It’s ridiculous I suppose. It’s just a shoelace peeking out of a closet door. But in my head, I hear, “I’m ready whenever you are. We’re going to have a great walk today.”
It’s true, we hear what we want to hear. And by giving things voice, I give myself a voice. So I wake up and answer yes to my shoelaces, along with the day. I talk to the trees and the birds. And somewhere between bloom and song, I wonder if they too are doing the same thing. When they see me opening the morning door, I wonder if they hear, I hope they hear, “I’m ready whenever you are.”
I’m continuously reminded while painting, that black is never just black, and white is rarely white at all.
I won’t give away the whole piece just yet, but if you look at her “black” coat, it would be nothing without the shadows, the light, the movement — all arriving in shades of living. It’s the same with her hands, her “white” hands are pinks and purples and grays and more.
I used to love to roam through the constant assembly of coats in my grandparents’ farmhouse. Of visitors and helping hands, they hung equally. I wouldn’t have seen it, had I not rubbed my face through sleeves. From afar they draped in winter drab, but up close, they were every color — altered by work, by wear, rain, sometimes snow. Through holiday and honor, they offered a palette that said, (no not just “said” but lured), “come in, see the colors of what is being felt, from face to heart.”
I suppose I’m still getting the call. From heart to canvas to word. I have to answer. If not, what was their entry for?
She said, “I’ll take that in mauve,” as if I had stock of my mother’s birthday present that hung on the wall, and in different colors. I looked at my mom to see if I actually could sell the poem that I wrote for her birthday, the poem that painted her picture in every word, line and phrase. She clapped her hands in front of her smile, and would have been the first to carry it to the woman’s restaurant had it been ready.
We never looked back.
Maybe it was the approval, the validation in the sale. But it seemed more to be the pure joy of stepping into our lives. Finding the doors and walking through. No longer looking for permission, but offering it up to those behind.
The woman who owned the beautiful new coffee/bagel/restaurant in town, covered her walls in my images, right down to the “lipstick woman” in her bathroom. For years my mom would get the random call, “I’m in the bathroom at Time Square.” The first time was alarming, but it brought years of laughter, and even friendships were formed from that image.
I saw people reminiscing about the place yesterday online. The tagline read, “for people on the go.” And weren’t we all…on the go…becoming. I think we still are. Still standing in front of doors, wondering, do we take the chance, (still feeling those that have closed), but pushed forward by the joy of the time we were mauve. The time we dared, and kept daring. And believed. And believed again. This is the time, once again.
I finished the book Pachinko yesterday. When I went for my walk in the afternoon, I started listening to a podcast about the World Creative Director of Disney. He began the interview by saying that if you have read the book Pachinko, you would understand his history. (Sometimes the universe is quite obvious in letting you know you’re on the right path.) There was no one else around, so I smiled to the birds in the sky, thinking surely they, too, must feel a part of it all.
I don’t know that I really believe in coincidence. I think the more we put ourselves out there, the more vulnerable we are, the more we connect. All of this knowledge, this exposure to others, to books, and art, and music and science and creation — perhaps these are the feathers that lift us. The wings that give us a better view.
It was a joyful walk. It seemed to pass more quickly than usual. I remember smiling, but I don’t recall the ground beneath my feet.
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!
For years I thought you had to “find” your home. I began with a summer red wagon. Knees not even wagon high, I filled the rusted container with baby dolls and stuffed animals, along with an unopenable can of chicken noodle soup, a glass jar of water, my hardcover copy of Little House in the Big Woods, a blanket (said to be for their comfort, but mostly for mine), Bazooka Joe bubble gum, and the plastic camera that no longer worked that I ordered with those same gum wrappers. I didn’t have a watch, so I can’t tell you how long I was gone. But I’m certain the sun didn’t change positions. I was not allowed beyond the “north end,” and it was too difficult to drag my wagon alongside Hugo’s field, so most likely it took me longer to pack than journey. I returned to the green grass in front of our green house, took everything out of the wagon and placed it neatly back in my bedroom. Grabbed my Big Chief Notebook from under my pillow, palmed my number 2 pencil and wrote of the voyage I imagined I just took. And I was home.
Maybe I’m more of a maker than a seeker. The answers aren’t waiting to be found, but created. I’ve said for years that you have to fall in love with your bathroom. Learn how your oven works. Curate, not decorate. Become and become and become. To be the life in your living room. In every room. I suppose the same is for love.
It’s true I love to travel, but in search of an experience, not the answers. The things I know for sure are nestled in the heart, the little red wagon that I keep filled with all that I love.
People from miles around envied the swings on our playground at Washington Elementary. And by people, I mostly mean the other grade-schoolers up the street at St. Mary’s. Those at LIncoln School had their own, but I imagine they were still impressed. The chains were so long. And the straps of the seats didn’t cut into your thighs. They were perfection. And placed as they were, after pumping for several minutes, and perhaps aided with a slight push from behind from your best friend who dared the thrust of your return, if you stretched your legs at the height of your swing, it appeared as if you were climbing atop the roof of the school. What a thrill to reach that height. And it was that thrill of being lifted that made my stomach jump to my throat, and gave me the courage to face anything the school would offer after the ringing of the recess bell.
Imagine my delight, the first time it happened without the aid of chain links and gravity. I had just cut my finger on the very razor blade in the kitchen bureau that my grandma told me not to touch. It was my heart that sank first. Not because it hurt that badly, but because I was sure she would no longer love me. Still operating under the rudimentary conditions of the playground, where friends were lost and gained in one recess, I started to cry. She wiped her ever dish soaped hands on her apron and knelt before me. Walked me to the bathroom sink and cleaned my minor wound on my finger, but the one on my heart remained. I was still small enough to be shattered, but too big to be carried, so she walked me to grandpa’s recliner. She sat down first, making that happy sound of a cushion expanding. She told me to stand in front. She grabbed the wooden lever on the side, and with that one swoop, she launched the recliner’s leg, and lifted me off of mine into her lap. My belly jumped, along with my heart, and I could only laugh. I knew I could face anything, as long as she loved me.
Even typing this, my belly races to my heart, and I am saved.
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!
