In a large gathering, I couldn’t really tell the difference between a Hvezda and a farming neighbor. Looking up from the height of their waist, I could see that we were all pretty much the same as I weaved through pant-legs and nylon stockings.
I can’t tell you the moment it changed. Maybe it was in small spurts, like my growth. One day though, I remember thinking nobody could possibly understand. Because surely I was the only one to feel this way. And the irony, I suppose, was that in all those differences, everyone else seemed to be having that very same thought.
It’s funny that it takes so long to see them, the thoughts nesting atop our heads, but once we start talking, sharing our experiences, we find that we’re really not that different after all. “Family” or not, we are all related.
On runways and red carpets, they like to play, “Who wore it best?” — pointing out how the same dress curves around the different women. And unfortunately, we seem to do the same with feelings. Judging who grieves better. Who recovers more quickly. Who wins (or loses) with the most grace. And I’m guilty of it too, and then I feel it, the flutter of those nesting thoughts…and I think maybe, just maybe, we’re not that different after all.
I didn’t correct her when she thought it was a hat — the bird atop the woman’s head. While it wasn’t a fascinator, it was fascinating, so when she said she would wear it too, I smiled and agreed.
For what was to be gained if I said, “But it’s a real bird…” While in my imagination it was, it was still just a painting. There for all to imagine. And in her mind, it was a hat. So I let it be a hat.
My cousin Dawn used to make up songs in the bathroom when she was a little girl. Neither self conscious of her singing, nor… well, her bathroom routine. One went, “And pony, and pony…” Only those two words, but over and over. It’s surprising how easily they stuck in my head. Annoyed, I told her to stop. Again and Again. It was my grandfather who told me, not her, to stop. “But it’s not even a real song,” I pleaded. “It is to her,” he said. And the argument was finished, but not the song. I suppose that’s why I still sing it today.
We have a real need to be right all the time. I’m just as guilty as the next person. I’m trying to get better. We can all enjoy things in our own way. Sometimes, you just have to let it be a hat.
I used to think they were so glamorous, the women on the front of the Butterick sewing patterns. My mother’s love for the designs was enough to lure me away from the toy aisle at Woolworth’s and join her in search of the fashion dream. For as much as I enjoyed the newest doll encased in plastic with her pink outfit, it was nothing compared to the palpable life that flowed from the dress patterns into my mother’s hands at the back of the store.
I didn’t have the words for it then, but I somehow knew it was more than glamour, and closer to worth. Not in search of proof that she could be, worthy, but knowing somewhere deep in her heart, that she already was. And so I left the ease and certainty of the lined toys and joined her in the dream.
And didn’t we become. And become again. Without money, or even a well lit path, we started our journey. Our joyful journey. And she sewed and believed. And shopped. Holding clothes under neck in front of the three-way yes (four, including mine!)
The woman arriving in my sketchbook reminded me of how far we have come. A simple nod from the back of Woolworth’s. And I know the magic moved from her hands into mine. So I pass it along to you, hoping, knowing, there is no end. The patterned dream lives on.
Working between two screens, sometimes my cursor gets stuck in the opposite one that I want. (Like my brain doesn’t do that all the time.)
It’s so easy to think, “Well, I always did it this way…” Whether I’m talking about different countries, different languages, loves, relationships, even my hairdresser. And I catch myself swiping madly on the wrong screen.
Change is never easy. Neither growth. But both are so necessary. And it doesn’t mean you have to give up everything in the letting go, the moving on…You keep the lightest of things, like joy and hope and love — none of these will ever weigh you down.
Too often I’m unaware. It’s barely more than air, the little birdie that tells me things. But when I’m paying attention, really paying attention, all the truths that move between who I am and who I want to be, chirp seamlessly between my heart and my brain, and I am saved.
It was just a line. A handful (but heart full) of words. I wrote it yesterday morning on the back of my sketchbook. I could hear it, her, what she was saying so clearly. And with that one line, the words came pouring out. I wrote for hours.
It’s been said, and I believe that it’s true, that a painting is never finished. Each time you look at it, it takes on your story. You are painting as you listen. I suppose that’s why we are asked to be quiet in museums, so everyone can hear.
If you lean in, she’s telling you something. Her shoulders relaxed into the truth. Her heart unobstructed. Her head lifted to hope’s promise. What is it you need to hear? You already know what it is. Let it come. Let her whisper to you. She’s handing you your story, by the heart full.
Leave it to music, the universal language, to teach us how to live better. Long before technology, it was pretty clear that people sounded good when they sang together. There are many explanations — strength in numbers, an averaging of tones, bad singers influenced by the good ones (a raising of the bar), the pleasing sound of imperfection. They probably all can be true at the same time. So much so, that they invented a way on instruments to create this same tonal pleasure. It’s called the chorus effect.
Hammond introduced the Model B-C in 1936 to lock in true organ tone once and for all. A Hammond Model B-C organ. Using a second tonewheel system with slightly detuned notes, the B-C’s onboard chorus generator fulfilled Hammond’s vision of providing a richer, harmonized sound. Thus, chorus as an effect was born.
I can feel it in my sketchbook. One bird is nice. But a page. A flock! I can feel the chorus of the birdsong. And therein lies the wow! Even with the inevitable smudge, the handprint, the slight splatter, I think it adds to the beauty. This coming together. This gathering. I hope we can do it in our daily lives. Oh, how we need to gather. To find ourselves in the universal song. With all of our imperfections, we are still capable of “a richer” more “harmonized sound.” I want to be a part of that greater song. Can you hear it?
I realized quickly that there was no need to wait for the random field trip. At Washington Elementary, once a week, we were marched down the terrazzoed hall, past the drinking fountain, the boys’ and girls’ lavatories, and up the stairs to the library. With no need for a signed permission slip from my mother, no bus fumes, no pleather stuck to the back of my thighs, I was allowed (just imagine!) to pick anything, any book I wanted. And take it. Just take it for a week. Go on the journey! Be the girl with the pesky little sister, or the big dog. Be the cowgirl, or even the horse. Live on the prairie in a little house. Fall with the boy down the well. Or be the mother of them all. It was better than any trip I had ever imagined. (And I had (have) a big one.)
The most beautiful thing of all, we never have to lose our tickets. I take a journey every day. Within the pages of a book that I read. On the pages of my sketchbook that I paint. I don’t need permission to become a poet, or a baker, or a gardener. (Even though my mother would have signed any slip, and still does with a heavenly wink.) For she was the one who loved books first. It was my mother I was following long before the line past the fountain. And when I read a passage today and think, Oh, she would love this, I stop myself and say, She does love this. How could I not believe that she continues to make the trip? Once you’ve made the journey, gone past the gravel road, the railroad tracks, the Viking statue, Olson’s Super Market, beyond the elementary school, the middle, and the high, the college, and the state and the country… you don’t stop. With hearts as open as pages, we keep wondering, we keep wandering — no slips required. Only love.
It’s not lost on me, the irony, that my current most popular painting on Pinterest is of the woman taking flight by reading a book. And I’m as guilty as the next person, searching the internet for all things analog. But I do find comfort in the fact that we still celebrate the sketchbook, the written word, the paper and pencil. The intimacy of heart and hand.
And maybe it’s the pushback to all of this Artificial Intelligence. Maybe it’s the understanding that’s it’s all about the gathering. The joy of the gathering.
I’m so happy that I grew up in an age when you had to go to the library. You had to search for a book to reference, sometimes only to get to another book. And then another. Feeling each cover. Smelling each page. Digesting each word. Feather by feather, I suppose, we earned our wings.
I see it in my sketchbook. How one simple little bird became another. And then became a French bird. Or a bird on a wire, and a purse.A stack of books. On a person’s head. And that person became another. In a different time. A different race. Each with a different story. A different song. Together. So many feathers. So many wings. All that flight from the gathering.
I wonder if we can do the same, with everything, reaching with heart and hand…
I can’t tell you how or why I started painting French birds. No more, I suppose, than I can remember the first time my mother said, “Let’s go shopping.” Some things just take on a life of their own. And now I joyfully find myself wing deep in berets and stripes.
Maybe it’s the unlikeliness of it all. We had no money, and not much of a mall. No history passed down from my grandmother. No gps in our car. No google – no computer even. Just the pure desire to dress our way into lives we knew our hearts were already living. So we gassed up the used Malibu and wore a path on I-94. Passing fields and billboards as if winged ourselves. And we found ourselves at the Dales. Ridgedale, Southdale, Brookdale even, when something just needed to be found.
I see it now more clearly. How we fit striped tops over our wings and found our way. Found ourselves.
Here in France, because my mother dared the freeway, I find myself in front of my sketchbook, and I am not lost, but ever wing deep in joy.
Something told me we wouldn’t be there long. It was more than basement dark. The whole house seemed to know that changes were coming. Still I picked a color for my bedroom that I thought would change things. Yellow. Yellow carpeting. Bedspread. I tucked myself inside all of that hope. Of course my father still left. We had to sell the house. So you might say it didn’t help at all. While it’s true, it didn’t change circumstance, it did change my mood, and my heart to this day.
Maybe it’s the exhiliration of spring, or just a new day, but whenever I need a lift, or want to give one, I turn to yellow. It doesn’t change the basement, but it does light a path. I pray you can see it. It contains a thousand stars. A glorious sun. Even the lemons know, and rely on the promise of what’s to come. So I send it on word and wing — all things yellow, all things hope.
