Tag Archives: Love

John Sings to Jody

Last night, Jody and I sat up on our bed, watching “The Wildlife Concert” on her laptop.  The singer was John Denver.  Such a voice, such a presence.  I looked at his face, and it was just about transparent.  Radiant he was, and the words of the songs covered us both.  After a half hour of holding each other, Jody asked me to put on “the love one’.  And so I did.

John was at the piano, accompanied by four women – two playing the violin, one the viola, and one the cello.  He sang “For You” … through the laptop screen … to Jody.  The strings swelled, the piano fingers drifted along, and all was right with the world.  Jody was crying.  I think John knew.

Here are the lyrics.  I wonder if you can sense the melody through them.  I wonder how deep they’ll drop into you.  I wonder if they’ll draw you even closer to your loved one.  And if right now you don’t have a loved one, may the music open your eyes to another soul.

For You

Just to look in your eyes again, just to lay in your arms
Just to be the first one always there for you
Just to live in your laughter, just to sing in your heart
Just to be every one of your dreams come true
Just to sit by your window, just to touch in the night
Just to offer a prayer each day for you
Just to long for your kisses, just to dream of your sighs
Just to know that I’d give my life for you

For you, all the rest of my life
For you, all the best of my life
For you alone, only for you

Just to wake up each morning, just to have you by my side
Just to know that you’re never really far away
Just a reason for living, just to say “I adore”
Just to know that you’re here in my heart to stay

For you, all the rest of my life
For you, all the best of my life
For you alone, only for you

Just the words of a love song, just the beat of my heart
Just the pledge of my life, my love, for you

Facing Death in 1970

I can only think of three times when death has been at my door, and they all happened during the summer of 1970, when I was working as a bus boy at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta.  What was that all about?  What was I being asked to see?  Here’s one of the days that changed my life:

I loved hiking with friends in the mountains.  Our group had just passed over the Carthew Summit, a low point on Carthew Ridge, and were heading down to the three Carthew Lakes.  Bare scree slopes and below that we could see meadows of tiny white and yellow wildflowers.  What could be more beautiful?   Some of us were fast.  Carol, Paul and I, however, were drinking in the sights.  Off to the left, we saw about ten bighorn sheep,  and the curls on those horns were sure new to us rookie mountaineers.  A bit scary too.  Even more scary when the sheep started ambling towards us.

I panicked.  I didn’t know anything about sheep.  I had us run downhill towards some big rocks.  Between them, the scree slope gave way to a steep snowfield.  We nipped into the cleft between the rock and the snow, breathing hard.  I poked my head out from our sanctuary and saw a bighorn just above.  “They’re coming!”  I grabbed Carol’s hand and pulled her onto the 45 degree snow.  We were wearing running shoes.  I caught a glimpse of the turquoise lake perhaps 100 feet below – the snow dove right into it.

I lost my footing and started sliding on my stomach.  I smashed my runners into the snow and grabbed Carol’s ankles as she fell above me.  “Toes in!  Toes in!”  I didn’t think that but I guess my body did.  We somehow stopped, and I held Carol, as the white pressed against our faces and hands.  And there we stayed, with the numbness slowly taking over.

“My God, I’m going to die,” said my brain.  “I can’t swim and I’m going to die.  Carol too.”  As I let a likely death flood over me, I heard Paul above us say “I’m coming down.”  With rescue on his mind, Paul took a few steps onto the snow … and down he went.  The toes didn’t work for him.  He slid past us, way past us, and plunged into the lake.  Paul had told me at some point that he was a strong swimmer but that didn’t help him much now.  Carol and I heard huge inhales of air, and over my shoulder I watched him struggle in slow motion towards the shore.  His head went under a couple of times.  “O my God, I’m dead,” came from within, as Paul collapsed at the edge of Upper Carthew Lake.

Minutes later, once Paul had dragged himself upright, he said that he was going to run to Middle Carthew Lake to get the others.  Someone with hiking boots would save us.  And off he went.  Carol and I continued our numb embrace of the snow.  How long could I hold her up?  Would she just fall into me and take me into the water with her?

Finally, we saw little dots running up the trail towards us.  Once they reached the edge of the snow slope, they just stared at us for a bit, and then someone uttered some words of encouragement.  The snowfield must have been 100 yards long, and Carol and I were somewhere in the middle, about 40 feet above the water.

Ron, one of the hotel bellmen, said “I’m coming to get you.”  He started gouging steps in the snow with his hiking boots, and worked his way across with infinite care and slowness.  When he reached us, Ron cut steps just downslope from my feet.  I edged into them, and together we lowered Carol into other footholds.  She and I were dazed but standing up at last.  Ron turned back, and led Carol and then me across the face of the snow.  So slow.  As we got within conversation distance of our friends, a supremely loud “Crack!” noise assaulted our ears and the whole 100 yards of snow fell away into the lake with a “Thwump!”  I watched the snow crack away no more than two feet to the left of my left foot, and we later saw that the fallaway was undercut below our precious footholds.  We all ran … into the arms of our friends.

To be almost dead is to be very much alive – in the body and in the heart.  Forty-four years later, I often relive our Carthew adventure.  It wasn’t time for me to be taken.  There was a lot of living and giving to be done.  And there still is.

 

Listen Fall See Act

Since the 1980s, I’ve collected quotations – about 6000 of them so far.  Every single one resonates inside all there is of me.  If the words don’t sing, I pass them by.  I’ve never kept track of who says what.  I just liked what the person had to say.  I suppose if I ever published all these cool thoughts, someone would get mad because I wouldn’t have listed the authors.  Oh well.

Way back when, I came across LFSA, as I’ve abbreviated the term.  I hoped that by making it short, like “this”, I’d let the wonder of it all percolate through my innermost spaces.  But it hasn’t happened.  And that makes me sad.  I’ve too often let the affairs of my world take me away from what’s important.  I’m writing about LFSA today, in hopes that it takes hold, and holds me tenderly for the rest of my days.

It’s a sequence, those four words.  What would happen if I let them flow, one after another?

Listen

Meandering through the events that come my way, it’s possible for me to stop and listen, not to sounds necessarily, but to something big that wraps itself around all the people, all the things, all the moments.  I “hear” that something when I’m quiet.  No picture comes to mind.  But there’s a stirring where my heart is.  The air seems to vibrate.  I have no desire to move, or move away from what’s here.

It’s not a quick thing, this sequence.  When I am present, it takes its time.  To listen is to float on my back in the embrace of the ocean.  I could look up at the sky all day.

Fall

I can feel a mixed metaphor coming.  From the mirrored surface of the sea … I am falling.  Not underwater.  The “no parachute, but then again no ground” kind of falling.  No fear to be found, just the gentlest of breezes coming up to say hi.  I’ve never skydived, but I’ve fallen, even if infrequently.  Nowhere to go.  Nothing to do.  Just watch whatever’s touching me deepen and deepen some more.  Closing my eyes.  Like those trust exercises in the encounter groups of the 60s.  Letting go and knowing that the group will catch you.  They will.

See

And then the inner eyes open without plan or effort.  The whole world is animated -from the Latin “anima”, meaning “breath”.  To breathe life into the moment.  But actually, that seems too active a phrase.  Maybe for the moment to be breathed into.  However I say it, the seeing reveals a beauty and grace that can’t be described.  The mouth opens, the heart quivers, and all that is beheld shines like the sun.  The moments linger together.

Act

Seeing like this, there is only one way to act … with love.  Anything else would be ridiculous.  No options, no doubt, no problem.  Love them all.  Light the world.

***

Thank you.  I needed that.

 

 

The Woman and the Bee

My wife Jody has been sick for many months and only recently have we been getting out into the community.  Today there was an extra special reason to go – our 26th anniversary.  Neither of us had got a card for our loved one, so a trip to Shoppers Drug Mart was in order.  Linda, Jody’s personal support worker, and I assisted her from her wheelchair into Hugo, our Honda CRV.  And then back into the wheelchair a few minutes later for a stroll down the card aisle, not to mention the glory of cosmetics.  Linda put her body between Jody and me to block any chance of me seeing the choice of card.  Then, after a half hour of girl time, we were off – to wonder at hundreds of swallows zooming around Hugo on Dexter Line, right beside Lake Erie.  Finally a stop at Shaw’s, our local ice cream emporium, for the decadence of a chocolate brownie cone.  And then home.

Linda and I assisted Jody into a lounge chair on our patio.  Jody asked for pen and paper.  I was sitting right close, but she asked me to back my chair up for the privacy of inscription.  As I moved the little red chair, I looked down and saw a bee sitting on the stone and squirming some.  Maybe I had knocked it with the chair.

And there we were, pens in hands, minds creating words of love, two silences ten feet apart.  I started … but couldn’t help gazing at the bee.  It was pushing the air madly with its wings, but staying on the ground.  It sort of waddled a few inches, wings still a blur.  Guilt swept over me.  When a person is hurting, you can see the pain on their face.  But I couldn’t see the anguish on that tiny bee.  I tried to feel its hurt, and I couldn’t.  An ant came over to the bee and seemed to bite it.  A flurry of wing, then stillness.  The ant left and the bee stillness remained.

I looked over at Jody and her pen was moving, her face a study in concentration.  Back to the bee – still no movement.  Then to my writing.  Back to Jody.  Back to the bee.  After maybe three minutes, still a tiny motionless speck on the stone.  “Please don’t be dead.”

A glance over to Jody, and she was beckoning me over.  I moved my chair close and opened the envelope.  Precious words of wifely endearment rolled over me.  I kissed Jody and tasted her tears.

Jody: “You are the most wonderful man.”

Bruce: “You have loved me for so long and have always thought of me first.”

Our eyes met and met and met again.  Happy anniversary.

And the bee had flown.

Church of the Grocery Lineup

I have an odd take on the word “church”: to me it’s any place where two or more people make spiritual contact, where they connect at a selfless level.  The Real Canadian SuperStore qualifies.

Yesterday I had just a few items to pick up.  Having accumulated two tubs of cottage cheese, two plastic boxes of blueberries, six red peppers and a brick of mozzarella cheese, I took an infrequent trip down the express lane.  Piece of cake to be on my way in a minute or two.

The woman ahead of me had her twelve or fewer items spread out on the conveyor belt.  But her box of tea bags was scanning with the regular price, not the cool deal she had seen in the coffee and tea aisle.  The cashier called for help on the phone but nobody was available to answer right away.  My cuppa friend glanced at the growing line of folks and gave me a tight little smile.  “It’s okay,” I said with a grin.  “Life happens.”

Part of me wanted to turn back to the customers behind me.  I knew they were there.  I wanted to chat with them but I sensed that I would be drawn into the play of hurry and contraction.  So I didn’t rotate to face them.  The woman on pause in front of me didn’t need that.  She hadn’t done anything wrong.  She just wanted to get the right price.  She tossed a bigger smile my way and I responded in kind.  It was our shared church service.

Several minutes later, after the correct price was located (my friend’s price), and points had been recalculated,  she turned to leave.  The “Thank  you” that flowed from her mouth to my heart went down deep.

My turn.  No price worries with my bundle of goodies.  “I’m sorry for the delay, sir.”  “Not important,” I replied.  Co-smiles.  As I picked up the two bags to leave, I looked at my companions to the rear.  The four humans there all seemed calm.  One was laughing with her neighbour.  Just laughing, not laughing at.

I like being in church.

 

 

I Love You

Spouses and lovers holding hands on the couch, slipping into each other’s eyes.  A little girl and a little boy sitting on the asphalt, her hand over his bleeding knee.  A big slobbery dog smiling up at his master, wagging his tail wildly.  All love.  And at the deepest, I feel, no different from one another.

For me, when I love, there is a quietness in my body.  It’s like all the cells have come to a halt.  And there’s a “shimmering down” vibrating from my head southward, a little ripple of contentment.  They are feelings that often descend when I’m with my wife Jody.  But they can also show up in the classroom, on the highway, in the mall.  Sometimes I shimmer when I see kindness flowing from one human being to another.  Occasionally, I’ve felt love after reading the written word, even messages from people I’ve never met.

I’ve ended some e-mails with “I love you”, and it’s felt totally right.  Me aiming something at you.  When I’m less brave, I write “With love”.  Coming back to me, I usually see “Love” or “xoxo”.  Hardly ever “I love you”.  And that’s fine.  I bet there’s a shimmer behind the word.

I’m scared to say “I love you” in person, but on occasion I’ve girded my loins and uttered the phrase.  Why is it so hard to speak those three little words?  They’re such blessed words.  I wonder if people come my way in life who have never heard them.  I need to say them, and act in a way that expresses the love I feel.

There’s a song by John Prine called “Hello In There”.  Here’s a sample:

So if you’re walkin’ down the street sometime
And you should spot some hollow ancient eyes
Don’t you pass them by and stare
As if you didn’t care
Say “Hello in there. Hello”

Indeed.