Waiting to go through airport security, I wondered if I could keep my necklace on through the scan. As people separated their pads from their purses, I asked the attendant, “What do you think about the necklace?” He replied, “It’s a good style, you should wear it.” We can always find a way to laugh.
Armed with his unexpected humor, I must have looked like I had a little extra to give, so it wasn’t a surprise when the man at the gate asked if I would help the troubled young woman afraid to board. “Sure,” I smiled. She was crying, but I assured her I could help. The assistant who got her to the gate told her that “I would get her there.” “To Stockholm?” She asked. “I was thinking more your seat…”
Travel has its challenges for sure, a microcosm of living. But somehow we can find a way. To laugh, to smile, to help. It’s not just the getting there, but realizing, we get to be here!
I am tired, but accessorized, with both necklace and smile.
In my sketchbook, I learn to be loose. Free from worry. A bird, after all, should have no hard lines.
I know so many painters that struggle with the letting go. Knowing when to stop. And being ok with it. Secure in the turning of the page. With each page I paint, it comes easier. I trust myself in this book. Some pages are birded to the maximum. Others are complete with white space. And both are good. My heart moves easily throughout.
If only living had a sketchbook. Loving. I would practice. I would know exactly to do.
Before we board the plane today, I will struggle to know if this page is complete. This vacation. Did I do enough? Give enough? Love enough? Did I leave the space to grow?
Those of you that I got to see in full feathers, I thank you. Those of you who wait in white space, I thank you, and I will return. I see the beauty in both. And there are no hard lines on this journey, but it is time to fly.
Dining outside yesterday, alongside an urban, but calm street, the beams of sun, just like the cars, hummed gently, no need for brake or throttle. And I felt simply in it. There was life and motion, not to throw but inspire. A slow dance of body in air. And would I have felt different, being a blade of grass? Reaching. Among. Within. About.
How do you capture a sunny day? I’ve been trying. Foolish, I suppose. To be a blade afraid of winter. When all there is, is green.
And isn’t it the same with love? Not lost. Even in its final winter, there will be spring. I feel the hum of those who have passed. Music in my heart. No need for brake or throttle, it stays alive within me. My ever green. My sunny days.
In my daily quest to swim away my summer days, I never thought of the green lillied lakes as beautiful. How easily I would have furrowed my brow and crinkled my nose, labeled it as a swamp, and pedaled with fury to a clearer body of water. I’d like to think I gave thanks for the abundance of lakes — that when blessed without weed or worry, I stopped crawl stroking long enough, even for just a moment, to simply marvel. Filled with it now, from green to blue, I struggle to explain to my French family and friends. I say Minneapolis, and they hear Indianapolis, and they say racing, and I say no, but racing on my bicycle to the any one of the 10,000, and they can’t imagine even 10, so I name two, Latoka and L’homme Dieu, and they say I’m saying it wrong (my own lake, imagine that), and they’re right actually, but I can’t say it like that, not after this many pedals, and they say but look the sea is so big, and I say there was romance in the small and we realize we are comparing gratitude, and have to laugh, because we’re old enough now to stop spinning and simply marvel.
They renamed (or gave it back its original name) one of my favorites. Lake Calhoun is now officially Bde Maka Ska. When I first heard of it, I’m not proud that I heart stumbled. Did I crinkle my nose. I hope not, but I can’t be sure. I don’t now. The water. The blue. The sun dance upon. It’s all there. Still abundant. And the runners run. And the bikers bike. And the swimmers swim. I see the thanks in it all. And it is marvel-ous!
The Great Gatsby is now being celebrated at MIA for its 100th year. It’s no surprise, as someone whose first perspective drawing in art class was completely backwards, I did enter the exhibition from the second room. But as always, it was the right door for me. Maybe it was the giant farm land picture, next to the clippings of French fashion, that whispered “over here,” or the script from the book that said, maybe we would always be westerners, but I knew I was home.
I suppose the universe will always let you know if you’re on the right path.
For me it’s always been books and art, and a dash of fashion. My maps. So I say to those who ask, “Can’t you read a map?” — “Of course I can, just not yours.”
Late that same afternoon, I drove to the Barnes and Noble in the area. Emptied and dark, I began to panic. It’s never just a book store. I ran to the store next door. She didn’t know much, but something about “moving to an Office Max, maybe open, or going to,” — she didn’t know. I knew of two abandoned office supply stores in the area, one a former Office Depot and the other a Staples. I asked her if it was by the Trader Joe’s, or the Whole Foods. She didn’t know. “I only get off the freeway and come to work,” she said. (We all have our own maps.)
I didn’t need more books. My suitcase already full. But I did need to know that it was ok. That the books were living on. So I drove to the first one — no. I drove to the second location I had in mind, and there it was – signed and open – calling once again, “over here.” I wandered in the words until I was secure. My heart map folded, fitting perfectly behind my mother’s blouse, once again, still, I am home.
It’s not really in spite of, but because of, that we’re friends — this walking through beach and storm.
I could feel it, looking at her water damaged basement. What a mess to have gone through. But how quickly we moved to what it was going to be next. The finish. The decoration. And this was nothing really, compared to what we’ve been through together. The real storms we have actually weathered. Side by side. Braced in winds of heart-ache, and ever bent in waves of laughter.
I hope you can see it in the painting. I hope you live it in your real life.
People often ask me what is my favorite card. I can’t say for certain, but I do know the one that I send, sometimes just in my head, many times a day. Because no matter the occasion, joyous, sentimental, difficult, exciting, wonderful, painful, hopeful, I want to be there, because we’re friends.
Even when we’re countries apart, we feel the same things. We type our footsteps, and we walk together.
And I am all the better, perhaps the best of myself, because we’re friends.
The current book I’m reading, is delightfully entitled, “How to read a book,” by Monica Wood. It is set around a book club in prison. Harriet, the leader, gives the women a mantra, “I am a reader. I am intelligent. I have something worthy to contribute.”
I’m not yet finished, but already I’ve learned, or perhaps relearned this important lesson. (I don’t suppose we can ever stop learning this).
To those who think it silly to have a mantra, I say good for you — good for you because you probably had someone who told you of your worth. Good for you that those words must be so engrained inside of you, that you don’t need to bounce them off the mirror. I am one of the lucky ones. I had a mother who served as that mantra. That voice. That reassurance, no matter what the situation, win or loss, I was still worthy. Never to be mixed with entitled, that is not what her worthy meant. Not what our mirrors revealed. No, worthy was never about receiving, but about having something to give.
What would your world, our world, look like with this in mind? We are imprisoned by hate. By judgement. By fear. Which is really so ridiculous to be shouting from behind bars, while holding the key. So when I tell you, tell myself, that I, we, have something to contribute, something worthy, I mean it not only as a mantra, an incentive, but also a responsibility. We owe our mothers this. Ourselves. All.
We used to play croquet. Lawn darts. Frisbee. We’d throw or knock almost anything around the lawn on a Sunday afternoon. But it was horseshoes that my mother loved. That may surprise you. She, always so elegant. Bloused without a wrinkle. Creamed without a wrinkle. But once her church clothes were hung, folded. Her shoes put back in the original box. Her jewelry in the dresser. We would play. And she was good. Leaners. Ringers. She could really do it! And maybe it was the unexpected that added to the joy. This letting go. This letting fly. Tossing and clanking every “should have” and every “supposed to”.
Walking through Centennial Lakes park, I see them playing croquet and mini golf. Pedaling big ducks on the water. Not to win. Not to get anywhere, but just to be! The freedom of play. And I think, wouldn’t it be great if we allowed this for everyone. Allowed people to not just be one thing. Didn’t put them in a box. Label them. That if they had one thought, they could only have that thought.
I don’t want to be contained. I can still hear the mantra of the Stevie Nicks 45 that my mother played again and again, “Leather and Lace.” It could have easily been ruffles and horseshoes.
This trip I have shopped at the finest stores in the Galleria. I have thrifted at the Goodwills. Joy is everywhere. Not to be contained. I, we, can toss and clank the “rules,” and just enjoy!
Of course I loved the taste of candy. What kid doesn’t love sugar? But it was more than just delicious. I’m laughing because the word that comes to mind is gateway, and I don’t mean as in drug, but for me, it actually opened gates.
My mother wasn’t one to rush to the doctor for sore throats or colds. When straddling the line between under the weather and getting over it, she offered up the candy test. If I could eat the piece of chocolate without feeling ill, throwing up, or gagging, well, then I must be fine — and the gates were opened to school, to play, to whatever the day would bring.
Unconventional as it may seem, it worked. (I’m not promoting taking chances with one’s health, and neither was she.) It was more for, I suppose, the imagined tummy ache that felt so very real before a test. Or the clinging to a bit of sympathy, when really all was fine. A reminder that, no matter what, all was actually, for lack of better term, sweet.
Standing outside the candy store in Stillwater, I could feel the fling of picket.
I think it’s what the best of us do, remind us of the good. Not the gatekeepers, but those who swing them open and wave us through. Reminding us daily that life is good. My mother did that for me. Maybe we could all do that for each other.
It was our first book connection. The fact that we were even exchanging notes of literature was a good sign. My Antonia. His in French, mine in English, but the story was the same. And we were linked.
I suppose it’s like how some will save ticket stubs from a concert, or flowers dried in a box, to serve as reminders. It’s the same for me in a bookstore. I saw it on the shelf yesterday. I picked it up and held it towards him. We both smiled. On the back of the jacket it read, “Antonia had always been one to leave images in the mind that did not fade.” The Antonia of my heart did, does, the same.
People always ask me, “how do you remember?” I guess it’s love that leaves the images. And if I feel the slip, I race to paper or pen, to computer or sketchbook, and gather them in. Is every detail perfect? I can’t be sure. But I know it doesn’t have to be. I’m not making a map. I don’t need to travel back, only travel with. And those images, those feelings, they are secure. They will not fade.
