A robin is never just a robin. Nor a wren a wren. I can sit in front of my sketchbook for hours daily, and never paint the same thing twice. It’s always a different flight. A different branch. An old man with a new bird. A woman making another choice.
Heraclitus said, “No one ever steps into the same river twice.” For the river is not the same river and the person is not the same person. Isn’t it the same with love and friendship and simply living. And it shouldn’t be frightening. What a thing! — to be given a new river daily. A new chance to do the right thing. It’s what the poets hope for, the singers wish for, and what all of us waking to this new day simply get, joyfully receive, by opening our eyes. But will we see it? — how extraordinary it is to be given another chance. To come to the river, with fresh eyes and hearts and hands, and make a difference.Knee deep I tell myself, I tell you, this is not yesterday’s river. Nor yesterday’s wren. We can do better. We must do better. Good morning.
I only saw it last night. Could it have come sooner, or was it right on time? Awakening in the thick sky of wee hours, I had left the shutter open, and saw how it wasn’t simply dark, but so black it was blue, like a Magpie. And if it were a bird, this absence of light, couldn’t it just as easily gather those night weary worries under wing? Couldn’t it say, this is not for you to carry? Not now. Not in this light. This is the color of letting go. This is the color of release.
Some say a Magpie will steal anything. I don’t know if that’s true, but if they did, if they do, I decide to leave my concerns above cover, and let them take it. And I give thanks for the thief of worry. No longer bruised, but released by the black and blue of it all. And I am saved.
“Women in pain become birds.” I just read that. I often find myself looking around for the cameras that are surely filming me in this episode. And as I flutter through the inexplicable planned randomness of the page, I think, yes, but not in the way the author meant — small. No, I think women do become birds, but there is beautiful strength in that. A grandness of sky. Adapting in mid flight. Hovering. Not avoiding the breeze, but feeling it. Using it. All while dressed and feathered.
I say this, not in praise of my own wings, but marveling at those before me. I have been nested and pushed by the best. Elsied and Ivyed into the blue. Words like small were replaced with capable, and I learned to fly.
It’s not to say that days won’t be fragile. That we won’t be fragile. But we have been given everything we need. Mostly love.
I wrote it long ago. The truth of it still lifts me. “She believed in the pure randomness of it all. It could happen to anyone at any time, pain, happiness, confusion, even love.”
It’s not lost on me that the words are so similar. So often when painting the birds, I feel the smiling, winged “wink” from above.
He didn’t really know me, when he commissioned the painting for his wife. (Didn’t know that I have a “bird by bird” daily regime.) When I finished, he asked if I could add a little something special on the back. “Could you paint a bird in flight?” I looked around the open sky to see who was watching, “Yes,” I smiled, “I could paint a bird…”
I painted for her a yellow bird to match the yellow house on the front. And I wasn’t sure if they were led to me, or I was chosen, or if we all simply met mid flight. And I suppose it’s that idea that I like the most, thinking we’re all just trying to make this journey a little lighter, a little more joyful… and wouldn’t it be something if we did our best to lift each other, even with just a wink and a smile.
Anyway, it’s always a good reason to keep looking up.
I don’t know how many fallen bird nests I saw. I stopped counting when my mom assured me that the birds did not fall with it. “They flew…” she said. “But were they sad to leave?” I asked. Never one to sugarcoat things, or possibly she knew how close we were to living the same truth, she said, “For a little while, maybe, but then they realized the sky was theirs too.”
Everything changes. That’s life. But it doesn’t have to signify a fall. I’m getting better at noticing it. Sometimes mid flap, but I get there. So many nests get taken away, or are simply left behind. But comfort can be found. Again and again.
We are all given the tools. For me, wings are disguised as paint brushes and letters. Ruffled blouses and open paths. And every day I fly. The sky is always there. It turns out the answer remains — just to look up.
Dining outside yesterday, alongside an urban, but calm street, the beams of sun, just like the cars, hummed gently, no need for brake or throttle. And I felt simply in it. There was life and motion, not to throw but inspire. A slow dance of body in air. And would I have felt different, being a blade of grass? Reaching. Among. Within. About.
How do you capture a sunny day? I’ve been trying. Foolish, I suppose. To be a blade afraid of winter. When all there is, is green.
And isn’t it the same with love? Not lost. Even in its final winter, there will be spring. I feel the hum of those who have passed. Music in my heart. No need for brake or throttle, it stays alive within me. My ever green. My sunny days.
It was our first book connection. The fact that we were even exchanging notes of literature was a good sign. My Antonia. His in French, mine in English, but the story was the same. And we were linked.
I suppose it’s like how some will save ticket stubs from a concert, or flowers dried in a box, to serve as reminders. It’s the same for me in a bookstore. I saw it on the shelf yesterday. I picked it up and held it towards him. We both smiled. On the back of the jacket it read, “Antonia had always been one to leave images in the mind that did not fade.” The Antonia of my heart did, does, the same.
People always ask me, “how do you remember?” I guess it’s love that leaves the images. And if I feel the slip, I race to paper or pen, to computer or sketchbook, and gather them in. Is every detail perfect? I can’t be sure. But I know it doesn’t have to be. I’m not making a map. I don’t need to travel back, only travel with. And those images, those feelings, they are secure. They will not fade.
Coming out of the restaurant she told me, “I love your hair! You look so sassy and smart!” The thank yous were still tumbling from my smile when she said, “But I guess that comes from the inside, doesn’t it..” My heart was smiling too.
Now, I consider myself pretty good at giving compliments, but this was something! She took “beautiful inside and out” to a whole new level. And she seemed as happy as I was, to give it. Bravo to the lady outside Martina’s Restaurant.
My mother was the first to teach me how to give a compliment. (And just by being herself, she gave me ample reason to want to.) She also taught me how to receive it, as the gift that is given.
It’s curious, we wouldn’t do it with a regular gift, refuse a birthday present let’s say. We wouldn’t put our hands out and say No! So why do so many do it with a compliment? “Oh no, not me,” or “not this old thing,” they’ll say, while backing themselves away. When really, thank you, is all that is needed. That is the reciprocal gift.
I’m still receiving this offering in the morning mirror. (Never underestimate the power of a compliment.) And I think the bar has been raised. So I challenge myself. I challenge you. Today, let’s give the compliments freely. (Even to ourselves.) And accept them with joy — so much joy that we have to bundle it and give it away again. Would that make us sassy? I don’t know, but it would make us smart!
Some would argue that in the song “Feeling Good,” the singer has already found their desired freedom. Others say that they are singing to convince themselves of the possibility. I seem to be, not unlike the dragonfly, somewhere hovering in between.
The birds have their songs. The bees, their honey. So what about that dragonfly? Are we not in the same sky? Under the same sun? Sure we’re not all given the same gifts, the same advantages, but we are given the same day. The same 24 hours to make the most of it. I don’t want to waste my time envying the bird, but celebrating my own flight.
And I don’t always get it right. But on those days, I try to sing even louder —
“It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day It’s a new life for me, yeah It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day It’s a new life for me, ooh And I’m feeling good!”
There’s a reason for the chorus. The importance of it. That’s why it’s repeated again and again. So on the days when I make the same mistakes, I sing myself out. Not with shame or worry, but simply a welcoming of the chorus.
When he saw the painting of my grandfather he asked if we still had the farm. I paused, stuck in who the “we” would even be. I started passing it down in my head, from uncle to cousin, to second cousin, (none to whom I felt a collective we). It passed again in my head to I’m not sure, to finally, it didn’t really even matter, because, I told him, “I still have everything.” And I do.
Even a lifetime and country away, I can feel the warmth of the rock at the base of the driveway. The same steady of my grandfather. The gravel beneath my feet. The jolt of an electric fence. The smell of apples, on and off the trees. The sandy feel of a cow’s tongue. The bounce of a screen door. The scent of my grandma’s kitchen. My face against her sticky apron. The ever damp basement. Jesus on the cross upstairs. Prayed to from the kitchen table. The sewing room that stitched all nine children’s lives together. The front stoop that promised the scent of tobacco and hope. My mother laughing in that kitchen. Crying in that kitchen. Hands folded at that table. Driving away from the rock one last time, never really leaving.
So, yes, I still have the farm. And the we is all who listen to the stories. The we is you who remember your own grandmother’s apron. Who read the words and climb upon your grandfather’s lap. We still have it all. We have everthing.
Something will grow from all of this, and it will be me.
