There were rare occasions when I saw adults cry. Gathered snuggly around my grandparent’s kitchen table. Perhaps to confine the news that came in the letter. Or the heartache of a loved one lost. To give it open space was to let it catch up to us in the summers of our youth. But sometimes, with the need for a Sugar Daddy, or a Slowpoke, I would sneak through the screen door and see it, them, dampened eyes and heads down, and my heart would sink. The ground seemed to shake beneath my bumper tennis shoes. I backed out the door.
It was my grandfather who caught up to me. Dazed and darkened under the largest tree near the road. He could see I didn’t want to be dazzled by false comfort. And he was never one to do it. “It’s like the Magpie,” he said. He was never much for small talk. He got right to the point. “What is?” I said. “The color. So black that it’s blue.” “I don’t get it.” He told me to get up. He led me back to the kitchen. Dishes had already begun clanking. There was the scent of coffee in the air. Chairs being pushed aside. Knees unbending. Even a few laughters of relief. Life. He looked down at me. “Blue,” he said. I smiled and nodded.
I have carried it for years. This knowledge, even when things are so black, they are also blue. You have to get up. You have to want to see it. But it’s always there.
I look out the morning window. He’s still right. I smile into the blue.
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.
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.
Those that play know it’s there, the piano in our library. It’s one of my favorites spots in the house. A collection of art, music, books and photos. And it will call to you, in the voice that you need to hear.
I suppose we’re all drawn to it, what we love, if we dare to follow the radar that pulses from each heart beat. I’m always surprised when people say they don’t know. It’s literally pounding inside of you. I guess they are afraid.
It has been said that we’re driven by one of two things, love or fear. Love will lead you to the piano. Will never allow it to go unplayed. Love will encourage the stumble through each note. The beginning again and again. Love will music your family in, and soon you will all be part of the song.
Fear is quiet. Lonely. Cold. (It’s not lost on me that my painting above the piano reads, “all my heart ever wanted, was just to come in from the cold.”) And it has. This is my hope for all. My welcoming.
In recent days, within minutes of entering our house, our nephew, who was vacationing from the US, was at the piano. I suppose one never takes a vacation from the self. So many miles away, almost instantly, he found his way home.
The best we can do is keep them in sight – the pianos and books, the kitchen tables, the art supplies and open corners on beds, the hearts between outstretched arms. But we all have to listen, to follow, to become. It’s up to each and every one of us to be brave enough to try. To come in. To dare the unplayed piano.
The thing was, you had to be a reader to even understand the advertisement. A book was always within arms reach, so when it aired in between Saturday morning cartoons, promoting books, I rose up from my “head in elbowed arms” position and got a little closer to the television. “Reading is fundamental,” they said. I didn’t bother to ask my mother. I had been trained by Mrs. Bergstrom at Washington Elementary, and my mother repeated it daily, so I raced to the bookshelf to pull out the giant red dictionary to “Look it up.” I put my index finger in the section marking the “f”s. My finger traced through the pages as I sounded out the words. Fe, Fo, fun, funda, fundamental! Important, necessary, I was in agreement with it all. I ran to the laundry room. Saturday meant cartoons for me, and laundry for my mother. Her head bent over pulling clothes out of the dryer, I eagerly tapped her shoulder. “Reading is fundamental,” I said proudly. “It is,” she smiled, still filling her basket. I asked her about her next load, working fundamental into the conversation, remembering that to make a word your own, you had to use it three times. I often went to four or five, just to make sure. Satisfied that I had gained ownership, I went back to the tv. I saw my library book there. I turned off the set. Grabbed my book and went back to the laundry room. Nothing was more necessary, nor more important than she was. “I better read to you,” I said. She smiled and listened. We both leaned against the rumble of the washer, gathered in the greatest importance. Together.
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.
Certainly they were attracted to us. Who wouldn’t be? Sitting on my grandparents’ front stoop. Surrounded by flowers and watermelon seeds. Slo-pokes and Sugar Daddies stuck to our hands. Of course the bees hovered around. I suppose it was instinct to wave our chubby arms in the air, to add screaming when that got them all riled up.
Grandma Elsie could easily tune us out. Clanking the dish pans a little louder. Turning up the volume of the Hortons on Days of our Lives. But my grandpa couldn’t bear the piercing sounds. Never could. He walked purposely from the garage. We elbowed each other anticipating the incoming. His speech, unlike the growth around us, was never too floral. We listened. “You know how you sit with bees?” He asked. We shook our sun pink cheeks no. “You sit with bees.” Of course it took us a minute. He was halfway back to the garage before we started smiling quietly. And he turned out to be right. As we sat, no arm flinging, no yelling, the bees calmed in our calm. We sat with bees.
If I could elbow myself I would. I often forget. I can get myself so wound up in the buzz, which always makes it worse. But then on my best days, when I am more like him, I try to be the calm that brings the calm.
Ever sticky with lingering youth, my heart smiles. And I am saved. I gently wave to the wisdom of his overalls.
My mother had two red coats. One extremely light winter coat, and another even lighter. She never wanted to be too hot, but she did want to be seen. I have both of those coats now. I love that no matter what I’m wearing, I can throw one on and look pretty good. People don’t see that maybe I still have paint on my pants, or maybe I forgot the belt. Maybe my shirt has lost the ironed crisp. As I rush through the grocery store, post office, or simply down the road — all they see is this beautiful flash of red — and I am strengthened in my mother’s blur.
These coats mean the world to me, but I was given a gift even more priceless. She first taught me how to make it with nothing at all. From the ever beige of a basement condo, a used car, a small salary, and only enough hope to fill a pocket, she taught me how to live a beautiful life. She taught me that the outer meant nothing, unless the inner was strong.
We took our dim yellow feathers to the mall frequently. Some might say we left with nothing. But that wouldn’t be true. Even when our hands were empty. No bags in tow, we were filled with joy. “Wouldn’t you rather look good in the outfit, than be able to afford it?” She asked the question often. The answer was always a laughing and resounding yes, as we soared out the revolving doors.
Half of the cardinals are given a red coat at birth. I do not envy them. Love gave me mine, thread by thread, long after I was taught to fly.
