It was my mother who listened to me with the patience of paper. I could tell her anything. No dream was too big. No concern too frivolous. No wonder dismissed. I could cursive my feelings throughout the house, and she would gather them in softly, gently, filling heart reams daily.
I didn’t read Anne Frank until junior high. I had already been writing for years. On scraps of paper. Wood-burning notes into panels. Poems on birthday cards. Hopes onto sticky pads. But I didn’t have a diary. And it wasn’t until reading Anne Frank’s that I knew why. It was because I had my mother. Anne wrote in her diary, thinking she had “no such real friend” to confide in. My mother was that “friend.”
Through the years, as I made my living selling the words and images, I was constantly approached by my sales reps and store owners with “What’s new?” A feverish flurry to get to the next thing. An urgency to keep the writing short – “no one will take the time to read all that.” I would smile and think that Anne Frank was right, “Paper is more patient than people.”
I’ve tried to stay true to my slow and looping cursive heart. Giving it the space and time it needs. Giving it the care my mother showed me it was worth.
I hope you have that friend. That confidante. If not, let it be me. Take your time. I’m in no hurry.
I couldn’t figure it out. “But how do they know where they are?” I couldn’t navigate the whole farm, and my little legs were a thousand times the size of the bees. How did they know to find the flowers on either side of the front steps of my grandparents’ house? And because summer days lent themselves to pondering, I sat in the sun on those cement steps, watermelon seeds by my feet, contemplating the size of the universe.
The soundtrack in my head played, “There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea…” The lyrics crescendoing to – “There’s a flea on the speck on the frog on the bump on the branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea…” And wasn’t it the same with the hummingbirds and bees? Here. Right now. From the planet, to the state, to the city, to the country, to the driveway, and the grass, right here beside me on the steps.
I asked my grandfather, how they found the flowers. “They want to find them,” he said. I shook my head yes. “I do too,” I said, flicked a seed from my bare toe, and ran off to capture sight of my own.
“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.” Henri Matisse
I don’t know how many times I sang the song, “I wish I had a river…” Joni Mitchell was a staple in our house, so when it was “coming on Christmas,” she was on repeat. How many wishes did I make for that river, a river so long that I could skate away on, before I even knew what it would mean?
It wasn’t a river where I learned to skate. In fact it was a pond. Noonan’s Pond. And by “learned” I mean, fell and broke my arm. (Maybe that’s where all lessons are learned, in the falling.) All of my summers were spent attempting to fly. From diving boards to bicycle wheels, I was certain that my feet could leave the ground. It was no different with the change in weather. When the lakes ponds and froze over, I was certain, it was simply another way to take flight.
I wore my full plastered arm, like a badge of courage. Every fifth grader celebrated the attempt. All knowing, valuing, what that breeze felt like underfoot.
The needles are already falling from our tree on this sacred eve. But it’s ok. I learned it long ago on the ice. I learn it daily, simply loving. All the rivers to cross. There will be so many stumbles and falls, and letting ins and letting gos…all breezes under our hearts, under our feet, this love teaches us daily, how to fly.
There wasn’t a hard edge on her. Not fingers, nor elbows, nor knees. She was built to make a lap, cup the small of a back, wipe a tear, widen a smile. She held. She gave. She touched. This was my grandma Elsie.
Sometimes I have to apologize to her, and myself, for carrying my shoulders just a little too high. What am I braced for that couldn’t more easily roll off and on by, if I only relaxed them down. It feels so good when I do. My neck wanders freely, softening my face, releasing my cheeks that smile and say, “what a relief!”
As I work in my sketchbook, I remind myself. The blending of rouge and flesh. Whites, yellows and greens. No hard edges. Wondering to myself, “Does that man appearing know that I am Elsie-ing his face?” I lay the brush down, along with my shoulders, and know, she is gently and ever teaching me. Thank you, Grandma.
I suppose I had it wrong. Maybe we all do. I thought it was such a clever game, jumping in and out of my mother’s shadow. Racing into the length I thought I would never achieve.
It was Proust who wrote, “In the shadow of young girls in flower.” And as that young girl, so blinded by the light of youth’s bloom, I just kept skipping unaware. Not ever noticing that it was my grandma in my mother’s shadow, and both of them in mine.
I can see it now. In Margaux. How all the light bounces off her shiny hair. So much to flower. She reaches out on the balconies of Marseille. And aren’t we all just a little bit warmer, in the shadows of her bloom.
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!
There was a certain freedom to it – being in the girls’ gym. You might think freedom a strange word for this windowless box in the basement of Central Junior High. But certainly there were no pressures to impress.
We cycled through the normal courses. Basketball. Volleyball. A simple change with a new set of balls. But when it came time for the gymnastics week, the whole pink gymnasium was transformed. Beams and mats. Horses and Bars. Certainly we should have been padded on knees and elbows. At the very least helmeted, gauging our limited expertise. Yet, we flung ourselves without knowledge or permission in unwashed gym shorts and t-shirts for the allotted 50 minutes. No guidance. No spotters. No inhibitions.
The floor exercise came with a record player. We were decades ahead of the popular saying, “Dance like no one is watching,” — believe me, no one was. Dropping the needle with a scratch, then racing to the mat, we made “routines” (completely ignoring the definition of routine, because certainly these movements couldn’t be repeated, as we made them up to the music.)
We were never graded. If you could make it up the cement stairs back to the locker room, you passed.
I can feel it sometimes. Hear the turning of the record as the day begins. And I just abandon rule and worry, and move. I get to decide. We get to decide, how to make our freedom. How to fill it. Drop the needle, and simply 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!
It might surprise you to know that the best croissant we’ve ever had, was not in Aix en Provence, nor Paris, but San Francisco. We congratulated them. French butter, they said. It was perfection. Nothing added. No cookies or chocolate stuffed in the middle. No pistachio cream. Just a simple butter croissant. When things are done well, no additions are required.
And isn’t it the same with living? The best that we can offer is often without flare or fanfare. An open door. A seat at the table. An understanding that doesn’t require explanation, only a place, a presence.
We all know people who are struggling. Sometimes I think we imagine that we have to offer an answer. A solution. Most people really only want to know that you care — they want to taste the richness of your simple French butter — to step into the warmth of your heart’s kitchen, and simply sit down.
Knowing that the number one rule in improv (perhaps the only) is to always continue the conversation with “yes, and…” — and thinking that life is really one big improvisation — I try to do the same in my daily practices.
I got up early this morning to make the baguettes. The sticky dough questions my every move, and yes, I continue. My tiny spatula is barely a match for the fluidity. It’s like trying to herd cats or gather water in the palm of your hand. But the scent of bread baking is priceless. The impossible cut straight from the oven melts the butter, and beds the lavender honey, and there really is no better way to begin the day.
It feels good to begin in all that agreement. I will ride it to my sketchbook — the current sketchbook whose only rule is “Bird, and…” Every page must contain a bird. It started from the need to lighten the moment. To feel barely more than air. To fly. Thus, the birds, and… whatever I wanted to paint with them. Be it ukulele, purse, or human, it always continues with the bird, and…
The two most recent humans in the book, although pages apart, seem to belong together. And how telling of our world, I suppose. This “pages apart.” But I’m encouraged by the ease of paper turning…the smell of fresh bread, the taste of lavender honey… So as the sun questions, “Will we rise to the moment?” — I can only answer, YES!
