“What are you going to do about this damn storm?” she asked my mother.
“Perhaps you’d like to speak to the superintendant?” my mother replied.
There was nothing she could do about this storm, or the weather in general. She never had been able to control the weather. She did, however, control the switchboard at Independent School District 206. She answered these kind of calls from angry parents whenever a snow storm threatened to cancel, or did cancel school for the day. The students of ISD 206, as I can attest to personally, loved snow days. A freebie. Somedays, if you were super lucky you would actually get a snow day on the day a large test was scheduled. Many nights before exams were spent praying for large amounts of snow. But religious intervention or not, parents were never happy. It meant time off of work, or finding a baby sitter, or worst case scenario, staying home with them yourself.
My mother had been cursed at, yelled at, threatened, hung up on. “One moment please,” shewould answer. “Where is the bus?” “Is the bus going to be later?” “What does two hours late mean? Then what time will it come?” “Two hours late, well then why not just cancel it?” “Why isn’t it canceled?” She was always, “one moment please,” cleared of the situation. This was not the case at home. Even though, at times, after taking hundreds of phone calls, she still answered our home phone “Alexandria Public Schools….” things were not as easy as a simple call transfer. My mother could no more control the weather, than my father. After he left, she was just so sad. Perhaps humiliated. Perhaps angry. Perhaps frustrated. Perhaps as unsure of what to do as the parent on the other line screaming, “What are you going to do about the damn storm?”
And what was she going to do? There was no one to transfer the responsibility to… she had to deal with it. She had to cry and count the sleeping pills on the night stand and force herself to eat, and then put on clothes, two sizes smaller than last year, and go to work, and as cheerfully as possible, greet the people on the phones and at the door. And she did. One damn storm after another, she got herself to work. And day after day, year after year, call after call, it all became a little more managable. And some days, they, we, would laugh. That was some storm!
We all get through. Sometimes it just takes a moment. Please.
Boxing has been described as one hurt demanding another. One punch thrown, and then the counter. It would have been easy for her to live this way. She had been hurt so much. She had taken punch after punch. And she knew some became used to it. Some embraced it. It’s hard not to. It hard to turn from the violence that climbs in the ring with you each day. But she didn’t want to fight anymore. She didn’t want to carry pain with her, heavy, like a broken promise. So maybe one hurt did demand another. The only way out was to stop hurting. Stop being hurt. And so she climbed between the ropes. Left the smell of sweat and anger behind. Prayed that one act of bravery demanded another. Prayed that one smile demanded another. Prayed that one joy demanded another. And it did. Gentle people surrounded her now. People with love and laughter. People with hearts. She is living proof that one grace demands another.
Standing in front of the Napoleon monument in Corsica.
They do love their son, Napoleon. I stood there with them in Corsica. I watched them, feeling him. I was so happy for them, gazing with such pride. I walked with them, closer, as the gravel moved softly beneath their feet , closer and closer to their hero, I could feel their excitement build. I felt it too, not so much for myself, but for them, and I was truly happy. A bit envious, maybe, in a good way. We all need a hero from time to time. I thought about the stories and legends and it didn’t really even matter to me if they were true, I celebrated the belief.
I walked by Napoleon’s childhood cave – the cave where they said he looked to the sea and dreamed of what he would be…. What he could do… And a little part of me knew that child…. Heard the waves that he rode on in his youthful dreams. I had heard them too, at Lake Latoka . I would not have a throne or a moment. I would have a diving tower. I would dive. Taking a leap of faith. Conquer not nations, but my own fear. And I would believe.
I sat in the shade of the trees that surrounded the moment, and I didn’t have to envy their joy or hope or pride… I believed too… In the possibility of it all… In the possibility of looking out over the water and having a dream… In the possibility of letting the waves carry you… And I was alive!
My husband’s father is buried in Corsica. We searched for his monument alone, no crowds, but I felt the same reverence. This man had dreamed his own dreams. Married his Lucie, gave life to his sons, one of whom would conquer my heart. Legends are real. I stood in front of one, and beside one, in Corsica.
It can’t be too personal. That’s what they taught me about writing at the University. The reader doesn’t want to know that anyone could have written it. They wanted to know that you wrote it. You knew it. You felt it. And you shared it with them. And so I did.
When I paint. When I write, it is never generic. It is specific. It is personal. When I write about a house, it is a big, yellow, house, with a yellow so inviting, that if you were to walk by, just being you, it would call to you, “come in, you and your heart sit down.” When I write about my mother, people say, “Oh, that’s my mother.” “That’s my sister.” “That’s so me.” When I write about my heart, being overwhelmed or overjoyed, people say, “How did you know exactly what I was feeling?” And the power of these words show me, every day, I am not alone. We are not alone.
I made a painting of my grandmother’s hands. It has been purchased from Chicago to San Francisco. And I know that a piece of my grandmother gets to go there. She gets to pass over Wrigley Field, through the Magnificent Mile, into the loving arms of Illinois. She crosses the largest bridge a girl from Minnesota could ever imagine. And she shows them her hands. These strong and beautiful hands. These hands that could raise nine children, could also build bridges and stadiums, and we were not that different. We were a part of it all. She was. I am.
Each painting holds a story. Each picture, each phrase, is me, with my nose pressed up against the window pane, on Van Dyke Road, nearly wearing the window through with wishes and plans and dreams. Connecting us all, they would take me farther than I even dared to dream.
In the summers between my college years, I worked at the Recreation Department. We put on programs for the kids’ summer vacations. I was good at it. Because I had been that kid. I was that kid that needed something to do in the summer. There would be no vacations, or pool parties. These kids, kids like me, wouldn’t be taking their pictures in front of Big Ole. They would be riding their bikes to town. Looking for a game to play, another kid in cut-off shorts with nothing to do. For these kids, we made a good summer. We had softball leagues. Gymnastics. Kickball. Playgrounds. We had time, and most importantly, we had imaginations. This was more than enough to fill a summer.
I helped teach in the gymnastics program for three summers. These were not Olympic athletes.Most didn’t even have leotards. But we had mats, and beams and uneven bars and a horse. We had enthusiasm. And we had spotters. I was kicked in the head by every chubby girl trying to do her first round-off or cartwheel, but I smiled and stepped in to spot them again. Pain without malice leaves pretty quickly.
My favorite part of gymnastics is the finish of each program. At the end of each routine, the girls were taught to raise their hands perfectly straight in the air above their heads, chests out, shoulders back, full smiles – “Nailed it!” No matter how the routine went. If they fell. If they stumbled. If they just did their very limited best, they raised those arms as high as they could and they walked off that mat, nothing but pride. I loved it.
I guess my mother was doing that. I guess I was too. Lipstick. Full smiles. Hopeful hearts. Hands above our heads, we got through each day, and no matter what happened, we found a way to be happy. Nailed it!!!!
In fifth grade we went orienteering. There was nothing in our history that said we would be good at orienteering. Most of us, in our 10 or 11 years on this earth, had never even heard of it. But off we went. Handing in our signed parental waivers as we filed into the big yellow school bus, perhaps as unaware as livestock heading off to market. We stopped in the middle of the largest forest we had ever seen. Surely this was the beginning of a horror film. We stomped into the wooden cabins and waited. Of course we would wait for dark. That’s exactly how it would read in the script. We were assigned teams. We didn’t pick teams like in sports. No one had any idea who would actually be good at this, so it would have been hard to choose key members. There were brief instructions. No one listened. We assumed, as in our monthly fire drills at school, we would march out, and somehow march back in. We were given compasses and charts and courses. Each team was to finish a specific course, mark it on the maps and return to base camp. Teachers waited up in the trees, to watch us, or to frighten us. I imagine, as with any disaster, perhaps a plane crash – just before the point of impact when people start wishing they had listened to the preflight instructions – we began questioning each other, “does anyone know how to do this?” We didn’t. There was something about stars, I think. Maybe these compasses. And suddenly it became very clear that it was dark, and we were in the woods. We started running. This made the most sense. We picked any check point we could find. As fast as we could. And later than anyone expected, even with the running, we miraculously found our way back to the cabins. In 1938, Douglas Corrigan made a flight plan from New York to California. Twenty eight hours after taking off, he landed in Ireland. He got out of the plane and said, “Where am I?” To the amusement of both sides of the Atlantic, he stuck to his story of a malfunctioning compass. He was given the name Wrong-Way and written into the history books. Up until then, he had been merely a footnote. The chaperones came down from the trees, and avoided being “up a creek,” as we were all alive and safe. While no team exceeded expectations, our team ended up doing the wrong course, in the wrong direction, with the slowest time. They gave us paper certificates, clearly made from the cabin’s photocopier, with the Wrong-way Corrigan award (or citation). We were no longer footnotes of the fifth grade. At some point we all have to find our way. Some of us need to follow the wrong path beforewe find the right one. Perhaps most of us. The wrong job. The wrong love. The wrong town. Sometimes you have to get lost in order to find your way. Sometimes you have to take the wrong path. Draw the wrong perspective. Then things can become clear. I have done all. I have stumbled over my own heart and path, every day. But both are mine. Mine to walk. Mine to share. There’s no compass for that. There’s only faith. And the stars.
In my grandfather’s barn there was a hayloft. To this day, I don’t know how the bales were placed inside. I do know that for humans, or curious kids, the only way inside was a passage called simply, the crawl-through. Because that’s what you did, you see, to get inside, you had to put your arms in front of you, shaping yourself into an arrow. Sliding along in the dark. Crawling. Breathing slowly, to keep the fears at bay. The fear was not about the other side. (It rarely is.) The fear was about getting stuck in between. Stuck in the crawl-through. But, I had heard, once inside, it was laced with a sweet scent of everything possible, lit with hope. If you could make it through, who knew what could happen? It was a sanctuary of dreams.
I first went in with my cousin Chris. He was one year my senior, and seemed exotic. He lived near Chicago. My Uncle Nick worked at the Chrysler plant. My Aunt Lottie, from Kentucky, had an accent the likes of which my Minnesota ears had never heard. Chris was a dreamer. Not like, “I hope,” but more “what if…” He spoke of dinosaurs and Vikings. He was determined, he told me, (before either of us had ever even been kissed, or wanted to) to marry a Viking woman. The only Viking I had heard of was Big Ole. No, no, a real Viking woman he would say. Strapping. She would give him many strong sons. He was weird (in a delightful way) for sure, but I liked that he had a vision.
I, too, had my dreams. They were in words and colors. I held them close to my heart, as if to speak them were to send them away. I needed them. Chris lead us through the crawl-through. I was scared. I was nervous. I was excited. My fingertips touched the tips of his shoes as I followed closely behind. There was no backing up. If you wanted to go forward, or even back, you had to get through. (Maybe that’s always the case.)He saw the cracks of sunlight first and squeeled in his second-hand Kentucky drawl. He climbed to the highest bale. I was right behind him. And I was through. Hurray! The sun. The yellow. The passing through. We had done it. His mouth raced of Vikings and possibilities! My heart raced to my mind and told it, see… we did make it through! We’re all asked to believe and endure impossible things. But the light. The sweet light. I have sat in it. I will sit in in it again. Hurray, I say, to anyone who makes it through!
Mr. Iverson was our music teacher at Washington Elementary. In first grade, all the 6 year olds were asked to write a poem. For a song, he told us, was actually just a poem set to music. We were to all write a poem, and then he would pick the best one, write it on the chalkboard, put it to music and we would all sing it together. Such magic. My chubby little fingers wrote with such hope. I turned in the paper. The next day, we all marched into the music room, single file, and there it was – perfectly written in white chalk – my poem –
Houses, houses, houses red. In it is a pretty bed. Houses, houses, houses green. In it is a pretty scene.
I was so happy. I didn’t have the words for it then, but I felt like I belonged. I was a part of this world. These words were my tools and I would survive. They would hold me forever. I was happy. He played the music on the piano and soon we were all singing. My words. I was a poem set to music. And I was saved.
There was a gate to Kinkead Cemetery, but it was never locked. It was about a mile from my house, a mile of gravel. I liked to ride in the cemetery because the paths were all paved. After all, riding a bicycle was not about getting anywhere, but about going fast. Once I got off the gravel and made it past the first iron fence, which held the Kinkead name, I could really pick up speed. No more rocks and holes to slow me down or wipe me out. Nothing to stand in the way of tire whizzin’, hair blowin’, teeth clenchin’ speed….nothing, except Mr. Whitman. He lived in the white house just outside the iron fence. He took care of the cemetery. He was old for his age, so my mother said. In my head, old was just old. He had gray stubbled hair on the sides of his cheeks, more than on the top of his head. He was missing two front teeth, one on the top and one on the bottom, which I discovered the first time he growled at me. In one hand he always carried a shovel or a rake, which shook as fast as my knees when he raised it in the air along with his upper lip. But we lived on a gravel road, and the cemetary was the only tarred, smooth ride, within my bike riding distance. A beautiful, fast and smooth ride that lured me daily. Mr. Whitman took lunch from 11:30 to 12:30 every day. By 11:32, he leaned his rake against the fence, 11:33 out the gate and 11:35, the screen door of his house was slamming behind him. 11:36 was my beginning. I had my course all mapped out…from the gate to the flat markers, and then past the large upright ones, down the middle of the cemetery… up a slight incline by the brick shed and then down a big curve, that’s where I’d really pick up speed. I needed to. The next corner was Baby Land. It was spelled out in flowers, pink, blue, yellow and white – the same col- ors of the flowers on my banana seat. Even though it was the saddest part of the cemetery, it was the prettiest. The flowers were beautiful. Once past the corner of Baby Land it was a straight shot back to the gate. I didn’t have a watch, so he caught me mid-lap several times. But once I figured out that sixteen was the magic number, I was never caught again…until that one day. Now, I won’t say that I wasn’t easily distracted…say, by the song playing in my head, or the turtle on the path, but I was pretty good with my lap times. I knew how many pumps it was from marker to marker, corner to corner. It was a game, a game I had won for two weeks straight. Then, on the fifteenth day, the eleventh lap, the corner right before Baby Land, I hit a rock, flew off the path and landed in a dark, deep hole. My bike abandoned me. I was alone in this…this empty, dirty hole, this… this terrible, this, oh….I was in someone’s grave. “Maaaaaahhhhhhhhmmmm,” I hollered out of reflex. She was miles away at work, but again I hollered. “Maaaahhhmmm!” I flopped down on the seat of my cut-offs. “How did I always…?” I slapped the dirt in disgust. The grave was new, but the situation…not all that unfamiliar. I had to think of a plan. There had to be a way out. I didn’t have much time. I was on my eleventh lap…and as near as I could fig- ure, a half a lap’s worth in the fall, another half sitting in disbelief..that left me with just a few laps’ time before Mr. Whitman came back from lunch. I jumped up. I jumped again and again…and again…each time a little less near the top. There was nothing to hang on to. The dirt was still loose. No way out. I jumped and grabbed. I could just reach the top, but it didn’t matter, I always came down. I could see the back tire of my bike waiting just outside the hole as if to say, “Hey, if you don’t get out soon, we’re both going to be in big trouble.” My bicycle had always been there for me…saved me from barking dogs, neighborhood bullies and the fear of standing still. He would be coming soon. I jumped. “If I could just…” I jumped again, this time touching the wheel. “He can’t catch me here. He’ll kill…” I jumped again, this time moving it slightly. I heard the iron gate close. I jumped again and again. I heard a tapping. It was getting closer. Now louder. It was something hitting the ground. “Was it steps?” I jumped again. He had picked up his hoe and hit it against the pavement with each step. It was getting louder. I had to get out. I jumped again. And this time I did it. Boy did I do it. I grabbed the wheel…and the bike came in after me. There I was, buried with my bicycle. The tapping stopped. He must have gone onto the grass. “Yes!” Victory was mine, for that instant. He had passed me by on his way to Baby Land. Although sweet, the victory was short. I had remained unnoticed, but I was still stuck with my bicycle in that stupid hole. Now, even if I thought of a way out, I’d have to wait for Mr. Whitman to leave. That could be hours. I sat down in disgust and threw a clump of dirt at my seemingly useless two-wheeler. “Dirt, dirt, dirt. D – I – R – T. Dirt, dirt bo-birt, banana fana fo firt…” It was going to be a long wait for freedom. I needed a friend. Cathy Norton was the closest. I taught her how to play the “Best – Worst” game. You know the one, you have to claim your best day and your worst day…best gum, worst gum…best teacher, worst teacher. Nobody ever won or lost, so it wasn’t really a game, but a way to waste time. And speaking of which…at that moment, I had a lot of it. I decided to play both of our roles. “Best Candy?” She’d have said Tangy Taffy. Me? I always went for Pop Rocks. It wasn’t that they tasted so good, just so fun to eat. “Worst?” For me it was Charleston Chews. For her, Wacky Wafers.
“Best Gum?” We were always in agreement on this one. “Bubs Daddy – Red Hot.” “Worst Gum?” In tandem, “Anything in a green wrapper that made your breath fresh.” We had worked hard on that answer. “Best Singer?” Cathy always switched off between Michael Jackson and Andy Gibb, depend- ing on which song she had heard last on the radio. Mine was always the same. She thought I was crazy. “Frank Sinatra. That’s right, ‘Ol Blue Eyes, The Chairman of the Board.” My mother taught me the all the words to “Mac the Knife” when I was five. How could there be another? “Hey that shark has…pretty teeth, dear…And he shows ’em pearly white. Just a jack knife..” My rendition wasted another five minutes. “Best Day?” I wasn’t really in the mood. Now worst day, that seemed to come right to mind, as I clenched a handful of dirt. “How long have I been in here? Doesn’t this man believe in coffee breaks?” I could hear his hoe, or his shovel or something hit a rock or tombstone every once in a while. He was still around. “Ok…focus now. Back to the game. Worst day?” Worst day. That was easy. It had started the night before. My mother and I had our own routines before bedtime. I’d wet my toothbrush, dampen a wash- cloth, flush the toilet and then let her have the bathroom. While she flossed her teeth, I’d count the number of sleeping pills in the bottle on her nightstand and hope for a similar count in the morning. Luckily, she was so rigorous with her routine, she never noticed mine. Our routines changed that night with our good-night hug. Oh, we always hugged, but this time, instead of giving me a hug, she seemed to be taking mine. She held me so hard, I thought she would squeeze the life right out of me. She let go so slowly, I could almost feel her sadness. I laid in my bed very still. I was confused and a little bit scared. It was one of those nights when I didn’t feel too old for my Raggedy Ann pillow case and sheet. I’m not sure if I had been sleeping yet when she came back in. She stood over me in the darkness. “Are you sleeping?” I wiped my eyes and shook my head no. “Why not? Are you scared?” she asked. “No.” I lied. Of course I was afraid, but not of what she thought. I was afraid of what was hap-
pening with her…afraid of the fear that she seemed to be feeling. “It’s ok if you are. You can come and sleep in my room. I’ll make you a little nest.” We had always called it a nest – a few blankets on the floor beside her bed. Whenever I was scared…of the dark, the thoughts in my head, the new place we were living in…she’d make a nest for me…and then I was saved. But what scared me tonight was the realization that this time, and maybe some of the others too, she was the one that was scared…of the dark, the thoughts in her head, …and the only way she could save herself was to believe she was saving me. I felt so responsible. How could I save her? I had to, but how could I? What did I know? I knew about bicycles and candy. Bubble gum and Band-Aids. I couldn’t save her. The world was so big. I was only allowed to ride my bike one mile away. Without the light, I could barely see the outline of her face…but her eyes looked harder at me than they ever had before. I had seen that look. It was the same look a mother gave the flowers in Baby Land. She looked to them to give back a beauty that had been taken away. “How could they do that?” I wondered. I always thought the flowers had too much responsibility. And now I felt that look on my face. I couldn’t change things. I couldn’t make her world pain free…bring my father back, make the town more forgiving…I just couldn’t. But she continued to look at me and I knew I had to try. The only thing I could do, for that night, for that moment of darkness, was to let her save me. For the first time, in a nest that she had made, I stayed awake. I counted the pills when the sun finally came up. She went to work and then I went to sleep. I set the alarm for 11:15. Not long after, I found myself in a hole, in Kinkead Cemetery. Not a good 24 hour period. Definitely, worst day material. I continued to let handfuls of dirt slide between my fingers like sand in an hourglass. Mr. Whit- man continued to work not far away. Could he still be in Baby Land? How long was he going to spend there? Wasn’t he needed anywhere else? There I sat, in my open grave. It was no nest. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair at all. Cathy Norton was probably riding on her motorized three wheeler right now…not having to worry about anything. She had four sisters, a mother and a father. They had lived in the same house forever at the north end of VanDyke road. Her mother didn’t have to work. Her father came home every day at 5:30. And she never, never ever counted sleeping pills. That’s why I ended up in this stupid place. I was tired. It was just too much. I couldn’t have someone’s happiness as my responsibility. I couldn’t do it alone. I couldn’t. Who would take care of me? I didn’t want to be looked to. Who would…?
My thoughts were interrupted by a whistling Mr. Whitman. I didn’t know he whistled. Was he ever going to leave Baby Land? He spent more time on those stupid flowers than… And then it hit me. He did spend more time on those flowers than anything else. He weeded and hoed, shoveled and watered, picked and caressed, watered and whistled too. Yes, those flow- ers had a big responsibility, maybe bigger than the rest, but they weren’t alone…a gardener was looking after them, harder and longer than any other flowers in the cemetery. Mr. Whitman finally went for his coffee break. It was my big chance. “What did I have? What were my tools, my options? Ok, the bike’s useless…but I must have something…a stick…a rock? No, there was nothing…nothing but that stupid, flowered, banana-seat bike. Banana Fanna fo fanna, a mee-a, mia, mo… Wait a minute..that’s it. My stupid bicycle. Ok, not stupid…my fabu- lous bicycle. It was my escape. It had been there the whole time. It was so simple. Why hadn’t I seen it?” I braced my bike the short way. The wheels dug into the sides, steady as a staircase. I climbed onto the seat, reached my hands to solid ground and climbed out. Just as I was about to raise my hands in victory, I looked down and realized my bike was irretrievable. “Now what?” I decided I would just have to leave it…come back for it when Mr. Whitman’s day was over. “But then what?” Well, I didn’t have time to think of that now. I had to get out. I had no idea what time it was and I wanted to beat my mother home from work. I ran the mile home. I grabbed my knees to catch my breath in the kitchen. The clock on the wall said three. I had made it. Plenty to spare. I had made it – made it through the night, the fall, the grave…and I knew I could survive anything. My clothes were filthy. I washed them in the sink with shampoo and dried them with my blow- dryer. I waited on the front step. She drove up, just a few minutes after Mr. Norton drove by. She got out of the car. “Did you have a good day?” I asked. “Yes,” she answered with a smile, grabbed my hand and I believed her. “You?” she asked. “The best.” And I believed myself. After dinner I recruited Cathy to walk back to the cemetery to try and retrieve my bicycle. We had all the necessary tools – rope, a hammer and three packages of Bubs Daddy bubble gum. I don’t know what the plan was actually, but we had all the confidence that age had not yet dimin- ished.
When we got to the gate we saw the most amazing thing. My bike was resting against the iron bars. And it wasn’t even dirty. Someone had rescued it. “I thought you said your bike was…” Cathy started. “It was. It really was buried.” “Well it’s not now. Let’s go. Brady Bunch will be on soon.” It’s funny how easily we both accepted the tiny miracle that rested against the Kinkead fence. “It’s probably just a repeat,” I said as I straddled my bike. I gripped the handle bars. Hold everything dear. “I don’t care. I still want to see it.” Cathy hopped on the back of my seat. We started the ride back. “Best Brady Bunch?” she asked. “The one where Jan drops her bracelet out the window and Alice buys her a new one.” “Yeah, that one was good. Worst?” “The trip to the Grand Canyon. It was so beat.” “Best Brady Boy?” she continued. “Definitely Peter.” “Yeah, he’s the cutest.” She held on to my waist as I pedaled. “Best bike ride?” she asked as we neared her driveway. “This one,” I said, “Definitely, this one.” That night my mother tucked me in and went to her bed. A few minutes later I got up and went into her room. “What’s the matter? Are you afraid?” “No,” I answered. And this time I meant it.
“Then, what?” “I heard Mr. Whitman whistle today,” I said. “I just thought you should know.” She smiled. I returned to my bed and we both slept through the night.
