With each new person I paint, the first question is usually “Who is that?” And I can’t blame them for asking. Didn’t I do the same at Jerry’s Jack and Jill grocery store each time my grandma stopped the cart and talked to the person in the aisle. Too old to sit inside, I hung on the front of the cart, and every word exchanged, looking, listening for clues to solve the mystery of who they were. Maybe they would say where they worked, who they were married to, or what they were making for dinner. I could never tell by looking at my grandma. She was nice to everyone. And not that fake kind of nice that I had seen, even experienced on the playground, or that she herself pointed out to me while watching Days of our Lives. She was just genuinely interested. She cared. She was curious. She was indeed the “party” of her party line, whether on the phone or at the grocery store. I could see that it didn’t really matter to her, the details for which I searched. She just wanted to visit. 

I suppose that’s how I paint (minus the grocery cart). I’m just interested in all who appear. It’s a conversation of heart and mind. Grandma Elsie taught me that — that’s who people are — kind and curious and worth the pulling over. 

We all want to be seen. But there comes some responsibility with that. People aren’t mind readers. Plus, they also have a focus on things other than you. And how are they to see who you really are, unless you show them?

Brené Brown calls it “daring greatly.” I like it because it changes our vulnerability from being a weakness to a superpower. (And as evidenced in every purchase of every little black dress, every pose in front of the mirror, I do indeed want to be a superhero.) So I expose my heart with every word, and every stroke. And on many days, just like the reflection in the mirror, I may be one of the rare few that see it. But that’s more than a good start, it’s a victory — me daring greatly to see myself. 

I am that bird. Fragile, sure. Strong as ever, yes! My palette is full. I am saved. And look at that palette, wood worn and weary is exactly what makes it beautiful (to me.) So why would my reflection be any different. If I choose to see myself, celebrate that even, then it takes the pressure off of you. I don’t have to count likes or measure your responses. And maybe then, without all that clutter, I can see you. And what if we all could do that. For each other. I suppose to believe this is also to be daring greatly. But I’m just that bird. I come to the canvas. Hope in hand. 

You can buy them at any of the big box stores, the fake stumps to use as end tables. But I chose to make ours. Well, finish ours…I can’t make a tree. If you were to calculate the hours spent and pay me less than minimum wage, you might say I didn’t “come out ahead.” But I would disagree. I would prove you wrong every time I placed my feet on the sanded cracks. Every time I laid a book on the still breathing wood. It’s the imperfections that I love, that I live beside, and within. A daily reminder to celebrate it in others, in myself.

When I took this photo of my book, I needed a backdrop. Not the perfection of a blank slate. I searched the house for something with character. I had baked bread earlier in the day, and the baking sheet was cooling on the counter. Why not? Didn’t it tell the same story as the stump? I placed it behind the book. Perfectly imperfect. 

I don’t know if it’s obvious, but it is to my heart. It knows, if I come out at all, I come out ahead.  

We never meant it as a compliment, shouting “bird brain” to someone across the playground. I suppose we thought small meant insignificant. Without worth. It was far from the only thing we got wrong.

I have been filling this sketchbook daily now for sixth months. As with anything, that first blank page seemed insurmountable. “Just start…” I would tell myself. Experience has taught me that beginning is always the hardest. Once you’re doing it, you’re doing it, and don’t have time to think of all the what ifs. Almost touching the page, I would pull back. Then forward. Wait. Questioning. “Oh, stop fluttering,” I told myself. And there it was – the answer – right in front of me, where it typically waits. I sketched out the first little bird. Simple. Cute. “Nothing here I can’t rise above,” it seemed to say, so I painted another. And another.

Each day they became more elaborate. People with birds. Birds on books. Almost “Scarlet Letter”-like, I took the problem and made it my art. My creations. My joy.

I remember sitting in the overflow tiny houses behind Jefferson Senior High. Barely insulated from the cold of winter, reading the book for the first time. All that “A” stood for beyond the book. Alexandria, the town I was born, the one I knew I would have to flee to become the Artist that lived in my soul. Had I mentioned it then, aloud, I could have been that “bird brain”…and I have to admit I was afraid of the label. Now I wear it proudly. Now I wear it proudly. I am that bird brain. Fluttering to create with all the fear and joy that still holds. Daily.

The thing is, I, we, get to decide. I pick up my pencil, And I rise.

Maybe it’s words like belief or faith that frighten people. There seems to be an implication of certainty that can be elusive, or even exclusive. (I say that as someone who is certain of all that I don’t know.) Maybe that’s why I am drawn to the front page quote of my sketchbook — “La vie est semée de c’est miracles que peuvent toujours espérer les qui aiment.” (Life is full of miracles that people who love can always hope for.) I find myself here, among the people who love, daily. And didn’t I learn it so many years ago in my grandfather’s shadow?

Of course I didn’t have the words for it then. Neither English, nor French. I didn’t question the miracles that had to occur each year just to get from seed to harvest. The luck, the timing, the weather, the work, the radio reports on grandma’s noontime transistor, all went unnoticed by me. What I felt was the love my grandpa had for his family. This was a truth I could understand, see first hand, as he rose from kitchen table to field. Love — that’s where all the hope was, I thought, all the miracles.

When I saw the quote in my empty sketchbook, it became so easy for me to begin. I didn’t have to create the answers, only the love. This I knew how to do. I painted my first bird, warmed and secure in my grandfather’s shadow. Each little miracle free to fly to wherever needed. 

The answer is still, and again, love.