I’ve yet to capture it on film. (But certainly in the shutter of my heart.) Some call it golden hour. And I suppose, as glorious as it is, it’s not that uncommon, but in this house I live, at this one certain time, I have witnessed this light between rooms, not only shine and illuminate, but bend.
It’s just a small window in the sewing room, Grandma Elsie’s sewing room, but when the hour is golden, the light thrusts through every pane. And you may think thrust is too strong, but wouldn’t it have to in order to bounce off of two doors, across the hallway and land beautifully upon the painting of the children at the beach? It’s almost as if it knows the destination, knows how deserving they are of the light.
It doesn’t last long, but spectacular rarely needs a lot of time to make its point. It’s in these tiny, well lit moments that I remember how lucky we are. How we are given everything we need, and more! How even in our struggles of darkness, in our failed attempts to reach all that shines…with obstacles lining the way — magically, joyfully, light bends. Golden.
In the arts of love and endurance, gratitude, forgiveness, strength and pure joy, the heart is mighty, for sure! But it’s never been all that good at math.
Of the nine children my grandparents had, only two remain. This two of Rueben and Elsie changed its numbers so many times, and continues still. Only once, with the twins, did it jump by two. The eleven held, and grew even more rapidly, as the nine paired off and tested all of our addition skills. Children turned into grands and then greats, and just as we got used to all of the plus signs, the painful subtractions began.
But the arithmetic of the heart is nothing like we learned at Washington Elementary. Here they taught us that the value changed when subtracting. But they didn’t warn us about the heart. Because for the heart, it never does. The numbers will forever change — it’s a guarantee that life will do that — but the value remains. Love cannot, will not, do the math.
I mention it today because my dear friends lost their beloved dog. She said she was missing her family of three. I, we, struggle to add comfort in times of loss. I don’t know if it helps, I hope it helps, it often does for me…this letting go of the math. Letting the heart decide what remains. True love does. So, I tell her, you ARE still three. Forever three.
It was the most delightful combination of comfort and brand new.
I made a book of photographs for Dominique’s mother. Each visit we would go through the book, again, for the first time. Her short term memory collapsed upon itself within just a few minutes, but the long term — the love of her family — this recognition remained until the end. So we turned, page by page, holding.
Maybe it’s the heart that takes over, when the brain has had enough. The brain that has warned us, urged us. Shot the warning signs again and again. But thankfully the heart seems to win — turning the the brain’s fears of “remember when…” into the heart’s gathering of “aaaah, but remember when…”
They say memory is unreliable. I suppose if you’re using the brain, that’s true. So I write the stories from my heart, where they seem to be holding, strong. Each day turning the page, saying the “I love you’s” again, and for the first time.
It was hard to believe that something so delicious could make me ill. But it was evident after only a few tries, I couldn’t eat ice cream. Somehow still, I found it very exciting when the pale yellow blur of the Schwan’s ice cream delivery truck drove toward my grandma’s house. I began running up the gravel, hands waving in air, directing him into the driveway. I knew full well that my grandma’s love of root beer floats would never allow her to miss a delivery. I hopped and skipped and ran with the truck to the house. Uniformed and certain, he jumped the steps and went to the back of the truck. “You’re Elsie’s granddaughter?” “Oh, yes!” I said proudly. I could tell by the smiling way he said her name that he liked her. He unloaded two of the giant tubs as my grandma came out the screen door. Her hands ever floured or wet, or both, she wiped them on her apron before signing for our haul of vanilla.
How wonderful, I thought, to deliver ice cream. Everyone must be so happy to see you. I was, and I didn’t even eat it. The only other delivery person that I knew was my Uncle Mike, who drove a beer truck in the Twin Cities. I asked him if people jumped up and down when he arrived. He looked confused. Like I do with the Schwan’s truck, I explained. Not so much, he said. Maybe you should paint your truck yellow, I said. He smiled.
Surely it has to be taught. There must have been a million things my grandma delighted over with me. Things she had no interest in. How else would I have known, known this joy of feeling good for others. I loved art and clothes and drawing and crayons and “Look, look what I made! It’s flowers glued to a scrap of bark! Look!” And my grandma showed all of her teeth in love. An ear to ear joy. This is the only explanation I have for being happy, truly happy, to celebrate a Schwan’s delivery, not for me, but for her!
Joy is not owned. It is passed and given away freely. It is run along beside. A yellow blur of others. The day is pulling toward the driveway. I raise my hands in the air and skip to whatever joy it may bring.
When I went off to college, the first thing that surprised me was the noise. I had always studied in silence. I was alone for the most part. I didn’t turn on the television or stereo. I liked hearing the books I was reading, feeling the words I was writing. So the first few nights in the dorm were alarmingly loud. No one had headphones. Doors seemed to be quite optional. It was overwhelming to say the least.
I wore a path to the library. And then I found the silent rooms. Doubled glass. No distractions. Glorious. My first sanctuary. It was there I could invent anything, even myself. I surrounded myself in words. Some lay quietly in yellowed pages. Others rearranged themselves and shot through my #2 pencil. It wasn’t the first time I heard my own voice, but it was the first I started to use it.
I fear that some believe courage is only born out of chaos. That we must rise above all the noise with a clattering of our own. I suppose at times this could be necessary, but maybe the most bold is to listen to your own heart, your own mind. To brave the silence and find yourself.
There is a setting on my iphotos. It is called noise reduction. It takes away all the clutter to get at the real picture. I didn’t have the words for it then, but I have been hitting that button for most of my life. Sometimes I forget. I get caught up in all the clamor — “but he said, and she did, and they are!!!!!” It’s then I have to remove myself. Find my balance. Listen to the quiet.
I whisper by hand into my sketchbook. And I am found.
My first sleepover was in a hospital in Saint Cloud, Minnesota. I was only six years old. They wouldn’t let my mom stay in the room with me that night. I was terrified. I was armed only with my Golden Book — The Little China Pig, and my first baby baby doll, so brand new she was yet to be named. The nurse in white cap, white dress, white nylons and shoes entered the room. She wiped the tears of my mom’s goodbye and said, “I’m Malinda, what’s your baby’s name?” Still stunned from the thought of being alone, I repeated the name Malinda. “Just like me!” She beamed. It was as if she placed her smile onto my face, and connected us, brought me to safety. That’s why I remember my first doll’s name, because of kindness.
The scrubs in the French hospital were flowered pink and blue. The language buzzed around me as I lay on the gurney. It’s not lost on my that my grasp of this language is not a lot more than I had in St. Cloud. And my comfort level was about the same. They wheeled her in next to me, this elderly woman — who was not much bigger than I was then. She was scared, and cried out a little when the man who had just blocked my arm was doing the same to her. In my best Malinda I turned and sent my smile to her. I saw it travel across the sterile room and land on her lips. She smiled back. And we both were saved.
I don’t know her name, but I remember her face. I look at my braced hand and feel myself smiling, in my best Malinda.
It takes so little to give each other the “everything is going to be ok.” I, who have been given so much, hope to pass it on to you. Take my “Malinda,” and pass it on.
It was Mr. Rolfsrud who taught us about the flashforward at Central Junior High. He stood tall, polyester suited in front of our class, and took us through the technique with great detail. He neglected to mention that it would also happen in our real lives.
Listening to an audiobook during my walk yesterday, the author lept the characters into the future. And seemingly in that same flash, I was in this other country. It was as if this decade, this epic novel I’m writing, was simply paragraphed. Maybe that is the way with all living.
Not at first I suppose. Summer steps in our youth seem eternal. But then, without our knowledge or permission, the pace quickens. Steps become leaps. Leaps turn into bounds. And finally, mere flashes.
The moment of clarity in the book skipped my heart a little. The moment of clarity in my life did the same. But I wasn’t afraid. More grateful. I simply raised my hand, waited for him to call on me, and thanked him for my love of words. I promised him I would use it all. And kept walking.
After my grandfather spoke, no one ever had to say, “Well, what he meant by that was…” He was perhaps the first to teach me the strength of word economy. When he said something, without flower or hesitation, I believed him.
Even with the wide open nature of youth, the vulnerable cracks of the heart and brain are very small. So it was this simplicity that allowed the love in. Word, by compact word.
When my college professors began to emphasize the point, speaking of editing and being precise, I could only smile. That point had long ago been walked in –firm, straight and overalled. My grandfather’s words built a library inside of me. Cataloged by heart. Endlessly referenced.
And I use it still today. In my writing. My painting. My interactions. If you have to tell someone, “I was only kidding…”; “It was only a joke…”; “What I meant was…”; “The point they were trying to make…” — then there is a problem. There’s no room in the heart for all of that. What a glorious filter it can be.
I’m currently reading the book, “What you are looking for is in the Library.” When my friend recommended it, I accepted quickly. She had long ago made it past the filter. And the title itself walked easily in, wearing overalls.
I suppose that’s where all the love is stored. Here. And I pull from it daily. My grandparents’ shelf. My mother’s shelf. Husband. Friends. Family of all covers, all languages. Those whispering still and again, my heart’s truth.
It’s not that I have to, it’s that I get to… Don’t get me wrong, I often have to remind myself of that very thing, but it’s always true.
It was a springtime funeral. I remember it because I was wearing my birthday dress in the back of the Chevy Impala. I know it was the first grade because Gerald Reed complimented me on that dress. (It’s funny, but I recall my childhood more in grades than in years. Perhaps that’s the power of learning.) It must have been a distant family member or friend because we stopped to pick up my grandparents. I scooted over on the maroon interior to make room for my grandpa. Springtime was the busiest for him. All the preparing. It set the stage for the entire year. Keeping the farm was based on the work put in each spring. My mother, knowing this, said as he slid in the back, “It’s nice to have you here, but you didn’t have to come…” “I don’t have to,” he said, “I get to.” He patted my knee. I don’t remember the funeral. But I remember this.
We will be asked to do the most impossible things. To bear the unbearable. To live the unlivable. Love guarantees this. But all that we get from it — for me — makes it worth every second. We get to love each other. Be there for each other.
Do the words come easier some days than others? Sure. Does the love come easier at times? Of course. But I get to do this. We get to do this. Feel this. Live this. And I will choose my life, scoot over to let it all in, every day.
Sometimes it’s as simple as whether the sun is out or not, but I have fallen in and out of love with cities throughout the United States. And they can change, sure, a little, but mostly I think it’s me.
Cities I thought I loved several years ago, this visit, not so much. And that’s ok, it doesn’t take away from my previous visits. I’ve also been surprised in the reverse — loving those I thought I never could. Taking the extra photos, celebrating, almost apologizing for not seeing it before. I know it’s silly. Laurel, Mississippi doesn’t need me to love it, no more than Houston was waiting for me to change my mind.
I suppose it’s the same with people. We spend so much time and energy wondering what people think. Do they like me when…will they like me if… oof, it can be exhausting. Should I change? Did they? We’re all wandering, wondering. Seeing situations and people again, for the very first time. It’s a journey. We would do well to remember we’re all on one. Knowing this, (I remind myself too), maybe we could all be a little more kind, gentle, joyful, loving, along the way. And maybe when our days and time together don’t always match up, we can smile and wave… and remember how we fell in love with Houston.
