After a vacation, I need to get unpacked immediately. I don’t like hovering “between two kingdoms.” With both suitcases emptied, something seemed to be missing — a small candle that I found at a bookstore. I looked through my purchase pile. Emptied the sacks. Nothing. Went back to the closet. Felt through each zippered pocket of the suitcases. Still nothing.
I went to bed that evening, still hoping my jet-lagged brain would kick in the next day. Sleep came quickly, and left with the same speed. Just after 2am my eyes blinked open with the knowledge — “It’s in your shoe!” Smiling, I went back to sleep. It was always with me.
After breakfast the next morning, I checked the inside of my New Balance tennis shoe. And there it was. My beautiful little candle. And bonus, also the tiny Native American vase I forgot about. Both safe and sound.
Going for a walk, the French path seemed brand new. I saw the blooming trees, again, for the first time. My feet steadied the way as my head circled from bird to bird, branch to branch, curve through curve. Years ago I wrote, “I have to believe my feet will take me where I need to go.” I still believe. They still do. Short of clicking my no-heeled shoes together like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I returned home, understanding that I still, and always, have the power within me.
It was exactly one mile from our house on Van Dyke Road to the railroad tracks just before town. When I was 6 years old, I was allowed that far on my own. I walked it, or biked it, every day of summer vacation. The first thing in sight, besides the large Viking statue, was our local museum. Truth be told, I wasn’t that interested in the Runestone. My sunburned cheeks, along with the pink part in my blonde hair, marked a head that was sufficiently filled with everything Washington Elementary had to offer, so I wasn’t hungry for the town’s history.
I earned a quarter each Thursday for cleaning the mirrors and vacuuming. With know stores in my one mile excursions, my collection of pocketed quarters was building, burning like the summer sun. I twirled them in my sweaty fingers at the edge of the tracks. I could see the sign for the gift shop. It was just a few steps more. I made lines in the dirt with the tips of my bumper tennis shoes. Surely a few more steps wouldn’t matter. I was going to be in the first grade in only a month. Please, please, please, I begged my mother when she returned home from work. “I just want to go to the gift shop. It’s only a few more steps.” “You don’t even know what’s inside,” she said. Which was true, but I had quarters, and I knew what the word gift meant. “It’s not toys,” she continued. I said something about needing it, wanting it… I’m sure I through in a “everyone else gets to” — even though I never saw children racing toward it. By the next Thursday, I had worn her down and she agreed with a “fine, go ahead.”
The first few steps beyond the tracks felt like I was floating. Maybe all freedom feels this light. I skipped the air to the front door and waited. And waited. I didn’t have a watch. So far I had only learned digital time. I sat twirling the quarters through my fingers. I jumped up with the click of the door. Open — the word felt just for me. I sprang through the door. Still sun blind, I couldn’t see anything on the shelves. It wasn’t what I expected, it was even better. I wandered slowly past the woman seated by the counter, so she could see me seeing. Someone should witness my first outing, I thought, and it was going to be her. She looked up from her paper, not nearly grasping the importance of this moment. And then I saw her. This little Native American doll. (I’m sure I still called her an Indian at the time, but we wouldn’t learn that for a few years.) She had the shiniest black hair. A little leather dress. I wanted her. I needed her. She was glorious. Two dollars. I had eight quarters. It was my miracle of freedom. I placed her on the counter along with my quarters. “That’ll be $2.08,” she said. I smiled, still not realizing, pushing my quarters closer.” “$2.08,” she repeated. “But it says, two dollars. I have two dollars. I Windexed for two months.” (Which wasn’t really true, we only bought off brands, but she didn’t need to know that.) “It’s the tax,” she said. Tax? I didn’t know anything about tax. “You can take from the penny jar,” she said. There were four pennies left on the side of the counter. I was still short. I looked at the doll. I looked at the counter. I looked at the woman. She took the doll and turned around. My heart sank. Gutted, I began to turn toward the door. She placed the sacked doll on the counter along with her purse. She pulled out her coin purse and added four pennies to the cash register. My heart floated again. She handed me the doll. She had seen me after all.
This was our town, I thought. I belonged here. On both sides of the tracks. I smiled in the knowledge. I had so much to learn, but for one brief shining summer moment, I knew everything I needed to know.
My grandma never made apologies for her wide feet. Standing on them for decades, as she did, rubbing her rounded aproned belly, holding a rootbeer float — “it was bound to happen”, she smiled, and sported her men’s Thom McAns proudly. And I loved her all the more.
My mother never made apologies for her long feet. “I’m going to rely on my heart for balance?” She laughed. They lengthened her already long legs, and stabled her heart that bounced and bruised and giggled again. And I loved her all the more.
We have been, I gratefully say, to the finest museums in the world. From Paris, to Rome, London, Amsterdam, New York, Chicago…seeing the finest artists of all time. So it may surprise you when I say we enjoyed our visit to the National Cowboy Museum in Oklahoma. Not because it could compete with a Cezanne or VanGogh, no, but it wasn’t trying to. It was cowboys. From films, to wars, to horses, and cattle, it told a story, their story. And it was beautiful.
Sometimes, when visiting a smaller city, they try to compete, and it never works. But when a place embraces their history, goes all in, wearing their shoes proudly, (or boots as it were), now this is something to see! I hope I do that. Give that. I was taught this, by two of the most different and lovely women that I know.
I hope we all can, step into each and every day, proudly, lovingly. We all have a story to tell.
My grandma never measured anything. And I thought it was pure magic — she was magic. Because it all turned out. Her kitchen was filled with Bohemian treats — treats that I’m still not sure if the names were real, or if she was just making them up as she went along as well.
The thing is, I never saw the beginning. I wasn’t there when it was just Rueben and Elsie. When the bride from the picture, wearing the necklace I now treasure, burned the dinner, or didn’t add enough flour to the baked goods, when Rueben tried to assure her it was just fine. I wasn’t there when her first born came and she had to strap him to her apron while still trying to perfect the recipe that was never written down. Maybe my mom caught a glimpse, being the second. But it wouldn’t be long and she would be asked to start taking care of the seven that followed. And certainly my mom didn’t know how to be one, she was a kid herself, but I smile thinking of her doing the same, guessing at the recipe for what would make those younger siblings happy, or at least stop crying.
No, I didn’t see any of this. I suppose none of us do, see the work behind the magic. And it’s happening all around us. But I like thinking about it. I find it hopeful. Because for me, it’s maybe even more “magical” to think it was created all along. It’s what drives me to fill the sketchbooks. To arrange the words in a different order daily. Even to bake the croissants. We create our own magic by putting in the time. Making the mistakes. Learning. And trying again.
Today I may find myself covered in life’s flour, but one way or another, it is going to be delicious. Let’s make some magic!
Two of my mom’s sisters ended up in Texas. Being a child in Minnesota, that seemed about as foreign as it could get. (Little did I know…) When my Aunt Sandy returned on her first visit, she already sounded different. I didn’t have the word for it then, but she definitely had a drawl. How strange, I thought. But I wasn’t that worried, until years later when my mom and I took my grandma down to Texas for a visit. Tired from the drive, I didn’t really notice when we arrived, but the next morning, there she was, my full-on Texas aunt, asking my grandma — the one that her northern children only called “mother” — “Mama, do y’all want to go for biscuits and gravy?” Wait! Mama? Y’all? Biscuits and gravy? What was happening???? Perhaps there was a slight emphasis on the word mother when they returned and my mom asked her, “Did you like the biscuits and gravy, Mother?” I was already smiling when she answered, “Uff-da, y’all…”
I can see now how it happens. Living in France. They say I have an accent. There, of course, and even when I return. We all want to belong. Be a part of something. And we gather ourselves in, word by word, bit by bit, to make ourselves whole, to find a place at the table.
Visiting the Starbuck’s in San Antonio yesterday, they were all out of the butter croissants, so I said “I’ll take the pain au chocolat.” She looked at me so strangely… Uff-da, y’all, I thought. “I mean the chocolate croissant,” I smiled. I am a part of it all.
When I was a young girl, someone gave me a tiny spoon. I think it represented a state they had visited. Maybe a park. And with that one spoon it was decided, not by me, that I collected them. After a few birthdays, without my knowledge or permission, I indeed had many tiny spoons. Then came a rack. Sone had a wide enough handle to hang on the rack, but most required that I snip apart a paper clip and superglue it to the back. Now I was putting effort into a collection I neither started nor wanted.
One of the first greeting cards I ever made was an image of a woman that read, “I meant no, but it came out yes.” It always got a good laugh. But certainly there was truth behind it. It has taken years, decades…I think I’m better at it, but it takes an effort. It shouldn’t take convincing that you are worth it. Worth your time. Worth your decisions. Worthy of saying yes to what YOU want. I have found that it’s a practice. (Maybe all of living is.) When you can say no to the little things, like if you want dessert or not, if you actually have the time to babysit, if you like the color red…If you can say no to all those little tiny spoons, then you can graduate to the big ones and maybe say yes! If you can say yes to the big decisions…the big choices… then you can actually live a life,maybe not exactly how pictured (who gets that?), but a life close to all the yesses of your heart.
Walking through an antique store yesterday, I saw them — a cup full of tiny spoons. No thanks, I said, and bought the frame that will hold the painting I will choose, I will make, and I will love. My heart smiled — it came out yes!
I wasn’t even sure they were real, these pelicans racing across the lake. They looked like little boats, moving so quickly. So still and beautiful on top, but the paddling that had to have been going on beneath — it must have been extraordinary.
My mother was the face of ISD #206. And even in her hardest days, she gave them a good one. Not one teacher or administrator entered that building without her smile or direction. By 7:30am each day, after sleepless nights, she was lipsticked, coiffed, dressed – impeccably. And she wasn’t faking it — she loved her job. Her people. But for a select few, they never saw the paddling.
I suppose we miss it with most people. We never really know what they are going through. Struggling through. What waters they are holding their heads above. And I’m not sure we need to know everything. See everything. But we could be kind. Can be kind. Empathetic. And it goes for everything. Sometimes we see successful people and think, oh, it’s so easy for them, not seeing the hours of practice, effort, sweat.
So today, at the grocery store, the coffee shop, the office, or bank, wherever you go for your daily swim, maybe we all could just be a little more aware of the paddling.
There is a hollow space beneath my left set of ribs. After they removed my body cast, I noticed it. I guess six weeks of the plaster wore it down.
Today I swim. Walk. Run. Exercise. All the things. The space remains. I don’t know why I saw it yesterday. In the mirror. Showering after my workout. I almost never think about it. I rarely even see it.
Maybe the universe thought I needed a little sign. A reminder, not of the pain, but of the living. I’m certain while I was in it, I thought it to be endless. Probably felt trapped. But I have no feeling of that now. Only a small hollow space that serves me well. A space, that if it had been immediately filled, I wouldn’t have it as the proof of strength, survival, of life itself.
Maybe that’s where we keep our most precious gifts, in those spaces. The tiny hollows left by life lessons, wayward paths, even love.
I miss my mother. But forever I keep a space open, just for her. Where memories have room to giggle and weep. To hug and wonder. To roam. And forever love.
I look in the mirror. I smile. Not weighed or worried by the hollows. I carry them with me, as light as joy.
Three Snow Whites stepped out of the Starbucks in Bay City,Texas. It’s just a tiny town. It would have been surprising enough that they even had a Starbucks. And it sounds like the beginning of a joke, but they weren’t laughing. Their shiny black hair blew in the southern breeze, along with their silky yellow and blue dresses. Just shy of bluebirds on their shoulders, they looked perfectly Disney. They sipped on their coffees. Reached for their keys, and went to their cars, as if this happened every Saturday. And maybe it does, but we won’t be here to tell.
I could have raced after them with my cell phone. Begged for a photo. But coming from a small town, I know the code.
In Alexandria, Minnesota we have a statue of a large Viking. On his shield, it claims this is the Birthplace of America. In the summer, when our population doubled — all those coming from the Twin Cities to cool down in one of our many lakes — we could see them laugh. Poking fun at our big statue. Jumping on his feet. Taking ironic photos before heading off to the golf course.
I would like to say that I defended him, us. But in my cut-off shorts and off brand tennis shoes, I didn’t yet have the words. I hope I apologized on my daily ride past him, perched on my banana seat bike, but I’m not sure that I did.
Maybe it WAS the birthplace of America, maybe it wasn’t…I’m still not sure, but it was our birthplace, of our America. All of my beginnings began at his feet. It was the end of Van Dyke Road, and the start of Main. And even though at times it felt like I was the only one living this life, somehow it was not just my destiny. No, this we shared. Maybe all small towns do. We didn’t talk about it. We didn’t have to. This was our town. Our Viking. I had to leave to find the words, but even from a country away, I will claim it. Defend it. My hometown.
So no, I didn’t find out about the three Snow Whites. That’s their story to tell. I sit back on my imaginary banana seat bike, and enjoy the view as they step outside their destiny.
Sometimes it’s as simple as whether the sun is out or not, but I have fallen in and out of love with cities throughout the United States. And they can change, sure, a little, but mostly I think it’s me.
Cities I thought I loved several years ago, this visit, not so much. And that’s ok, it doesn’t take away from my previous visits. I’ve also been surprised in the reverse — loving those I thought I never could. Taking the extra photos, celebrating, almost apologizing for not seeing it before. I know it’s silly. Laurel, Mississippi doesn’t need me to love it, no more than Houston was waiting for me to change my mind.
I suppose it’s the same with people. We spend so much time and energy wondering what people think. Do they like me when…will they like me if… oof, it can be exhausting. Should I change? Did they? We’re all wandering, wondering. Seeing situations and people again, for the very first time. It’s a journey. We would do well to remember we’re all on one. Knowing this, (I remind myself too), maybe we could all be a little more kind, gentle, joyful, loving, along the way. And maybe when our days and time together don’t always match up, we can smile and wave… and remember how we fell in love with Houston.
