Tag Archives: Courage

Karaoke

Last night I went with my friend Karina and her friends to sing karaoke at a London pub.  I was nervous.  Just coming off a long meditation retreat, it would be reasonable to expect that I’d moved beyond such tension.  I’m afraid not.  Meditation hasn’t taught me to eliminate fear and sadness.  Rather it’s shown me that I can hold these feelings more gently.  Instead of my vocal terror being smack dab in front of my eyes, I sometimes was able to move it to arm’s distance.  Instead of taking a sledgehammer to my fear, I had glimpses of cradling it as a mother would her newborn child.

My heart was still in my throat as I waited for my turn at the microphone.  Memories flooded in of another karaoke setting, and of someone precious to me walking out, saying she couldn’t stand listening to me anymore.

What’s true?  I love singing.  I got muted applause.  The person I was hoping would say “Well done” said I was nervous.  I’m still alive this morning.

I sang The Times They Are A-Changin’ by Bob Dylan.  It’s a lovely song.  And an angry song.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’

There I was, mic in hand.  I watched the screen and the first line of the lyrics appeared.  I couldn’t remember the tune.  The blue (?) highlighter started moving over the words but my mouth stayed closed.  Up pops the second line and I start singing.  My brain says, “It’s too low.  You’ll never hit the bottom notes.”  So midstream I went up an octave and found myself at the top of my vocal range.  No way to hold a good tone up there.  Once my voice cracked.  “Do it!” said my brain.  So I dropped back down to the bottom of my vocal range.  I waited for the lowest note, cringing that my voice couldn’t reach it … But I did!  And I couldn’t have gone a note lower.  I thought, “Way da go, Bruce.  It took courage to go down.”

Then I started feeling the words.  “Don’t criticize what you can’t understand.”  There was no time to reflect on the fear that leads us to put down someone whose experience of life is different from ours.  The very human need to protect our version of reality.  But I wordlessly felt our common humanity as I sang.

Did I do well?  Did I do poorly?  In a larger picture, it doesn’t matter.  Did I live in the words and the feelings within them?  Often yes.  Will I keep singing?

Yes

Ida

Last night Renato made me a welcome home dinner.  He’s been well trained as a “saucier” and the sauce which graced my chicken breast was beyond delicious.  And for an appetizer, he presented me with tomato slices and arugula greens adorned with smoked salmon.  Oh my.  And did I mention my two glasses of dry white wine?  Happy was me.

We talked and talked.  Renato told me about his mom Ida (pronounced Ee-da).  She died when he was 12.  She was in the water off an Italian beach with a girlfriend, both of them holding onto an air mattress.  The friend lost her grip and slipped below the surface.  Ida tried to save her.  They both died.

Ida owned a clothing shop and once welcomed a woman and her young son.  Her husband had died and she wanted her son to have a suit for his first communion.  Ida picked out her best suit for the boy and he tried it on.  Smashing!  She gave it to him … no dissent from mom allowed.

Another time, Ida was standing outside her shop, talking to a friend, when she saw a man chasing a young girl with a knife.  She raced towards him and tackled the fellow, most likely saving the girl’s life.

A life so richly lived.  Do you and I need to be similarly heroic in deed, or is it enough to be supremely kind?  Yes, kind.  I know in my heart that I would gladly risk my life to save another, but I don’t go there in my head.  Instead I choose to be kind, to look out for my fellow man and woman, to feel into what they need, and walk that journey with them.

I didn’t used to cry much at all.  Now I cry a lot.  I see people like Ida on my daily round and I’m moved by their humanity.  I want to be like them.  So many folks moisten my eyes.  Some friends start me coughing because I love them so much.

Thank you, Ida, for opening my lungs and my heart and my eyes.  Look what we give each other!

Day Ten … Mr. Spock, Isabelle and Bruce

It was goodbye Lethbridge and hello Calgary yesterday.  I had so much fun talking that I didn’t get a blog post written.  I hope you didn’t think I was caput.  I’m alive and happy.

The main route to Calgary goes through Fort Macleod and Claresholm.  A fellow I was talking to in Wendy’s said that I’d save some time by going through Vulcan instead.  Sure, sounds good to me.  Hmm … Vulcan.  That’s where they have the Star Trek display in honour of Mr. Spock, a pointy-eared Vulcan if ever there was one.  I’m there!

As I approached the ordinary-looking prairie town,  I figured I better ask where the Star Trek stuff was, so I pulled off the highway and walked into a restaurant.  An Oriental hostess greeted me warmly but clearly wasn’t a Trekkie.  She didn’t know anything about the Star Trek display.  Then a huge “Ah hah!” look exploded on her face.  She rushed to the window and pointed across the street.  And there stood the Starship Enterprise.  Perhaps I should scan my horizons more completely.

Off I went, taking photos of all things Trek, starting with a big board that featured the crew of the original Star Trek, plus Captain Janeway.  You could undo the head piece from behind, shove your head through and be Kirk, Worf, Spock and other celestial heroes.  There were plaques on the Enterprise monument, including a message written in Klingon.  Across a parking lot stood the Vulcan Tourist Information Centre, a white building that looked suspiciously like an outpost on the planet Xerox.  Inside a friendly lady said hello.  I was trying to greet her with Spock’s “Live long and prosper” salute, but I couldn’t get my fingers going right.  My guide had me close my eyes.  She held my hand for a bit and asked me to relax.  “Focus on your second and third finger and spread them apart … gently.  (Pause)  Now open your eyes.”  It worked.  My first and second fingers stayed magically glued together, as did my third and fourth.  I’m all set to be an extra in the next Star Trek film.

And then Calgary.  I was visiting Isabelle (70) and her husband Bruce (71).  Isabelle and I met a few weeks ago on the steps of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto.  We were waiting for the doors to open for a session of Sanskrit chanting led by Krishna Das.  He chants the names of God and we in the pews sing each line back to him.  It was very moving.  Isabelle, her daughter Elizabeth and I had a great time talking before and after.  After I mentioned that I was travelling west, Isabelle invited me to visit her in Calgary.  And here I am.

Both husband and wife are remarkable.  Bruce decided at age 65 that he wanted to play the piano.  So he started taking lessons and last night played us a tender rendition of “Pachelbel Canon”.  Such an entrancing melody.  Bruce missed a few notes but, hey, life is a work in progress.  Good for him to commit himself to something brand new.  He’s also a fine storyteller.  He’s had a history of picking up things at garage sales, and reselling the items for a profit.  One day, he showed up in the driveway with his truck and asked his teenaged kids to see what was inside.  Little did they suspect … 180 rakes and hoes and tons of spades.  Those poor children were dumbfounded into silence.  I was as well when Bruce told the story.  He resold the implements the next day.

Isabelle decided recently that it was time for singing lessons.  And so she began, with a very important audience in mind – her grandchildren.  She also worked up a routine for Yuk Yuk’s and presented it.  So gutsy.  Isabelle loves volunteering at a hospice and especially likes “the grumpy ones” because they need the most love.

As you can tell, I’ve met two fine human beings.  And that’s what this trip is for me – being with people.  Because they’re the best.  I love the mountains and the lakes, the forest and the fields, but they pale in comparison with the communion of souls.

There.  I’m sort of caught up, except I haven’t said anything about today.  Tomorrow.

Standing On Guard For Thee

On Wednesday, a terrorist killed a soldier standing guard at the National War Memorial in Ottawa and then walked into Canada’s Houses of Parliament. He engaged in a shooting battle with security guards and was killed while standing only one door away from federal politicians.

Kevin Vickers is the person responsible for order in the House of Commons. He wears ceremonial robes and carries a large golden sceptre into the Commons as proceedings begin.  Many people see his role as a symbol of the past, as an example of unnecessary ritual.  Kevin shot and killed the intruder.

What should a good person do when faced with evil?  What would I have done?  “Thou shalt not kill.”  “Do not harm any living being.”  The calls of Christianity and Buddhism are clear.  And yet …

Kevin is a good man.  As his niece Erin expresses it, “He’s a thoughtful and considerate person.  He’s halfway to a saint in my opinion.  He’s a very capable human being.”  Clearly.  And he had never shot anyone before Wednesday.

I like to think that I would have shot that man as well.  That, in order to save the lives of others, I would have been willing to live the rest of my life knowing that I had killed.  And willing to grapple with the daily emotional pain.

I see sporadically that I’m on the planet not to become a better person, not to accumulate experiences, not to be smart and witty and rich.  I am here to serve and love.

Standing O

Sometime around 1980, I walked to the podium at the annual meeting of the Order of the Eastern Star in Edmonton, Alberta and talked to about 800 delegates about the need to rejuvenate the Star in order to attract younger members.  I received the only standing ovation of my life.

I was so scared on the way up and so shocked on the way back.  I did it.  And it definitely felt that a huge serving of well-being had been added to my life.  Decades later, I’m not so sure.  In 1980 and 2014, I was and am complete.  Perfectly okay.  Acknowledging the value of goals and achievement but not needing them (except when my wayward mind convinces me momentarily that I do).

Here’s another standing o and its accompanying ego rush:

He found that his heart was suddenly full of happiness and simple gratitude.  It was just good to find out you still had a heart, that the ordinary routine of ordinary days hadn’t worn it away.  But it was even better to find it could still speak through your mouth.

The applause started even before he finished his last sentence.  It swelled while he gathered up the few pages of text which Naomi had typed, and which she had spent the afternoon amending.

It rose to a crescendo as he sat down, bemused by the reaction … Then they started to rise to their feet, and he thought he must have spoken too long if they were that anxious to get out, but they went on applauding.

I don’t need multiple representatives of the human race to say “Bruce is good”.  I just need to keep expressing myself, letting the world’s reactions be as they are.

There’s another side to standing ovations, of course – me as an audience member either getting up at the end of a great performance or staying glued to my seat.  If the singer, actor or speaker truly deserves accolades at the end of their presentation, there comes that moment of choice for me.  If I want to stand up, do I wait for other folks to elevate before I do?  Do I glance furtively to the left and right to gauge how I should act?  Or am I the source of my behaviour?  This is what I choose in my better moments, occasionally suffering the embarrassment of rising and clapping before the person is done.  Oh well.  I can live with that.

It’s just such a pure experience to reveal myself to the assembled multitude
“Here I am.  Love me or loathe me.  It’s okay”
Naked visibility