It’s not like I forget that I’m in France, but sometimes, I’m more reminded than others. Yesterday, sitting in on Dominique’s appointment, for a good five to ten minutes, I listened to him and his doctor talk about their extraordinary love of cheese. It was quite obvious I was no longer in Minnesota.
I suppose it was at that moment that the bird in my brain took flight.
If we’re lucky, we’re told quite often in our younger years that “you could be anything.” But maybe not so much with the “anywhere.” Perhaps that stems from the human fear of “others.” But I’ve never been sure why that’s so frightening. Because it’s only in the labeling of them being other that we in fact become one.
And as my bird fluttered above all things cheese, I thought, I really like butter. I wondered if they could hear the laughter in my head above the flapping.
Looking for a free page in my sketchbook, I came across the bird in flight that I had sketched in pencil. It could have been anyone’s dream, but it was hers. I don’t have to know her story, to celebrate the fact that she has a story. Be it butter or cheese, I just had to see her. See the hope disguised as the glint of light that reflects from the used-to-be tear. See the dream of flight not long perched on her beautiful head, soon to be mid-flap. And know that we belong. We. All.
“And if you did, see not just my face, but all that I have faced, and if I did that for you…”
Spring arrived not only on the side of the hill, but also in my step. I can buy it at the grocery store. In fact I did just a few days before. And it was delicious. But it can’t match the thrill of finding asparagus, petite stalk by stalk, just off the pathway.
And when I say hill, mountain would be closer to my leg’s truth. It is quite steep. And can be challenging. But while searching for the wild asparagus, I noticed on my second trip up, I hadn’t heard a thing from my thighs. Now, I’m sure they didn’t feel any different from the day before, but I think they knew the task. I think they knew they were as much a part of the hunt as my eyes that scanned, my back that bent, and my hands that grasped. I think to complain would have set them apart, so they marched silently up the hill, and joined in the victory when the asparagus omelette was made just hours later.
It was my grandfather who always told me whenever I was in deep struggle, (often self imposed), to focus on someone else. And I’m sure I struggled with that as well, screaming like an angry ascending quad, but he was right. He was always right. It’s a lesson I keep learning. Sometimes more quickly than others. But I still celebrate in the victory. He would like that — because in doing so, I am also thinking of him.
He comes the day. I’m about to join in. I climb. I hope. I reach. I pray. I curse. I kick. I laugh. I rest. I climb. I hope.
She was not unlike most of the super powers that I watched on Saturday mornings. All were contained in the tightest of fashion. It’s why, I imagined they could move through the world so easily. And so it was with Mrs. Bergstrom. She stood in front of our first grade class at Washington Elementary. No loose ends. Her hair slicked back in a perfect bun. Her black pencil skirt smoothed without wrinkle, making it impossible to see where the chalkboard ended and her waist began. That’s how all the words got in, I thought. This seamless transition. And wasn’t that her superpower, all those words that she spelled out, sounded out, drew out. I wanted some of that power. Just to stand in all that “super” for even a moment. I leaned forward in my desk. Pulled up my neck. Straightened my back. Reached one leg behind the chair to make myself into the straightest line. To create a path for all that knowledge she was passing our way.
It’s easy to let a day go by. To let the passage of time slouch us over. To drape in the fray of worry and get caught in every dark moment. But that wasn’t how we were taught. Not how I was taught. So I wipe the chalk from my hands and smooth them down my skirt and I stand. I stand tall. “Gather it in,” my heart tells my brain — be taut — despair can only slide down, slide off. And it occurs to me how similar the words are. This taut and taught. And it straightens me. Lifts me. Letting go the fray, I Bergstrom to the front of the morning.
I still go to the mall with my mother. I don’t suppose we ever stop living with the ones we love. It’s only a matter of opening my closet door. Passing my hand along the draping of sleeves — each allowed the space to breathe as she taught me. We exchange silent ensemble ideas. I settle on the one where she clutches her imaginary pearls with more than approval. Pure excitement! And I am complete.
When it’s time to paint, I return the clothes to their rightful spaces and put on my splattered hoodie and pants, as if it were Sunday morning after sitting in my six year old’s white dress on a folding chair near the kitchen at Bethesda Lutheran. Smoothing out the drape with gloved hands long before and after Easter. Feeling to my very core the meaning of “good clothes.”
I read recently that memories are the handrail of the stairs we continue to navigate. So it’s no surprise as I made my ascent in yesterday’s sketchbook, that the ruffles appeared on the woman’s portrait. White ruffles. My mother’s favorite. And didn’t they suit her. So. I hear her saying, “Ooh, I need to find that blouse.” And I smile. Heart strong, I grab the rail and climb. Forever making ruffles.
Even when I scrub it, there is proof that it is used, loved, every morning. The handle knows my palm. I open and tap out yesterday’s grounds through the kitchen window to fertilize Trini Lopez — the wintering lemon tree. I know how much water to add by the sound. The coffee is sprinkled gently by heart, along with the scrambled reciting of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, (often forgetting his last name, but always remembering “coffee spoons.”) I twist on the top and place it on the stove. The gas click click clicks in perfect rhythm and my morning’s measure is complete.
It’s never just coffee. Nor the rising sun. It’s the accounting of love’s measure. No matter the night. This morning will be measured beginning with my coffee pot. Life will offer you all kinds of starts. Recalling “what he said,” or “what she did,” or “how I should have,” or “when will I,”…. And I can easily get caught up in them all, until I realize I need an empty hand to pick up the handle that holds the coffee that starts my day, and I let everything else go. And so it begins….
Grandma Dynda (no actual relation to me) was the first old person that I knew. I mean, that I actually talked to. I was minding my own business, running through their white sheets that hung on the summer clothesline, when she peaked through the screen door asking if I wanted a cookie. It took a minute to get used to the rhythm of her voice. It was slower than a Norton girl. Slower than my mother’s. But I took comfort in the fact that everyone’s was a bit breathless. Some from youth. Some from responsibility. And hers, simply from time passing. Being breathless, too, from all that running, I said sure, and weaved my way to the door.
About the same height, we both struggled to get on the counter stools. Smiling at each other upon summit. She apologized for not baking as she opened the off brand blonde sandwich cookies. I like these I told her. And I did. We each turned them, and ate the frosting from inside. And for the next 15 minutes we were the same age.
Time flies as quickly as the turning pages of my sketchbook. I suppose I could let it flutter in the worry, but it seems better to choose the joy of simply feeling breathless.
I run through the swinging screen door. And hold it open, for you.
The messages were clearly mixed. Every day in school we were reminded not to act the fool, but then were dared to be one, simply by heading to the chalkboard. It seemed to me always a fine line between misbehaving and risking failure. It was harder to see then, but maybe it all came down to intent. Was the goal to shock, or to try? Both got laughs, giggles behind hands. I found out early on, the audience was in their own control. It was about how I felt. How did my behavior affect my heart? For me, I always felt better trying.
“Better to go down swinging.” That’s what I heard on the ball field behind the Dairy Queen on summer afternoons. I took that advice through autumn as I tiptoed to the blackboard (heels were never a place for courage.) Sometimes I would get it right, and return to my desk all smiles. Sometimes, I would be covered in chalk’s dust, as if wiping the mistakes on my pants would erase it all. But I was swinging, wasn’t I?!!! And I was happy.
I heard it on the transistor radio in my grandma’s kitchen — “Only fools fall in love.” Is grandpa a fool? I asked her. The biggest, she said. I smiled. I was too. I loved them both.
I guess I’m still swinging. Every time I open my mouth in France, I am covered in the mistakes of dust, but look at me, I’m here! If you want to be at the front of the class, you have to risk the chalkboard. So I risk, daily. Do I look the tourist? Maybe. But who cares? It’s Paris! You should put a baguette under wing and marvel at the Eiffel Tower. I have, and will continue to risk it all for love, for the joy of living! My pants I can change. This is the only heart I get — I’m going to use it!
People have asked me throughout the years, which comes first, the image or the words. Mostly the words, I answered. Because that was true for my heart. Every beat came out in poemed stanza since I was five, with the images close behind, only needing to travel an arm’s length.
Reading the poem again yesterday, I saw her image. I started with the eyes. Still moist from what she had survived, she could see ahead with hope, instead of fear. And I knew her. So perhaps in this case the words hadn’t come first. Because I had seen the look, not in the portraiture of the day, but on my mother’s face. Every morning at 7:20, ripe with loss, she and her prepared face made their way down Jefferson Street, to face another day of work — from her front desk in the Superintendent’s office and the depths of her bruised heart. And I was the bird she carried, until we both were ready to fly.
It’s good to remember. To keep in mind that we are all barely more than air. That even with, or perhaps especially because of, eyes still dampened, we can lift each other. Find our way. Together. We soar.
The light is changing. The cool winter blues are softening into tones of hopeful yellow. Two steps out the back door going down to the studio, I could feel it, see it. Bouncing from the woman at the door who welcomes me onto the back page of my sketchbook. Still a child at heart, I tried to capture it with my phone. Both women smiled gently — the same look Grandma Elsie gave us as we chased summer’s tail around the house.
And why wouldn’t I, we, try to keep in step with all that shines? To keep believing in goodness. Light. To keep understanding that there is no such thing as false hope, only hope. Yellow, gorgeous hope that keeps our legs spinning beneath us, delightfully, nearly off balance, yet always in the race.
I mention it because we don’t all get to see it every day. So I think we have the responsibility to call it out, tell the others of what we’ve seen. Shout it out until it’s their turn to step inside and do the same. I saw it, my friends. The yellow. Still shining. Bright as ever.
