They say if you have a song stuck in your head, the best thing to do is to see it through — sing it all the way to the end. Maybe it’s the same with the heart.
I first heard this song on Tik Tok — E penso a te — (I think of you.) A young man is singing with his grandmother. This was enough to warm my heart, but the music, the lyrics, the harmony that only heart related people can produce, this was pure magic. And it stuck. It played again and again within me. And I let it play. Before I fell to sleep. When I woke up. When I went to the studio to paint, the grandmother arrived on my paper. Note by note. Stroke by stroke.
I write of my own grandmother. My mother. Daily. Their music lives within me. I tell their stories like the lyrics to my favorite song. And I let it play. Again and again. Because, just as recommended, I am going to see it through, think of them, love them, all the way to the end.
I didn’t speak of such things when I was little. I suppose I didn’t have the words, nor the audience. But I felt it — this sensation of walking into a painting. Whenever I made my way up the three entry stairs into my grandma’s kitchen, the first thing I saw was the man leaning his head on folded hands over a simple dinner. Grace. I knew many had the replica of this painting. It was in fact extremely popular. But what they didn’t have was this kitchen. The coats hanging on pegs. The table with unsteady legs. The tractor seat made into a chair that rested beneath the long corded wall telephone. The dishes in the sink. The pots on the stove. The apple trees waving behind the windows. The tied rugs on the floor, made by my grandmother’s hands. How magical, I thought, to step inside her “painting.” To really see her. To know her. I took off my grass stained shoes and placed them by the door, as not to disturb the canvas.
It wasn’t until college that I was exposed to the technique of a painting with a painting. I smiled as the professor talked about the technique that began to show up regularly during the Italian Renaissance. These images of people in their homes, with paintings on the wall. Telling the stories of the lives inside the painting. I smiled. Maybe I hadn’t learned it, but I had already lived it.
Recently I painted the woman reading in front of her painted canvas. Finished, she has taken it off from the easel that rests behind her, and she immerses herself into the words. Without resembling my face, this is indeed a self portrait. I see this image every morning at the breakfast table. And each meal that follows. It calms my heart with unspoken magic.
I sat at the kitchen table having a cup of tea with my brother-in-law. He asked what I was painting now. I showed him this woman. “Oh, a painting in a painting,” he said. Just like that, he stepped inside my story, and I was seen, I was home. I think this is the grace within which we all want to live.
I think my heart recognized it even before my brain. I was certain you could see it beating through my dress as I stood before Cezanne’s painting. I told Dominique, “It feels like there’s so much blood in my heart — or love…”
“You’ve been there,” he said, smiling. And indeed we had, just a short time ago. We stood in the very place that Cezanne painted. The exact position. The same view. Others were in the museum, but for a few moments, we were inside the painting.
I don’t suppose it’s enough to just live it. It’s so important to share our experiences. Because somewhere, someone needs to hear it. They need to hear it from someone who has been there, been through it. (And oh, how I, we, you, have been through it!)
Being interviewed the other day, for the first time since her passing, I was able to speak about my mother deeply without falling apart. I could feel it – so much emotion – but in this moment, it was love, still, so much love.
It may not sound like much, this moment, but I know, today, someone needs to hear it. Someone needs to step aside from the exquisite pain of love lost, even for just a moment. Someone needs to step inside my painting and feel the hope. Feel the love. And I say to this someone, possibly you, nothing is going to be easy, but everything is going to be ok.
The first time I visited New England was with my mother. I was just out of college. Up until then all of my “vacation” time had been used to have surgery. To say we both fell in love immediately would not be an exaggeration. The main street was lined with seemingly freshly painted white houses. Porched and welcoming. A street sweeper (by hand) waved us in. Washed windows revealed the contents. Clothes. Beautiful clothes for sale lived in this house. My mother looked at me and beamed. We walked the white stairs and opened the door. Was that the slight hum of angels singing? Or just my mother’s heart.
It was all like this – this understated elegance. Lobster on paper plates. Lawns mowed. Cars washed. Nothing gilded. Nothing shouted – it wasn’t necessary, it showed.
I visited again. Several times. I have never harbored a New England address. And though I may have never actually “there,” I have lived in it, here.
There are so many gorgeous places around the world. I have been lucky enough to visit so many of them. And as the saying goes, “if you’re lucky enough to be here, you’re lucky enough.”
I have, in the past, been guilty of waiting — waiting to be happy if I was in the right place. I’m learning, daily, to create those places, those feelings, that joy, that comfort, in the exact place that I am. Making the hotel breakfasts. Dressing up to go to the grocery store. Eating slowly. Seeing the day for the first time, because, aren’t we all? Today is really our vacation from yesterday. Our journey towards tomorrow. I’m going to take those photo opportunities along the way.
The electrician was here the other day. He finished his job. I don’t know his name. But I invited him inside. He vacationed for a few brief moments at our kitchen table. A cup of coffee. A plate of cookies. I smiled, hoping, for these few moments, that maybe I was his New England. He asked where I was from. And, as so many people do, asked which place I liked better, the US or France. How could I explain that I was trying to live in the best of places. That I carried a piece of it all within me. That I was a French breakfast in a New England town. A relic of Rome. Dancing to the joyful music in Spain. Dangling my feet in a summer Minnesota lake. Standing in front of my own painted “Mona Lisa.” My heart jimbled at the thought. I could hear the angels softly sing, my mother now one of them. “I love it all,” I said. And meant it.
Our peach tree, Officer Bob, (I named him Officer Bob because I always imagined him in an old time movie, cigar tucked in the side of his mouth, looking at something beautiful and saying, “It’s a peach, see….”) — anyway, yesterday Office Bob broke a major limb. We have been worried about him all spring — carrying more fruit that ever before. Each branch loaded beyond capacity. Dropping unripe fruit daily to get some relief. (When I mowed the lawn it smelled like jam.) But yesterday I guess it all became too much. One of his branches, and it was a thick one, snapped beneath the weight.
The things we carry.
It’s too self-important to imagine that this was a lesson just for me. But, none the less, it is definitely something I need to keep learning.
By nature, I suppose, I have always been one to add the weight of worry. I have improved, but I can certainly still overload my branches. I don’t think we’re built to carry. Even the good things can become too much. Maybe we’re meant to feel and release. Letting go of the bad things. And letting loose all the good – sending it out for all the world to see.
A bird rests on one of his limbs this morning. So light. Singing a song of hope. Maybe we can do the same for each other. Be there for each other. No weight added. Only song.
Worry dropped, love released, the morning winks and says, “It’s going to be a peach, see!”
Maybe it was because of what they called it – the deep end – that it seemed so ominous. They roped it off with a bright red and white warning. We weren’t even allowed in until we had passed a certain level of swimming lessons. Which was funny, because I, we, had been swimming out to the diving towers for several years already. A depth we didn’t know, or think to ask.
And I suppose that’s what made it easier. We only thought about the tower. We had a goal, and nothing was going to stop us. Had we taken the time to think of what lurked below, deep in the darkened waters, maybe we wouldn’t have gone. But we thought about the sun. The sun that baked our shoulders on the diving platform. The figurative and literal height of summer friendships. There was nothing we wouldn’t have done to reach it.
I mention it only to remind myself. Of how to look at things. With fear, or with wonder. The choice of wonder has opened a sea of words. Of art. Of love. Sure, I trip and stumble and even temporarily sink into the unknown, but I will myself daily to keep kicking and thrashing. Raising my head above the murk. Reaching and climbing the next tower. Because the sun!
Some will laugh when I say that arriving in France, I was actually surprised as we drove from the airport — all the billboards in French. The radio in French. They didn’t speak English. I was already in love, and hadn’t thought to ask. Are there a million things to worry about? Sure. Is the tower slippery? Yes. But the sun is so warm on my shoulders. I can’t help but wonder. I keep climbing.
I received a pair of green rain boots for my 7th birthday. We lived in green house on Van Dyke road. It being spring, I vowed to wear them, rain or shine, every day until the grass was the same color. I didn’t know the word palette then, but I knew what I felt, and “how glorious,” I thought, if I could run green-footed in the green grass in front of our green house.
Spring came as promised, and I, feet blistered, and perhaps a little smelly, was a part of it all. I belonged.
I suppose that’s what we all want — to be a natural part of things. Without the need for invitation, to just belong. And it was, glorious! Glorious to find out that this wasn’t a place at all, but a feeling. A feeling I could not only create, but carry with me, anywhere.
You can wait your whole life and not receive an invitation. You have to give that to yourself. Step into your own palette. Wake up and say, “I’m here.” Wake up and know that it all matters. That you matter!
My husband asked me yesterday why I was bringing in his old green rain boots from the garage. “Because you’re part of my palette,” I said. He smiled. We are home. Glorious!
You can see it in a painting. In a poem. When it’s just trying too hard. Overworked. Exhausted. It sucks the beauty right out of it.
I called her Grandma Lois. We weren’t related, but for the love of painting. She was hovering in her eighties. Still brush in hand. I offered my youth. She offered her experience. Our palettes combined. She told me the hardest thing for her had always been learning when to stop. To look at what she had painted and say, this is good – what I’ve created – it’s enough. To learn, and create again — that was the real beauty, she said. We smiled. Painted. Connected.
On canvas, I have learned this. It’s harder in real life. There are some people with whom you think, if I just tried a little harder, maybe if I was just a little brighter, better — if I was just more beautiful, inside and out, maybe they would see me. All overmixed paint turns to brown. Some people just won’t see you. And you have to walk away. Step aside and say, what I offered, it was enough.
Surround yourself with those who can see it. Can see you. In the purest, most simple strokes. Wow – to sit in that beauty – that beauty of being. Knowing your all, their all, is more than enough. Not gasping, just breathing. This, I think, is the art of loving, of living. This is good. This is beautiful.
It’s not like I’m afraid of forgetting my own initials. But when I saw the little letters, I knew I had to have them. J. H. O. Jodi Hills Orsolini. My fingers rummaged through the sea of white. I was so excited as I pulled out the letters. One by one. I suppose, for a brief moment, in a store so far from home, it was affirmation, that I did exist.
I’m curious by nature. I want to learn new things. See new things. I love to read. To travel. Meet new people. And I’ve come to understand, with each experience, perhaps I learn more about myself than anything at all. And sometimes it’s hard. We’re put in constant situations where we think we’re learning more about other people. How to handle their challenges or victories. And it’s easy to get lost in that. But sometimes I think we have to also look at the situation and ask, “What does this say about me?” My reactions. Am I being patient? Am I being kind? Am I actually learning?
We are offered daily situations to grow. Today is Sunday. In France, that means almost everything is closed. I’d like to get varnish for the frame I am making. It won’t happen today. Of course my initial reaction is, “Stupid France…” Time to learn again. I dig into the bin of my heart and pull out the letters. J – be patient Jodi. H – be happy for this quiet moment. O – the stores may be closed, but your heart can be open.
I breathe. I smile. Give thanks to this beautiful country, and for the chance, once again, to find out who I am.
Our fruit trees had a bad summer. Wait, that could be a mistake…I don’t know if their summer was good or not… maybe they had a great summer, taking this time off. What I should say is that they didn’t produce any of their usual fruit.
This winter, there was a sudden warm up, then cold again, and they got very confused. It threw off their timing. And they took the summer off. To regroup. They are still lovely. They flowered. Greened. Stood tall in the summer sun. Still valuable. Still part of our garden community. I would, will, never stop loving them.
Trini Lopez is the name of our lemon tree by the front door. He has yet to produce a lemon, but again, I love him. He greets me every morning by the kitchen window, with a green so full, leaves so hopeful, that I think, I, too, want to grow.
This patience that I have with our garden, I fear, maybe I’m not that patient with humans. I am quick (I hate to admit) to think people are lazy. But maybe I, we, don’t always know what the person is going through. Maybe they aren’t being lazy at all. Maybe they are recovering from their own difficult winters. Maybe they are slowly, as best they can, growing into themselves. Finding their way to the sun. Maybe they are offering, not the usual gifts, but other ones. Maybe this year’s fruit is a delicate shade. Maybe this year’s fruit is a place to lean on, in the comfort of silence.
You know that friend, (I hope we all have one), with whom you can sit, without words or entertainment. Just sit in the comfort and safety of their company. I want to be that friend. I want to be as patient with love, with growth, as the trees in our garden. I want to give you (and myself) a chance to grow, or better yet, to just be. To calmly, daily, without demand, or judgement, greet those who dare the morning, and say, “Welcome to the garden.”
