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.
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.
You can’t tell me that they’re always trying to get somewhere. Most of the time, it looks like they’re playing in the wind. Dancing even. These birds so elegantly bouncing and bounding above. And why wouldn’t they dance, they already have the song.
She never wore a tutu, nor spandex dresses, but oh how my mother could dance. She would teach me on the carpet of the living room floor. It was slower. But when I had mastered the steps, she’d lead me to the kitchen floor, and I barely felt my stockinged feet touch the linoleum. She’d sing along to the boombox, pull me in and spin me out and I knew I was flying. I asked her if she had dance instructors? No, she said. In school? I asked. No. Did grandma teach you. She laughed (sure it was a bit of a dance maneuvering through all those people in the farm kitchen), but no. Then how did you know you could dance? I asked. I could always hear the song, she said, and pulled me in once again.
And wasn’t that belief? Wasn’t that the true art of living? Just listening for the music. Trusting your feet would follow. Believing, one way or another, you were going to fly!
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.
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’ve started a new project. Each time I do, there are always things to be learned. Computer programs change so quickly. The paths to incorporate my artwork from page to printer are constantly changing course. And armed with my mother’s sense of direction, (she who thought the map at the mall should be on the ground so you could just step into it), I can’t say that I find my way quickly, but joyfully, I always find my way. I suppose it’s because I’m never traveling alone.
My first step was to get photos of all the new images. I was stumbling about. Turning pages. Checking lighting. It all felt so clunky. And then I got the tap on my brain’s shoulder that said, “get the sticky notes.” It was my friend Deb who gave me the little notebook of multi-colored tabs. We first used them to mark our favorite outfits in the Sundance catalog, sipping lattes, and reading the cover letter from Robert Redford, as if he had addressed it to us personally. We had colors to mark “maybe,” “yes,” and “why am I not wearing it right now.” Hours of entertainment with just a stick of a color.
Smiling, I used those notes to mark the pages of my artwork. It all began to make sense. I found my direction. Even using the new programs on my computer became easier.
I keep moving forward, but not without those who got me here.
There’s an expression that people use when someone dies that I’ve never liked — “She’s no longer with us.” It couldn’t be further from the truth. While the Sundance store has closed, my friend Deb sits right beside me. And I am saved.
The Christmas carcass became yesterday’s soup. Aproned and worry-free, I Grandma Elsied my way through the process. Adding everything. Measuring nothing. And it was delicious. Steeped with holiday and attention, it tasted rich and full, but for me, the added pleasure, satisfaction, joy, came with nothing being wasted.
I try to practice it — this making use. A scrap of metal turned into a frame. Discarded wood into panels. Yesterday’s still fresh oil paint into tomorrow’s tableau. And to me it’s all important, but I hope I pay the same attention to living. Using everything I have. Every speck of courage, because we’ll get more tomorrow. Loving with every piece of my heart, knowing it means nothing left inside. And perhaps it’s not as easy as pot to stove, but I was taught to attempt in Elsie’s kitchen. To abandon worry and just create.
She’s smiling over my soup bowls, but more over, my heart. Telling me daily to give it all, and just become.
If you look it up in the dictionary, it has two meanings. Opposite really. Nervy. It can mean bold, or nervous. Both are probably true. And for me, usually at the same time.
Months ago, in the middle of a situation in Marseille, feeling both, I decided to Wordle for distraction. I know there are certain starter words, almost mathematical, to give yourself the best chance, but I don’t play that way. I usually insert a word that says something about my current state of affairs, a way to insert myself in the game. It’s just more fun for me that way. So I chose the word with two meanings. Bold and nervous, because wouldn’t you have to be, I mean, are you really being bold if you’re not nervous? Is there any bravery without being afraid? I typed it in. N-E-R-V-Y. The letters turned over green. One by one. I beat Wordle. I chose the word in a single guess. It was about me.
I three and four my way through most days. Sometimes two. Not playing the odds, but always playing myself.
Last night, reading a new book, Apples Never Fall, there it was on the page, twice. Nervy. Had I not taken the big chance, the big swing, with my Wordle word, I would have just passed this page without great meaning. But I had taken the chance. I had bolded and nerved my way in, and found myself again, here in the words.
I don’t want to live timidly. I want to be bold in the attempt. When I love, when I live. So when my reflection is offered back to me, I can say proudly, I was nervy.
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.
