I sat with my friend Larisa in Izy Coffee this morning. She’s the one on the left.

Larisa grew up in the Soviet Union. It was a protected existence. Very few strangers showed up in her town. One day – wonder of wonders – a black fellow came towards mom and five-year-old daughter on the street.

Young Larisa was already steeped in magical stories. “Unicorns! I wonder if there really are such things.” And now something equally amazing was getting close.

Larisa’s mouth sprang open. She hid in her mother’s coat … but kept looking. I can imagine her thinking “What is that!?” She stared at the black skin.

The man smiled in return. He must have been a wise one. He understood what was happening and joyed in the girl’s innocence.

***

Flash forward a whole bunch of years … to age 23. Larisa was travelling in China. Language was a problem but connection was not. Lots of folks asked to take her picture. She was mystified. Why?

Larisa’s tour guide provided an answer that pierced to the heart. “Many people here today in Beijing live far away, in the open lands of China. This may be the first time they’ve come to the big city.”

“They’ve never seen a white woman. They think you’re ugly. Your eyes are far too big.”

The young woman hearing these words smiled. She knew she wasn’t ugly. She immediately popped herself into the minds of the rural folks who wanted her photo.

Never before

Completely unknown

What is that?

At one time expressing bewilderment … later receiving it

All natural in the way of things

I sang to the world last night. The concert was at Minard. For those of you familiar with Ghent, this is the image that may come to mind:

I wasn’t looking out at this view. Instead I was in the auditorium’s café … with about fifty of us enjoying the drinks and the music.

I sang Paint The Sky With Stars during the open mic part of the evening. Here I am:

Wait a minute … that’s not me. I’m pretty sure that my hair is shorter and my face older.

I’d sung a capella in front of people twice before but that didn’t create a deep groove of performance. I was nervous yesterday but happily I was excited too. The song is marvelous:

Place a name upon the night
One to set your heart alight
One to make the darkness bright
Paint the sky with stars

I wanted to sing in a key that would allow me to hit deep notes without wobbling. I did that. I wanted to sing with passion, whether in-tune or out-of-tune, whether the words were remembered well or not. I did that.

And … I wanted to “fill the room” – to reach people at the back. Although I’m hesitant to say this, I did that. The bartender way over there kept his eyes on me as I sang.

I feel tall

Throughout the evening, an artist created images of us performers. The creations of her hand were being revealed moment-to-moment, beamed to a large screen for all to see.

On December 11, there’ll be another open mic session at Minard. I’ll be there, with some beloved song. Perhaps Song For A Winter’s Night, perhaps Loving Arms …

I enjoy watching cycling videos – both the races and the travels to far-flung places. Today it was Cairngorms: A Scottish Adventure. Jenny Graham and Mark Beaumont set off to the Highlands.

It’s a bittersweet viewing for me. Riding over rugged terrain is not in my life. Any cycling is now a thing of the past. But look at the beauty here:

I remember the mountains of Canada … being immersed in them on overnight trips, feeling the strength of my legs as I climbed to the passes.

I watch Jenny and Mark bounce over rocks on single track trails. Donning rainsuits as the torrent descends, struggling to light their tiny campstove. And smiling!

I hear the adventure in their voices. I see the light in Jenny’s face:

And that light is mine as well. The mountain peaks of the soul. The wide open spaces of the mind. The beholding of divinity in the folks passing by. No less of an adventure.

May we all soar

You’ve heard about my adventures in getting home from an Antwerp concert but you haven’t heard about the concert itself.

Stjepan Hauser is a Croatian cellist who is shaking up the instrument. I too am a cellist … and I want to play with passion. Hauser teaches me.

He strode onstage, looking impossibly sexy. His shirt was unbuttoned one extra spot, showing a hairy chest. He walked with a swagger. He pointed with his bow to us the audience after most of the pieces.

At one point early on, he said “This next one is a love song. You ladies in the audience will like it … See you later.”

Yuck. Too much male ego for me.

The small orchestra behind Hauser (women and men) seemed to be gushing over the cellist at every turn. I didn’t gush.

So there I was, leaning away from the person and leading towards the music. For the music was grand. I flew with My Heart Will Go On from Titanic. And then Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.

Do I stay grumpy about this macho man or let go into the overflowing experience?

I let go.

And I was taken. Stjepan loved playing the cello. He loved playing the melodies that move us … and feeling the fullness of the violins behind him.

I too loved. Whatever skill level I reach on the cello, I vow to sway with the music, to smash my fingers down on the strings, to let the bow speak.

Later in the performance, Hauser donned a harness that allowed him to play his transparent instrument while standing and walking. Sometimes he bounced while still loving the bow and strings. He toured the lower part of the hall in the middle of a tune, audience members leaning forward to touch him.

And then there was the soaring theme from Pirates of the Caribbean, with a video of Hauser dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow, playing in sync with the man onstage. Woh!

***

Okay … I give up my opinion

I loved the show

I love the cello

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?