I’m more of a poet than a sailor, but I can see the romance in both. I have friends and family who love to sail. Passionate about it. And I gravitate to the love of loving. And that’s what I think connects us — not the uniform of stripes — but the vulnerability. Whether you’re exposing yourself to the open sea, or the open word, you are open! And that’s what allows us to connect.
I think some may fear that it is a sign of weakness to be vulnerable. I think nothing is stronger. More beautiful. To brave it all with heart wide open is to hero the day. To bare your cracks of heart, your stripes, is the purest form of strength that I know.
So I match the wind with pen and paper. With brush and paint. And wear my stripes proudly. Waving to all the heroes ready to set sail.
He, being 12, had a different perspective, and was not overly enthusiastic about the lawn that was freshly mowed, nor my table setting, nor the food that I had been cooking for four hours. I thought for sure that the fire I started with pine cones for the bbq would spark some interest, with its big flames and smoke puffing out of the pool house — but no. It wasn’t until we finished that beautiful meal, (the ribs and sausages, the asparagus on a bed of peppers and pasta, the shrimp skewers and potatoes, and desserts from the award winning baker) when I began throwing him the winter dusty frisbee across that same lawn that I had worked so hard to mow, that he began to beam. With each throw that spun directly into his reach, he marveled and said, “you’re really good.” This is what impressed him — that I could throw a frisbee.
It’s true that most people see not what you love, but what they love. And the thing is, we never really know exactly how we will connect. But we can, we can connect. It may not be in the way we think, or even hoped for, but in the end, it’s only about if we did.
It wasn’t long before the frisbee ended up in the pool — the pool with last year’s dirty water, not yet ready for summer’s swim. But still, we had a moment. And this is what we build on.
I never know which story you will respond to. It’s always different. And different for everyone, on different days. So I fling the words, like a dusty frisbee across the lawn, and say, in this moment, I’m happy you’re here.
The world is pretty big. It’s an amazing place. Mostly I enjoy it. Marvel at it really. So much to see. To feel. But it can get overwhelming. And then I take a moment. A moment to focus on a spot, the spot. Where? It changes. All the time. It is where I need it to be. I look at that flower – so delicate, so beautiful, even after the rain, or maybe especially. A rock. So strong. So steady. Yet, it can be moved, shaped even, by just a drop of water. I look at a blade of grass. Really look at it. It doesn’t seem to be worrying. It doesn’t seem to disappear, even in this field of green. It’s here. All here. It becomes unclear if they are here for me, or I am here for them. But I’m happy they’re here. I’m happy I’m here. I just breathe. And watch. And I think. What if I’m that spot, you know, for someone. And I still myself, to take my turn. To be the flower. To be the rock. The blade. The shoulder for the bird to land. The spot in the garden. And it’s then I know. Everything is going to be ok. Amazing even. And I marvel in it again.
I don’t know if it was a conscious decision, or just the body’s way of coping. I didn’t have the words for it then, nor the thought to question it. But within a week of moving her family from Minnesota to Texas, my Aunt Sandy adopted the southern accent. And just as easily I suppose, I changed the northern pronunciation of aunt to “ant”. And that’s how she remains.
Maybe everything is just a choice. Right down to how the day is going to be.
Each surface that I paint on accepts the substance so differently. How it holds, smooths. I can say, well, that’s not how you did it yesterday in the sketchbook. And it doesn’t care. This is how it is, it says. And so I make the adjustments. And I don’t fight the rough surface of the hand crafted paper, but it embrace it. Doesn’t it add to the character? Not imperfections, but details. And they are beautiful.
Singing along to the Spotify station in the car yesterday on a French highway, how easily I Tanya Tuckered into Delta Dawn, and I thought of her, my Aunt (Ant) Sandy. We’re all characters, rough and hand crafted, and isn’t it beautiful?!
It’s easy to misread anyone I suppose. Up until the fifth grade, I was extraordinarily quiet. I wouldn’t have put it that way, but that’s what they wrote on my report cards. My mother, not seeing anything to defend, replied, “When she has something to say, she’ll say it.” I sat beside her, cheeks flushed and smiling, I nodded. The teacher, once again misreading the room, looked at my face and said, “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” My mother knew what the pink in my cheeks meant. “She’s not embarrassed, she’s hopeful.”
We ripen at different stages. I found my voice. I still get nervous. I get angry. I get tired. Sometimes sad. Sometimes so much joy that it’s overwhelming. And it all blushes out my heart and through my face, because through it all I am hopeful. I am hopeful that I will understand. That I will be happy. That I will pass on all that joy for others to carry.
Sometimes he looks at me and says, “Nice colors.” And I know he sees me. Just as she did.
The three of us were best of friends in first second and third grade. Maybe it started with something as simple as the jump rope. Jan and I needed a third, otherwise we were just spinning. Shari jumped in from off the monkey bars, and that was all it took. We were friends. Every recess we took turns. We sang the rhymes to each swing of the rope. We laughed off the trips and twirled again. Something was said in the summer of our third year. Standing in Shari’s driveway, I could hear them arguing. Half the rope raised in my hand, I somehow knew. I looked at the opposite handle lying in the dirt and thought, “but we weren’t finished.”
We didn’t gather again until we all began playing the clarinet. It was only in band, but we still spoke. After graduation, we all went our separate ways. I read on Facebook that Jan died. I saw a picture of Shari for the first time just the other day. Typing today, I can still feel my hand on the jump rope.
I don’t know why people worry about being forgotten. The first image I see when I wake up is the portrait of my grandfather. Not only has my love for him not diminished, it’s quite possible it grows stronger each day. I suppose that’s the way with love.
Half way through, I stopped to take a picture of her. I think she’s beautiful — being unfinished. Would that we could allow that for each other, for ourselves. Because it is beautiful, isn’t it! These lives and loves we’re giving, they never really end.
I have things to do today. We all do. What a pleasure it is to be unfinished. Beautiful!
When I turn the pages of my sketchbook, I have to laugh at the sizing. The weight I can give a sparrow!. And that’s wonderful, if directed toward joy. But I have to be careful that I don’t do the same with problems — make them bigger than ever possible. And that’s easy to do. But it’s also easy to shift.
When the weight of a random day is too much to carry, I try to paint it away. And once I begin, to squeeze out a little paint on my saturated palette (I’ve done this before), wet my brush to lip, begin to color the page, what felt so heavy on heart, is so much lighter on wing. It’s funny how that works. I suppose it’s not really even magic, more likely, it wasn’t that heavy after all. I mean, if the sparrow can carry it away… And so I keep painting, lighter, once again learning, hope will never weigh you down.
The morning sky is bright. It seems like it might be a good day to fly! I’ll see you up there.
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.
There were no influencers at the time. No YouTube. The only thing social, (sans the media) could be found at the Clinque counter in the center of Herberger’s Department store. And so my mother followed her own guts, her own grace, and decided upon the royal blue purse.
I suppose it was the way she carried it, carried herself, but people began to notice. To comment favorably. She was the woman with the blue purse. And I would watch them, watching her — looking away from the three way mirrors to get her reaction. Smiling. Then making their way to the purse section.
What some are calling guts these days is really just shock, pure laziness of spirit. Without the addition of grace, it is simply blather. Most have forgotten the need to carry, and simply shove.
I think about the choices I make. I don’t always get it right. But there is love in the attempt. And I think, I hope, with that alone, I can stand in the shadow of her blue purse, in the glow of guts, in the warmth of grace.
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.
