It’s not that I assumed the garage doors had the sense of the birds, but it is made evident whenever the wind blows. (I suppose that’s when the truth of us is revealed.) And, oh, they’re built solid, these blocks of wood and iron, but never a match against the wind. Every time – it’s BANG! BANG! They beat against the garage, thrown from side to side. Always fighting it. Always losing. But then the birds, in that same wind, barely more than air themselves, they seem to dance. Each wing flaps with lessons learned, and risen above.
I’m not proud of it, but I have done my share of banging. Trying to fight off the new storm with all of my wooden might. But I’m learning. And learning again. What used to blow through me, now gives me wings.
Perhaps I’m more careful now of where I lay my expectations, knowing that often the people who rise up to the occasion aren’t the most expected. Like a gift without pressure of holiday they gloriously appear, and lift you higher than you could have ever imagined.
When I was a young girl, I found so much help in the school system. Teachers offered aid and solace. Encouragement and discipline. It was a structure that I depended on. Solid. When I first arrived in France, I had to attend a mandatory French school. Around the table, desperations were as vast as the countries we came from. Of course I looked to the teacher as I had always done. It didn’t take long for me to learn of my mistake. She would not save me. Nor any of us. She made fun of each nationality, as if she had an offensive handbook. And when the insults weren’t understood with language, she used gestures that could not be ignored.
After three months, without common language or permission, we began to stumble into something close to humanity. We found out more about each other. After learning that I paint and write, it was our teacher who asked me to be the teacher. To bring in art, books, and give a demonstration, in French on my final day of school. I agreed. For if she taught me anything, it was where to place all my expectations — within. As I struggled with art and easels from the car to the classroom, it was the newest addition to our class, the man from Cambodia, who spoke neither English nor French, who picked up the heaviest of what I had, and walked beside me. I smiled, knowing that without my knowledge or expectation, I had been lifted. I had been saved.
My mother never came empty handed. Whether it was for a week’s visit, or a long afternoon, her arms were filled with toilet paper, paper towel, Kleenex, or something frosted from the bakery. It wasn’t that I couldn’t purchase it. It was just another form of connection. And when I poked my finger through the plastic to carry the rolls up the stairs to my apartment, along with her suitcase, I knew that she thought of me, not just here, not just at the events, but on Tuesday afternoons at Cub while picking up some essentials. And I felt loved.
We have a chalkboard in our French kitchen to remind us of those very things. I guess Laetitia saw it when she came for lunch that day. Toilet paper written in white. I walked her out to her car. She opened the trunk. Reached in. Pulled out a multi-pack of toilet paper. I would never refuse a visit from my mother. I held it, her, in my arms at the top of my heart’s stairs. And I am loved.
I don’t suppose one pear imagines another as weak. As being particularly thin skinned, or easily bruised. I think they see the familiar. The comfort. And there is strength in that. Which allows them to lean in, and to lean on.
Couldn’t we do the same for each other? I think we often worry, well I wouldn’t know what to say, or what to do? When all that’s really necessary is just to be ourselves, to be there, beside…pearing…pairing.
I leaned on you today. I’m not sure if you even knew, but I wanted to thank you. I felt you holding my heart. It made me happy. And I was strong. I hope I can do that for you…If so, we can do anything.
I only saw it last night. Could it have come sooner, or was it right on time? Awakening in the thick sky of wee hours, I had left the shutter open, and saw how it wasn’t simply dark, but so black it was blue, like a Magpie. And if it were a bird, this absence of light, couldn’t it just as easily gather those night weary worries under wing? Couldn’t it say, this is not for you to carry? Not now. Not in this light. This is the color of letting go. This is the color of release.
Some say a Magpie will steal anything. I don’t know if that’s true, but if they did, if they do, I decide to leave my concerns above cover, and let them take it. And I give thanks for the thief of worry. No longer bruised, but released by the black and blue of it all. And I am saved.
Sometimes, when painting a portrait, you can get stuck. The image isn’t exactly right, but you can’t see why. A trick that many artists use is to simply flip the canvas. It breaks the autopilot of the brain and you can actually see the shapes more clearly. You can get the chin just right, or the angle of that brow. It slows you down and you can see everything in a new light.
How I try to remember that lesson for real life — when the universe kicks my feet from underneath and I tumble topsy turvy. It’s hard to see the benefits immediately, but once I gather myself, I have to think, oh, perhaps it was time for a new perspective. I, we, can get so accustomed to “how things are.” To shake us out of the “well, that’s how we do things…” and the “well, that’s how I feel,” and into a new vision, a better way of seeing, living, sometimes it takes our world turning upside down.
I guess it’s all part of this delightful journey. This jungle gym. So if you see me, feet in the air, don’t worry, I’m just getting a better view.
“Women in pain become birds.” I just read that. I often find myself looking around for the cameras that are surely filming me in this episode. And as I flutter through the inexplicable planned randomness of the page, I think, yes, but not in the way the author meant — small. No, I think women do become birds, but there is beautiful strength in that. A grandness of sky. Adapting in mid flight. Hovering. Not avoiding the breeze, but feeling it. Using it. All while dressed and feathered.
I say this, not in praise of my own wings, but marveling at those before me. I have been nested and pushed by the best. Elsied and Ivyed into the blue. Words like small were replaced with capable, and I learned to fly.
It’s not to say that days won’t be fragile. That we won’t be fragile. But we have been given everything we need. Mostly love.
I wrote it long ago. The truth of it still lifts me. “She believed in the pure randomness of it all. It could happen to anyone at any time, pain, happiness, confusion, even love.”
Shopping Michigan Avenue, my mom and I wanted it to never end. We went in every store. Up and down. Miles and miles of Chicago’s “magnificent.”
We weren’t big Nike fans, but the store itself was gorgeous. We feigned affection. Running our fingers against t-shirts and track suits (long before leisure wear, that’s what we called them.) I don’t know who stopped first, but we stood in front of the poster and read. Words could always hold our attention. There was a woman running on a country road with these words, “There are clubs you can’t belong to, neighborhoods you can’t live in, schools you can’t get into, but the roads are always open.” We both smiled, and ran along beside her.
The places we traveled in that truth! I still do.
I’m still sometimes thrown by Mondays in France. Nothing is open. Yesterday morning, I told Dominique that we were out of treats. Before he finished asking, “Where would you like…” we both realized the Mondayness of the situation. By mid afternoon, I was able to travel to Chicago in order to find that my French kitchen was always open. Monday didn’t stand a chance against my molasses. I made the cookies, and may I say, they are magnificent.
I pride myself in finding a way. My mother saw to that. She’s still guiding me through Monday. Tuesday is here. Wide open! Let’s run!
I heard of them long before I ever heard of “sea legs.” I could see them at eye level. I put my hands up like a director holding the camera to keep my mother’s legs in constant sight as she danced and weaved through the hangered racks.
I was near her eye level once we graduated from Herberger’s basement to Dayton’s in Minneapolis — getting into the rhythm of my own “shopping legs.” And never were we more tested than on Black Fridays. Some said the crowds were too much, but not my mother. She saw it as the dance floor being full. Perhaps it was from practicing each weekend in her heels of youth at the Glenwood Lakeside Ballroom. I didn’t always know who was playing in her head. Was it Glen Miller? Tommy Dorsey? But it was something to see. The pulling of the ruffled blouse off the rack. Holding out at arms’ length. The wink of admiration, when yes, it was decided, they were going to dance.
It’s not just today. There are constant crowds of opposition and misinformation. And some choose to plant their feet. But I was taught to listen. To watch. To sway. To see not the crowd, but the dance.
Before I met my mother and her cousin, they worked at the phone company. Just out of school, they were best of friends. All giggles and lipstick. Ruffles and elbows. Every ring was filled with possibility.
Lapped and fascinated, I told my mother to tell it again. Having since met her cousin, it just didn’t seem possible. Hadn’t Janet just come from the potato pit? Hadn’t she just saved her husband Joey after being kicked by the cow? I couldn’t imagine her all dressed up under the fluorescent lights of Alexandria’s Telephone Company on Broadway.
“Oh, she was a beauty,” my mother said. “Just like you,” I said. My mother smiled. “I looked up to her,” she continued. I imagined Janet, now 10’ deep in the summer crop chilling for winter and it just seemed so unlikely. My mouth open in wonder, she told me what has remained, “People aren’t just one thing.”
The thing is, we think we know. We think because we see people for ten minutes that we understand their lives. Why they do the things we do. We have to go from potato pit to coffee break. We have to see the full picture. Even then, we can’t be entirely sure. We have to leave room for change. Room for growth. Room for the rings of possibility.
I like to think of them mid-giggle. Nothing lights a person better than joy. I have to allow myself the same grace. We all do. Good morning, my friends! Welcome to the phone company!
