I don’t know where I heard the name before, but when I saw her — this little stuffed duck that my mother gave to me for Easter — I knew her name was Selma. She was the brightest yellow I had ever held in the palm of my hand. In the palm of my heart.
It was years later, perhaps well beyond what some might call my “stuffed animal” years, (but maybe with your own mother, you never outgrow them), that she gave me a squishily wrapped Easter present. It was Selma. And not just Selma for me, my mom called her by name as well. The original duck? No. The original love? Indeed. I guess that never changes.
I name the trees in our yard now. The plants in our house. I have always thought when love blooms so beautifully, it deserves a name. I’d like to think that they are all in on it — as nature blossoms in bright Selma all around me. Maybe that’s what Easter is — at least it is for me — a love that continues to bloom and bloom, forever in the palm of my heart.
I didn’t see it the first time I passed. There is a giant stone marking the gravel path that I walk on every day. (And I must add, I pay attention to the stone because it reminds me of the one that marked the driveway to my grandfather’s house.)
It’s close to an hour by the time I make my way out and back, searching for asparagus. Instead of walking past the large stone a second time, I cut through the field, usually rich with asparagus, and then wind my way up the large hill. As I started back down something caught my eye. I wasn’t sure what it was. A woman sitting on the stone? An animal? I couldn’t quite make it out. When I got to the bottom of the hill, I saw it. Four rocks placed perfectly in order to balance on the large one. No glue. No cement. Nothing to hold them, but balance.
Voices carry easily on this path. But I never heard anyone. Never saw anyone. Had they brought the stones with them? How did they manage to find them? Place them? In such a short time.
I hadn’t seen the art of balancing stones until I moved to France. With mountains and rivers so near, the options are plentiful. With mild research, I found that it was all a meditation in balance. Finding the core strength to stand tall, no matter what nature throws at you.
I suppose I’ve felt off balance for a few months now. Losing my mother was like losing one of the rocks that held me upright. I hope it’s not arrogant to think this is a sign for me. I don’t think so. Maybe we’re all here to give each other signs. To pick up the stones, when others are weary. To give each other hope. Through words. Paintings. Gestures. Even rocks. And if we can do that for each other, then I think we can create a world of balance that we all long for.
My grandfather gave me this. My mother did too. Maybe they still are. Or maybe the duty has been passed along the path. I find comfort in it all.
A few days ago a friend of mine sent an email and signed it, Mystery and Peace. I guess that says it all. I hope you find both on your path today.
I had played on teams for years before I understood that the “A” in “Bring your A game” didn’t stand for Alexandria. But I liked that it did. I mean I always knew that it meant the coach wanted us to be our best. To do our best. For ourselves. For our team. For our hometown – Alexandria. I suppose, in a joyful way, I will always want to do my best for this place.
Now there are other cities that do this for me as well. New York. Paris. They make me want to be a better artist. A better human. I read books by great authors, in hopes of becoming a better writer. I visit museums. Watch videos. Sketch. Learn. Repeat. And maybe most importantly, I try to surround myself with people who are doing the same. Not the same things necessarily, but trying to do their best at whatever they do. Because as we learned in school, you always play better against the better team.
My mother (Ivy) didn’t know anything about sports. But oh, did she have game! And she brought it. Even in her toughest times. She brought it with style. Elegance. Lipstick. Grace. And an endless supply of breath mints in her purse. She taught me more about winning than any coach. Any team. Winning was playing when you didn’t feel like it. Winning was getting up. Getting dressed. Presenting your best self to this world. Not to convince them, but to convince yourself — you were worthy, you were someone. Winning was laughing beyond the tears. Winning was loving, beyond a cracked heart. Winning was teaching your daughter to be her best. Do her best.
I have a lot to live up to. That is not pressure, but a welcome challenge. The sun is coming up. I reach for the best inside of me — not just my A-game, but my I-game as well. I smile in the mirror. And put a breath mint in my purse.
The first sign of spring came when Sylvia Dynda hung her weekly wash out on the line. Damp white cotton, blowing in the gentle breeze — a breeze warmed with a promise written by Hemingway himself — “There would always be the spring…” It would be years before I read the line, before I could read at, but I knew… And so with my freshly exposed skin, I ran through the empty lot that separated our houses, and under the sun I danced through this sea of white. Clothes that were alive! Clothes that cooled my sun-surprised shoulders and warmed my summer eager heart. It was a promise of forever, and I immersed myself in it.
She must have known it too, Mrs. Dynda, because there would be no other reason to let the quite possibly dirty hands of an unrelated neighbor girl touch her freshly laundered clothing. Sometimes I could see her smiling through the newly replaced screen door that her husband Frank put up for the summer. I knew she knew. And so I would dance.
Yesterday was the first time I washed my mother’s ruffled blouse. Her blouses were always whiter than any other person’s. Always clean. Always pressed. Always spectacular. I didn’t want to mess this up. I washed a basin. Washed it with a new washcloth, just in case. Added the water. The delicate detergent. Gently wooshed it with my clean hands. Let it soak. Then hung it on our clothesline. Our new spring breezes were strong. I watched over it. This was more than just a blouse on the line, this was the promise of forever. The promise that my mother would always be with me. I let the sleeves ruffle my arms. Dance damply around me. She made it to the south of France. And I would make it through this spring. It was promised on Van Dyke road. It was promised today. I knew she knew. And so we would dance.
I got my driver’s license at 16. Not long after, I had a cast on both legs. A full length plaster on my left, from ankle to hip. And on my right from my toes to my knee. I could still walk. A little like Frankenstein. I couldn’t sneak up on anyone, but I kept moving. I could ride my ten speed off-brand bike. I tied a shoe lace around the right pedal to hold my foot in place and rode one legged from Jefferson Street. I could still drive. My mom had a sturdy (even more than we thought) used Chevy Malibu station wagon, in light blue. To get into the driver’s seat, I opened the door wide, lifted my left straight leg, (there was no way to back in) and in one full swoop, I grabbed the steering wheel, slid my left leg under the dash, hoisted myself up by that same light blue wheel, and seated myself at the ready. I’m not saying it was smart, or even legal, but I did it. Somehow we all survived. Me, my mom, and the Blue Chevy.
You never know what will end up supporting you. I suppose it’s the same way with friends. There is no way to anticipate or predict even what you will need. It’s not like you can go to the car dealership and hang from every wheel before you buy the car. But in this life we are gifted by the strength of others. Those beautiful friends who will support you, the full weight of you, when you need them. Without knowledge or permission we grab them by the wheel, and they hold. Some for a lifetime. True blue. I give thanks for them, every day.
I was just a few years her elder, my cousin Dawn. But it was in those years that I had learned to color within the lines. And more significantly (I’m not saying for the better) I had begun to care about it. We were at my grandma’s house, coloring in the sewing room. She, still free from any worry of boundaries, took her crayon in her tiny fist, and moved it with reckless abandon across the coloring book. I tried to hold in my horror – I hope I did. But these were the wildest, most furious purple lines I had ever seen. It was indecipherable what the underlying outlines had recommended. Still, she held it out – held it up – proudly. “I think it’s pretty good,” she claimed, “you know sometimes, I scribble.” (As if to say she hadn’t then.) I envied her assuredness. I stayed within the lines. Ready too, I suppose, to hold mine equally out to the world, just as she had done, and say clearly, “Dear Someone,…Maybe it’s all been a letter. A reminder. A plea. An offering. An outreach. Sometimes appearing on canvas. Sometimes in a book. Sometimes just a scribble on a notepad. Sometimes even indecipherable. But I think in each of our own extraordinary ways, every day, inside and outside the lines, sometimes with confidence, other times with fury, sometimes in colors so weak they can barely be seen — each day we write the letters. Letters that contain giant hopes of connecting, of being seen, of being loved, of giving thanks. Letters that ask to be seen. Letters that say, “I see you.” Letters that open days, open doors and open hearts. Letters that ask for the help. Letters that offer it. Letters that know today it might be me, tomorrow it might be you. Letters that know both words are true for all. Dear. Someone.
So we wake each morning and present to the mirror, present to the world, our masterpieces and our scribbles, each beginning with a clear and hopeful “Dear Someone,…”
To have walked a place is to possess it. I knew this before I even knew what the word meant.
From my first visit I tried to memorize my grandparent’s farm. The house. The barns. Fences and trees. Knowing that I would need it one day. Not the things inside the rooms. Not the furniture or figurines. Not the rusting tools. Nor the worn clothing. But the security. I suppose that’s all a home is — this feeling that if you went there, they would have to take you in. And if in fact I carried it with me, this feeling, this home, then I could go anywhere. I could have everything, or nothing else at all, and I would have this. And I would be OK. So I memorized the steps. The pictures hanging on the walls. The variety packs of cereals in the cupboard. The smell of damp work from overalls hanging on the wall. Tables and rugs and boots. Desks and doors. Closets.
My suspicions were confirmed when I saw the For Sale sign in the front lawn of our home on Van Dyke Road. My mother was trying to say the words. I tried to listen as I went through the steps. “We’d find an apartment,” she said. I walked up the gravel driveway to the house. “And we’d be OK.” I opened the front door and clung to the overalls hanging in the entry. “Just the two of us,” she said. I walked up the three steps to the kitchen. Tears fell from her eyes as she tried to convince me. “It wasn’t my fault…” I went up the stairs to the first bedroom, the second, the sewing room. I walked the barn. Even the empty chicken coop. And I returned to her face. My mother’s face. Seeing her. Loving her. Trusting her. It didn’t matter where we were going. If we had everything, or nothing else at all, we had each other.
And I memorized each laugh. Each day. Each struggle. Each adventure. Every trip to every mall. Every pretty dress. Every conversation mixed with coffee and wine. Each moment with my mom. Knowing I would need it one day. And that day has come.
I walk the streets, the gravel paths of Aix en provence. I have filled out the forms. Followed the rules. Applied. Tested. And carry the card that says I belong. But I know the only way for that to be true is to walk it. This place. Gather it all in, step by step, and carry it with me. Scattering along the way, everything that I have collected through the years. Each story. Every pebble on the path that I walk daily is now mixed with my treasures. My memories. Dampened overalls and sparkling dresses. Laughs and loves. I am a part of it all. And I am home.
The first time I wore plaster was in the fifth grade. I broke my arm ice skating during the Valentine’s Day party. I waited patiently in the nurse’s office of Washington Elementary. My mom came from work and drove us to the clinic. The sleeve of my winter coat dangled from the left side as I breathed in the antiseptic smell. My mother touched my knee so I would stop kicking the bed as we waited for the doctor to return with the xrays. He clicked the black sheets into the light that hung on the wall and said, “See right here… that’s where it’s broken.” We both agreed, but I’m not sure either one of us saw it. He dipped the strips of plaster and wrapped it warmly around my arm. It was as white as his coat. “Tomorrow all your friends can sign it,” he said. Oh, he didn’t have to tell me. That was the only thing I was looking forward to. I barely slept through the night.
Maybe the teachers gave them the permanent markers. They must have. Soon I was encircled with eager fifth graders, armed with all colors of opened Sharpies. Almost high from the smell and the attention, I presented my open canvas and each kid fought for the prime real estate of my cast.
I don’t know how we knew. But we all did. Maybe it was a right of passage. This ritual. This coming together over something cracked, something broken. It was so beautiful. It would have felt no different had they lifted me above their heads and passed me around the classroom.
It happens less frequently now. And maybe with less fanfare. Maybe it’s because the wounds get less visible when we’re older. Maybe our collective groups get smaller. But I consider myself lucky. Blessed. I still have those people in my life who surround me with support. Sometimes with just a few words, but they fit into the prime real estate of my heart and fill it. And I am lifted, with a permanent high.
All we have to do is be good to each other. Be there, for something cracked. Something broken.
I was 18 when I had my appendix removed. My first year of college. Not really a kid anymore. Not really a grown-up yet. Everything was white in the room. It was icey cold.
I had felt this before. Lying in the layer of fresh snow. No separation of earth and sky – only this blinding white. Fearing I too would disappear, I flapped my arms and legs to become the angel I needed. But how would I get up, I wondered. Without ruining it — this beautiful angel in the snow. If I rolled over to hands and knees, it would be gone. Just another wreckage in the snow. I laid still. The minutes seemed like hours, but then I saw her. My mom. In the corner of my eye. She ran out the front door, not taking time to button her coat. Still in street shoes, she hopped through the snow to my angel feet. Reach her arms to grab onto my wings and pulled me straight up. No angel damage. She had done it before. She would do it again and again. She looked at the perfect angel in the snow and smiled. I looked at the perfect angel next to me, and grabbed her hand.
I was just coming out of anesthesia when the nurse asked me, “Is your mom here?” I hadn’t yet opened my eyes, but I knew she was, or would be soon. Her coat flapping in the white, crisp air. I rested still in my angel.
