I recently learned that when birds sleep in a row, the two on the outer edges keep one eye open to protect and allow those on the inside to fall asleep. It doesn’t surprise me, I have rested within that protective watch.
There is a big scientific name for it, which I’ve already forgotten, this act of being able to keep “one eye open” while being in a half sleep — we’ve always just called that “pulling an Elsie.” She had to have been doing the same thing — birding her way through every card and dice game played on her kitchen table. Able to sleep while we pondered over our next move, then waking at the exact moment to handily beat us with chirping joy! And I saw her do it everywhere. In the funeral home where she phone-sat. At the grocery store check-out line (she did indeed check out). Even once in the car. But I was never worried. The speed at which she could belly-jiggle herself awake allowed all of us to rest, to play, to run in a carefree summer, to sleep soundly under her watch.
I suppose you could just rule it all as nature. But I know not everyone was blessed with a Grandma Elsie. So I give thanks. And make my way to the outer edges.
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 can’t say it’s the table. Nor the cupboards. I do like my kitchen, but it’s more correct to say I like who I am in my kitchen. Be it bread or cookies, I like that I’m creating something that wasn’t there before. I like that my Elsie confidence allows me to add flour without measuring, and grin as if I’ve always known. And certainly that’s not the case. I never baked before coming to France. And now my house shoes have a permanent ring of flour in the cracks.
And isn’t it the way with friends:
“I really like who I am with you… I hope that doesn’t sound bad to say… I mean it more as a compliment to you, more of a “thank you” really. You free me to be this person who laughs and cries and feels and enjoys and loves. What a relief to be myself, without performing, or worrying… just being and becoming who I am… That’s some gift… I hope I’m returning it… because you know what, I really like who you are with me.”*
It was one of the greatest mysteries to me, the perfection of the rows in the fields. I knew nothing about farming, nor even driving, when I asked my grandpa how he did it. “I just see them,” he said. “But how do you not run over it all when you turn the corner? Or get out of line when you take a sip of coffee from the thermos between your feet?” “I know where I am, and I know where I need to be. It makes it very clear.” “That’s a lot to see,” I said, still not certain that I would be able to do it. “Will I be able to do it?” “This, probably not, but you’ll see what you need to see.” “How will I know?” He got on the tractor, and showed me.
I don’t know the exact moment it happened. How I found my row. My place. But I did. It all became so clear on the page and on the canvas. People ask me all the time — How do make them so real? How do you bring them to life? The truth is, I just see them. And it is my hope, that they see what I see, and others too… then they will know they are beautiful. That’s why I paint the portraits.
I can’t tell you how it happens. So I simply hop on my daily tractor, and write and paint, and I know, somehow, we’ll all find our way.
I suppose there was no way to learn it, other than going through it. But I can still feel the slip of innocence, into the wealth of love.
My banana seat bike wasn’t just a vehicle for movement, but my best friend. Never was anything so certain. If I left it in the ditch on Van Dyke Road, it waited for me. If I needed to flee, it whistled like a get-a-way car. It not only welcomed, but carried my bedtime friends in its wicker basket. It was always there, cheerful in color, a banana seated smile. It didn’t simply agree that what I dreamed was possible, it said, “I’ll take you there.” And there were no conditions. Snow. Rain. Field or gravel, it went. It held me. So you can imagine my surprise the moment it happened. I heard a clank and my lead pedal dropped swiftly to the bottom. In panic, I circled the no longer connected pedals with cartoon speed, then dropped my feet to the road just before I fell over. I stood stunned. I had heard of this, the chain coming off. I put down the kick stand and bent over to look. It was if the chain was crying, all drooped to the ground. I touched it. Seeing my hand covered in slippery black tears, my initial disappointment turned to empathy. I would help my friend. Wasn’t it my turn, after all?
I limped it off the road into the nearest and safest spot, Kinkead Cemetery. I don’t know how long I was there. Time has a way of disappearing in such a place. With my left hand I guided the pedal. With my right I moved the chain. It clunked and I coddled, until finally, it was whole again. I was whole again.
This was friendship, I thought. This taking turns. Carrying each other. Enjoying the ride. Together.
I don’t suppose the spaces left from loved ones passed can ever be completely filled. But maybe it’s wrong to think they ever were. These relationships weren’t beautiful, memorable, longed for even still, because of their solid perfection. Perhaps they were always stardust, flittering, fluttering, changing shape, with room always left for dancing, beneath the flickering light.
It’s the way I choose to think of it, my mother’s space, not as a hole left behind, but a dance floor. And all that magic that sprinkles from her still, lights up the people around me, and they step in, tap me on the shoulder, and ask me to dance. They are my new daily connections. My new last calls. My shared laughter and secrets. Hopes and challenges. Not replacements, but keepers of the dance.
We’re not all good at the same thing. Some are meant to pull you in, and simply sway. Other’s tap their feet and keep the beat alive. Some dizzy you into laughter. Dance you into breathless. And hold out the ladle of punch. I am grateful for them all. All of you, who keep my dance floor filled, my heart in motion, in sway, in the right tempo, under the stardust.
Van Dyke Road separated the two worlds. It was so magical how far crossing one small stretch of gravel could take me. The back of our house faced a sea of grain — Hugo’s field. And in a way, it was like swimming, running through the stalks at full chubby- legged-speed, arms stretched to each side, creating a golden wave. Across the road though, behind Weiss’s house, was a lake. Not a big one. Nor a clean one, of the 10,000 our state touted. We didn’t swim in it. So what was the allure? It had to be the dock.
Florence and Alvin had a big yard. Bonnie, the daughter, was so much older, that to me, she was just another adult. So there were no arms of youth waving me over to play. I would sneak along the shrub line. Roll down the manicured slope to the lake’s edge. I could hear the dock before I saw it. The wave rocked wood cracking gently. I took off one bumper tennis shoe and placed my lavender-white toes on the sun warmed plank. It was extraordinary. I have no memory of being a shoeless baby, but I imagine at some point some uncle or boisterous neighbor blew their warm breath on my rounded feet, and I knew, standing there, barefoot on Weiss’s dock, this must be exactly how it felt. I giggled like that infant and took off my other shoe.
I braved each crack to the end. My body craved what my feet already had, so I lay down and let it gather in my arms, legs and back. My fingers danced at my side in the tiny puddles of cool water that gathered in the wood’s unevenness. I don’t know if I saw all the beauty of these imperfections, but I’d like to think I did.
Who knows how long I stayed. Summer afternoons felt eternal. I guess in a way, they are. I can still rest in that warmth.
I have written so many times about swimming – in actual lakes. Lake Latoka was only a bike ride away. But just out my door, front and back, oh, how my heart and imagination swam. Daily. And maybe that’s what home is after all…this ability to dream in the comfort of shore.
What we used to call the “penny candy” is now fifteen cents each, but that seemed like a very small price to pay for the additional time travel. Placing the Razzles in the bag, I was in the first grade, next to Gerald Reed, accepting his tokens of affection behind pink cheeks. Each Bazooka Joe plopped me onto gravel in front of our mailbox on Van Dyke Road, patiently waiting for the mailman to bring the gift I ordered from the cartoon wrappers. Zots and licorice, right back to Ben Franklin, frantically filling the sack before the cartoon previews began at the Alexandria Theatre next door. Each trip worth every penny!
I gave the candy to my friends in their early Easter Basket. They wanted to share, but I had already been filled with the travel, the love and the joy. It all comes down to experience. Connections. Time spent with the ones we love — those sitting beside us unwrapping the candy, and those we carry in our hearts, deliciously ever!
I had actually never thought about where she lived. For me, she lived in the gym, like most of my friends. Playing one sport or another. But while we all worried about things, like living in a trailer, or parents splitting up, what kind of cars we rode in, (would eventually drive), if we had the right jeans, the right tennis shoes… while all these worries were going on in our own heads, hearts, most of us were really thinking, that’s my friend from band, from choir, the one I sit behind in social studies, the girl I trust to know my secret crush, my period schedule, my first choice to sit with on long bus rides —- because this is where people live, where your real friends live, right beside you — it’s never about the trailer.
I suppose everything takes a long time to learn. And I’m still learning. And sometimes learning means forgetting. Forgetting about all the trivial things. I don’t care what cars my friends drive. The only reason I know one, is because I had to follow her to another friend’s house. A house that was beautiful, surely because of its view of Lake Latoka, but more so because it gathered us in. Gathered us in beyond all loft and luxury, and lifted us with laughter — a laughter that is still bouncing my feet, springing my step, joying my heart. This is the real measure of friendship. And lives beside me. Within me. Us. Forever.
Getting to know each other, she asked me what books I had written. It was my publisher who had referred me to this hair stylist. As I listed them off, she said, twice, “Oh, I have that book!” Both delighted, we began to wander freely in each other’s story. I knew my hair was safe in her hands.
At any book event that my mom attended, people would say, “Oh, this is so me,” or “You must have written this about me,” or “It’s me!!!” — to which my mom would reply, “Actually it’s about me!” We would all laugh, knowing that everyone was actually right.
We all want to be seen. We need it to survive. There is the ineffective shortcut of shock, that so many want to rush into, but this is not sustainable, nor fulfilling. No, we need to be seen joyfully, gently, heartfully. With empathy and wonder. Kindness. Slowly.
I saw them on display as I made the coffee this morning at my friend’s house. My cups. My story. Resting next to the Lefse recipe of her mother — her story. I suppose that’s what friendship is, the combining of our stories. Newly coiffed and caffeined, I smile out the window, ready to write a new page. Will you join me?
