It was almost a relief after the first scratch. Oh, the pressure of white tennies from Iverson’s shoes. I tiptoed from bus to class to preserve. And then maybe one day, guard down, laughing over a passed note from the back seat, leaning over a nothing that could be funnier, blocking the aisle of the bus, someone less interested in the joke and more concerned about getting off, stepped through the glee onto my new shoe and marked it with a rub of black urgency. Once the shock wore off, so did the pressure, and the outside rain no longer seemed a challenge.
When I hopped from the final step onto Van Dyke Road, I could see them — all the puddles that gravel will allow. Grownups complained, why wasn’t it paved already. But in this land of 10,000 lakes, our sweet dirt road added more than a few extra. And didn’t the name itself sound like an invitation — puddle…. And so I did, I puddled my way up the drive.
Not to be outdone, my socks were as wet as my shoes as I stripped my feet in the garage entry. There was a small line strung from the ceiling to hang the well traveled. I walked from the outlines of my damp bubble toes on the cement, and went victorious into the house.
I’m reading Gertrude Stein. She writes, “ You are so afraid of losing your moral sense that you are not willing to take it through anything more dangerous than a mud-puddle. ” I know I was brave on Van Dyke Road. I must be braver still. We all must be. This current murk that we find ourselves in, more than a puddle for sure, we must brave our way through. Daily. The moral compass is strong. It calls to the heart well traveled, “Come.”
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.”
Words are nothing until they leave the page. I suppose the same is true for love.
Someone was always jumping from something. The overpass. A bridge. The roof of a barn. While I can’t say that I ever would have followed — (we were often asked that question, “if the neighbor girl jumps off a bridge…” and for the most part we didn’t take it literally) — but still I understood the need. The need to fly from something. This need to take all the ordinary of Alexandria, Minnesota, the similar look of classroom and bus. This need to take all that was certain and sure and fling it into the wind and just see…see if in the letting go, we could simply fly.
People laughed when they read it in the news, or sat next to them in the orthopedic clinic, but there was just a tiny part of me that said, yep, I get it… as I turned to the blank page and poem-ed and painted my way up the side of the barn, dropping words and images like added weight, fluttering with excitement as I handed it over to my mother, vulnerable, and weightless, in that moment, in that glorious moment of trusting love, it was then I could fly.
It’s funny how it calms me. Being inside the risk of canvas. Of showing you. Who I am. It’s not my first barn. Not my first book. Nor canvas. But oh, how I keep climbing, because in this life, this love, I know, one way or another, I am going to fly.
Showing them the studio for the first time, I was explaining that the 8’ frame that holds the painting of these people in the water was once holding an Indian motorcycle, horizontally. The Indian sold rapidly. Needing to ship it to another continent, I took it off the frame and rolled the canvas. And while it has been long replaced with these people now bobbing in the deep, I always feel the need to tell them that first there was an Indian.
I suppose that’s why I share the stories of my grandparents, my mother. Because long before there was an artist, me, there was a farmer, a dreamer, a dancer. And even as I type this on a different continent, I am part of it all, part of them. And to tell my story properly, they need to be recognized.
It’s never just one thing. We are not one thing. As the motorcycle rides a wall somewhere in New England, I can feel the breeze. And with soiled hands, I do the work of the day. With a sparkled vision, I see what’s possible. With a daring heart, I spin around the room. Love comes first, and seems to be all that lasts.
What was it all for, if we didn’t have a little fun?
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.
Growing up in Minnesota, there was a certainty to change. The weather varied, of course, from season to season, but also from within. Winter could make a humbling final blast in the middle of spring. Summer could hang on for one last hug, even after school began in the fall.
Through them all, there was always a chance of rain.
It was on the ball field, behind the Dairy Queen, beneath the threatening gray skies that I heard it first. Our bikes rested in the dirt next to the dugouts. We nervously checked the skies, holding our metal bats. We were maybe only 10 or 11, but we knew what was important — teams without uniforms, friendship without conditions. The new girl summering in our town said it out loud, nervously, “It could rain…” But it was Brenda, who had been through it all before, who had played every summer, rain or shine, who had huddled within the circle of the Dairy Queen lobby as lightening danced above us — smiling with all teeth and heart exposed, she said, “I’m so happy we’re together.”
And isn’t it still true? Everything, anything, can change from day to day. There’s always a “chance of rain.” But it’s our relationships that hold us. Our friends. Our loves. They huddle us through.
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!
You can’t tell me that they’re always trying to get somewhere. Most of the time, it looks like they’re playing in the wind. Dancing even. These birds so elegantly bouncing and bounding above. And why wouldn’t they dance, they already have the song.
She never wore a tutu, nor spandex dresses, but oh how my mother could dance. She would teach me on the carpet of the living room floor. It was slower. But when I had mastered the steps, she’d lead me to the kitchen floor, and I barely felt my stockinged feet touch the linoleum. She’d sing along to the boombox, pull me in and spin me out and I knew I was flying. I asked her if she had dance instructors? No, she said. In school? I asked. No. Did grandma teach you. She laughed (sure it was a bit of a dance maneuvering through all those people in the farm kitchen), but no. Then how did you know you could dance? I asked. I could always hear the song, she said, and pulled me in once again.
And wasn’t that belief? Wasn’t that the true art of living? Just listening for the music. Trusting your feet would follow. Believing, one way or another, you were going to fly!
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.
It was just a line. A handful (but heart full) of words. I wrote it yesterday morning on the back of my sketchbook. I could hear it, her, what she was saying so clearly. And with that one line, the words came pouring out. I wrote for hours.
It’s been said, and I believe that it’s true, that a painting is never finished. Each time you look at it, it takes on your story. You are painting as you listen. I suppose that’s why we are asked to be quiet in museums, so everyone can hear.
If you lean in, she’s telling you something. Her shoulders relaxed into the truth. Her heart unobstructed. Her head lifted to hope’s promise. What is it you need to hear? You already know what it is. Let it come. Let her whisper to you. She’s handing you your story, by the heart full.
