It’s a variety of the beignet, but distinctive to the south of France. More importantly, they are simply delicious! As luck would have it, the best I’ve ever tasted come from the boulangerie nearest our home. I suppose I’ve eaten my share, knowing that when I enter the door, either of the two women working there shout out, “Des oriellettes!” And I must say, it only makes them more delicious!
It’s the equivalent of the coffee shop knowing your order. The butcher your cut of meat. The librarian knowing your last read. The person on the walking path waving with an “it’s great to see you again this morning.” We all want to be seen. And what a simple and glorious gift it is! Names and numbers, status and rank, not required. A little eye contact. A smile. It goes a long way.
Sure, the oriellettes are sweet. What keeps me coming back, what tells them to fill up that sachet, is a little glimpse that they see me, maybe even enjoy it, and I enjoy it too — nothing much sweeter than that! My heart begins to dance.
My mother loved to read by the window. Of course the light was better, but knowing her, always in search of more air to breathe, she no doubt wanted the same for her open book.
I suppose that’s why I crave it too — the crack of a window, or the spine of a book. I think that’s what reading does, opens up everything. Allows more information in, and lets go of preconceived ideas. A refreshing. Simply put, more air to breathe.
The first time I really understood was on the playground of Washington Elementary. I mean really on the playground, after falling from the railings where the teeter totters used to be. Landing flat on my back, my internal wind ran like a rat from a ship and left me gasping. Like a fish flopping on the dock’s edge. That’s all I had, metaphors, no air to breathe. So this is how she felt, my mother, I thought, in those uncomfortable situations that only adults knew. Being judged for status or money or anything else a small town could measure you by. And I knew I would hug her after school. I would take all the air that I had inside of me once again and use it to run from the bus, through the garage door, into her arms, and give her that much needed air.
Empathy. It only comes from being open. I sit by the window with my open book. There is so much more to learn. To love. And so I breathe.
They loved them for different reasons. My grandma’s a bit more practical. She needed her pockets for Kleenex and treats — we needed candy she said, you know, just to be sure. My mother kept her dreams in her pockets, be it skirt, coat or pants, needing a place to coddle them in hand, you know, just to be sure.
So maybe they weren’t that different after all. They just found their way to comfort through different pocketed resources. And after all, didn’t they both love the autumn candy at Walgreen’s.
We have no candy corn in France. No mellowcremes, or Autumn Mix by Brach’s. Yet, my pockets remain full, with the same magic as the heart, I suppose.
We get to decide the magic that we carry. The love we hold on to. The hopes and dreams and comforts that fill our pockets. Sometimes I find myself leaning up against a French wall, and rolling it all between my fingers, you know, just to be sure.
A painting will dictate what it wants for a frame. Or some will not need one at all. But once in a while, the sequence reverses, and I will paint an image for a frame. That’s what happened with this little one. It was alone in the thrift store. Empty. But not for long.
To see a need and fill it, before the asking, it’s nice within my artistic world, but my sincere hope is that I can do it in real life. With real people.
I was told once that when someone near you is going through a difficult time, you should never ask them “What can I do?” Of course it is well intended, but now you’ve only added to the situation – given them another problem to solve – how you can help. It’s never easy, or a sure thing, but I suppose the best thing is to just do something. It may not be the thing to solve the problem, but doing something nice can never be wrong. And you can always do another thing.
In that spirit, I’ve painted several small pieces for this frame. They can always be switched out. Mostly it serves as a reminder for me to just keep doing. Keep trying. And I’m not going to lie, it simply feels good. It fills me at the same time as the frame. So I smile and point the question, not outwardly, but inwardly, “What can I do?” And I do something. And that should be celebrated.
It’s Grandma Elsie’s voice I hear. When I sold my first original painting, I told her about the gallery, the people, the price. She clapped her hands in front of her heart and said, “Isn’t that something?!!!!!!”
She stood in front of the original painting. Tracing the movement from the woman’s feet to her hand. “She’s so light,” she said, “it’s like she’s being lifted.” I smiled and replied “That’s actually the name of the piece — Being Lifted.” Her pleasure doubled. It was not only the view, but that she could see it.
And isn’t it always the way. It’s what we bring to the situation. How we want to see things.
Knowing her, I’m aware of the weight she is wanting to release. And the fact that she can see it, right there in front of her, I know that she will.
It’s why I painted her in the first place. This release. This letting go. I suppose I’ve always wanted it. Ever since I swam out to the diving board on Lake Latoka, I have yearned to fly. Since I felt the weightlessness of springing from the board. The wind in my feathers. My momentary wings. They carry me still.
It’s why I stand before her each night, the woman in the painting. Because I see her. And I know, when morning comes, one way or another, I am going to fly.
It’s a bread baking morning. I’m still surprised at the act. How much I love the bread. How I adore that the house smells like home. And mostly that I’m someone who has the patience to wait for the rise.
And maybe that’s unfair. Perhaps we are way too quick to label people. To pull out the “never” cards. She never does that. He will never do this. How do we know when we are young, (or at any stage in our lives for that matter) what we will do, what we are capable of doing? So I’ve decided to try and replace never with not yet. Giving myself the opportunity to keep becoming. And the hardest part, having the patience to allow the transformations. To wait for the rise.
You’d think just the attempt to learn that in itself would serve as the reminder, but I must admit, I do need the bread. As I cover the half empty bowl, I smile and know that I’m not where I’ve been, I’m not where I’m going, but I am on my way.
The sun hits the towel that coddles the bowl that holds the dough. And so I rise.
As much as I was outside when I was young, I never enjoyed nor entertained the idea of getting dirty. I was saved by the outdoor hose on numerous occasions, as the lengthy trip through the garage, then down the stairs into the laundry room to wash would have been far too much to bear.
So when Mrs. Paulson first introduced us to the subject of empathy in the fourth grade as “walking around in someone else’s shoes,” you can imagine my despair. Shoeless after winter recess, our footwear neatly tucked into the cubbies along the wall, her introduction to this compassion seemed permission to one of the boys in the back, as he raced to cram his still damp-footed socks into a pair of the girly shoes. Amid the laughter, she ushered him firmly by the elbow back to his seat.
To my extraordinary relief, she went on to explain that the shoes were simply a metaphor. It was our stories, the history that we walked around in. This is what we were to share. Maybe it was the relief of this knowledge, or maybe I was just meant for this. Either way, I’ve been sharing my story ever since. And the greatest gift of all has been listening to yours.
Barefoot in the studio yesterday, I began painting this woman. Fueled by the new book that I’m reading, Kin, I had the need to put a face to the story. I wiggled my toes upon the cool floor as she came to life. And it was Mrs. Paulson, feathered and perched upon her shoulder, that told me again of this magical gift. This empathy.
I washed my brushes with the summer hose outside the door. And I was saved.
It has happened twice in the last week. Women seemingly from my imagination arrive on canvas, only to be recognized and loved by complete strangers.
I posted her on TikTok yesterday when I finished painting her. The reply came from another country. She said she loved my art and thought my portraits were very elegant. But she loved this woman more than any other because she saw her best friend’s mother. She said it looked exactly like her. She missed her and “it made her heart feel so warm.”
The thing is, we just don’t know. We don’t know who is going through what. We can’t know what everyone needs. But I think if we keep putting things out there — smiles, waves, kind words, thoughts, flowers from the garden, portraits from our imaginations, love from our hearts — it will be good for someone at some point, and in turn, better for all of us.
With my also warmed heart, I will return to the canvas today, and it will arrive, right on time.
By my best estimation, I would say there was a hundred degree span (0 – 100°F) in which we were told to go outside. A span which could in fact lengthen depending on our attitudes.
Before the last bit of Captain Crunch was slurped from the bowl. Long before the school bus was to arrive. Or the sun of summer’s vacation. My mother would say “Goodbye. I love you. Have a nice day,” and it was clear that I was the one meant to leave. And for the next twelve hours or so, I spent the day outside. We all did.
Perhaps we had been sold on the fact that all good things were outside. They used it as a reward in school, so of course it worked at home. We lived it. We loved it. It was the great reveal of the sun. There were no boundaries. Imagination, even love, couldn’t reach a limit. And believe me, we dared it — with the pedaling of bikes on gravel, the abandonment of those same bikes in ditches, barefooted and unsure of what lay beneath, we raced, willing sunburned legs to spin one more time around bases or vacant lots.
It’s self imposed now. But I can still hear the call, the direction. You could label it as discipline, give it the fancy words of adulthood. But what brings me to the door each morning, what carries me to test the day’s limits are still the same words, “Goodbye. I love you. Have a nice day.”
There was a rhythm to the gravel road we lived on. A popping of pebbles against the tires. The whirring of rubber in dust. It was the music of homecoming. I listened every day from our house on Van Dyke Road. Just after 4:30 my mother arrived within the soundtrack of return. All that music, all that joy, I simply had to dance.
Of course the neighborhood was often abuzz with complaint. When would they pave this road? All that music, to them was noise.
I thought of them yesterday. They would be the same people here who complain about the cicadas. To me, it sounds like home. It is the opening of windows and doors. Bare legged freedom. A studio that has no limits. A comfort that requires no bracing. My song of home.
I suppose it’s all a choice. Noise or music. Just a feeling. And if it feels like a song, if it feels like home, it probably is… So I choose happiness. Joy. And it moves me from heart to limb.
After all, if we’re not supposed to dance, why all this music?
