I’m not sure I was very nice to her in high school. Maybe not mean, but I didn’t go out of my way to defend her, or support her when I witnessed actual bullying. My excuse to myself was “well, I’ve got all I can handle,” and I was dealing with a lot, for sure, but I wasn’t blind, I could still see how they treated her.
And it wasn’t just her. There was a lot of bullying. Teasing. Picking. I guess it happens everywhere – all the time. And it’s funny to see them now. And when I say see them, it’s mostly on facebook – but still, it can be very revealing. She, who had been picked on, pushed around, is now a kind and loving survivor. I see her helping others. Befriending those in need. Truly a kind person. And I applaud her. How she rose above the pickers. Way above. Many of them are still just picking away. It must be miserable living that way – constantly digging, trudging in the negativity.
Deserve is a strange word. I don’t know that anyone really deserves anything. You can say she deserved better. They deserved better. I don’t know. No one really deserves to be treated badly, but in the same sense no one really deserves riches either. But she had the strength to grow and get through and get beyond, to rise above. This is really something! I’m sorry I didn’t see it before, but I see it now. And maybe they see it too. I hope so. You just never know what you’re going to have to overcome in order to become. But she knows now. Look up – look at her! She knew. (I hope she’s smiling as she reads this. I think she is. I can see her now – and I won’t miss the chance again.)
My mother used to keep a list, a laminated list, of all my surgeries. I had had over 20, so to remember the dates and places, was just too much. There was no MyChart, or other computer app at that time. We didn’t have cell phones, or ipads, so she typed (on a typewriter) each procedure, laminated it, and kept it in her wallet. And each time I went to a new hospital, of course they would ask about my history, and she would whip it out, no explanation required.
What a gift to have someone who knows you. Knows your history. Because she did that, you see, with all my emotions. Whenever something came up in my life, I didn’t have to relive the past. Didn’t have to justify my feelings. Never had to explain why this event would trigger something in me. She knew. She knows me. She always knows me. The events of my life are laminated in her heart. And hers in mine. Forever safe. Forever understood.
I hope you have that with someone. I hope someone has that with you. What a gift to be understood. What a gift to understand!
To create depth in a painting, you have to create shadows. Reveal the imperfections. And the only way to do this is to identify your light source. Where is the light coming from? This can be tricky when you’re first learning. That light seems to be bouncing everywhere, but really it’s just your hands, or your head. With practice, as I suppose with everything, it becomes so much easier. The light hasn’t changed, but your way of seeing it has. It becomes so much more obvious. So much easier to capture on canvas. And it wants to be revealed — the light — it wants to help you create a painting of depth and meaning.
Even as I type this, it becomes so obvious, that the same is true for the heart. It wants to be revealed. Oh, how I have stumbled in the darkness, but I found my way. I have let my heart reveal all my imperfections, but more importantly, all the light!
They say there are only two real sources, love and fear. And that fear can be a powerful one, but today, and everyday, I will grab my brush and my heart, and choose my source — my light…I will choose love.
She was immersed in gray, this young woman on Youtube. I watched her walk by the lake, in the fog, in the drizzle. The sky seemed to seep into the water, barely a difference. And she was so happy! Truly happy! The kind of heart-sighing that breaks into the widest smile of content. And just to confirm it, she said, “I love this weather. I wish I could live in this every day! It’s my favorite!” And I knew she meant it. You can’t fake that kind of happiness. She thought it was absolutely beautiful. She took photos and videos. Gasping in delight.
Normally, I am a person who can’t get enough sun. I feed off of it. I love the colors it creates, in nature, and in my heart. It is a warmth that I crave. But here she was, telling me how beautiful it was, the exact opposite of what I love, and you know, I could start to see it. Yes, it was beautiful. Because now I could see what she sees.
Now, I’m still going to hope for a sunny day. It is, and will always be my favorite. But I can appreciate that she loves what she loves in the very same way that I love what I love. Let’s slow that down a bit. She loves what she loves and it is beautiful. I love what I love, and it, too, is beautiful. That probably works not just for what, but for who…
It’s a pretty big world. Room enough for all kinds of love, I suppose. Maybe we should just let love, simply love.
There was such freedom in it. Learning to swing. The first few years, having to ask, can you push me? Again? Knowing if they left, it would be all over. It was so limiting. So discouraging. Just you, hanging there. But then one day it happens. Fed up with the waiting. The depending. You push off from the ground. Reach your legs forward a little. Then ride it back. Curling your legs in. A little further this time. Pointing your toes. Back again. Further. Hugging in your knees. Then releasing. Pointing those toes to the sky. Hair blowing. Heart racing. Legs pumping. You are doing it on your own. How glorious! You’re swinging! All on your own!
I guess that’s what happiness is. You can wait around for someone else to make you happy, or you can figure it out on your own. You can create your own joy. You can pump and reach and fling yourself into the beauty all around you! Then you have something to share.
And, if you’re lucky, someone might come along and sit beside you. Fly along beside you. And you can turn to them and smile – a smile that says – hey, this is really some ride!
My legs are pumping. The day begins. I’ll see you up there!
I could see him from my window, this bird. He was at the bottom of the large pine. A tiny little thing, dwarfed by this massive tree. He started climbing. Hopping really. Up, so slowly. I could hear the little click of his feet (claws?) grab onto the bark. Click, hop. Click, hop. He wasn’t making much progress. I had never seen a bird make so much effort, struggle, to climb a tree. There was an alternative… I kept watching. He was about a quarter of the way. Click, hop, Click, hop. I wondered when he was going to realize it. You know, that he could just fly. Half way up, there it came – the realization – oh, yeah, I have wings. And in two seconds he was at the top. Then floating in the sky. What a relief! How delightful – I could see it in his wings.
Yesterday, after waiting two and a half hours from his initial phone call saying he was near, the FedEx man called and said in fact he wasn’t going to come at all. Like it was just some option. Like when you call for a pick-up, he’ll swing by if he has the chance…. Aaargh. So frustrating. I got upset. It happens all the time. The anger was building inside of me. Rising. Climbing. Click, hop!!!! CLICK, HOP! It took about 15 minutes until I decided to jump into the pool. The water was lifting. I started doing laps. The strokes started to release it all. I was getting lighter. In the pool, I started to fly.
I had thought the bird so silly for not realizing the lesson he had learned so long ago. Then I saw myself. How easy it is to forget. And so we live and learn, sometimes the same lessons over and over, again and again… yesterday’s lesson — patience.
This morning the sun is shining in a bright blue sky! I hope I remember to fly!
She had to make a U-turn in traffic to capture a photo of this Vespa. While driving on this busy road, with as many thoughts as one woman normally carries in her head about the what ifs and the what to dos — this sky blue Vespa caught her eye and she thought about me. Me! She thought about me and turned the car around. Thought about the Vespas I had painted. Stopped her day and captured a picture. Sent it to me in another country, all because she thought about me.
I have a million images to paint. The ones dancing around my head. The ones people want to commission. But yesterday I stopped. I stopped to make a small painting of that blue Vespa. Because I thought about her. I thought about how good it felt to have someone across the globe take a minute of their day to say “I thought about you, and it’s important enough to take action.” That’s something!
They say it’s the thought that counts. Not really. If someone is thinking about you, but never tells you, never shows you — who cares? What good is that? Thoughts need to be expressed. (well, at least the good ones – some thoughts can certainly be kept to yourself :))
Maybe today is the day you show someone that you care. Make a simple U-turn and give them a smile. It matters. It is time worthy. Paint worthy. Word worthy. Heart worthy! Take the time.
Is it fear, or anger? Sadness… I don’t know. Is it just the nature of the flight? He couldn’t stay. He told you that. It was hard to believe, but it was true. He had to leave. The agonizing weight on his wings, he couldn’t explain. Not just a pull, a desire, but a life altering weight that he just couldn’t release here, and so he had to go. He found a way. In his mind his only way. And I, you, we, would have done anything to change his mind, but it was his mind, his flight to change. And so now… now? We wonder, we what if?, we cry, and wail, and yes, sometimes anger… and we look, look for answers, reasons. But I am not one that can say everything happens for a reason… some things are beyond reason, beyond our understanding… and so we look again. We look, not to make sense, not to understand, but to cope.
And how do we cope?
My grandfather told me that when it is too hard, looking at your own life, you look to someone else. How can I help them? In helping them, we too, help ourselves. We become aware. Maybe we help them, and they become a little more aware, aware that there is still kindness, and we become aware that we can still care with our broken hearts, and all this awareness leads to a new day, and maybe a few new choices, and maybe, just maybe, the weight is lifted from one, and then another.
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.
She packed her orange book bag with the same things each morning of her summer vacation. (It was the orange corduroy bag her mother had made for her 5 years earlier when she had to go to the hospital. Her first book in that bag was “The Little China Pig.” She read it over and over to the crying girl in the bed next to her. )
Inside the bag were two thermoses. Her brother had made them in shop class. They were glass jars covered in styrofoam. They were hers now that her brother had gone into the service. The service – that’s what they called it then. It seemed so harmless. It was long before 9/11 – when September just meant “back to school.” There was no threat of war. She never thought about war. She never thought about lonely. Or love.
She had painted the two thermoses to differentiate. Inside the thermos painted with stripes was ice water. Inside the solid black thermos was Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. She brought a spoon. One book from her Laura Ingalls Wilder series. A pencil. A stack of paper. A handful of chocolate chips, if there was a bag open in the top cupboard. She left every morning around 9am and was rarely gone for more than thirty minutes.
She walked along the field behind her house. It was farmed by Hugo. Hugo grew a field of golden wheat. When the wind blew it brushed against the nearness of her legs. Legs now released from long winter pants. Legs that tingled in the freshness, set free into the Minnesota summer. Legs that longed to disappear in a golden blaze. With a gentle whisper of wheat against her shoulder, her waist, her knee… she was reassured from the field , this tender field, that whatever was to come, everything was going to be ok.
She normally finished her soup at home, hours later. She washed her thermoses and read her book on the swing in the backyard.
Her mother came home about 4:30. Her father came home around 6. Their timing was always just a little off. In the years to follow, their timing grew further apart, as well as their hearts, and their lives.
But for a minute, she and her mother lived in the brown house alone. It was their third house on VanDyke road, behind Hugo’s field. Her mother kept a bottle of sleeping pills beside her bed. Each night she counted them when her mother wasn’t looking. Each night she prayed the bottle would remain full.
Some nights, in a dream, or the thoughts that come just before sleep, she imagined the golden fields. She imagined the wheat so high you could stand in the middle and disappear. She thought about the sleeping pills. She thought of her mother’s hurt and desperation. How she had asked them to just put her in the hospital for a week so she could rest, recover. She imagined the wheat around her mother, so high now that she couldn’t see her face. She imagined Hugo in his combine harvester. Was it a combine? The large machine that cut the hay? A thrasher? What did they call it? She wanted to yell out to warn her mother, but she couldn’t remember the name. She knew her mother could hear it. Why didn’t she move? She was so tired and so sad. She just stood there. It got closer and she yelled to her mother in her silent dream voice. The wheat thrashed! She jumped out of her bed. Ran to her mother’s room and recounted the pills. All still there. They wouldn’t put her in the hospital. She had to stay visible, present, above the wheat.
They lived in the brown house briefly. One day, when she came home from school, a sign was posted in the front lawn. Sold. She walked the path beside the field one last time. They moved again. This time into town. Who was watching the fields? Was someone supposed to watch the fields?
She learned to love the city. Her mother slept with no substances. And they grew strong, and happy and golden, just as the field had promised.
It’s hard to imagine now. These memories are mostly just flashes of color. Flashes of a different life. She didn’t feel bad when they passed through her. She felt strong. And proud. Of herself. And her mother. To keep your head above the wheat is something. To never give up. This is something, she thought, really something, and she drifted off to sleep.
