It took a while to enter my palette. I grew up in a different shade of blue. The 10,000 lakes of Minnesota, while even different from each other, are not the same as the blue specific to Provence. And maybe it’s more a reflection of me, these blues… There was a wet-flung wildness to my lakes of youth. A daring. A “get past the buoys” kind of test. All part of the building of this confidence, I suppose, that it would take to embrace another blue, an unfamiliar, and call it my own.
I stuck to painting Americana when first arriving here in France. Oh, I snuck in a Sainte Victoire, or two, but I was careful, cautious. Would I, could I, be so bold as to say, not just that I see it too, but declare with heart and brush, this is how I see it.
And this blue, that powders between sky and sea, is in my heart now. No longer asking for knowledge or permission. It simply lives within and travels through to brush and canvas. With a heart as open as morning shutters, I greet the day, and call myself home.
I have an understanding with the Magpies. A crust of baguette from the kitchen window. Not the shiny object they are accused of coveting, but well lit for certain, under the summer sun of Provence. The exchange is met with chatter, and somehow we both know what feeds our soul.
This constant craving that keeps me returning to the studio — to paint again, for the first time — is me, magpie-ing that feeling. To find the face in the new portrait is to find a bit of myself. To dare going past that first stroke. To dare as well the letting go. All in search of the crust that feeds me.
The light in Provence is like no other. Perhaps I was unprepared at first, for this great reveal. (Are we ever prepared to really see things?) On the ledge outside the studio, I can view the colors I don’t even remember painting. Like a lost memory in the heart that says, “Oh, I’m ready to shine.” That is willing and able to admit that I’m not just black and white, but blue. To show it all is to risk it all. But I, like the Magpie, have come to brave the creak of the handle. The clank of the window opening. All for the taste of a slip of lavender honey on no ordinary crust of bread.
The light is calling. My heart chatters — I will not refuse.
It was my mother’s best color. Of course she looked good in it, but there was more to it. We didn’t have google to ask why. It was enough to simply feel it, the power of turquoise.
“Use what you have to get what you need.” I tell myself this daily. But how do you get an afternoon with your mom, when she’s not here? What do I have to make that happen? I have paint. I have time. I mix the blue and the green. The calmness of the blue, settles and gathers and the green promises the growth of all things to come. And wasn’t that what I longed for, the hug and gentle release of my mother. The open window tells me it’s all still within reach. And I sit in the power of turquoise. And I am saved.
It functioned, of course, but it took a minute for me to fall in love with our kitchen. I suppose as with any love, I had to show it what I really needed. Not just breakfast in the morning, but a welcome. A real welcome of comfort and possibility — joy in every shade of blue. So I painted it. Just like in the cartoons, I want the scent to make a hook and lure me in — so I make the bread. I want to avoid the fax machine blare of the espresso maker — so I brew the coffee, puff by liquid puff on the stove. I, we, bring it flowers to say we know how lucky we are to be here, together, at this table.
Certainly I learned it from my mother — if you want to be loved, be loving. From my grandma — if you want to receive, give something. And it was from my ninth grade English teacher, Mr. Rolfrud — if you want to be a part of someone’s story, you have to share yours.
I see it more easily now, because of them. In places and people. So I’m able to fall in love with my kitchen, daily. My bathroom. My husband. Myself. My life. I step into the blue of the morning, and think, isn’t it lovely?
My mother always said that she wasn’t an artist, but I think we both knew that wasn’t true. With the courage and audacity of a Rothko, she stood in front of the mirror and created the perfect shade of blue, bringing out eyes, strengthening shoulders, softening lines. Somewhere between a Mediterranean Sea and an open sky, she, without spelling it out for me, let me know that joy arrives in every shade of blue.
Some may say the sea is blue. It makes me laugh. As much as when people say, they want to be happy. The color of the water depends on the depth, the sun, the wind, the beholder. There is no one color. There is no one happiness. I’m not sure I could even define happiness. For all the striving, I think it is fleeting. What is lasting, in my humble opinion, is joy. This feeling of peace and hope, a turquoise of glee, even when the skies take upon a gray, or the waves rock in with extra white, it is there. Arms waving. Arms contemplating. Arms holding. Or hopeful. It is there.
And I want to see it all. I was made for this — to not turn away — but to face. I hope you can feel. Walk toward it. Welcome it. Joy is arriving.
There is a color blue that I know, only because of my mother.
I had heard of broken hearts before. Saw the Disney versions on Sunday nights in living color. I wasn’t allowed to sit too close to the television, in the fear that it would ruin my eyes. But when I watched my mother’s heart break, I forgot the warnings, and pulled myself in, up so close, so personal, my heart telling my eyes, you have to see her.
We moved from our house on Van Dyke Road. Apartment to apartment. In this seemingly endless winter, I could hear her heart snapping, like the leafless limbs on frozen trees. With every painful crack, we moved. Searching. Each nest smaller. Sharp, inexpensive twigs. I stayed nestled in. In front. Beside. It was where I could feel the hope. See the “just maybe.” And time to time I would hear it, in a whisper, glancing out the apartment window, even at the garden level she would press our faces to the glass, and as the shoes hustled by on the sidewalk she would force a smile and say, “Aaah, but the view!” My eyes squinted, not from the pain, but the laughter. I would never again worry about getting in too close.
I can’t remember how long the winter lasted. Was it years? Then I saw her in front of the window on Jefferson Street. Sitting next to the stereo. Replaying the record by Shirley Bassey. She feverishly wrote down the words, “I wish you bluebirds in the spring, to give your heart a song to sing and then a kiss, but more than this, I wish you love.” Was she writing to him? To her heart? I wasn’t sure, but I knew one thing, spring had arrived, in the most glorious shade of blue.
I usually had ten to fifteen minutes to spare. I held the back of the green leather seat and jumped up the minute the bus driver braked and pulled out the stop sign along with door. First off of the school bus, I ran around the corner to the back door. I flung my coat into the locker that I never actually locked and ran to the gym. No windows, it was as dark as night. I put a notebook between the doors, cracking a sliver of light that led me to the utility closet. It wasn’t always there, on the doorknob, the plastic jump rope I purposely hung after gym class. Most days, the gym teacher put it away and locked the door, but from time to time, as I felt my way along the wall the next morning, I would feel it before I saw it, and my day began with a heart jump of excitement.
Of course I had jump ropes at home. I managed to sneak them in our cart quite often at Ben Franklin. They weren’t expensive. But the jump ropes at Washington Elementary were nothing short of gorgeous. Worthy of being locked up. They had a weight to them. The plastic blue and white segments would snap against the gymnasium floor with each turn. Maybe it was the darkness that heightened the sound, but the hard plastic cracking against the floor sounded like power. And I twirled myself into confidence.
When the bell rang, I hung the rope back on the knob with a silent thank-you. I picked up my notebook and smiled sweatily into my desk for the day. Ready to face the light of day. The light of learning.
It’s different for everyone. It’s even different for ourselves as we continue to change. But we always need to find a way to begin. To boost our confidence. To give ourselves a head start (a jump start). I know what works for me. My hope today is that these words are the tiny crack in the door, the small sliver of light, that leads you to finding yours. Your confidence. Your power. Your beginning.
For a short time, when I was but a short child, I lived in a green house. It was under a blue sky, lit with the brightest yellow sun. It was a time when blue and yellow did, in fact, make green. And everything made sense. Then we moved to a brown house. On the same road. We broke apart, each of us. Nothing made sense. And I spent years searching for my palette.
I asked the same sky, under the same sun, every day, “Please, can you show me the way?” The sun continued to smile, as if it were already telling me. “What?” I asked the yellow. “Where?” I asked the blue. One day I looked down at my shoes, my travel weary shoes, stained with green. A smiling sigh. The blue got bluer. The sun beamed. I looked back at my shoes. How long had they been carrying the answer? Carrying my palette. My home.
They come out so easily now, the colors of my heart, as I live and paint each canvas. Because I know where they are, these comforting colors of my palette, my love, my home — they are, as they always have been, carried within.
I started telling my secrets — small secrets, secrets that fit into the basket of my banana seat bike — telling these secrets to the tiny waves of Lake Latoka. They were not big waves, but they were not big secrets. And so they would roll out, back to the deep water, dark water, and I would be free. Free from carrying them.
What a relief to be free. As I got older, some secrets (or worries) got bigger. But so did my lakes. On the shores of Lake Michigan, I released more than I could carry. And again, I was free.
And when I needed a bigger tide, there was the ocean, the sea…and never have I been turned away. Each wave telling me, go ahead, I can handle it. Let me carry it.
This comfort of shore, what a gift. So I paint it again and again, to remind me of all that it has offered to carry. And for all those people, disguised in blue, who have done the same. I give thanks for you, every day.
I see you standing there, toes dug in the sand. I nod my head and smile. We both know what we’re thinking, “Roll tide!”
When painting, from time to time, you need to take a step back. And just look. It always looks different. Or more clear. Same eyes. Different view. So close to the easel, you can miss it. Only in stepping back, taking in the full picture, can you see what’s really happening on the canvas. Then you can get close again. Change what’s needed. Sometimes it’s just a stroke or two. Other times you really have to paint over what you had — “give up your darlings” as they say — ideas and images that we make so precious, so darling, that we can’t even see the truth of them. It’s easy to think everything we do is right… the only way… but trust me, I have been proven wrong, stroke by stroke. It’s never easy, but it has always been for the better.
Since moving to France, I have begun to see my home town in a whole new light. I guess I had to step back. From here, each blue seems a little bluer, from lake to sky. Nothing was perfect, far from darling. But things needed to be released just the same. I suppose my “darlings” were thinking that everyone could have been better, should have been better. But I was so close to my own canvas that I couldn’t see them. Maybe they, too, were having their own struggles. Everyone does. Maybe they were doing the best they could do. Maybe we all were. The buoys in the lake, after all, weren’t there just for me. Maybe we were all looking to be saved.
I am reminded of a song sung by Bette Midler:
From a distance The world looks blue and green And the snow capped mountains white
From a distance The ocean meets the stream And the eagle takes to flight
From a distance There is harmony And it echoes through the land
It’s the voice of hope It’s the voice of peace It’s the voice of every man
From a distance We all have enough And no one is in need
And there are no guns, No bombs, and no disease No hungry mouths to feed
From a distance We are instruments Marching in a common band
Playing songs of hope Playing songs of peace They are the songs of every man
God is watching us God is watching us God is watching us From a distance
From a distance You look like my friend Even though we are at war
From a distance I just cannot comprehend What all this fighting’s for
From a distance There is harmony And it echoes through the land
And it’s the hope of hopes It’s the love of loves It’s the heart of every man
It’s the hope of hopes It’s the love of loves This is the song for every man
I take a step back today, and I see you. Beautiful.
