It was such a contrast. My grandma’s kitchen table had legs that stuck out beyond the range of feet passing. Having only one other kitchen table so far in my short life, it’s funny how quickly I adapted to the thought that all would be the same — an easy pass. Clinging to the assumption, I repeatedly tripped on her table.
It didn’t seem to bother her, nor my grandpa. I had yet to learn of “the grand scheme” of things, as they often said, explaining away how simple table legs didn’t really matter. At first I scowled. Then I marveled. And I wanted to do the same. I wanted to get past the table legs to the joys of the kitchen. To the Kellogg’s cereal variety packs. To the Lazy Susan filled with Sugar Babies, Daddies and Black Cows. Did I still trip? Sometimes. Sometimes not. I suppose I began to let it go. And as I let it go, I imagined the struggle releasing as puffs of cartoon smoke, floating above my head, and finally disappearing into what I could only explain as the grand scheme.
To display one of my newer paintings, I had to put up an old easel. Not my favorite. Its spindly legs need to extend out quite far in order to balance. (Some days I resemble that more than others.) Tripping on it, as I often do, I simply adjust the painting that has been slightly rattled, smile, and release my “cartoon puff” and go back to painting.
I said, “I know.” But I didn’t know. I wonder why I thought that knowing would dull the information given. As if this claiming to almost be in on it, would make it hurt less.
“The house sold,” my mom said. Not “we sold the house,” like we were a part of the decision making. Like we wanted to leave the comfort of Van Dyke Road and move to a small apartment in town. “I know,” I said, after nearly falling from my bike when I saw the real estate sign in the yard. That cold metal sign with the big “sold” sticker placed across, almost like a smile, like it was laughing at us…so I said I know, not because I did, but simply not to give that smiling vacate notice any more power than it already had.
With the last boxes packed, she said, “It’s going to be ok…good…you can decorate your room.” “I know,” I said. (Neither of us did.)
But the defense of this “I know” gradually turned into reality. A certainty of trusting in each other’s heart. It was no longer for the metal sign, but for us. And with each other, there were so many things that we did know, mostly love, some tears shared, but soon laughter, and the joy of really being anywhere together.
I walk by her picture now. Photographs. Paintings. I can hear her say, “I’m still here.” I smile and whisper, “I know.” (And I do.)
What will they write about if it’s only Google? If there are no stairs to climb to get to the public library? Stairs that are just a little too big for five year knees to bend. Stairs that must be climbed with a mother’s hand not simply held, but used as a pulley. Stairs, that if said mother spent too much time checking her lipstick in the rear view mirror and locking the car door, could be traversed on all fours, like one of the lions cemented and perched next to the entry door.
And if they only use AI, how will they know the smell of the card catalog? Stumble through the Dewey Decimal system? Feel the victory of when your thumb lands on the searched-for book on the shelf? For there was nothing “artificial” about claiming the knowledge, owning the responsibility. Name proudly written on the check out card. Book clutched to heart before putting in homemade book bag.
How do we keep it all tangible? These actions of brain and heart and study? What will be the stairs to climb?
I begin a new small canvas. Not for sale or recognition, but simply to learn. Improve my craft. Pass along as a hand reaching down. A pulley to reach the lions.
My mother and grandmother knew the difference. What most considered as shy they understood as being quiet. When the teachers would report, “She’s very shy, my mother would say, “She’s just not loud.”
Maybe it was because there were so many of us at my grandma’s house. It didn’t seem possible to get on top of the noise, so I went under. With a whisper. And my grandmother responded, not with a voice, but a gentle thumb that slid across my rouge cheeks, and I was saved.
It was the same in my mother’s apartment. Worry was not met with a bang. A poem rang volumes over the din of trouble. And quietly we moved, tip-toed gently, into heart’s joyful noise.
In our current world, where we exchange volume for truth, can we still hear the difference between right and wrong? Between hurt and kindness? I wonder what would happen if we just took the time to listen…
She wrote to me, in French, that this portrait reminded her of her older sister who was no longer with them. She said she could see the sadness that she carried, (tristesse), but it also gave her hope (l’espoir).
One thing does not disappear the other. We live in between. And maybe that’s where all the beauty lies, if we choose to see it, in the transitions. In the state of becoming. I often have to remind myself, as I’m hurrying to “get through.” As if the furious speed held the answers.
There is no finishing. The woman wrote of her sister as “no longer with them,”…but yet, here we are, talking about her, in two languages. So isn’t she here, hovering between the sadness and hope, with just the slightest turn of head, turn of lip, her message ready to wing on, and on…
It doesn’t sound like a lot, 15 minutes, but the year they extended our bus route beyond the tanks, we had to get up earlier, or go to school with wet hair. (This was often my choice, and for most of the Norton girls at the end of Van Dyke Road.) I didn’t think of it then, but I’m sure it felt as invasive for the Frier’s as it was for us. Maybe they had been first on their route before. I’m sorry to say I didn’t ask, but merely wished that they would hurry up their own gravel driveway so we could get to school.
It’s funny how we claim things. Our bus. Our route. We were all just trying to get to our destination. To be with our friends. To swing our feet under desks while the teacher read aloud. To laugh at lunch without snorting milk out our noses. To learn, sure. To drop permission slips and backpacks with wild abandon and run into our mothers’ arms.
There will always be roads and worlds between us, but the road that runs beneath us, this remains the same.
I wait at the top of the hill. Mailboxes at my back. Gravel beneath my feet. Ready to share the ride.
You wouldn’t even know that she needed it. I made the wooden frame for a brace on the back of her panel. No one will see it. But it will be there to support her. Through the bending power of winter’s humid. And it makes me feel special, knowing it all — the truth of what’s behind her. What’s within. And it makes me love her more, because she allowed it, this support. This loving structure.
The thing is, I suppose we think we’re strong only if we can help someone. But the truth is, it takes just as much strength to allow someone in. To accept the help we may need from time to time. It’s not easy. I know. To let someone behind the scenes.
What’s taught is what’s known. My mother and I reversed roles through the years. Front to back. And with each turning, I thought she was more beautiful, and the amazing gift, it made me feel the same.
We can do this, you know. For each other. Wouldn’t that be something? Wouldn’t that be beautiful?
I found it next to the trash bins on my walk yesterday. A small shelf made out of wooden slats — perfect for making a framing brace behind a painted panel. I walked it home. Took out the screws.. Pulled out the nails. Sanded each piece. And made my first frame for an existing panel.
Maybe it’s silly, but I feel like the wood is alive. Even after being cut. Even after supporting shoes in a French closet. Even after being discarded. Even after sitting by the bins, thinking there was still a chance to be of use. Didn’t it say, just take me home. Knowing that wasn’t back to the closet, or even the forest, but just somewhere to be valued. To be loved.
There has been a world of places where I’ve felt it. A variety of hands and hearts that have reached out, and taken me to places that I’ve never been, but walked me home all the same, with the gift of purpose, the familiar of heart.
We can do this for each other. Let go the forest, and be the pathway home.
She waited a long time to be framed. It wasn’t until I removed the existing panel to paint on the opposite side, that she had her opening. I did have to trim her ever so slightly, but she was more than willing. And now it’s her time. She’s not more important to me, I loved her from the first paint stroke, but now others perhaps can see her, for all that she is, ruffled and strong, worthy of framing.
It’s something to be given first hand sight. To watch the becoming of another. I was given that gift with my mother. Of course I loved her from coddled elbow, to grabbing at ankles. From two stepping in her elongated stride. To catching scattered tears in chubby palms. Dancing under the umbrella of her smile. I never imagined that others couldn’t see it.
She took her cuts and trimmings with a grace that I knew would one day be framed. And I watched her grow into that knowledge herself. I watched the fragile ruffles grow in strength every day. Simply. Beautiful.
When she first saw this painting, she said, “Oh, I want that blouse.” And in that statement I could hear the confidence of the wearing. She knew she could hold up every curve, with an earned and glorious grace. It was her time. My heart will ever frame.
Unlike her delicious pastries, most of my grandma’s ideas outside the kitchen were, as one might say, half-baked.
Even the successes that she served were a little hard to understand. They were given names that I didn’t realize were made up until in later years trying to Google a recipe. And if there were in fact recipes, they were never followed. When asked, she would laugh and puff the flour from hand to aproned belly and say, “Oh, I started in the middle.”
Not really understanding, I still found it unconventionally delightful. As were the chinchillas in the basement. The Publisher’s Clearing house magazines spread across the table. The various plots of land underwater or undeveloped purchased from a roadside gas station. The grab bags from Ben Franklin. The constant thrill of simply playing, neither winning nor losing, just in the game.
In front of my newest sketchbook, I understand. I never start at the first page. I always begin somewhere in the middle — where the pressure is off, only the joy of being in it. I’m trying to allow myself more of that freedom in my day to day. Not worrying about what was or what will be, just allowing, just being… aproning up and dancing in the kitchen.
