Being blonde and from Minnesota, it was exotic to braid one’s hair. And even more so when it was wet. To sleep in the kinks to come upon morning’s release. Probably the most daring of all, was to do it before fourth grade picture day at Washington Elementary.
I was horrified when I saw myself in the mirror. Flat on top, and then a sea of crinkled mane, then straight once again at the ends. It wasn’t a hairstyle so much as a triangle. I brushed and brushed. As if the faster strokes would release me from this nightmare. There was no time to shower. The bus had already made one pass on its way to Norton’s and would soon be coming back up the hill.
I was tall for my age. Always in the back row. My only hope was that the inexperienced photographer had no light training and I could hide in the shadows. In my stocking cap I apologized to Mrs. Paulson, who’s skirt was ironed and blouse was bowed. I pulled it off of my head. She wasn’t an expressive teacher. Not overtly emotional. She touched my shoulder that day, for the first and only time. Her fingers pressing in with “an everything will be ok.” I’ve never seen that photo again. But her kindness remains.
I never braided my hair again. Never really thought about it, until I painted this girl yesterday. But I have written about Mrs. Paulson so many times since then. Because she made a difference in my life.
To be so filled with life that it has to flush from your very pores. Cheeks ruddy and ever ready. I suppose we all think it will last forever — sure that our feet will keep the deal that youth has made. But maybe it’s the heart that takes over. (Or maybe it led all along.) Maybe it’s the heart that drags us from spring’s mud into summer’s bliss. Maybe it’s the heart that races through grass’s morning dew again and again, and lifts us up from green knees when we fall, ever promising to keep our cheeks flushed through autumn. Through winter.
Every time I paint a face, I feel the colors in my own, flowing through my hands. And the corners of my mouth rise up, smiling, so happy to be a part of youth’s reddening still.
What will you do today, to remain in the race of summer?
Certainly they were treasures. And I’m just as certain they weren’t expensive. But back then, (and I pray it’s still true today), I, we, didn’t associate value with money. I recognized beauty when I saw it, and these books were beautiful — these compilations of classics, bound in leather, blue, red and green, on my mother’s bookshelf. Too young yet to even sound out the words, I simply ran my fingers over the titles and somehow they got in. And this love of words has never left me.
The most likely scenario is that she got the books through a fidelity program in the grocery store. Just like we got our set of encyclopedias. And didn’t it make perfect sense, this feeding of body and soul. I devour them to this day. I can’t get enough. My fingers are currently tasting the appetizer of my newest book’s embossed title. My mother taught me that. About value. Beauty. She got in. And I know she will never leave me.
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.
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….
I find it thrilling, reading a book and entering a place I’ve already been. Like I’m in on the secret. Like the letters of the words are eyelashes in the wink that says, I see you.
I’m nearly finished with the book, “Geek Love.” It is perhaps the wildest ride I’ve encountered for quite some time. It couldn’t be further from my reality, and yet… yet, there it was, as clear as if I were en route on Highway 7, looking up at the green sign, “Hopkins, Minnesota.” Never have I read a book that mentioned it before. Minnesota, sure. Minneapolis, of course. But never Hopkins. And I was knee deep, no, heart deep, in the word.
Maybe it’s empathy. Validation. Or simply our need to be seen. But it got me thinking. If mere words can do that, simply on a page, couldn’t we do that for each other? Aren’t we supposed to? Having not only traveled through place, but emotion, don’t we have the responsibility to turn back and say, “I’ve been there. And I see you,”? I think so. So I gather the words and arrange them on this page, and maybe you see yourself, and maybe that gets you looking, and maybe you see someone else, and they find comfort in you having been there… and… and they see hope… and someone else…and the story never ends.
There was a group of men helping my grandfather. I suppose neighbors. Being the sponge that I was, I listened to them during their break. I could still fit underneath the table, amid the smell of earth from boots and overalls. They drank the coffee and ate the kolaches, and spoke as if they were one of us, even though they said the name wrong. Hvezda. Yes, it began with an H, but we didn’t pronounce it. It was vee-ezda, not he-vezda, I shook my head and told the table leg. Still, they finished the plates and drank the coffee to the grounds. Joyfully. And they would come back, again and again.
I didn’t ask why. The answer, for my grandfather, was always nature. So I walked in it. I hope I still do.
They say that Redwoods are smart enough to share with neighboring trees the water that they collect. Knowing that to hoard it would put them at greater risk in a wildfire.
My grandparents were Redwoods. What am I? What are we?
A robin is never just a robin. Nor a wren a wren. I can sit in front of my sketchbook for hours daily, and never paint the same thing twice. It’s always a different flight. A different branch. An old man with a new bird. A woman making another choice.
Heraclitus said, “No one ever steps into the same river twice.” For the river is not the same river and the person is not the same person. Isn’t it the same with love and friendship and simply living. And it shouldn’t be frightening. What a thing! — to be given a new river daily. A new chance to do the right thing. It’s what the poets hope for, the singers wish for, and what all of us waking to this new day simply get, joyfully receive, by opening our eyes. But will we see it? — how extraordinary it is to be given another chance. To come to the river, with fresh eyes and hearts and hands, and make a difference.Knee deep I tell myself, I tell you, this is not yesterday’s river. Nor yesterday’s wren. We can do better. We must do better. Good morning.
I only saw it last night. Could it have come sooner, or was it right on time? Awakening in the thick sky of wee hours, I had left the shutter open, and saw how it wasn’t simply dark, but so black it was blue, like a Magpie. And if it were a bird, this absence of light, couldn’t it just as easily gather those night weary worries under wing? Couldn’t it say, this is not for you to carry? Not now. Not in this light. This is the color of letting go. This is the color of release.
Some say a Magpie will steal anything. I don’t know if that’s true, but if they did, if they do, I decide to leave my concerns above cover, and let them take it. And I give thanks for the thief of worry. No longer bruised, but released by the black and blue of it all. And I am saved.
