It’s not like we were told, but I think we all assumed we had to pick one. By October in each school year at Jefferson Senior High, we fell into line. Jocks, Hoods, Preppies, Nerds, Geeks. Some of us tried to hover between band, the gym and English class, but the differences were clear. Sometimes even uniformed. The only thing I was sure about was that everyone seemed so sure in their roles. Perhaps they thought the same about me. I wasn’t.
I suppose it takes a long time to build a soul. A life. Along the way you discover parts. Tiny sparks of color that make you feel a little bit more like yourself. You grow and change. Adaptations often more regular than choice (maybe these adjustments are the real choices).
Looking at the palette that makes up my latest creation, I smile. A dab of this. A stroke of that. This collection — this beautiful mess of colors that make up my life. Yes, I am an artist. An author. But I dip my brush and I bake. I dip my brush and play yard sports with the kids. I dip my brush and travel. Play fashion show. And read. And build. And change. Stroke by stroke, I am given my wings. Not confined by stereotypes or assumptions. I am my own blend of feathers. And one way or another, I am going to fly!
Waking up to the clank of cousins eating cereal from the variety packs grandma bought, I ran down the stairs to the kitchen. There was no need to change from pajamas. Summer shorts and t-shirts were the pajamas we wore straight into the day, and back into the night. Even though we believed our summers would never end, this did save valuable time.
Maybe it was because of the example my grandpa set — he went out to work no matter the weather — or maybe it was our springing youth, but we never asked what it was like outside. Never questioned if we should go. It was expected, from them and us. We wanted to. If it was sunny, we ran until the sweat drained from our t-shirts. In the rain we hopped from barn to coop.
Wearing my smallest pair of bumper tennis shoes from Iverson’s in town, I asked my grandma during a rootbeer break if she was having a good day. “Of course,” she said, “I already decided.” I raised my eyes and shook my head in agreement. So it was like that, I thought. Just decide. I wiped my rootbeer mustache with my shoulder, and went back out into my decision — it was a good day.
The landscape keeps changing as we drive the country. This morning we wake to the white sand beaches. If it’s the beaches, I think, it’s going to be a good day, I already decided.
For most things, an outfit for example, my mother’s decisions were slow and methodical, including several trips to the store, three-way mirrors, test runs with the right shoes, the accenting jewelry, the perfect shade of make-up applied in the proper lighting. Such gentle care she took to reach her destination. So it was surprising to me, on any given road trip, how quickly she could decide whether a city was the right stop for her. It wasn’t often, but it was swift and sure when it happened. Pulling off the exit, as I opened my car door, her decision would be made. “Nope,” she would say, and I knew she wouldn’t be getting out of the car. “I hate it,” she said. And just in case her point wasn’t clear, she added, “with a passion.” The echo of my laughter rang in the rear view mirror as we pulled out of town.
But that’s how we did all things I suppose, with a passion. The cds turned along with the wheels beneath us and we sang! We sang as if each lyric was happening to us at that very moment. It was, we were, wild and free! So many things in this life are out of our control. And maybe that’s why she did it — say no. It feels so good. So freeing. To decide what’s right for you. Not out of spite or anger, but pure passion, passion for your own life, your own living.
We pulled into the city yesterday (I won’t say which one – we all have our own right to decide.) I had to use the restroom. Dominique kept one hand on the car door. The words were French, and not exactly identical, but I knew we weren’t staying. I laughed as we sang ourselves down the road…with a passion.
I never asked for toys. My friends had every page of the Sears Christmas catalog marked. It wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to make something. Something I could paint. Something I could form, or mold, or color. Because I saw it as an extension. When they opened their gifts — their plastic toys — the excitement was there for a minute, but it seemed to end. For me, to get the gift of creation, it was like I got to open a new gift every day. It kept giving and giving.
Thumbing through my photos this morning, all the lights of Christmas were shining. And for just a brief second, my heart felt a little melancholy. It’s all so fast. How do we keep those lights burning? I reached into my suitcase for the answer. A gift I received. A beautiful leather bound book of ancient paper. Ready. Waiting. Just for me to create. I touch it. Feel the possibility. The endless hours to come. The love in the gift that says “I know you.” Once again I am five years old, beginning, warmed by the light of it all.
I suppose we’re all given that gift, daily. The day opens and we get to decide what we’re going to make of it.
Let me always see the gift. Ever be part of the giving.
From the moment she introduced the assignment to the class, I had a plan. It wouldn’t be hard to find a shoe box to make the diorama. My mom loved shoes. She had a closet full of them.
Mrs. Bergstrom told us that we were going to make a “slice of life” — capture a miniature moment. We could do anything. She suggested scissors and cardboard and paint and crayons. Glue of course, Elmer’s. My head was spinning. Oh, how I loved to make things.
There was an hour after I got off the bus before my mom got home from work. I could have waited. I should have waited. But my seven year old self whispered, then shouted, “Don’t wait!” I opened my mother’s closet and took out the first box in reach. I took out the shiny shoes neatly resting head to toe in tissue paper. I’d like to think There was a moment I think, I hope, that I thought of keeping them wrapped in the tissue paper, but then that shouting self said it might be useful for my diorama — “If you colored it blue and crinkled it up, glued it to the box, it could be one of our 10,000 lakes.” The shoes were left naked on the floor.
I was knee deep, literally, in cuts and folds and colors by the time my mom got home. I was all smiles when I looked up at her from her bedroom floor. Holding the cut-out of myself.
She didn’t return a look of delight like I was expecting. No, it was a look I had never seen before. Deflation. I had been so busy trying to create my own slice, that I forgot about hers.
“It’s my slice of life…” I said sheepishly. She nodded. “And also mine,” she added. She helped me pick up the mess. Put it all on the kitchen table. She wasn’t mad. She even helped me finish. But I knew at that moment, it wasn’t all about me. I took special care to add lovely shoes to the figure that represented her in my tiny box. We were in this together.
I painted a bookmark yesterday of Maya Angelou. At the top are her words, “Then when you know better, do better.” It’s a good reminder for me. It’s simple, but so worth repeating. We are not alone in this life. We would do well to remember as we wander through each other’s dioramas. The word itself in French means, “through that which is seen.” My mother saw me. And I saw her. And oh, how she she made me, still makes me, want to do better.
If you find a pair of underpants that you love, it’s nearly guaranteed that they will stop making them. The same is true for bras and any kind of make-up. I’m sure there’s the male equivalent, but this is about me.
Being nearly out of my well advanced stock from Herberger’s (my mother saw to that), I recently went to Target to try something new. I picked out a pair. There was a good deal if you bought three, but who needs three if you don’t end up liking them. I bought one pair, with the idea that after a test run, (and yes, running would be a part of the test — if you read about the airport disaster of 2022, me running, dragging carry-on with one arm and holding up underpants with the other, then you know), I would return to get my deal on three more.
Holding their place on waist and in my heart, I did return to Target, only to find two. The clerk on the floor folding baby clothes in the aisle across the way on Christmas Eve was certain they were out and really had no interest in helping me look for the third, the last wiseman of my Christmas miracle. I searched through all the sizes, no more smalls. Only two. I bought them at full price.
I mention it only because life is about change. When Herberger’s left years ago, so did I. Not for the same reasons, but still…
We get to choose how we see things — No, I didn’t find three together… but I did find two! And one before. And I like them.
It’s the 26th of December. That could be a letdown for some. I remove the tiny hangers from my new underpants, and get ready for the day. The house is still filled with love. The possibilities are endless. And I can move about, run even – hands free – this is my tiny miracle. And I choose to celebrate! Happy 26th!
Where your heart can rest, and your mind can wander, I guess that’s home.
We pulled into the town. I felt no connection. That feeling when you know you’re lonesome, but you just can’t pinpoint for what. We drove the Main Street. How could there be no parking spaces and yet nothing to park for? We turned on 10th per Google’s direction for coffee. It must have closed. Try ninth, she suggested. Driving slowly I saw the coffee shop, next to a bookstore. Yes!
The first sip was the familiar road. Entering the bookstore, well, that was home.Nestled in all those words, I was wander-welcomed. It’s a rare combination, this feeling of calm and excitement. This feeling that anything could be true, could be real, even the story of yourself.
I don’t have a physical place to go to, in the sense that some would call home. Not my grandparents’, nor my mother’s house. But I have something else. I have the stories they gave to me. I can take them anywhere. Everywhere.
Recently I found a note, a birthday card, tucked into one of my mom’s books. It was from her mother. I don’t know for which birthday. It would have been true any year. She wrote of what a lovely daughter she was and how she made the world a better place. These words are the open doors to my forever. My safe. My possible.
I’m the lucky one. I can walk into this unfamiliar bookstore, in this unfamiliar town, and be gathered in. Sensing the stories I carry, the words that rest on shelf and table say, “Come in, you and your heart sit down.” I do. We do. We all are home. Indeed, a better place.
My grandma pulled into her driveway. Put the car in Park. I unbuckled my seatbelt. Pulled up the lever to unlock the door. As she opened her door, she looked over at me and said, “Don’t say anything about her arms…”
I didn’t have time to question her. She was already half way to the front door.
My grandmother made quilts. She made rugs. Some of her friends did too. The friend we were visiting on this day had a giant loom. And apparently, something wrong with her arms. I raced my six year old legs behind her. My grandma pushed me through the door first. Her hand on the small of my back was both the courage and decisiveness I needed. She had done it since I could walk. Even when she was phone sitting at the funeral home, she guided me through each room in this very way. She taught me to enter boldly and gently. To greet whomever was inside. (Even the ones who were no longer with us.) So with the help of her farm hand, I entered the home of the loom woman. She was the largest woman I had ever seen. I’d like to think I didn’t stare, but the extra pinch on my back said differently. “Hello,” I said. I told her my name. “Ivy’s daughter,” my grandma continued. We went to the loom. Her giant arms waved in a way that impressed us differently, but we were equally amazed at the beauty she could create.
My grandma didn’t travel. But you would be mistaken to say that she didn’t see the world. She taught me that not all who lead are out front. Someone has to be there. Behind you. To support you. To make sure you walk through that door. Even when you are uncertain. Perhaps afraid. To present yourself with the assurance of who you are, where you come from. And through it all, to be kind.
I have seen more of the world than I ever could have imagined on that gravel road. But I know, I have never walked through any door alone.
The way they warned us, the teachers at Washington Elementary, trouble seemed to be a place, a spot. “Don’t get into trouble,” they said. The only “trouble” I was having was figuring out where this place was exactly. Because when the teacher said, “Now Steven is in trouble,” he seemed to still be right there, sitting beside us. Hadn’t he said “present,” when she called out his name? Why couldn’t I understand? How come I couldn’t see it? Maybe trouble was invisible, I thought.
It sounds funny, I suppose, but it turns out, I wasn’t all that wrong. We never know what people are going through. We see the outsides so easily, but that’s usually not the whole story. To see the real story, we need to actually be present. It’s not enough to just call it out. We have to be there. Show up. Again and Again. And ask questions when we don’t understand. Listen. Raise our hands. Reach out. Find a way to connect. See with our hearts what our eyes cannot. Make all around us visible.
And if you saw that I am not just my face, but all that I have faced, and if I did that for you…
Throughout all of history, hearts have laughed at what the hands try to carry.
I always overpack. It all seems so necessary, so “I can’t live without it,” until I have to drag it from car to hotel to car again.
I write the stories of my hometown daily. I have them with me, even a country, and what some may call a lifetime away. Truth be told, driving into town yesterday, almost none of it is there. The pool were I learned to swim is gone. My high school is an empty lot. What’s left of my middle school is part of the courthouse. Washington Elementary — condos. Even the old public library — empty. So why do I still hear the words? Feel the splashes? Raise my hopeful hand in a class that isn’t there?
Waking up in the Best Western, I certainly can’t call this home, can I? My bursting suitcases try to make the case, with things that I brought from France. Things I picked up in Minneapolis. Duluth. Brainerd. Vintage shirts purchased from the Alex thrift store reminding me of when I was a Cardinal. I suppose we’re all trying to gather in the proof that being here matters. (Wherever that here may be.) And we struggle to drag that proof beside us. And the funny thing is, I know the answer. I have written it. Painted it. Lived it. What remains may only be in the heart.
Sitting with friends yesterday in memory’s laughter of burned pizzas, and chances taken, tears shared and future plans, everything is still alive. Pools and teachers and libraries and mothers. Everything remains. Brushing against arms. Leaning into hugs. I know my heart is the only suitcase I need. And it fills, even when full. It’s all that matters.
