Long before I could read them, I carried them. I knew the words of the books, my mother having read them to me night after night. Not being able to read yet myself, I was under the assumption, (or I was probably just of the age to hope) that if I kept the words nearby, cradled in hand and tucked against hip, that they would stay with me. They did. Now, I can’t say for sure that it was because I held them close, pressed them dear…but I can’t say that it wasn’t.
I have done the same with love. Kept a library in my heart.
I walked a new path yesterday. My feet plodded up the unexplored hill. My head peaking above as I neared the top. A school. A soccer field. And then, not the promised land, but a box filled with promise, a community library. And the biggest surprise, two books in English. The collected works of Mark Twain was as thick as my open hand. I clutched it to my heart and put the paperback in my back pocket. The proportion of books to body was nearly the same as when I carried them in youth’s palm. My steps, as light as they were then. Carried in the word.
I had been right. It stays with me. Coddled close, this love for word and promise. Did I walk home a little faster? Probably. Did I smile the whole way? Indeed.
I gained balance pretty quickly on my two wheeler bike. It was the stability that I had to work on. Not the staying upright, but the finding my way home. Luckily, I had all the tools (maybe we always do). I had a wicker basket on the handlebars and enough possessions to fill it. A stuffed animal. A doll. A baseball glove. An oversized coloring book. Anything to leave a trail as I set out on my journey. The neighbors were used to the abandonings in empty lots and ditches, so I’m not sure they paid it any mind, this careful placement of goods — my direction home.
I moved the large painting of the girl with the bird in her hand. She’s the first thing I see when I enter the studio, telling me, I already have everything that I need, and just enough to wish for. She is the calm. She is the hope. She is the place from where I venture, and the place that welcomes me back. And isn’t that, I suppose, what home has always been, will always be. Still, it’s good to be reminded.
My heart basket is full. Today’s adventure begins.
I think I get it now. What he saw. What wasn’t yet there.
The commitment of painting flowers begins in the shadows. In the black. I suppose the desire will always be there, to begin with the popping of the petals, but it’s impossible to paint that way, backwards. They, like all of us I suppose, have to come through.
Finishing the larger of the two paintings, I was there. Not just in the shadows, but in the dirt. The black dirt. The empty field, with my grandfather.
I was always amazed at what he could do. Taking the black, turning it to green, and then gold. What I thought was magic, was maybe artistry. Or maybe they are one and the same. Maybe that’s humanity itself. Being able to see beyond. To sit what isn’t yet there.
Could I be painting the flowers without his vision? Or my grandmother’s in the kitchen. Or my mother’s in her closet? Maybe I only see, because I was seen. I awake from the shadows, because of them.
Receiving a letter in college was monumental. We shared a community phone for our floor, and had to pay for long distance, so it was rarely used. The mailboxes were the tie to the outside world. Located in the entrance of our fifth floor walk-up, what lay behind the gray square door was significantly tied to the speed at which I could climb the stairs. One small letter could erase the added weight of my backpack, loaded down with the likes of Shakespeare and other anthologies. Anticipation picked up each foot. Thumb trying to break the seal before opening the door. Books thrown on sofa, I cracked the remaining seal, and breathed in the connection. And I was saved.
I could always count on the weekly letter from my mother. Sometimes my grandma. An occassional random boyfriend marked with a mascot of another school, or PFC. And I learned quite early on, to get a letter, you needed to send one. To be lifted, you had to do some lifting.
When I was painting her yesterday, the stories ran through my head. Up and down the staircase of my heart and brain. All those things I needed to say. All those things I needed to hear. And I wondered how you would see it. When you saw her. At first glance. Was she getting the letter? Or was she sending it? I suppose it depends on if you are needing to hear something, or if you have something that needs to be said.
We’re always navigating through both. And I guess the key is to keep the chain open. To be lifted. To keep lifting.
Life will weigh us with worry and “other anthologies,” but it will also give us what we need if we choose to participate.
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.
I saw the black and white feathers in the lawn. It’s funny how you can tell the difference between something let go, and something torn apart. While I don’t want anything to hurt our backyard birds, my first thought was, I hope it wasn’t another Magpie.
It’s ironic I suppose, the closer you are to someone, the less you see it coming.
But the resilience of the heart and brain. To keep trusting. To keep loving. It’s so beautiful. And isn’t it even more beautiful that I don’t think about it. That I have to be reminded of it, by feathers in the yard.
I walk through the vacation of our summer yard. Nearly bare of clothes and worry. The birds flutter and sing, and I know we all have it. This youth of spirit. To forgive. To barefoot again upon love’s green, beneath the chatter, the hope of the Magpie.
There’s always a risk, I suppose, for both parties, when being seen. And when I say that I’ve studied the arts, the masters, of course I include the instructions at university, the museums, the books, but long before any of that my mother was giving a master class at Herberger’s.
So graciously she added the fourth perspective as her peers stood in front of the three-way mirror. When it was good, oh, she praised them. But when it wasn’t, she didn’t fall in line with the store clerks, she gently offered, “I think we can do better.” She knew the right colors. The right fit. What to enhance, and what to hide. How to create the best presentation, without a stumble.
When painting a portrait, I gather it all in. From the Dutch. The French. The Italians. The Herbergers. And while that may sound a little funny, oh, do we need the masters now more than ever! I think about her daily. My mother’s whimsical and gentle grace. Then I see the news. I see the actions of people. I see the reflections of negative, cruel, and frankly, simply ugly people, I stand here, draped in my mother’s wisdom, and say, “I think we can do better.”
Words are nothing until they leave the page. I suppose the same is true for love.
Someone was always jumping from something. The overpass. A bridge. The roof of a barn. While I can’t say that I ever would have followed — (we were often asked that question, “if the neighbor girl jumps off a bridge…” and for the most part we didn’t take it literally) — but still I understood the need. The need to fly from something. This need to take all the ordinary of Alexandria, Minnesota, the similar look of classroom and bus. This need to take all that was certain and sure and fling it into the wind and just see…see if in the letting go, we could simply fly.
People laughed when they read it in the news, or sat next to them in the orthopedic clinic, but there was just a tiny part of me that said, yep, I get it… as I turned to the blank page and poem-ed and painted my way up the side of the barn, dropping words and images like added weight, fluttering with excitement as I handed it over to my mother, vulnerable, and weightless, in that moment, in that glorious moment of trusting love, it was then I could fly.
It’s funny how it calms me. Being inside the risk of canvas. Of showing you. Who I am. It’s not my first barn. Not my first book. Nor canvas. But oh, how I keep climbing, because in this life, this love, I know, one way or another, I am going to fly.
In 1938, Douglas Corrigan earned the nickname “Wrong Way” for mistakenly making a trip across the Atlantic from New York, when he was headed for California. I only know this because in the fifth grade, during an orienteering field trip, my team, after completing the wrong course, and also backwards, was awarded with our “Wrong Way Corrigan” certificates. I’m sure this is not the sole reason, but I have been making my own path ever since.
That’s not to say that I’m completely flockless. I have come to rely, appreciate, value and enjoy a wide array of people. And I know that I belong, but that doesn’t mean I always “fit in.” Fitting in asks you to change yourself so others accept you. Belonging asks you to stay true to yourself no matter what. This is what I encourage you to (forgive me) flock to.
So if you see me in the trees. In the sky. I’m probably the one wearing the beret, playing the violin, as most of the others sing. But isn’t it all music? Beautiful, sweet music teaches us, you don’t have to blend to belong.
I recently learned that when birds sleep in a row, the two on the outer edges keep one eye open to protect and allow those on the inside to fall asleep. It doesn’t surprise me, I have rested within that protective watch.
There is a big scientific name for it, which I’ve already forgotten, this act of being able to keep “one eye open” while being in a half sleep — we’ve always just called that “pulling an Elsie.” She had to have been doing the same thing — birding her way through every card and dice game played on her kitchen table. Able to sleep while we pondered over our next move, then waking at the exact moment to handily beat us with chirping joy! And I saw her do it everywhere. In the funeral home where she phone-sat. At the grocery store check-out line (she did indeed check out). Even once in the car. But I was never worried. The speed at which she could belly-jiggle herself awake allowed all of us to rest, to play, to run in a carefree summer, to sleep soundly under her watch.
I suppose you could just rule it all as nature. But I know not everyone was blessed with a Grandma Elsie. So I give thanks. And make my way to the outer edges.
