I began using the paper purchased this summer at the Fontaine de Vaucluse. It’s handmade. The mill sits right next to the river. It is the most beautiful, accepting paper I have ever used. I suppose because it’s natural. Nothing to fight against. The paint goes on so smoothly and becomes a part of the paper. And the most amazing thing is I’m low on paint. I need to reload. I’m down to my most average. But even this paint takes on a whole new life when combined with this paper.
And the paper is far from perfect. No, in fact, that’s probably what makes it so special. You can see, feel, all the flecks that go into it. The scraps of life and growth. Beautiful!! No shame of imperfections.
Maybe it’s too simple to say, but I’m not sure everything has to be so hard. I think we need each other. And I’m pretty sure we can bring out the best in us if we want. So I come to you daily, with my humble, most average of self, and ask you to join me. You, the imperfect paper. Together, we can make something beautiful. Together, we become!
As the extreme heat continues in southern France, I can hear her voice. “Just sit quietly,” Mrs. Erickson said, pulling down the long black shades of our third grade classroom windows. Returning from the heat of recess under a sun that grew stronger bouncing off the black paved playground. A sun that said, “Come on, it’s almost summer, just stay, play a little longer!” But she rang the bell and we dragged our feet inside Washington Elementary. Sticky thighs against the wood seats, we wriggled and squirmed. We could barely sit, and quietly seemed impossible. “Just relax,” she urged. “Lay your heads down on your desk.” We placed our sweat-slicked hair on arms folded across desktops. The whispering began. Heads bobbing with playground secrets that needed to be released.
“Shhhhhhhh…” she said from the front of the class. “Think of the water,” she said. Living in the land of 10,000 lakes, it was fairly easy to bring to mind your favorite lake. Our heart rates slowed as she described the waveless water. The calm of the blue. The coolness, first on tippy toes. Then ankles and shins. Cooler still on thighs. We smiled flat cheeked on our desks. “Will you go further?” she asked. We shook our faces. “Whoop!” she exclaimed, “Up to your waist!”
Completely distracted now from the heat, as our ever-coiffed, nyloned and dressed teacher had “whooped” just for us. “Go all the way under,” she said. For me it was Lake Latoka. I held my breath and went down, down, down. It was so cool. “Look at everything,” she said. “The fish, the rocks…” And we did. For ten minutes we swam from the calmness of our desks.
She led us slowly back to shore. Lifted our heads. And then, no pun intended, dove into the math lesson of the day.
Whenever I think of my favorite teachers, I think of the question, “Will you go further?” Because that’s what they did for us. Daily. Took us beyond the lessons, into the living. It’s a question I continue to ask. In love, and trust, and hope, and forgiveness, in curiousity, creativity and knowledge — I want to go further! I want us all to go further.
If you want it too — maybe you can join me — all together now — Whoop!
I was never afraid of the water. My mother saw to that. Buoyed by baby fat and unweighted from no previous experience, I easily bobbed up and down in the blue. She didn’t buy float rings for my arms, or an inflatable duck to strap around my waist. No lifejackets, or flotation devices of any kind. What she did give me was the confidence to jump in the water and trust my own skills. And what’s most remarkable, she never let me see the fear she carried.
I was in my early twenties, living in my first apartment, deeply secure in my ability to navigate any body of water, when she told me. Just before entering the pool for the complex. I had seen her dip toes in Lake Latoka. Wade in the water thigh high. Even sink to shoulders. But it was here, in this pool of firsts that she told me she had always been a little afraid. We got her a kicker board from Ridgedale mall. She did laps in the pool. I was so proud of her. So very proud. She was worried it would be a burden for me. Nothing could be further from the truth. What a gift. This turning of tables. A gift to carry what she once carried for me. We filled that pool with laughter and joy!
I suppose that’s what true love is — this constant exchange. This lifting. This buoying of hearts. Taking turns in bravery. In strength. Celebrating the victories large and small. Together.
I have a memory of a cartoon. Black and white. Two little girls on the front stoop of a house. One day the little girl is crying. The other girl reaches out her hand and says, “I’ll help you.” The next day laughing, with the same response. This is the world I lived in. The world my mother gave to me. The world I want to share with you.
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.
He was probably just big for his age. I could see him by the side of the pool while I was running on the treadmill. When he turned around I could see the soft timidity of his face. He was still young. He looked at his father sitting in a chair beside the pool. Maybe for assurance before he entered the pool. He lowered himself into the water. His father lowered his face to his cellphone. He hopped around at first. The initial excitement of the water itself. But then it became clear. He was alone. It’s hard to splash yourself. Flip yourself. I kept running. I was smiling. I didn’t want to make him more self conscious if he looked up, but I wanted him to know it was ok. That he was ok. He was free to make his own splash!
I did. I had for years. I threw the softball against the garage door. I hit the tennis ball against the brick wall. Rode my bike alone. Walked to town alone. Made parades with only stuffed animals. Picnicked with dolls. Splashed in Lake Latoka, then set out to make bigger splashes in bigger ponds. Even across one of the biggest.
I saw two in the pool the next day. Probably a brother and a sister. They had such fun together. But they too, will one day have to make their own way. We all do. Some just start earlier.
I’m sending out my smile today. You are not alone. Someone has felt it, survived it, struggled through it, even splashed beyond it. Maybe we can all just offer that smile today, to each other, as a reminder. My grandma used to say, “If wishes were fishes, we’d all be in the pool!” We can make that happen you know…that’s my wish, that we can all be there for each other.
Things have always been more clear for me on paper. It starts in my brain. Works its way through my heart. Travels down my arm. Through the pencil. Onto the paper. Now, I’ve always said I’m not one to edit. Once the words are on the paper, I try to keep them as pure as they arrived. I suppose one could say they’ve been filtered as they make this journey from my head to the paper, and that’s probably true. My brain has an idea, so many creative ideas, but I believe it is my heart that keeps them honest, real. And by the time it scratches through the lead of the pencil, (or the keys of the computer) I can trust that these are the words I believe. All the questions and concerns and worries that my poor brain can create, invent, inflate…when I can get to the core of them, calmly work through them, release them onto the paper, they are never the gale force winds that were whipping around my brain, but a calm and peaceful breeze of truth, that brushes across my face.
I used to love standing on the shore of Lake Michigan on a summer Chicago day. As the waves rolled in, I would tell them my thoughts and concerns, imagining they gathered them in, reversed and took them back out to the open water. And I was lighter. I was free. I was saved. This for me, is how I write. Releasing the thoughts. Letting them go. Standing on the shore. Free.
Each morning, I ask the words to take me where I only feel the wind upon my face. And with any luck, I reach out my hand, and take you with me.
It’s easy to love the summer of someone. The well lit, sun filled long days of them. But when the tanned shoulders are covered, with no aid of chilled rose wine in clinking glasses, you have to really love them. Just them.
But, oh, the winter boats. They are so beautiful. Resting on the shore. This is when you know. You know you can trust the love of the winter boats. The ones who will sit with you when the waters have cooled. Will be there, when no fireworks light July’s sky. Will be there, just be there, for you.
What a joy it is to not look back, nor forward, just beside. True love rocks gently.
I was given a small photo of three boys fishing at the lake. He was commissioning me to create a large painting of the image. First I made the lake. The shoreline. The dock. Then each brother, in order of their age. Just as they would have entered this life, they appeared on the canvas. I don’t paint anything I can’t feel, but honestly, I wasn’t expecting to feel this much. Perhaps it was so emotional because this is where I, too, began. Near this lake. In this small town. Perhaps because I knew what their futures held. Part of me wanted to tell each one what was to come…but that wouldn’t be right, even if possible. For they, all three were safe in this moment. Pure. And this is where I would capture them. Forever innocent, in the summer sun of 1963. Full of hope.
I didn’t notice until I was finished the date on the side of the photograph – it was January, 1964. Clearly this picture wasn’t taken in January in Minnesota. But I imagine the photographer, the boys’ mother or father, must have been waiting to finish the roll of film. We used film back then. And if you bought a roll, of say 36, then you waited patiently, or not patiently, until you finished the roll, and then brought it to the film corner in the drug store to be developed. I imagine they finished the roll at Christmas time, and then had it developed.
Maybe time moved slower then. Summers lasted longer. Still, they, we, couldn’t stop it. Probably the best we can do is capture the moments. On film. On canvas. In our hearts. And feel everything. Feel the heat of the sun. The possibility rolling in with each gentle wave. The time when the common goals of youth kept us together. Easily. Slowly.
Today, these three young boys are fishing together in the south of France. Hopeful, excited, ready to go home.
We’re crossing bigger waters today, but we always find our way to the comfort of shore. And how would I have ever dared without the waves that first rocked me? Gently. Easily. Each one saying, you know there’s more…we taught you well. Go see. And they did teach me well – these 10,000 lakes, this Minnesota. With each arm splashing, leg kicking, breath-losing, breath-taking wave – taught me when to dive, when to keep my head up. Gave me laughter. Washed me clean.
Today is a day to keep my head up. I won’t let my teachers down. Thank you, Minnesota.
I wish I could have learned everything when I was six. I wasn’t afraid then. I took swimming lessons every Saturday morning at the community pool. It was so easy to jump into the water. Even before we knew how to crawl stroke, we splashed and floated and became one with it. I guess that was the key. We didn’t fight the water. Oh, there was always one kid, terrified, kicking, thrashing, who would disappear from the pool never to be seen again. Never to learn how to swim. Never to join in the birthday parties, or summer afternoons at one of the 10,000 lakes. What a thing to miss!
Adult days can be overwhelming. We face unimaginable things. Things that seem unpassable. But there is always a crack to get through, if we become like water. Water can always get through, even the smallest opening. When Bruce Lee said, “be like water, my friend” he simply meant to be flexible in both mind and body. It’s about not being rigid and stubborn in your beliefs and practices. But instead, about being open-minded and able to change and adapt to the circumstances we are put into. The older we get, the easier it is to be rigid. But I don’t want to live like that. I want to be forever six, loose and open and possible!
Perhaps that’s why I paint the water, again and again – as a reminder to “be possible,” I tell myself with each stroke – find the openings, become the water, get through. The water moves through my hands, my heart, my head, and I learn today’s lesson again. And, I give thanks for the cracks, thanks for the six year old heart that beats within me and says, “Everything is possible! Don’t be afraid.” Because this day, what a thing to miss!
