I’m always asking for it. Yet, when it’s given freely once a year in the fall, this gift of time, I could easily complain about it. How to fill the extra hour. How it throws off my delicate schedule. (Insert eye roll here.) So yesterday afternoon, a bit disoriented in this extra hour, walking past the knowing eyes of Grandma Elsie’s portrait, I decided to make cookies.
A delicious use of my time for sure, but really, in the grand scheme of things, it was, as I so often heard on the farm, “the least I could do.” I heard it from my grandma as she baked for her neighbors. From my grandpa, getting in the car to go to the funeral. The uncles coming to help with the fields. My mother, elbow deep washing dishes for the entire Hvezda crew. How easily they all stepped in to offer their gifts of time.
I worry for the world, how far away we’ve moved from “the least we could do.” Maybe it’s the anonymity of our connections, but how did we become so cold? So ungiving? So unwilling to do even the least?
It’s a slippery slope. But oh, how it levels when we do the work. When I release my grip from the angled path to simply put my hands in the dough, I am grounded. Peaceful in all that butter and sugar. I should have learned it long ago. There was never an empty dish in my grandma’s kitchen. The china pig that held the cookies was always full. When I lifted the hat of that pig and saw the handmade treats, I smiled at her, she smiled back, shrugged her shoulders and said, “It’s the least I could do.” And I knew I was loved.
I suppose the lesson was, don’t get too attached. Somehow it didn’t take.
But I felt a responsibility. I “accidentally” knocked down the real estate sign each night before bed, out of loyalty I suppose. Because hadn’t I picked out the carpeting. The bedspread. All in bright yellow in my basement bedroom. And I wanted no evidence of the sign through my window after my night time prayers. And hadn’t I lined books on shelves and housed stuffed dolls and animals within that same promise of rising yellow on this sturdy gravel of Van Dyke Road? The truth was, I loved being attached. I loved hopping from the school bus, or off of my bicycle, just past the mailbox that claimed our spot, into the driveway that claimed my heart.
They said it was just things. How easily they threw the metal sign into the back of the car, handed over the papers and sent us on our way. I didn’t have the words for it then, but how ironic it was that to stop all these abandonings, I would have to continue loving with pure abandon.
Everything can be taken away, I guess. But we give away only what we want to. I keep it all. It’s in the story, the painting. The words and books and flag, and photos.
I painted someone’s house. I imagined the story. At some point there was love, I thought, because didn’t they take the time to board the window to keep it all in? And maybe someone told them, don’t get too attached, as they hammered the last nail. And maybe in the painting they will always be.
And don’t I run my fingers across the gathering of all the love that remains and grows? Yes. I am attached. Ever.
It always comes as a surprise — the morning dark. It is delightful though, that I still believe summer will never end. That the morning light will sprinkle me awake and pull me into the promise of ever. And I make those same promises back. I always have.
From the moment I stepped off the last school bus ride of the year. I’d drop what was left of the documentation of another year at Washington Elementary, and I’d pull off my bumper tennis shoes without taking the time to untie, and I’d wiggle my feet in the yet unmown grass, and to each blade of green that snuck through the spaces of winter toes, I would promise to enjoy every moment of sun lit wonder.
And oh, how I filled my pockets with light. Wagons pulled. Balls hit. Bikes ridden. Each one a bright spot to carry me through the winter I would never see coming.
I suppose it’s the same with love. All that light and promise. Even in the darkness, it never goes away. It wiggles through toes and dances in hearts, and keeps its promises. Ever.
I smile at the morning dark. I am not afraid. Everything is still possible. And I am surely loved.
We could have been aproned from her apron, but still we dove right in. I imagine the brunt of what she wiped from bowl to hand to apron ended up on the front of my shirt and the side of my face. This tug to be near defied all things sticky. I just wanted to be a part of it. Of what she was doing. Baking. Creating. Becoming. And she allowed it, because wouldn’t it all get washed, not in the laundry, but in my attempt to help with the dishes.
With the scent wafting through the oven’s heat, she filled the double sink. Extra bubbles. She asked if I wanted a stool. I shook my head no. The cupboard below was already scuffed from my tennis shoes as I placed my hands on the side of the cupboard and hoisted myself up on the edge of the sink. Belly balanced. Feet dangling. Completely wet. I danced my hands through the water. A temperature far less than what she could handle, I crawl stroked my way through the pile. Did she rewash them? I don’t think so, at least never in front of me.
When I could no longer breathe from the weight of balancing, I jumped down. Wiped my hands, my face, my neck and belly, all on her apron. And we were connected. A tug that still calls to me.
When I need the strength of “it’s good enough for joy,” I wrap myself in my Minnesota apron, bake the bread and wash the dishes in a temperature I never imagined I could handle, and I am home.
When I didn’t recognize a word in my grandma’s kitchen it was usually because it was either a bad word, or something in Swedish, or on occasion, both. And so I thought it was with “fig.” What I had learned so far was that it flew, and we didn’t have any to give.
We are surrounded by fig trees now. As plentiful as the apple trees on my grandparents’ farm. And as certain as the limb is to the bird, I know some things for sure.
With time, the things that make me care seem to change. Tears and laughter often reverse their roles. The world switches from big to small depending on the uncertainties that surround us, while comfort packs its bags and moves from place to place, never leaving a forwarding address. But though the impermanence of people and feelings, you stay as slow, as warm and as forever as children’s summer laughter. You remain a part of my heart’s truth, the part that doesn’t get crushed beneath the weight of time passing, the part I give thanks for, every day.
I’ve yet to capture it on film. (But certainly in the shutter of my heart.) Some call it golden hour. And I suppose, as glorious as it is, it’s not that uncommon, but in this house I live, at this one certain time, I have witnessed this light between rooms, not only shine and illuminate, but bend.
It’s just a small window in the sewing room, Grandma Elsie’s sewing room, but when the hour is golden, the light thrusts through every pane. And you may think thrust is too strong, but wouldn’t it have to in order to bounce off of two doors, across the hallway and land beautifully upon the painting of the children at the beach? It’s almost as if it knows the destination, knows how deserving they are of the light.
It doesn’t last long, but spectacular rarely needs a lot of time to make its point. It’s in these tiny, well lit moments that I remember how lucky we are. How we are given everything we need, and more! How even in our struggles of darkness, in our failed attempts to reach all that shines…with obstacles lining the way — magically, joyfully, light bends. Golden.
I suppose some would say the opposite — that my friend Jeannie looks and sounds just like Diane Keaton — and I suppose it is because we’re friends (and friendship will always get top billing) that as I listen to clips of Diane after her recent passing, I think, she sounds just like Jeannie.
I mention it because, isn’t it delightful when we see it! See the parts of each other that we love, passing through. And it’s never just familial. Oh, I do love it when someone says, “you look just like your mother”! Nothing could make me happier! But even more miraculous, I see my mom in old friends, new friends.
Shopping with my friend Katie at the Galleria — (and by shopping I mean delighting in the dress-up as she ran to get boots and necklaces and framed my face in the mirror) — the encouraging words of my mother spilled from her mouth, that told me, outright dared me — to feel great about my reflection! Because if my mother was going to keep passing through, she would pick the Galleria!
And of course I was staying at Jeannie’s condo, next to the Galleria, texting her possible outfits, and hearing back in Diane’s voice, and my mother’s banter, and it is all such a delightful passing, one may even call it a dance.
I take comfort in it. Daily. Because the passing is never final, once it begins to dance.
I saw the nest in springtime. Of course it would have been spring, but I did not yet know the timing of such nests and eggs. What I did know was that I had my banana seat bike, the one I got for my birthday, March 27th. Youth’s privilege allowed me to see my bicycle also as a ladder. I propped it against the trunk. Tippy toe on the seat, I could just reach the lowest hanging branch. I wrapped each hand around. I needed to get my feet up as well. I pressed my toes into the seat and thrusted, just nipping the branch with one bumper tennis shoe. I did it again. Not there. My celebration on final thrust for wrapping my feet around the branch, turning myself into a swing was negated by the tumbling of my bike to the ground. I had heard the saying before, but I only now understood that I was really out on a limb.
I did have some fear of letting myself fall, but my biggest fear now was landing on my bicycle which rested perfectly beneath me without a clue of the harm it could cause. I spoke to it on the off chance it could actually hear me, like I was sure my stuffed animals could. What I heard back in my head was an arrested apology that said, you’re going to have to do this on your own.
My bark weary hands urged my brain for a solution. Remembering why I came up here in the first place, to see the bird nest, I had a desperate longing for my own, nest. Of course I called for my mom, purely out of instinct because I knew she was at work. Dangling was not an ever solution. I was going to have to decide. To trust. To let go.
Some will call it luck. Fate. Faith. But I landed between bars. Unscathed. Into the beautiful nest of our unmowed lawn.
Had I landed improperly. Twisted an ankle. Broken an arm. Would I have stopped climbing? Future me in the fifth grade, arm broken at Noonan’s Park Ice Skating rink, says probably not. My take on it, I will never be stifled nor stuck in certainty. In life and love, I’m going out on that limb.
We were talking about decorating. She asked if I had ideas for her bathroom. The first thing that came to mind was, “I like an unexpected lamp.”
It’s no secret that lighting is important. It seems to answer most questions. How do we want to see ourselves, each other? “In a good light.” How do we get to the truth of the matter? “Well, we shine a light on it.” What’s the greatest disinfectant? “Light.” How will we find our way? “Lights will guide you home.”
My mother’s makeup routine was quite a process. And she needed good lighting. Even in basement apartments, where we couldn’t drink the water, if she could light the bathroom, find herself beyond the damage and the dust, then she was, we were, saved.
It’s all about giving ourselves the warmth of chance, the illumination of possibility. So we can set off into the world and find the best of us, the lights that offer joy, comfort, direction, hope — all the glowing of grace. And quite often it won’t be from the people we expect, the ones who are “supposed to.” Often mid stumble, they come. And they do the impossible. Offer so much light, you find yourself shining. And you find out, you too, can be the unexpected lamp.
It may seem counterintuitive, but I learned long ago that the more personal I am in my writing or painting, the more people will see themselves. And beyond that I think, the more people that see themselves makes it all the easier to see each other.
I painted the image of my friend kayaking the morning lake. She only had the image because a neighbor captured the photo. Another friend bought several of the cards, because she could see herself navigating that same lake.
I suppose it’s why humans have always painted the pictures. To tell the stories. And don’t we need to hear it from someone who has been there? No matter what the challenge, be it dream or struggle, to see someone navigating the same lake makes it all possible. Not with the dismissiveness of “Been there. Done that,” but with a “Been there. You are not alone.”
Morning ripples in, gently, and I can only say, Yes.
