My apologies to my junior and senior high math teachers for mumbling into my desk, “I’ll never use this.” And maybe it’s not exactly what they meant by “show your work,” but I am reminded daily as I make my creations on canvas and sketchbook. I will never be burdened by having to label them as “not generated by AI.” The proof is in each stroke. And beyond that, when I really get it right, when the equation of heart and technique add up, you can feel it.
I see it now, how right they were. That the answer was, is, always in the work. It’s why the bread tastes better when the scent wafts through the house. Why the song travels deeper with an emotional crack of the voice. It’s why the earth rises through your feet when you drink the wine in the vineyard. All honey is sweet, but when you taste the lavender from the bees’ workplace, your junior high self can only smile in agreement. You are inside the shown work.
So I leave the pencil marks painted over in my sketchbook. They helped get me here. I carry still the gravel from each fall on the Van Dyke road of my youth. Each pebble, each misstep lifts me still — takes me further into and beyond — joyfully embedded in the work of the day.
I don’t like clutter. When I take something out, I put it away. So it surprises me how my online mailboxes get so out of hand. And once they get built up, I don’t go back to remove the “junk,” but simply look at the present day. Even after dropping the warnings from 99% full to 98%, I push off the cleaning for another day.
The inevitable always arrives, and I have to clean them out. Hitting the select button until cramping. Trashing. Trashing. Trashing. All the while questioning, why didn’t I just deal with this in real time? But it does serve as a good reminder, for my own brain.
My mother used to call them “old tapes” — a sign of her times, I suppose. Those thoughts that can plague you again and again. The now junk mail of my mind. Call them what you will, oh, how they can clutter. And I can feel it. As I think about the “being wronged,” as it plays over and over in my brain, and the warning signs come, 98%, 99%, and then the real warning, “you won’t be able to continue…” — and never have truer words been spoken. So I start dumping. Taking out the brain trash. Letting it go. And what a relief. Such freedom. My heart applauds. Even my steps feel lighter. I think we all know it will get filled up again. But I hope with each lesson learned I get a little better. A little faster at the letting go. Weeding through life’s junk to get to the promised land of only 90% cluttered. And as I laugh, my load lessons, and I walk, spring even, into the day.
I don’t suppose the spaces left from loved ones passed can ever be completely filled. But maybe it’s wrong to think they ever were. These relationships weren’t beautiful, memorable, longed for even still, because of their solid perfection. Perhaps they were always stardust, flittering, fluttering, changing shape, with room always left for dancing, beneath the flickering light.
It’s the way I choose to think of it, my mother’s space, not as a hole left behind, but a dance floor. And all that magic that sprinkles from her still, lights up the people around me, and they step in, tap me on the shoulder, and ask me to dance. They are my new daily connections. My new last calls. My shared laughter and secrets. Hopes and challenges. Not replacements, but keepers of the dance.
We’re not all good at the same thing. Some are meant to pull you in, and simply sway. Other’s tap their feet and keep the beat alive. Some dizzy you into laughter. Dance you into breathless. And hold out the ladle of punch. I am grateful for them all. All of you, who keep my dance floor filled, my heart in motion, in sway, in the right tempo, under the stardust.
The first time I read John Steinbeck, I had yet to leave my hometown, but I had certainly learned to travel by book. Each word took me to a new place. A new adventure. Short of filling out the paperwork for my passport, it began my life of other — other places, other people, other experiences.
I suppose that’s why I’ve always trusted readers. You have to have an openness, a vulnerability, a curiosity for the other. Not a fear. Because at some point, the roles, with any luck at all, will be reversed.
I was that other when I moved to France. For country, language, family — it was all new. And I must admit, at first, I thought maybe I had to be like them. Wouldn’t they love me if I were more like them? If I blended onto the page. Foolish, I know. As if I even could. And it seems so clear now, as I joyfully stumble among them, full on me, not hiding the paint on my hands, nor the heart on my sleeve. And I do feel loved, not in spite of me, but because of me.
Charles is a reader. When packing for sleepovers at our house, his suitcase has always been filled with books, even before I think he could read. Through the years, I have come to know the shape of his hands wrapped around the spine of a book.
I bought Steinbeck’s book, Travels with Charley, while in his hometown of Monterey, California. I had thought of giving it to our Charles, but the French do not nickname. Then I saw him on our sofa. Shoe-less, without time or care, so relaxed into pillow and book, and I thought here, here he was not French, nor American, nor even Charles. He was wandering. Traveling. And he had the freedom to even be Charley. This is what I wanted to paint. The feeling I hope he carries forever. Here, on our sofa, he could be anyone, anywhere, and he would be loved.
I told him I needed a ladder. No, my grandfather replied. “But I have to get it back into the tree,” I said without crying, but just barely. Not about to change his response, but curiosity getting the best of him, he asked what. “The nest,” I said. He just smiled and again shook his head no. “A bird’s nest,” I reiterated, as if he just didn’t understand and surely with the added description he would go get the ladder and help me. But he didn’t. “The babies…” I pleaded, having never actually seen them, only heard them from below. “They’re fine. They’re already gone,” he explained. “How did they know? Were they ready?” I asked, still assuming we were all afforded that luxury. “You find a way,” he said, both of us knowing we were no longer talking about the birds. Both of us knowing that it was my house, my nest, that I missed. It was a ladder back to when my father lived with us. When everything seemed certain. A ladder back to the nest of trust and security. There was no ladder. We both knew I would have to find a way. He put his finger on the sore part of my heart, “They will be ok,” he said without crying, but just barely. And I knew, with the certainty of tree and the absence of ladder, that I would be too.
I can’t say that through the years I have not asked for the ladder. Thinking, just get me over this. But I eventually get there. Never over. Always through. And my heart moves from sore, to soar. And I am saved.
For me, it’s the softness of her gaze. No sharp edges to her reaction. Even her shoulders aren’t weighted. This is what makes her beautiful — not what she sees, but how she sees it. From within.
I paint her to remind myself the same is true for all of us. How we navigate through this world is what people really see. We need to stay informed, of course, but the ugliness that gathers, and there is a lot, I don’t want that inside of me. So I soften my gaze. My eyes. My lips. My tongue. Relax my shoulders. Nothing for hatred and ill will to hang on. (Because aren’t those sharp edges so much easier to cling to?)
I suppose I only know it, because I was always given that soft place to land. My grandma’s lap, my mother’s heart. I see now that it was not only for me, but for them as well. A gift we must give each other. A gift we must give ourselves. I dare the morning and the mirror softly. No sharp edges in sight.
It’s not to say that we took our wounds seriously, but my mother never purchased designer Band-Aids. There were no cartoon characters or Disney royalty. In fact, I’m pretty sure they weren’t even the Band-Aid brand. Possibly Curad. Or simply flexible adhesive bandages. And often times, just a Kleenex (which was really only a facial tissue) and a piece of Scotch tape (most likely just tape).
No matter what she used, she did accomplish the main goal, which was just to return us to the gravel road, be it on bike or foot, skinned knees and all, as quickly as possible. No time for worry, or to go over the latest spill. Nor was there time to take pride in the survival. Who hadn’t fallen on Van Dyke Road? Her goal, I see now, was to keep me at play. Sometimes I would look up from the tattered tissue barely hanging on, as if to ask, “Really?” She would answer, “You think Phyllis Norton can do better? Go get in line.” We would laugh. And for this I will be ever grateful.
Injuries change from year to year. Some wounds go unseen. But the goal is to always keep pedaling. Keep walking. Keep living. Because it is where we were wounded that we will continue to find the joy.
A country and a lifetime away, I race out the morning door with a bit of Van Dyke Road still on my shoes.
Some days more than anything I want my old bike back.
Was it the banana seat? The gripped handlebars? I can’t be sure. But when I became one with this bicycle, when the brightly colored flowers on the seat fueled my thighs — flowers like Goldie Hawn would have worn dressed for the opening of Laugh-In — I was pretty sure I was invincible. Nothing could stop me. Not the gravel of Van Dyke Road. Not even the blare of a tornado siren. They were probably only tests, but that would mean I knew it was a Wednesday, and to be honest, under the summer sun, one day did not differentiate from the other. So when it blared, I double knotted my bumper tennis shoes and pedaled with all my might towards our green house, and I was saved.
My heart shook its head at my legs, saying, “Maybe you’ve outgrown it, but I haven’t. It’s funny how our legs don’t often give our heart a choice. I mounted my new full size, black, three-speed bicycle from Sears. I was faster for sure, but not more confident.
Three-speeds moved to ten. I listened for warnings now. I knew Wednesdays. Lessons had been learned.
I opened the Christmas present yesterday. Socks covered in flowers. Goldie Hawn flowers. Filled with youth. Each one a Time Machine. I mount the day and feel the wind in my hair. My heart leading with certainty — just the way I like it! Let’s ride!
I was never one for magic — I mean the “magician” kind. I guess I was always afraid of disappearing.
I didn’t have the words for it then. I’m not even sure I was aware of what I was doing when I began to write and paint at five years old. But I knew how it felt. This creating something. An extension of myself on the paper, through words and images. When I would present it with two hands to my mother, just outside of my bedroom door, she would stop whatever she was doing. Whatever occupied her hands at the moment, be it dishrag or mascara, she put it down, and gave me her full attention. And never was I more seen. My heart. My being. On full display. In full acceptance. The warmth that bounced between us seemed to light up this hallway stage, and I thought this was the only magic I ever needed.
When my father left, and my mother felt sad, I could feel that light begin to dim. I wasn’t going to let her disappear. I began writing about her. Poems, prayers and promises. On sheets of paper. On pieces of wood. And the stage changed from house to apartment, to apartment again. But the magic remained.
Maybe it’s the way with all artists. We begin to create to prove that we exist, and then continue to show the others that they do too.
I was only a few strokes in yesterday when I began to cry. It’s my first painting of Grandma Elsie. I wasn’t sad. Nor nervous. I hadn’t even yet called on the magic before it dropped in. She is coming to life in my studio.
I guess it’s the same with real life — the more we see others, the more we connect, the more we feel alive. Now that doesn’t mean you have to paint. Or write. But you do have to connect, however it may be, to keep that light shining, bouncing between. There are a million different forms it can come in, but I suppose it’s always love — love is the only magic that keeps us from disappearing. Ever seen. Ever alive.
Maybe it was because my college roommate Kimmie managed to take home, piece by piece, a 12 place setting of dishes from the cafeteria in her purposely bookless backpack. Or maybe it was just because they were so pretty, these little blue hand-made Japanese bowls that were placed in front of us at the restaurant yesterday. But I must admit, there was a split second speck of my brain that wondered if one, or maybe two, would fit inside my purse. I said it out loud, more of a compliment really, and perhaps a way to police my actions. Once they had been filled with soy sauce, the urge subsided, and I enjoyed the meal for the brief and impermanent gift that it was. And the more I think about it, it’s probably why we have the urge for these things. From restaurants or hotels. To keep the precious moments alive. Like the objects could delay or prevent the loss of time.
Stomach and heart full, I left the restaurant with only the items that I brought in. Perhaps as a nod, or a little gift from the universe, when I went for my afternoon walk, the woman on the podcast I was listening to started to talk about how much she loved the mug that her drink came in at the restaurant she visited the night before. I was already laughing, and continued to listen. She told of how on the bottom of the mug it said “If you steal this mug, you will be charged $150.00” I am not alone on this planet. Still wanting it desperately, she asked the waiter if she could simply buy it for the $150.00. He gave her the information to contact the person who actually makes the mugs. Her sense of urgency urged her to ask another waiter, only to get the same response. Even she knew that it sounded crazy, and I knew that it sounded crazy, but oh how delighted I was to listen.
In the end, she ordered from the website as instructed. I mention it only because I think it shows what lengths we will go to in order to connect, to be a part of something, to keep experiences alive. And I smile, because in telling my story, and hers, maybe you think of your own stories, and we do all actually connect. And none of it is by hoarding, but by sharing. Nothing has to be stolen, neither hearts nor moments, because life just keeps on giving.
