In my current read, the woman’s name is Sparrow. She is lost in the woods of Maine. Deeply lost. I know she’s just a character in a book. But I also know that the world is filled with those looking to be found, searching to find their way.
I can’t traverse the world on foot. Above twig and under branch. So I paint. I paint a Sparrow. In hopes that they see. (That you see.)
Growing up, I didn’t have a forest. But I did have a North End. Untamed. Unbuilt. At the edge of Van Dyke Road. The perfect place to lay down your worry. Secrets and fears could be left in the piles of dirt, the water’s edge, leaving no direction home. Even unburdened, I still had to find my way back. It would have been so easy to get tangled in what I wanted to leave behind. To get roped in. My heart would race. Beating in my ears. And the birds flew overhead with all of my envy. And then I would hear it. The opening of a garage door atop the hill. Car wheels on gravel. Anyone’s mother, calling every child home. Reminding me that I could fly. And I was saved.
As a child, sometimes more than once a day, I would have to gather and push all of my swirling thoughts out the front door of our house on Van Dyke Road. It was there on that cement stoop that they could breathe. All of my hopes and plans. My dreams and curiosities. They felt free, like summer toes in green, dew-damp grass. They tumbled without spotters. They grew without restriction. Voices were given to dolls and animals. I planted my future in Hugo’s field. Dared my existence in the North End. Outraced my worry over popping gravel behind my banana seat bike. And in all that release, I felt complete. Full.
I still try to allow the space for the swirling. Letting it loose on canvas and paper. Roaming up the hills of the Montaiguet. Splashing in the pool. I don’t think any of it was meant to be contained. Not imagination. Certainly not love. So I give it space. Room to tumble. And on the stoop of all that feeling, all of that letting go, I am saved.
Without being told, we did live in the “here and now.”
Today, we’re bombarded with the reminders that you have to be present. And yet, the advertisements for “back to school” began here in June. Parents are given lists of things to buy — must-haves for a proper educational experience. Rules and expectations to be met.
Thinking back to our first days of school, if we were showered and fed, the preparations were complete. With the far-away looks of the feral cats we had become over summer, we boarded the bus, dazed and wet-headed. Our brains and hands empty. (But our hearts full.) Perhaps a number two pencil or a spiral notebook, but I can’t be sure. We were in the moment.
I know it’s good to be prepared. But there is so much in life that we will never be ready for. Things that lists can never check off. Some experiences we have to run wildly through, armed with only the faith of a seven year old, that things will work out. That the bus will always bring us home.
I learned it once. And I’ve learned it again and again. The morning awaits my wild and feral, ever joyful, race to the bus.
“I meant no, but it came out yes.” — This was the first card in which my mother appeared. And then she began popping up with great frequency. “There are no operators standing by…” And of course, “I was so tired yesterday, I could hardly think — thank God I was at work.” Certainly the entire poem of “I saw the truth about you…” (because I did). And “Hit by a train…” (because she was). And she wore it like a badge of courage, a badge of grace. My greatest thrill was to watch her at an event, when someone would pick up a card, or print and say, “this is so me!” And she would clutch her imaginary pearls and say, “Well, actually…”
There’s only one way to the canvas or page, and that’s through my heart. Dominique stood in front of the portrait and said, “I feel like I know her…” And I had to smile, because surely he did, somehow. Certainly there are traces of all of his (now our) family, and friends, that pump through my veins. Love cannot unsee. And it can never stop growing, as it picks up the pieces of each other again and again.
Starting the new painting yesterday, I had to stop and smile, because I could see who was coming.
So if from time to time you see yourself here, then know that you too have been seen. You may clutch your pearls and say, “Well, actually… I have been loved.”
I think I need a new word for it — this mixture of flutter and weight. I’ve often called it melancholy. But it’s not sadness. I suppose it could be tagged with a bit of nostalgia. I get it at the same time each year. This “back to school.” And oh, how I loved school. I can smell the books and hear the chalk against the walls. And it weighs my heart, not with sorrow, but importance. My scapulas twitch with each winged word held and written. I know the learning isn’t finished, and I’m so thankful for that.
Charles will begin university in 8 days. 7 nights of Christmas Eve. And then the gift will begin. Of course I have all the wishes. That he will have fun. Study hard. Mature. Be curious. Always safe, but never satisfied. That each word will give him wings.
It’s hard to type as I look for the new word. And I suppose that’s it, isn’t? Joyfully, I’m not finished! There’s still so much to learn.
They aren’t that hard to spot, people who have been loved.
People who fear the supply of it, those hanging on for dear life, (hanging on for anything dear), these are the people that can’t let go. Of anything. And who could blame them really. Having not seen. Not felt. They dig fingertips into pad of thumb. To hang on? To feel anything?
It isn’t the absence of problems that let people love. The over abundance that encourages people to give. For me, it was always knowing my heart pockets were filled.
Needing the literal as a child, my mother would have me place my hand in my pocket. Whenever doubt or worry was creeping around, when fear or sadness hovered. Whatever I needed — hope, a dream, extra love — “just cup it in your hand,” passing it to me, what doubters would say was never there, what I say is still there.
This practice of painting birds, this daily ritual that has saved me throughout this last year, has kept my pocket full. Has allowed me to reach them back to you. I hope you can see it. Cup it. Pass it on. All this love. And then maybe, one day, we won’t stand out, we simply all will be loved.
I learned quickly on that you don’t tell a farmer, “I have nothing to do.”
We weren’t allowed to be bored on Rueben and Elsie’s farm. And truth be told, there really was no reason to be. Trees to climb and gardens to race. Barns to explore. Cows to annoy. Cupboards to climb into. Lazy Susans to spin. Party lines to listen in on. A balcony to jump off. An electric fence to dare. Flowers to make into dolls. Grass to stain knees. Gravel to collect in shoes. Stairs to count. Overalls to climb into. Dropped off for a summer day, my mother could leave me without prompts.
Writing my daily blog, I ignore the supplied suggestions. Why would I want to write what everyone else was writing? Live like everyone else was living?
Years ago I wrote, “It isn’t that something comes along and gives you a reason to get out of bed. You have to get out of bed and go find that reason, everyday.” It’s ever how I want to live.
I see my grandpa’s portrait on the wall in front of me as I write this. I smile and ready myself to race around today’s barn.
It’s a bread baking morning. I’m still surprised at the act. How much I love the bread. How I adore that the house smells like home. And mostly that I’m someone who has the patience to wait for the rise.
And maybe that’s unfair. Perhaps we are way too quick to label people. To pull out the “never” cards. She never does that. He will never do this. How do we know when we are young, (or at any stage in our lives for that matter) what we will do, what we are capable of doing? So I’ve decided to try and replace never with not yet. Giving myself the opportunity to keep becoming. And the hardest part, having the patience to allow the transformations. To wait for the rise.
You’d think just the attempt to learn that in itself would serve as the reminder, but I must admit, I do need the bread. As I cover the half empty bowl, I smile and know that I’m not where I’ve been, I’m not where I’m going, but I am on my way.
The sun hits the towel that coddles the bowl that holds the dough. And so I rise.
I can honestly say I never knew the name of this song, even though for the better part of a decade it was an anthem for my mother. She, we, always referred to it as that “what a drag” song. The famous line goes, “I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes. You’d know what a drag it is to see you.” Play it again, she’d say. The empowerment given by this song that we couldn’t address by title, was palpable.
But that’s the thing, we don’t need to know or call things by name. We’re all going through something. We all have our “Fourth Street.” And we all have a choice. To cower, or to stand proudly. It was my mother who taught me to choose the song. To sing it out loud!
Yesterday in front of the large canvas, I stood strong and played the song over and over. All the moments of why we needed an anthem were gone, and the strength of having one remained. How could anything be more positive than that?
I looked up the title this morning — that makes sense I thought, and began making my way down the street. Positively fourth street.
Seeing the youthful paintings of Cezanne yesterday at the museum, I was reminded of the art of becoming. “Well, that doesn’t seem like him,” I thought, standing in front of a glossy-bright collage of color. Then I smiled, knowing that most of our travels to nearer ourselves, these roads are paved with exactly that.
It’s all in the framing, I suppose (pardon the pun). We can call it unseemly, or we can call it becoming. (I’m not sure how to have one without the other.) But didn’t we learn early on that “becoming” was a compliment? “Oh that’s so becoming on you!” And in hearing it, we’d clutch our imaginary pearls and will our hearts to keep on growing.
Looking through my own oeuvre, (entire body of work), oh, how my life has changed again and again. But it’s all me. From sketchbook to canvas. And I hope I allow myself the grace that I offer Cezanne — grace I hope to offer anyone — look at you becoming!
