She’s held this pose for over a week, my lovely tulip. Just like me, no one ever told her she wasn’t a dancer, and most likely (just like me) she wouldn’t have believed them if they had. And who could blame her? Donned in that lovely yellow. Gathered in and matched by the strength of the sun. How could she not keep reaching, moving, believing in all things morning as she opened each day. She did feel it! With each rising. From her very stem. And so she would dance.
A writer writes. A painter paints. A baker bakes. Not because someone pays them. Tells them that’s what they are. We decide. For ourselves. The same is true for happy. For love. You get to decide. You get to feel what you feel. No restrictions or limits. If the yellow calls to you, wakes you with a joy that not only can be, but must be, released back to the blue of the sky, then, dance, I say, simply, joyfully, rise up and dance.
Happy Easter! There’s nothing here we can’t rise above.
There was an undeniable security in knowing there would always be what I needed inside my grandmother’s purse. A Kleenex. Of course. And if you used them all up, there would always be one rolled up in her sleeve. Aspirin — sure. Breath mints. Slowpokes. Sugar daddies and babies. Toasted marshmallows. Roasted peanuts, sometimes sacked, sometimes floating at the bottom. Safety pins. Paper clips. Pencils. Paper. Crayons. Perfume. Change for the meter and the gum ball machine. And all the white gum balls that we didn’t want, begging for just another nickel, sure that the next one would be red or yellow. And I suppose mostly that’s what her purse held, what she held, the promise that things could always work out if you didn’t come empty handed.
Throughout history, people have said it much more eloquently, “Ask not what your country can do for you…” and so on. I’m sure they’ve said it in every time and tongue. But waking in France, I still hear it in the language of my grandmother’s hands — what are you going to bring today? I smile, and begin rifling through my heart’s purse.
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?
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.
I’ve started a new project. Each time I do, there are always things to be learned. Computer programs change so quickly. The paths to incorporate my artwork from page to printer are constantly changing course. And armed with my mother’s sense of direction, (she who thought the map at the mall should be on the ground so you could just step into it), I can’t say that I find my way quickly, but joyfully, I always find my way. I suppose it’s because I’m never traveling alone.
My first step was to get photos of all the new images. I was stumbling about. Turning pages. Checking lighting. It all felt so clunky. And then I got the tap on my brain’s shoulder that said, “get the sticky notes.” It was my friend Deb who gave me the little notebook of multi-colored tabs. We first used them to mark our favorite outfits in the Sundance catalog, sipping lattes, and reading the cover letter from Robert Redford, as if he had addressed it to us personally. We had colors to mark “maybe,” “yes,” and “why am I not wearing it right now.” Hours of entertainment with just a stick of a color.
Smiling, I used those notes to mark the pages of my artwork. It all began to make sense. I found my direction. Even using the new programs on my computer became easier.
I keep moving forward, but not without those who got me here.
There’s an expression that people use when someone dies that I’ve never liked — “She’s no longer with us.” It couldn’t be further from the truth. While the Sundance store has closed, my friend Deb sits right beside me. And I am saved.
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?
I’m currently reading Theo of Golden. It wasn’t long in when I realized I had seen the main character before — the elderly man with the gray hair, kind eyes, and green flat cap. I opened my sketchbook. There he was. Now with every word of the book, I can see his face. That’s the magic of not just reading, but living in the word.
I suppose we’d call that empathy. Maybe that’s what books are for. To give us the practice for real life. Oh, it comes so easily with the turning of the pages. How we can immerse ourselves into their lives. Really see them. Experience the journey. And if it’s a pleasure to do by the book, shouldn’t it be so face to face. Certainly everyone in literature is an other, ones that we can fascinate. Why do we fear them in real life? I wonder if we imagined their stories, gave them faces, what our world would, could become.
I think it’s worth the practice. So I dive in deeply. Gently. Amid the stories. Amid my own. And maybe we see each other a little more clearly. And we become…
In the “Age of Innocence,” (if there were ever a time), they used to say, “I didn’t think they’d try it on,” meaning, I didn’t think they’d have the guts to do it. Some may have said that about my mother, but not me.
I’m not sure she ever really knew how brave she was. I know she wanted to be. I guess I knew first, because my grandfather told me. Standing in the kitchen, opposite the sink – grandma in elbow deep – in front of the window that framed the stripped and hanging cow from the tree, he told me I could turn in, or turn out. That I could armored like my Aunt Kay, or be open like my mother. He didn’t mark either as good or bad, both would be difficult, it was just a choice. My mother returned from the other room. Broken, she had the guts to still be ruffled in white. I had already made my choice. To be wounded, but still believe in love, I would ever be “trying it on.”
It was years later, I relayed his message to her. She hadn’t known that he saw her. It wasn’t the way. I suppose it was thought, “Well, it goes without saying…” but mostly I think that means it simply goes unsaid. I can’t let it be one of those times. Ever ruffled in ruffles, I come to the page, to the canvas, to you, wide open, daily. And on those days when you think you don’t have the strength, the courage, the will, you will think of these words, these images, see my mother’s face and heart, and you will find yourself “trying it on.”
When they asked Muhammad Ali to give them a poem, he offered up two words. “Me. We.” Just two simple words. But oh, how much they said. ‘Me We’ is a poem about one man’s transition from one to the many, singularity to plurality, and selfishness to altruism.
It’s a reminder to me, how little it actually takes. To make someone’s day. To let them know they are not alone. To give them hope. A smile. It’s a small space from me to we, easily traveled, if we simply remember to take the step.
When I think of my best moments. They’ve always been with someone. It makes me wonder, does anything really happen unless we share it? I’m not sure. I’m not willing to take the chance.
I remember early on, speaking to a group of young school children. I was humbled that they knew the answers to their own questions. After a reading, one student asked why I didn’t use any names, just he, she, they… Without missing a beat a little girl raised her hand and said, “Because it could be anyone.” I’m still smiling. The answer remains the same, this movement from singularity to plurality. We can all do it, take the path, from Me to We.
