It happened three times on the playground of Washington Elementary. Once falling from the swings. Once from the dragon head of the monkey bars. (Why it didn’t have a monkey head, I’ll never know, nor why we didn’t question it.) And once from the horizontal spinning pole. Each time landing splat on my back, “knocking the wind” right out of me, gasping for air, the breath I took for granted, gone. The solution from the faces that stared down at me was this, “just breathe.” And they were always right, but the thing they never told me, us, these teachers and principals, (and they had to have known, I realize this only now), that this could and would happen again without even falling.
Does anyone ever realize how much “wind” they have been given? I have been writing about it for decades. Painted it. Danced in it. But still, when it is taken away, this breath of love… From grandparents and parents. Children. Friends. It’s hard to imagine that you’ll ever breathe again. But it comes back. And then one day, you find that you did indeed survive, and you are now the one looking down, smiling gently, having captured all the breaths of love that never really left, saying “just breathe…just breathe…”
Long before ever hearing of the word “blog,” I put words to paper to keep a record of our lives. We called it writing.
For my highschool graduation, my mother gave me a small journal and a cross country train ticket to Washington State. In a class of 400 or so, I graduated 13th. To commemorate, my sister-in-law gave me 13 cans of Hi-C grape drink (my favorite at the time). My mother and I packed our non-rolling suitcases, along with the Hi-C and boarded the train.
As we rolled along the uneven tracks, often reaching 50 miles per hour, I began writing down the details of our adventure. We couldn’t afford the sleeper cars, so for more than 24 hours we watched the other passengers. I wrote down everything I saw. The man handcuffed to the federal agent (possibly just local law enforcement). The man kissing the “other” woman between cars, then returning to his seated wife and children. The older couple cutting their food so finely it could almost be described as pureed. The fielded landscape that passed so slowly outside the window allowing me to describe stalk by stalk.
I wrote it all down. We passed the journal back and forth. Laughing loudly with purple stained lips.
I still have the journal. Reading through it, one thing becomes quite clear — I stopped writing once we reached the destination. I suppose it has always been, and always will be, about the journey. These are the most precious moments.
I recently bought a booklet of handmade paper from a small French mill. Far from being filled, it has already given me hours of entertainment. It won’t be for sale. The profit comes in the daily escape. The magic as the images come to life. The stories behind their expressions. The lives revealed. The wheels of brush to paper click along at a reduced Amtrak pace, and I’m able to see everything. To feel everything, below the speed of this summer afternoon.
You can call it whatever you want. Journaling, writing, creating, blogging. However it is you fill your day. And you can do it for whatever reason you want — that is not for me to say. But if it’s purely for “likes,” for approval, the destination… you could be missing out on the most fantastic part of living. This is the advice I give to myself — Relax. Breathe. Don’t worry. Look around. We’re all going to get there.
Sitting next to the early morning window, trying to capture the brief moment of air that might still be called fresh, I slowly scroll my ipad for pictures, ideas to write about. It’s even a little hard for me to believe that I don’t plan out my daily posts. I don’t have a list of ideas or prompts. I don’t even worry about it. (Which, in knowing myself, is a huge deal.) I simply trust that it will come.
This morning, I stumbled past a few photos from winter. Bundled. Scarved. Gloved. It seems almost unimaginable to be cold. I know it will come, (we will even travel deeper into it) but I don’t waste a second of summer worrying about it. I really don’t. If only I could bottle this feeling for everything. The challenges of time and relationships. If I could just let them come and go, as is the nature of all things. If I could just be grateful for the season I’m in. And not be afraid of the ones to come. This is the goal. My goal.
And certainly, just as in nature, I will be better some days than others. Even the fruit trees in our garden know this. I hear their leaves buzzing from the extraordinary harvest of this summer, with not a whisper given to the bareness of last year’s, nor a worry for the next. The birds sing in those branches, as if it were the first morning ever given. I listen with open window and heart, and know that I can do the same, and pray that I will.
In my first remembered summers on Van Dyke road. I ran barelegged and armed through endless sunny days. Thinking they would never end. (But maybe that isn’t true.) I suppose I knew, but I was in the moment, and in the moment there is no beginning or end, there just is…
My window can only open up to today. I smile into the sun and capture the thoughts that still might be fresh. And I tell my brain, what my summer heart already knows — it is enough, more than enough.
Hours before I knew it would actually be possible, I responded to a friend’s message. She was struggling with the “letting go.” I had this thought – telling her to give them to me. Hand them all over, these feelings of hurt and anger, and I would take them and place them in a field of lavender, to be swallowed up in all that purple. Nothing bad can survive that much beauty, I thought. And then, if a few stray negative thoughts tried to creep back into her heart and brain, at least they would smell of sweet lavender.
As I said, I didn’t know that only a few hours later, we would be passing countless fields of lavender on the way to see friends near the mountains. An endless sea of purple. “Ooooooooh,” I exclaimed, looking out the window. “Do you want to stop and take a photo?” Dominique asked. “Yes,” I said, but thought, not only that. I had some things to release. Not only hers, but mine as well. It’s funny how easily it all rolled down the ditch into the lap of scented color. I took the photos. The field grinned, exposing the lines of purple teeth, and I smiled in return.
Maybe we don’t all get the fields of lavender, but it is then we look to the friends that do. I suppose that’s what we’re all here for — to take turns carrying the load on our way to something beautiful. Because the world IS beautiful. Still and ever.
Pull over today. Take it in. Let it go. The breath of lavender — nothing bad can survive this much beauty.
On the flight home, from Minneapolis to Paris, we were bumped up to First Class. It was glorious. Of course there was champagne. White table cloths. Bigger televisions. Warm towels. And that was nice, for sure, but really, and we both agreed, the glorious part was being able to lie down. To let out that sigh, that sigh of relief, that letting go of airport stress, lonesome hearts, and weary bodies. Not to be crushed or crammed, but to exhale and just be long.
It occurred to me as I was typing — to belong, is really just that — to be long. I consider myself blessed to have this. With my husband. My mother. And a few close friends. This ability to stretch out my heart, lying in complete comfort, complete rest, knowing it will be safe on this journey. There is nothing more luxurious than this.
So in the exhale of morning, I give thanks for these people — you who bump me to first class, every day.
(This is where the bell dings and we prepare for take-off. The sun shines “welcome aboard.”)
There seemed to be holes everywhere in our neighborhood. Someone was digging a well. Planting a tree. Burying something you preferred not to know about. And as kids, in this neighborhood full of holes, we seemed to be constantly running. Chasing the sun, knowing it would set long before we were ready, and we would be called home.
It was behind our green house that I fell into my first hole. Maybe it was for the sewer pipe, I don’t know, but we were running. I was just a little ahead of Cathy. I turned the corner at full speed, laughing, not looking for danger (I had not yet been exposed). And then, from her perspective, I dropped out of sight. Literally. Flat on my back. I’m not sure who was more surprised. I couldn’t breathe. The wind was knocked out of me. I signaled with my shifting eyes, and head, and somehow she knew, like in every Lassie conversation, to go get a ladder. I say “a ladder,” because in this neighborhood full of holes, there would always be a ladder leaning against someone’s garage door. By the time she returned, my lungs were once again filled with summer air and I climbed up the wooden rungs.
Because that’s what we did, you see. We saved each other. And most importantly, I suppose, we offered up the reason to believe that someone would be there for us. And this is what kept us running. For me, it still does. It gives me the strength to keep going, even with the knowledge that life’s path is full of them – these holes that will try to swallow us. I still believe in the kindness of those around me. The ladders that will be offered. The strength to get myself higher. Forever chasing the sun.
We knew a little about team work, from playing in school sports, or even gym class, but this was different. We weren’t just working together, “It was more than that,” he said. We had to breathe together. Breathe together? All of us? Was that even possible?
We were just a group of teenagers in a band. We had never heard of breathing exercises. Certainly never heard of yoga. We were preparing for the state high school band tournaments in Minneapolis. Maybe some of us had grand aspirations, but I don’t really think so. We got to get out of school early. Ride a bus to Minneapolis. That was about it. But for some reason he believed in us. Wanted us to believe in ourselves. Reach for something more. And he stood in front of us, with that baton, that wiggle, all that hair, smiling, and we started to believe too.
It was the first time I even brought my clarinet home. Practiced. This was new. For most of us. We were all learning our individual parts, but it wasn’t enough he said. He said we had to be “one.” And the only way we could be “one” was to breathe together. For the first time I listened to my own breath. I was aware of my actions. Aware of the girls on either side of me. The boys behind me. We had different interests. Different skill levels. But we could do this. We could breathe together. We could do this for ourselves. We could be better. And we were. Every day.
That bus ride to the competition was fantastic. We sang. Arm in arm. Shoulder to shoulder. Our instruments snuggly packed in the compartments below. We played better than we ever had. Cohesive. One unit. It sounded beautiful — to us. We didn’t make it past the first round. I don’t suppose that was the ending you imagined. You were expecting some sort of victory. OH, but you see we were victorious. We thought so! And he thought so, our conductor, Mr. Christianson.
On the bus ride home we sang and laughed, still arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder, because we had done what we thought impossible. We became one. And that was the victory after all. We were part of something. I can hear a big band song on the radio today, and feel it!. I breathe in, once again, the gift he gave us, the gift we gave ourselves. And I belong.
It’s not like I thought honey came from a plastic bear, but not far.
Yesterday, on our small village tour, we bought some lavender honey. Before living in France, I had never really thought of the magic of bees. Bees. The work. The patience. The craft. Nothing short of magical. How they take, without harming, from their surroundings and create something so fabulous. What a lesson to be learned. I want to be better at this.
Of course we needed bread for the honey. In the spirit of the bees, I made it. Taking the hours to mix, and wait, and rise, and wait, and roll, and wait, and bake. But the payoff, a house that smells better than any boulangerie…and the taste of bread fresh from the oven!
This patience is a tricky thing to learn. We always want the answers right away. I am guilty of it for sure. Needing to know all the outcomes. How’s it going to be? I can get so far ahead of myself that I spiral out of the possibility of now. But now I have the lessons of honey. The sweet taste that tells me, relax. You don’t need to know how the magic works, just believe in it, taste it. It’s lavender. Lavender. And for a moment, this moment, I am saved.
Still-life paintings are really just, well, life. They probably say more about the viewer than the artist. I think a still-life painting works if you stop, breathe, and let the beauty in with each inhale, each exhale. Slowly.
And I suppose, that’s what life is. Taking in. Letting go. Every day there are still beginnings. Still endings. Still life. We just have to find the beauty of it all.
When I look at this painting, some days, it is my rest. I just breathe. I am the pear in the bowl. And other days, I am a kitchen in Provence, with all the scents of what’s to become, to be made. It gives me what I need.
Life will do that, if you let it. If you dare ask for what you need, and then see it, allow it, become it. In the stillness, it will come. Believe it. Look for it. All the beauty that you need, is right there in front of you. Still.
