We really had no idea the mountains that lay ahead. From the flat playground at Washington Elementary, we were given the gift of believing most things were within reach.
It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were unfolding the dreaded afternoon napping mat. Reluctantly, lying, waiting… toes curled under to ensure a fast get up and get on with it. Knowing well, that all would be revealed — friendship, love, courage, hope — simply with the release of our hearts into the wild.
When they came to visit me in France, it was the first thing I wanted to show them — my playground. We climbed up the Montaiguet to get the best view of the Sainte Victoire mountain. Once again, the explanations weren’t necessary — all intimacies underfoot were not detailed, but certainly known. And shared. Look how far we had come!
It couldn’t be denied — the view from gratitude is pretty spectacular.
Toes curled, I ready myself into the all of it, the hope, the courage and love of the day. I open the door, and get on with it.
I said, “I know.” But I didn’t know. I wonder why I thought that knowing would dull the information given. As if this claiming to almost be in on it, would make it hurt less.
“The house sold,” my mom said. Not “we sold the house,” like we were a part of the decision making. Like we wanted to leave the comfort of Van Dyke Road and move to a small apartment in town. “I know,” I said, after nearly falling from my bike when I saw the real estate sign in the yard. That cold metal sign with the big “sold” sticker placed across, almost like a smile, like it was laughing at us…so I said I know, not because I did, but simply not to give that smiling vacate notice any more power than it already had.
With the last boxes packed, she said, “It’s going to be ok…good…you can decorate your room.” “I know,” I said. (Neither of us did.)
But the defense of this “I know” gradually turned into reality. A certainty of trusting in each other’s heart. It was no longer for the metal sign, but for us. And with each other, there were so many things that we did know, mostly love, some tears shared, but soon laughter, and the joy of really being anywhere together.
I walk by her picture now. Photographs. Paintings. I can hear her say, “I’m still here.” I smile and whisper, “I know.” (And I do.)
Maybe it was on the playground. On the small metal chairs of Sunday School. A television Disney movie. I can’t be sure, but I had the misdirected impression that forgiveness was a wrongdoing taken off the hook of accountability. It never sat well, and rightly so, I suppose. For me, it’s a lesson I keep learning. And it changes in each situation. The common thread is always the same — what am I going to do?
Recently visiting a smaller village, I was excited and surprised to see the L’Occitane store. I needed to reload on my favorite hand lotion. I picked it off the shelf and handed it to the clerk to ensure my decision. Yet, when I opened the bag in the car, the car that took forever to find, in the 100 degree heat, it had been replaced with a different scent. There were several audible sighs and “c’mons”… The oh, how she had wronged me, was larger than necessary. I squeezed a bit on my hands. Of course it’s a great brand. Of course it smelled very nice, just not what I had requested. I don’t know if it was five minutes. I know the air conditioning was calming. I said out loud, “I’ve decided this is my favorite.”
This is not admirable. I was simply saving myself the heartache. Is that forgiveness? This letting go?
I want to be like the oils in my painting. There is a satisfying speed to acrylics — a quick dry — an ending, a solution of sorts. Oils will not do that, but what they do offer is a melding. A change of mind. Of heart. They will work with you through every decision. They allow you to return to the canvas and say, “maybe it should be like this…”
I know the furious speed we are all living in, trying to get to all the answers, trying to right every wrong (of others). But maybe it’s all about the working through, the working with, the changing, the deciding, the letting go — maybe that’s when the beauty comes. My malleable heart awakens and says, “Today could be my favorite.”
What will they write about if it’s only Google? If there are no stairs to climb to get to the public library? Stairs that are just a little too big for five year knees to bend. Stairs that must be climbed with a mother’s hand not simply held, but used as a pulley. Stairs, that if said mother spent too much time checking her lipstick in the rear view mirror and locking the car door, could be traversed on all fours, like one of the lions cemented and perched next to the entry door.
And if they only use AI, how will they know the smell of the card catalog? Stumble through the Dewey Decimal system? Feel the victory of when your thumb lands on the searched-for book on the shelf? For there was nothing “artificial” about claiming the knowledge, owning the responsibility. Name proudly written on the check out card. Book clutched to heart before putting in homemade book bag.
How do we keep it all tangible? These actions of brain and heart and study? What will be the stairs to climb?
I begin a new small canvas. Not for sale or recognition, but simply to learn. Improve my craft. Pass along as a hand reaching down. A pulley to reach the lions.
My mother and grandmother knew the difference. What most considered as shy they understood as being quiet. When the teachers would report, “She’s very shy, my mother would say, “She’s just not loud.”
Maybe it was because there were so many of us at my grandma’s house. It didn’t seem possible to get on top of the noise, so I went under. With a whisper. And my grandmother responded, not with a voice, but a gentle thumb that slid across my rouge cheeks, and I was saved.
It was the same in my mother’s apartment. Worry was not met with a bang. A poem rang volumes over the din of trouble. And quietly we moved, tip-toed gently, into heart’s joyful noise.
In our current world, where we exchange volume for truth, can we still hear the difference between right and wrong? Between hurt and kindness? I wonder what would happen if we just took the time to listen…
Sometimes my life seems so familiar, I could tell you the next word, sentence. And while that is comfortable, I remind myself, that is never my favorite book. But to train my real life heart and brain to have the same reaction — an exuberant “I never saw that coming” — this is the real trick, I suppose. I’m trying to get better. To see the hiccups and waywardness as, “Oh, this is a book I would read!”
I remember the first time I had a crush on the carry-out boy at Olson’s Super Market. His moves so certain and careful as he bagged our embarrassing groceries in the paper sacks. Him holding my boxed breakfast cereal, I felt exposed and vulnerable and wonderful all at once. Being brand new, as they say, I had no explanation as to what was happening.
It was only two days before that I was on the playground at Central Park. Too old for the spinning ducks, still young enough to succumb to the trepidation of the teeter totter. My friend, with later explanation of a bee hovering, jumped off their side when I was in mid air. Funny how everything slows at that point. Reaching to grab on to a cloud, my stomach rose into my throat, which was almost enjoyable for that millisecond, and then I crashed into the dirt.
Standing in the checkout line at Olson’s, my stomach began to rise.
At school the following day, there he was, racing up beside me on the stairs. He turned to smile at me — a glorious millisecond. And then grabbed the new girl’s hand. A puff of dirt smoked around my fall.
And would I have changed things if I knew? Probably not. Is it worth it? I would say yes. YES! Excuse me, a cloud is just within reach.
She wrote to me, in French, that this portrait reminded her of her older sister who was no longer with them. She said she could see the sadness that she carried, (tristesse), but it also gave her hope (l’espoir).
One thing does not disappear the other. We live in between. And maybe that’s where all the beauty lies, if we choose to see it, in the transitions. In the state of becoming. I often have to remind myself, as I’m hurrying to “get through.” As if the furious speed held the answers.
There is no finishing. The woman wrote of her sister as “no longer with them,”…but yet, here we are, talking about her, in two languages. So isn’t she here, hovering between the sadness and hope, with just the slightest turn of head, turn of lip, her message ready to wing on, and on…
It doesn’t sound like a lot, 15 minutes, but the year they extended our bus route beyond the tanks, we had to get up earlier, or go to school with wet hair. (This was often my choice, and for most of the Norton girls at the end of Van Dyke Road.) I didn’t think of it then, but I’m sure it felt as invasive for the Frier’s as it was for us. Maybe they had been first on their route before. I’m sorry to say I didn’t ask, but merely wished that they would hurry up their own gravel driveway so we could get to school.
It’s funny how we claim things. Our bus. Our route. We were all just trying to get to our destination. To be with our friends. To swing our feet under desks while the teacher read aloud. To laugh at lunch without snorting milk out our noses. To learn, sure. To drop permission slips and backpacks with wild abandon and run into our mothers’ arms.
There will always be roads and worlds between us, but the road that runs beneath us, this remains the same.
I wait at the top of the hill. Mailboxes at my back. Gravel beneath my feet. Ready to share the ride.
You wouldn’t even know that she needed it. I made the wooden frame for a brace on the back of her panel. No one will see it. But it will be there to support her. Through the bending power of winter’s humid. And it makes me feel special, knowing it all — the truth of what’s behind her. What’s within. And it makes me love her more, because she allowed it, this support. This loving structure.
The thing is, I suppose we think we’re strong only if we can help someone. But the truth is, it takes just as much strength to allow someone in. To accept the help we may need from time to time. It’s not easy. I know. To let someone behind the scenes.
What’s taught is what’s known. My mother and I reversed roles through the years. Front to back. And with each turning, I thought she was more beautiful, and the amazing gift, it made me feel the same.
We can do this, you know. For each other. Wouldn’t that be something? Wouldn’t that be beautiful?
They probably think they are sharing with us. Maybe they get upset when I pick the harvest to make jam, but I doubt it. They have a better view of things, and I don’t mean simply sight.
It’s easy to measure the haves and have-nots with money. With things. But there is a larger currency at play. There is an absence of heart. Of soul. Not because someone else got a larger share. No one’s dream fulfilled takes away your dream, nor takes the fruit from your tree. The sky is not filled with, “but she got,” and “he gets to”…no, the blue flutters with hope on wings.
It was my grandfather who taught me first. Whenever I felt worry closing in, he told me to focus not just on something else, but someone else. At first hearing, I thought he didn’t understand. So I foolishly continued. “But my cousins got bows and arrows from Target, and we don’t have a Target, and I don’t…” “So go play with them,” he said. I watched my feet hit the dirt in the driveway. They had everything, I thought, and now I was supposed to give them my attention as well. At first I simply walked after the wayward arrows. (Because they weren’t aiming at anything, only watching the beautiful flight.) Then I began running them back. It wasn’t long before Shawn gave me a turn. A fling of the winged wood. Hope and love and friendship and joy danced in the air. And I had everything.
I look around our world. We seem to be spending far too much time kicking the dirt.
