The assignment was on perspective. Maybe it was because it was my first time away from home at university. Maybe it was because my eyes were always filtered through my heart. Because I needed my world to get bigger, broader, more open, I saw the perspective in reverse and drew it. Instead of everything narrowing to a point, looking down the long hallway of the campus dorm, I was the point. Everything at the end of the hall got bigger. The other 18 year olds in class laughed as they displayed their drawings, one replicating the other. The teacher smiled. She gave me an “A.”
We were watching videos with friends last night, showing them tours of Aix en Provence. They were so excited. Ooohing and aaaahing over our ordinary. This is the street, next to the statue of the king, where I buy paint. The church where we laid Dominique’s mother to rest. Cezanne’s house. The place for the best pastries. Where I bought earrings. The fish market. The view of the Sainte Victoire. As their excitement grew, our ordinary felt spectacular again. Perspective.
It’s so easy to get stuck. To lose sight of the glorious things all around you. Trying to force everything to make sense — bring it all to a point. I learn the lesson again and again. To open my eyes. Open my heart. Change my view.
I guess that’s what real friends do — Oooh and aaah you into falling in love with your own life again. They are the point that opens all perspective.
In the “wee, small hours” of the night, when thoughts can get so big, I have a practice to calm them down. She has been gone for so many years, my grandma, but she continues to walk me through those uncertain hours. And it could be for anything really, tiny chaotic thoughts, or grand concerns — she’s there, unworried (as she always seemed), as I recite the poem of her life. It’s a long poem, as is her legacy, but it usually only takes the first line or two, and I am saved…
“She was a beauty like he’d never seen,
Elsie turned his head with a smile,
When Rueben looked back
He knew for sure
That she’d be in his heart for a while.”
These words are the hands that held my mother’s, and my mother’s hands that held mine.
I have a weird little pinky finger. I will need a small procedure to fix it. The condition is apparently genetic. He asked if I remembered my mother’s hands. My heart’s response, of course, was to say I’m still holding it, and my grandma’s too… but certainly I remembered no imperfections. How could I? Their beauty will forever be unmatched.
Maybe it’s all the imperfections that make us beautiful. Or how we use them. I only know this for sure — they held, they gave, they touched. Beauties, that I’ll ever see…
I can’t say it was the most comfortable lap, my grandfather’s. If you wanted something soft, you went to my grandma. Her lap was pillowed with sugary treats, and as soft as the toasted marshmallows she loved to eat from Jerry’s Jack and Jill grocery store. You could easily get lost in her folds of love. So what was it that my grandfather had? First of all, I rarely saw him seated. He was skinny. The farm saw to that. He smelled of earth and pipe tobacco. And just where my head would reach, between his chest and shoulders, were the hooks and buttons of his overall straps. The real comfort came, I suppose, straight from the heart. To be let in, this was the magic. To be offered these rare moments of respite. Between the field and the plate wiped clean with a sheet of bread. To be given the time, when time was currency. This was pure love. Perhaps it’s not visible to the naked eye, but I know the button imprint remains on my cheek, and somewhere deep in my heart.
People often ask me, “Do you come from a long line of artists?” My first thought is the quote from Vincent Van Gogh — “There is nothing more artistic than to love people.” My grandmother’s quilts still keep me warm across the sea. The portraits I painted of my grandfather keep me safe. Protected. My mother’s blouses wrap me in a love that will never die. I was loved. I am loved. Still. I walk daily within this gallery given. So, YES! The answer is always yes! I come from a long line of artists. Today, in my most humble of ways, on canvas and paper, I attempt to pass on the line. To pass on the love.
I recently bought a new ring. It was still in the heat of summer, so my fingers carried a bit of extra fluid. I carefully measured my summer finger to get the right size, but by the time the ring arrived, the cooler air had slimmed my fingers down significantly. It spins round and round. I suppose with everything, it’s hard to get the perfect fit for all occasions.
I have been blessed though. This I know for sure. I have a few friends that I know will always be there, through any situation. It’s easy to find your summer friends — when everyone is running with the bounce of bare legs, lit perfectly under a bright yellow sun. The heart swells with youth. And all acquaintances gather. But the ones that remain in the fallings of autumn, in the bareness of winter, these are your true friends. Those who will spin round and round with you, in your smallest of times.
I look at the new green stone. From the front of my hand. From the back. It reminds me of how lucky I am. To have such friends. And I don’t wish anything away. Every season brings growth. Reveals the truth of friendship. True love will always gather in.
It’s easy to think it’s beautiful at first glance. The perfection of the unused pastels. Pristine. Untouched. And I will admit I open the box slowly. Remove the padding. And let it sink in, all the possibilities. But for me, this is not the real beauty. No, things have to get messy to become beautiful. The pastels will lose their perfect shape as I stroke them against paper and canvas. The colors will cling to my fingers and get wiped on pants legs and on cheek bones as I bring the painting to life. I’ll be covered in the evidence of creation when I bring the finished product from the studio to the house. Viewing the colors still on my face, my husband will call me a warrior. And I proudly smile, because I am. I joyfully give my all.
I suppose it’s the same with love. With life. Some will never risk getting hurt. Never take a chance on anything. Never using the pastels of their heart. Not me. I want to get in deep. Covered in the evidence of experiencing it all. Even the shattered pastel has the ability to color. To create. To make something beautiful. Your heart is going to feel it, sure…but oh, the colors — the glorious colors of scattered love. It’s not to be missed.
I wake to this sun, labels peeled, middles cracked, rubbed uneven, and joyfully covered in love’s evidence. It looks like an imperfectly beautiful day.
It would be hard to see at first glance, I suppose, but the chairs I recovered when first moving to France, remind me of my grandfather.
He didn’t say a lot. My grandma was the talker. So to know him, you had to watch him. It was his actions that told the story. And the truth that I saw was that he could fix anything. His tools were simple. Most, it appeared to me, could fit into a small handled, rusted box that he could carry in one hand from the shed to the field, where the tractor waited patiently.
This was business. He took it seriously. But one time he let me walk with him. Two steps to his one, I bit my lips to mute the million questions in my head. Just watch, my brain kept telling my curious heart. The music of the tools rattling seemed to lead the dance. With great precision he flipped and turned. Jolted and eased. Mumbled under breath. And the tractor started again. I sat on his overalled lap and he drove me back to the house. I told him I would return the toolbox to the shed. It wasn’t just to be helpful, I actually wanted to feel the weight of magic. It was surprisingly easy to carry.
When I first moved to France, I needed to find a way to fix the time. The real “difference,” was not just seven hours ahead, but how it could be filled. I didn’t understand the television. My phone didn’t work. Stores were often closed. People spoke in an unfamiliar rhythm. I had my painting. My writing. But there was still time to fill. I went to my heart’s shed and grabbed my toolbox. I decided to recover two chairs. I had never done it before. Never even knew that I wanted to, but here they were, these two chair frames, so I began to work. With Dominique’s help, I found the fabric, the stuffing, the upholstery nails, the sandpaper, the paint. And began. The sanding and the painting went well. The stretching of fabric over the cushions took some trial and error, but I figured it out. Then the nailing — the endless nailing — hour after hour of nailing. But I did it! I did it, I said again to the heavens. And as I placed one in the entry and one in our library, I could hear the engine roll over, feel the puff of smoke, and the tractor wheels turn. It was magic.
Without saying it, he taught me to find a way. Each day has its challenges, but I’m carrying a box of magic.
It was the first thing we always checked — the lighting in the bathroom. Whether hotel or apartment, this was the most important thing, my mother taught me. After all, she explained, a lady had to get her face on in the proper light. And she always did. I watched her do it. Even on her darkest days, she began each morning in the bathroom light. Transferring it to her face. Going to work with a heavy heart, and a well-lit smile. In my younger years, I imagined the corners of her mouth attached like pulleys, lifting her heart into that same light. Just typing it now, mine did the same.
When traveling to different art shows across the United States, I would call her when arriving, and the first thing she would ask was “How is the lighting?” I only just realized, maybe it had always been code for “how is your heart?”
Even in the last apartment she lived in, we checked it first. She used her walker to get into the light. It was perfect, she said. She had already decided. Maybe this is what I loved about her the most — this decision to find the light. To become it. Smile by heart.
She could get her face on in here, she said. She filled the adjacent cupboard with the finest make-up. Moisturizers. Creams. She put them on each morning. Her lip-lined corners once again pulling up her heart.
Missing her now, I’m asked to do the same. And I do. Morning by morning. Smile by smile. My heart gets lifted. Into the light.
It’s no secret that I read a lot. Often they make the books into movies. Often I’m disappointed. For me, the words seem to paint a more realistic picture. A vivid representation of the person or people inside the story. Not tainted or swayed by the pressures of Hollywood. I wonder when we were first sold the idea that people, in order to be a hero, or heroine, had to “look the part.” I, I say with great fortune, have lived a life to the contrary.
I have written about so many that have saved me through the years. Mr. Whitman, the caretaker of the cemetery, dirtied and slumped from the weight of burying the people from town. My grandfather, callused hand reaching behind his stained overalls to bring me along, bring me through. Chubbied Grandmother wiping kitchen hands on apron, just to give us something sweet. Wearied teachers, still finding a way to say the words that just might carry us. Tear-stained mother who laughed with unfaltering grace.
So it came as a surprise to me, the woman in New York standing in front of my portrait of Maya Angelou — a sage I return to again and again. She read the words and seemed to be moved. She praised them. I thanked her. She wanted to buy copies, but whispering sheepishly now, “maybe without the picture.” Whispering even lower now, “you know, maybe she could be a bit polarizing to my customers.”
I laughed. How ironically and completely opposite of the words that she claimed to love.
Kindness. Truth. Beauty. Wisdom. Hope. Leadership. Strength. Love. It comes in all sorts of “packaging.” Each a gift.
Maya would have forgiven her. As she always said, “When we know better, we do better.” I put the words and paintings before you, before myself, daily, in the hopes of doing just that… better.
I don’t know who it belonged to. It certainly wasn’t my grandma — even though we found it, my cousins and I, in her upstairs closet. Digging beneath the sombrero, the military uniform and the extra bedding, we jumped back, toppling over each other on the hardwood floor. Was it alive? It had eyes! Fur! What was it??? With a pool cue from the corner of the closet, we moved it into view. A dead fox. Long straight, headed and tailed. Did it crawl in from the field for a siesta (under the sombrero on this Minnesota farm)? And then died? We kicked it down the stairs beside my grandma standing in front of the kitchen sink. (She was always in front of the sink, yet the dishes were never done — but that’s another story.)
“It’s just a stole,” she said, “a fox stole.” Not understanding the word, we assumed the dead fox was now some sort of robber. “No, to wear around your neck,” she said. The explanations kept getting worse. It was unimaginable. We threw it at each other. Maybe she said who it belonged to, but I don’t think so. We soon grew tired of it. We would have left it on the kitchen floor, but she told us to put it back, never asking why she wanted to keep it. We loved her. So we did.
The only accessory we knew Grandma Elsie to wear was an apron. And that was enough for us. She donned what some called sensible shoes and house dresses, which made it easy, I suppose, for us to forget that she was not just a grandma, but a woman of this world.
Pardon the reference, but it’s hard to see “everything, everywhere, all at once.” We get bits of people, glimpses really. We grab onto the parts that serve us best, and a lot remains, well, in the closet. This is not to say we need to know everything about everyone. But I think it’s good to realize that we don’t know everything. People have riches and reasons that we will never realize. And instead of being afraid of that, we should respect it, celebrate it even.
I don’t know if my grandma was ever in Mexico. But in my head she was. Possibly even wearing a fox stole. Or maybe it was just Great Aunt Ellen’s. Maybe she bought it at Tvrdik’s garage sale, just up the road. It doesn’t really matter. What I love is that there was a world to discover in her home. A home where we were allowed to run free. To become exactly who we wanted to be. This beautiful farmhouse, with security and surprise, that grew so much, grew so many.
I used to claim that my feet would never leave the sidewalk. City girl. Through and through. Such pride in that. And it was fun. It was great. I loved that girl. Brisk steps. Heels on cement. Click, click, faster and faster. Starbuck’s in hand. Purse on shoulder. Phone in other hand. Grand.
I baked a cake in my French kitchen. Not just any cake. It was Italian, or maybe Spanish, or both… I don’t know, I’m an American in France now…it was something deliciously different. It was slow and deliberate. My phone doesn’t work in the kitchen, no need for that. No Starbuck’s across the street. Take the time and bake a cake. I do that now. And I love this girl too.
I separated eggs, and creamed half and beat the others, and crushed the fresh picked almonds, and stirred, and folded and pre-heated, and waited. Patiently, almost. And I won’t claim I am only this girl — patient international cake girl — but I am this girl. And I can be. And I can still love New York, and Chicago, Paris even. And I can be fast. And I can be slow. And I love it all.
I want to try new things and gather them up with the old and create fresh realities, every day. I don’t have to be one girl. And I won’t judge any other girls, or women, or mothers or workers or friends. Nor men either. We are put here to explore. Explore streets and forests and lives and kitchens and cultures and humanity.
So I celebrate this girl. (Sometimes with cake!) I celebrate this day. This she. Knowing I am a part of it all. Learning, trying, becoming…forever on my way.
