Tag Archives: Life

Look At Me

Call now and get Miracle Hair for $29.95 … the amazing new hair loss breakthrough that will give you the appearance of a full head of hair in just 60 seconds.

I wonder if I should call now.  I wasn’t planning on it, since my afternoon has been rolling along just fine, thank you.  I look in the mirror and I see … Bruce!  Somewhat untidy nose hairs, a blemish on my left cheek, baggy stuff under the eyes.  But definitely Bruce.

I look a little like David Letterman (George Clooney in my parallel fantasy life) but I certainly don’t want to be a celebrity.  Can you imagine being hounded by all those panzarotti?  Not being able to stroll downtown, chatting with passersby and seeing what’s in all those windows?  No thanks.

I suppose it would be good to be younger, with a six-pack on display, but my three- pack will do nicely.  As for the V-shaped body, what the heck’s wrong with a nice U?  Works for me.  And I can do that Incredible Hulk pose and grimace as well as anyone.  I just don’t take up the amount of space that the original did.

Until I started shaving my head in honour of my lovely wife Jodiette, I had beautiful golden brown curls … sort of.  Actually, I often told people that I had gray highlights put in at the hairstylist.  I’m sure most folks believed me.

As a young human, I had acne that left me with very few true friends and a yearbook photo that was speckled to say the least.  Clearasil treatments made me look even worse.  Somehow adulthood allowed me to grow past that.

I’ve been trying to reach the mythical Jesus height of six feet ever since I was 4’2″, but it’s never worked out for me.  I’m currently 5’10” and heading south, I believe.

For years I tried wearing contacts to invoke a Hollywood persona, but I just couldn’t see anything.  So it was back to a nose-weighing-down apparatus.  I look okay in glasses.

I don’t have the standard pot belly of a 65-year-old, and that makes me happy.  Guess I could work on one to help me fit in better.

I have a gorgeous tan but unfortunately it only extends to my head, forearms and knee caps.  When I was a timid teen, I used to glob on the autotan lotion, but that created a new definition of “streaker”.  The girls politely looked the other way.

Oh my goodness … what if all this stuff doesn’t matter?  Yes, I want to be healthy, but what’s the big deal about the package?  I do believe that I’m just fine, inside and out.  If someone else doesn’t think so … oh well.  On we go.

Not Knowing

I woke up at 7:00 this morning to the intermittent sound of “Beep, beep, beep” that I know only too well.  The smoke alarm near our kitchen.  The battery no doubt needed to be changed … and I’d been down that road before.

But today was uniquely today.  This sleepy human got up on a chair and unscrewed the alarm from its holder on the ceiling.  Piece of cake.  Then into the kitchen with its bright pot lights to open her up.  I had a new 9 volt battery ready to go.  Looks pretty simple – I’ll just twist the assembly to reveal the inner workings.  So I twisted.  And twisted harder.  Nothing.  “You’re not strong enough, Bruce.”  Well, that was a ridiculous thought.  Of course I’m stronger than an itsy bitsy smoke alarm.  So I grunted, and the alarm grunted back but wouldn’t open.  Okay, okay.  It’s got to be a “lift up” deal.  I found what looked to be an inviting thumb hole on the edge and pulled gently.  Open sesame.  Nope.  So I regrunted.  And the only response was a tiny smile spreading over the face of the alarm.  Yuck.

While all of this was happening, the beeps kept coming.  I tried pressing the “Silence Alarm” button.  All that did was initiate a constant brain-numbing squeal that threatened my sanity.  Despite the blare in my ears, I decided to read all visible instructions on the device.  Not a syllable about how to open the darned thing!  I twisted and pulled some more to no avail, and finally just held the beast up in one hand and stared it down.  “Stare away, buddy.  Won’t do you any good.”

A friend of ours is staying with Jody and me and he had gotten up to assess the state of the racket.  Neal took one look at my ceiling-dwelling friend, put his thumb in the thumb hole … and pulled.  You know the rest.  Open.  Battery inserted.  Replaced in its holder.  No more noise.

 Sigh

Life humbles me again and again.  This morning I developed a bad case of collapsed ego.  My mind assaulted me with a wide variety of “stupid you” invectives.  And then somehow it stopped.  And the tiny smile this time was on my lips.  There’s something strangely spacious about not being good at something.  I couldn’t recognize that in the moment, but “later” is a fine place for an opening of another kind.  Works for me.

 

The Eight Vicissitudes

Pleasure and Pain
Gain and Loss
Praise and Blame
Fame and Disrepute

“Vicissitude” is a pretty fancy word, and I used to think of it as somethng bad – a trial, a testing of the soul.  The Buddha had another idea, however, basically that the word represents all the changes in our life.  Positive changes and negative changes … or are those two terms even valid?

I grew up wanting just half of the pie – pleasure, gain, praise and fame.  I thought if I worked hard enough, was nice enough to people, and just plain had luck on my side, life would always roll along tickety boo.  Except it never seemed that simple.  Bad stuff intruded on my daily round.  And it was bad that it did.

The Buddha said that all eight of these experiences are a part of life.  Or as the old song says:

Used to think that love would be so simple
Just happy ever after one another
Sometimes it’s hot to trot
And sometimes it’s the old cold shoulder
Oh, you can’t have one without the other, brother
No, you can’t have one without the other

Was that Frank Sinatra?  Can’t remember.

Here’s my take on the eight:

Pleasure   Lying on the beach with Jody near Playa del Carmen, Mexico.  The water was turquoise; we were drinking beer in plastic glasses under the thatched roof of a tiny hut; I was reading an exciting novel; we were in love.

Pain   Having the stitches taken out a few weeks after tendon transfer surgery on my right ankle.  They should have been removed days earlier.  The skin had started to grow over them.  Agony, screams, 9/10 on the pain scale.

Gain   Just last week, handing the teller a cheque for $4500 from my school board, a bonus paid to teachers who retired this year.

Loss   Waking up one morning decades ago, umemployed, realizing that I was out of shampoo and didn’t have any money to buy more.

Praise   Standing up at the annual meeting of the Order of the Eastern Star sometime in the 1980s, walking to the microphone, and speaking to approximately 800 people about the need for the Star to attract younger members.  Received a standing ovation.

Blame   Several years later, attending a disciplinary hearing at work, and being the target of intense criticism while one official recorded every word I said.

Fame   Winning a nationwide contest for “Written Expressions” in celebration of Canada’s 125th birthday in 1992.

Disrepute   Being accused (wrongly) by a teenaged girl of abusing her sexually.  I was declared innocent, a victim of an emotionally disturbed young person.

How have I become the human being I am today?  Part of the goodness that I believe I bring to the world was forged in the heat of physical pain, poverty, poor job performance and accusation.  I know that’s true.

Do I wish those experiences for anyone else?  No
Am I open to having similar events befall me in the future?  Yes

Fat Blue Legs

It was nearly eleven years ago that I had tendon transfer surgery on my right ankle.  I ruptured that tendon in a school hallway, colliding with a kid.  I spent seventeen weeks on crutches and felt profound sadness, especially when looking down a stairwell and knowing that for the forseeable future I was an elevator guy.  So much pain, so many drugs, so immobile.  I just felt old and decrepit and depressed.

Once the cast was off and the air boot was on, I got a chance to look at my lower leg.  Parts of it were black for awhile and then morphed into a rust colour.  But what struck me the most was the swelling, pretty much up to the knee.  Jody and I laughed about my “fatty foot”, but the smile didn’t move up to my eyes.  That long thing on the end of my body just couldn’t be me.  “That’s not the Bruce I know.  I refuse to accept this.”  And the thing was, it never went away.  For many years, I woke up to a fairly normal looking leg, but by noon it would be all puffed up.  My refusal to let it be caused great emotional distress.

In the spring of 2012, I woke up one morning to find that I couldn’t stand on my left leg without huge pain.  A few hours later, tests showed that I had a blood clot which went from my groin to my calf.  Untreated, I could have died.  Happily I got the blood thinner medication I needed, and I’ll be taking it for the rest of my life.

My right leg was still swelling up after the 2003 surgery and now my left one was just as bloated.  Part of the treatment was to wear compression stockings which stretched almost to my knee.  I picked the blue ones.  I now had two huge legs cleverly disguised by the nerdiest socks I’d ever worn.  And so sank my self-esteem some more.  I just couldn’t get that these physical changes didn’t touch the essence of me.

In August, 2012, Jody and I jetted west to Alberta to visit her brother Lance and his family.  There was no way I was going to wear those compression stockings, so I left them at home.  People would stare at me.  I’d look about a hundred years old!  So I went hiking in the Rockies with bare skin down below.  One day, we were descending a gradual sidehill trail towards a lake.  I got partway down and stopped.  The pain was too much.  I stood there like a stricken statue, agonizing over my apparent disability and remembering my years of travelling off-trail in the mountains.  Jody had to come back up and help me.  Oh, my.  How can this be happening?  Such overwhelming woe.  There were no more trails for this guy that summer.

Back in Ontario, there I was: swollen legs and feet hidden inside nylon and Spandex, only to expand to their abnormal size once I took the stockings off in the evening.  I  went to the beach in my blues, and if ever there’s a double meaning, that was it.  I watched people watch me.  I swirled within a collapsing self.  Heck, I was just plain sorry for myself.

How, I ask you, could I let my well-being be reduced to folds of flesh and tight lengths of fabric?  So stupid (or perhaps so human).  I hypnotized myself into letting it happen.

There’s a strange ending to this story.  From late 2012 until October, 2013, the feet and the legs continued as before.  Then Jody was diagnosed with lung cancer, a collapsed lung (twice), and blood clots in her chest.  And … my fatty feet disappeared, not overnight but within a few weeks.  I haven’t worn the compression stockings for months.

Do I understand how life works?  Do I comprehend the mystery?  Not really.

 

Just a T-Shirt

Jody and I were sitting in a breezy beach restaurant in St. Lucia in 1995, sipping our tropical creations.  Such fun.  The bikinis were scenic and colours were everywhere.  I glanced over at a black woman on the far side of the room.  She was wearing a classy black dress, and was sitting alone.  She was also looking at me.

We had just got off the sand after a major tanning and reading session, and were garbed in t-shirts and shorts, me with a “London Road Race” logo on display.  Whatever that cream drink I ordered was, it was yummy. And everything just seemed so … slow.  Perfect.  Sometimes Jody and I talked but much of the time we were silent.

I looked up again to see the elegant woman walking towards our table.  She smiled and said, “Excuse me.  Are you folks from London, Ontario, Canada?”

“Why, yes we are.”

“Did you graduate from UWO [our local university]?”

“No, but Jody did.”

“So did I.  You must come to dinner.”

We talked for a few minutes, with smiles all around.  The woman’s daughter would pick us up at our hotel at 5:00.  Fine with us.  I had a twinge of fear, but it floated away into the brilliant blue sky.

Five o’clock it was, and we were being whisked along the byways in a fancy Mitsubishi sedan.  Very talkative and friendly, the young lady.  Mom and daughter’s home was laden with art and soft leather.  Dinner was exceptional and our hostess offered us a fine red wine, vinted many years before.  The best though, was the talk.  Old friends reminiscing about London landmarks, party times and the rigours of study.  Turns out that our hostess was from a wealthy family and came to Canada to get an education.  We also learned that she was currently a member of the St. Lucia Senate.  Certainly a powerful woman but far more importantly a nice person.

Over dessert, there was a knock at the door, and in walked a tall, elegant black gentleman, dressed in a white suit.  (I sure wish I could remember these people’s names, but they’re not coming to me.  Oh well.)  He was a most gracious fellow, gentle and soft of conversation, and he clearly was good friends with the senator. Eventually, he got up to leave, and actually bowed to us as he bid us adieu.  “So I’ll be seeing you later.”  And he was gone.

What did that mean?  “It means that he’s invited us to his place for drinks,” smiled our new friend.  An hour later, we were back in that Misubishi, wafting our way to an unknown residence.  Miss Senator told us on the way that the man was the only importer of cars in St. Lucia, and as a result was extremely wealthy.  Okay.

Along the nighttime roads we rolled, finally making a turn onto a steeply uphill dirt track.  And up we went, seemingly on a spiral around a high hill, till we reached the top … manicured lawns, tropical trees and the white glow of a home that seemed to have no exterior walls.  After we had stopped, the woman told us not to get out of the car.  Soon there were three really big dogs right up against the doors.  Mr. Mitsubishi, still in white like his house, was strolling towards us.  With a snap of his fingers, the dogs were gone.  More smiles.

There were indeed no exterior walls, and filmy curtains floated within the sweetest breeze.  I remember a huge living room, vibrant with the white and the tropical colours.  This can’t be real, my brain poked at me.  Except it was.  More soft couches, more fascinating talk and mellow drinks.  Just little old me and little old Jody from Canada being welcomed to the Caribbean.

I kept looking at the grand piano in the centre of the room.  Our male friend noticed, and asked “Would you like to play?”

“Yes, I would.”

So the curtains stirred, the candles glowed and I got to tickle the ivories.  Simple stuff, but it made everyone happy.

That evening was nearly twenty years ago, but it remains vivid for me.  We never saw those fine people again.  And that’s okay.  A gift they had given.

Serendipity

 

May I Suggest

In August, 2010, Jody and I drove to Nova Scotia to drink in the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival.  Some of my favourite singer-songwriters were performing: David Francey, James Keelaghan and the Barra MacNeils.  Five days of glorious folk music, with the evening concerts, in a huge white tent, running from 7:00 till midnight.

There were lots of workshops during the day at various venues in town.  We sat down one afternoon in the Lunenburg Opera House to hear groups who harmonized beautifully.

And along came Red Molly, three women based in New York City.  They favoured us (so true) with blissful vocals and a haunting message entitled “May I Suggest”.  Another one of those wide open mouth moments.  The song has stayed with me ever since, and it will continue to do so.

YouTube can help you experience the joy.  A search will yield several performances.  I recommend you listen to “Red Molly In Concert – May I Suggest”, the one indicating “by betsyfollystudios”.  Susan Werner wrote the song.  Would I ever like to sit down for a coffee with her.

See what you think:

May I Suggest

May I suggest
May I suggest to you
May I suggest this is the best part of your life
May I suggest
This time is blessed for you
This time is blessed and shining almost blinding bright
Just turn your head
And you’ll begin to see
The thousand reasons that were just beyond your sight
The reasons why
Why I suggest to you
Why I suggest this is the best part of your life

How about if this very moment is blessed for me, no matter what’s happening or how I’m feeling?  How about if I can access timelessness and untold beauty right now, with no effort?  How about if light of a very subtle kind surrounds me (and you) always?  If all this is just beyond my sight, maybe I just need to turn my head a bit.  Maybe just look up a bit.  I know it’s there.

There is a world
That’s been addressed to you
Addressed to you, intended only for your eyes
A secret world
Like a treasure chest to you
Of private scenes and brilliant dreams that mesmerise
A lover’s trusting smile
A tiny baby’s hands
The million stars that fill the turning sky at night
Oh I suggest
Oh I suggest to you
Oh I suggest this is the best part of your life

I am loved.  So are you.  Something unnameable, I’ll call it Spirit with a capital S, is waiting, ready to open a door that I didn’t know was there.  And when I see what’s inside the room revealed, I’m sure that those smiles and hands and stars will stop me in my tracks.  And close my mouth.  Simply awe.

There is a hope
That’s been expressed in you
The hope of seven generations, maybe more
And this is the faith
That they invest in you
It’s that you’ll do one better than was done before
Inside you know
Inside you understand
Inside you know what’s yours to finally set right
And I suggest
And I suggest to you
And I suggest this is the best part of your life

I think of my grandpa, of sitting at his knee on the cement porch of his farmhouse,  listening to the stories pour out.  Grandpa gave me his heart and soul, though he would never have expressed it that way.  And now to pass it on.  Better?  I don’t know.  How could I possibly add to grandpa waving his hand around at the peak of the tale, looking me right in the eye as he scared me, or moved me, or made me smile?

This is a song
Comes from the west to you
Comes from the west, comes from the slowly setting sun
With a request
With a request of you
To see how very short the endless days will run
And when they’re gone
And when the dark descends
Oh we’d give anything for one more hour of light

There are a few Internet passwords I like.  One is “lasttime”.  Because I never know if tonight will be the final time I’ll say “Good night, Jodiette.  Sweet dreams”, or tomorrow smiling at a stranger, or sitting at the edge of the field watching turkey vultures soar.  Please may I have many more hours of light.  There is much to give.

And I suggest this is the best part of your life

July 14, 2014 at 7:53 pm will do just fine.

 

It Makes Me Happy

To lie in bed with Jody, holding hands

To go see the cashier, instead of paying at the pump

To watch the hummer at the very top of our blue spruce, surveying their kingdom

To drink big gulps from my shining green Herbal Magic water bottle

To sit curled up in my man chair, reading a cool Buddhist book

To inject Jody with Fragmin without hurting her

To wander down a wooded path in London’s Gibbons Park

To smile at a person who’s sad

To touch my bald head and feel the brain parts inside

To put on my cycling jersey with the snarling clown on it

To whee down the big hill on Fruit Ridge Line astride my bike Ta-pocketa

To sit in front of the Buddha statue on the patio, with a candle lighting his face

To make people laugh

To watch one person enjoying the company of another

To wrap my hands around a mug of hot Dulce de Leche

To watch Bill Murray in The Razor’s Edge for the umpteenth time (It’s not a comedy)

To drive at the speed limit on a two-lane highway, watching the world float by

To sing Annie’s Song to Jody, adding a special Irish Blessing verse

To read Mr. Mercedes, Stephen King’s latest, out loud to my lovely wife

To eat pesto pasta with friends

To sit in a sidewalk cafe on an incredibly steep street in San Francisco, just looking

To rub the tummy of our neighbour’s cat Pretty, listening to her purr

To lie in bed at night, cozy under the blanket, listening to the rain pelt down

To breathe life into Snoopy in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown

To write

 

 

 

Extra

Improving myself

Hurrying

Creeping forward at a red light

Groaning

Thinking about standing up Jean Deeth when we were 18

Preferring one life experience to another

Labelling someone

Worrying about what people think of me

Pushing someone or something away

Calculating what my next move should be

Harming any living being

Comparing me to you

Trying

Weighing myself every second day

Rehearsing what I want to say

Slamming myself for being terrified during a case conference about a child

Planning my day, my retirement, my life

Being jealous of other men for their good looks

Analyzing why I did something

Saying “I’m sorry” for doing something that really doesn’t hurt the other person

Craving chocolate, popularity, anything that will make me “better”

Hovering around someone

Reading tabloid articles

Explaining why I feel this way

Continuing to go down a tunnel with no cheese

Laughing at someone

Having to be right

Disagreeing

Having an opinion

Escaping from anything

Making sure that the toilet paper falls down the front of the roll, not behind it

Protecting myself

Checking whether I turned off the lights

Hating

Pretending to be someone I’m not

Trying to impress someone

Ruining someone else’s fun

Interrupting someone

Gossiping

Skipping steps to get the job done faster

Memorizing anything

Pleasing people

Complaining about politicians

Resisting

Preaching to anyone about anything

Changing what someone else thinks

Rescuing people when they can handle it themselves

Separating beings who love each other

Moaning about “poor me”

Diminishing the well-being of others

Wasting the moments

Making sure that my blog posts are “long enough”, whatever that means

 

Flat and Distant

For those of you who read my post yesterday, I got six hours sleep last night – just what I had hoped for after cutting back on sleeping pills on Saturday.  Still, my mind has been cloudy most of the day.  Guess you could say that I’ve been experiencing a different level of consciousness while getting a clear picture of what I’m all about in life.

Lots of errands for Jody in the car.  I’ve been listening to Stephen King’s Insomnia while motoring along.  Great book, but not today.  I’ve loved the elderly hero Ralph Roberts, but this morning I didn’t care about him.  Ouch.  Down somewhere among my functioning brain cells, I knew that I care deeply about other human beings.  But I just couldn’t cope with Ralph.  During my glimmers of alertness, I was shocked.  “Not me!  Not me!”  Except that it was.  And how arid that felt.  How could I possibly stay sane if this was my daily grind?

One of my early stops was at “Canada’s Finest Coffee” in London, to pick up some Keurig K-cups.  I got out of Hugo and was walking to the store when along came a woman.  I virtually always say “Hi” at these moments, and there’s no effort to do so.  It’s just like rolling off a log.  But as she got closer, I had to push myself with all my might to meet her eyes, smile, and say hello.  And push I did.  I just couldn’t look the other way and pass on by.  So … that’s good.  But what must it be like if that’s what you do minute by minute and day by day?  It’s horrifying to think about what that does to a person.

Inside the store, I was talking to an employee named Holly about different coffees that were on the Keurig website.  Another monumental effort.  I mentioned that Jody was sick and we talked some about cancer, which has touched both of us.  But I wasn’t there.  It was just a blur of words coming out of me that hopefully made some sense.  Where, o where, was my commitment to “be with” people?  Some place where I wasn’t.

Then on to Costco (awfully tired of Ralph en route), where I know a lot of the staff members and demonstrators.  I usually love the banter.  But today, I just wanted to stay away from people.  No visit to to the Vision Centre, nor to Customer Service.  I picked a cashier that I didn’t know, and was the basic transaction-oriented customer.  How yucky.

Finally on my journey of dimness, I walked into the Real Canadian SuperStore to buy just one item: silver polish.  As I was about to plunk the little can down on the express conveyor belt, the darkness lifted.  I had me back.  So I placed my Silvo beside the groceries of the fellow in front, and said to him, “Do you mind if I put my silver polish here when you’re not looking?”  He laughed.  The cashier laughed.  I thanked God.

I can’t live like that morning guy.  It hurts too much.

Drugs

I’ve used pills to get to sleep, and to stay asleep, for many years.  I may see myself as a nice little Buddhist guy, so majorly peaceful, but the truth is that I haven’t known how to handle the stresses of teaching.  I taught visually impaired kids until my recent retirement, usually going to about twenty schools a year on a regular basis.  Some days were golden, and some were not.

I worried so much that I didn’t know enough about eye conditions, and how to assess a particular child.  I struggled with a “To Do”list that never seemed to fall below 100 items.  I did my best to deal with the wide variety of personalities that came my way in the school system.  And I didn’t sleep very well.

So it’s been a regime of Trazodone (1) and Lorazepam (2) for many moons.  Even with the meds, there were some Sunday nights when I didn’t sleep at all.  Such overwhelming fear.  For part of the time when Jody was in the hospital in February and March, it took three Lorazepam for me to get five or six hours.

My spiritual life and my drug consumption tossed me back and forth in the wind.  “Should’s” abounded.  Really evolved human beings wouldn’t need all those pills.  But the more I’ve thought about it, the intense focus and the multitasking required in so many careers is just unnatural.  Society says “X” but my heart and body say “Y”.  And “Project Pension” has seemed so essential.  I really think that the insomnia of the last decade is not about any deficiency in me.  I bought into the context of achievement, of comparison with others, of the importance of knowing stuff.

As of June 19, my employment life is over.  So I took a step last night: one Trazodone and just one Lorazepam.  And the result, ladies and gentlemen, was four hours of sleep, plus a daytime dullness that’s worlds away from the mindfulness I treasure.  I wonder if you can see that dullness in these paragraphs.  Maybe I’m good at hiding it or maybe it’s clear as day.

I don’t want to live this way, not being present to the enchanting moments of life.  I guess, though, that I need to pass through days like this on my journey to pilllessness.

What I want is to be a large contribution to the people in my life, to be a beacon of love and presence.  And without the ego of “Look at me”.  So I travel on.

How about six hours tonight?