Visiting new museums, one can often suffer fatigue from the pressure to see it all and document it. Overwhelmed and under pressure to put yourself in front of all the masterpieces, capturing every photo and all of the proof.
But yesterday was different. I can feel myself exhale, just in the typing now. I have been to the Minneapolis Institute of Art countless times. I know where to park. Where the bathrooms are. The steps to the Impressionists. And it can still make my heart jimbly in the most delightful way, without all the pressure. I can wander France in front of the Cezanne. Laugh in front of the painting that my friend’s husband says looks like the two of us, though neither of us thinks the same. I circle the portrait room and imagine one of mine just beside the Alice Neel or the Andrew Wyeth. I view the skyline. Levitate through the shop. Never a photo taken. The gift is, I don’t have to prove that I’ve been here, I just get to be.
I suppose that’s home, isn’t it? Where your heart can rest, and your mind can wander. Thank you, Minneapolis. We’ll be back.
It’s not that I’m attached to the shoes really, but the miles they carried me.
I was gifted a new pair of shoes for my birthday. I’ve tried them on. Admired them in the mirror. Jumped up and down. Ran in place to see if they were fast. (The same thing I’ve done since getting my first pair at Iverson’s shoes in Alexandria, Minnesota.) They are going to be lovely, I know it, but not just yet.
I put on my old pair again today. I can see my socks through the holes above the laces. I know why they rip there. It’s from each bend at the bed of my toes as I climb up the hills of the Montaiguet. They are not flawed, but accomplished.
I hope I can see it the same way in myself, in those around me. What if we all could? What if we could see, not the imperfections, but the climb? What if we saw the days that, in the rain, the wind, we still went to the hill? The mornings after not much sleep, we dragged those feet higher. And higher still. And if we did, see all the wind and rain and rocks and miles and steeps, wouldn’t all those shoes seem a lot more beautiful?!!! I’m smiling, because my socks are smiling through the opening. They will get their much deserved rest tomorrow, but today, once again, we open with a climb.
They aren’t always so clear. So when I get an obvious sign, I like to celebrate it.
I was thinking the exact same thing when he said, “I like to see the open waters.” I smiled and agreed. What was cold and white, frozen, just a couple of months ago, now rippled and danced blue under a changing sky.
I don’t know if nature is as silly as we humans. Suffering and fighting the cracks. Or does it simply release? They say we have to be cracked open, that’s where the love gets in. But each time it happens, I have a tendency to forget. Put up a struggle. And it’s not like my heart hasn’t been through the “winter months” before…found its way to spring…so why do I, we, fight it? I guess as with everything, we have to be in it to know. So for now, I will simply enjoy the water’s release into the new season. I will flow with the promise of spring and try to keep it in my memory — this nature of things.
Oh, to be open! To it all! Come spring! Cracks and all! I feel buoyant already!
Maybe it was easier then, but we always wanted to keep playing. It didn’t matter the score. We never thought about the 10 run rule. It was something about if your team was 10 runs behind by the 3rd or 4th inning, the umpire could just call it. I suppose we all knew at heart we wouldn’t win, that the game was going to end, but that wasn’t the point. The sun was still shining. Our legs were fresh and our visions were short. We could only see this beautiful day and we wanted to keep having fun!
I have to remind myself of it often. I can get too far ahead. I see the ending of our vacation and I can put myself at the airport. Give myself jet lag before even taking off. It is so silly, I know it. So I fight it. I look at the sun coming through the hotel windows and I think, “It’s going to be a lovely day! I want to keep playing!” I don’t want to miss today worrying about tomorrow. My legs are fresh. My heart is here, right now. Let’s go have some fun!
All of my friends that lived there have moved away. I haven’t experienced the North Loop life for a long time, but you couldn’t tell that to my gerbil heart, or my jimbly tummy. Driving into the familiar, no time had passed. Everything was still possible. We always thought “it might happen” here on these streets of Minneapolis. And oh, what might we found in that “might…” What joyful strength!
From the Mitre Box to the Mississippi, the Grain Belt to the Guthrie, I was lifted. And the excitement could only be matched by the comfort. I suppose Glenda had it right, “you’ve always had the power within you.” To say it is the same with people, with cities, is to say that it is love. Sometimes we just need a little nudge, to tap into the feeling. To access it — all that joyful strength. Driving past the bowling alley, I made a quick u-turn and parked in front to get my nudge. It’s not just any bowling alley, it’s Elsie’s. Elsie’s of Minneapolis. When two great loves collide, how can you be anything but lifted!
I know, I know…we always carry it from within…but a little lift now again is always welcome. So when it is offered, on streets or memory, take it! Embrace it! Wrap yourself in all that might!
Traveling these last couple of months, I guess my hands have been on vacation too. No painting. No building of frames. No baking or lawn mowing. So I decided to give them some extra care. I suppose it was my friend who got it all started by greeting me with the tradition of glove gifting, accompanied by some rose hand lotion, (French of course). They smelled so good, I decided to let my nails grow. I bought the polish and varnish. Took the time to file and cream daily. I even bought the handmade cuticle oil en route in Omaha.
I hadn’t told her about it, but of course she noticed, this glove-gifting friend. The friend who started giving me the gloves each year because that’s what my mother gave to her yearly for Christmas. She said, “You have your mother’s hands.” To be seen, to be known, from acts of kindness down to the shape of a nail — What a gift to be given!
Years ago I painted my grandmother’s hands and gave them to my mother. She passed on that love to me. To my friends, her friends. Hand by hand we can touch each other. Heart by heart, we hold each other, ever.
Maybe you could call it satisfying, but I think that there is a real romance to the act of making something, fixing something. It’s no secret that I like to create, but I also like to be around others that do.
I can’t say it was as often as the coffee shop, but I used to frequent a hardware store in Hopkins, Minnesota. Even when I didn’t know exactly what I needed, they had it. In an unmarked bin. In the back. Pointed out by the man in a red smock, who received additional advice from the two we passed sipping coffee and eating popcorn from a paper sack. I was thrilled to get the right bit, or the thing to hang my mirror…and they seemed to feel the same. The transactions felt clean, accomplished. Parked right in front of the store, I left with a slight hover of popcorn, and a wave, and everything I needed. Nothing I didn’t.
I think we often get glamour confused with romance. With elegance. I am not one to “gild,” but I want to make the things that I touch feel special. Perhaps with simplicity. Ease. A found piece of wood, sanded again and again, so smooth you could brush a cheek, made into a frame that coddles, not overpowers, the delicate painting within. A painting with a story. A palette. A life. Pure romance.
It’s still out there, you know. We can sit around complaining about artificial intelligence. What was made overseas. Or, we could do something. Create something. Anything. Cookies. We could patch those jeans. Tighten that bolt. Clean that bathroom. Not begrudgingly, but joyfully. Satisfied, we could stand with hands on hips to brace the smiles, and wouldn’t it be something? It may just be romantic!
I suppose we could have been called anything, and I would have loved it, but we were Cardinals, so the moment I put on the red uniform, for volleyball, basketball, track, band, whatever, whenever, I, we, represented Independent School District #206, and proudly became those beautiful red birds.
We shortened everything. Perhaps we were in such a hurry to grow up. The name of the town, Alexandria, became Alex, and then simply Alek. Cardinals became Cards, always led with a “Go!” I see the urgency now. To get somewhere. To win. And now, it all seems like a fluttering, a blur of red and black wings.
The Alexandria Boys’ Basketball team won the state championship this weekend. I don’t live there anymore. Not even in the country. The high school that I went to has been torn down. I can’t name a player on this year’s team. But somehow, magically, in that winning flutter, I am part of the we — the “We did it!”
Perhaps more than any team, I think the same when remembering my mother. With each victory big or small. Selling a painting, surviving a hard situation, conquering a fear, just being happy for no reason on a Monday morning — I look to the heavens and joyfully say, “We did it!”
We are only as strong as our connections. They don’t have to be cardinals, but they should lift you, help you reach things you never even imagined. They should be the ones you look to, recognize, call you by name, ever tell you, “one way or another, we are going to fly!”
You had to want to see them — and we did. We were even told where to look, and yet, for a split second, it was hard to distinguish them from the rocks of every other beach. And they weren’t beautiful, until I realized that they were seals. When I imagined these lumps up from their naps, barking and flopping, when I watched the slow up and down of their jiggly breaths, they became alive, real, fascinating even! The longer I looked, stories were revealed. One pup headed back from the water (I guess even seal children struggle to take a nap.) Two snuggled a little closer to each other. They weren’t all the same. These seemingly lifeless rocks at first glance had a story to tell.
I worry about how much we miss. How much we pass by. How many humans we just write off. What if we took the time to really see? I suppose it’s impossible to know everyone’s story, but what if we just acknowledged that everyone has one, that everyone is on a journey. What if we allowed each other to explore? To dare the sea? What if we allowed each other to rest? All in our own time. From ship to shore. Wouldn’t it all, wouldn’t we all, seem a little more beautiful?
She was the first to notice, the waitress in Stillwater, Minnesota. I have worn these earrings every day for a couple of years — the outline of the Sainte Victoire mountain. She brought the check to the table and asked, “What mountain is that?” I beamed, for me of course, but for her as well — being curious, paying attention. “It’s the Sainte Victoire,” I replied, “in Aix en Provence where we live.” And the conversation began, all because she was alive, awake!
These earrings represent home. Heart. Courage. Strength. They are the mountains I have, can, and will continue to climb daily. What made her, of all people, notice? Even in France, no one has asked about them. But she did. Maybe she was climbing her own mountain. Maybe she was asking her legs to carry what her heart just couldn’t bear at the moment. Or maybe she just liked them. And that’s enough too. The thing is, she asked the question. A specific question.
We get lazy I think. Uninterested. We settle on the “how are you?”s and think we did enough. But is it? Is it enough? Is it enough to just pass through each other’s lives? Without learning? Without caring?
Two years of climbing were wiped away in just a few brief seconds, and I was happy! It really takes so little. So I tell myself, I tell you, be curious, pay attention, — it’s not too much to ask.
