If you dip the cookie in the frosting, pick it up slowly, turn it over, sway it a little side to side and front to back, the frosting will level itself out. I don’t know how it knows, but it does. It’s the gift before the giving.
I think we’re all given the tools. Right from the start. Oh, sure, it takes a little turning. A little swaying. But when you know. You know.
I used to go into my room at five years old and color my emotions. I didn’t have the words for what I was feeling, but I had 24 Crayolas that could relay the message. At six, — as Mrs. Bergstrom gave us the spelling, the words — I began to write poems. Thus began this cookie’s life of self leveling. And the real gift is, I now have something to give.
I’m not special. We’re all given the tools. Maybe you garden. Maybe you bake. Or build. Or teach.
Yesterday, after painting in the studio, feeling the magic of this new portrait beginning, I wanted to call my mom. Oh, how she loved magic!! And perhaps frosting even more. So I returned to the kitchen, dipped the cookies that I had made earlier that day, and turned and swayed and leveled myself in all that love, and somehow I knew she knew.
We bought the wrapping paper years ago at Anthropologie. It was one of our favorite stores. The clothing. The scented candles. The “You look fabulous in that!” My mom and I could spend hours. And even when the items were too expensive, the compliments were free, and so easily given.
When we saw the artisan gift paper, we knew we had to have it. We could only afford one sheet. We cut it in two and wrapped tiny gifts for each other. The little green balls were like cheerleaders — jumping and dancing and spelling out praise with the letters of our names. I suppose we had always been that for each other — the one leading the cheers. And that’s what the paper did. Each year. We saved it for nearly twenty years. Sending it back and forth. From city to city. State to state. Country to country. I still have it. When I see the little green pompoms, I smile. I clutch my heart. The love my mother gave to me was always packaged and sent. Nothing wasted.
You won’t hear anyone say it — that it’s about the packaging. No, they’ll tell you it’s the thought that counts. The thought? Who cares? If you simply think about someone, and don’t let them know, what difference does it make? I would offer that it all needs some packaging. Some expression. Some action. Love, care, concern, joy, hope, congratulations, condolences, without the actual passing on, without the actual giving of these extraordinary gifts, aren’t they simply empty?
This year, let’s wrap everything. In smiles and hugs. In arms reaching out. Thoughts actually expressed. Let our hearts be ribboned and bowed and ever giving. Let the Christmas cheers be heard today and every day throughout the year! No thoughts wasted. No love unspent.
I wasn’t that close to my Aunt Mavis. There was just so many of us. You had to simply pick a few Hvezdas and go with it. When we gathered for Christmas, Grandma Elsie made sure that we each had something small to open. The certainty of her gift made it a little easier to wait as the packages were read, passed and opened. We didn’t buy for each family. There wouldn’t have been enough money or time.
I was around six years old when I received the somewhat questionable gift of red lace bloomers from Grandma, but I hugged her belly and kissed grandpa’s cheek, and returned to my mother’s lap. It was quite a surprise when one of my cousins handed me a second package. There must be some mistake, I thought, but there was my name. And the urge to question was far surpassed by the knowing of what it was. Its box shape, and heft told me that it was a book. A big book. Whoever gave this to me, must have known that I loved words on pages. The bright red Christmas paper torn open revealed a bright red cover. A giant book of Disney stories. The wonderful world of Disney. It was every Sunday night at 6pm on the only channel that we received on Van Dyke Road — right there, held in my hands. It was if Tinkerbell herself had waved the wand and released the magic.
I was holding it to my chest when she asked if I liked it. I beamed. Yes, yes, I do! She smiled, and limped back to a wooden chair in the dining room. In that moment, I wished I knew more about her than just her having a bad hip. I whispered in my mom’s ear, “It was from Aunt Navis.” My mom whispered back, “Her name is Mavis.”
I’d like to say we grew to be fast friends, but it isn’t true. I did save the book. It remains on my Christmas miracle list.
We don’t always return the gifts that we are given. Is it enough to pass them on, to others, who won’t return to you, but pass them on again? I hope so. I have to believe it. So I limp the words on the page, and maybe I give you a Christmas smile, and maybe you pass it on to the stranger on the slippery sidewalk. Maybe you hold a door, or offer a compliment. Maybe you say their name correctly, with enthusiasm, and they feel seen. And maybe, just maybe, the magic is sprinkled, and continues throughout the years.
Thank you, Aunt Mavis. You are part of my story, and it is beautiful.
It wasn’t until I mastered the sleep-over that I understood most people set their clocks to the actual time. My mother had her own time zones. Her bedroom alarm clock was set 20 minutes ahead. The bathroom about ten. And the kitchen five. Maybe it arose from the days when sleep eluded her. When a smile had to be painted on before it could be followed. When there were no extras to be found, not in heart, mind nor pocketbook, she created them herself on the faces of each clock.
The time changed here in France early this morning. Most of the clocks change themselves now. Our phones and iPads. Our computers. It’s 8:08 on my iPad. I glanced up at the screen saver on my computer and on full display was what could only be explained as my mother’s hand, 8:09.
It reminds me. She reminds me. Time means nothing. It’s what we do with the time. We get to decide.
It didn’t matter the season, my mother always chose to “spring ahead.” To give herself a head start when facing any challenge. Whenever I feel the stress of time, I reach into the pocket of 20s, 10s and 5s, that she gathered for us through the years, and I, just like those minutes, am saved.
When I was five I began drawing. Six, writing. Every paper in my tiny bedroom was filled. I sat on my twin bed and poured out my heart to the Raggedy Ann and Andy sheets. Emboldened with their always smiling and gentle approval, I held the paper in my plattered, chubby hands, and presented it to my mother. She knew the gift that it was, and welcomed it with a caring so safe, so loving, that I knew I could do it again and again.
I did it daily. When my mother passed, it was that little girl that looked directly at me, that looks at me every day, hands and heart extended, she asks me where she is to go. And she’s so small. And I don’t want to hurt her. She’s still so filled with ideas and belief, and I can’t turn her away. When she comes to me, with all that raggedy trust, I smile, and do the best that I can with what she is offering. I tell her what she has made, what we have made, is something special, and I clutch it to my beating chest before setting it free.
If you’re reading this, I, we, stand before you, so small, but still believing it matters. And I will do it, again, and again.
It was the best marzipan candy I ever had. There was a little bit left and she said we could take it home. We ate two in the car driving alongside the Mediterranean. Somehow we managed to save the remaining couple and finished them off that evening. I scoured the small empty box for a brand or anything that would lead me to having more, but there was nothing. Holding it in my hand on the way to the garbage, I felt it. It was just like a small panel. I took it to the studio to paint.
It seemed so obvious that I needed to paint a bird, a friend for the bird I had made the day before. I sanded and gessoed. I feathered and branched. Taking everything that was sweet, and giving it wings.
The thing is, we don’t always get to reciprocate, or repay the same kindness we are given. But we can keep giving, in so many different ways. And by doing so, it truly offers the “having more” we wanted all along. So I pass it to you — this joy, this delicious joy carried on wings — knowing you will find a way to do the same. Isn’t life sweet?!!!!
“Only then (nearly out the door, so to speak) did I realize how unspeakably beautiful all of this was, how precisely engineered for our pleasure, and saw that I was on the brink of squandering a wondrous gift, the gift of being allowed, every day, to wander this vast sensual paradise, this grand marketplace lovingly stocked with every sublime thing.” ― George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo
I don’t have any videos of my grandparents. None of my mother. I barely remember having a camera, but for the one I ordered from Bazooka Joe. It was plastic and I ran over it with my bicycle only a week after receiving it in the mail. And maybe this is why I remember everything. It was only my heart recording. (And I don’t say everything here, as if mine the only truth, but rather that it was, is, my everything. What else could it be?) I suppose I knew, that we all knew, running (chasing really), barefoot in summer’s grass, that we were indeed forever on this “brink,” so close to missing out on the daily gift.
It was just the other day that I told Dominique about how I never see birds on my morning walk. Flocks fill the trees in our garden, but when I get to the gravel path, they all seem to disappear. The valley that I wind around each morning is filled with green. With trees and bushes. But not birds. I don’t know why. And just a day after this “other day”, I was walking the same path, listening to a podcast with George Saunders, and there it was, birding about my stride, a lovely, fluttering gift of sublime. My path was stocked.Even on this graveled path, socked and shoed, I could feel my youthful toes wiggle in summer’s youth, still joyfully chasing this beautiful earth, this beautiful day, this beautiful moment. Having need
to stop it in photo or video, not even if I could… I’m nearly out the door now. Just a few more words to type before I step into the sublime…
When I sent her a photo of me standing on the London Bridge, her first comment was, “Where did you get that jean jacket? The collar pops up so nicely!” London Bridge wasn’t “falling down,” but it didn’t sit high in my mother’s priorities.
Just as Wonder Woman gained the ability to fly using the power of her Lasso of Truth, my mother did the same with the pop of her collar. I saw the magic happen daily. As she finished getting ready for work, I began to get ready for school. Crossing mirrored paths, the last thing I saw her do was pop her collar. She went from an unsure 5’7″ to a confident 5’9″ and out the door she went. Crossing Jefferson Street, her feet never touched the ground.
It’s no surprise that as I flew into my own truth, I did the same. I DO the same. (When the golden lasso is passed on to you, it would be a shame not to use it.) Popping from state to state, country to country, I stand a little taller, not because my mother gave me a map, but because she gave me wings.
The worse we sang, the balder he got. Each wrong note hit in our seventh grade choir raised Mr. Dehlin’s hand to the top of his head, rubbing in desperation. How could he direct us to the right note? He seemed to be willing the answer inside his brain with the hand that carried the baton.
I don’t remember the note, nor the song, but no one in the alto section seemed to be hitting it. He directed David Alstead to hit the note on the piano. Again. And again. The note rang through the choir room. The problem was that that one poor note had to compete with all of the noise in our teenage heads. The noise of the upcoming exams in English and Math. Who was dating whom. Who was about to break up. Why was she wearing that? Would we be invited to the dance? Would there be time to get to get to the locker room to grab the forgotten book? Who would we sit next to on the bus. Again! — he pointed the baton at David. Again! He played the note and we sang something close to it as a section, but not close enough. Mr. Dehlin went down the line of altos, pointing the baton at each person. One by one. Note by note. Each missing by a hair – a hair that seemingly fell from his head to the floor. Twice through the line. Getting closer each time. He had our attention now. And we sang. We sang that glorious note. He raised both hands in the air, then collapsed them to his knees. We all cheered (in the right key!). It was only a note. But he got us there. There was still a whole song to learn. But he gave us our victory. Our moment. He stood tall again. Tapped the baton on the music stand. Gave a look to David. One quick flick of the baton, and we were off – in song!
Through our junior high years we held countless concerts. Parents gave us standing ovations for the mere fact of being born. But it was that impossible note reached that I remember the most. And what it took to get us there.
My love for music has never faltered. It has layed beside me during the darkest times. Danced with me through the highest. Pushed my lawn mowing legs. Moved my paintings, stroke by stroke. Brightened breakfasts. Made sacred each holiday, each friendship. Gave me the soundtrack for hellos and goodbyes. Note by note.
I suppose we never forget those who walk with us, battle with us, just to get us through — see us through — to become our best selves… those who give us not only the note, but also a reason to sing!
To be honest, I don’t really even know his name. But I know his face, his smile — our butcher. We see him weekly. He always seems happy to see us. Greets us with a joke, sometimes a few attempts in English. This is not common here in France. At no other store, grocery or bakery do we find this human connection. This exchange of, more than pleasantries, but joy!
Before we left for the US this time, we asked “Can we bring you something from America?” “Oh, no…” he blushed and smiled, and we knew right then that we would.
It cost almost nothing. In fact we had fun shopping for it — the right hat. A baseball cap that no one else in France would have. Yesterday we went to restock the refrigerator. I was excited. My heart was beating gerbil quick, as I reached the bag across the counter. He looked stunned. “Oui! Ou! Yes, it’s for you!” He couldn’t believe it. He peeked inside at the hat and in a language that can only be described as joy, he called over his coworkers to see. “They brought if from the US! For me!” None of us could stop smiling. He held his hand over his heart. He told other customers. The counter was covered in giggles.
We talked this morning over breakfast (my husband and I, not the butcher). What a gift this was! And I don’t mean the hat. I’m not even talking about our giving of it — the real gift was this exchange of joy. This moment of happiness. We gave it to each other.
Perhaps this is the best part of living — why we are here. To be kind. To notice people. To see them. To reach across every counter. Every wall. Every obstacle. And find a way to connect. Reaching out my hand today, I tell you, “Yes, Yes! It’s for you!”
