They loved them for different reasons. My grandma’s a bit more practical. She needed her pockets for Kleenex and treats — we needed candy she said, you know, just to be sure. My mother kept her dreams in her pockets, be it skirt, coat or pants, needing a place to coddle them in hand, you know, just to be sure.
So maybe they weren’t that different after all. They just found their way to comfort through different pocketed resources. And after all, didn’t they both love the autumn candy at Walgreen’s.
We have no candy corn in France. No mellowcremes, or Autumn Mix by Brach’s. Yet, my pockets remain full, with the same magic as the heart, I suppose.
We get to decide the magic that we carry. The love we hold on to. The hopes and dreams and comforts that fill our pockets. Sometimes I find myself leaning up against a French wall, and rolling it all between my fingers, you know, just to be sure.
In my current read, the woman’s name is Sparrow. She is lost in the woods of Maine. Deeply lost. I know she’s just a character in a book. But I also know that the world is filled with those looking to be found, searching to find their way.
I can’t traverse the world on foot. Above twig and under branch. So I paint. I paint a Sparrow. In hopes that they see. (That you see.)
Growing up, I didn’t have a forest. But I did have a North End. Untamed. Unbuilt. At the edge of Van Dyke Road. The perfect place to lay down your worry. Secrets and fears could be left in the piles of dirt, the water’s edge, leaving no direction home. Even unburdened, I still had to find my way back. It would have been so easy to get tangled in what I wanted to leave behind. To get roped in. My heart would race. Beating in my ears. And the birds flew overhead with all of my envy. And then I would hear it. The opening of a garage door atop the hill. Car wheels on gravel. Anyone’s mother, calling every child home. Reminding me that I could fly. And I was saved.
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.
I think I need a new word for it — this mixture of flutter and weight. I’ve often called it melancholy. But it’s not sadness. I suppose it could be tagged with a bit of nostalgia. I get it at the same time each year. This “back to school.” And oh, how I loved school. I can smell the books and hear the chalk against the walls. And it weighs my heart, not with sorrow, but importance. My scapulas twitch with each winged word held and written. I know the learning isn’t finished, and I’m so thankful for that.
Charles will begin university in 8 days. 7 nights of Christmas Eve. And then the gift will begin. Of course I have all the wishes. That he will have fun. Study hard. Mature. Be curious. Always safe, but never satisfied. That each word will give him wings.
It’s hard to type as I look for the new word. And I suppose that’s it, isn’t? Joyfully, I’m not finished! There’s still so much to learn.
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.
Seeing the youthful paintings of Cezanne yesterday at the museum, I was reminded of the art of becoming. “Well, that doesn’t seem like him,” I thought, standing in front of a glossy-bright collage of color. Then I smiled, knowing that most of our travels to nearer ourselves, these roads are paved with exactly that.
It’s all in the framing, I suppose (pardon the pun). We can call it unseemly, or we can call it becoming. (I’m not sure how to have one without the other.) But didn’t we learn early on that “becoming” was a compliment? “Oh that’s so becoming on you!” And in hearing it, we’d clutch our imaginary pearls and will our hearts to keep on growing.
Looking through my own oeuvre, (entire body of work), oh, how my life has changed again and again. But it’s all me. From sketchbook to canvas. And I hope I allow myself the grace that I offer Cezanne — grace I hope to offer anyone — look at you becoming!
I’m not in a hurry. And it’s not like I’ll forget which book I’m reading. Still, I place it in the “current read” holder a top my desk. (Those wishing to rain on my parade might say that it’s just a letter holder, but in the spirit of keeping my cheeks dry today, I joyfully claim differently.) I pause for a moment enjoying how the colors gather and bounce around my grandfather’s painting, and I fall in love with my life once again.
Be it dish rag or soap dispenser, a smoothing of bedding, a lighting of a candle, I am someone who needs the romance of daily living. I suppose in youth, I thought someone should supply this. Getting older I made the big step of thinking that while I could do it for myself, you too should marvel at the same thing. I’m only coming to the realization that neither has to be true, I simply can enjoy what I enjoy, and that’s more than enough.
Oh, I’m still going to show you my delight. How could I hide romance?! Look at that book waiting for me!!! What a time to fall in love.
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.
I suppose you could track everything back. Starting with sketches in my bedside Big Chief notebook. To Mr. Opsahl’s art class in Washington Elementary. But to be honest. I didn’t have grandiose plans for it all. I was just trying to stave off a Sunday night homework worry. Or brighten a school day afternoon. But that’s the thing about steps, the smallest of ones, even when you’re not aware, they’re still lifting you.
This little pink bird was the first in my sketchbook. I had no idea how many it would lead to. How they would transform into something larger. But the intent was there — Noting here I can’t rise above. And somewhere, within this attempt to rise, I was gracefully being lifted.
And that little pink bird crescendoed into this 5’ portrait of a woman ready, willing, to take flight. And I’d like to think, if this tiny little bird could do that, that maybe I, we, could do the same. I guess it all comes down to taking that first step.
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.
