She stood in front of the original painting. Tracing the movement from the woman’s feet to her hand. “She’s so light,” she said, “it’s like she’s being lifted.” I smiled and replied “That’s actually the name of the piece — Being Lifted.” Her pleasure doubled. It was not only the view, but that she could see it.
And isn’t it always the way. It’s what we bring to the situation. How we want to see things.
Knowing her, I’m aware of the weight she is wanting to release. And the fact that she can see it, right there in front of her, I know that she will.
It’s why I painted her in the first place. This release. This letting go. I suppose I’ve always wanted it. Ever since I swam out to the diving board on Lake Latoka, I have yearned to fly. Since I felt the weightlessness of springing from the board. The wind in my feathers. My momentary wings. They carry me still.
It’s why I stand before her each night, the woman in the painting. Because I see her. And I know, when morning comes, one way or another, I am going to fly.
As a child, sometimes more than once a day, I would have to gather and push all of my swirling thoughts out the front door of our house on Van Dyke Road. It was there on that cement stoop that they could breathe. All of my hopes and plans. My dreams and curiosities. They felt free, like summer toes in green, dew-damp grass. They tumbled without spotters. They grew without restriction. Voices were given to dolls and animals. I planted my future in Hugo’s field. Dared my existence in the North End. Outraced my worry over popping gravel behind my banana seat bike. And in all that release, I felt complete. Full.
I still try to allow the space for the swirling. Letting it loose on canvas and paper. Roaming up the hills of the Montaiguet. Splashing in the pool. I don’t think any of it was meant to be contained. Not imagination. Certainly not love. So I give it space. Room to tumble. And on the stoop of all that feeling, all of that letting go, I am saved.
Without being told, we did live in the “here and now.”
Today, we’re bombarded with the reminders that you have to be present. And yet, the advertisements for “back to school” began here in June. Parents are given lists of things to buy — must-haves for a proper educational experience. Rules and expectations to be met.
Thinking back to our first days of school, if we were showered and fed, the preparations were complete. With the far-away looks of the feral cats we had become over summer, we boarded the bus, dazed and wet-headed. Our brains and hands empty. (But our hearts full.) Perhaps a number two pencil or a spiral notebook, but I can’t be sure. We were in the moment.
I know it’s good to be prepared. But there is so much in life that we will never be ready for. Things that lists can never check off. Some experiences we have to run wildly through, armed with only the faith of a seven year old, that things will work out. That the bus will always bring us home.
I learned it once. And I’ve learned it again and again. The morning awaits my wild and feral, ever joyful, race to the bus.
They aren’t that hard to spot, people who have been loved.
People who fear the supply of it, those hanging on for dear life, (hanging on for anything dear), these are the people that can’t let go. Of anything. And who could blame them really. Having not seen. Not felt. They dig fingertips into pad of thumb. To hang on? To feel anything?
It isn’t the absence of problems that let people love. The over abundance that encourages people to give. For me, it was always knowing my heart pockets were filled.
Needing the literal as a child, my mother would have me place my hand in my pocket. Whenever doubt or worry was creeping around, when fear or sadness hovered. Whatever I needed — hope, a dream, extra love — “just cup it in your hand,” passing it to me, what doubters would say was never there, what I say is still there.
This practice of painting birds, this daily ritual that has saved me throughout this last year, has kept my pocket full. Has allowed me to reach them back to you. I hope you can see it. Cup it. Pass it on. All this love. And then maybe, one day, we won’t stand out, we simply all will be loved.
I learned quickly on that you don’t tell a farmer, “I have nothing to do.”
We weren’t allowed to be bored on Rueben and Elsie’s farm. And truth be told, there really was no reason to be. Trees to climb and gardens to race. Barns to explore. Cows to annoy. Cupboards to climb into. Lazy Susans to spin. Party lines to listen in on. A balcony to jump off. An electric fence to dare. Flowers to make into dolls. Grass to stain knees. Gravel to collect in shoes. Stairs to count. Overalls to climb into. Dropped off for a summer day, my mother could leave me without prompts.
Writing my daily blog, I ignore the supplied suggestions. Why would I want to write what everyone else was writing? Live like everyone else was living?
Years ago I wrote, “It isn’t that something comes along and gives you a reason to get out of bed. You have to get out of bed and go find that reason, everyday.” It’s ever how I want to live.
I see my grandpa’s portrait on the wall in front of me as I write this. I smile and ready myself to race around today’s barn.
It’s a bread baking morning. I’m still surprised at the act. How much I love the bread. How I adore that the house smells like home. And mostly that I’m someone who has the patience to wait for the rise.
And maybe that’s unfair. Perhaps we are way too quick to label people. To pull out the “never” cards. She never does that. He will never do this. How do we know when we are young, (or at any stage in our lives for that matter) what we will do, what we are capable of doing? So I’ve decided to try and replace never with not yet. Giving myself the opportunity to keep becoming. And the hardest part, having the patience to allow the transformations. To wait for the rise.
You’d think just the attempt to learn that in itself would serve as the reminder, but I must admit, I do need the bread. As I cover the half empty bowl, I smile and know that I’m not where I’ve been, I’m not where I’m going, but I am on my way.
The sun hits the towel that coddles the bowl that holds the dough. And so I rise.
Instead of lamenting over the hole-worn draped in my grandma’s sink, my mother started bringing her own dishrag when visiting the farm for a meal. Being the oldest and most responsible (and she’d throw in prettiest just to get herself from the table to the sink), my mother was always cleaning up, as easily as she wiped away my grandma’s words of “oh, just leave it…” (Like that would ever be possible.)
And she didn’t mind. She was good at it. But a proper dishrag…please. Let’s be serious, she wasn’t going to finger-wash what soaked before her. It was obvious that complaining wasn’t going to work. My grandma would just shrug and smile. Not because she didn’t care, but really, she just didn’t care. So my mother began bringing her own. Her beautiful dishrag that she purchased at the mall. And not in the discount section. Full price she paid, both to Herberger’s and everyone at Independent School District #206. Happy to do both. To give it all for something that mattered. Mattered to her, and maybe only her, but that was more than enough. Because hadn’t she earned it? Hadn’t she risen from Jefferson Street after little hope and less sleep, to will herself into a full heart, after someone she knew, she thought she knew, said, “I’m just leaving it, you.”
Giving our kitchen a proper cleaning yesterday (and I mean I paid full price, from the floor to the walls to the counters and burners) I finished by hanging a new towel sink side. No more walking and dripping across the floor to the rack on the wall. It was romantic. And maybe I felt pretty. Oh, my full and possible heart, I will never leave it.
Once she realized that “soon” was no more real than “a long time ago,” — that she could just be in it, this shouldered and weightless grace — there was no more worry of where it had flown, or if it would fly away, it just was…and she was… What a relief to be feathered this way. Not to be ready, but simply be, and know that it was ok.
She smiled at the slyness of this effortless grace, not asking for it to remain, (because certainly grace needed no request) but hoping that she could, that she would… Be.
It has happened twice in the last week. Women seemingly from my imagination arrive on canvas, only to be recognized and loved by complete strangers.
I posted her on TikTok yesterday when I finished painting her. The reply came from another country. She said she loved my art and thought my portraits were very elegant. But she loved this woman more than any other because she saw her best friend’s mother. She said it looked exactly like her. She missed her and “it made her heart feel so warm.”
The thing is, we just don’t know. We don’t know who is going through what. We can’t know what everyone needs. But I think if we keep putting things out there — smiles, waves, kind words, thoughts, flowers from the garden, portraits from our imaginations, love from our hearts — it will be good for someone at some point, and in turn, better for all of us.
With my also warmed heart, I will return to the canvas today, and it will arrive, right on time.
I have an understanding with the Magpies. A crust of baguette from the kitchen window. Not the shiny object they are accused of coveting, but well lit for certain, under the summer sun of Provence. The exchange is met with chatter, and somehow we both know what feeds our soul.
This constant craving that keeps me returning to the studio — to paint again, for the first time — is me, magpie-ing that feeling. To find the face in the new portrait is to find a bit of myself. To dare going past that first stroke. To dare as well the letting go. All in search of the crust that feeds me.
The light in Provence is like no other. Perhaps I was unprepared at first, for this great reveal. (Are we ever prepared to really see things?) On the ledge outside the studio, I can view the colors I don’t even remember painting. Like a lost memory in the heart that says, “Oh, I’m ready to shine.” That is willing and able to admit that I’m not just black and white, but blue. To show it all is to risk it all. But I, like the Magpie, have come to brave the creak of the handle. The clank of the window opening. All for the taste of a slip of lavender honey on no ordinary crust of bread.
The light is calling. My heart chatters — I will not refuse.
