I watch people. It’s a fine hobby. And many of the folks are old.
They may have a cane, or even a walker. Perhaps they’re stooped over. Unsteady on their feet. Wary of the cobblestone surprises.
They go on slowly. They find benches for rest. They allow far more walking time than Google Maps suggests.
Their skin sags. There are drooping lines beside the mouth. Under the eyes is a riot of folds and blemishes. Some, such as a certain Canadian I know, have a generous fold of skin beneath the chin, available for future cosmetic improvements.
For men, the V-shaped body of youth has graciously morphed into a U. The flat belly is now nicely rounded. For women, the perky breasts of yesteryear now fall gently towards the earth.
***
Of course there was a time when Hollywood beauty may have shone from the face. High cheekbones, unbroken expanses of soft skin, eyes that required no makeup.
Muscles were sleek and strong. Maybe the body was tanned … not too much, not too little. Movements were easy and flowing. Being young spoke clearly.
***
Now the questions are for me …
Do I have eyes to see beyond the decline of age?
Can my eyeslook deeply into theirs, showing me the eternal human being?
Three friends and I walked to Kompass Klub last night. Actually the fellow rode his bike … so slowly and skilfully to match our pace.
“Oh my God! I’m going to a techno club.”
I was warned about the incredible volume of the music but I had earplugs tucked into my coat pocket.
And I thought big EDM festivals like Tomorrowland or Core would be similar to last night. My friends smiled and shook their heads. They educated me about “beats per minute (BPM)”.
“Tomorrowland usually is about 120. Kompass Klub is 150 … sometimes way more. Get ready!”
I was ready. My friend the bartender had arranged for us to be guests = get in free. As so we were ushered through the gate.
Ahead of me were hundreds of tiny lockers. Two euros later my coat and valuables were safely stored away. I was light as a feather and ready to boogie.
Hanging plastic straps greeted us as we entered the dance floor …
Woh! More decibels than humanly possible smashed my ears. Strobe lights blasted. Red laser beams flew around the room.
My mouth dropped. And my hand dove into a pocket for earplugs. Finally inserted, the dampeners still left me with raucous sound.
My friends turned to assess my newbie face. “I love this!”
I looked around and maybe two hundred people were just standing there, jiggling a bit. “Where’s the dancing?” > “It’ll take awhile for them to warm up.”
Five minutes later, I was grooving to the music, my arms increasingly flailing. Let the others stand in place – I want to move!
Before showing up, I had a decision to make. My balance isn’t the greatest and I need really good footwear if I’ll be on my feet for awhile. I wear hiking boots every day. But can I dance in them?
Turns out, most of me sure could dance but my feet got stuck on the floor (those grippy soles!). So … down to my ankles I was free and easy. Well, not totally. I didn’t throw my hands over my head. They were doing their thing sideways. Guess I was worried about really standing out. Silly me.
When I thrust my feet out in random directions, I usually stumbled. Oh well.
I started dancing around midnight and pooped out at 1:30. Partway I took a five-minute break to walk my sweaty self outside – away from the noise, our mutual heat and my throbbing knees.
Gosh it was fun. There’ll definitely be a next time for this dancing fool. Maybe I’ll stay later so the “warming up” folks near me will eventually be in full flight.
I’ll bring running shoes and put my hiking boots in a locker. Then let’s see what my feet can do! If my ankles feel on the verge of collapse I’ll switch to the boots.
(Oh … I just realized that I didn’t think about taking pictures last night. All I could see was the dancing.)
I’m the guy whose left hip sometimes hurts so much that I have trouble climbing the forty steps to my apartment. I also love dancing.
Not the waltz and fox trot. The throw your arms all over the place and hope you don’t hit someone dancing. Techno! Electronic Dance Music (EDM)!
A few days ago I was having a beer in the Afsnis café and started talking to the bartender. I told her I’ve moved from Canada and I love Ghent. Then I said that I’m going to see Bruce Springsteen in Amsterdam in two weeks. From there I’m off to Brussels for the Core Festival.
Her eyes widened … and it wasn’t about Springsteen. Core is a techno event.
Next I mentioned how I’d love to go to the Kompass Klub, an EDM venue only a half-hour walk from home. Here’s a photo:
The bartender smiled. “I used to work there. I can get you a guest pass for Friday night.”
Now it was my turn for wide eyes.
Today is Friday. Tonight around 11 I’ll lighten the door of the club. I suppose I’ll be surrounded by teens and 20s. They’ll have more energy than me but it doesn’t matter. I’ll dance a bit less and rest a bit more. But when I’m dancing! Watch out, world.
I guess there’ll be a lot of drugs. I’m not interested. I guess there’ll be a lot of decibels. I’m buying earplugs today. I guess there’ll be an incredible light show. Yes!
I’m here in a new world
New friends
New joys
Why not go fearless into the night and shake everything I’ve got?
Today I wanted to visit the loveliest cemetery in Ghent. Dirk suggested Westerbegraafplats. And here I am.
It’s only the song birds, the mourning doves and me. And all the souls who have been laid to rest. In front of me are rows of low monuments and off in the distance huge chestnut trees with their white blossoms.
The trees are immense here. For some it would take three of us with arms outstretched to fill the circumference. And the quiet hangs above.
I came for the people who have gone on. In Canada I loved reading the personal messages carved into stone but in Belgium those messages are in Flemish. A language of my future.
What I did see were photos of the dearly departed – hundreds of them. I wanted to know these people. Almost all of the pictures felt like this:
I know that tradition in the long ago was not to smile, but it still makes me sad to see these faces. “Who are you, really?” So expressionless … so (if you will) “half-dead”.
Here are four more faces. The two in the middle make me smile a bit. “Here’s the spark I’m looking for.” I can tell they had a lot of good times, and that their family loved them dearly.
Ready for two more? Here you go:
Can’t you just seeing them reaching over that cross for a sweet hug, one that lingers? I can. I bet they had twelve grandkids, and that grandma and grandpa spoiled them something awful!
Another search in my mind was finding a photo of the couple together, hopefully arms around each other, their eyes shining. And there was success:
Jody and I had been travelling in the United States. We were driving west to Buffalo, an American city on the Canadian border.
Once back “home” I knew the route back to London. I knew that eventually the huge Lake Erie would appear on my left, and then I’d only be two hours from our village of Union.
But then, as I was dehypnotizing myself from the rhythm of the road, I peered ahead. There was a touch of blueness in the distance … on the right.
The touch became a broad expanse. I was shocked. “Huh?! Where the hell am I?” I pulled off onto the shoulder. My brain cells were misfiring. I was close to drooling. I was lost – in the mind and soul.
As you can see from the map, after I crossed the bridge into Canada from Buffalo, I must have missed a turn. I was not heading west. I was heading north! The blueness was Lake Ontario.
Oh my God!
It was yesterday …
I went for a long walk in the rain, exploring unknown parts of Ghent. Here’s a map, something that I refused to use on the journey:
The top-to-bottom body of water on the right is the Handelsdok. I had been walking north along the western shore towards the little bridge near the green balloon.
I looked across the water to see what seemed to be a building under construction. There were bare girders … and on a floor open to the air, way up high, kids were playing football (soccer)! My eyes opened wide.
Actually it was a school – Kinderdagverblijf Melopee. And there was a sports complex in the same building – the Buurtsporthal Melopee.
Very cool.
I roamed some more, past an industrial site, with metal things piled up. I was delightfully lost, and at a dead end. Did I mention I love getting lost? Showing incredible courage for a human being, I left my cell phone in my jeans. No Google Maps!
I found my way back to the school and decided to head east away from the bridge.
On and on I trudged, accompanied by droplets on my face. Warehouse after warehouse. I kept expecting some road to the left would show up, taking me north. But nothing …
“Wow! I’m really far east now. But that’s okay. I have tons of time to wind my way back to the Oudburg.”
Finally, a street showed up on the left and it curved gently more to the left. “This is good. I’m going north and a wee bit west. Piece of cake.”
After taking more steps than any other modern man, I saw something big moving in the distance. It was a tram!
“Huh?! What’s a tram doing way out here?” Was this Lake Ontario all over again?
And then a street sign: “Sint-Salvatorstraat”. “What? That’s just up the street from home!”
I was stopped, stunned, discombobulated. (Sigh)
I hadn’t been going east. I’d been going north. The reason that there weren’t any cross streets on the left was that the water was over there, behind the warehouses.
On the map, the curving street that I eventually found is at the top right, under “Play” in the word “Playground”.
***
Spun around enough for one day, I retreated to Bar Oswald (new to me) for a beer I’d never heard of (Lola).
I sat at a window table and watched the rain continue to fall
It’s raining, not a torrent but steady. Holding an umbrella would be a natural choice. But not the only one.
How about letting the hair get really wet, with drops falling into the eyes? How about tilting the head upwards a bit rather than the protection of down? And no hood.
Why not?
I figure my skin is drip dry and the temperature is 13 degrees Celsius, so hypothermia is out of the question. So let’s get wet.
***
Now consider the words we use. Are we pretty ordered, with a nice sprinkling of nouns, verbs and adjectives, not to mention correct punctuation? Or are we willing to be loose in the vowels … with words bubbling up from the unknown and spilling into the world? Far more poetry than prose, far more airy than solid.
What will people think of me if I just flow in the speaking, if I don’tmake a lot of sense, if I throw in four adjectives in a row … just for fun?
Who cares?
Speaking of which … I’m sitting here with my Ritchie Lemon and Ginger feeling so light, buoyant, porous, not here. (Ahh … that felt good)
***
Today I’m going to roam down a few Ghent streets that are new to me, without Google Maps. Ordinary, extraordinary – doesn’t matter. I’m going to walk into a café that the tourism office has never heard of and drink a beer that I’ve never heard of. Perhaps I’ll even say nonsensical things to the bartender.
In the summer of 2019, my friends Lydia, Jo, Curd and Anja invited me to accompany them to Italy. And I said yes.
Most of the time we stayed in a classic village – Riardo. But one day we drove south to Napoli. Such narrow streets, where neighbours could reach out from their high balconies and almost touch the fingers across the way. And the harbour was a surprise broadening to the blue of the Mediterranean Sea.
But the highlight I experience today, as I cast myself back to the past, is underground.
The Catacombs. I’m gamely resisting the temptation to Google the place – to feed you the details of time and religion and customs. So that won’t be a part of our day.
But the darkness is … along with the history of death. The Catacombs are for cherished souls as their bodies lie down and fall apart over time.
It was more intimate than a graveyard, more of a touching. I don’t know who got to walk in The Catacombs as people and their clothes disintegrated but I bet they felt the mystery of souls departed, some of whom perhaps still lingered in the close air.
The silence flowed with our walking that day. We were accompanied by the repose of long ago men and women, people who felt the same emotions as we “modern folk”.
Some of the resting places were small …
Children
The tragedy of kids dying was deeper below the ground. I remember pausing a long time before the sanctuaries of the little ones. Intense loss.
I managed to forget about The Catacombs in the years between but this morning’s search for Italian photos brought it all back. Clearly The Catacombs have entered me and I them.
That’s been my mantra for decades, analyzing everything I do, how I’m feeling, everything that happens to me. Putting all that on a scale from really good to really bad. Exhausting!
A friend told me a few days ago “Why don’t you stop that … forever?” Why not indeed.
What if I let go of the micro life and open myself to the wide open sky? Actually, I’m already pretty open but there are exceptions.
I asked myself “What is a thing or two that you can say goodbye to? Can you pull yourself out of its groove?”
I came up with two areas of my life where I can do a grand experiment. You’re looking at one of them.
My posts show up on Facebook after they appear on WordPress. That platform keeps track of my views – daily and monthly. Shall we say I’ve been obsessed with such numbers? Intensely silly. I would write a post like this and then consult WordPress here and there for the rest of the day.
As April wound down, I set a goal of 1000 views. I ended up with 1007. I now sit here with a gigantic “So what?”
A waste of time … waste of energy, all in service to a skewed sense of self-esteem.
I hereby stop such foolishness
Another unlovely stat resides on my left wrist. My Polar watch can tell me everything short of the future of mankind. How many steps did I take yesterday? “Good people take at least 10,000.” How many calories did I burn? How much sleep did I get and what was the quality of that sleep? How well did I recharge overnight? What is my average score for this, that and the other thing over the last week?
BORING
Do normal folks spend as much time as me looking at their wrist and the Polar app? Then again, I have no ambition to be “normal”.
There is something here about a living being pressing against something that has no life, giving it its beauty.
I can’t see clearly. I’m reaching into the haze and waving my hand around, touching here and there. Some words are asking to be expressed … but I don’t know what those words are.
I’m waiting. Perhaps the words will come now, perhaps not. If it’s a “No” I guess this will be a very short post.
***
The branches entwine. They have to love each other, to wrap around, to feel each other’s warmth. They are brothers and sisters in their essence as a tree.
The branches climb. They have to seek something above. It’s magnetic. They’re going someplace … together. It’s important that they get there.
The branches adhere to the brick. It’s the only way they can get where they’re going. There has to be a union of life and the lifeless.
The branches lead to the blossoms. A mysterious fragrance beckons, that of the lilac. The scent is intoxicating, shocking even. Such beauty actually exists.
Bruce's Blog 