It won’t make international news, but it was the most hopeful thing I saw online yesterday — A 105 year old woman renews her library card.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted to paint. Or even if I wanted to. But I primed the panel. Put on the underpainting. Just sketch it out, I thought. Maybe paint a little bit. A little more. An hour went by. Then two. Wash the brushes. Maybe just a little more. And the time that was promised from youth — the time that said fill me with love and I will not pass — it disappeared within the paint, holding strong, and I couldn’t stop. Unsure of what I loved more, the woman, the bird, the time, my life itself, I knew one thing for certain, I would keep renewing, again and again, and I would be alive!
The things I worried about on a random Wednesday night seem rather ridiculous now, but to my Elementary self, they felt nearly insurmountable. I suppose it’s ironic that the very library feeding my imagination could bring about so much anxiety. Rereading the books that I had checked out for the week, I interrupted myself with a lot of “but what ifs…” I’d ask my mother — But what if they don’t give us enough time to search the shelves? What if the book I want is already checked out? What if they didn’t get in anything new? She always answered the same — “Give them a chance to surprise you.”
I’ve tried to keep that answer close at hand, tucked inside a heart pocket. It’s easy to assume outcomes. To imagine how people are going to act, to respond. To live out the conversations before they even happen. I’m as guilty as the next person. But some of the most joyous moments have come when I have allowed people to surprise me.
She was known in town, almost feared, as a hard person. My mom had worked with her. At an event, when she began thumbing through my cards and books, I held my breath. Braced. Ready to defend the heart on my sleeve. But she began to smile. She laughed in the right places. Teared up in the raw moments. Clutching her imaginary pearls in both. What a welcome surprise!
I hadn’t changed her. Only given her a chance. And I was given a gift that’s still with me today.
The thing is, we think we know. We think we know how everything is going to turn out. With others, even our own life. But how many doors (hearts) close down in all that certainty. I’m trying to get better. To let it all unfold without a manufactured outcome. Because I don’t know. And that’s ok. It’s good even. I open myself up. Hand in heart pocket, I give this life a chance to surprise me!
I’m more of a poet than a sailor, but I can see the romance in both. I have friends and family who love to sail. Passionate about it. And I gravitate to the love of loving. And that’s what I think connects us — not the uniform of stripes — but the vulnerability. Whether you’re exposing yourself to the open sea, or the open word, you are open! And that’s what allows us to connect.
I think some may fear that it is a sign of weakness to be vulnerable. I think nothing is stronger. More beautiful. To brave it all with heart wide open is to hero the day. To bare your cracks of heart, your stripes, is the purest form of strength that I know.
So I match the wind with pen and paper. With brush and paint. And wear my stripes proudly. Waving to all the heroes ready to set sail.
He, being 12, had a different perspective, and was not overly enthusiastic about the lawn that was freshly mowed, nor my table setting, nor the food that I had been cooking for four hours. I thought for sure that the fire I started with pine cones for the bbq would spark some interest, with its big flames and smoke puffing out of the pool house — but no. It wasn’t until we finished that beautiful meal, (the ribs and sausages, the asparagus on a bed of peppers and pasta, the shrimp skewers and potatoes, and desserts from the award winning baker) when I began throwing him the winter dusty frisbee across that same lawn that I had worked so hard to mow, that he began to beam. With each throw that spun directly into his reach, he marveled and said, “you’re really good.” This is what impressed him — that I could throw a frisbee.
It’s true that most people see not what you love, but what they love. And the thing is, we never really know exactly how we will connect. But we can, we can connect. It may not be in the way we think, or even hoped for, but in the end, it’s only about if we did.
It wasn’t long before the frisbee ended up in the pool — the pool with last year’s dirty water, not yet ready for summer’s swim. But still, we had a moment. And this is what we build on.
I never know which story you will respond to. It’s always different. And different for everyone, on different days. So I fling the words, like a dusty frisbee across the lawn, and say, in this moment, I’m happy you’re here.
The world is pretty big. It’s an amazing place. Mostly I enjoy it. Marvel at it really. So much to see. To feel. But it can get overwhelming. And then I take a moment. A moment to focus on a spot, the spot. Where? It changes. All the time. It is where I need it to be. I look at that flower – so delicate, so beautiful, even after the rain, or maybe especially. A rock. So strong. So steady. Yet, it can be moved, shaped even, by just a drop of water. I look at a blade of grass. Really look at it. It doesn’t seem to be worrying. It doesn’t seem to disappear, even in this field of green. It’s here. All here. It becomes unclear if they are here for me, or I am here for them. But I’m happy they’re here. I’m happy I’m here. I just breathe. And watch. And I think. What if I’m that spot, you know, for someone. And I still myself, to take my turn. To be the flower. To be the rock. The blade. The shoulder for the bird to land. The spot in the garden. And it’s then I know. Everything is going to be ok. Amazing even. And I marvel in it again.
It’s easy to misread anyone I suppose. Up until the fifth grade, I was extraordinarily quiet. I wouldn’t have put it that way, but that’s what they wrote on my report cards. My mother, not seeing anything to defend, replied, “When she has something to say, she’ll say it.” I sat beside her, cheeks flushed and smiling, I nodded. The teacher, once again misreading the room, looked at my face and said, “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” My mother knew what the pink in my cheeks meant. “She’s not embarrassed, she’s hopeful.”
We ripen at different stages. I found my voice. I still get nervous. I get angry. I get tired. Sometimes sad. Sometimes so much joy that it’s overwhelming. And it all blushes out my heart and through my face, because through it all I am hopeful. I am hopeful that I will understand. That I will be happy. That I will pass on all that joy for others to carry.
Sometimes he looks at me and says, “Nice colors.” And I know he sees me. Just as she did.
The three of us were best of friends in first second and third grade. Maybe it started with something as simple as the jump rope. Jan and I needed a third, otherwise we were just spinning. Shari jumped in from off the monkey bars, and that was all it took. We were friends. Every recess we took turns. We sang the rhymes to each swing of the rope. We laughed off the trips and twirled again. Something was said in the summer of our third year. Standing in Shari’s driveway, I could hear them arguing. Half the rope raised in my hand, I somehow knew. I looked at the opposite handle lying in the dirt and thought, “but we weren’t finished.”
We didn’t gather again until we all began playing the clarinet. It was only in band, but we still spoke. After graduation, we all went our separate ways. I read on Facebook that Jan died. I saw a picture of Shari for the first time just the other day. Typing today, I can still feel my hand on the jump rope.
I don’t know why people worry about being forgotten. The first image I see when I wake up is the portrait of my grandfather. Not only has my love for him not diminished, it’s quite possible it grows stronger each day. I suppose that’s the way with love.
Half way through, I stopped to take a picture of her. I think she’s beautiful — being unfinished. Would that we could allow that for each other, for ourselves. Because it is beautiful, isn’t it! These lives and loves we’re giving, they never really end.
I have things to do today. We all do. What a pleasure it is to be unfinished. Beautiful!
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.
I did end up breaking my arm, and my heart countless times, but never my neck. And oh! didn’t they warn us, scold us, over and over. Anything we did slightly out of the norm, teachers, parents, neighbors, all gave the warning, “You’re gonna break your neck!” From the monkey bars to the top of our desks, in trees and on clotheslines, it seemed we were all willing to take that risk.
There was a lot to learn. And I suppose a lot to warn us about, so maybe they just grouped it all under the “neck.” Because it was vital, wasn’t it. In order to survive, you had to stick your neck out from time to time. Hold your head up high, they said. And sometimes, even when you were up to your neck, you still had to save someone’s neck, (sometimes your own). Somehow, we got by, perhaps merely by the scruff of our necks.
I suppose I’m doing it each day, with these stories, this artwork, sticking my neck out. But just as my five year old self told me to grab hold of the neighbor’s swinging clothesline, it feels so necessary in order to be alive! To expose yourself, to take the risk, to love!
In the fifth grade, at our Valentine’s Day party on the frozen pond of Noonan’s park, I raced on my skates to grab the human “whip” that would not only be cracked, but also break my arm. Still fully casted in plaster by our next field trip to the Chanhassen Dinner theatre, I sat in the audience and listened to the Impossible Dream. “To run,” they sang, “where the brave dare not go!” We cheered and clapped and I waved my plastered arm in the air.
Who knows what the day will bring. I’m stilling willing to take the risk.
“Let’s say the things we never said. Let’s forgive the things we never could. Let’s love like no lessons have already been learned. Let’s dream like we have the chance, and live like we have no other.“
There were rare occasions when I saw adults cry. Gathered snuggly around my grandparent’s kitchen table. Perhaps to confine the news that came in the letter. Or the heartache of a loved one lost. To give it open space was to let it catch up to us in the summers of our youth. But sometimes, with the need for a Sugar Daddy, or a Slowpoke, I would sneak through the screen door and see it, them, dampened eyes and heads down, and my heart would sink. The ground seemed to shake beneath my bumper tennis shoes. I backed out the door.
It was my grandfather who caught up to me. Dazed and darkened under the largest tree near the road. He could see I didn’t want to be dazzled by false comfort. And he was never one to do it. “It’s like the Magpie,” he said. He was never much for small talk. He got right to the point. “What is?” I said. “The color. So black that it’s blue.” “I don’t get it.” He told me to get up. He led me back to the kitchen. Dishes had already begun clanking. There was the scent of coffee in the air. Chairs being pushed aside. Knees unbending. Even a few laughters of relief. Life. He looked down at me. “Blue,” he said. I smiled and nodded.
I have carried it for years. This knowledge, even when things are so black, they are also blue. You have to get up. You have to want to see it. But it’s always there.
I look out the morning window. He’s still right. I smile into the blue.
