In my younger years, I was a frequent visitor to orthopedic clinics around the state of Minnesota. Without cell phones or iPads, the only thing to do in the waiting rooms was to listen. It was Dr. F. Dixon Conlin that said something that sticks with me still today. Up and down the hallway, he would walk his patients. Those who were ailing seemed to have one thing in common that he corrected again and again — Never look at your feet. I didn’t have the words or knowledge of what all that entailed, but I was certain that no healing, no progress of any kind, could be made while looking down. I was determined not to make the same mistake — I suppose I still am.
I have painted countless birds that counsel from shoulder to head. But this woman, I could see it in her face that she already knew. Her bird, her hope, was always mid flight. So this is what they mean by, “blessed assurance.” It’s written on her face. This quiet confidence. Not weighed down by doubt or arrogance. No need to stomp or trample when you know how to fly.
I’m not always certain of my path, but I return her smile, and keep looking up.
Getting my hair cut a few days ago, I saw her. My hair wet and slicked back, there was nothing to disguise my face. She was saying something about my preferred style as she brushed, but all I could hear was the smile of my mother’s reflection. And it washed over me, the same joyful relief and responsibility, as it always had whenever anyone said, “You look just like your mother.”
Sometimes I catch myself — the brain can so easily throw out words that the heart would never dare. And I imagine those words coming out of my mother’s mouth and I fling them away. Because it’s not just her face, it’s about all that she had faced. And how she did it, with grace and dignity. And she, carrying her father’s, wasn’t I carrying both? And isn’t it my responsibility to do the same, and more?
Sometimes I fail. My hand slips on the rock where he stands. My heart breaks the ruffle of her dress. And I know they see me. I have nothing to disguise myself from them. But they keep smiling at me. On shoulder and in mirror. I hear them. I see them. And know they see the love in my attempt. And I give them back their smiles, and I am saved.
He, being 12, had a different perspective, and was not overly enthusiastic about the lawn that was freshly mowed, nor my table setting, nor the food that I had been cooking for four hours. I thought for sure that the fire I started with pine cones for the bbq would spark some interest, with its big flames and smoke puffing out of the pool house — but no. It wasn’t until we finished that beautiful meal, (the ribs and sausages, the asparagus on a bed of peppers and pasta, the shrimp skewers and potatoes, and desserts from the award winning baker) when I began throwing him the winter dusty frisbee across that same lawn that I had worked so hard to mow, that he began to beam. With each throw that spun directly into his reach, he marveled and said, “you’re really good.” This is what impressed him — that I could throw a frisbee.
It’s true that most people see not what you love, but what they love. And the thing is, we never really know exactly how we will connect. But we can, we can connect. It may not be in the way we think, or even hoped for, but in the end, it’s only about if we did.
It wasn’t long before the frisbee ended up in the pool — the pool with last year’s dirty water, not yet ready for summer’s swim. But still, we had a moment. And this is what we build on.
I never know which story you will respond to. It’s always different. And different for everyone, on different days. So I fling the words, like a dusty frisbee across the lawn, and say, in this moment, I’m happy you’re here.
It’s easy to misread anyone I suppose. Up until the fifth grade, I was extraordinarily quiet. I wouldn’t have put it that way, but that’s what they wrote on my report cards. My mother, not seeing anything to defend, replied, “When she has something to say, she’ll say it.” I sat beside her, cheeks flushed and smiling, I nodded. The teacher, once again misreading the room, looked at my face and said, “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” My mother knew what the pink in my cheeks meant. “She’s not embarrassed, she’s hopeful.”
We ripen at different stages. I found my voice. I still get nervous. I get angry. I get tired. Sometimes sad. Sometimes so much joy that it’s overwhelming. And it all blushes out my heart and through my face, because through it all I am hopeful. I am hopeful that I will understand. That I will be happy. That I will pass on all that joy for others to carry.
Sometimes he looks at me and says, “Nice colors.” And I know he sees me. Just as she did.
I didn’t correct her when she thought it was a hat — the bird atop the woman’s head. While it wasn’t a fascinator, it was fascinating, so when she said she would wear it too, I smiled and agreed.
For what was to be gained if I said, “But it’s a real bird…” While in my imagination it was, it was still just a painting. There for all to imagine. And in her mind, it was a hat. So I let it be a hat.
My cousin Dawn used to make up songs in the bathroom when she was a little girl. Neither self conscious of her singing, nor… well, her bathroom routine. One went, “And pony, and pony…” Only those two words, but over and over. It’s surprising how easily they stuck in my head. Annoyed, I told her to stop. Again and Again. It was my grandfather who told me, not her, to stop. “But it’s not even a real song,” I pleaded. “It is to her,” he said. And the argument was finished, but not the song. I suppose that’s why I still sing it today.
We have a real need to be right all the time. I’m just as guilty as the next person. I’m trying to get better. We can all enjoy things in our own way. Sometimes, you just have to let it be a hat.
Working between two screens, sometimes my cursor gets stuck in the opposite one that I want. (Like my brain doesn’t do that all the time.)
It’s so easy to think, “Well, I always did it this way…” Whether I’m talking about different countries, different languages, loves, relationships, even my hairdresser. And I catch myself swiping madly on the wrong screen.
Change is never easy. Neither growth. But both are so necessary. And it doesn’t mean you have to give up everything in the letting go, the moving on…You keep the lightest of things, like joy and hope and love — none of these will ever weigh you down.
Too often I’m unaware. It’s barely more than air, the little birdie that tells me things. But when I’m paying attention, really paying attention, all the truths that move between who I am and who I want to be, chirp seamlessly between my heart and my brain, and I am saved.
There were rare occasions when I saw adults cry. Gathered snuggly around my grandparent’s kitchen table. Perhaps to confine the news that came in the letter. Or the heartache of a loved one lost. To give it open space was to let it catch up to us in the summers of our youth. But sometimes, with the need for a Sugar Daddy, or a Slowpoke, I would sneak through the screen door and see it, them, dampened eyes and heads down, and my heart would sink. The ground seemed to shake beneath my bumper tennis shoes. I backed out the door.
It was my grandfather who caught up to me. Dazed and darkened under the largest tree near the road. He could see I didn’t want to be dazzled by false comfort. And he was never one to do it. “It’s like the Magpie,” he said. He was never much for small talk. He got right to the point. “What is?” I said. “The color. So black that it’s blue.” “I don’t get it.” He told me to get up. He led me back to the kitchen. Dishes had already begun clanking. There was the scent of coffee in the air. Chairs being pushed aside. Knees unbending. Even a few laughters of relief. Life. He looked down at me. “Blue,” he said. I smiled and nodded.
I have carried it for years. This knowledge, even when things are so black, they are also blue. You have to get up. You have to want to see it. But it’s always there.
I look out the morning window. He’s still right. I smile into the blue.
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.
