I came to the Sleepstraat over a year ago after realizing “I could live in Ghent!” I was staying with Lydia and Jo near Ronse and started taking the train into Ghent to explore.

The Sleepstraat is the centre of the Turkish community. Lots of pizza places.

I wandered upon a lovely old church – Sint-Salvator:

It had a boat outside! But the door was locked. I could tell that someday I would return.

I glanced across the street and swiftly translated the word “bakkerij” to “bakery”. I was hungry.

A bearded man behind the counter waved hello. Such a smile! Since there wasn’t a lineup, he had time to talk. I said that I planned to move to Ghent from Canada. My new friend’s face said it all: he was thrilled.

I sat down and ate a spinach wrap as new customers were greeted like brothers and sisters. I remember smiling.

And then I left … back to Ronse … back to Canada. In February, 2022 I began the process of getting a visa to live in Belgium. On January 28, 2023 I landed at Brussels Airport – my new visa securely attached to my passport. And I remembered the man behind the counter.

So … this morning I walked on the Oudburg to the Sleepstraat. And on to Sint-Salvator … on to Merkez.

There were lots of customers to serve and there was my friend serving them:

Once while waiting in line I caught his eye but he didn’t seem to recognize me. Oh well, a year is a long time.

I knew what I wanted to do – approach the owner and say “You are one of the reasons I moved to Ghent. You were so friendly to me a year ago.”

After I finished eating, and the customers were few, I went up to the guy with a smile on my face. I started talking. His eyes narrowed. He didn’t understand. Somehow, in the year between, his English had faded away. His two employees didn’t understand me either.

Finally a bilingual man came into the bakery and translated for me. The owner was polite but clearly “a guy from Canada” didn’t compute.

I was sad. This was not the moment I was hoping for. I really wanted him to get the difference he made in my life. So much for the value of expectations.

As I was putting on my backpack to leave, I thanked the generous translator.

Then I heard him say “Wait!” Another gentleman had come in the side door, and the translator was pointing at him and saying something in Flemish.

I looked up to see this:

There are two brothers

This one remembers me well

And I delivered my message of thanks

It’s a little park close by the Leie River.  I go there to be alone.  Today I go there to write.

I don’t even think it has a name.  Let’s check with Miss Google:

Oh!  I’m wrong.  I sit in the Willem de Beerpark.  It’s quiet here.  You’ll be happy to know that I saw a seagull over the river a few minutes ago.  Gulls know cool spots too.

As I left home, I thought of the easily missed street that takes me here.  I thought of the bench upon which I reside.  I didn’t even know of the plaque that my back rests on.  Here it is:

In Memory Of

Such fine words. We need to remember those who have touched us … and then departed. No doubt we smile in the remembering.

I won’t remember what you said

I won’t remember what you did

But I’ll always remember how I felt

When I was with you

Tanka had a short life. She is well remembered. I just know that

Thank you for the little sit, Tanka

I wonder.  Some things are obvious, such as love is better than hate.  Others are subtle.

Adults are taller than kids.  But would we say they’re more important?  I hope not.  A 12-year-old is simply on a different journey than a 40-year-old.  Well … the same journey but at a different stop along the way.

Then there’s the well-dressed socialite heading out to a party.  On the street outside, an old man leans against a fence, holding a paper cup.  Is the woman “larger”?

Someone has a Hollywood face and another’s is pockmarked, with a prominent mole.

There are beings who walk upright on two feet with upper limbs swinging freely.  And those who gallop down the beach on all fours.

Some of us live in the penthouse of the sky-high condo looking down on New York City’s Central Park.  Others look up through basement windows to a sliver of daylight.

Many have skin of white while some fellow inhabitants of planet Earth see brown in the mirror.

And what of the ants who crawl across our path?  Maybe we don’t even notice them underfoot.  Understandable since they’re awfully small.

Do you have a PhD?  Or did you need to leave school at 14 to provide for your family?

Are you light and airy or beaten down by the agonies of life?

***

Better … worse

Larger … smaller

Do we have eyes to see what’s really there?

It’s my living room, with my bedroom to the left, the hallway straight ahead, and way in the distance my bathroom – green walls and orange towels.

And … blue is in my kitchen!

I’m an unusual human being.  I want things bright.  I want contrast – red beside purple is pretty cool!

Sometimes I worry about the beigeing of my life.  When I’m older, will I be too tired to stand out?  Will I allow my soul to be muted, so I’ll fit together nicely with other people of the middle ground?

Will I be neither here nor there?  Neither up nor down?  Perhaps a “Nowhere Man”:

Sitting in his nowhere land

Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

No thanks

What if people in the time ahead don’t like my colours?  Thinking that I should tone it down in my geriatric years? What if I’m perceived as “too much” – now and always?

Well … that may be true for some people but not all of them.  I’m watching for the rainbow folks, within and without.

I know you’re there

It is sweetly ordinary here on the terrace of Le Pain Quotidien.  Four cobbled streets come together at odd angles.  Human beings have just started their daily journeys.

From some window behind and above come the strains of a wind instrument.  Is it a clarinet?  An accordion?  I smile as I realize that I don’t know … and I don’t care.  I am being lulled.

There is the clatter of occasional bicycles on the cobblestones.  I hear the approach, see the colours fly by, and off around the corner.

Here comes grandpa, pushing an infant in a stroller.  The little one is all bundled up against the cold, a wool hat snugged up just above the eyes.

And still the melody flows …

Lots of strolling couples, often sporting down jackets.  Sometimes the woman’s hand tucked into the man’s arm, sometimes hand warming hand, sometimes two parallel lines.

One tiny street, just out of the photo on the left, seems neglected.  No one has followed the curve towards me.  I wonder who lives there.

(I just finished tapping the word “there” … and here come six folks down that street.  Everything is included.)

Church bells begin their chiming at 10:44, covering us with the celebration.  The musician behind me must be taking a break.

Now it’s 10:50 and the wistful sound continues.  It feels like Europe, which it is.

It’s all cloudy here.  Pigeons twist and turn in the sky.  The muesli goes down easy, adorned with strawberry, banana and coconut.  My latté is still a little warm.  My nose runneth over. And the bells continue …

I am home

This is my 1500th post on WordPress.  I started writing them on June 20, 2014, the day after I retired from teaching.  A few years later, I began putting them on Facebook too.

“It’s a huge number!”

“No, it’s just a number”

Both are true.  It’s a lot of writing, almost all of which I can’t remember!  Endless topics that I felt drawn to – moments, people, places, feelings.

How strange that it all seems to have blown away in the breeze.  Nothing has accumulated.  And I want to keep doing it.  Probably I won’t remember these words tomorrow!

Somewhere in the world are folks who nodded in response to a post of mine … or vigorously shook their head “No!”  It’s all good.

I figure my hands are meant to be open, with my fingers unfurled.  Wrapping around and squeezing tight doesn’t sound like a good idea.  We need to breathe deeply.

Perhaps one of my thoughts will land lightly on someone’s palm, stay awhile and then float away.  I hope so.

What does it all mean?  Maybe nothing.  What if I live my life in the very centre of what I’m experiencing, without adding any conclusions?  No “and therefore …”

Sounds like fun to me

It’s such a need … to lie inside the melody and revel in the harmonies. It may be voices. It may be instruments.

When two strings of the cello are perfectly in tune, the vibration of the tones ceases. The air is still and the music is drawn out of the instrument in all its glory. The melody soars …

There are pristine voices, such as Jackie Evancho, and there are raspy ones, like Rod Stewart. What matters is the soul making its way up the throat and out into the air. And the eyes! They say so much.

I want to sing a cappella, without accompaniment. Naked for all to hear. It’s so direct, so laser-like. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a bit out of tune or if I stumble over some of the words. (Really!)

The question: Is there a transmission from singer to listener? Rod transmits.

I want to stand on my balcony overlooking the Oudburg and sing to the people below. So far I haven’t been brave enough to. Can you see me here?

And then there’s Speeltuin Sluizeken, a tiny sliver of park just steps from my apartment on the Oudburg. A particular bench invites me … and my cello. Can you see me here too?

I also need to see me

I mean touch with my heart, rather than my hand

Well, let’s add them up …

1 – A friend created a painting of me last night. I loved it. This morning I thanked her in a text. I believe she was pleased.

2 – Another friend, as well as a neighbour, sent me a photo of France’s lavender fields this morning. I replied, full of my yearning to be there.

3 – At breakfast, I talked with my server about her leaving the job next week. I also listened.

4 – At the grocery store, I thanked the young man who worked so hard to translate a product from Flemish to English. I needed bleach and that’s what I came home with.

5 – An employee of a Canadian company hung in with me on the phone for nearly an hour, helping me navigate the waters of finance. I saw his dedication and told him so.

6 – I invited another friend to go for coffee with me sometime. She sounded happy that I asked.

7 – Yet another friend coordinates the financial support that some young people in Senegal receive from us. I paid for a few months of a man’s tuition today. My friend smiled in her text.

8, 9, 10 – Including this one, I’ve written three blog posts today. Let’s be conservative and say that each one has reached one person.

***

That’s ten people!

I’ll take it

I’m happy

“Artisan was an English vocal harmony trio from Yorkshire, England, who sang a cappella from 1985 to 2005. They consisted of songwriter Brian Bedford, his wife Jacey Bedford, and Hilary Spencer.”

I saw Artisan at the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival in Nova Scotia, Canada in 2012.  Their songs, their harmonies and their spirit are with me still.

Here’s a song that says it for me: I am all of it.  Perhaps you are too

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=pXZdHa7K-jY&feature=share

I am weak and I am strong
I am right and I am wrong
I am the river and the dam
I am woman ... I am man 

I am wicked, I am good
I am spirit, I am blood
I am the years that I must span
I am woman ... I am man

I am love and I am hate
I am chance and I am fate
I am the race, the one who ran
I am woman ... I am man

I am oppressor and oppressed
I am the worst that cursed the best
I am disorder and the plan
I am woman ... I am man

I am wisdom, I am fool
I am tender, I am cruel
I am nation, I am clan
I am woman ... I am man

I am weak and I am strong
I am right and I am wrong
I am the river and the dam
I am woman ... I am man

I am peace and I am war
I am virgin, I am whore
I am the fire, the flame, the fan
I am woman ... I am man

I am master, I am beast
I am famine, fast and feast
I am the dream, the word "I am"
I am woman ... I am man

I am bold, I am free
I am more, I am me
I am ruler, I am slave
I am birth ... I am the grave

I will end as I began
I am woman ... I am man

I miss them.  In Canada, I volunteered for years in a class of 12-year-olds.  Before that, I was a teacher of blind and low vision kids and teens.  I was the visiting teacher, working with one child in a classroom of sighted students.

My favourite word in teaching is “conversation”.  That’s what I loved.  It didn’t matter the topic as long as there was a light in the child’s eyes.

Some of the kids were short.  I was tall.  But our eyes were level.  And often there was a lovely arched bridge between theirs and mine.

Now … no kids. Oh, I see lots of them on the street but they don’t know me. I’m probably seen as a tourist … here today, gone tomorrow. Actually approaching one second and disappearing the next.

Once in awhile there’s eye contact between a kid and me, maybe a little smile from them. May more of that show up down the road.

I have a challenge. How can I move children back into my life? I’ll sit with that for a few days or weeks. Now is not the moment to problem solve.

I can feel it … a richer life is coming my way

(Smile)