It was Wednesday morning. I’d just finished my oral exam for Dutch class. (Whew!) Now it was time to exhale.

Months ago I’d bought a ticket to see Hauser in Antwerp, about an hour from Ghent. He’s a Croatian cellist. I’m a Belgian/Canadian cellist. The course dates included Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this week … so there’d be no lingering in a new city.

After the exam, I sat in Izy Coffee checking out train schedules. Perhaps I should have done this earlier! The concert was expected to end around 10:00. The last train home was at 9:30. And no late buses. I didn’t even figure out what a taxi would cost.

Friends in Izy started problem-solving for me. A hostel for six hours or so and then an early morning train? I checked – all the hostels were full. And I wasn’t willing to pay for a hotel for a few hours. Sell my ticket and sleep in my own bed? No! I want to hear the cello played brilliantly.

And then the barista Merve simply said:

Before the concert, ask people in the arena for a ride

Why didn’t I think of that? I smiled at the prospect of meeting new folks. And I could feel my trust that all would be well.

The concert started at 8:00. I entered with the opening doors at 6:30. After I’d approached a few folks (none of whom lived in Ghent), a woman with her young daughter suggested I make a sign. The girl had paper. The mom had a pen. And voilà:

On I walked, row by row. So far no Ghentians in the crowd. Lots of smiles, though, and “Good Luck”s.

Someone suggested I go right down to the stage and grab the microphone. Okay, I’m not that brave.

As I roamed from one family or friends to the next, I’d sometimes look back at the paper providers. When they saw me, they smiled. Hmm … I was known.

Flushed with a so far failure to produce the result, I decided to retreat to the concourse. Trust in the goodness of human beings still lived in my soul. I’d find a volunteer and see if there was anything in place to help people like me. A woman in a blue shirt replied “No.”

“But …

“That woman over there lives in Ghent.”

!

I resisted the temptation to kiss the pointer and the one pointed to. The second blue-shirter had a lovely smile and a sweet nod of her head. Yes, Rose would drive me to Ghent. And no, she wouldn’t take any money.

My sigh filled the universe

***

I crawled into bed at 12:07

I walked into my Dutch classroom at 8:50

All indeed was well

Ten days ago I stopped writing blog posts.  I stopped going to the gym.  I stopped everything except studying Dutch.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve worked this hard at anything – probably high school.  I took four courses in my graduating year.  They ran from September to June.  100% of my grade in each came from the June exam.  Oh, how I studied!

I couldn’t put in the same quantity of hours as then, but I gave ‘er.  I’m sure in Grade 13 I was pretty familiar with the course content as June rolled around … but not this time!  Dutch is a shock, often a mystery.  This does not compute for my Canadian brain.  It has me appreciate how difficult it must be for people to learn English.

Tuesday was the listening, reading and writing parts of the exam.  The first listening exercise was a person phoning their school and giving the receptionist lots of basic information.  We had the form in front of us and our job was to find mistakes that the receptionist had made in taking down the info.

The voices came so fast!  I was thinking “What did she say there?” as the conversation moved on to some future mistake that I didn’t even hear.

Isabel played the audio three times and I’m unhappy to say that I never did hear the last item: The course cost was listed as 120 euros.  But was it really one of the other two possibilities – 90 or 180 euros?  I had no clue so I left the checkmark in the “120” box.  Turns out that was what she said … so I got it right!

The writing part included drawings of daily activities.  We were to state what the person was doing.  First was a fellow taking a shower.  “Search your words, Bruce!”  I wrote:

Hij hebt een douchen.

I couldn’t remember what the verb “take” was (nemen) so I thought I’d get by with him having a shower (hebben).  Nope.  Then the question was whether “a shower”  was “een douche” or “een douchen”.  If I’d been alert, I would have reasoned that a singular noun is unlikely to end in “en” because these letters are often used to show a plural word.  But I wasn’t alert.  So a second nope.  In mathematical terms: Nope + Nope = 0 … no marks for that sentence.  (Sigh)

I knew I had done better in other parts of the listening and writing.  And I thought I had answered most questions correctly about the reading passages.  I woke up Wednesday thinking “I passed the first exam.”

Later Wednesday was my oral exam online with Isabel.  She asked me questions – general ones about my life in Belgium, and also ones about what she was showing me onscreen, such as the costs of various products and what a woman was doing in the supermarket.

I had prepared a cool answer for a question I expected Isabel to ask … but she didn’t ask it!  So at the end of the exam I said “Please ask me this question:

Welke taal spreek jij?

(What language do you speak?)

The standard answer was:

Ik spreek Engels en een beetje Nederlands

(I speak English and a little Dutch)

Just for fun, this is what came out of my mouth:

Ik spreek Nederlands en een beetje Engels

Why not?

I can’t remember ever being this focused. My exam for Level One of Dutch language training is on Tuesday, November 7. That’s the written part. I’m online with the teacher on the Wednesday for the oral section.

It’s disorienting for me to launch into a new language. The structure feels so … foreign. There are so many times when the subject shows up at the end of the sentence. So many words with “ij” in them. And of course irregular verbs.

A counsellor suggested a “fast course” for me – six weeks. The usual speed is twelve weeks. I said yes to six. Ouch.

Oh well … I signed up for Belgium. All of it. And now it’s home.

Maybe I won’t write much for the next few days. My mind will be zeroed in on a four-letter word:

Pass

He’s a marvelous actor, lighting up the screen in roles such as Neo in The Matrix.

I often wonder about Hollywood stars, famous athletes and the like.  I love how they perform on the world stage … and I hope they’re nice people.  Do they connect deeply with their family and friends away from the silver screen or the playing field?

Keane Reeves shines.  A recent article on Facebook told me so much:

In 1997 some paparazzi found him walking one morning in the company of a homeless man in Los Angeles, listening to him and sharing his life for a few hours.

When he was filming the movie The Lake House, he overheard the conversation of two costume assistants. One cried because he would lose his house if he did not pay $20,000 … and on the same day Keanu deposited the necessary amount in the man’s bank account.

For many successful films, he has even given up 90% of his salary to allow the production to hire other stars.

In 2010, on his birthday, Keanu walked into a bakery and bought a brioche with a single candle, ate it in front of the bakery, and offered coffee to people who stopped to talk to him.

We all have things that go wrong in our lives, sometimes horribly wrong.  Failures, disasters, being scorned, the death of loved ones …

How many moviegoers know about the words that follow?

Keanu was abandoned by his father at three-years-old and grew up with three different stepfathers.  He is dyslexic.  His dream of becoming a hockey player was shattered by a serious accident.  His daughter died at birth.  His wife died in a car accident.  His best friend, River Phoenix, died of an overdose.  His sister has leukemia.

He carries on

May we carry on too

“North Dock” is a shopping mall near the water in an area of Gent formerly full of factories. Some of the old brick buildings have been preserved and are now residences and offices. New apartments have sprung up, along with the modern mall.

My friend Michelle and I took the tram to Dok Noord this afternoon to celebrate the opening day of the latest Izy Coffee location. We sipped our cappuccinos on a cozy couch and I looked out at the mall area (on the right in the photo).

So new, so rectangular … with so few people. Actually Izy was pretty full for its first day but outside there wasn’t the flow of humans I’m used to at Izy in Gent centrum.

Michelle wanted to show me the mall and the cool stores. “Sure … I’m game.”

First was an electronics and appliance store. Brand new stuff at deeply discounted prices. Maybe if I’d been in the market for the latest and greatest I’d have worked up some enthusiasm … but instead it was a big ho-hum.

Next was the largest supermarket I’ve seen in Gent. Subtle lighting, well displayed produce and an infinite variety of foodstuffs. As Michelle filled a basket with quality items, I roamed the aisles looking for square boxes of tissues (a fetish of mine). They were not to be found.

The corridors between stores were open to the air – a refreshing touch. But for much of our time I thought I was back in Toronto. And I don’t want to be there.

I wasn’t at home at Dok Noord. I longed for the cobbles and stepped gables of centrum. The mall would give me every imaginable material possession … but I don’t want that.

Home keeps calling me

I will listen

Werner Erhard is a deep thinker and a man of action. In 1971 he founded Erhard Seminars Training (est) which offered an intense two-weekend experience meant to “transform one’s ability to experience living so that the situations one had been trying to change or had been putting up with clear up just in the process of life itself.”

He talked about “distinctions”. How is one thing different from another? For example, what really is integrity? If we understand what it is, then we can tell it apart from what it is not. We can “get clear” about integrity. And then we can act accordingly.

Werner:

We define integrity as: a state or condition of being whole, complete, unbroken, unimpaired, sound, in perfect condition.

In a relationship, nothing held back, nothing distorted. So … the truth.

Here are two more distinctions that Erhard had me examine – action and access:

It is important that you get clear for yourself that your only access to impacting life is action. The world does not care what you intend, how committed you are, how you feel or what you think, and certainly it has no interest in what you want and don’t want. Take a look at life as it is lived and see for yourself that the world only moves for you when you act.

How powerful to consider how we can access what we want to bring forth in the world.

And then there’s responsibility:

Every human being’s deepest, most natural expression is the desire to make a difference in life, of wanting to matter. We can choose to make the success of all humanity our personal business. We can choose to be audacious enough to take responsibility for the entire human family, to make our love for each other and for the world what our lives are really about.

I remember Werner saying that in a relationship each person is 100% responsible for its success … not 50.

***

I don’t often think of Werner Erhard

Today I do

And what actions will follow?

It’s a small square in Ghent, hundreds of years old. The tram goes right by. People wait there to get on. Others flow by, eager for the eating and shopping.

TripAdvisor knows the place. “Come see.” Here are the comments of one visitor:

Very inviting square in the heart of Ghent. Conviviality is an asset due to the location with many cafes and restaurants.

Sounds like the status quo for this day and age … enjoy your meal. But I’ve discovered something cool about certain todays here in the Sint-Veerleplein:

Consider the art of Alberto Garutti. One particular creation of his is present in several cities of the world – such as Bergamo, Istanbul, Moscow … and Ghent.

In the work Ai Nati Oggi (For Those Born Today), the streetlights of a given place in the city (a street, a square, a bridge) get brighter every time a child is born. The maternity ward in a hospital in the city is equipped with a button that can be pushed by the staff at each new birth; the button makes the streetlight system gradually increase the intensity of the light, a surge that then subsides back to normal in about thirty seconds.

Near the streetlights, on the ground, a stone plaque is placed with the engraved words:

“The streetlights of this place are connected to the maternity ward of the hospital … Every time the light slowly pulsates, it means a child has been born. The work is dedicated to that child, and to the children born today in this city.”

***

I’ve sat there under the monument, thinking about life being born, being lived and dying. And about my new home. At the back of my mind is curiosity about the history of Ghent. Hundreds of thousands of people have lived here over the last five centuries. What were their lives like?

I want to delve into the stories of my adopted city. Why not start with Sint-Veerleplein?

Here’s a photo of Ghentians enjoying this place. Maybe 1900 would be a good guess.

***

And … there’s also a deep dark past here:

From 1407 to the end of the 18th century, the square served as a place of justice for criminals. It was the only punishment place in Flanders for counterfeiters. The fact that counterfeiters were punished here had to do with the location of the count’s mint in nearby Gravensteen [a castle]. The counterfeiters were thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil or boiling water.

On March 17, 1540, nine of the leaders of the Ghent Uprising were beheaded here by order of Emperor Charles V. Five more followed on May 4.

***

Life and death

Cobblestones feeling the feet of past, present and future

In yesterday’s Dutch class, Isabel was teaching us how to say that we like or dislike certain foods.  It was marvelous to have some fun as I practiced with my partner Waleed.

Eet jij graag stoofvlees?

Do you like to eat Belgian stew?

Ja, ik eet graag stoofvlees

Yes, I like to eat Belgian stew

***

Eet jij graag broccoli?

Do you like to eat broccoli?

Nee, ik eet niet graag broccoli

No, I don’t like to eat broccoli

Our conversation got me thinking of my most unfavourite food – raisins.  Waleed’s first language is Urdu, not English, and he wasn’t familiar with the word.

“I’ll look it up on Google,” I said helpfully. I had the choice of many images of the wretched little creatures.  I showed one of them to Waleed and he got what I was talking about.

“You ask me the question, Waleed!”

I delighted in pretty much shouting the answer “NEE!”

Soon it was back to the intensity of new material.  Then at the end of our three-and-a-half hour class I was pooped as usual.  Enough Dutch for one day.

A good way for me to unwind is reading articles on my phone about cycling races.  Lounging on the couch, I opened one of those sites and picked a story.

“When what to my wondering eyes should appear” …

You’ll be happy to know that raisins followed me throughout the rest of the day as I read this and that. Talk about pollution of the soul!

Today the advertisements have nothing to do with schrivelled grapes, those tiny demons that taste horrible.

Thank God

I live alone … or so I’ve thought. 

About three weeks ago, I noticed this little creature hanging out beside the container that holds my toilet brush.  And he’s still there.

Some people in my life have had a forceful response to spiders: “Kill them!”  Then there were the folks who would run away.  I’m neither.

Part of me wants a pure environment at home, which includes no bugs.  But it’s not the biggest part.  Surely I could co-habitate with this little one.

Some days I never saw him or her.  Behind the silver cylinder must be a good place to hide.  Mostly though, there he was – perched in the air as far as six inches from home.  Usually me turning on the light meant he’d scurry back close to the metal thing.

I’m no biologist.  But my mind meanders in the presence of my spidery friend:

How long will you live?

Isn’t it boring having a world that’s so small?

What do you think about?

You don’t seem to get much exercise.  Are you okay with that?

What do you think of me?  I must be immense in your eyes

Is it hard being alone all the time?

Should I get you a wee TV?

***

I figure that these are important questions for an important being

Am I more important?

I don’t know. I really don’t

I was walking to Hema for breakfast this morning and dropped into Izy Coffee to say hi to Arjen – the barista and my friend.

Bruce: Goedemorgen  (“Good morning” in Dutch)

Arjen: Goedemorgen

Bruce: À bientôt!  (“See you soon!” in French)

Arjen: Zeer goed (“Very good” in Dutch)

Bruce:  Bye

As I contemplated the beauty of my croissant, our tiny conversation returned to my mind.  Three languages.  Five years ago it was only one.

Back then I considered myself a citizen of the world.  I cared about folks of different cultures, races … and languages.  But I was just scratching the surface of being international. 

***

In December, 2018 I went to Senegal with my Belgian friends for the first time.  Senegalese folks speak French, and not English.  Despite studying the language in high school decades ago, I’d forgotten most of it.  I struggled to communicate with my new African friends.

I’ve now been to Senegal four times and my French skills have improved.  I can compose simple sentences but when the other person speaks fast in return, I’m still lost.

I am on the French road … la route française.

***

Now I’m immersed in a Dutch course.  It’s Level One, the beginning of an immense journey to Level Five (or perhaps Level Ten, the most advanced).

I often shake my head, fascinated with how slow I am in catching on.  A classmate who studies neurology says that my 74-year-old brain is smaller than a young person’s and can’t make connections as easily as it once could.  So science is giving me an excuse!

My exam is in two weeks – Tuesday, November 7.  I’m throwing myself into the book, the audio samples and my notes.

I’m talking really simple Dutch to people like Arjen. He’s learning Spanish. I asked him how difficult that is for him. Scale of 1 to 10 (1 = easy, 10 = very hard). His response? 8! So I’m not alone in my struggles.

I am on the Dutch road … de Nederlandse weg.

***

Je deviens international

Ik word internationaal

I am becoming international