They aren’t that hard to spot, people who have been loved.
People who fear the supply of it, those hanging on for dear life, (hanging on for anything dear), these are the people that can’t let go. Of anything. And who could blame them really. Having not seen. Not felt. They dig fingertips into pad of thumb. To hang on? To feel anything?
It isn’t the absence of problems that let people love. The over abundance that encourages people to give. For me, it was always knowing my heart pockets were filled.
Needing the literal as a child, my mother would have me place my hand in my pocket. Whenever doubt or worry was creeping around, when fear or sadness hovered. Whatever I needed — hope, a dream, extra love — “just cup it in your hand,” passing it to me, what doubters would say was never there, what I say is still there.
This practice of painting birds, this daily ritual that has saved me throughout this last year, has kept my pocket full. Has allowed me to reach them back to you. I hope you can see it. Cup it. Pass it on. All this love. And then maybe, one day, we won’t stand out, we simply all will be loved.
For five days I read the book. Eagerly returning. Thinking about the characters in between. On the last page, I flipped for another. That was it? The ending? Huh.
It’s not the first time I’ve enjoyed a book without loving the ending. And still, I had to remind myself that time wasn’t wasted. Time was enjoyed, no matter how it ended, or didn’t.
How do we respond when there’s nothing at the end? It’s never promised. And it occurs almost daily. How do we react when the response is underwhelming? When the email goes unanswered. The post lacks response. Even worse the love.
We’ve all felt it, I suppose, the arms drop mid hug when you yourself are not finished.
It’s then I have to think, why do I do what I do? I paint because I have to. Writing — the same. Loving, just as with both, it has to come out. And with it all, it is joyfully terrifying.
And would I spend hours getting the reflection in her eyes, the soul that can’t remain ruffled in the dress…would I do each leaf, each flower, each stone, any differently if you cartwheeled or simply walked away? Singing as I paint, I’m reminded of the words of K.D. Lang, “I gave my love, didn’t I? And I gave it big sometimes!”
So there’s my answer. I will reach for the words and the paint. Without knowing the length of hug, I offer these arms.
Opening the morning shutters in my pajamas, I didn’t have my cell phone camera with me, so you’ll just have to believe me when I tell you that the yellow turning leaves of the apricot tree against the pink sky pulling the sun was nothing less than spectacular! In the short time it took me to get upstairs the sky had turned to orange, and in a split second, the sun, (that ol’ show stopper) took over and yellow-whited everything. But it did happen. And I saw it. And writing it here, the moment still passes, I suppose, but the feeling remains.
I guess it’s the same with love. With life. All just spectacular, tiny moments.
When they tore down Petermeier’s Funeral Home, seeing the empty lot for a brief moment, all the colors of my grandma faded. She was such a part of that place. What started as just a small job of phone sitting, turned into something, well, spectacular. Being a small funeral home in a small town, the phone rarely rang. So my grandma filled the time — and no one could fill time better than my grandma. So we joined her, my cousins and I. Playing card games. Riding the vacuum cleaner. Opening unused coffins. Dancing on mopped floors. Hiding behind ceiling-high red velvet curtains. Learning, respectfully, unafraid, the names of the poor souls that did pass, my grandma saw to that.
There was a reluctance at first, to let the two young Petermeier children into our grandma’s life. Her name was not Elsie, as they called her, it was “grandma,” and that gave us protective ownership, so we thought. But as her love for them grew, and never diminished for us, we allowed it (and by allowed it I mean, we joyfully ran within it.)
We had already said good-bye to my grandma by the time they tore that building down. Actually saying our goodbyes in that very place. Sitting at the stop lights beside the vacancy, my heart echoed with her laughter. She was still beating us at the card game she hadn’t bothered to teach us before playing. The colors filled my heart. The light turned green. I moved on. All the feelings remained.
They still do. Even as I type this, the yellow leaves pass like moments, dropping from the apricot tree. Time keeps passing. But I am a day-filler! My grandma taught me that. It’s not lost on me that the color of the apricot leaves match the French cookies that I made yesterday, (they too are disappearing). And the cookies match the clothing of the woman I recently painted, on a golden day that I did, indeed, fill!
