I begin to miss it immediately. That last bite of toast. A spoon licked clean of homemade jam. And the cup’s final drop of coffee — it’s strongest sip of the morning. As Virginia Woolf would say — “a sip of the divine specific.”
Maybe it’s the newness of it all. The beginning. The conversation so fresh and coherent, laced with headlines and caffeine. Lingering in the sugared possibilities, I am not doing. Not ahead, nor behind, I just am. I know that soon I will be studying, typing, splashing, moving, creating, but at this moment, while the beans have magically moved from brew to waft, I float with them, over tabled worries and responsibilities. Light as I will be.
I am, by nature, a day-filler. I’m a doer. A “let’s get things done” person. And I love it. To create is joy. Whether it is canvas or confiture (jam), I have a real need to make it. A pace that speeds me to the blur of day’s end. A pace that outruns (sometimes), that overcomes (sometimes), but always forces me to stop. And just before I fall to sleep, brushing away the should-haves and could-haves, weeding through the less-than-“devine,” I smile, I breathe, comforted by the calming thought — it’s almost time for breakfast.
We didn’t have lawn furniture. We had blankets — old blankets that took their place beside the winter weary hanging coats and resting boots.
Laura Ingalls Wilder book in one hand and blanket dragging from the other, I told my mom I was going to read in the grass. “Haven’t you already read that one?” she asked. “Not outside, no,” I said racing through the screen door. She smiled, seeming to understand my youthful summer logic.
I learned quite early on that the words took on new meaning outside. Let loose in the warm air, they wiggled like white winter toes set free. Bouncing in breezes. Flapping with wings. It seemed to me that I was returning the favors given by each book read in the trappings of the cold. Housed in the wintertime, they allowed me to climb inside each page. To travel without fear of inclement weather. So on these sun-filled days, it seemed only right that I would let those same words out. And the language they took on was magical. The voice of freedom. Maybe all things (and mostly people) tell a better story without restraints.
Yesterday I finished reading the book Flâneuse,by Lauren Elkin, from the luxury of a lawn chair. ‘Flâneuse [flanne-euhze], a noun, from the French, a form of flâneur [flanne-euhr], an idler, a dawdling observer. This is indeed a book made to be read outdoors. I wandered, and yes, even dawdled through each luxurious sentence.
I suppose my love, nor logic, has never lived indoors. I wish for you the same — words filled with so much meaning, they need open spaces. Lives filled with wandering paved and gravel paths. Loves so vast, so high that the birds envy and try to reach. Throw those curtains wide. Fling windows and doors. Step out into the wiggle of toes and heart. Breathe. The day is opening!
Slipping and clinging to the silky nyloned leg of my mother, slowly navigating table by table of no doubt excellent food in this potluck feast, still searching, longing, hoping to pass somewhere near the comfort of my mother’s dish — this is perhaps the best way I can explain what it’s like to begin navigation in another country.
In so many ways, you become a child again. Everything is new. You struggle to form grade-school sentences at the grown-ups table. Some will speak slowly, loudly, like your handicap isn’t limited to just the language. You’ll hear the dreaded, “It can’t be translated…” — the equivalent of “one day you’ll understand…” And you wish for the speed of this understanding. And within that wish, without your childish knowledge or permission, time passes in a blur. And suddenly your new wish is that it all slows down.
I continue to learn the language. Set the table. And I taste the food. Even make the food. And I can see it now, not as a handicap, but a gift. I get to be a child again. It is not out of fear, but joy, that I get to say, “Everything is new!”
We visited the Sainte Victoire Mountain again the other day. Climbing to Cezanne’s viewpoint, complaining about the noise of the nearby weed wackers, step by step the park didn’t seem all that special, and I turned around to say something to Dominique, but the words were sucked away by wonder as I saw it, again and for the first time, this beautiful view! The Sainte Victoire! Not only was it so very special, but I felt special, because I got to, get to, see it as a child. The struggle is the gift. And for one slow and glorious second, time had no hold, no power, I breathed, blinked, and I thought, “Look, Mommy, I’m here!”
We were best friends in the second and third grade. Too young to know that it’s hard for three. My grandma would warn me of this years later when skating with my two cousins, but it came too late for Jan, Shari and me.
We did everything together — not that our everything consisted of that much, but it felt like more than enough to equate to BFFs! It was mostly Chinese jump rope. Sleep overs. Giggling. Soon to be illegal clicky-clackers that my grandma brought to us from Florida. Birthdays. Bedrooms. Pinky swears. American jump rope. A lot of, well, just jumping – from bicycles and jungle gyms. From car doors into freshly mown grass. From the pages of Archie comics. Maybe we should have seen the warnings — it was always Betty and Veronica. Never Midge. Never three.
I don’t remember the date. Nor the reason. My mom dropped me off at Shari’s house. There was no Jan. Something about a phone call. A fight. Tears. “Never again,” she said to me. How easy it was to say never at 7 years old. Within minutes the first surprise would be exceeded by the second. If there was no three, she explained, there would be no two. She had decided for all of us. I sat at the end of her driveway and waited the long two hours for my mother to pick me up. I thought of the last time we jumped rope together. Having no idea that when I was singing, “Vote, vote, vote for Shari…knock, knock, Jodi at the door, she’s a better woman she can do the wibble wobble, so we don’t need Shari anymore…” that it would be the last time.
I suppose the “last time” always comes too soon. I could not foresee living this lesson again and again. But I would. I have. I will. Again.
Some days I miss my mom so much, the weight of that driveway’s end seems unbearable. But I wave as I pass by her picture. Put on one of her blouses. Recall a memory of a trip. Jumping from store to store. See her dancing the wibble wobble. And I smile. The wait is never long. She continues to “pick me up.”
I wrote the combination on my hand. On my notebook. And on a small scrap of paper that I put inside my mom’s desk in her office at Central Junior High. I had never had a locker before. I had never locked anything. Not our front door. Nor my bike. Not the car doors. Not my journal. (The only one who was there to read it was my mom, and I already told her everything — feelings as open as the streets roamed.)
This was all new – these lockers at school. I wasn’t sure how I would navigate. How would I remember the numbers? And to date, on bike, on foot, on feeling, I roamed randomly. How would I become so exact? Turn left to the number. Right. Stop. Back again. Numbers. Turning. It all seemed so calculated. I read the number from my left hand and turned with my right. Carefully. Slowly. Then pulled at the handle. Nothing. I did it again. Slower. Counting. Breathing. Sweating. Pulling — nothing. My heart beat faster. Why???? Left. Right. Left. Circle round. Nothing. I spun the dial on the lock round and round as if to break the spell. Just before tears, it opened. I hung up my coat. A coat I would have given up easily to never have to go through this locking again.
But I did it. Day after day. And it became routine. To lock things. Books. Homework. And most regrettably, feelings. I can’t blame all of it on Central Junior High, but somewhere, in this time, in this space, this heart, my heart, that I once dangled from sleeves at high speeds on a banana seat bike, now rested quietly, locked on handwritten poems unseen in a junior high locker. It would be years before I dared show anyone.
But bit by bit, I was given the combination. My mother was always the first number, then a few professors in college, a few friends, turned my number to the right, and I suppose it was that little girl that said enough already — begging to get back on that banana seat bike, and ride freely, feelings whipping through hair and breeze — it was she, me, who turned the final number and released everything. No more locks. Heart, mind, soul — open.
The birds are singing through my open window as I tell you my story. This day and every day. Hoping each letter, each word, gives you a part of the combination to set you free, so you can do the same for another. And one day, maybe we’ll reach that final number — hearts open, wild in the breeze — and we’ll all be free.
I never had an alarm clock growing up. Just the thought of it sounds, well, alarming. My mom did though. It was just one of the many things she took on, so I wouldn’t have to. She absorbed the morning jolt, tiptoed to the bathroom, brushed and washed. If I wasn’t roused by the gentle clinking of her makeup, she would come into my bedroom, and start my day with whispered hand on shoulder. Toast popped up in the kitchen. Smiles set the day’s intention. Maybe we didn’t fold hands in prayer, but you’d be wrong to say she didn’t start the day saying grace.
Of course there was a world of concern around her, around us, but if she woke with worry, it never showed in her hands. I guess she learned that from her mother. I pray I’ve done the same.
I begin each day now, in another time, another country. But there’s coffee on the table. And kindness in the air. I give thanks, and whisper with the gentle clink of the keyboard — Good morning.
I have climbed the Sainte Victoire mountain twice. Quite an elevation for these Minnesota legs! I suppose most people would think the hardest part is going up. Maybe I did too. But it wasn’t the case. Sure my muscles struggled, strained, even sang out a little, but it was on the way down that I cried, both times. Maybe it’s the weight of responsibility. This having “been to the mountaintop.” This knowing what it took to get there — not legs, nor muscles, but the heart, the will, the courage of all those that carried me before. Grandparents and mother, teachers and friends. Poets and preachers. Teammates and competitors. Painters and authors. Stories in every every voice and color. We don’t get anywhere alone. So I cried on the way down, fumbling, stumbling toward grace — not sad — it’s just that view, that view from gratitude is pretty spectacular!Dominique’s grandson had a paper to write on Martin Luther King. In English. Finally, I thought, I could be of assistance. I had seen these mountaintops. It’s difficult to find your worth in another language. When the children around you have a larger vocabulary. But this was my territory. School. Writing. An American story. In English. We worked through his paper together. Word by word. Step by step. He did well. What a view!
I think we focus so much in this life on how to climb up. And yes, that’s important. But we must not lose sight of what needs to be done once we get back down. What do we give? What do we share? Whose hands do we take as we turn around to make the climb again?
I stumble through this language, this life, certainly, even scrape my knees on this promised land, but oh, the view, this glorious view from top to bottom, spectacular!
I’ve often wondered if Cezanne hadn’t seen the beauty in fruit, in the mountain, would I have seen it?
My grandma didn’t have matching dishes. I don’t remember the table ever being “set.” We knew the contents of the cupboards, and we grabbed what was needed. A plate. A fork. A glass. As children we drank out of these multi-colored aluminum tumblers. They were indestructible. You could dig a hole with it in the dirt to bury a treasure, wash it out with the garden hose, then fill it with milk and Nesquik – chunky style because you didn’t have the patience to keep stirring. The color of tumbler chosen worked as our first “mood rings.” Blue was sad. Red, you had a temper. Green was kind. Gold, surely a winner! They could be swapped, dropped, thrown, and fit perfectly into our sweaty, chubby hands. So much adventure. So much beauty.
I’ve seen them now, these tumblers, in antique stores. Over priced, surely, but never overvalued. I smile because I did see it. We saw it together — before anyone told us it was beautiful, that they were beautiful.
My grandma never went to France. I doubt that she knew of Cezanne. But make no mistake about it, long before I studied in school, she taught me about art appreciation. How to see the beauty of everything. My real education.
When I paint the most simple still life, (my long lost treasure uncovered) I think, yes, I would have seen it. Not because of Cezanne, but because of Elsie. My grandma Elsie. I hang the painting, my heart knowing, she did make it to France after all.
It was July 2nd in 1994 that we saw Robert Goulet perform in Camelot. I know the date because my mom wrote it in her journal. She kept record of all the important things. Where we went. The dresses we wore. Because unlike in the song, one of her favorites by Robert Goulet, “I won’t send roses,” he sings, “I won’t send roses, or hold the door. I won’t remember which dress you wore.” And when she sang the last line, “and roses suit you so,” she meant it for me, and most importantly, she meant it for herself.
She played that record again and again to get the point across. What a lesson to learn! A lesson every woman should embrace and pass on. You have to know your worth, and be prepared to accept nothing less, to give nothing less.
We sat side by side in that theatre in Minneapolis, listening to him sing the “impossible dream,” knowing, we had always, would always “run, where the brave do not go!”
Today, when I play fashion show, (and I play a lot), there is a bit of vanity involved, sure, but there is so much more. I am my mother’s daughter, daring to bare shoulders and heart. Daring to give the love that I want in return. In front of the mirror, in my black and white dress, a black as dark as Mr. Goulet’s mustache and hair, my heart sings, because I am dressed to receive all the “roses” this life can offer. It is written in her journal, inscribed in my soul — it suits me so.
We were sitting on the stools in the 7th grade science lab, trying to erase the smell of gas from our brains, and the face of the boy that always turned it on and laughed. Each tick of the clock brought us closer to the bell. I paid close attention because there was no time to waste. The science lab was at the far end of Central Junior High, near the pool. My next class was social studies with Mr. Temple at the complete opposite end on the second floor. The allotted 5 minutes allowed just enough time to run to my locker, change my books and be seated in the classroom. Because it wasn’t enough to be racing through the door at the sound of the bell. He demanded that you were seated, ready to learn, when it sounded, or you would get detention. Detention — the horror. The humiliation. I had never received it. And I was proud of that. So I sat in the “starter’s position,” ready to race to social studies. The bell rang and I jumped. I was nearly out the door when I heard her gasp. I turned to see my lab partner (and friend) glued to her stool, mouth open. There wasn’t time, but she looked at me so desperately. I ran back. She whispered in my ear. She got her period. I looked at the clock. Looked at her face. Took off my sweatshirt for her to wrap around her waist. And went with her to the bathroom.
The bell rang before I had even left the floor. When I ran through his door, he was standing at the front of the room, detention slip in hand. He wasn’t unreasonable. He always gave you the chance to defend yourself. I suppose I could have given the full “Judy Blume” version of it all, but the whole class was listening. I shook my head, and held out my hand to grab the slip.
We had no idea of forever at the time. We lived minute by minute. And were willing to give up 60 of them, detained after hours, just to save each other. She asked me the next day in Mr. French’s class, “Did you get in trouble?” “No,” I smiled, “no trouble at all.”
