All field trips were welcomed. Turning in the signed release form from my mother was always a bit exciting. Seeing the curve of her “I”, still ignites a feeling that something good is just a bus ride away.
That giant yellow box on wheels took us stomping the bog up north. Crawling through Crystal Cave. Orienteering is some forgotten forest. To the zoo. Knute Nelson Home. The baseball stadium. And then one day, without my knowledge or permission, straight to the door of my first love, The Walker Art Museum. I bought two pencils from the gift shop and saved them like pressed corsages from a high school dance.
I suppose you never forget your first love. It changes you. Not only the love you receive, but finding out the love you are able to give. This infinite supply that says you will always have a reason to board that bus. To try new things. To believe in them. To see the beauty all around you. Ever. Still.
That’s what The Walker in Minneapolis did for me. Does for me still. Even a country away. I pulled out my most recent purchase from last year’s visit. I read the back of the shirt. Minneapolis, MN — the World in New Ways. I couldn’t have imagined what that would mean. And I couldn’t love Minneapolis more than I do now.
My mother was always right. Something good is coming.
There was a group of men helping my grandfather. I suppose neighbors. Being the sponge that I was, I listened to them during their break. I could still fit underneath the table, amid the smell of earth from boots and overalls. They drank the coffee and ate the kolaches, and spoke as if they were one of us, even though they said the name wrong. Hvezda. Yes, it began with an H, but we didn’t pronounce it. It was vee-ezda, not he-vezda, I shook my head and told the table leg. Still, they finished the plates and drank the coffee to the grounds. Joyfully. And they would come back, again and again.
I didn’t ask why. The answer, for my grandfather, was always nature. So I walked in it. I hope I still do.
They say that Redwoods are smart enough to share with neighboring trees the water that they collect. Knowing that to hoard it would put them at greater risk in a wildfire.
My grandparents were Redwoods. What am I? What are we?
If you put flowers in front of a mirror, it makes them seem more full. It bouquets them well beyond two single tulips.
When I look at the painting of you and I, my friend, I can see it so clearly. We are that mirror for each other. This friendship that reflects between us, gives us strength. It more than doubles our gait as we walk through this world, beach or storm. Together.
And what a thing, to not bloom alone. I give thanks for it daily, for you, dear tulip, dear friend.
It was mostly on the major holidays, special occasions like weddings or funerals, and then the random calling of summer’s sun on the front lawn of my grandparents’ farm. People wandered in, as if on a Hvezda pilgrimage. Separating from front room to garage. I would tug at my mother’s blouse, raising a tiny fist in the direction of the unknown, (told that it wasn’t polite to point) driven by the desire to find out who these people were. Some turned out to be cousins. Others with labels of “step” or “half.” Some just neighbors lost or hungry.
I learned fairly quickly the real story was not with the others, but the ones I thought I knew. I had seen most in their own environments. In the homes they had made since leaving this farm. But something changed as they gathered. I could see it in my aunts, even my own mother. I had yet to read Thomas Wolfe, so I still imagined you could walk through that swinging screen door unchanged.
But experience changes your laughter, the shape of your tears. Your gait through the gate.
I suppose I was always watching. Not afraid. Just interested. And wondering. How would I maneuver the doors ahead? It seemed to me, we were all on this constant journey home. All. Maybe I was able to watch because of the sturdiness of my grandma. She stood sink side, without judgement. And welcomed. Where I would go was, still is, uncertain, but it was always clear who I wanted to become.
I stand sink side, knowing we all make our way home differently.
In my sketchbook, all the pages are almost absent of color. Not flesh, nor butter, it welcomes every image, and rests it gently, softly, without judgement. But for the flaps. The flaps are a vibrant red. Already set in tone, they present a different challenge. We call this an “underpainting.” The red cannot help but affect each color applied. And it can be tempting, this coming in hot. There is a vibrancy, a bit of excitement. And so it is with heart and mind.
Sometimes, seemingly without my knowledge or permission, I find myself in the flaps. But this! And that! And they! Should haves and could haves and supposed tos hovering in all that redness. And that’s ok, for a moment. I try not to add to the heat of the color by beating myself up. But rather create a space, where all are welcome. All.
We are living in a time of red. Perhaps an inhuman time. We’re not the first, nor the last, but It is our job to remain human. To love, to create, to inspire, to preserve the goodness. To be the pages that welcome, with all the gentle might of heart and mind.
I was just scaling the edge of my teens when my grandfather died. Too big to be carried, too small not to want to be. Of course I had seen them before. The processions after the funeral. But I can’t say I gave them any thought. No emotion anyway. Maybe we can’t, until we’ve sat in the line, the slow line that travels at the speed of grief. Each block a memory. Each intersection another line on his overalls, pinstriping the years, like colonies on the flag. My brain could only rewind the chorus from Amazing Grace. Perhaps because it was the last thing I heard, or the thing I wanted the most.
I’d like to think I thought about empathy. About how this changed everything. I’d like to think I made plans for patience in the future — patience when paused at the green light because grief was passing. Patience to know that we are all part of the procession. It is happening to all of us. I’m not sure I did. I think I do more. I hope I do more.
I try to remind myself. One of his portraits is the first thing I see in the morning. And even out of uniform. Even free from the furrows, he is leaning in. And I think I have to do the same.
Certainty rarely arrives on the first page. I started a new book yesterday. I was wafting in and around the wanting to continue, when the words tapped me on the shoulder once again and said, look, I know you’re struggling, but don’t give up on us yet, there’s a reason you’re here.
The tap came in the form of a Proust quote. As I had mentioned in an earlier post, I have never studied Marcel Proust, but I am currently seven months deep into a daily practice of creating something in the sketchbook bearing his quote, “À la recherche du temps perdu.” (In search of lost time.) For me it began as way, not to get back old time, but to make sure that time wasn’t lost in worry, or woe, and replace it with creation. Joy. And pretty quickly on, he was referenced in a book, and it kept me on the journey.
Maybe the first time was for me, but receiving it again, this nod, makes me think I was meant to pass it on. I wrote this years ago, “I admire the lost who keep looking, and I am amazed by those who keep looking for the lost.” I think when we find our way, or even when we’re just on a pretty good path, we have an obligation to help others. To be like the words were for me, a simple reminder, to tell you, I know you’re struggling, but don’t give up, there’s a reason you’re here.
I suppose it’s mostly folklore and misinformation that has given crows a reputation of being a little creepy, a little other. Some say it feels like they are watching us — and studies have found that this part may be actually true, but not with a malicious nature, rather actual curiosity. Crows are very intelligent. They are able to use tools and reason. This “watching” is because they are learning. (We should never be afraid of others learning.)
True intelligence does not fear it in others, but embraces it. Joins in. Hops on. I know I’m barely more than air, but I’d like to think I am that sparrow.
It was on the first level of Central Junior High — a small time capsule disguised as a classroom, where for three months, we all agreed that it was and would be relevant, this learning of shorthand and other very soon to be obsolete office skills using copier paper, white out and ink pads. Even my mother in the Superintendent’s office down the hall and up the flight of stairs wasn’t using such antiquated materials or skills.
But I see now, it was never really about what we were learning, but that we were learning. And I do use a sort of shorthand, delightfully and daily. It was just yesterday, having a difficult time, I texted her. She, who requires the least amount of explanation. She, without taking the same class, knows my shorthand, and how to reply. She heard my grievance, acknowledged it, took a breath, then asked me what I was wearing. Even knowing what was happening, I went through my ensemble from mother’s blouse to brown suede boots, feeling the delightful squiggles that translated into, you know me, I’m fine, I do look good, thank you, everything is going to be ok.
What a privilege it is to know people. Really know them. And to be known by them. This is what keeps us relevant. Keeps us living. These skills will save us. And just as needed, to have this relationship with yourself. To be able to have the skills that reach from heart to fingers to brain, in a shorthand of self care.
In the afternoon I painted three birds. Gave them each a beret. They knew what I meant. We are all going to be ok.
When I write, I like to think of this as a thermos. Somehow it knows the temperature. Certain things I write to release, let them cool. Others, to keep them close, forever warmed in my heart. And the words seem to know their role. Without explanation, they do the work. I trust my thermos.
Now some may feel the need to explain the science behind it, but I don’t need to know. Don’t really even want to. I don’t want to explain the life right out of the flower on the side of the road. Nor the strokes of the painting. I just want to trust in the feel of them. Keep them unlocked. Open.
My first thermos was something my brother made in shop class. It was a glass jar packed with styrofoam — quite possibly illegal now, but I thought it was something special. I took it off the basement shelf. It made its way to where all barks of trees adorned with faux flowers, potholders and lanyards strung at camp to sway the homesickness, and any other homespun or school project went to rest, too precious to throw immediately they sat in basement purgatory. Of course I painted that thermos. Big bold stripes to match the flowers on my bicycle basket. It fit perfectly. Had he made two, I could have tested them at the same time, but having just the one, I had to take ice water on my ride one day, and Campbell’s Chicken Noodle soup the next.
Perhaps my memory is kept warmer still than the soup ever was, but I can feel it, the heat of noodles slipping down my throat, perhaps only yards from our house on Vandyke Road, balancing my bike between my legs and drinking on the path of Hugo’s field. I had made my own lunch in summer’s sun. My heart is the wicker basket that carries the thermos that knows somehow, to keep it warm. And I am saved.
