There’s not a lot of glory in the underpainting, but without it, there really is nothing. Time must be spent to prepare the canvas or panel. Gessoing. Sanding. Long before you get to the “garden.” And oh, how eager I am to jump to the flowers. But I take my time. I paint the shadow of black (one can’t go back later and expect to paint it in). Then the layering of stems and leaves. Creating depth. Perspective (that so often elusive perspective). Once I have put in the time, only then can I delight in the flowers. And having spent the time, oh what a delight they are!!!!! As if they bloom just for me.
It’s hard to remember this in the daily rush of things. The furious speed to get over, get beyond, to get through. But when I’m lucky, (which simply means when I’m paying attention), it’s my hands that remind my heart that tell my brain, “It’s only underpainting…the flowers are yet to come!”
I know the furious speed at which you are trying to get over and around. I have traveled that wind and hung on for dear life. But the dear life I found came only in the quiet slowing down. The letting go. No longer rushing to get past, but easing my way through. And the peace. Smiled. Knowing it had always been there, as I whirled. Peace, sitting quietly next to joy, and hope, and OK now. There, there.
Just outside my dorm room, I came across a red balloon. Nearly deflated after its apparent celebration, it merely hopped in front of me, seemingly hoping for one last hurrah. Who was I to turn away? I gave it a little tap with my foot. Did it blush deeper red as it popped up to my hand? I waved it on ahead. And we danced. It didn’t occur to me that my normal three minute walk to class had now taken upwards of nine. I took on the same blush of red as I walked in late. The professor looked at me and asked why I was late. “Because I grew up on a gravel road,” I said. Always a proponent of the specific, he smiled and let me sit down.
It was true what I had said. I had consumed hours kicking a single rock down the gravel of Van Dyke Road. It’s something, I suppose, to kick a rock on the paved streets of town, but it took special attention to traverse your specific rock in a sea of them. It started out simply, just a little tap by Weiss’s house. Then a quick passing of Alf’s. Once between Muzik’s and Dynda’s, I really gathered steam. Passing Norton’s I was ready to make it all the way to the North End, where all gravel went to rest in giant cliffed piles. Simply acquaintances at the edge of my driveway, we had now become friends. So certainly, as with any friend, I was ready to take it back home with me. Back up the hill. Maybe it was a foretaste of the feast to come, but I was unwilling to settle for any abandoning.
You get over being left, but one has to decide if you are going to be a part of the leaving. I wasn’t. So I kicked that red balloon all the way to my creative writing class, in a story that began on Van Dyke Road.
It wasn’t long after I realized that everyone didn’t have them, these Tech-ers in the basement, that they were gone. It’s clear now that we needed the money more than the space. We went through at least three cycles of young men from the law enforcement class. I only remember one’s name – Terry Eilers. Maybe because he was also our bus driver, but mostly I think because he was nice to me. And wasn’t that everything? —when there was just one unlocked door at the bottom of the stairs that separated them from our laundry.
Before lessons were learned, I race from upstairs to downstairs without a glance. It was one of the men from the first group of three. (Everyone over 17 seems like a man when you are six.) He was building a canoe in the driveway to our basement. Fascinated by anything being built, I was probably annoying. Watchful. Eager to know the bend of wood. And what was that green stuff? What was he putting on the shell? Certainly he must have my best interests at heart, I thought, he lived with us after all. He was going to enforce the law. He told me to touch the canoe. I poked one hesitant finger out of my sleeve and touched it as if it were a hot pan on the stove. No, really get in there, he said. Rub your arm across it. I don’t why I did. Just like the heat from a hot pan, it took a minute for the tiny shards of glass, the insulation, to reach my brain. And it took longer, I suppose, wondering not why the pain, but more, why did he want to inflict it?
I wasn’t going to let him see me cry. I ran up the browning hill of fall grass. Through the garage door. Down the stairs to the laundry room in the basement. Took off the painful sweater and placed it in a basket. It was the first time I noticed there was no lock on that door. It was the first time I needed one.
I stayed upstairs for the rest of their time. The next group came. They called one “Buzz” I think because of his hair, but I remained at a distance.
When Terry Eilers came the next year, slightly overweight in his tan shirt and brown pants, the new uniform of the students, he smiled at me from behind the big bus wheel. I don’t know how many rides it took before I trusted him, but I did.
It’s no longer a technical school, but a college. They have their own housing now, I guess. Call it whatever you want, I hope we’ve all learned along the way. Kindness is memorable.
Some will try to take it away. Innocence. Curiosity. Joy. Others still will pick you up when you need it most. It only takes one Terry.
Before Google, my mother had recipe cards with chocolate stains and bits of dough. A Betty Crocker cookbook so tattered, pages dogeared more with hope than actual meals made. She had a Bible with verses underlined in tears and yellow highlighter. Quotes from books stuck to the phone to remind her of what was actually funny now. Cassette tapes cued to the kitchen dance. And a phone book nearly rewritten with vital numbers like the Clinque counter at Macy’s.
And it was tangible, this chain of life. How it moved from heart to page to note to smile. I suppose it is what I’m still trying to do. To create the images. Meld them with thought. (Neither artificial.) So you can touch and feel, and pass them on, with your own notes and heart and smiles. And amid all the tatters and laughter, what we will have is real. So very real.
When I was young, and still believed that any conflict could be resolved with a “but,” I said things like, “but it’s not fair,” “but she got to do it,” “but I didn’t do anything wrong.”
It took years. On the playing fields. In the gym. On graded papers. During doctor visits. Within goodbyes to homes and family. I butted my way through it all. And nothing changed.
I suppose it was another gift from my mother that got me through. She gave me the gift of “and.” When I was sick of and sorry for myself after another surgery, she shook her head yes, “and we’re going to the mall.” When we would get lost, wandering without GPS or any sense of direction, and I would panic that no one would ever find us, “yes,” she said, “and look, there’s Herbergers!”
When Thanksgivings didn’t gather — “and look, we have bagels!”
When Sundays were too long — “and one day, we’ll have too much happiness to fill our days.”
We didn’t always have the power to make problems disappear, yet we had the magic of “and.” “And we have books. And we have music. And we have each other.”
With that love, we had everything.
The world is still trying to learn what my mother always knew. (I hope we’re still trying to learn.) Daily, I hear on the news the justification of horrors, from people and countries, all under the guise of “but they did this…” What if we looked within. Acknowledged the truth. And responded with kindness. And love. Looked around and said, “And we have all this. We have each other.”
So much to question. And the answer is still, and again, love.
