My grandma made coffee on the stove. My mom started drinking at 13. With one older brother and seven younger siblings, I guess she needed it. Someone told her it was going to stunt your growth. She grew to almost 5’9”, traveled to Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, dressed to the nines, (or five nines) — never stunted.
We all begin somewhere, but that doesn’t have to dictate where we go. This is all up to us to decide. Every day. Every. Day.
Today we drink our Caribou coffee at the airport. Awaiting our next journey, wearing my mother’s turtleneck and a big portion of her heart. Gathered in her never stunted spirit, I travel tall! I travel on!
Bruce Springsteen sang of “Glory Days,” ironically when we were still in high school. And for me, that seems about right. To keep it there. I can’t say that I have once really looked back and thought those were the best days of my life. Not because they were bad, but because I want to enjoy the time I’m in. Right now.
She emailed me this morning. Said she walked into her friend’s house, and there was my bluebird. Hanging on the wall. And just like that, the three of us, who had gone to high school together, were all connected. Maybe for the first time. I know these two “girls” now as women of the world (maybe still with young girls’ hearts), and with all apologies to Bruce, what could be more glorious than that?
To let people become. To allow them to learn and grow…find their own happiness. Find the life they love…and then see them, in all their glory, in every shade of blue, nothing could make me happier.
This is the time. Right here. Right now. “I wink with a young girl’s eye.”
In our travels, the greatest common denominator (look, I’m finally using that high school math) is the “selfie.” People taking pictures, seemingly, not of the experience they are having, but creating some sort of proof that they were there. For example, the amount of selfie sticks in Venice almost obstructed the 360 degrees of beauty. What are they missing in trying to gain all this proof?
When I cook, I like to serve everything on a platter. I like a good presentation. I like a set table. In two weeks of making meals at my mother’s house, I have yet to take a picture of the food.
My niece took us out for a joyful lunch yesterday. Not one picture of the food. I can still feel the hug hello. I can feel the hug goodbye. I remember the conversations. I’m still laughing. I can still hear both nephews saying “I love you.” Proof.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a good story, a good photograph, a good memory. But I’m probably most pleased when I get home from a vacation, a lunch, an event, and think, “Oh, I was having so much fun, I forgot to take a picture.” My heart feels full. My brain races over the experience. My face opens in a continuous smile. And if those I’m with feel it too, then that’s all the proof I need – I was there – I am here!
Sunday afternoons were always the longest. Especially in winter. When it got dark so early. I read. There was that. Laura Ingalls Wilder. Her Sunday afternoons, I imagined were full. With Ma and Pa, and Mary, and that little one that nobody really liked. I laid on the floor and walked to their “Little House in the Big Woods” — before they moved to the Prairie. Everyone remembers the Prairie – maybe because of the television show, but for me it was that book – Little House in the Big Woods – because it was the first book in that series that I owned. That I could hold and smell and turn the pages. That I could read and read again on dark, Sunday afternoons.
My mom often laid beside me. Both of us near a speaker of our giant console. Only a few records, she played over and over. Barry Manilow. Frank Sinatra. Worn from the play on those dark days. She always told me, “One day, the days are going to go so fast. Filled with so much joy, we’ll barely be able to hold on.”
She was more than right. Nothing is lighter than joy, and oh, how it can fly. Sometimes, I try to catch it all in the blur that passes, Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, art, love, travel, France, glasses — clinking, laughter, food passed around tables, and words shared in whispers and dog-eared books. And it is fast — this traveling at the speed of joy. Sometimes I wonder, how will I hold on, and then I see, my hands knowing, folded together in thanks, holding. On.
At Washington Elementary, if it was warm enough for normal school attendance, it was warm enough to play outside. Even on the coldest of winter days, we bundled, which really ate into our recess time, and played with the vigor of youth!
On our playground, front and center, was a grand set of “monkey bars.” We didn’t question it then, but these monkey bars had a giant head of a dragon. And on this dragon we would climb and jump, secure that if we fell, we would be safe in our winter’s bundle. Sometimes, someone lost a bit of their tongue on a dare – just like in the Christmas movie – when dared to stick their tongue on the frozen bars. But mostly we ran. We jumped. We climbed. Huffing and puffing in the winter cold, like baby dragons. So thrilled by the sight of our own breath! We were alive!
Yesterday, two friends made the two hour drive from Minneapolis in the bitter cold (below zero), just to see me for 10 minutes and get signed copies of my newest book. They even brought presents! My mom watched in delight from the upstairs window. (No COVID spreading here.) My friends and I laughed and danced around in the cold. Hugging and laughing like baby dragons. And it is was as thrilling as it was on the playground so many years ago, to see my own laughter — as it hung in the air — proof that joy could be found on any day — in any temperature! What a glorious feeling to be alive!!!
The bus dropped us off at Washington Elementary about 15 minutes before class started. I met with three of my friends. We all had glow-in-the-dark super balls, purchased from Ben Franklin. These balls, just about one inch in size, lived up to their name! The four of us snuck into the gymnasium, it was just across from our classroom. With no windows, and the doors shut, it was completely black. Nothing could be seen but the four super balls bouncing from wall to wall. It was a glorious light show of bouncing back! We chased the light for 15 shiny minutes. Our secret game. No rules. No losers. Only laughter. Only the belief that what we threw out there would come back to us.
I suppose I am not different from most people in the night time. That darkness can help my brain create the worst of scenarios. I really have to work at letting it all go. Releasing it all. Believing that the sun will return in all its magical light, giving us a brand new day, a brand new chance.
The sun is shining through the window now. And maybe this is a day for you to bounce back, or simply bounce – either way, I hope you live it with the eyes of belief, experience it with those dear friends around you, running in the laughter of all this light!
I like to switch mediums. There is a feel to each. There is a feel that transfers from canvas to paint to brush to hand to heart. And so it is with charcoal and wood. The charcoal grabs onto the wood differently. Not smoothly, like the paint. It doesn’t have the same ease, but it wants to hang on, just the same. I don’t fault it for not acting like paint. It’s not paint. It’s charcoal. And it wants to be beautiful. It is.
I had lunch with a school friend the other day. We were reminiscing. My husband asked us about the diversity of our class. We struggled. Wanting to reveal it. It wasn’t there. So when I went to college, thankfully, joyfully, so necessarily, my world colored in so many ways. People of different color, of different country, of different religion and language. Every medium. And I had to learn. We all had to learn. (Have to keep learning.) People respond differently. And different is not wrong. Different is not frightening. Different is paint on canvas, charcoal on wood. And it is beautiful.
It’s easy to get stuck. Stuck in what we know. With who we know. And change can be frightening. Even a little messy. But if we allow it, feel it, let it move from hand to heart, oh, how beautiful it can be.
There is paint on my keyboard. Charcoal under my nails. Touching each word. Not perfect, but reaching out to you, with every medium of my heart, trying to be beautiful.
I got chills looking outside the window this morning. The recycle bins took a ride with the white wind and ended up across the street. I can feel that wind just typing about it.
I’m usually cold. No matter where we are. And people always say, oh, you should be used to it – you’re from Minnesota. I’m not used to it. Maybe it’s like Bob Dylan says, “I was born a long way from home.” (Someplace warm, no doubt.)
Looking through some of my mom’s things, we found this picture – me, perched on a snowmobile in a sea of white – a winter wonderland. Packed into layer after layer of clothing. We didn’t have fancy down polar jackets, so we put wool upon wool until we almost rolled out the front door. The bundling and unbundling took more time than we ever spent outside, but we did it – again and again.
But I am not prepared. For the cold. I don’t really even know what that means. If you think about it – who is prepared really, for anything? We get up. Each day. Do the best with what we have. Life happens. We change. With any luck we grow. Pack ourselves in the lessons that we learn again and again, and live and love – unprepared. But I’m good with that. Like it even. Probably love it. I don’t want to be hardened by preparation. I want to feel the surprise of joy and love when it comes, even in the tiniest of ways. Maybe that’s not preparation, but it sounds a lot like grace.
Nothing prepares you for this day. Your heart is cracked open so you cry. The world keeps turning, so you live. No one tells your heart to stop beating. So you love! Nothing prepares you for this beautiful day!
