I used to think they were so glamorous, the women on the front of the Butterick sewing patterns. My mother’s love for the designs was enough to lure me away from the toy aisle at Woolworth’s and join her in search of the fashion dream. For as much as I enjoyed the newest doll encased in plastic with her pink outfit, it was nothing compared to the palpable life that flowed from the dress patterns into my mother’s hands at the back of the store.
I didn’t have the words for it then, but I somehow knew it was more than glamour, and closer to worth. Not in search of proof that she could be, worthy, but knowing somewhere deep in her heart, that she already was. And so I left the ease and certainty of the lined toys and joined her in the dream.
And didn’t we become. And become again. Without money, or even a well lit path, we started our journey. Our joyful journey. And she sewed and believed. And shopped. Holding clothes under neck in front of the three-way yes (four, including mine!)
The woman arriving in my sketchbook reminded me of how far we have come. A simple nod from the back of Woolworth’s. And I know the magic moved from her hands into mine. So I pass it along to you, hoping, knowing, there is no end. The patterned dream lives on.
It was just a line. A handful (but heart full) of words. I wrote it yesterday morning on the back of my sketchbook. I could hear it, her, what she was saying so clearly. And with that one line, the words came pouring out. I wrote for hours.
It’s been said, and I believe that it’s true, that a painting is never finished. Each time you look at it, it takes on your story. You are painting as you listen. I suppose that’s why we are asked to be quiet in museums, so everyone can hear.
If you lean in, she’s telling you something. Her shoulders relaxed into the truth. Her heart unobstructed. Her head lifted to hope’s promise. What is it you need to hear? You already know what it is. Let it come. Let her whisper to you. She’s handing you your story, by the heart full.
I can’t tell you how or why I started painting French birds. No more, I suppose, than I can remember the first time my mother said, “Let’s go shopping.” Some things just take on a life of their own. And now I joyfully find myself wing deep in berets and stripes.
Maybe it’s the unlikeliness of it all. We had no money, and not much of a mall. No history passed down from my grandmother. No gps in our car. No google – no computer even. Just the pure desire to dress our way into lives we knew our hearts were already living. So we gassed up the used Malibu and wore a path on I-94. Passing fields and billboards as if winged ourselves. And we found ourselves at the Dales. Ridgedale, Southdale, Brookdale even, when something just needed to be found.
I see it now more clearly. How we fit striped tops over our wings and found our way. Found ourselves.
Here in France, because my mother dared the freeway, I find myself in front of my sketchbook, and I am not lost, but ever wing deep in joy.
It turns out my mother is currently living under the assumed name of “animal prints” on TikTok. I know this to be true, because yesterday when I posted this video, she was the first to respond saying “I love that striped top. I need to be wearing it.” That is so my mother.
We had a shared language. From ruffles to stripes. One developed through years of shopping malls and our own closets. Playing dress up. Fashion show. The joy flowed like well draped fabric. And I understood completely. For her to say she was “scouring the catalogs for that blouse” after seeing a recent painting, was the best compliment she could give to me.
So how could I doubt that heaven has TikTok?
I suppose believers will always believe. And I do. And if you needed any more evidence, there’s this — while typing today’s post, I checked google to make sure I was spelling “scouring” correctly — here’s the sample definition that appeared — “I scoured the mall for a blue and white shirt, but couldn’t find it anywhere.” Feel free to say hello to my mother on TikTok.
She’s held this pose for over a week, my lovely tulip. Just like me, no one ever told her she wasn’t a dancer, and most likely (just like me) she wouldn’t have believed them if they had. And who could blame her? Donned in that lovely yellow. Gathered in and matched by the strength of the sun. How could she not keep reaching, moving, believing in all things morning as she opened each day. She did feel it! With each rising. From her very stem. And so she would dance.
A writer writes. A painter paints. A baker bakes. Not because someone pays them. Tells them that’s what they are. We decide. For ourselves. The same is true for happy. For love. You get to decide. You get to feel what you feel. No restrictions or limits. If the yellow calls to you, wakes you with a joy that not only can be, but must be, released back to the blue of the sky, then, dance, I say, simply, joyfully, rise up and dance.
Happy Easter! There’s nothing here we can’t rise above.
There is a light that comes through one of our smallest windows. It angles just enough to pass its bedroom door. Past the open hallway door. Beyond the closets. Landing directly on Margaux’s face as she leans toward the water. Something happens to my heart when I see it. All I want is to capture it. This warmth. And I have tried with my phone. My iPad. Our 35mm camera. Nothing. It tells me, time and time again, to just be in it. So I stand, quietly, enough to the side not to block, enough in the path, to feel it on my shoulder.
And isn’t that the way of love.
I used to try to fight it, draped in the beam of my mother’s memory. Then I tried to gather it all in. Neither were possible. I don’t always get it right, but mostly now, I simply let it shine. Let her shine. Never to block. Never to capture. But simply feel. And I tell you, it is a warmth, like no other. That only the heart can see.
When painting a nest, you have to create the base first. All the blacks and browns must cover, then the lighter twigs can be added. It would be impossible to add the structure afterwards. To put in the dark shadows after the tans and whites.
I guess it’s the same in real life. You have to do the work. Put in the time. Do people still do it? The hard things? It’s easy to want to skip ahead. We’re all guilty of that. But I have the reminders. Of all those who nested me. The dirty steps my grandfather took to the field each day. The heeled steps my mother took to the office. Without glory or praise, they built the nest that comforts me still.
Maybe it’s silly, but I put them out for my mother. Jelly beans or a chocolate egg. A small thank you for keeping me safe until I could fly. And still in mid air. The base to my ever changing nest.
So I craft the words each morning. Each a twig. A thank you and a hope. That we all will be saved.
To be so filled with life that it has to flush from your very pores. Cheeks ruddy and ever ready. I suppose we all think it will last forever — sure that our feet will keep the deal that youth has made. But maybe it’s the heart that takes over. (Or maybe it led all along.) Maybe it’s the heart that drags us from spring’s mud into summer’s bliss. Maybe it’s the heart that races through grass’s morning dew again and again, and lifts us up from green knees when we fall, ever promising to keep our cheeks flushed through autumn. Through winter.
Every time I paint a face, I feel the colors in my own, flowing through my hands. And the corners of my mouth rise up, smiling, so happy to be a part of youth’s reddening still.
What will you do today, to remain in the race of summer?
I sent my friend the picture of this newest bird. Still fresh from my hands, she traveled across the globe to gather in the best compliment. Her reply was, “She’s a fancy bird. Very Ivy-like.” And my heart is still beaming.
I had promised my grandmother that on my best of days, my very best, they would see her, and they would see her daughter. And I don’t always get it right — even in my “best” attempts, but I keep trying. And when you call it out by name, call them out by name, it is all the love that shines.
And isn’t that the best we can do, wear the pearls that we were given? The pearls of wisdom and strength. Of laughter and joy. Of survival and grace and courage. When we give it all a name, we have a responsibility, to witness and uphold. To generate and pass along. And with that, those very pearls are given wings. And I feel the fancy flutter about and I think, I know, how very Ivy-like indeed.
Certainly they were treasures. And I’m just as certain they weren’t expensive. But back then, (and I pray it’s still true today), I, we, didn’t associate value with money. I recognized beauty when I saw it, and these books were beautiful — these compilations of classics, bound in leather, blue, red and green, on my mother’s bookshelf. Too young yet to even sound out the words, I simply ran my fingers over the titles and somehow they got in. And this love of words has never left me.
The most likely scenario is that she got the books through a fidelity program in the grocery store. Just like we got our set of encyclopedias. And didn’t it make perfect sense, this feeding of body and soul. I devour them to this day. I can’t get enough. My fingers are currently tasting the appetizer of my newest book’s embossed title. My mother taught me that. About value. Beauty. She got in. And I know she will never leave me.
