the merry merry season

a highlight of my day today was a sponteneous conversation with an elderly man in a wheelchair on dupont street ~

do you need any help?

we struck up a conversation and, quickly, he told me how he managed, how it all happened, how he was doing. we both left feeling quite uplifted.

the feeling i had was familiar...

this is what a place like santropol roulant offers people at doorways, on sidewalks, around the table, on the phone...

EVERY DAY.

i've been thinking about connection and belonging during this celebration and holiday season, as i've been feeling the absence of that specialness of santropol roulant ~ being able to just drop in somewhere and immediately be part of a community. i realize that working everyday at santropol roulant offered me, and hundreds of others, an opportunity to connect with random people, daily.

to be in spontanerous and often surprising conversations,
regularly
to be in constant contact with people so different than oneself,
language, age, country or city of origin, life stage/phase;
to offer the best of oneself, in service
to share
help

contribute
extend
stretch out of your comfort zone
to be intimate
to go deep
hello, Mrs. Z., how are you?
to be acknowledged, greeted, appreciated,
known

and to know it matters

creating a divine society

"i'm here because of you," and a shiver runs up my back.

our Starlight Wonderkids group stepped out into the white snowy Sunday to volunteer at a seniors residence in Montreal. just like that. go and do it. it was part of an Art of Living course, DSN, a sanskrit term meaning creating a divine society. i felt a bit sceptical, having been on the other side of all this, at Santropol Roulant and everyday working with volunteers and seniors, co-ordinating people, their expectations, feelings, schedules...

the first place we call says no absolutely not, we don't know you, we need to screen our volunteers. so i call le manoir l'age d'or, a place i've passed many many times doing our meals-on-wheels route in the McGill ghetto. they say, yes, how wonderful, you missed the christmas party, but come anyway. we show up, there are 10 of us. they are overwhelmed thinking it would just be me, doing a friendly visit. we decide we will go in groups of two to each floor. i am assigned to the 6th floor to find a nurse named daniel. off we go for one hour.

so much happened in that one hour.

E. , so tall, skeletal, smiling. didn't know who was in the picture by her bed. was it her?

Mme B. in her striped tiger velour pyjamas, smoking a long cigarette and watching bowling. her room is comfy and pink. she has a cross on the wall, photos of her with beautiful red hair and sculpted eyebrows. never married, never a mother; instead took in her nieces and nephews in a small 3 1/2 apartment in montreal. if only more young people were like you, so nice. i say, oh they are out there, i've seen them doing exactly this for the last five years.

the woman who hears that she has visitors, and, overwhelmed and grateful, cries.

the tables downstairs reserved by, and set especially for, families visiting their relative for Christmas dinner, and the 3 that stayed empty with a parent waiting, alone. they paid for the meal, the table was set and they didn't show. is that possible? my heart hurts. such lonliness.

then i see the nurse. male, smiling, familiar. are you daniel? we look at each other, we know each other.

he says, "I volunteered at Santropol Roulant."

oh yes, i TOTALLY remember. he was so great, sincere, present. he had left to go back to school. "I've been here for two years." i can tell they love him here, "I'm going back to do my masters in nursing. "

and now i am here, in his place, volunteering, knowing perhaps, just a little bit, how he must have felt. full & whole.

it comes full circle.

last call, montreal

i'm sitting in my empty room, on my last night in montreal. i have no furniture and no drapes; it leaves an echo, and a clear view from where i sit to the apartment across the street. red and gold lights make the outline of a large star and christmas tree which shine brightly from their apartment, all the way across the street to light up my room.

it is freezing cold tonight, and a full moon. the city was bustling, even though. mike and i headed down to le divan orange for our last dinner as room-mates (food made with love by catherine, the newly departed chef from santropol roulant). we watched manouche play a live show. smoky, and oh so montreal. the scene was colourful and joyful inside, a sharp contrast to the plumetting temperature outside.

i absolutely love my room like this ~ empty, open, clear. i love this view, and the simplicity. tomorrow i will have only my knapsack ~ full of christmas presents for family, winter clothes for toronto, and summer and travel gear for mexico and india. the rest of my belongings are now stacked in a storage unit, and i KNOW that when i return that i will not need or want most of what i packed.

the absolute BEST part of packing was finding the perfect gift for each of my friends among the many things i've collected and loved over the years ~ and so we had a going away party last night, where i got to give the going away presents to everyone! the gift really is in the giving! and it is so thrilling to know that all those things are going to be loved and used and given a new home. they will be given a completely new life, and so will this room when mike infuses this space with his character and things and habits.

i actually already feel like i'm travelling ~
with only one bag for tomorrow,
sitting here on an empty bed that will stay;
it is only i who go.

montreal sends me its signature farewell;
a massive snowfall tomorrow,
an apt parting gift
from this wintry city!

sitting in the Possibles

So I’m going on a trip and I DON’T YET HAVE A TICKET, A DESTINATION, OR A DATE OF DEPARTURE!

The Trip, in fact, has already begun. So much has happened in these last few weeks since my retirement. Re-connections with friends and family, new ideas emerging, cleansing my room and my stuff, closure for certain ways of being and doing things such as working, living, being in a relationship, relating to others…

I'm sitting in this time of change, rather than trying to fight it or determine things. I'm letting things come to me, trying to feel them rather than think them. So what it means, I just realized, is my Trip has already started! This is it! Right here and right now! I just don't have a ticket yet for the part of it which is about flying elsewhere. And I have to say, I'm really liking this part~ this re-connecting and finding a new rhythm. It's just not what I had expected.

Doing research into Vipassana meditation, India, Ayurveda, Bhutan… has allowed me to connect with new people in person and via email and see the possibilities that are out there, the possible scenarios, relationships, futures. And now I am simply sitting in those Possibles. Getting comfortable in this uncertainty, in this process that is a transition from one part of my life to another. I’m no longer feeling the push to “get out of here and get on my trip”.

I’m on it already.