It was very subtle. I walked past the marker twice. I asked two people. Finally the third pointed it out, and still it took me a minute. Then I saw it – One mile above sea level. I smiled. Maybe it’s the way of all elevation.
I write daily of the things that have lifted me. Lift me still. Little things my grandpa said — “You can turn in, or you can turn out. It’s up to you.” My grandma — “You’ll figure it out as you go along.” My mother… there are not enough steps a mile above sea level to show everything that she has etched on my heart.
As we travel, it’s always the little things that we talk about again and again. The things that we have seen — spectacular!!!! — but truth be told, I don’t recall ever saying, “Remember the Colosseum…” No, it’s the little things we talk about, as we drive mile after mile through the prairies. Like the moment in Springfield, Illinois… when we went to the wrong library, (in our defense, both named Lincoln). We entered the public library, thinking it was the Presidential Library. It had kids’ cut outs on the wall. The front desk. Books of course. Your typical public library. Both hesitating, Dominique spoke first — “It’s not very Lincolny…”. I bent over in laughter. He joined me. We haven’t stopped laughing since. It fills many empty miles. Lifts us.
I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. It’s the little things. Surround yourself with those who see it. Feel it. Those that lift you with words, heart, laughter and action. Be that kind of person. I guarantee you, it will always be a big deal.
Time was about to change from Central to Mountain, and we, along with our GPS, were hovering somewhere in between. It was 2:08pm. We had 58 miles to go to our next destination, and were expected to arrive at 2:07pm. Our Toyota had turned into a Time Machine.
It was the smallest of towns. They didn’t have a Main Street, but they had a loop. The first directional sign said simply, Van Gogh. We looked at each other. It was spelled the same, but certainly they couldn’t have one. And we had been fooled once before — in Mississippi they have an O’Keefe Art Museum. Excited I didn’t notice the missing “f” as Georgia O’Keeffe spelled it. No, it was not Georgia, but the lesser known Jerry.
Not wanting to be Jerried again, we followed the sign with low expectations. Looking around, Dominique said, “Well, where is it????” Looking up I said, “Oh there it is,” pointing to the massive replica of Sunflowers on an 80 foot steel easel. Of course it wasn’t an actual Van Gogh, but it was real in the sense that it was actually there, all 40,000 pounds of it.
Now some may have been disappointed. And having stood in front of his paintings at face level, marveling, you’d think I’d be one of them. But I wasn’t disappointed. I chose to think that maybe our Toyota really was a Time Machine, and here we stood, back in time. And loving Van Gogh as I do, this scale felt just about right.
I suppose everything is how we choose to see it. And sometimes, you just have to look up.
Sometimes someone says something, so simple, so pure…and you’re sure they believe it — so sure that you believe it too. And so you say it. The words roll in your mouth, and you start to believe it, sing it even, willing it to be true.
“I had a feeling I could be someone. Be someone. Be someone.”
That was Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.” I was in my own state of becoming. Not even making a small splash in this small pond. It played on the radio. Not enough. I raced to hit record on the boombox that I got for my college graduation. Two fingers. Press. Got it. I couldn’t afford the real cassette tape, but listening to the lyrics, I thought maybe she would understand. And I made a promise to buy the original when I did in fact have enough money, when I did become someone.
I took my own fast car to Minneapolis. Created my own soundtrack. Bit by bit. Job by job. I don’t know the exact time, the exact year, but my boom box was obsolete. There were cds now. And I had enough money to buy them. Drinking my coffee, browsing through the music section of Barnes and Noble, I saw it — Tracy Chapman. I bought it.
I have made splashes in bigger ponds since then. Even crossed them. Fast cars. Faster planes. All fueled by small words that made a giant difference. Some I heard on the radio. Some came from teachers. A lot came from my mother’s mouth. But they all carried me. They still do. Because my heart hit record.
They have the museums for cowboys. Statues of horses and gunslingers bronzed in front of banks — even in the smallest of towns. Bison guarding the road. Oil pumps, methodically telling a piece of the story. But no one told us how beautiful the landscape would be. The rolling fields of my favorite palette. Muted greens and golds, with subtle tans. Simply gorgeous! We pointed out our respective car windows. Look! Look! The red dirt contrasting, bearing witness to all that had been survived, and still came out beautiful. And I wondered where was Oklahoma’s Georgia O’Keeffe? Who was singing the praises? What would Cezanne have done with this landscape?
There was nowhere for me to pull the car over. No shoulders. “I guess no one but us wants to pull over and take pictures,” my husband said. I smiled, because it made me feel special — us feel special. We could see it. The extraordinary beauty. I memorized the colors in my heart.
It’s funny how our first thoughts are always “Why isn’t someone doing something…” But I can be that someone. I will paint that palette. I will do it! Let it be me!
It is not a hardship to bear, to see it. It is a privilege. With everything. With everyone. When someone lets you in, it is the gift they give to you. Don’t be careless with it. Embrace it! They are not waiting for Georgia or Paul, they chose you. You. Give thanks for that. Every day.
It was exactly one mile from our house on Van Dyke Road to the railroad tracks just before town. When I was 6 years old, I was allowed that far on my own. I walked it, or biked it, every day of summer vacation. The first thing in sight, besides the large Viking statue, was our local museum. Truth be told, I wasn’t that interested in the Runestone. My sunburned cheeks, along with the pink part in my blonde hair, marked a head that was sufficiently filled with everything Washington Elementary had to offer, so I wasn’t hungry for the town’s history.
I earned a quarter each Thursday for cleaning the mirrors and vacuuming. With know stores in my one mile excursions, my collection of pocketed quarters was building, burning like the summer sun. I twirled them in my sweaty fingers at the edge of the tracks. I could see the sign for the gift shop. It was just a few steps more. I made lines in the dirt with the tips of my bumper tennis shoes. Surely a few more steps wouldn’t matter. I was going to be in the first grade in only a month. Please, please, please, I begged my mother when she returned home from work. “I just want to go to the gift shop. It’s only a few more steps.” “You don’t even know what’s inside,” she said. Which was true, but I had quarters, and I knew what the word gift meant. “It’s not toys,” she continued. I said something about needing it, wanting it… I’m sure I through in a “everyone else gets to” — even though I never saw children racing toward it. By the next Thursday, I had worn her down and she agreed with a “fine, go ahead.”
The first few steps beyond the tracks felt like I was floating. Maybe all freedom feels this light. I skipped the air to the front door and waited. And waited. I didn’t have a watch. So far I had only learned digital time. I sat twirling the quarters through my fingers. I jumped up with the click of the door. Open — the word felt just for me. I sprang through the door. Still sun blind, I couldn’t see anything on the shelves. It wasn’t what I expected, it was even better. I wandered slowly past the woman seated by the counter, so she could see me seeing. Someone should witness my first outing, I thought, and it was going to be her. She looked up from her paper, not nearly grasping the importance of this moment. And then I saw her. This little Native American doll. (I’m sure I still called her an Indian at the time, but we wouldn’t learn that for a few years.) She had the shiniest black hair. A little leather dress. I wanted her. I needed her. She was glorious. Two dollars. I had eight quarters. It was my miracle of freedom. I placed her on the counter along with my quarters. “That’ll be $2.08,” she said. I smiled, still not realizing, pushing my quarters closer.” “$2.08,” she repeated. “But it says, two dollars. I have two dollars. I Windexed for two months.” (Which wasn’t really true, we only bought off brands, but she didn’t need to know that.) “It’s the tax,” she said. Tax? I didn’t know anything about tax. “You can take from the penny jar,” she said. There were four pennies left on the side of the counter. I was still short. I looked at the doll. I looked at the counter. I looked at the woman. She took the doll and turned around. My heart sank. Gutted, I began to turn toward the door. She placed the sacked doll on the counter along with her purse. She pulled out her coin purse and added four pennies to the cash register. My heart floated again. She handed me the doll. She had seen me after all.
This was our town, I thought. I belonged here. On both sides of the tracks. I smiled in the knowledge. I had so much to learn, but for one brief shining summer moment, I knew everything I needed to know.
My grandma never made apologies for her wide feet. Standing on them for decades, as she did, rubbing her rounded aproned belly, holding a rootbeer float — “it was bound to happen”, she smiled, and sported her men’s Thom McAns proudly. And I loved her all the more.
My mother never made apologies for her long feet. “I’m going to rely on my heart for balance?” She laughed. They lengthened her already long legs, and stabled her heart that bounced and bruised and giggled again. And I loved her all the more.
We have been, I gratefully say, to the finest museums in the world. From Paris, to Rome, London, Amsterdam, New York, Chicago…seeing the finest artists of all time. So it may surprise you when I say we enjoyed our visit to the National Cowboy Museum in Oklahoma. Not because it could compete with a Cezanne or VanGogh, no, but it wasn’t trying to. It was cowboys. From films, to wars, to horses, and cattle, it told a story, their story. And it was beautiful.
Sometimes, when visiting a smaller city, they try to compete, and it never works. But when a place embraces their history, goes all in, wearing their shoes proudly, (or boots as it were), now this is something to see! I hope I do that. Give that. I was taught this, by two of the most different and lovely women that I know.
I hope we all can, step into each and every day, proudly, lovingly. We all have a story to tell.
I had to stop wearing my little pinky ring. I need to have surgery on the finger that has held that ring for decades. It waits for me now, in a tiny little bowl. I know I will wear it again. And it’s not so much that I have faith in my finger (which I do) but I also have faith in my ring. It knows the way home.
Years ago, I was filling large orders for framed art work. It was just after the New York show, so I had product and packing everywhere. My hands were in a constant blur of activity. It wasn’t until after making a haul to UPS that I noticed it was gone, my little ring. I checked my apartment. The garage. My car. Nothing. I had more orders to fill, so I kept working. My thumb often reached to give it a phantom twirl. But my brain said it was gone for good.
Two weeks later I got a misshapen envelope in the mail. I opened it quickly — because mail!!! It was a handwritten address from the east coast. My ring was inside. The note said they found it while unshrinkwrapping my artwork. They took the time to compliment my work, bubble wrap the ring, and send it back to me. The stone of the ring is not precious, but their act of kindness certainly was!
I only mention it because this morning I reached for my permanent necklace (the one I never take off) to move the clasp to the back. Something poked me. Only prongs. The stone was gone. We shook the sheets of the bed. Checked the bathroom. The carpet. It could have been anywhere — even in another state. The possibilities were endless.
On our way to hotel breakfast, I stepped into the fitness room. Looked at the floor between the elliptical machine and the treadmill. There it was. Preciously waiting. It was a tiny miracle really, but not my first.
I was only 5 or 6 when I went out into the field with my grandpa. Maybe the sky was bigger then, but it seemed endless. Nothing but blue above and black dirt below. I couldn’t see the house from where we were. I began to panic. I wanted to go back. I didn’t want to be here. How would my mom find me when she came from town to pick me up? She would drive up the gravel and we wouldn’t be there. She would swing open the screen door and call my name, and I wouldn’t hear. She would be sad and scared. And she might cry, I gasped between my own tears. And I felt terrible because I had begged to come with. I had been warned that we would be out a long time, most of the day even, and yet I pleaded. Now the tears that tracked black down my dirty face wiped with dirty hands wanted nothing else but to see the way home. He didn’t argue. Didn’t make fun of me. Didn’t “I told you so,” or “I warned you,” he just took me home. Gently. Easily. “We all find our way home,” he said, dropping me off in full sight of the farm house, in full knowledge that my mom, too, would find her way.
I put the gemstone into my husband’s pill case. Safe. Sound. Another pocketed miracle.
Most people don’t associate seagulls and farmers, but it was the first time I saw one, with my grandfather, in Florida. It was among so many firsts. Not just my first vacation with my mother, but actually my first vacation. My first time on a plane. The first time seeing the ocean. The first time seeing my grandfather in shorts. I had never actually seen his legs — only overalled on the farm.
They rented a condo on Cocoa Beach, my grandparents. My mom and I went to stay with them for a week, during the winter break of my seventh grade. It was so strange to see my grandfather at the gate of the airport. I had never seen him out of context. He grabbed our luggage and we drove off into the dark warmth of the Florida air. What was that noise, I asked. It’s the ocean, he smiled, as we pulled up to see grandma waving under the porch light. Every sensation was on fire. The next day, my lavender mid-western skin would be as well.
I raced to the beach in the morning sun. He was right behind me. The seagulls hopped all around. I kept looking back to see if he saw what I was seeing. By his smile, I knew that he did. As the wind blew at his shirt, I could see his tan was still that of a farmer. His shoulders as white as the sea gulls. And even with all these firsts, I felt the comfort of home.
I suppose we always take it with us — the things that make us care.
Sitting in a new hotel. At a new desk. Sometimes I have to look at the keycard, or the pad on the desk to even remember where we are. But then I paint the white shouldered bird, feel the love that I have been given from the start, believe that he stills sees what I am seeing, and know that I am home.
The star attraction on the playground of Washington Elementary was the jungle gym with the giant green dragon head. I could hear the call from the street level where the bus dropped me off. “Climb me!” It shouted from above. I raced up the stairs. Dropped my homemade orange corduroy book bag and rung by rung, began my ascent. Up and around. Getting higher. Closer. Of all the gifts they gave me in school, and there were many, this one, beginning each day at the top, was one of the finest.
As we wander the country, I can still hear the call. From the World’s biggest Bowie knife, to Longhorns frozen by the river, or horses statued and waiting for Wee-chi-tah! Their words ring in my heart’s ear, and I have to climb!
I suppose that’s why I write every day. Each word a rung. Maybe today I will turn that perfect corner, step up just a little, climb the perfect sentence, and reach higher. I owe them that, the teachers that gave me the chance, the desire. I owe it to myself. Not to waste any of it. Some days I may only ride the small pony. But one day, the tallest dragon! There will be joy in it all! And so I climb…
