Tag Archives: Change

“What Happened?”

It was a long time ago.  Many images had blasted my eyes over the years but then there was this one.  I don’t remember if it was girl/woman or boy/man.  A poster hung on a wall somewhere – a glowing child next to a dull adult.  There were two words at the bottom: “What Happened?”

A few years back I blogged about this.  My small mind says not to repeat it in 2023.  But why do small when you can do huge?  I’m a different person now, living in a different country, having new experiences.  So here goes …

Drink in two female human beings.  Forget that one is a photo and one a sculpture, that one is recent and one ancient.  Just look at the eyes … and the mouths.

What you see may not be what I see. (And isn’t that what makes the world go ’round?) Anyway, for me there is joy and resignation, presence and absence, immersion and putting a toe in the water.

I don’t have an answer to “Why?” I’m sure we can all come up with educated guesses but the contrast between these two invites something far deeper than the reasonable mind.

Let’s look at two more citizens of our planet:

One face is level with the world. The other gazes a little down, perhaps the weight of life pressing hard.

One is so open, welcoming whomever comes by. The other is shielded and in pain.

As human beings, they both face “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” but the responses are widely apart.

And a final pair for you:

In April last year I visited the Norman Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts, USA. He was a marvelous painter who caught the essence of people. As I ambled from room to room, only a few paintings grabbed me. This girl certainly did. How come breakfast can be such joy for some of us?

The woman is accompanied by her child but there is no connection. Mom is elsewhere. The young one deserves more.

…

And so …

I am happy

I am sad

Movie! (Sigh)

I’m sitting in an actual movie theatre, ready to watch an actual movie.  It’s been a long time.

I’m nestled close to … my first bag of movie popcorn since probably the 1800’s.  I feel so normal!  I’m in a really big room with this rectangle of white looming ahead. And – wonder of wonders – I’m hunkered down in a black leather reclining chair.  I feel so special!

My thoughts wander to Marvel’s “Black Widow” film.  I’m pretty sure in another place and time, I would stand beside Scarlett Johansson as we superheroes dispatch the bad guys with derring do.

My fantasy life is running wild as I wait for the really big screen to light up with action.  Let’s see.  What kind of costume would I create for myself?  It would have to be red, with touches of purple, and skin tight. That way I could show off my developing u-shaped body.  Oh, and I’d definitely need a cape … a long flowing brilliantly red jobbie that would catch the wind just so.

Oh!  The screen is now alive.  Here come assorted previews and features.  Immersion, I’m ready for you!  See you after the movie.

***

Stupid film!  Shooting and exploding.  I hereby relinquish any previous superhero ambitions.

I had trouble following the action, especially since blurred car chases greeted me from the second row.  I could figure out who’s good and who’s bad, but the intricacies of the story blew by me.  Vials of a mind control drug.  A family of Russian spies secreted away in Ohio.  Scarlet swinging on a rope from a helicopter.  Daring rescues.  A mystery woman in a metal suit.

Boring

I’ve changed … into what?  Give me a good story that shows the perfections and imperfections of us all.  I’m sitting here in reaction to all this action.  And my stomach hurts from too much buttered popcorn and chocolate covered peanuts!  Time for bed.

Fading Into The Past

So here we are, thirty minutes from Game Seven in the hockey playoff between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens … and I don’t care.  How can this be?

I grew up in Toronto.  I convinced my parents to let me listen to the first period of Leafs’ games while having my obligatory Saturday night bath.  Back then only the second and third periods were televised.  I attended four Stanley Cup parades (celebrating the league champions) and watched the players raise the Cup on the steps of Toronto’s City Hall.  1962, 1963, 1964 and 1967.  I was there.

A few years ago, I was excited by the dynamic play of a 19-year-old Leafs player – Mitch Marner – and dreamt of a fifth parade.  I followed the rises and falls of the Leafs’ season.  Once more, they didn’t win a playoff series.  The last was in 2004.  Tonight may change things.

And I don’t care.  Why has hockey faded from my life?  Is it the reality of Covid, where hockey games are played in mammoth arenas with no fans?  Is it because my sporting passion has travelled to tennis?  I don’t know.

Right now, “O Canada” is being sung by Martina Ortiz-Luis.  She has a lovely voice.  For the first time in a year, there are fans in Scotiabank Arena.  Alas, just 600 of them.

Now the game has started.  The blue-and-white are rushing up the ice, pressing the red-and-white.  I’m trying to decide if the crowd noise is real or recorded.  Can a few hundred people make that much noise?

I’m watching.  The skating up and down the ice is pretty continuous – very few referee whistles to stop the play.  But no thrill is rising in me.  The players skate really fast … but I’m not enthralled.  Now here’s William Nylander dancing through the offensive zone, evading opponent after opponent.  That’s nice.

How strange this is.  Where did my love of the Leafs go?  Is it a bad thing?  Would I be a disappointment to all true Canadians?  Should I “gird my lions” and start cheering?

No.  On this potentially historic night in Toronto hockey history, I’m switching the TV to tennis.  Without a touch of embarrassment or deficiency.  I hope to see Roger Federer being his classic self.  I hope you understand.

Tapestry

All is calm … All is bright

 

It’s all here, all the infinite variety of human life …

 

I can dance in the flame and I can rest at twilight

I can tumble words from my mouth and I can let my lips abide in their touch

I can party with all of you and I can joyfully keep my own company

I can knock on your door and I can invite you into my home

I can laugh and I can cry

I can sing and I can be sung to

I can figure it out and I can let it go

I can jump forward and I can fall back

I can breathe in life’s sorrows and I can breathe out blessings

I can soar and I can plummet

I can live and then I can die

Where Did It Go?

The subject is tanning.  I’ve had a lot of history about the topic.  A lot of angstful energy has accompanied my emerging life.

I knew the truth early: girls like guys with a tan, and I didn’t have one.  In high school, a last minute invite to a friend’s cottage called for desperate measures.  My friend had a gorgeous older sister (age 17) and my body was white.  That just wouldn’t do.  My teenaged mind knew how to fix things though, a day or two before the big weekend: buy a tube of some permatan goop and apply it liberally to all the places that should be brown.  I woke up the morning after application to find that my fine motor skills weren’t optimal.  My chest had gross orange streaks, as did my back.  And my toes?  Perfect ridges of artificial darkness framed by lily white skin.  (Sigh)  It was a forgettable weekend chock full of self-esteem spasms.

The need was still strong as I became a newbie adult.  The backyard, hemmed in by lots of bushes and trees, would provide me the solitude necessary for unselfconscious tanning.  But there was that one neighbourly window staring down in likely disapproval.  During all my darking sessions, I never saw any face looking at me but I bet there were lots of them behind the glass – laughing and immediately posting photos on Instagram.  (Wait a minute … there wasn’t any Instagram.  Whew.)

I remember being called “Whitefoot” for years.  The tan line went down from my shorts to the top of my socks.  Forearms also looked good.  But the rest of me?  Yuck.  And when inattention led to sunburn, I had the distinction of being tri-coloured.  More “woe is me” doldrums.

In prep for Caribbean vacations, I’ve hung around in standing tanning booths.  With lengthy periods of commitment, I emerged looking … good.  Naturally brown.  No doubt a man’s man.  A likely recipient of womanly attention, but on the beach it didn’t seem like any lovely lasses even noticed.  (Sigh again)

At the beginning of this summer, I stretched a robin’s egg blue sheet over a foam pad and toasted my bod on the back patio.  “It’s only June.  Imagine what I’ll look like in August!”

***

Well, it’s August, and a miracle has happened:

I’m still white
I don’t care
I’ve just lost interest … for the first time in my life

I didn’t grit my teeth.  I didn’t spew out endless and tanless affirmations.  I didn’t do anything.  But the need for brown is gone.  How incomprehensible.

The divine force within you is mightier than any mountain

Lailah Gifty Akita

How Does Change Happen?

It was a few days ago.  I was out and about, in Belmont and in the country on my almost daily walk.  It was cold.

As I turned west on Borden Ave. heading out towards the fields, a headwind blasted my skin.  Toque on, hood tied tight.  The left right, left right of the moment turned into a slog.  And then the snows descended … or better said, they were pretty much horizontal.  As Borden Ave. magically morphed into Glanworth Drive, my black coat was also transforming – into white.  Pebbles of snow/ice massaged my forehead.

About two kilometres later, I turned north on Old Victoria Road, a gravel surface.  There were clicks on the side of my hood but my skin was spared the fury of it all.  It’s not far at all to the pavement of Manning Drive, and a couple of hundred metres before the intersection, the sun came out.  The slopey edge of the asphalt shone brightly.  Very cool.

As I turned right onto the smoothness, the shiny blackness of the road was a wonder.  As far as I could see, the glow ran towards Belmont.  The sun was bright and so was the road … everything seemed so alive, so animated.

I basically blew along, with the wind urging me forward.  Something caught my eye on the edge of the road, where the gravel greets the pavement.  Little spots of light grey had emerged, maybe three inches in diameter.  They were dull when seen next to the shine.

Later similar circles began to grace the crown of the road, every twenty metres or so.  Occasionally there’d be a wee dip in the asphalt, and lightness showed there too.

I was approaching the boundary between where I’d been (officially the City of London) and where I was going (the Municipality of Central Elgin).  At the sign, the road switched from pristine smoothness to a mottled tar-and-chip surface, with little stones embedded.  Not really rough but no longer a skating rink.  Suddenly the wetness was dark brown/dark grey.

Over my time on Manning Drive, the spots of light grey slowly expanded.  On a little rise ahead, I couldn’t tell if there was more wetness than dryness.  There seemed to be big patches of both.  When I got closer, I saw that my distance vision was tricking me … the light grey was still in a severe minority.

As the village water tower grew, so did the dullness.  Swaths of dry began sweeping across the road.  The shine was retreating in the sunlight, ever so slowly.  Standing in one spot, I couldn’t see the transition but it was obvious as I walked on.

And then the welcoming sign: “The Village of Belmont, 1961”.  Just a few dips in the asphalt left to embrace the wet.  As I approached the intersection with Main Street, the path beneath me was totally dry.

I stopped.  I smiled.  It was such a privilege to be in the middle of change.  The sun had worked its magic.

1087 … 7801?

This is the 1087th post I’ve written on WordPress. A journey indeed. It all started on June 20, 2014:

I retired yesterday and decided to declare 4:00 pm as the end point of my teaching career. My wife Jody and I have a lovely home on a deep lot. At the back of our lot are maybe 20 metres of trees, and then it’s on to a farmer’s field and beyond that a wide expanse of trees leading down into a ravine.

Taking my trusty red fabric chair in hand, not to mention a Bacardi Breezer, I trundled off to a spot at the edge of the field and plunked myself down. It was 3:00 o’clock. The sky was blue. The wind whistled through the trees. The shade was cool. One hour away from being a retired human being.

That was many chapters ago in the patchwork quilt of a life. “Sitting and Watching” grew out of the person I was becoming since 1949. Reflecting on retirement wasn’t just a moment beside a field in Union, Ontario. The words spilled out under the influence of Toronto, Vancouver, Lethbridge and London; under the influence of accounting, teaching, social work, life insurance and real estate; and under the influence of confidence, depression, courage and wimpiness.

Five years after that first post, I’m still on the road towards the unknown. Who will I be in ten years? What current parts of Bruce will I have left behind? What outrageous newness will flood my being?

The journey hasn’t been a gentle uphill climb. There have been soarings and plummetings, twistings and turnings. More to come.

In 2030, I may not recognize the soul in the mirror. I may be living in New York City. I may be impossibly handsome. But whatever the world gives me, I bet I’ll be smiling.

Switch

I was driving through Belmont today on the way home from school.  The bus ahead had just spat out a gaggle of kids.  Five of them jumped onto a white lawn and started throwing snowballs at each other.  I laughed.  It’s just what kids are meant to do, even though it’s not allowed at school.

And then I flashed back.  To about 1960.

An 11-year-old kid had just been released from school.  The wet white stuff was falling.  He walked along Bedford Park Avenue in Toronto with two words on his mind: “good packing”.  For those of you in southern climes, that means the snow sticks together well.  The boy started winging snowballs at his friends and other kids.  He was splatted a few times in return.  “By accident”, one of the missiles happened to hit a car crawling by.  Unfortunately that car was driven by a teacher at Bedford Park Public School, and he recognized … me.

The next morning I was in the principal’s office, quivering about what I knew would be next.  Ah yes, corporal punishment.  The strap.  A long piece of leather with the power to decimate an open palm.  And it did.

Today, in my rental car Bullet, I reflected on how I’d changed from little to big, from young to old.  Now I was the one with power and status.  I have the responsibility to maintain my home and pay my taxes.  I don’t play “guns” in the back alley anymore.

Am I still that young fellow on Bedford Park Avenue?  Do I still feel the thrills of being alive?  Yes, I do.  They’re different thrills, for sure, but I still glow hot and jump up and down.  May we all continue to throw ourselves into life.  May we continue to have fun.

Permanent?

Tim Hortons is an outrageously successful chain of coffee shops in Canada.  The country’s caffeine needs are covered coast to coast with approximately 5000 outlets.  I can vaguely remember when there were no Tims but that was in the ancient era of teenage life.  If a town has four shops, it’s a good guess that a fifth is coming soon.

I was driving down Highbury Avenue in London this afternoon, approaching Hamilton Road.  As I slowed for a red light, I glanced to my left to see … a derelict Tims.  The familiar reddish brown brick was still there, and the high oval sign out front, but the “Tim Hortons” on the vinyl above the brick was a shadow of its former self, and the ovals were merely full of air.  Beige curtains fell down the many windows.  And weeds were taking over the parking lot.

I gaped for as long as the light was red.  This did not compute.  A Canadian icon had died a ghastly death, and my stomach churned.  Somehow our national identity felt wounded and a fear bubbled up that it could all come to an end.  “Because of a coffee shop?  Get a grip, Bruce!  Drive ten blocks and you’ll find a thriving Tims.”

As Scarlet slowly left the scene of the crime, I reflected on permanence, and how I dearly love to hold on.  The inner voice says I need safety, predictability and stationary happiness.  Hmm.  Not too likely.

1.  Bruce remembers names.  Bruce remembers everyone’s name.  Except now I don’t.  People I talked to three weeks ago are often a mystery when they reappear in my life.

2.  Bruce is a master of words.  He has such a wide vocabulary, don’t you know?  Except I now struggle mightily with the names of … containers.  I’ll look at an object sitting there on a shelf or on the floor and no descriptive label will enter my brain.  (Okay, now I’ve looked it up on Google!)  Is it a bowl, a basket, a can, a bottle, a tub, a bucket, a jar, a pail, a vat?  I don’t know!  In polite conversation, I retreat to “container”, unbeknownst to my companion of the moment.

3.   Bruce drives so well, including at night.  Ha!  Not a chance anymore after dark.  That’s when I have to concentrate so hard.  And during the day, the time is long gone when I can pass someone in moderate traffic.  I have trouble judging distance and speed.

4.  Bruce loves playing famous golf courses on the computer, creating works of art called batik, and running 10k races.  Okay, but those were much earlier versions of this man.  How did those passions float away?

All this brings me to the present moment.  What I love right now seems so solid: my work in the Evolutionary Collective; my travels to Belgium and Senegal, New York and San Francisco; my red-walled home in Belmont, Ontario; my Wednesday evenings at the Acoustic Spotlight folk music club.  Could it be that they too may crumble away into the past?

And then the ultimate:  Bruce Kerr was a boy and now is a man.  That too goes poof!  A world without me.  Maybe no me at all, anywhere.

As Bob Dylan sang …

As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’

The Play’s the Thing

How many times in life have I told myself something and then proceeded to do the opposite? Many! I’m so right about something and then in the next day’s breath my vision shifts. There’s a bending here, a flowing rather than a solidity. And I like that.

To supply you with an example, I received an e-mail from the Port Stanley Festival Theatre a month ago, one which waxed poetic about their summer season. “No thanks” was my response. “I have three airplane trips planned and when I’m home I want to kick back rather than stretch out for more.” Now that sounds logical and wise, right? I sure thought so.

Then was then and now is now. I’ve been sitting in the Marienbad Restaurant in downtown London, enjoying a non-alcoholic Heineken beer and yummy portobello penne pasta. Mid-yum, I glanced at my phone … and there was another Port Theatre e-mail. “Last chance!” Without a shred of thought, I started in on picking a package of six plays and what nights would work. Strangely, I was confident that concert dates between plane trips would magically appear, and they did (except for Ed’s Garage, which is on in early August).

I was on a mission and didn’t have a clue what was happening. “They’re all comedies. I hate comedies!” Here’s one about the Donnellys in Lucan, Ontario, and their murdering ways. Or a father and son smilefest. And how about a story of the pastel beauty and ridiculous situations in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia?

Here I am, the proud owner of a ticket for each of six plays, taking me to late August. If one of you wants to go to Ed’s Garage, comment after this post and I’ll send you the ticket.

Oh Bruce, I hardly know ye!