I fell in love with France again yesterday. I finally received news of my visa. It should be in my hands on Monday. It was all just paperwork. I had done everything correctly. Followed all the rules. Passed the exams. In my head, I suppose, I knew it would come, but my heart… As the delay turned from months to almost a year, I was getting very anxious. Because without this French visa, I was basically held prisoner. Sure, I could leave, but I wouldn’t be allowed back in France. Back home. And it began to change the colors of everything. I walked in the shadows. How can you love the very thing that grips your ankle? Pulls at the back of your shirt?
It was just a few words that Dominique received on his phone, telling us that we could come in on Monday. I was out kicking my daily path when he passed the message on to me. I floated down the hill on tears of joy. The Sainte Victoire mountain winked at me to say, “I love you too.” And it was true, I was in love again.
This morning’s croissant tasted rich in French butter. We spoke of Paris. The Olympics will be coming here soon. The thumb that tipped my scale has been released and I feel, oh, so very light! I am in love.
I guess all love is based in freedom. It can’t be contained or held captive. No one can be forced into the feeling.
The very thing that makes me want to stay is knowing that I’m free to come and go. Love’s shutters are flung wide open! Bonjour!
“Let someone in. Let someone go. After you’ve seen it all, you won’t remember the windows and doors, but who passed through.” Jodi Hills
There is an empty space where the painting hung. It sold yesterday, Lake Agnes. My first thought, of course, was of joy, but my second thought was of Herberger’s. More specifically, the Herberger’s store that used to be in Alexandria, Minnesota.
My mom, served as the unofficial ambassador. She knew every clerk. Every shopper. For her, and a majority of the town, Herberger’s was not just retail, but social.
Carol worked in the shipping department, right next to the office. My mom would see her when she went to pay her bill. They became friends. It was only after a few conversations that my mom was retrieving empty cardboard boxes to bring to me to use for shipping artwork. I was shipping daily to stores and galleries, so my box bill would have been a fortune. They had a need to recycle — it worked out well for everyone. My mom would fill the back of her hatchbacked Ford Focus and drive them to me in Minneapolis. We then took the time for coffee, wine and shopping. By Sunday evening her car was filled with bags from Anthropologie or Sundance or Macy’s, and the joyful cycle continued.
Of course nothing was the exact size. I became an expert at creating boxes. I could score and trim and shrink wrap and tape with the best of them. It might sound odd to say, but I was proud of it. Still am.
Yesterday I went to the garage and found two scraps (I use the term with affection) of cardboard, and a large amount of bubble wrap. The cardboard was from some garden tool that Dominique ordered, and the bubble wrap from a guitar that was given as a gift to the kids. They weren’t dirty, but still I vacuumed and wiped each piece sparkling clean. I wrapped it with precision. The box is square and strong. The painting is, and will be safe.
I smile as it sits beside me. Knowingly part of my story. Even as I live a country away, and Herberger’s is long closed, I know what, who, helped get me here.
The world is changing. Artificial intelligence is nipping at our heels. People are contemplating if it will take over the arts. I don’t think so. I certainly hope not. Sure, I suppose it’s possible to create the painting. But what you can’t manufacture is the story. The lives involved in one piece of art. Carol folding boxes. The Herberger’s store manager helping my mom load the car. My mom. Her love and support. Telling all who would listen. It fills me still.
This painting that I sell today is of Lake Agnes. One of the first lakes I knew in my hometown. It will ship from France and travel to Arkansas, carrying the stories of those who first lifted me.
I suppose it’s only natural to get used to things. Even the things we dreamed about for years can become ordinary while living them. And we all want to be comfortable. There’s nothing wrong with that. But the shine, I don’t want to lose that. So I make the small changes. Daily.
It might sound silly, but for me, it’s the little things. I change the painting in my direct view from the breakfast table. And this brand new, this shiny comfort, reflects my smile, and the day begins.
After lunch is my usual reading time. I switch up the place. Moving daily from chair, to bed, to outdoor hammock. Yesterday’s sun jumped off the pages as I swayed above the grass.
Being my mother’s daughter, it is not only my joy, but my responsibility, to change my clothes frequently throughout the day. The more challenging the day, the more changes. I will hold the conversation in my head. Clutching my pearls, sometimes real, sometimes imaginary. Humbly offering my thanks. Accepting the worked-for shine that only a mirror and a mother’s memory can reflect.
Now some might say, well it’s easy for you, you live in a beautiful country. You have inspiration all around. Yes, that’s true. But I don’t eat breakfast under the Eiffel Tower each morning. I, like everyone else, am not given a reason to get out of bed…I (we) have to get out of bed and go find that reason every day.
I don’t know what today will bring. I’m not even sure what I’ll wear, or how long I’ll wear it. The clouds overhead say, “you’re on your own today.” I smile. “I’ve got this,” I say. And set out to find my shine.
She yelled, “Sur la table!” We all sat down for the evening meal. The conversation began immediately. It was when I first arrived in France. When they still took the time to translate. Dominique’s cousin said they were talking about food. I smiled and looked at the full table. “Oh, not just this food,” she explained. “You see in France, while we’re eating the meal, we talk about the last meal we had, the one in front of us, and the next meal we’re going to make.” Food is life here.
I was never really a fast-food American. Some of my favorite memories with my mom included the slow intake of small portions over a long evening in my apartment. I would buy the best of what I could afford. The tiniest cut of cheese. Bread from the Great Harvest. A bottle of red. We gathered in the memories of the day that moved between laughter and tears, back to laughter again, all tender. Then decaf coffee with a morsel of chocolate. There were no left-overs to settle, but for the occasional giggle. From my bedroom, I could hear her rustle in the living room. She could hear a giggle burst down the hall. This continued until I squeezed her air mattress next to my bed, and we finally went to sleep.
Even with this, the transition to the art (and it is an art) of French cooking and eating took some time. As much as you will find paint on my everyday clothes, you will find handprints of flour. Traces of sugar, or jam. I am a part of it now. The meal before. And the ones to come.
It was 105 degrees yesterday. Yet, I knew I needed to bake cookies. French cookies. I mixed the dough. Rolled it on the table. Cut out the circles. Used my fork to make the criss-crossed lines. Brushed with egg yolk for the golden color. The test cookie came out perfectly the first time. My mother-in-law lay passing just a short-drive away. The last meal was over. But our house is filled with the scent of butter, sugar and sweet memory.
Dabbing the crumbs with fingertips, not to miss a taste, we speak of what’s to come. The next meal. This is life. And it is delicious!
Nature has it right. Never is it more beautiful than when it is about to grow. Full blossom. And proud! “Look! Things are changing,” the trees say joyfully in pink and yellow and white. If they are afraid, they don’t show it. And the transition can’t be easy. They are awakening from winter. Changing shape. Having to rely on sun. On rain. Fully exposed.
The obvious teacher of this would have been my grandfather. A farmer. Riding, guiding, nature’s wheel. And he did — teach me. Never shying away from the difficulty. “I can’t glamorize the dirt,” he told me. It was real. Rocks needed to be picked. Hands would be recognizably changed. But each year he too changed the fields from black to green to gold. Fully exposed. Fully beautiful.
But maybe the best teacher was my mother. When her seasons changed abruptly from married to single. From sure to uncertain. Fully exposed, each morning, she willed herself into the light. Smoothing the lines on her face. The seams of her skirt. Allowing the painful blossom. Allowing the beauty of growth.
The petals slowly falling on the trees remind me, it is once again my turn. It’s time to grow. Fully exposed, but never alone. Each petal a sign of those who have gone before me. In perfect harmony I hear them. My mother, my grandfather. “Look,” they say, “things are changing!” My smile blossoms. I am not afraid.
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.”
You could see a cow from almost every window in my grandparent’s home. Maybe it was just too many reminders for my grandma on this particular day. I never thought of her having a middle name. I barely thought of her first name. She told me while sitting at the kitchen table – it was Gladys. Her middle name. She said she liked it. I could see a bit of a twinkle in the eye that rested above her curled lip. She was thinking about something… And I suppose it was the first time I saw her not just as a grandma, but a woman. A woman of this world. And she looked beautiful. “But Elsie is nice,” I said. “Ah, it’s a bit too much like a cow…You can call me Gladys if you like,” she said. And her apron started to disappear. I smiled, knowing I had witnessed something so very special. She slapped her hands on her thighs. The apron reappeared and she went back to the sink. I grabbed her from behind, and I hugged, again, and for the first time.
At our kitchen table here in France, I sit at the chair that faces my little cow. I painted it years ago. It rests just over Dominique’s shoulder. All of my worlds, open, with each morning croissant. The radio was playing Cabaret this morning. Liza sang “I used to have this girlfriend known as Elsie.” My heart grins. For, I too, for just a brief moment had, not just a grandma, but a girlfriend…who let me in, well beyond the kitchen, inside her private twinkle.
How could it be ten years? It seems impossible. And yet, Facebook, Google and my friend from Chicago all sent reminders of the day. It was a grand show of my giant paintings at Flourish Gallery.
I marvel at all that has changed…and all that has not.
I don’t paint in the same style. I am married. I live abroad. Somedays, with a lot of effort, I don’t even speak the same language. Standing then, in the glow of the windy city preparing for the holidays to come, next to a giant painting of Ella Fitzgerald, I wasn’t even imagining any of it. I suppose it’s like the old joke says, “go ahead, make some plans…”
But here’s what is the same. The holidays still come. Friends remain within heart-reach. The light of the season is all around. And the well-lit path of love is still surprising me, guiding me.
Everything changes. Each navigation with it’s own challenges, difficulties. Ah, but the light… that glorious light. It always guides me home.
I can’t say that I ever really liked honey. Well, to be fair, I’m not certain that I had ever really tasted it. Sure, I had the occasional squeeze from a plastic bear, but I understand now that that was probably just manufactured liquid sugar.
I liked the sound of it – Le miel de lavande, and then I had a taste of it. Lavender honey. My shoes still covered in the lavender field’s morning dew, we purchased a jar from the local vendor. At home, I put a little (let’s not kid ourselves, a lot) on my homemade toasted bread. OH, so this is honey! Yes. Yes! I DO love honey. I guess you know when it is real.
I guess it’s the same with everything, not the least of which — love. We’re quick to label so many emotions, connections with the word love. I know I did. Because we don’t know – certainly I didn’t. A taste of this, that, even the other… maybe this was it? Could this be it? And squeezing from the “honey bear” I tried to convince myself that it was good. But was it? Not really. Not for me.
I suppose one could have stop searching, but my feet answered only to my heart, and it said “keep walking.” So I made my way, slowly, stumbling to the lavender fields. So this is it! This is love. Oui!
I don’t know all the answers, how the magic works, how our heart creates the most unlikely maps, but I do know this, if you can’t taste the honey, really taste it…keep walking. Love should be delicious!
It’s remarkable, I suppose, but there has never been a time in my life when I haven’t felt free. Imagine that. Oh, sure, there have been so many obstacles and challenges. Churches that said you can’t come here. Schools I couldn’t afford. (Lots of things I couldn’t afford.) But in my heart and mind, I have always felt free to make a choice, sometimes a different one when one path failed, but always free to make that new choice.
Maybe it’s because I had a mother, who passed by the inexpensive levels of the department store and dared to believe that she deserved something beautiful, sometimes even if it was just to look. Maybe it’s because I had teachers who, without knowledge of my position or circumstance, said you can be a writer, you can be something, anything. Maybe it’s because, even in my darkest hours, the sun had the audacity to rise each morning, and dare me to come along. Maybe it’s because in those sunlit mornings I could see that even when some of those churches, schools, country clubs, stores, were maybe off limits or out of my budget, I could see that the roads were always open. So I took them.
Not to be all Pollyanna. There are no free rides on these open roads. There will be days you have to fight your very soul to take that next step, only to climb over the next road block. But keep moving. Keep moving. Rest when you need to, but never quit. Freedom isn’t given, it’s worked for, step by step.
Yesterday, here in France, we were having a family barbecue. I learn a little more of the French language, word by word, day by day. It used to feel like drowning, being in a group of people all laughing and talking when I had no idea what was going on. But each day I kick and thrash and burst my head above the water and I join in the conversation, because I want to, I need to, and I am free to do it! What a glorious feeling that is – to be a part of something bigger than myself, bigger than my own country even – this is freedom! And even though it was only the 3rd, I laughed and smiled and I celebrated! I hope you can do the same. Today, and every day after. Happy Fourth of July!
