Just imagining it, I can feel the tension leave my shoulders. My breathing slows. To lie in the folds of my grandma’s apron was as near as I came to where all hopes nested.
She possessed the most remarkable ability, to fall asleep at any given moment. Not narcolepsy. It was as if she stored the sleep beside the Kleenex up her sleeve, and when she needed five minutes, or twenty, she could pull it out and take the needed rest. And I truly mean it could be any time. During a telephone call. A commercial break during Days of Our Lives. Or as you struggled through your turn in a card game of which she neglected to explain to you the rules.
During one such game, I watched her apron fall and rise. I couldn’t take it anymore. I laid down my cards and gently folded myself silently from my chair. I wormed my way back up into her lap, and rode love’s ebb and flow. When I think of it now, I was not all that graceful. Surely my climbing must have awakened her. I looked up to see if an eye opened. I think I saw just the curve of her lip. I rested comfortably in the knowledge that it was still my turn.
Long before I even knew how to read, I knew how to comfort myself. It started with off-brand crayons and coloring books from the bottom shelf at Olson’s Super Market. I can’t be certain I even knew what the feelings were. If I even had a word for comfort. But I did know this, after completing a page, presenting it to my mother, I was held in the warmth of her embrace, and I was saved. It’s still true today.
It wasn’t until I moved to France that I started painting birds. And true to my own algorithm, I suppose, it was then I was introduced to the book “Bird by bird,” by Anne Lamott. It was her father’s incite that gave the book its title:
“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’”
Reading it so many years after practicing it, seems to me to be but a wink from heaven.
I made a short video after completing the page of birds. The first suggested song was “Wonderland.” It sings the question, “How do you get to Wonderland?” I smile, because I learned the answer so long ago —bird by bird.
I never imagined the seeds that were planted would produce the same yield. I don’t think they did either. There were so many of us. In so many places. Certainly all those grandchildren and great grandchildren would have differences. But from that beautiful farm, Rueben and Elsie, with the faith of spring, they sprinkled us with love and knowledge — so much, that we could do nothing but grow.
As I was drinking my coffee amid the glorious shelves of the bookstores, surrounded by magazines and truth and fiction, I took a sip and smiled, because it occurred to me, this was my “root-beer float.” Amid all the chaos of those nine children, those 27 grandchildren, Grandma Elsie found the time for “self care.” She would probably cringe at the words, but it was her treat — her root-beer float. An oasis in all of the uncertainty of land and weather that is a farm. That is a family. Of course she offered one to me, to anyone, but the seed, I see now, was not the root-beer, but the time. The time for that bit of joy that goes straight to your heart, brings you the comfort and joy that is supposed to last through the year, throughout your life.
And so I take it, the time, to enjoy my coffee, my books, my magazines. And you can call it whatever you want, but I know one thing for sure, it is not time wasted. With each sip taken, each word read, I know, “something will grow from all of this, and it will be me.”
It’s easy to imagine that everyone is experiencing the same weather. The sunny and 80 degrees are beginning to drop as we head out of California. I have to admit, I often forgot that it was still winter. While I was wearing shorts, most were bundled.
And that’s the thing, I suppose, we adapt to our surroundings perhaps just a little too easily. We come to believe that everyone is having the same experience. Living the same life. The same wants and needs as our inner circles. But it’s just not true.
It becomes more clear when you roam the country. The variances from state to state, from city to city, from neighborhood to neighborhood are extraordinary. It doesn’t always make clear why people make the choices they make, but it does explain why the choices are different.
Has it always been this way? I think I first noticed the difference when I was in grade school. My world, of course, was Van Dyke Road. I was aware of the change from gravel to pavement. I had ridden my bike beyond our road, onto the tar, around the lake, over the railroad tracks, past Big Ole into town, a million times. But it only became truly clear when I went for a sleepover to Barbie’s house in Victoria Heights. Was it the move from road to heights? The change from Van Dyke to Victoria? I wasn’t sure. But it was different. They called it a development. I didn’t have the words for it then, but it sounded important. And my mental vocabulary told me that it was different. But that different to me, never meant bad. I wore my gravel like a badge, and I rode on.
When did it become bad — this different? I’d like to think it hasn’t for me, but am I paying attention. I have to pay attention. We all have to pay attention. We all change and grow at different times. And some don’t get the luxury of either. The weather is changing. The very climates of our being.
I don’t have the answers, but I do believe in the randomness of it all. Life is constant change. In this we can take comfort. I am reminded of the quote by Hal Borland: “No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.” I’m counting on it. May we all.
I’d like to think I was aware of each twig. Each stick. The constant effort it must have taken, with damaged, sometimes even broken wings. Just to build something that I would be certain to leave. But I’m not sure that I saw it. Does anyone see it while nestled? Mostly, I suppose, I just took comfort.
Seeing it now, for the gift that it was, continues to be, I can only wonder, am I singing enough? I sing. I know this. But is it worthy? Is it heard above all the noise? Sometimes I hear the humming along, and I think, I can feel it, the gathering of new sticks. The building of new nests. And I think we can build something. Build it together. Joyfully. We who have been given all the tools, all the luxury and comfort, all the support of those who came before us, we have to sing. Sing and gather, and risk each thorn, because the world is listening. Watching. So in need of a nest, an impermanent nestle that holds us, lifts us, and sets us free.
We must be the gatherers. The inconspicuous gatherers, preparing the nest. Allowing all the comforts unaware, tucked within the improbable verse, the impossible song. It’s all we’ve been given, it’s all we need to hear.
In the arts of love and endurance, gratitude, forgiveness, strength and pure joy, the heart is mighty, for sure! But it’s never been all that good at math.
Of the nine children my grandparents had, only two remain. This two of Rueben and Elsie changed its numbers so many times, and continues still. Only once, with the twins, did it jump by two. The eleven held, and grew even more rapidly, as the nine paired off and tested all of our addition skills. Children turned into grands and then greats, and just as we got used to all of the plus signs, the painful subtractions began.
But the arithmetic of the heart is nothing like we learned at Washington Elementary. Here they taught us that the value changed when subtracting. But they didn’t warn us about the heart. Because for the heart, it never does. The numbers will forever change — it’s a guarantee that life will do that — but the value remains. Love cannot, will not, do the math.
I mention it today because my dear friends lost their beloved dog. She said she was missing her family of three. I, we, struggle to add comfort in times of loss. I don’t know if it helps, I hope it helps, it often does for me…this letting go of the math. Letting the heart decide what remains. True love does. So, I tell her, you ARE still three. Forever three.
I don’t know that I was necessarily being so “good,” but that’s how it was interpreted. My grandma used to marvel — “I could just put you down, and that’s where you’d stay until I told you that you could move again — such a good kid!”
I remember her roll-top desk. She plopped me in the chair. I could just reach the handle. It made a little thwapping sound as I pushed it up and then back down. I thought it was the greatest thing, riding this wave, the greatest thing that is until I caught a glimpse of what was inside. Pens and paper and my favorite, the pencil. I loved pencils from the moment I discovered them. The smell of the lead. The feel between my chubby fingers. The newness. Everything was just waiting to be created. I don’t know how long I held the pencil before she noticed me, rubbing it between my fingers as if to will the genie from the bottle, but she wiped her dish soaked hands against her apron and reached the scrap paper from the top shelf.
Tiny squares of white. Some blank. Some with abandoned grocery lists. I covered them all. Scribbles and drawings and near words. I was in heaven. I could have stayed forever. Was I being good? I was being me.
It should come as no surprise, whenever visiting a museum or landmark, my go-to souvenir is the pencil. I have a favorite — from the Pierre Soulages museum. The weight. The feel. Perfection. I use it in my sketchbooks. But truth be told, I often just hold it in my hand for a moment. And on those days when the world, the day, decides to plop me in an unfamiliar place, I hold on. I take comfort in all of these hand-held possibilities, and I smile, because I find myself saying, “I’m good.”
The amount of reasons not to do it had to be plentiful. It could be too dry. Too wet. Too hot. Not warm enough. The tractor could fail. His body could fail. Grain prices out of his control. And yet, I never heard my grandfather complain.
Sitting on his overalled lap at the card table he only spoke of the current hand he was playing. He and the chosen three adults laughed, accused, pointed, shook heads in knowing victory, slapped losing cards on the table, and kept playing. Oh how they loved to play cards after a full day of farming. And when the sun came up the next day, he walked past the card table, pocketed his pipe, and went to the field that was given, worked it accordingly, without complaint. Each year turning it from brown, to green, to gold.
Yesterday at our family gathering, (a multi-national event), I was speaking with my German niece in English in the French countryside. “I don’t have enough time,” she said. “And I’m sort of afraid,” she continued. “And I could fail…” She offered up reason after reason not to paint, even though she claimed she wanted to. She was looking so far ahead. Beyond canvases painted, sold and shipped. A business created, and what if that failed, all before a brush or tube was even purchased. “You could just paint a picture,” I said. I could hear my grandfather’s voice deep from within.
He never played next year’s hand. He farmed in the day that was given. What a lesson to be learned. I remind myself constantly. Because I, at times, can get way too far ahead of myself as well… with all the what ifs of tomorrow. But really, we only have this day. And I choose to make something of it.
It occurs to me as I’m typing this, the answer to one of her questions. I told her I was working in my favorite palette. Stroke by stroke in these moody, earthly colors. She asked why I loved it. It’s so clear to me today, it’s the hand I was given.
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.”)
The poet.A cow hung from the tree outside my grandparents’ window. It swayed without skin. Raw. I knew how this must feel. To be without skin. My mother told her parents that my father had left.
They say when you lose one of your senses, the others become stronger. It was not one of the five, but I had lost my sense of comfort, and all the others were working in overdrive. I could hear the flies buzzing, the tears falling. The gray clouds were palpable. The slightly forever over-cooked pans on my grandma’s stove wafted in the thick air. I stared at the cow. I stared at my grandfather. Back and forth, as if to ask if this was my mother’s fate. My grandfather said very little, ever. So when he did, you listened. “No,” he said, “this will not break your mother.” He found the words. The ones I needed.
Today we are living without hugs. Without touching. Displays of comfort hover somewhere in between six feet of social distancing. We need to find the words to take their place. We need to find the words that hold and gather. The words that offer the “there, there.” The words that fall into each other’s arms with laughter. The words that smile and hold and forgive and offer hope. We have the words. Let’s use them.
Adrienne Rich writes, “It is always what is under pressure in us, especially under pressure of concealment–that explodes in poetry.”
Let yourself explode today – offer the words of kindness and strength. You are the poet. Find the words.
