“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way…” – Charles Dickens

Last night we went to Vancouver’s Rogers Arena to watch Supertramp. I know. We’re old.

I was heavily immersed in 1976 memories of my eight-track. I do believe I wore Crime of the Century right out, couldn’t even spin that thin black tape back into its case using my HB pencil and finally had to give it up.(Is this time to also mention that this heathen music was contraband in my Mennonite home and was smuggled in and out of the house in my big bag? We’re not even going to talk about what happened to my favourite eight-track of Santana Abraxas).

Before the concert, we’d had a magnificent dinner at L’Abattoir .  The servers were attentive and knowledgeable, the food was to die for, our friends were warm and wonderful dinner companions and the ambiance was hip without making me feel like I was too old to walk in the groovin’ doors. You know those places that are so stuffed with the young and insanely beautiful that you may as well go toss yourself on an iceberg? Not like that.

At the end of the evening, Kevin & I hailed a cab as some fresh hell in my hip has recently rendered me unable to walk too swiftly. (see the aforementioned old versus young above). The cabbie that picked us up had a fedora pitched back on his dark skin. I thought of 70% organic chocolate… He asked us what the concert had been about.

“Supertramp?” He said with a very foreign accent. He hadn’t heard of them. He scrolled through his iPhone while dodging traffic and soon we were hearing Bloody Well Right through the taxi speakers, and then the Logical Song, and he said, “Hey!, I know these tunes.”

But then he said, “Now listen to this…” I figured he would now blast us with something new and happening, something as funky and cool as he was. 

Nope. It’s Gerry Rafferty crooning Right Down the Line. “When I was a young boy, I would spend so much time at my uncle’s house and this is what he played…” He sounded so wistful. “Where did you grow up?” I asked. “Cameroon.” He played us more oldie tunes and we laughed together all the way back to the apartment.

I felt blessed by his shared memory. That tune is playing as I write this and I’m trying to imagine the story of a young black man making his way from Africa to  Canada to Vancouver to the exact moment of driving us home last night and sharing the bittersweet memories of playing his uncle’s favourite song from a far-away homeland.

And in between each of these events? I’ve cried for all that I feel I’m losing. The kind of crying that hits at stupid and inopportune times, like in the middle of a Supertramp concert.

But in between those moments? I have laughed and laughed, and am laughing still, for all that I gain each day.

It’s a crazy mixed-up world. And with any luck it will keep coming at me; the sacred and the profane, the bright and the dark, intensely and with big hits of colour and sound.

I may not be moving too fast today, but I promise to feel everything that comes my way. Because I get it. I get that my life is exactly perfect. Just the way it is. All of it.