She waited a long time to be framed. It wasn’t until I removed the existing panel to paint on the opposite side, that she had her opening. I did have to trim her ever so slightly, but she was more than willing. And now it’s her time. She’s not more important to me, I loved her from the first paint stroke, but now others perhaps can see her, for all that she is, ruffled and strong, worthy of framing.
It’s something to be given first hand sight. To watch the becoming of another. I was given that gift with my mother. Of course I loved her from coddled elbow, to grabbing at ankles. From two stepping in her elongated stride. To catching scattered tears in chubby palms. Dancing under the umbrella of her smile. I never imagined that others couldn’t see it.
She took her cuts and trimmings with a grace that I knew would one day be framed. And I watched her grow into that knowledge herself. I watched the fragile ruffles grow in strength every day. Simply. Beautiful.
When she first saw this painting, she said, “Oh, I want that blouse.” And in that statement I could hear the confidence of the wearing. She knew she could hold up every curve, with an earned and glorious grace. It was her time. My heart will ever frame.
She didn’t want to hear it any more than I did years ago, as she was saying, but you have the time to…
Years ago, still in youth’s comparison, I was complaining about not having the time to do what I wanted, and more so, that other people did, and he said that every person is given the same amount of time each day. 24 hours. Do with them what you will. I imagine I threw in several “yeah, but…”s, to which he simply raised his eyebrows. I let it set in, and got up earlier the next morning.
This advice has served me well for decades. I suppose it was no different from the “eyes on your own paper” that we heard in grade school. I guess I was just ready to receive it.
As they say, comparison is the thief of joy. What someone else owns, gets, or does, is really none of your business, and has no effect on you. What determines your day, is simply set before you.
So I ask myself, what are you going to do with your own paper? I paint the eyes that smile back at me. No thieves in sight.
We went to market yesterday. We bought a few plants and flowers. Bouquet in hand, wearing my mother’s top, they both felt, not like trophies, but certainly signs of my good fortune, as I stepped lightly through the streets of Aix en Provence.
It’s because of her that I held the belief for so long. It wasn’t until last year that I learned (I don’t want to say truth) the alternative meaning to “this little piggy went to market.” From the time she pinched each of my toes with the verse, throughout our days of wandering all of the Dales, it had been about shopping. Never the horrors of the butcher.
Not to say we didn’t live in the truth. Oh, the truth was very apparent and ever near. But it was more of a decision, I suppose, of choosing how to see the day. How to see this life. Choosing my market.
I hadn’t noticed it until the other day. I brought the painting of Charly inside from the studio. I set her beside another painting. It wasn’t until the next day I thought, “Oh, Charly is with Chuck.” And then I realized that Charles was just below them downstairs. These three sharing a name couldn’t be more different — not similar in age, gender, nor hobby, yet they were all connected. (A rose by any other Chuck…)
I was on a painstakingly long phone call with the bank. We went through my account number, my social security number, my PIN number, the code sent to a separate phone, and then finally she asked me, “What’s your mother’s maiden name?” Deep in the annoyance of trying to prove my identity, there I was, still connected to all that I loved the most. My grandparents. My mother. I laughed, and spelled it, nobody ever understands the silent H of Hvezda.
I don’t know if Charly, Chuck and Charles will ever meet. But I’d like to think they know. I’d like to believe they feel something bigger than themselves. A connection with a silent C, but connected just the same. Perhaps we all are… roses.
At 7:25, I knew she would already be at her desk. Skirt smoothed. Lipstick on. Purse neatly tucked. And I awaited the call. I started each day with my mother.
We went through the usual checklist. What we were wearing. If we slept. Shoes. How we felt. Accessories. Unseen compliments and laughter. There was certainty at 7:25. There was love.
Through her working years, I knew 11:30 was lunch. 4:30, home. I didn’t watch the clock, but sometimes the second hand would wrap itself around my shoulder, because I knew where she was.
Traveling to New York or California, I stayed in the knowledge of her time zone. 7:30 no longer meant the desk, but she was up, “putting on her face.” When I moved to France, her 7:30 awakening became more like 8:00, which was 3pm for me. At 4:00 I would call. The check list varied, but the love never did.
Someone else has her phone number now. But I will always know what time it is in Minnesota.
Long before I could read them, I carried them. I knew the words of the books, my mother having read them to me night after night. Not being able to read yet myself, I was under the assumption, (or I was probably just of the age to hope) that if I kept the words nearby, cradled in hand and tucked against hip, that they would stay with me. They did. Now, I can’t say for sure that it was because I held them close, pressed them dear…but I can’t say that it wasn’t.
I have done the same with love. Kept a library in my heart.
I walked a new path yesterday. My feet plodded up the unexplored hill. My head peaking above as I neared the top. A school. A soccer field. And then, not the promised land, but a box filled with promise, a community library. And the biggest surprise, two books in English. The collected works of Mark Twain was as thick as my open hand. I clutched it to my heart and put the paperback in my back pocket. The proportion of books to body was nearly the same as when I carried them in youth’s palm. My steps, as light as they were then. Carried in the word.
I had been right. It stays with me. Coddled close, this love for word and promise. Did I walk home a little faster? Probably. Did I smile the whole way? Indeed.
I washed the windows in the studio recently, reminding myself that in order to paint the light, you really need to be in it.
People will always be quick to tell you what to do. Even knee deep in the mud, they will advise you on your path. While all the scattering of their “should-haves” and “supposed-tos” merely block the way. And doubt, not one to miss a dim light, will often seize the opportunity and join in the chatter. And so I turn…
I can’t say I love to wash windows. It is work. And the efforts are never rewarded with longevity. You know it going in, this won’t be the last time. But when it hits you, wraps itself around you, nearly lifting with clarity and grace, as sure as a mother’s embrace, my heart says (with no apology for the pun), “aaaaah, I see….”
It wasn’t obvious. Nor was I looking. And I wasn’t supposed to. I only saw what a child needs to see. A root beer float.
There were no visible sharp edges to Grandma Elsie. She was round and approachable. She was the scoop (or two) of Schwan’s vanilla ice cream in her frequent afternoon root beer float. I can see it now — that it could have been more than just a sugar craving. It was simple. An easy decision with a consistent result. There were no maybes or what ifs to it. And didn’t she need that? In her world of uncertainty — all those kids (because even old they were) and grandkids tugging, and the farm, would it rain, would it sell, would he ever make the walk from field to kitchen — all umbrellaed under the certainty of a root beer float.
I never liked the combination. I always no-thank-you-ed out of it. Grabbing a pack of Sugar Babies, or a Black Cow from the Lazy Susan — a whole corner cupboard of my own certainty.
Without my knowlede or permission, I adopted the habit of giving myself an easy decision. Some days I can tackle a whole portrait, others, simply a tomato. Both victories. There is comfort in that. In a world of how could this possibly be, to simply hold something plump and round and sure is a gift. It is the soft edge of an afternoon scoop, the embrace of a grandmother’s plump and generous love that ever holds. Of this I’m certain.
I gained balance pretty quickly on my two wheeler bike. It was the stability that I had to work on. Not the staying upright, but the finding my way home. Luckily, I had all the tools (maybe we always do). I had a wicker basket on the handlebars and enough possessions to fill it. A stuffed animal. A doll. A baseball glove. An oversized coloring book. Anything to leave a trail as I set out on my journey. The neighbors were used to the abandonings in empty lots and ditches, so I’m not sure they paid it any mind, this careful placement of goods — my direction home.
I moved the large painting of the girl with the bird in her hand. She’s the first thing I see when I enter the studio, telling me, I already have everything that I need, and just enough to wish for. She is the calm. She is the hope. She is the place from where I venture, and the place that welcomes me back. And isn’t that, I suppose, what home has always been, will always be. Still, it’s good to be reminded.
My heart basket is full. Today’s adventure begins.
I remember the first time I signed out a book at the Alexandria Public Library. Who could forget such a moment? Because with each letter, I was formed into the stone lion that should have been guarding the front entrance. Just with the signing of my name on that yellowing card, (beneath all the other lions), I not only became part of each word, each sentence, each book that lined the shelves, I became the welcome to the next reader, the stairs themselves, to this sacred place.
I think it’s the very reason we put things in books. Images and words. To tell the stories of our lives. To share the sacred places we have been to, we have gone through. Because don’t we look to them, the other lions, those who have made it beyond the places we are struggling. They are the strength that lift the feet. Up each stair. Until we can proudly write our names, claim our positions in each story, and become the lions for those still looking up.
