when it’s time to leave.

Perhaps I too will become a regular, and a year from now Dutch will flow from me in conversation.  I’d like that.

I knew what I was going to write about this morning – my visit yesterday to Café de Poel in Gent.  And then …

As I lay in bed, words came into my mind, very familiar ones. They’ve been arriving often over the last ten years.  Two phrases.

I uttered the first in my head: Love them all.  And then my mouth paused open.  The next word did not come.  Huh?  It always comes.  The following two words showed up: the world, but not the first.

My eyes tightened (fear) … and then loosened (ease).  “It’s all right, Bruce,” I smiled.  “The missing word will return.”

For the next many minutes, I searched for the lost: Bless … love … be … hug …

Nothing came.

And then I just sat with the not knowing.  All was well.

Eventually it was shower time.  As the spray dropped onto my body and soap was doing its thing, a word …

Light

***

Light the world

A fine thing to do

Not the usual ones.  Not the sweet ones.  These ones have an edge.  They’re sometimes raspy, maybe even strident.

There’s a vibration here that gets me vibrating.  These three human beings reach me in song:

Listen to Willie Nelson singing “When I Dream” …

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=zQfu2o3YTsI&si=nDoAxy-LbTx_buXd

Listen to Rod Stewart belting out “Maggie May” …

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=pBlrMtFprKs&si=JPe8G61nAcr_HN23

Listen to Cyndi Lauper tearing us apart with “True Colors” …

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=yZgah5suEyc&si=WXOrCWvc34xhGGhO

***

Vanilla is good

French Vanilla is excellent

But I love Rocky Road

I was sitting in my living room a few nights ago thinking of my favourite singers.  Springsteen, Lady Gaga, Charlotte Church …

And another – Chris de Burgh. 

Sometime before I left Canada for Belgium, I gave away all my DVDs.  Included was a Chris concert video: “The Road to Freedom”.  I had spent hours over the years drinking in the majesty of the music and the singer.  All gone.

So this week I found a few songs from that concert on YouTube.  I was re-entranced.  Such melodies, such lyrics, such a voice.

Then a memory … Chris singing a medley as he walked among the audience.  The kindness in his face, the eye-to-eye contact with so many. 

I searched some more and found a 15-minute clip that included what I was looking for – the singer strolling through the journey of standing fans.  Yes!

He stopped in front of an older woman and knelt down, continuing to sing and play his guitar.  Then a young man with a stiff body, sitting in his wheelchair.  Chris held his hand.  After conducting the audience’s singing for a few seconds, he turned towards a girl of about 12, extended his arms and sang …

And drink to the memories of what you mean to me

The audience was enthralled.  And me.

“How sad that Chris has died, that I’ll never get to hear him in concert,” I told myself.

Then I bet a funny look came over my face.  “I wonder.”

I Googled Mr. De Burgh.  Et voilà …  He’s alive and well, 75-years-old, living with Diane, his wife of 47 years.

And …

He’s doing a European tour!

***

Where will you be on October 22, 2024?

I’ll be in Wuppertal, Germany

At a concert

Just a few years ago, I often had this conversation inside my head:

I don’t know about X

I should know about X!

(Feeling bad about me)

Strangely, and marvelously, those words have mostly floated away …

This morning I sat on Izy Coffee’s black couch with my friend Bart.  He and his wife Larisa own the place.

Soon Bart is heading to Brazil to meet his coffee growers for the first time.  The owners and managers of the plantation are women, and many of their employees are women who have troubled lives.  It sounds like such a humane business.  Just the types of people that I see Bart associating with.

My friend told me that his roaster is in Belgium.  And I asked …

What is a roaster?

Not missing a beat, Bart started describing the coffee process from coffee tree to cup.  Not a hint of judgment.  AND … not a hint of judgment from me to me.

I’ve vaguely known that coffee beans grew on a bush, and I thought they looked like this hanging there:

The reality is that coffee beans start as little green berries, and they’re harvested after they turn red:

The bean is inside the berry!

Bart and I smiled a lot as we sipped his brew and talked coffee.  I sat tall.  The unknowns create the adventure called life.

Last week my Music Theory teacher Lore played us a music video called “Little Blue”, sung by Jacob Collier.  I’d never heard of him.  And that’s my loss … up until now.

I applauded at the end.  So did a few others in the class.  He was remarkable.

What is singing? 

A beautiful voice?  Sometimes.

A beautiful melody?  Hopefully.

Touching lyrics?  Yes.

But please … I need more.  I need the singer to have passion in their voice.  I need them to fill the room with their human story.  And I need “us”.

Therefore Jacob Collier.  At the piano, caressing the keys.  A flourish of the fingers.  Then standing before thousands in Lisbon, conducting their tones with a raising or lowering of the arms.

Voices together

Raised in song

It was an immense choir, filling the hall with yearning, as “Somebody to Love” unfolded.

Here’s the video.  Let it wash over you.   Let it touch our shared humanity.  Singing as plural.

*When you click on the link, you should see an option at the top of the page: “Song/Video”.  Definitely choose video.  There is much to see.

**Arghh.  After I published this post, I opened the link and there was no video option.  I suggest that you download YouTube Music from Google Play (or the other one) and find Jacob singing “Somebody to Love” in the “Video” section.  That should work.  You need to see this.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=nYyRfbHMU60&si=lhn6fiEro2aesGTz

What would it look like if my mind burst beyond anything it has known?  I don’t know … because the looking is within the borders of my history.

I have moments of deep connection with other people, moments that I don’t remember being present when I was twenty.  That feels like a bursting, but it still seems to be within the same medium.

As I swim in the waters of not knowing, perhaps a few images would help me:

Human beings walk on the ground.  But some of us soar …

Dolphins breathe air into their lungs, just like we do.  Their environment is the water but sometimes they want to know what the air feels like on their skin …

As we walk our streets, we don’t feel the curve of the Earth but we are creatures of this planet.  It is our place to stand.  But then there are astronauts, released from the bonds of the land …

And questions: What happens when we sleep?  When we die?  Is there a lifting beyond our bedrooms to somewhere else?  Are we explorers of the unknown as we close our eyes?

***

May we all be taken beyond the usual

I would like to bring something new into the world.  Outrageously new … never been seen before.

Let’s start with the usual, what we know.  I’ll use the alphabet.  Here we are:

We English, Dutch, French and elsewhere speakers know these shapes.  They’ve been burned into our brain since childhood.

Maybe we’re tired of the “straightness”.  Let’s make the letters better, more creative.  Let’s have something new emerge.  How about this?

Yes.  Not so rectangular.  Shows a personality.

Then again … we might get bored with this “new and improved” version of the alphabet.  So let’s get really radical, curvy.  Let’s have it be so shocking that people stare in wonder.  Let’s have our pen produce wondrous versions of the 26 letters.  So brand new!

However …

We think we know what “alphabet” means.  We have a long history with letters.  But what about something vastly beyond?

I want to go there

I’m sitting in a restaurant watching a young couple and their baby girl.  The washrooms are on the second floor and it was time for mother and daughter to explore.

Mom held the child’s hands and assisted with the climbing but there was definitely weight-bearing going on.  I watched an ascending young face.  The mouth was curled in an “O”.  “This is new, mom!”

Here’s what I beheld, although this is a photo from the Internet:

So cool.  Just beginning the climbs of life.

***

And then there’s me.  In recent weeks, my hips have been getting tighter and I’ve committed to stretch every day for a half-hour.  My apartment is still 51 steps up.  “As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be …” 

When I’m climbing out there in the world, I really struggle if the vertical distance from one riser to the next is more than usual.

Here’s another photo that gives you the idea:

And I suppose that in the years between the baby and the old guy, most climbers don’t even notice the climb.

***

Ahh … new for the child, new for me

We keep exploring our world

I realize it’s not exactly a cheery topic.  And it’s one I’ve avoided.  But now that I’m maturing, the time is now.

I’m feeling healthy, and hopefully my end in this world is far down the road.  But who knows?

My mind has often returned to a conversation I had with a friend.  Her dad died without a will … and what a mess that was.  The government was involved.  Her father’s wishes were unknown.  No thanks.

Before I left Canada, I updated my will and my Power of Attorney to have my friend Lydia in Maarkedal, Belgium become my representative when I die or am no longer cognitively intact.

We sat last week going over documents about her making decisions if I have dementia or can no longer express my will.  They were in Dutch, and Google Lens does a pretty good job of translating, but Lydia filled in the gaps of my understanding.

Yesterday I met with my doctor.  He told me of the current legal confusion in Belgium about euthanasia.  He also provided me with a new document that gets really specific about what I want and don’t want.  You see a part of it in the photo.

I gulp when I look at the picture.  The reality behind the words hits home:

Ik wil niet worden gereanimeerd

I don’t want to be resuscitated

Ik wil niet aan beademingsapparatuur worden gekoppeld

I don’t want to be hooked up to a ventilator

Ik wil geen:

I don’t want:

Chirurgische ingreep, chemotherapie, bestraling, transfusie

Surgical procedure, chemotherapy, radiation, transfusion

Ik wil beëindiging van mijn leven (euthanasie) als ik onomkeerbaar buiten bewustzijn ben.  [not in the photo]

I want to end my life (euthanasia) if I am irreversibly unconscious.

***

The end is not near

(Smile)