She was not unlike most of the super powers that I watched on Saturday mornings. All were contained in the tightest of fashion. It’s why, I imagined they could move through the world so easily. And so it was with Mrs. Bergstrom. She stood in front of our first grade class at Washington Elementary. No loose ends. Her hair slicked back in a perfect bun. Her black pencil skirt smoothed without wrinkle, making it impossible to see where the chalkboard ended and her waist began. That’s how all the words got in, I thought. This seamless transition. And wasn’t that her superpower, all those words that she spelled out, sounded out, drew out. I wanted some of that power. Just to stand in all that “super” for even a moment. I leaned forward in my desk. Pulled up my neck. Straightened my back. Reached one leg behind the chair to make myself into the straightest line. To create a path for all that knowledge she was passing our way.
It’s easy to let a day go by. To let the passage of time slouch us over. To drape in the fray of worry and get caught in every dark moment. But that wasn’t how we were taught. Not how I was taught. So I wipe the chalk from my hands and smooth them down my skirt and I stand. I stand tall. “Gather it in,” my heart tells my brain — be taut — despair can only slide down, slide off. And it occurs to me how similar the words are. This taut and taught. And it straightens me. Lifts me. Letting go the fray, I Bergstrom to the front of the morning.
I still go to the mall with my mother. I don’t suppose we ever stop living with the ones we love. It’s only a matter of opening my closet door. Passing my hand along the draping of sleeves — each allowed the space to breathe as she taught me. We exchange silent ensemble ideas. I settle on the one where she clutches her imaginary pearls with more than approval. Pure excitement! And I am complete.
When it’s time to paint, I return the clothes to their rightful spaces and put on my splattered hoodie and pants, as if it were Sunday morning after sitting in my six year old’s white dress on a folding chair near the kitchen at Bethesda Lutheran. Smoothing out the drape with gloved hands long before and after Easter. Feeling to my very core the meaning of “good clothes.”
I read recently that memories are the handrail of the stairs we continue to navigate. So it’s no surprise as I made my ascent in yesterday’s sketchbook, that the ruffles appeared on the woman’s portrait. White ruffles. My mother’s favorite. And didn’t they suit her. So. I hear her saying, “Ooh, I need to find that blouse.” And I smile. Heart strong, I grab the rail and climb. Forever making ruffles.
It’s ironic, I suppose, that I’m always wishing for time to pass more slowly, but I often fight it while gathered within. I must admit I stumbled over the first pages. Perhaps even chapters. The book I’m reading encourages, in fact insists with the beautiful placement of each word, that the text be wandered slowly. To be paced under the heat of a summer sun, conserving the energy that each word consumes, as it makes its way from paper through hands, and head, finally resting in the heart. All the while with the promise, if you do tenderly barefoot each grassblade’s syllable, you will be lifted, winged to another time, another place, and fit directly in. Soaring mid the chaos and heartache with such profound joy, because just as the title says, THIS IS HAPPINESS.
The question that’s always in the holster, “Well, what’s it about?” I could no more answer that than if you asked the same of the day to come. Isn’t it always about living? My only hope is that I can take the same command of the day as I have come to in this book. To navigate with slow appreciation.
Some will say, oh, people don’t read anymore. And I think, I’m people, aren’t I? And it doesn’t feel like I’m alone. I’m comforted in the fact that two of my most popular paintings of this bird series have been, not just with books, placed and stacked, but with people reading. (Over 80,000 likes on Pinterest gives me great hope.) Gives me, well, wings. And I think, I know, even for a few flaps, a few slow flutters, this indeed, is happiness.
Even when I scrub it, there is proof that it is used, loved, every morning. The handle knows my palm. I open and tap out yesterday’s grounds through the kitchen window to fertilize Trini Lopez — the wintering lemon tree. I know how much water to add by the sound. The coffee is sprinkled gently by heart, along with the scrambled reciting of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, (often forgetting his last name, but always remembering “coffee spoons.”) I twist on the top and place it on the stove. The gas click click clicks in perfect rhythm and my morning’s measure is complete.
It’s never just coffee. Nor the rising sun. It’s the accounting of love’s measure. No matter the night. This morning will be measured beginning with my coffee pot. Life will offer you all kinds of starts. Recalling “what he said,” or “what she did,” or “how I should have,” or “when will I,”…. And I can easily get caught up in them all, until I realize I need an empty hand to pick up the handle that holds the coffee that starts my day, and I let everything else go. And so it begins….
St. Patrick’s Day will always bring me back to Chicago. A green river flowing. Stumbling Irish of every nationality, fueled with beer of the same color and a hope for Spring, brave the cool March breezes that visitors often mistake for the wind of the “windy city”, kick dirty patches of left over sidewalk snow as if to rush along the promise of the warmth to come. Maybe it was easy to believe in the seasons, in each other, all draped in emerald, as if named from the Wizard of Oz. There was an assurance that we (a we that was all inclusive) would rise up. That the blue and yellow of this almost spring sky made us all one. Green. In the Emerald City.
Somehow the curtain always gets pulled back. The great reveal of the 18th. And everyone goes back to their own colors. But maybe we’re all a bit closer for the moment.
We can choose, you know. To be together. As one. Maybe it’s never been so “windy.” Maybe we’ve never had so much to brave. But couldn’t we? Shouldn’t we? Gather in the green of the day, and just be? Together?
We all want to be seen. But there comes some responsibility with that. People aren’t mind readers. Plus, they also have a focus on things other than you. And how are they to see who you really are, unless you show them?
Brené Brown calls it “daring greatly.” I like it because it changes our vulnerability from being a weakness to a superpower. (And as evidenced in every purchase of every little black dress, every pose in front of the mirror, I do indeed want to be a superhero.) So I expose my heart with every word, and every stroke. And on many days, just like the reflection in the mirror, I may be one of the rare few that see it. But that’s more than a good start, it’s a victory — me daring greatly to see myself.
I am that bird. Fragile, sure. Strong as ever, yes! My palette is full. I am saved. And look at that palette, wood worn and weary is exactly what makes it beautiful (to me.) So why would my reflection be any different. If I choose to see myself, celebrate that even, then it takes the pressure off of you. I don’t have to count likes or measure your responses. And maybe then, without all that clutter, I can see you. And what if we all could do that. For each other. I suppose to believe this is also to be daring greatly. But I’m just that bird. I come to the canvas. Hope in hand.
Yesterday I made both bread and cookies, so it’s not surprising that my daily sketch had her hands in the dough. My floured fingers were reminding my heart that it could always be a good day.
I guess that’s how I gauge them. For me they are good days, successful, as long as I do just that — “have my hands in the dough.” If I am in the attempt, covered in paint, or flour, or sweat, trying to make something, learn something, become something, then I’m ok.
And it’s usually the heart that gets most of the credit, and often well deserved. Follow your heart they say. Let your heart lead you. That’s always good advice. But I don’t want to forget the hands. The work. Sometimes the heart needs a little rest from all the heavy lifting. And sometimes, it’s the hands they say I’ve got this. I’ve got you, palms up.
I heard something recently. It was more about the tools you have in the garage, but it seems applicable — “Use what you have to get what you want.” And what I had yesterday, I had my hands. And the day was passed with effort and joy — exactly what I wanted.
And the beauty is, it’s nothing I have to wish for, I just have to do it. Every day. Put my “hands in the dough.”
Grandma Dynda (no actual relation to me) was the first old person that I knew. I mean, that I actually talked to. I was minding my own business, running through their white sheets that hung on the summer clothesline, when she peaked through the screen door asking if I wanted a cookie. It took a minute to get used to the rhythm of her voice. It was slower than a Norton girl. Slower than my mother’s. But I took comfort in the fact that everyone’s was a bit breathless. Some from youth. Some from responsibility. And hers, simply from time passing. Being breathless, too, from all that running, I said sure, and weaved my way to the door.
About the same height, we both struggled to get on the counter stools. Smiling at each other upon summit. She apologized for not baking as she opened the off brand blonde sandwich cookies. I like these I told her. And I did. We each turned them, and ate the frosting from inside. And for the next 15 minutes we were the same age.
Time flies as quickly as the turning pages of my sketchbook. I suppose I could let it flutter in the worry, but it seems better to choose the joy of simply feeling breathless.
I run through the swinging screen door. And hold it open, for you.
The messages were clearly mixed. Every day in school we were reminded not to act the fool, but then were dared to be one, simply by heading to the chalkboard. It seemed to me always a fine line between misbehaving and risking failure. It was harder to see then, but maybe it all came down to intent. Was the goal to shock, or to try? Both got laughs, giggles behind hands. I found out early on, the audience was in their own control. It was about how I felt. How did my behavior affect my heart? For me, I always felt better trying.
“Better to go down swinging.” That’s what I heard on the ball field behind the Dairy Queen on summer afternoons. I took that advice through autumn as I tiptoed to the blackboard (heels were never a place for courage.) Sometimes I would get it right, and return to my desk all smiles. Sometimes, I would be covered in chalk’s dust, as if wiping the mistakes on my pants would erase it all. But I was swinging, wasn’t I?!!! And I was happy.
I heard it on the transistor radio in my grandma’s kitchen — “Only fools fall in love.” Is grandpa a fool? I asked her. The biggest, she said. I smiled. I was too. I loved them both.
I guess I’m still swinging. Every time I open my mouth in France, I am covered in the mistakes of dust, but look at me, I’m here! If you want to be at the front of the class, you have to risk the chalkboard. So I risk, daily. Do I look the tourist? Maybe. But who cares? It’s Paris! You should put a baguette under wing and marvel at the Eiffel Tower. I have, and will continue to risk it all for love, for the joy of living! My pants I can change. This is the only heart I get — I’m going to use it!
I suppose we all gravitate toward the accessible… which makes me think, are we paying enough attention to being that. Being welcoming. A gentle place to land.
I mention it, sitting it beside my pocket series book of Lunch Poems, by Frank O’Hara. What could be less threatening than lunch?
My grandma used the term all the time. It could be 10am, or noon, 2pm or 4, and though she framed it as a question, she was never really asking when she said, “Should we have a little lunch?” That could mean anything from a root beer float, to a sandwich, to a bag of toasted marshmallows while shopping at Jerry’s Jack and Jill. (How could it be shoplifting if we were just having a little lunch?)
Who doesn’t love a soft place to land? A welcoming of kindness. That was my Grandma Elsie. Nothing, no one was shooed away. Even before dishes were cleared from noontime’s feeding, a neighbor would stop by and be offered a plate of coloches or, as luck would have it, lunch sticks. She was, and is still, my swinging door.
My mother’s table was filled less with food, and more with books. She opened me to pages and poetry. She made them “lunch poems” decades before I had even heard the term.
How different they were in their offerings, my mother and grandmother. But how similar they were in letting you in. Each, with the best of what they had said, “Come in, you and your heart sit down.”
These words I offer daily. These paintings. For you, the lunch I was taught to share.
