I never know when they’ll show up, the people within the words, the art, like someone peeking through a door ajar, friendly enough to show their face, gentle enough to not barge through — knowing, surely, they will be waved into the heart.
It was my mother who showed up the most (in real life and my work). Her face and thoughts on cards and prints and books. And the joy was as much mine as hers, standing there, watching and listening to the customer say, “Oh, this is so me,” and my mother replying knowingly, coyly, joyfully, “Well, actually…”
And through the years, I have been blessed with a constant flow of those who have visited my heart and traveled through my hands. Each one a gift. So it wasn’t a huge surprise when she arrived yesterday. Even in her new French attire, I knew exactly who she was. I could feel it. And on this rainy afternoon, a country away, she arrived right on time.
What a privilege it is to know people. To be vulnerable enough to open the door. To go beyond face value and let them inside. The worthy ones will show up, again and again. And your heart and hands will never be empty.
I’ve started a new project. Each time I do, there are always things to be learned. Computer programs change so quickly. The paths to incorporate my artwork from page to printer are constantly changing course. And armed with my mother’s sense of direction, (she who thought the map at the mall should be on the ground so you could just step into it), I can’t say that I find my way quickly, but joyfully, I always find my way. I suppose it’s because I’m never traveling alone.
My first step was to get photos of all the new images. I was stumbling about. Turning pages. Checking lighting. It all felt so clunky. And then I got the tap on my brain’s shoulder that said, “get the sticky notes.” It was my friend Deb who gave me the little notebook of multi-colored tabs. We first used them to mark our favorite outfits in the Sundance catalog, sipping lattes, and reading the cover letter from Robert Redford, as if he had addressed it to us personally. We had colors to mark “maybe,” “yes,” and “why am I not wearing it right now.” Hours of entertainment with just a stick of a color.
Smiling, I used those notes to mark the pages of my artwork. It all began to make sense. I found my direction. Even using the new programs on my computer became easier.
I keep moving forward, but not without those who got me here.
There’s an expression that people use when someone dies that I’ve never liked — “She’s no longer with us.” It couldn’t be further from the truth. While the Sundance store has closed, my friend Deb sits right beside me. And I am saved.
I suppose the closest thing we had to an “influencer” when I was in college was the purchasing of a used book highlighted in bright yellow. Being on a tight budget, I was often subjected to what the previous student deemed important. Perhaps it was defiance, or simply making my own path, but armed with my own highlighter, pink, orange, anything other than yellow, I colored over and in my deepest connections to the word. By the time the next student, spending their last dime to earn an education, opened the textbook, it would have been completely highlighted. Just as it should be, I thought, because wasn’t it all important! Every word a path lit fluorescent.
And I think that’s our real responsibility, not to push or “influence,” but offer a light.
I’m reading a new book, This is Happiness, by Niall Williams. I’ve only just begun, but I am deep in the journey. This author demands that each word be walked carefully, like Hugo’s precious field behind our house on Van Dyke Road. No trampling through. Respectful of all that the ground had to yield, before and yet to come. With each paragraph, the golden crop brushes against my chubby thighs, leaving the safety of house toward the excitement of town. Tiptoeing out of youth, with its remains gathering in my shoes.
I suppose I am a highlighter of word, and memory, and heart. Because isn’t it all important? Isn’t it all important!! I walk the new morning. The gravel in my shoes answers a bright and glorious YES!
One of my first times driving in Marseille I experienced the wrath of an individual whose only damage was enduring the audacity of my wanting to make a left turn. It being summer, my window was open. She was near enough, as I waited at the light, that I could feel the spray of certain consonants, like p’s and t’s. And had I chosen to raise the window, it would have hit her nose. The oncoming traffic continued, so I waited. She, on foot, could have simply kept walking. My route had no contingency to her plans. Yet her fury escalated into a language that I’m not sure was even French, or European, but simply rage. But I learned something quite powerful in this moment. It didn’t hurt me. (It was almost a little comical.) She wasn’t hurting me. Because I didn’t understand the words, I couldn’t give them any meaning. And more importantly, I couldn’t give them any power. I suppose I had heard it a million times before, in a million ways, that people can’t hurt you unless you let them, but here was direct proof coming right through my open window.
I mention it only because I have to keep learning it. To not give the power away. When the language thrown in my direction is all too familiar — to stop “understanding” so much, when really I, we, understand so little. And control even less. And even more so on the days when my own brain yells at the open window of my heart..
To remind myself, I painted her portrait. An embodiment of this feeling. Under the gentle gaze of this woman, I make the morning breakfast. She reflects the look I want to give to heart and mirror. She is the breeze of spring. The grace that lifts. The beat within that keeps driving me. And I am saved.
She wrote her first order in Chicago. My mom was always there for moral support. Cheering me on as I sold my goods. But she was yet to pick up the pad and pen. She looked beautiful standing beside me — as if she just stepped off Michigan Avenue. She visited with the customers. Told the various stories behind the art. (Most of them included her.) She made them laugh with their hearts. As they say, nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd, and soon my booth was overflowing. I looked up at her (as I always did). I think she knew I wanted her to grab an order form. I saw the “oh, no” rising in her face. But just as she had done with me since birth, I could see her capabilities first. I nodded my belief in her and she picked up the clipboard. I more than loved her. I was so proud of her. And she of herself. I could see the “oh, yes” fluttering!
Our roles are always changing. Sometimes you’re the little girl. Sometimes the bird. If you’re lucky you will be surrounded with those who welcome both. And if you’re wise, you’ll allow them the same.
When I first understood that my Grandma had a name other than Grandma, I thought it was O’Elsie. Because that’s what I always heard. From my Grandpa’s mouth, the ladies at the kitchen table, or the faceless voices on the party line. What I came to learn was that they were all saying, “Oh, Elsie…” And always as a term of endearment. When she would make them laugh out loud. When she touched them with her kindness. When she surprised them (especially my grandpa) with a rootbeer float or a basement full of chinchillas. And it came to be my measurement for living, this need combine with the heart’s emission of simply – Oh!
I don’t want to live timidly. And I’m not talking about shock. To shock is simple. To wow is devine. Oh, and wasn’t she so! My Grandma Elsie.
I hear the birds singing from the morning window and I think, “Oh, it’s going to be a lovely day.” And my heart smiles.
It’s not that I assumed the garage doors had the sense of the birds, but it is made evident whenever the wind blows. (I suppose that’s when the truth of us is revealed.) And, oh, they’re built solid, these blocks of wood and iron, but never a match against the wind. Every time – it’s BANG! BANG! They beat against the garage, thrown from side to side. Always fighting it. Always losing. But then the birds, in that same wind, barely more than air themselves, they seem to dance. Each wing flaps with lessons learned, and risen above.
I’m not proud of it, but I have done my share of banging. Trying to fight off the new storm with all of my wooden might. But I’m learning. And learning again. What used to blow through me, now gives me wings.
Perhaps I’m more careful now of where I lay my expectations, knowing that often the people who rise up to the occasion aren’t the most expected. Like a gift without pressure of holiday they gloriously appear, and lift you higher than you could have ever imagined.
When I was a young girl, I found so much help in the school system. Teachers offered aid and solace. Encouragement and discipline. It was a structure that I depended on. Solid. When I first arrived in France, I had to attend a mandatory French school. Around the table, desperations were as vast as the countries we came from. Of course I looked to the teacher as I had always done. It didn’t take long for me to learn of my mistake. She would not save me. Nor any of us. She made fun of each nationality, as if she had an offensive handbook. And when the insults weren’t understood with language, she used gestures that could not be ignored.
After three months, without common language or permission, we began to stumble into something close to humanity. We found out more about each other. After learning that I paint and write, it was our teacher who asked me to be the teacher. To bring in art, books, and give a demonstration, in French on my final day of school. I agreed. For if she taught me anything, it was where to place all my expectations — within. As I struggled with art and easels from the car to the classroom, it was the newest addition to our class, the man from Cambodia, who spoke neither English nor French, who picked up the heaviest of what I had, and walked beside me. I smiled, knowing that without my knowledge or expectation, I had been lifted. I had been saved.
It was the gym teacher at Central Junior High who put us through the rigorous exercises — making us into ducks she said. Somehow she saw the difference between our regular teenage faces and our confusion and explained that a duck looks calm and cool on the surface of the water, but is paddling like crazy underneath. Still no change in our faces. So what we want, she continued, is to work so hard now, paddle like crazy, so when we’re in the actual game it comes easily, looks so graceful and simple, because we did all the hard work. We nodded slightly, and waddled around the gym.
Now I can’t say we often carried the information of one class to another, but on this instance, 50 minutes later, in math class, it was Mr. Farley who said, “be sure to show your work.” I stared at the scribblings on the blackboard and thought, “so don’t be a duck.”
The middlings of junior high were terribly confusing. All these choices and transformations. I pondered as I walked beside Lake Agnes on the way home. And there they were, waddling along, as if they knew all the answers.
Yesterday in my bird sketchbook, I decided to paint a duck. I hesitated for a moment, going through another saying, “If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…it’s probably a duck.” Brush in hand, I laughed because I thought, “Is it a bird though?” Oh, my ever paddling brain was in full view.
It’s hard to know when to show all the work. When to just be quiet and do the job. Of course I get confused. We all do. But sometimes I think, the real victory is just to stay afloat. I may not always get it right, please pardon my paddling, but this duck can swim!
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live…”. Joan Didion
As humans, I suppose, we are always looking for the narrative, to lessen the blow or to heighten the lift. And didn’t we start at the beginning, in our first class under the name of our first president at Washington Elementary. One by one, we stood alongside Mrs. Strand’s desk and told all of the other 5 and 6 year olds what we did over the summer. These were not tales of trips to Europe, nor even flights across state lines, but rather heads hanging out of station wagons and under lake waters. Feet racing on dirt roads and pedaling bikes. Balls hit. Candy bars frozen. Popsicles melted. And sunsets dared awaiting mothers’ calls.
With each story, hands raised up with ooohs and aaahs of remembering the same, the similar. The excitement of stories melding connected us all. That’s why I keep writing. I keep painting. The thrill when your memories return to you in an oooooooh, and you share them with me, and then with another, is like no other. We are alive! Living in the word, in the story.
I flank my sketchbook with boy and girl, facing forward. Ever grateful for what has been. Ever hopeful of what is to come.
