Ever since I moved in, the apartment above me has been empty. Last night there were many feet heading upstairs, carrying heavy things.

Footsteps on my ceiling, conversation until midnight on the terrace above mine. Life has changed.

And yet I woke up this morning with a thought on my lips: “Nothing has to go away.” May the pitty-pat from the floor above and the flow of people talking continue.

If there’s loud music at 3:00 am, my mantra may change to “Hardly anything has to go away.” But the essential truth remains.

The “hardly” part fits if I was in intense pain 24/7 but in general my health issues need not disappear: bursitis, fatigue, high blood pressure, aging (!) I’ll continue to do what’s needed about these problems but I’m okay if they continue to say hello.

I love someone. They don’t love me in the way that I love them. It hurts. And I give permission for that hurt to linger.

I’m the Zoom host on some internet calls. I often make mistakes. I do all I know to avoid them but if they return I’ll invite them in for coffee.

I feel all sorts of “bad” things: fear, anger, sadness. They’re welcome to stay in the same room with me. I’ll give them my best chair. Would I prefer that they don’t come calling? Yes. But I’ll smile at them a wee bit when they do.

I’m having a lot of long phone calls these days, dealing with financial issues. I get very tired and often confused. Part of life, I’d say … talking to companies, being put on hold, hearing the rep spurt out words that I don’t understand. All of that can stay too.

And now my quiet voice has more to say:

Please come here …

All of life welcomed

All held

All honoured

For years I’ve told my Canadian friends that Lydia, Lore and Baziel live in Nukerke, Belgium. Actually they’re on a farm surrounded by other farms … and the village of Nukerke remains a mystery.

Until today. I have a doctor’s appointment – with Lydia’s doctor.

I’m sitting in the train station of the city of Oudenaarde, waiting for the bus to Nukerke. What will I discover there, beyond the renewal of my medications? Stay tuned.

***

Now I’m sitting in the cement stands of KSV Maarkedal, the local football (soccer) team. I hear three sounds – cars on the freeway across the field, tweeting birds in the trees, and sheep grazing somewhere out of sight.

There’s a clubhouse with lots of tables primed for viewing the Nukerke heroes rushing down the pitch. Also lots of beer kegs. Everything is empty in the morning sun. I’m the only human in sight. And I am being warmed.

I just found the sheep! Or rather they found me.

Nukerke is so small. My feet have already taken me out of town to the fields beyond. I love vistas.

I round a corner and suddenly … more visitors! I wonder if humans are as curious about me as these folks.

As roads become streets, I’m once again surrounded by people, even if they’re mostly behind their windows.

But some of them step out onto their front lawn to greet me. Hi guys! They’re pretty quiet but I think they’re smiling.

One more visit: to Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-Hemelvaartkerk – the Catholic church in Nukerke. It’s a home for the living and the dead. The beating heart of the village.

And now for my prescriptions …

Gordon Lightfoot has died. He and I go way back, although he didn’t know me.

Gord was a Canadian singer-songwriter who wrote about the land and its people. Perhaps his most iconic song was Canadian Railroad Trilogy, which told the story of building the railroad that spanned the country.

My favourite of Gord’s creations is Song for a Winter’s Night. It’s a love song that I’ve learned to sing. He showed us such exquisite images:

The fire is dying now
My lamp is growing dim
The shades of night are lifting
The morning light steals across my window pane
Where webs of snow are drifting

In the 1960s I was a teenager who loved folk music. Many Friday nights I took the subway downtown to Toronto’s Yorkville district. I walked down the stairs into a coffee house to listen to singers pouring out their souls. Only two hundred metres away, Gord was starting his career in another cozy room – The Riverboat. I couldn’t afford the famous place so the future legend and I didn’t cross paths.

Sometime in the 1970s I took the ferry to Toronto Island to experience three days of the Mariposa Folk Festival in the summer sun. The headliners didn’t include anyone well known in popular culture. But there were surprise visitors who wanted to stay incognito as they enjoyed singer-songwriters who had influenced them. The undercover ones were Bob Dylan and Neil Young.

Another unexpected guest had no need to be hidden. He wandered far from any stage, plunked himself down on a picnic table and began singing his songs. About twenty very lucky people sat on the grass and listened to the brilliance of a young man named Gord. I was not among them.

About five years ago, four Gordon Lightfoot tribute evenings were scheduled at Hugh’s Room in Toronto. Word got around that Gord himself would show up for two of those concerts. “Don’t come Saturday night, because Lightfoot likes watching the Toronto Maple Leafs play hockey on TV.”

I showed up. So did Gord, surrounded by his admirers. I squeezed in, met his eyes and said “Thank you for your music.” He smiled. It was just a few seconds … and then the next person had his attention.

Gordon Lightfoot and I have met many times across the years, including today

Thank you, Gord

Will we reach to the sky together?

Will I hoist you up as you hoist me?

Will we live in the stars so far away?

Will the future show us its pretties?

…

We touch in the morning, we smile goodnight

Surely our path lies through the mist

We know that a hand beckons us on

We two entwined in the climbing

…

We need not be troubled as the journey unfurls

Let’s give thanks for the stumbling, the scraping of knees

For the slowing and sighing that come to our souls

Are the breath of another’s care

…

We are held

It’s Labor Day in Belgium, a holiday of the socialist labor movement.  So … it’s time for a parade!  Most of the shops are closed and the people are open.

It took awhile but I eventually intercepted the route.  I couldn’t figure out why the street I chose wasn’t full of parade goers.  Simple … I was on the wrong street.

You can see the flagbearers at the front.  They’re having a great time.  Next, here comes a marching band.  Listen to the drums, the brass, the woodwinds.  Makes the feet want to lift off.

So many banners were held across the street, followed by families, dogs and work colleagues.  Sometimes it felt like I was in the parade.  I felt unified with these folks, even without their language and history.

Humans living on the parade route opened their windows and waved at the marchers.  Above or below, we walked together.

I’m sitting on the terrace of De Postiljon, a café (pub) on the Vrijdagmarkt, a public square in Ghent centrum.  There is so much red in folks’ clothing.  One fellow wears a red braided rope around his neck.  This is the Gentse Strop.

The name “Gentse Strop” refers to the nickname of the people of Ghent: noose carriers.  This nickname comes from the humiliation of the people of Ghent by Emperor Charles V, who had them go through the city with a noose because they revolted against a tax imposed by him.

Today the Gentse Strop is a symbol of resistance, of standing up for your rights.

Speeches are resonating across the Vrijdagmarkt

I don’t understand the words

I understand the spirit

The band starts playing some anthem.  The people in the picture are singing!

Here are the two glass doors entering my neighbour Dirk’s apartment. The right one is open, the left closed. I often bug him that who really lives here is Princess Di. He always smiles.

Tomorrow is the three-month anniversary of Dirk’s arrival on the Oudburg. It’s clear what’s to be done: throw a party! In an hour, ten of us will gather downstairs. Dirk has a bevy of surprises planned. He wants his guests to smile and laugh, to sip their favourite beverages, to fill their bellies with frites! We shall oblige.

Hours from now, I will continue. Let the celebration begin …

***

Wow! First of all, I’m thankful that Dirk included me. And so did the other eight folks. I wasn’t a Canadian oddity. I was simply another human being who wanted to celebrate the arrival of his friend.

Almost all of the evening was in Flemish. I know none of the words when they’re spoken fast. And therefore it’s all music … with mysterious melodies. I’m used to this at two other dining room tables – with my friend Lydia in Maarkedal and with my friend Anne in Toronto, where the language is Ukrainian.

We sat around snacking on strawberries, chocolate mousse and other assorted yum yums. Someone would try on the role of storyteller. I watched the other faces. They were following along, with occasional bursts of joy on their faces. I didn’t need to know the story to feel its impact.

At one point, Dirk was getting his frites fryer ready. Slabs of fat started heating. And then an instant of raucous Dutch laughing all around. Near as I can tell, Dirk was heating the fat without having taken the paper off.

Then there was excited pointing to an open closet, and a shelf way up high that included a big vertical wheel. What, oh what, was that about?!

Next another fellow started his story, complete with wild hand gestures. He soon had me, even though I had no clue about the plot. Suddenly he blurted out …

Over my dead body!

Then he was back at it in Flemish. A fine time was being had by all, including me.

A cluster of tiny white lights hung on the wall, with a little black tube at the end. Dirk grabs the tube and starts speaking into it. Gales of giggling. Sounded like he was ordering room service, but this English speaker was essentially clueless.

And so it went

The music rolled on

And at the end we all hugged goodnight

Jetje is a cozy antique shop on the Kraanlei in Ghent.  What I love is its window.

Whose hands caressed these objects in years gone by? 

Was there a little girl, dreaming of being a ballerina?  Did flowers bloom season after season in the floral pot?  Perhaps a single red rose in the tall glass vase, presented to the daughter of the house by her suitor.

Did the best Belgian chocolates fill the bowl tinted with rose?  And who is the young woman looking at, her with the sweeping hat and soft eyes?

Was avocat shared between long-term marriage companions in the tiny glasses?  Were there decades of card games won and lost?

And the gloves … Did she leave them on as he kissed her fingers?

All those people are likely gone but their spirit remains … in your responses to a window viewing.

Do you see what I see?

Actually … I hope not

You have your own universe

Do I know what this graph and these numbers mean?  A little bit … not much.  No doubt, though, there are many people who would dive deep into analysis of this photo.  “What does it mean?”

Maybe it’s the monthly sales of a corporation.  Or the health of someone’s heart.  Whatever it is, someone finds it important.  It might be that the analyst’s self-esteem rises and falls with the graph.

It’s easy for me to sit back and laugh at such needless worry.  I’m this spiritually open guy who doesn’t bother with such friviolities.

Maybe …

I write my posts on WordPress and then transfer them to Facebook.  WordPress keeps tabs on how many people view my writing each day.  Yesterday 39 human beings checked out my words.  I smiled at bedtime.  “I’m reaching people!”

However it’s now today.  At 3:12 pm, the number is “0”.  And attachment has reared its hideous head.  “4” would be disappointing mid-afternoon, but nobody?!

The truth is that I’m free to create no meaning from a number.  There’s “What is”.  Why add a problem to the way things are so far today?  That would be dumb, Bruce.

No views says nothing about the value of the post I wrote this morning.  And nothing about me as a person.  I certainly want my thoughts to touch people but life ebbs and flows in so many ways.  The number of folks showing up for a Bruce post on WordPress is another one.

Oh!  Here comes a smile

“Silly goose”

Here are the people of Ghent, going to and fro.  Bicycles, toddlers, holding hands, shopping, lining up, walking in centrum … all of it.

It’s so easy to live in our heads, not noticing anything ordinary or extraordinary. On my better days, I see. I look at lives from the outside and glimpse the inside. I see folks bigger than their bodies … flowing out into the air.

Thomas Merton had many better days. He was a Catholic monk and mystic who died in 1968. One day he was walking downtown in Louisville, Kentucky (USA). He looked around at everyone passing by. And …

I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, and that they were mine and I theirs, and we could not be alien to one another. It was like waking from a dream of separateness. It was monastic holiness. The sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such relief and joy that I laughed out loud. I saw the secret beauty of everyone that was passing, and the only problem was that I wanted to fall down and worship each one as they went by. No more need for war, cruelty or greed when we could see each other in this way. This is really the miracle – that each person who passed me is walking around shining like the sun.

Here is the man. Would you notice him on the street? Probably not. But oh … the spirit that resides here. The “secret beauty” that is visible to the open heart.

We ordinary folks also have eyes that can widen, that can include the next person in an embrace.

Perhaps we don’t spend much time looking

Even less seeing

So … glance around. Who’s here?

That would be Dirk.  He’s a director of plays, a philosopher, a giver of gifts, someone who lives life large.

We talked this morning over coffee.  We flowed over the words, casting our nets over a few and then releasing them into the sea.  Part of me wants to let Dirk’s thoughts slide away and part of me wants to hold on … at least long enough to share them with you.

Just two things to pass on:

What if each of us made one other person happy – just one?  It would be a beautiful world

You mean I don’t have to brighten the day of everyone I meet? I don’t have to push to contribute?  I can just relax … because surely in my lifetime one person has smiled in my presence.  One person has been touched by my love.

I don’t have to change the world.  I don’t have to constrict my energy, to focus it in a beam and aim it at folks.  If I don’t aim it, maybe it will flow outward in a giant circle … free in the sky.

And what if I’ve already met Dirk’s one person?  Well … I can spend the rest of my life bouncing along, skipping, dancing.  No have-tos of contribution.

***

And now number two (Dirk’s mom to her son):

You are in the world to make it beautiful

Perhaps I’m here to show people the wind.  Or to blend pastel colours at their edges so lines disappear.  Or to lift human beings a few centimetres off the ground.  Or to create huge ovals within which folks can come together. Or to open eyes so wide. Or to weave the threads from each of us into a quilt for all of us.

Or …