It was the first thing we always checked — the lighting in the bathroom. Whether hotel or apartment, this was the most important thing, my mother taught me. After all, she explained, a lady had to get her face on in the proper light. And she always did. I watched her do it. Even on her darkest days, she began each morning in the bathroom light. Transferring it to her face. Going to work with a heavy heart, and a well-lit smile. In my younger years, I imagined the corners of her mouth attached like pulleys, lifting her heart into that same light. Just typing it now, mine did the same.
When traveling to different art shows across the United States, I would call her when arriving, and the first thing she would ask was “How is the lighting?” I only just realized, maybe it had always been code for “how is your heart?”
Even in the last apartment she lived in, we checked it first. She used her walker to get into the light. It was perfect, she said. She had already decided. Maybe this is what I loved about her the most — this decision to find the light. To become it. Smile by heart.
She could get her face on in here, she said. She filled the adjacent cupboard with the finest make-up. Moisturizers. Creams. She put them on each morning. Her lip-lined corners once again pulling up her heart.
Missing her now, I’m asked to do the same. And I do. Morning by morning. Smile by smile. My heart gets lifted. Into the light.
I don’t know who it belonged to. It certainly wasn’t my grandma — even though we found it, my cousins and I, in her upstairs closet. Digging beneath the sombrero, the military uniform and the extra bedding, we jumped back, toppling over each other on the hardwood floor. Was it alive? It had eyes! Fur! What was it??? With a pool cue from the corner of the closet, we moved it into view. A dead fox. Long straight, headed and tailed. Did it crawl in from the field for a siesta (under the sombrero on this Minnesota farm)? And then died? We kicked it down the stairs beside my grandma standing in front of the kitchen sink. (She was always in front of the sink, yet the dishes were never done — but that’s another story.)
“It’s just a stole,” she said, “a fox stole.” Not understanding the word, we assumed the dead fox was now some sort of robber. “No, to wear around your neck,” she said. The explanations kept getting worse. It was unimaginable. We threw it at each other. Maybe she said who it belonged to, but I don’t think so. We soon grew tired of it. We would have left it on the kitchen floor, but she told us to put it back, never asking why she wanted to keep it. We loved her. So we did.
The only accessory we knew Grandma Elsie to wear was an apron. And that was enough for us. She donned what some called sensible shoes and house dresses, which made it easy, I suppose, for us to forget that she was not just a grandma, but a woman of this world.
Pardon the reference, but it’s hard to see “everything, everywhere, all at once.” We get bits of people, glimpses really. We grab onto the parts that serve us best, and a lot remains, well, in the closet. This is not to say we need to know everything about everyone. But I think it’s good to realize that we don’t know everything. People have riches and reasons that we will never realize. And instead of being afraid of that, we should respect it, celebrate it even.
I don’t know if my grandma was ever in Mexico. But in my head she was. Possibly even wearing a fox stole. Or maybe it was just Great Aunt Ellen’s. Maybe she bought it at Tvrdik’s garage sale, just up the road. It doesn’t really matter. What I love is that there was a world to discover in her home. A home where we were allowed to run free. To become exactly who we wanted to be. This beautiful farmhouse, with security and surprise, that grew so much, grew so many.
According to the song, we were not yet even “puppies,” but each morning around 8:15 — just after being dropped off of the school bus at Washington Elementary, and just before Miss Green began our 5th grade class — we sang alongside the turntable with Donny Osmond, “And they called it puppy love Just because we’re in our teens…”
Of course we weren’t in our teens, but even just having a record player, we felt old enough to experience all the emotions. The closest we actually got to boys was playing four square on the playground. We rotated through the boxes, never touching, hovering somewhere between wanting to beat them and wanting to be liked. I suppose we thought the answers would come in the next song. But none of us actually had the money to buy a new 45 at Carlson’s Music Center, so we sang it again and again, “
Someone, help me, help me, help me please. Is the answer up above? How can I, oh how can I tell them,this is not a puppy love.”We began to lean on Mr. Iverson, our music teacher. Each week he gathered us together to learn a new song — new meaning new to us, but certainly old, perhaps older than our parents. We were desperate for new. “Please please please,” we begged, “let us sing something from the radio.” Our hands shot up straight in the air when he asked for suggestions. “Seasons in the sun” was the overwhelming response. They played it constantly on KDWB, the radio station that intermittantly came in from Minneapolis. Unfamiliar with the lyrics, he said he would play the record and decide. He placed it on the turntable and immediatlely his face turned. None of us had heard the actual verses. We were all just mesmorized by the chorus — “We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun…” Unfortunately, the majority of the song was about dying. Somehow we had missed that. He scratched the record racing to get the needle out of the groove. I guess we were all in such a hurry to become older, at least puppies, that we missed it.
And that’s the gift, isn’t it? I’m always surprised as summer turns into fall. It happens year after year, and I’m still hovering between the bus ride and when class actually begins. Luxuriating in the 15 minutes of unsupervised freedom. Still ready to believe. To become. To begin again.
I’d like to think that I’m smart enough to see the choices, the solutions, the options even, that are right in front of me, (I suppose we’d all like to think that), but I must admit I often need a little shove.
My guardian angel must have perfected her eye roll by now, as I wander past the obvious signs until finally being clunked on the head, thinking, oh look what I discovered. And still, she allows me the victory.
I was stopped in my tracks yesterday on the all too familiar path. A group of tree trimmers told me I couldn’t pass back this way. I had been thinking for the last week or so that I was getting bored with this route, this form of exercise. But yet I kept walking the same gravel. Feeling a little annoyed, I crossed the river, started walking the route that I hadn’t visited for maybe six months. Half way down the path I saw it. A complete Fit Park — filled with bikes, an elliptical, a rower, weights, stair stepper, everything. I sheepishly smiled. Alright…I get it.
I went back in the afternoon. So pleased with my discovery. (I can hear the laughter as I type it — “my” discovery.)
It’s not lost on me that we studied the poem in junior high. The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. Went through it word by word. Wrote the paper. Knowing, I would be the one who so easily took the different paths. I wouldn’t be afraid. I would be living the words,
“I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” And for the most part, I can say that I have. I have lived this. But not all by my own doing. I have been led, and pushed and guided and loved through it all. And as I read through the words now, I think maybe it has always been the love. Love that let me wander. Love that sat beside me when I was tired. Love that dared me to continue. Love that offered me to stay. Love that each day, even after stumbling along in rock filled shoes, produces a grateful grin on my sheepish heart.
“If you know wilderness in the way you know love, you would be unwilling to let it go.” Terry Tempest Williams
Maybe it was because one of my after school Thursday chores was dusting. Or that my tennis shoes were never white. That winter’s snowballs often contained bruising tiny pebbles. Or that my mom’s car forever needed washing. There were many reasons to dislike the gravel of Van Dyke road. I felt unmodern. Somehow behind. I had a sense of urgency to catch up. To go beyond. And certainly the graveled pace of this childhood road was only slowing me down.
I chased the pavement. Off to school. Jobs. Apartments. Books and art. Creation. Life. Smooth beneath, it all went so fast. My bike. My car. Even my shoes clicked along at a feverish pace.
A country away, I hear it again, the slow crunch of gravel beneath my feet as I walk my daily route. My feet found their way back to the wilderness they ran from. Tiny pebbles say, “but you were hurt there.” Yes, I whisper. Massive rocks that line hills and turn into mountains say, “But you were loved there.” “Yes!” I shout.
I have paid and paved my way in dust. Love walks with me. Slowing me down? Enough to see, I think. To feel. And I will never let it go.
We felt like we knew a secret. Decoding DKNY. Donna Karan New York. She was one of the first designers displayed as you entered City Center in downtown Minneapolis. My mom and I thought it was like entering the magic kingdom. The greatest part was that we shared the key.
We spent most of our time in the designer sections. We couldn’t afford to buy it. We couldn’t afford to miss it. We tried on everything. And the matching shoes. It was never about having, it was about seeing. Experiencing. Adoring, not only the clothes, but this time together.
Yesterday, walking in Aix en provence, I was listening to a podcast. It was the designer that first helped Donna Karan launch her brand. They were both just starting out. Both New Yorkers, with all the love that entails. The designer listened as Karan expressed her love for New York, as they sat under the Brooklyn Bridge. It reminded him of the story of why he was in love with this city. As a young boy, his grandfather — a fishmonger — would bring him to this bridge in the middle of the night. They set up for the early morning sales. His grandfather gave him this bridge. Gave him this dream. With this beating inside of him, it was so natural, so easy for him to create the branding for Donna Karan. He included the image of the bridge. The words New York. And gave birth to both of their careers.
I imagine my mother, sitting in my grandfather’s pickup. Sweaty legs against the vinyl seat, at the last stoplight before turning into town. Waiting anxiously for him to put the truck into gear, place his foot on the gas, and take her across the “Brooklyn Bridge” of her heart and into the city of Alexandria.
He took her to Alex. She took me to Minneapolis. I eventually took her to New York. Love always leads us. Helps us cross over, to the beauty that lies ahead.
It’s unlikely they are Laura Ingalls Wilder fans, but she is my first thought as I pass the sign each day on my walk. It points and reads, “La Petite Maison” — the little house. Surrounded by trees on the gravel path, I am transported from the south of France to the northwest of Minnesota, crouched in the corner of our living room, reading “Little House in the Big Woods,” by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
I read all of her books. Each one a safe haven to dream. Moving me forward from place to place. Opening doors. Revealing the possibilities of words, of stories, of living. They were the cars of my underground railroad.
With each gift comes a responsibility. I, we, were given so much. So easily. And I don’t think it’s enough to just give thanks — thanks for the path. We need to keep digging. Keep paving. Putting up the signs, as small as they may be. Because someone will see them. Will feel them. These small acts of kindness. These words of hope. These gravel roads to possibility.
I continuously have a rock in my shoe. I think that’s the wink of the universe. A reminder of where I’ve been. A reminder to keep going. That my tiny life, as petite as it may be in this “Big Woods,” has to matter. Has to mean something. So I gather the words and the pebbles and make paths. Walking ahead. Walking behind. Walking beside. Always with you.
My mom was dizzy for most of her life. An imbalance in her inner ear. We had only been on the cruise ship for a short time when it began — a tumbling in my brain that went directly to my stomach. An inner violence I had never felt before. I spent the first day hugging porcelain. My mom seemed fine. I couldn’t believe it. How was she doing it? “Oh, I always feel like this,” she said, shrugging it off. And she went in search of the captain, humming the theme song to The Love Boat.
I got a couple of shots from the ship’s doctor, easing the symptoms and allowing me to navigate while on the ship. The only problem was, it seemed to be overcompensating, and walking on land was a struggle. So this is what they meant by a drunken sailor? It lasted even after returning home. The long hallway in my apartment building proved very challenging, and for nearly a week, I serpentined my way from the garage to my door. Once again, I marveled at the silent strength of my mother, and kept walking.
Yesterday, I went out for my normal afternoon walk. A quarter of the way through, my left earbud stopped working. It didn’t make sense to turn back, so I continued on. But it felt so strange. I couldn’t seem to adjust. I felt partial. Incomplete. Off balance. I kept walking. In search of my other voice. I only mention it because it occurred to me, this is what it’s like to lose someone you love. The world hasn’t changed, but your way of navigating through it is completely different. But you keep walking. The sun still shines. The trees are lovely. The ground is solid. The birds are humming. I see my mother skipping off to a different deck.
I was given the strength long ago. Now is the time to use it.
Cluttered with nightmares and nonsense, I don’t normally put that much stock into my dreams. But all last night, I was trying to sign up for another year of university. Hour after hour I searched for the registration. Went through the pamphlets. Made appointments with my advisor. Even after waking up twice, I went right back to it. Would I rent the apartment near campus? Would I get an advanced degree? Academia all night long. I’m not complaining – it was far from the normal hauntings. So was it a sign?
Signs are funny things. They are probably all around us – all the time. Some meant for us. Some maybe not. Some gathered in. Some trampled over. I guess it is what we choose to see. And maybe when we miss it, it repeats itself. Over and over again. Until we pay attention.
I guess it’s time for me to keep learning. Or maybe, it’s a sign to tell myself that I AM still learning. I will forever be learning. And that is not a nightmare, but a gift. And that’s a hard one for me to, well, learn. I can get myself trapped in a worry. Stuck in a pattern of fearing the unknown. But it will always be there — through all the nightmares and nonsense — there will be growth. There will be challenges. There will be learning. Beauty in it all.
The sun rises brand new, telling me, “If I’m not happy in this time, in this place, I’m not paying attention.”
It sold almost immediately after she put it in the window of her gallery in Wayzata — this 4’ lighthouse painting. I suppose we are all looking for the light. We painters and sailors. We who bob up and down. Knocked over, then lifted, by the same waves.
I’ve always been a morning person. Everything seems possible in the morning. Everything lightened, not just in color, but weight. But, oh, that nighttime. That darkness. Oooh, that can really get away with me. I’ve always tried to fight it. But recently, I’ve tried something new. Not fighting, but challenging. Not going toe to toe with it, round and round with it in my brain. When those thoughts start creeping in, I acknowledge them. “I see you,” I say. “But not tonight. We can talk about it again in the morning if we need to.” It’s not a perfect system, but it seems to be helping.
I have always been up for a challenge. But rarely a fight. My grandfather taught me that in the fields. My mother taught me that in the trenches. Both houses of hope, of light.
I heard a line in a song once, “My heart is a boat on the sea.” That feels about right. So I keep riding the waves, toward the light. Hopeful for all the light to come. Grateful for all the shine I have been given.
The gallery was named The Good Life. How appropriate I thought, it is indeed. I woke to all of the possibilities coming through my window, and said to the sun, “Challenge accepted.”
