Before school started, when days were measured in the shaded pink of shoulders, or the sand in shoes, I was friends with the neighbor boy down the road. Armed with only curiosity and imagination, we could spend the length of our day on a dirt pile. He could climb a tree, and more importantly, wanted to. And ever left a leg hanging low for me to climb like a ladder to the nearest branch. (Still my definition of friendship.)
It was only for a few summers before he moved away. But the percentage of that time was nearly the whole of my life. Maybe summers will always seem that way. I hope so. To live in the season of growth, the season of “I wonder if we could fly from there,” is perhaps what carries all of us through the winter.
Sometimes I feel my age, and then I empty my socks and my shoes of the day’s collective rubble, and I think, I know, my heart’s summer will never end.
I like to light candles when I get up. This morning’s illumination put up a fight. The first two matches burned themselves out so quickly, I had to abandon them to save my fingers. Next the wick broke off. Then again. By the fourth match I had to laugh, remembering this is exactly why I never volunteered to be an acolyte at Bethesda Lutheran, and was always more than relieved when Gail Kiltie raised her hand. What’s ironic, the very thing I feared and tried to avoid — their judgement — would eventually come to pass anyway the minute my mother got divorced and we were not pushed out the door, but conveniently shown where it was while being held open.
I don’t know what they expected the lesson to be (that’s the thing, we get to choose that). My take away — people are going to think what they think, do what they do, without your knowledge or permission. And you can decide whether you are going to blow around in all that wind, or simply fly. (I think the birds on the page, tell you what I did. What I do.)
I haven’t thought about them in years. I have no ill will. For didn’t they give me wings? And my faith is strong. My house and heart are well lit. I release myself into the morning flutter.
There’s not a lot of glory in the underpainting, but without it, there really is nothing. Time must be spent to prepare the canvas or panel. Gessoing. Sanding. Long before you get to the “garden.” And oh, how eager I am to jump to the flowers. But I take my time. I paint the shadow of black (one can’t go back later and expect to paint it in). Then the layering of stems and leaves. Creating depth. Perspective (that so often elusive perspective). Once I have put in the time, only then can I delight in the flowers. And having spent the time, oh what a delight they are!!!!! As if they bloom just for me.
It’s hard to remember this in the daily rush of things. The furious speed to get over, get beyond, to get through. But when I’m lucky, (which simply means when I’m paying attention), it’s my hands that remind my heart that tell my brain, “It’s only underpainting…the flowers are yet to come!”
I know the furious speed at which you are trying to get over and around. I have traveled that wind and hung on for dear life. But the dear life I found came only in the quiet slowing down. The letting go. No longer rushing to get past, but easing my way through. And the peace. Smiled. Knowing it had always been there, as I whirled. Peace, sitting quietly next to joy, and hope, and OK now. There, there.
I never thought of gull being slang for gullible. Maybe in not knowing, that’s exactly what it makes me. But I see them, living free by the sea, and if that’s being fooled, it’s a pretty good trick.
We have so many words for it, naive, Pollyanna, but I’m still a believer. And I suppose sometimes, even my own brain thinks of my heart as a white and gray bird near water, and yet it comes along, footprinting in the sand, knowing somewhere in all that belief and misbelief, we will take flight. I guess I don’t know how to live any other way. I have brushed away piles of sand upon sand. And still. I have averted hands swatting in the air. And still. I squawk, when others seem to know the words to the song. And still, I believe.
Because isn’t all that blue, lit by yellow, grounded by sand, isn’t that for everyone? I think so. I still believe. I’ll see you up there.
It was mostly on the major holidays, special occasions like weddings or funerals, and then the random calling of summer’s sun on the front lawn of my grandparents’ farm. People wandered in, as if on a Hvezda pilgrimage. Separating from front room to garage. I would tug at my mother’s blouse, raising a tiny fist in the direction of the unknown, (told that it wasn’t polite to point) driven by the desire to find out who these people were. Some turned out to be cousins. Others with labels of “step” or “half.” Some just neighbors lost or hungry.
I learned fairly quickly the real story was not with the others, but the ones I thought I knew. I had seen most in their own environments. In the homes they had made since leaving this farm. But something changed as they gathered. I could see it in my aunts, even my own mother. I had yet to read Thomas Wolfe, so I still imagined you could walk through that swinging screen door unchanged.
But experience changes your laughter, the shape of your tears. Your gait through the gate.
I suppose I was always watching. Not afraid. Just interested. And wondering. How would I maneuver the doors ahead? It seemed to me, we were all on this constant journey home. All. Maybe I was able to watch because of the sturdiness of my grandma. She stood sink side, without judgement. And welcomed. Where I would go was, still is, uncertain, but it was always clear who I wanted to become.
I stand sink side, knowing we all make our way home differently.
In my sketchbook, all the pages are almost absent of color. Not flesh, nor butter, it welcomes every image, and rests it gently, softly, without judgement. But for the flaps. The flaps are a vibrant red. Already set in tone, they present a different challenge. We call this an “underpainting.” The red cannot help but affect each color applied. And it can be tempting, this coming in hot. There is a vibrancy, a bit of excitement. And so it is with heart and mind.
Sometimes, seemingly without my knowledge or permission, I find myself in the flaps. But this! And that! And they! Should haves and could haves and supposed tos hovering in all that redness. And that’s ok, for a moment. I try not to add to the heat of the color by beating myself up. But rather create a space, where all are welcome. All.
We are living in a time of red. Perhaps an inhuman time. We’re not the first, nor the last, but It is our job to remain human. To love, to create, to inspire, to preserve the goodness. To be the pages that welcome, with all the gentle might of heart and mind.
Playing the tourist, I’ve taken countless photos in back of them — The figures of what the town represents. How joyfully and eagerly becoming them. From Superman to the hatted women of Brittany, I have placed my head and heart behind. It’s just that simple, I suppose, to stand in someone’s shoes, so why do we find it so difficult to do?
Empathy. It takes some time to build. We see people as we label them. Grandma, then Grandma Elsie, she was a woman of this world. Not simply a soft belly for me to land upon. She was young and beautiful. Small in waist and big in dreams, she kissed the boy behind the Alexandria hotel. And carried those dreams from heels to Thom Mcann’s. Painting her, seeing her, now, she is not hidden behind apron.
I hear the conversations. Oh, how she loved to visit. From grocery store line, to card table, I can hear the smiling replies, “Oh, Elsie…” they would say in delight. They saw her, so I could see her, and now I can’t look away. She, they, taught me how to gently tourist in the hearts of others.
And isn’t that empathy — those who go out and see, first, so we all can see, ever.
“I just got off the phone with Phyllis Norton.” That was the subject of the email from my mother a few years ago, an email that I just can’t seem to erase. I have hundreds. Each one more special than the next. No large events. Mostly “I loved today’s post,” or “I miss you,” or “laughter and tears of tenderness,” and always, always, “I love you so much.”
I have to admit in the light of the events currently taking place, I struggle. Does it really matter if I write something positive? If I try to find some words to say that we have to be kind. That we have to be better. To find the words that convey hope. I don’t really know. But then I look through my emails. And every word that my mother typed finds its way into my heart and I know I have to try.
We used to hold many concerts in our car. My mother at the wheel, my fingers on the radio. She got off of work at 4pm. But wintertime in Minnesota meant it was already dark. She needed to go for a fitting. My grandma’s friend was tailoring some pants for her. She had lost so much weight after the divorce. The country roads were lampless. It all felt a little daunting until my fingers tuned in Barry Manilow. (Yes, we were Fanilows.) We even had the album. So timely, he was singing:
“It takes that one voice Just one voice, singing in the darkness All it takes is one voice Shout it out and let it ring Just one voice, it takes that one voice And everyone will sing.”
And it was true. That one voice became three, and every turn seemed a little brighter.
I mention it only because, while it does feel a little lampless right now, we still have a voice. We still have the ability to change things. It was Phyllis Norton who drove my mother to the hospital from Van Dyke Road when she was about to give birth. It all matters. The email remains.
Maybe if they were too big, we wouldn’t be able to fly at all. That’s what I tell myself as I celebrate the small magic moments of each day.
On my phone, I replaced my friend’s icon that was simply her initials, with a picture of my first bird woman. I can’t say why exactly. It just felt right. I’ve had it that way for months, but I only told her yesterday. When I showed her the picture, she beamed. “You have no way of knowing this,” she said, “but ever since I was a little girl I imagined that I had bird friends that would follow me around and speak to me.”
This is the magic I cling to. It weighs nothing, and even more, lifts me higher.
I never noticed how much it looked like a little nest, the tuft of hair on top of a cow’s head. I guess the bird knew before I did, and it showed me how to find its way home.
I’ve never lived on a farm, nor even in the country. Yet, I’m trying to count, this morning, the amount of times I have been connected to another human, simply by a cow. Of course, my grandparents. Uncles and overalls and electric fences. I’ve sold four original paintings of cows. Three in Minneapolis and one in France. After finishing this cow yesterday, I sent it to my friend in Minnesota. She told me how her father, the week before his passing, wanted to simply watch and listen to the cows on his farm. He was showing her, how to find his way home.
If a cow can do all that, certainly we could do that for each other, be the nest, or at least the direction of home.
