It’s so easy to see the things I should have done. The things I should have said. (Or shouldn’t have). And they fly around my brain, buzzing really, until I swat away the pesky “shoulds” and start living the calm of “what is”. Here. Maybe it lacks the clarity of then, but residing in the now, with all of its unknown, uncertainty, it is so quiet. And in this quiet I can hear the thoughts. The thoughts of the person I want to be. So I write them. Paint them. Knowing this moment too will pass. And I will need the reminders. The reminders to hug longer. Laugh louder. Speak softer. Cry more freely. Forgive. Smile. Trust. Hope. Be curious. Love abundantly, and then a little more – even myself.
I am quick to make the grocery list. We are out of coffee. Mouthwash. Seeing it, I laugh. None of it is important, if I don’t do the above. So I step inside the quiet of morning. The whisper of “there, there…” of right now, and I just see…. No should haves. No could haves. I just am. Not perfect. But always original. Note to self.
Just one letter separated the two words. And barely even a letter, only the slightest curve between the “a” and the “o”. Hallowed. Hollowed. They were in the poem she sent me. It was beautiful for so many reasons, but for me, this tiniest of movements that could change one word to another, one emotion to another, filled me with hope, filled me with love.
That’s why I have always loved words. Books. Therein lies the possibilities.
We went to Book in Bar yesterday – my favorite bookstore in Aix. The comfort was palpable. As we stood by the coffee bar, waiting for our cappuccinos, I saw it. Flâneuse, by Lauren Elkin. A Chicago friend had tagged me in a post about it just the day before. I have never been one to ignore magic, so I picked it up, sat with it at our table. Hallowed.
I suppose I think, if I live in the word, I might too possess the skills to make the same changes. To take an empty day, and fill it.
As I wander (the meaning of flâneuse) through the “a”s and “o”s of my day, I will choose the magic. Choose the hope of each word and place it into that hollow part of my heart, and fill it. I will write my story. Live my story. Share my story. For I have to believe — it’s the most beautiful magic of all!
We always made one last trip to the lake, my mom and I, after running along the Magnificent Mile for two days. In measured steps, we walked the quiet Sunday morningsidewalk. Past the water tower. The drowsy Drake hotel. Then under the street. Up to the beach. There it was. Lake Michigan. Always important. Never urgent. And we breathed. Offering thanks, with the slow reverence it deserved. Both of our wrists still marked by the weight of shopping bags, we held out our hands and waved, not goodbye, but in recognition.
Some days, I still try to urgent away the emotion. I could vacuum. And dust. Ironing needs to be done. And I could write lists of more things to do. But then there is the important. Calling. In waves. So I take out my sketchbook. My paints. Tape off a square. Imagine the calm. And with blued brush, I gently put it on the paper. And I feel it all. The tender of memory and time. I smile and breathe in the important, and watch the urgent roll on by.
It wasn’t just in the high school band that we marched along to the same drummers. There was a rhythm to the students, perhaps even the town. We dressed in the same colors, supporting the same team. Traveling on the same buses, singing the same songs.
There was a small skip that we learned when marching in the parades. If you got out of step, you just did this little hop, and right back in you fell. Aligned with all the others dressed in red and black.
When I first went to college, the noise was almost deafening. So many different colors drumming. And I fumbled and skipped and fell in and out of line. But everyone was. It was the time for tripping. For learning.
It was only when I started to put my words and paintings together, that it became so joyful, so light — this beat — no longer a banging of sticks, but a flapping of wings. The most gentle beat — in my own colors, my own heart. Pa-rup-a-pum-pum.
That’s not to say I can’t get thrown off. Out of step. Life will do that. But I know the little “skips” that realign me with myself. I think we all do. I hope we all do.
I pulled a tiny chocolate drum out of my Advent calendar this morning. I hear it. I feel it, my rhythm. I smile, right in time, and think, today, my heart is going to lead me, and one way or another, I am going to fly.
It sold almost immediately after she put it in the window of her gallery in Wayzata — this 4’ lighthouse painting. I suppose we are all looking for the light. We painters and sailors. We who bob up and down. Knocked over, then lifted, by the same waves.
I’ve always been a morning person. Everything seems possible in the morning. Everything lightened, not just in color, but weight. But, oh, that nighttime. That darkness. Oooh, that can really get away with me. I’ve always tried to fight it. But recently, I’ve tried something new. Not fighting, but challenging. Not going toe to toe with it, round and round with it in my brain. When those thoughts start creeping in, I acknowledge them. “I see you,” I say. “But not tonight. We can talk about it again in the morning if we need to.” It’s not a perfect system, but it seems to be helping.
I have always been up for a challenge. But rarely a fight. My grandfather taught me that in the fields. My mother taught me that in the trenches. Both houses of hope, of light.
I heard a line in a song once, “My heart is a boat on the sea.” That feels about right. So I keep riding the waves, toward the light. Hopeful for all the light to come. Grateful for all the shine I have been given.
The gallery was named The Good Life. How appropriate I thought, it is indeed. I woke to all of the possibilities coming through my window, and said to the sun, “Challenge accepted.”
Mrs. Anderson told us it would happen. We didn’t believe her…until it did. We looked at the schedule for the upcoming volleyball season. We all had an idea of who the good teams were. The bigger schools. The ones with bigger gyms. Stronger records. But the most dangerous would not be the tough teams she said. Those we had practiced for. Trained for. Hours of jumping and diving. No, the ones we had to be careful of, watch out for, were those we underestimated. We listened, but really paid more attention to the stripes on our Nike sneakers.
We were confident getting off the bus. Being from a small town, it was something to go to an even smaller town. A smaller school. We walked a little taller. Laughing as we changed into our uniforms. Coasting through our warm-ups. We fell behind immediately. Nothing to worry about. We were stronger. Better even. Anyone could see it. Couldn’t they? And it wasn’t a Disney story…no David and Goliath…no this small team was not rising above their capabilities. We had sunk to theirs. Below even. They were horrible, but we were worse. And there it was. Proof. We lost. We believed her. The real opponent would always be ourselves.
I, we, were lucky, to have such a coach — an example of how to do better. To rise up. I was even luckier to have such a mother. In a league of her own, really. She taught me daily. Now the “visiting teams” around us might not have seen, at first, but she gave me everything. By beautiful example, she showed me how to be kind. Loving. Forgiving. She raised my game. She raises it, even today. I can be better. I want to be better. She told me we could always go higher. No matter what, we could, we would, rise above.
I haven’t played volleyball in years. But each day, I pass by my mother’s t-shirt — the one she bought in Chicago. Oh what fun we had together! What challenges we surpassed to get to that joy. Rising above and beyond! Skipping up and down the Miracle Mile! What a team we were! She was indeed the Ivy league! I want that. I want to be in her league — today and every day — I better bring my best game!
We took the bus all the way to St. Cloud (an hour away) to play in the grade school summer softball tournament. It was so hot. By the time we got there, the iron-on patches that spelled out our team’s name began peeling off of our t-shirts.
The score was low and close. Dehydrated, we made it to the bottom of the ninth, up by one. As the visiting team, we just had to hold them off. Three outs. That was it. I played catcher. I beat my right fist into my oversized glove with my name written on it. I called for the pitch. (We had no special pitches, so I was just calling for the ball.) She threw it with the most magnificent arc. Almost impossible to hit. The batter had to wait for it to come down from the blazing blue sky. The batter swung. From the sound alone, I knew she only got a piece of it. I jumped up slightly from my crouch. Legs spinning. Eyes looking upward. My head was so far ahead of my feet. All I had to do was catch this ball and we would win. I chased my heart down the third base line. Head and glove extended. There was no physics to explain how my feet kept my face above the dust of the field’s sand and clay. My heart clearly defied the rules of balance. And I kept running (more falling forward at a wicked pace.) The ball fell into the web of my glove. I could hear the cheers and feel the waves of arms around me. But there was no way for me to stop. I just kept falling forward, heart filled. I was well beyond third base when I tumbled into the green of the outfield. Ball still in glove. We had won.
Some days I still feel like that. Feet spinning, trying to catch up to my heart. And I’ve had my share of face-plants in the dirt, scraped knees, but I wouldn’t have it any other way, so I keep running, falling forward…because, I guess, when it comes to following my heart, joyfully, there’s just no way for me to stop.
I started a new book recently. I’m really enjoying it. This is the point where most people ask “What’s it about?” I always think of the quote by the author, J.R. Moehringer, “I hate when people ask what a book is about. People who read for plot, people who suck out the story like the cream filling in an Oreo, should stick to comic strips and soap operas. . . . Every book worth a damn is about emotions and love and death and pain. It’s about words.”
I don’t know the first thing about farming. I can barely name the machinery. But I do know about farmers — or at least one — my grandfather. I can tell you about a pipe in the top pocket of striped overalls (the stripes carrying each season like the rings of a mighty oak.) Walks from the house to the middle of the field. A foot in each furrow. Rocks picked with roughened hands (hands that we all reached for.) Words of wisdom, scattered like seeds. Faith, that keeps you planting, again and again. Red paint chipping. Hair lines receding. A love that never stops growing. As far as I know, that’s what farming is about. Beautiful!
For me, books, paintings, days, are all meant to be lived. Really lived. Not driven by plot, but by heart. And that heart is meant to be roughened, reached, scattered, and planted. Forever growing.
Today, set aside your daily planner, and really live — that’s when the beauty comes — and maybe, just maybe, that’s what it’s all about.
You could see a cow from almost every window in my grandparent’s home. Maybe it was just too many reminders for my grandma on this particular day. I never thought of her having a middle name. I barely thought of her first name. She told me while sitting at the kitchen table – it was Gladys. Her middle name. She said she liked it. I could see a bit of a twinkle in the eye that rested above her curled lip. She was thinking about something… And I suppose it was the first time I saw her not just as a grandma, but a woman. A woman of this world. And she looked beautiful. “But Elsie is nice,” I said. “Ah, it’s a bit too much like a cow…You can call me Gladys if you like,” she said. And her apron started to disappear. I smiled, knowing I had witnessed something so very special. She slapped her hands on her thighs. The apron reappeared and she went back to the sink. I grabbed her from behind, and I hugged, again, and for the first time.
At our kitchen table here in France, I sit at the chair that faces my little cow. I painted it years ago. It rests just over Dominique’s shoulder. All of my worlds, open, with each morning croissant. The radio was playing Cabaret this morning. Liza sang “I used to have this girlfriend known as Elsie.” My heart grins. For, I too, for just a brief moment had, not just a grandma, but a girlfriend…who let me in, well beyond the kitchen, inside her private twinkle.
It wasn’t a recognized brand name. The only “flying” it did was behind me as I ran. But I loved that wagon. It carried everything that was important to me. As red as I imagined my heart to be, I filled it with stuffed animals and baby dolls. I put a blanket down first so their backsides didn’t turn orange. Yes, it was rusted, but not through. It was strong. Carrying every dream that I imagined for myself, and all those I pulled behind.
They were bounced over gravel day after summer day. To the circus and picnics. To schools and playgrounds. To airplanes. To malls. To weddings. To the future. Anything, anywhere I could imagine. My fingers gripped the handle. My heart gripped the possibilities. I had everything.
I will admit in recent days, I have felt that if I were to touch my heart, my hand would come back orange. Tear-rusted. And it might be true. But I don’t love it any less. I don’t want to love anything less, or anyone less. So I feel it. Embrace it. And hang on! Because now is the time for more. More feelings. More dreaming. More possibilities. More love. Heart wagons filled and racing behind legs of youth. Forever with me. With us. As long as we hold on.
