I suppose my first canvas was the empty lot between our house and Dynda’s. We had free rein — perhaps trampling as if we were on horseback. There was artistry though in the games invented. Bases made out of abandoned windbreakers. Rules sculpted from the last competition remembered. Our knees and elbows painted green from the weary grass meant to be underfoot. And oh, how we played. We worked that canvas until no summer light remained — and still five minutes after that, as our mother’s called from bug danced porch lights.
I had that feeling yesterday. After all these years. All these miles. It was getting later in the studio. But I was six years old and running. I was paint stained and racing toward the base. Each stroke on the canvas brought the joy (not of winning — but being allowed to play). My feet jimbled beneath my hands that danced in front of my belly that quivered — leaving my brain no choice but to say, “just five more minutes!”
They say you can’t turn back time. Can’t stop it. During the night a rare rain storm fell over our house. Going into the kitchen this morning, I could see the light blinking on the oven clock. Of course it was the lightning that took out the power for a moment – that’s what my brain says. But my heart winks at my hands and thinks, maybe not…
“If you opened people up we’d find landscapes.” Agnès Varda
When I fell from my training bicycle, riding down the hill on Van Dyke Road (at my brother’s urging) I was opened up from chin to knuckles to knees to shins. I was certain that if I weren’t bandaged from head to toe, the neighbors would be able to see directly inside of me, revealing every thought, hope and broken promise.
Right from the start, all of my feelings were worn close to the surface, and without skin, well, wasn’t it obvious? Having survived this grand opening, perhaps I never saw the need to hide myself away ever again. Each day when I write, when I paint, a little credit must be given to the gravel of Van Dyke Road, the first to offer, demand even, my vulnerability.
This landscape that I carry, I must admit has often gone uncelebrated through the years. Buried beneath the dazzle of mountain and beach, of lavender field and golden grain. Can you even ask a gravel road to outshine the Champs-Élysées? And yet, when called upon, when skinned to my very core, or delighted to the same, it is there. To hold me. To lift me. To be my solid ground.
My husband often laughs that I always have something in my shoe. It just occurred to me, perhaps it simply fell from heart.
Mrs. Bergstrom stood at the front of the first grade class, the “times” tables rubbing off onto her shoulder from the blackboard, and she told us that we had to “learn it by heart.” Always one to feel a little more than perhaps necessary, I assumed she meant everything from here on out. I still do.
I’m a firm believer that the heart can, and must, override the hands’ hesitation.
I can’t think of anything where my heart didn’t first convince my brain to urge my hands to continue. From painting a portrait to baking a cake, I am grateful for my hands every day, but even they are well aware of who’s leading.
Painting her yesterday, I could feel it. I know that fear of moving forward. Risking it all. Being vulnerable. But I also know that I won’t get stuck there. I will lean in. As I always do. I will brush away the shouldered what ifs, and take my elementary self, by heart, into the music of the day, and I will dance.
I think I get it now. What he saw. What wasn’t yet there.
The commitment of painting flowers begins in the shadows. In the black. I suppose the desire will always be there, to begin with the popping of the petals, but it’s impossible to paint that way, backwards. They, like all of us I suppose, have to come through.
Finishing the larger of the two paintings, I was there. Not just in the shadows, but in the dirt. The black dirt. The empty field, with my grandfather.
I was always amazed at what he could do. Taking the black, turning it to green, and then gold. What I thought was magic, was maybe artistry. Or maybe they are one and the same. Maybe that’s humanity itself. Being able to see beyond. To sit what isn’t yet there.
Could I be painting the flowers without his vision? Or my grandmother’s in the kitchen. Or my mother’s in her closet? Maybe I only see, because I was seen. I awake from the shadows, because of them.
I imagine how the next day went. And the day after. Because their lives didn’t end when I got to the last page. Isn’t that what a good book does? With the same tools as every other writer, all the curved lines that form letters, the dots and dashes that make you stop in your tracks, an author can change the way you feel (not just in the moment) but for a lifetime.
I suppose it’s the same with love, when it’s written well upon your heart. That has to be what draws us in. What keeps us thinking. Those whose lives are so developed, whose storyline runs so deep, it continues long after the final turning of the page. These are the lives I want to surround myself with. It’s the life I want to live, and not in a vain way, (although I do indeed want you to keep coming back – I want to hold your interest) but also for myself — I want to be interested in my own life — to see where this goes. What could happen next? I want to live so deeply that the only choice isn’t even a choice, but a continuation.
The morning sun awakens the letters that tickle their way from heart to head to hands…and the story continues…
You think it’s an apron. And it is sometimes. The proof is the paint splatters that are beginning to gather. And it makes sense around my waist, as a quick brush off of excess water, or a change of color, but it doesn’t really explain the spots around my neck straps. Those are probably because of the dancing.
While the music plays along with the strokes, there are some songs that just won’t take no for an answer, and soon I am dancing like no one but the portraits are watching. Partnered by the brush in hand, I will get pulled in, hence the paint on my collar.
My neighbor continues to ask, though I’ve answered many times, “Are you a singer?” I’m sure she hears me on the way to my studio. I say, “Sometimes.” And I am a dancer sometimes. And sometimes a poet. Sometimes a baker. I suppose I used to give the answer no. Not anymore. Because I am sometimes all of these things. And more. And it’s not a judgement or declaration of things that I do extraordinarily well…but rather if I can say, “Well, I had a time!!!! Wasn’t that some time!”
And the song will change on the player and I am a painter again, but I smile above my painted straps, tap my foot, and know the truth of all that can be.
She asked me how I chose the bird for each portrait. “They simply fly in,” I said.
I suppose I’ve always believed in the pure randomness of it all. That it could happen to anyone, at any time. Pain, happiness, confusion, even love. And there’s comfort in that. And if it does, simply fly in, I have to remember that one does not outweigh the other. If I can shoulder happiness, then I can do the same with the next challenge carried in.
Sometimes I wonder, what if her kindergarten nap mat hadn’t been placed next to mine? What if she had transferred to Lincoln Elementary, from our beloved Washington? Would we still be friends? Would she still fly across the world to see me? And then we exchange emails on our current reads. Talk about the lemon boats at Roers’ bakery, our gym uniforms…and joy lands gently on my shoulder as wonder flings away.
And isn’t it all barely more than air? Whatever the day may bring, this winged moment, all will be shouldered. Even, ever, love.
And would I have known the difference, had I not opened a winter door in Minnesota? Had I not braced? Had I not lowered my head for impact as if the cold were not just a feeling, but an immovable object? Maybe. But I did. And I do know. I will always know.
I will always be grateful opening a summer morning door. Head high and sure that the way is clear. My bare legs think they are wings, untouched, simply a part of sky.
This is what love can do. When the cold comes. And not in the form of weather. To have the embrace, that requires no bracing, this is what gets you through. My mother was that summer sky. My grandparents. They kept my head, my heart, high and sure. They still do.
I open this morning’s French door, with the ease of being loved.
Today I get the Paris Review. Each one a treasure. Words and pictures. Stories and poems. A world held in the palm of my hands. Often clutched to my chest, as if the turning of the pages could not insert deep enough. You could think that it was simply the couture of all things France, but I will tell you, that I felt the same in our unfinished basement on Van Dyke Road in Alexandria, Minnesota, chubby hands wrapped around the newest issue of the Reader’s Digest.
Seeking relief from summer’s heat, I curled into the damp cool of the cement, and traveled my way slowly, armed with the directions given in the previous school years, from Mrs. Strand, Mrs. Bergstrom and Mrs. Erickson. I sounded out. Acted out. Laughed out loud to gather in the medicine the funny section claimed to offer. Lived out loud on every page.
And the thing is, it didn’t tell me my future. But it gave me the assurance that I would have one. Each letter a small taste of what was to come, if I dared the turning.
I don’t know what this day will bring. It may be the Reader’s Digest version of something glorious to come, or simply the cool comfort of what is. Either way, I will be saved.
The underpainting is not just the forgiving support of the image to come, but it is the voice of the story to be told.
I ordered a book from the company Blurb. The easiest narrative to relay would be how the first book was damaged. How the carrier screwed up the delivery, twice. It practically writes itself with all the usual suspects of annoyance and waiting, and disbelief and angered conversation. A real yarn to spin. But is that my underpainting? The real story that I want to tell is the final outcome. The book is beautiful. Blurb was fantastic to work with. While that may not be as riveting, it rests well on my heart.
I don’t like the feeling of irritation. I don’t like carrying it. I’m as guilty as the next person, but I’m trying to do better. Of course to be a better person, but even just for my own sanity.
When creating a new portrait, sometimes I like to stop before finishing, while the person is arriving and the underpainting still shows through. This is where I give thanks. This is where I see all that I have been given. Without my grandparents, my mother, my teachers and friends, (my forgiveness, my support) I would have no story to tell. They, you, are my underpainting. So I pause. Show you, so you know that I know. You rest well on my heart.
